Origin: Alea
My name is Alea, and I am a Changeling. When I was eight The Great Veil that hid magic in Our World was broken, and my body changed before my eyes: My pale skin turned brownish, my hair red and my ears pointy. And my parents became resentful strangers because of it.
I had been switched at birth with their own child by a wicked fairy from Otherworld, and I was somehow to blame. I became a fake and a reminder of what they had lost. I was driven to an orphanage and left on the steps to knock on the door alone in the cold september rain, with a suitcase of clothes, and that was that - No goodbye to the monster they had raised in lieu of their real child.
Sometimes when I dream, I'm back standing out there in the cold, my red hair getting heavy with rain, standing in front of an unknown door that I know holds my future inside. Frightened and conflicted, I open the door just to wake up sweating in my bed, and I have to calm myself - remind myself that things worked out.
That I'm safe.
Every orphanage - mine included saw a sudden huge spike in children dropped unannounced. Children with pointy ears, unnatural skin colors, eyes, hair. Some even more otherworldly than that. Luckily, the first orphanage was a short experience. The Veil had just fallen, and the entire world was in chaos. Everything everybody knew was up in the air, and everyone were scared and confused - All they knew to be true had suddently been put into question.
Within a month, the first dedicated institutions rose to handle us specifically - "Changelings" as they called us. Somebody was giving up a lot to make a safe space for us, but we were just small kids, scared and being moved around between hands and places. I remember when a hauntingly beautiful Àlf lady came to the first orphanage and told all of us unnaturals to gather our things. That another home was waiting for us. Even if we hadn't been at the orphanage for long, it had felt like an eternity. The sudden intake of so many children had forced them to make room for mattresses whereever possible, and all of us were sad and frustrated. Every night we all joined in on our choir of crying children.
Stuck in the middle of it, we only saw our own lives crumbling before us, but already on day one, someone was thinking about us and how to save us. Deeply ingrained human society, some Alfs had the capital or connections to deal with the massive turd something had left for each city council and government to react to, while also dealing with the backlash of being outed and feared themselves.
We were brought to a large gym hall turned fay shelter. Many changelings from several orphanages huddled together and a lot of adult Fey Folk of different kind was there too, to weather the storm and figure out how to deal with becoming public knowledge. As kids we didn't know, but they were every bit as frightened as we were, but they did all they could to not let us see it - to help us feel at home in a strange place among strange creatures we only had known from fairytales and morning cartoons. It felt like being Alice in Wonderland, but a sad and twisted version, without color.
I don't know how the deal got through so fast, but within a year the government had decided that every major city would dedicate a nature area in close vicinity into a permanent shelter for us. A place where there would be room enough for a community and still a lot of nature, which many Fey Folk require to thrive. I remember the day Thrud came back and announced the good news and how much it affected the grown-ups - The tears of joy on their faces, the singing and dancing that followed that night. It was the first day in a scary time where we saw true happiness in the gym hall. A glimse of that Wonderland magic.
The next few months were special. We were still stuck in the gym hall, but the grown-ups were more hopeful than we had seen them before, and it made us more relaxed too. These are the earliest clear memories I have from my childhood. Everything before is a blur of another life and the nights of sadness. This is when I remember meeting my best friends, Zeldine and Lív, for the first time. Zeldine arrived from another orphanage outside of town, but she was very energetic and charismatic, and we were quickly thick as thieves - Where one would go the other would follow. Lív came with three young women all in sleeved white dresses. I remember them being very protective of her at first, but they soon left her to play with the rest of us at her age, and we just clicked.
After maybe half a year we were moving again, but this time it was to go to our forever home, we were told. The adults smiled sincerely too. They had worked hard. Some had even come from other towns and places to help turn a park into what they called a Fey Grove. A shelter for all local Fey Folk - a gated community. That day we all walked through the city to our new home together. It was like a parade of happy freaks, finally out in the light and for all to see.
We came to the gated park and above the wall a large building in fresh wood towered. The roof and ridge ornamented with curious swirls unlike all the brick buildings of the city. At the gate, our community leader - called a Dís greeted us and welcomed us to Evergreen - A place where there was room for all of us and "we would always be safe".
Only the dorm was fully built at that time, but in it we all got rooms, that we only had to share with one other. Soon after came the Longhall for eating and meeting, and the rest of the park was ours to play around in. We got a real room to be home schooled in, enough tables to eat at all of us together, and real beds to sleep in.
