My name is Chago Uriel Ermanno Bergasa. This here is a faerie tale... my faerie tale. Yeah, I'm fae, but don't think that tells anybody nothing about me, because it don't. Not anymore. See, nowadays, folks think of faerie tales as cutesy stories to keep the kid happy and giggly and to drive parents mad as the kids watch the shows eight hundred times a day. All that comes from the guy that made hats with big round ears attached and child stars turned drug addicts part of pop culture. Used to be faerie tales were warnings. Folks didn't clap their hands to save us, they set out plates at empty seats to keep us happy and tried real hard to never piss us off.

  We were around before that too. We're the spirits some folks talk to and the gods other folks worshipped. We're the reason maps used to have 'here be monsters' on the borders. We're the reason cave men painted on the walls. How can we be all that, and why did we not stay gods if we were once? May as well ask where humans came from. No one knows.

  We modern fae do know a few things though, and I got good guesses about what it means past what we know. Fae are spirits of pure drive and emotion made flesh. Passion. Fear. Duty. Stuff like that. We embody those things and more, and our faery forms tend to be shaped by what we represent. Satyrs are pure Passion, for instance. Look at the myths of Pan. Those stories are memories of the satyrs of them days and ever since, that's been the form Passion made flesh takes. Other things are a little less obvious, but no less clear what they are, once it sinks in. We're good and bad. We're just as much the beautiful sidhe of Irish folklore as the monster under the bed every kid seems to fear.

  Now, before I get into theory, realize that when I say we're spirits made flesh, I don't mean some random guy on the street has goat legs. Not to human eyes anyway. We're tricky bastiches and we can hide from human eyes. Hell, we have to make an effort to force humans to see us as we really are. It's one part of our magic. The rest of our magic is much like our selves, forces and aspects of nature. Things like movement or the elements or shadows. Some of us are better at it than others, but we can all do at least a little.

  As for what this all means about who and what we are... well, that's where the theory starts. Some of us think we really were gods and we created everything humans know now, and we lost power over the ages as our natures lost their grip on people. After all, look how much harder it is to find Honor or Nobility in a world full of naked selfies and hate for hate's sake. It's hard to be afraid of the monster off the edge of the map, when satellites take pictures of the entire globe.

  I think that ain't right. I think as long as humans feel, we exist. We may change, but we're still out there. I'm a redcap. My sort's current form goes back to the borders of Scotland and little old men in bright hats and steel boots that killed travelers to soak those hats in blood to keep the color. Before that, my kind were the monsters on the maps I mentioned before. We were the thing that ate the caveman if he went too far from the fire at night and left nothing but blood and screams behind. Nowadays, we're the bloody monster in the horror movie that keeps people awake and the internet predator and the reason no one trusts their neighbors. Fear changes, but it's still Fear. Same with the rest. Some of us may die out, sure, but the rest... as long as humans feel, they'll create us. Our names may change, but fae...

  Faerie are forever.

  Okay, I guess there's a little more I need to explain. When trying to tell what we are, it's hard not to be all fancy and overblown. Faerie are forever. Whatever. All that matters is that's kinda what we are. But there's more to the story. It ain't just the what we are, but the who. We're mostly just like other folks, with a deep layer of magic in us. We once lived somewhere else, a place most call Arcadia, but it has other names. In the before, there was a war in our home. It went bad for the defenders, and we got locked out into the mortal world and the spaces between mortality and Arcadia. Most fae can't remember the war, just that it happened, and we're stuck here. So we made the best of it. We were gods. Then time happened and we kept being less. We became spirits and legends and eventually had to use human bodies to protect our fae selves from the world. We're made of emotion and creativity and some bits memory of things gone. It's like in that TV show about the devil, we kinda are what we believe us to be. We live, we die, and we're reborn. New fae souls are... well... impossible.

