• The Fake Kingdom


    Prologue: The End


    Her hair was that impossible shade of purple. It was that shaded, jaded, completely ******** shade of mauve that made you want to rip the petals out of flowers and spit at the rain. It was that agonizingly, sweetly wonderful shade of twilight that made lovers scream and the dark children bleed.

    (“You know what the sunset looks like? It looks like Sun slit its wrists, and now the poor ******** bleeding all over Moon’s bed.”)

    So with the best kind of mechanized glamour, he put the fake metal in his ears, (but not the iron, not brave enough to face the burn) and added some spike to the already wild hair, and walked forwards, pushing his way through the mad dancers.

    Slitter, her eyes said.

    Prey, he shot back.

    He made sure all the words are slick enough to warrant interest, made sure that he dragged her over with eyes and lust and filth, and wondered if it was working. Wondered why her eyes were so wide-vibrant sun-grass-green.

    She let him take her wrist and pull her too close so she could whisper in his ear—

    (her lip ring brushed up against him, and it stung so good, but it was only steel—not so bad—)

    “I like your wings.” She hissed, and pushed up even tighter—close enough for him to feel her human heart pulsing through her breast—could feel the mechanics of what she is.

    It sounded like a clock ticking.

    (it sounded like sand slipping through the hour glass—until all the grains were gone)

    She meant to scare him off. It might have worked, on any other fey.

    “Mm.” He searched the roots of her hair—and found it was either a wicked good dye job, or she wasn’t as pure as her rounded ears suggested. Her belt was stapled through with metal studs, brushing against her bare midriff as her shirt hiked up. She wasn’t one of them—she couldn’t be.

    “I’m not a glitz,” she explained, voice lowly tuned to carry over the screaming mesh of thorns and flashers. He spotted one of his kind over her shoulder, drawing three girls into the corner with acid-pop moves and snide charm.

    “What ninja are you, then?” he demanded impatiently, searching the almost-pixie face, turning to look at her from the corner of his eye, but still finding no flaw.

    “Just a human,” she smiled a little smugly, “Slicker, if you want to know, which you don’t.” She peered up at him through kohl-slathered eyes. “My grandma—she was one of you, though. A glitz. A fairy.”

    D'Roy studied her for a moment, eyes blank. “You have the eyes?”

    “Yeah,” she took a deep breath and slid her arms around his neck, deliberately nicking the sensitive skin with one of her rings. He bit back a flinch. Her heart was beating too fast—had been from the start. Her calm expression didn't waver. “Yeah, I’ve got the eyes. I can see you—all of you. I can see the nasty things you do,” her expression darkened, “But I try to ignore it. Because if I’m just another dumb mortal—you’re supposed to leave me alone.”

    One of the girls behind her shrieked. A muscle in her back jumped, as though she wanted to run, before she smoothed it out.

    “I know what you’re trying to do,” she said, a little bit of a quiver coming into her voice, “Your king’s trying to take over. You’re going to make it so you won’t have to be invisible anymore—you’re going to take us all down. Imprison us!”

    “I think that’s fair,” D'Roy interrupted her coldly, “Your lot—especially the sweeties—they almost hunted us into extinction.”

    “You were a threat!” the girl insisted, her eyes flashing. His hands clench around her waist involuntarily, tempted towards brutality.

    “You stupid little girl,” he said softly, “You have no idea what this has started over.”

    “I do,” she insisted stubbornly, heart still pounding at a tempo that could have killed his. “You—you were bad. You do bad things to us.”

    “Maybe,” he tried for intimidation, and moved closer still—to the point of panicked intimacy, “But that wasn’t what happened. You wanted us. You wanted us for our magic,” he ran a finger down her arm, turning the bare skin to dry, painful fish scales, “We wanted you for your energy.”

    She muffled a scream, jerking away from him to rub painfully at her arm, “What’d you do—what—turn me back! I look like a plastic-addict!”

    “It’s just glamour,” he shrugged, scuffed leather jacket shoulders rising and falling, “It’ll wear off.”

    “So take it off,” she insisted angrily, “I don’t want to have to hide this!”

    “I don’t want to,” D'Roy insisted coolly, had her by the back of the neck and was giving her a drug-addicted fever-stare, “It’s protection,” he smirked into the otherworld hair, “There aren’t many of my kind who will ignore that mark.”

    “******** you,” Krea spat. He could feel the life slipping away off her—he was nearly drowning in it. “I’m not one of your little toys. You can’t scare me,” she dug into her pocket, coming out with a hand full of metal rings, all of them choking her fingers.

    He could smell the iron. Nausea bubbled up through his throat to join the fear.

    “One hit from this will hurt,” she sneered, fist cocked. Those surrounding didn’t care—to drunk on their freedom and their lives and their drugs. She lunged forwards, and comes very close to tearing away his glamour before he seized her wrist.

    For a second, being so close to the poisonous metal made his control slip—and his fake tan slipped away, leaving his skin at its normal, deathly hue. Her breath caught.

    “You should walk away and forget about this,” D'Roy snarled hotly, angry at having his uncommon generosity thrown back into his face, “You should go back to ignoring your doom.”

    “Too late,” Krea snapped back, her own face not-quite-as-pale as his own, “I will stop this. You came here for a lover, right? For an abduction.” Her jaw set into place, “Take me. Take me to the glitz world.”

    “Oh?” he smirked again, more angry than amused, “So you can kill all the ‘fairies’ you meet?”

    “So I can stop your king,” she countered swiftly, “I don’t want a bloodbath.”

    (like our blood will ever stain your hands, little girl)

    “Fine,” D'Roy conceded, since he had picked her out in the first place and was too proud to back down anymore. “I’ll take you there.”

    He waited until she’d discarded her heavy metal rings before grabbing her hand.

    “This’ll destroy you,” he warned, a little excited at the prospect and the sweet thrill of crushing something lovely.

    “Good,” Krea bit, her smile something feral and inhuman—another gene she’d picked up, probably. “I don’t want your ******** happy endings.”


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    TERMS:

    Glitz—fairy

    Sweetie—Backstabbers, petty dark-magic

    Slitter—Goth (for lack of a better term; people who dress in black and carry weapons—sometimes referred to as ‘soldiers’)

    Flasher—Punk (again, lack of a better term; anyone who dresses flashy and likes to party, more dare-devil than)

    Plastic-addict—Plastic surgery splurges, people with abnormal appearances (i.e. cat ears)

    Glamour—Fairy magic, cheap illusions; not so much ‘magic’ as the rearranging of energy particles

    Thorns—A split off of modern-goth, drug addicts and surgery-splurge-lovers. A lot of them have implanted-fangs

    Slicker—Grease monkeys, techie-geeks, good with machinery. Quick hands, good thieves