Fiction > The Fain

A Take on Fairies

The Fain are glad spirits who spend their days singing and dancing. Some can take but one shape, but most can appear in several different forms. Most of them dwell away from civilization, dancing in clear glades or around bubbling brooks. Then, they may appear as warm, curling vapors or else walk completely invisible.

But, they can take on flesh, typically as brightly colored songbirds or short people with big eyes and glad faces. They prefer for their hair and clothing to be vibrantly colored, and a lot of them are very flamboyant. They sometimes attempt to be sexually attractive (and typically succeed), but only if they think it will make someone happy. A Fain may enjoy sex, but he much prefers making up limericks about it.

Indeed, making up unserious music and poetry is the greatest joy in a Fain's life, the sillier and more nonsensical the better. They ever speak in verse, and their voices have a sing - song quality at all times (it may not surprise you to learn that Doctor Suess had Fain blood). Their work isn't what you'd call great art, but it has a certain charm. Many nursery rhymes and the lion's share of pop music are written by Fain.

They enjoy jokes a lot, especially puns, though they appreciate all wordplay. Yet, for one reason or another, Fain are incapable or irony or satire. They sometimes play cruel pranks, but they rarely act out of true malice. Most of the time, they just thought it would be funny. They can be misled to do great evil by wicked people, for they are very gullible creatures. But this is rare, they have a strong aversion to violence and rarely inflict it.

Almost everyone likes Fain, though most surmise that they aren't hard - working or intelligent. One may find them annoying, but it's hard for most people to really and truly hate a Fain (unless she's in the act of pulling a prank on you or mistakenly believes you want to be serenaded at four in the morning). Most people treat them a bit like cute animals or small children, and most cultures have similar taboos against harming Fain. But, you ought to resist the urge to infantilize the Fain; despite their diminutive stature and naïveté, Fain have much more in common with a particularly carefree adult than a child.

This is not least because they may live indefinitely (though most of them only last a few decades). While many Fain die in accidents or from violence, most of them will eventually wilt. A Fain can only go on living while he is happy and carefree. When a Fain encounters real cruelty or real suffering, he cannot remain fain. He cannot bring himself to sing or dance anymore, nor to make his silly poems, nor to play his silly pranks. He can only sit silently or weep until he grows thin and gray. And, perhaps after a week, perhaps a lifetime, he will be born away as smoke by the wind.

Many have tried to cure wilting -- for humans often come to love Fain. Many have noted wilting's similarity to low - functioning depression, and some have tried to adapt its treatments. Of course, Fain lack brains and endocrine systems, so biological antidepressants have no effect on them. But gladdening charms and talismans may be able to make them feel better for awhile. So too, they can sometimes be coaxed into talk therapy, which may be helpful. But, even in the best cases, a wilting Fain will not be as she was before. She cannot make herself sing and dance and frolic in a world where terrible things happen to good people. Sometimes, she may half - heartedly try to behave as before, but it never works. In the best cases, she may live on jaded and cynically, a sad shadow of what a Fain is meant to be. But, usually, she will lapse back into melancholy and wilt away.