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  Most of our internal world is kinda feudal human time like. We got commoners and nobles and crap. We have keeps and counties and baronies and even kingdoms of our own built around human cities, but out of sync with what pure humans experience other'n weird sensations when they get too close. We call that the other or the dreaming, a place where we live and can repower our fae selves with the shards of balefire that came from our home. But we always come back to the mortal side. We get drawn to the imagery and creative power in other types of stories. We got sci fi fans in our numbers and their places can be as techy as a Star Trek set, but most of our places are more King Arthur than Cap'n Kirk.

  Everything we do is that way. When we cast spells, it ain't exactly Merlin unless that's how the fae casting feels. Our Trolls and Giants and such tend to cast through very physical things. They're hammers so they cast like magic is a nail. Satyrs are born of passion and often use songs and dancing to cast. Other times, it can be related to the effect. Someone might wave a fan to create a wind, or mime digging to open a hole in the ground. The big part is it needs to be at least a little creative. If it's something you've done a bunch, it ain't as effective as something different. If it's too obvious, it's weaker. Worth it when you're in a hurry, but it's something to remember. Anything can be the setup to a spell, it just depends on what the caster wants, and is willing to pay.

  Same thing goes when we make magic items. We put some of what we think we are into what we make, usually. There's a whole line of us that are inventors and there ain't no telling where their stuff is gonna go, but the rest of us are more personal. Like my kind, the redcaps, are known for being brutes. We tend to look like gang bangers and bully boys and it's a pretty common nasty weapon we make to have gloves full of rusty nails, barbed wire, and nasty attitude. I got a pair that's a bit different than most. When I was young, I made them with even more attitude because I used bluff and bluster until I got strong enough I didn't have to. My gloves, more gauntlets really but whatever, sound like bone grinding on bone when I make a fist or get upset and they got a touch of my own hunger. They like to have the barbs and hooks shift as I hit folks, trying to hold on and kinda chew at whatever I punch. They reflect me, back when I made them, always hungry for more and liking things to hurt. That's just one example though. I seen a writer that had a feather quill that could chop down trees, because the pen is mightier than the sword.

  Speaking of me, if I'm gonna tell my tale I should give some backstory, right? I know we're starting in the middle, but tough shit. It's the right place to start. This ain't my usual thing to do, but I got told it was important in case things go balls up and folks think because I'm smart, I should be the one what writes it down.

  This last go around, the only one I really remember, I was a pretty typical gang banger, at least from the outside. I was smart and lied like a politician on trial to bluff my way out of things I couldn't handle. I ran with a seriously nasty group that called themselves the Black March cause they took over most of their territory from two other gangs in a bloody war that covered that month. I'm a seer and that magic helped my bluff and made me worth something to the leader, an ass named Eric. We almost exclusively recruited from fae and fae blooded humans so we didn't have to hide what we wanted to do and toward then end of me being with them, this satyr beauty named Genny showed up. I'm the seer, but she's the one ridden by destiny and memory. She's been through some seriously rough shit. I started getting in with her over shared loves of things like cooking and, well, other kinds of cooking. As our power as a group started slipping, Eric baled with his pet members and left me holding the bag for all the crap he caused. Usually, that would have been the end of my story, but me and Genny are a lot more together than either of us alone and we fixed things. Then, I went to shove that bag down Eric's throat to choke him out. There's at least one full story there, but it ain't important to the why of me writing this thing. Maybe I could have even left out that hunt, but that hunt set us up for everything else, so I figure it's a good starting place.

  Anyway, I could keep building back story, but if I keep rambling, I ain't never getting to the front story. This is the basics. Think about the old versions of fairy tales and them basics and it shouldn't be too hard to figure out what's going on when the tale moves forward. If it don't make sense, maybe there will be something later to fill in some blanks. I'm just telling it best I can from what I seen and what I got told when I wasn't there. Like I said, writing crap down ain't usually my thing so if it's a bit rough, well that's on me.

  Ready?