For the first time since being left on a doorstep, we had a real place to call home.
I had been switched at birth with their own child by a wicked fairy from Otherworld, and I was somehow to blame. I became a fake and a reminder of what they had lost. I was driven to an orphanage and left on the steps to knock on the door alone in the cold september rain, with a suitcase of clothes, and that was that - No goodbye to the monster they had raised in lieu of their real child.
Sometimes when I dream, I'm back standing out there in the cold, my red hair getting heavy with rain, standing in front of an unknown door that I know holds my future inside. Frightened and conflicted, I open the door just to wake up sweating in my bed, and I have to calm myself - remind myself that things worked out.
That I'm safe.
Every orphanage - mine included saw a sudden huge spike in children dropped unannounced. Children with pointy ears, unnatural skin colors, eyes, hair. Some even more otherworldly than that. Luckily, the first orphanage was a short experience. The Veil had just fallen, and the entire world was in chaos. Everything everybody knew was up in the air, and everyone were scared and confused - All they knew to be true had suddently been put into question.
Within a month, the first dedicated institutions rose to handle us specifically - "Changelings" as they called us. Somebody was giving up a lot to make a safe space for us, but we were just small kids, scared and being moved around between hands and places. I remember when a hauntingly beautiful Àlf lady came to the first orphanage and told all of us unnaturals to gather our things. That another home was waiting for us. Even if we hadn't been at the orphanage for long, it had felt like an eternity. The sudden intake of so many children had forced them to make room for mattresses whereever possible, and all of us were sad and frustrated. Every night we all joined in on our choir of crying children.
Stuck in the middle of it, we only saw our own lives crumbling before us, but already on day one, someone was thinking about us and how to save us. Deeply ingrained human society, some Alfs had the capital or connections to deal with the massive turd something had left for each city council and government to react to, while also dealing with the backlash of being outed and feared themselves.
We were brought to a large gym hall turned fay shelter. Many changelings from several orphanages huddled together and a lot of adult Fey Folk of different kind was there too, to weather the storm and figure out how to deal with becoming public knowledge. As kids we didn't know, but they were every bit as frightened as we were, but they did all they could to not let us see it - to help us feel at home in a strange place among strange creatures we only had known from fairytales and morning cartoons. It felt like being Alice in Wonderland, but a sad and twisted version, without color.
I don't know how the deal got through so fast, but within a year the government had decided that every major city would dedicate a nature area in close vicinity into a permanent shelter for us. A place where there would be room enough for a community and still a lot of nature, which many Fey Folk require to thrive. I remember the day Thrud came back and announced the good news and how much it affected the grown-ups - The tears of joy on their faces, the singing and dancing that followed that night. It was the first day in a scary time where we saw true happiness in the gym hall. A glimse of that Wonderland magic.
The next few months were special. We were still stuck in the gym hall, but the grown-ups were more hopeful than we had seen them before, and it made us more relaxed too. These are the earliest clear memories I have from my childhood. Everything before is a blur of another life and the nights of sadness. This is when I remember meeting my best friends, Zeldine and Lív, for the first time. Zeldine arrived from another orphanage outside of town, but she was very energetic and charismatic, and we were quickly thick as thieves - Where one would go the other would follow. Lív came with three young women all in sleeved white dresses. I remember them being very protective of her at first, but they soon left her to play with the rest of us at her age, and we just clicked.
After maybe half a year we were moving again, but this time it was to go to our forever home, we were told. The adults smiled sincerely too. They had worked hard. Some had even come from other towns and places to help turn a park into what they called a Fey Grove. A shelter for all local Fey Folk - a gated community. That day we all walked through the city to our new home together. It was like a parade of happy freaks, finally out in the light and for all to see.
We came to the gated park and above the wall a large building in fresh wood towered. The roof and ridge ornamented with curious swirls unlike all the brick buildings of the city. At the gate, our community leader - called a Dís greeted us and welcomed us to Evergreen - A place where there was room for all of us and "we would always be safe".
Only the dorm was fully built at that time, but in it we all got rooms, that we only had to share with one other. Soon after came the Longhall for eating and meeting, and the rest of the park was ours to play around in. We got a real room to be home schooled in, enough tables to eat at all of us together, and real beds to sleep in.
For the first time since being left on a doorstep, we had a real place to call home.
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