Compiled by Scholar Valerius Thorne, with practical annotations from Kael Redfern, and theological commentary from Shaman-Chronicler Silt-in-River
Written in Threshold, Year 288 Post-Breaking
I write this document with considerably more personal anxiety than any of my previous ethnographic work, for the subject of this study is not a distant people whose customs I can observe from comfortable remove, nor ancient ruins whose dangers are at least predictable in their hostility. The Fae are here, now, in every sense that matters. One is in my study as I write this, a creature my assistant Kael calls “Thistle-Thorn,” who has been watching me work for the past three hours while making occasional sounds that might be commentary or might be idle vocalization. I offered him tea. He drank it with what appeared to be genuine appreciation, then made a sound like wind through hollow reeds and left a copper coin on my desk before departing through my window, which I am reasonably certain was closed before he arrived.
This is typical of interactions with the Fae. They are simultaneously more comprehensible and more alien than any other sapient beings I have encountered. They speak, after a fashion. They trade, after a fashion. They can be reasoned with, after a fashion. But the fashions involved are distinctly their own, operating according to logic that is not quite human logic, pursuing goals that are not quite human goals, existing in a relationship with reality that is fundamentally different from the relationship the rest of us maintain.
The scholarly literature on the Fae is contradictory, fragmentary, and in many cases simply wrong. Much of what has been written treats them as demons, as spirits, as magical constructs, or as degenerate humans. They are none of these things, though I understand why each misidentification arose. The truth, as I have come to understand it through six months of intensive study supplemented by Kael’s fifteen years of practical experience and Silt-in-River’s shamanic insights, is both stranger and more mundane than the myths suggest.
The Fae are beings of the Lacuna who have been Named and thereby pulled partially into narrative reality. They exist in the spaces between full existence and non-existence, sustained by a hunger for Exchange that is not metaphorical but literal, ontological, fundamental to their continued coherence. They are dangerous when starved, useful when fed, and utterly essential to understanding the full implications of what the Breaking created and what continues to emerge from the wound in the world.
I have attempted to be comprehensive in this account, drawing on interviews with dozens of Fae across multiple regions, observations of their behavior in various contexts, consultation with those who regularly contract their services, and my own direct interactions which have ranged from enlightening to unsettling. Kael’s annotations provide practical guidance based on his extensive field experience. Silt-in-River’s theological commentary offers the Mountain Lanx perspective on these beings, which differs significantly from human or Northern Lanx understanding.
What follows is the most complete account of the Fae that I have been able to compile. It is not perfect. There are gaps in my knowledge, contradictions I cannot resolve, and mysteries that resist explanation. But it is, I believe, more accurate and more useful than anything previously written on the subject.
Read carefully. The Fae are not mere curiosities to be studied from safe distance. They are part of the world now, perhaps permanently, and understanding them is essential for anyone who lives in or travels through the territories where they dwell.
— V.T.
To understand the Fae, one must first understand their origin, which means understanding something of the Lacuna itself and the peculiar way it interacts with reality. I have written extensively about the Lacuna in other documents, but I will summarize the relevant points here for context.
Three centuries ago, a cabal of mages in the northern territories attempted to access what they called the Substrate, the fundamental layer of reality beneath the Weaver’s narrative pattern. Their working failed catastrophically, creating a thirty-mile-wide crater where reality itself had been unmade. What remained was not merely empty space but actively non-narrative space, void where the Weaver’s pattern does not hold and where being itself becomes negotiable.
The void should have been completely inimical to life. Nothing should emerge from it. Nothing should be able to cross from non-narrative space into narrative space and retain any coherence whatsoever. And yet things do emerge. We call them Lacuna entities, and they appear in bewildering variety, most of them incomprehensible and immediately dangerous, fragments of almost-existence that collapse or dissolve or simply do violence to everything around them because they cannot properly interface with a world built on narrative consistency.
The Fae are different. They are Lacuna entities that have achieved something that should not be possible: they have been Named, and the Naming has given them sufficient structure to exist within narrative space without immediately collapsing. They are still fundamentally of the void, still operating according to principles that are not quite those of normal reality, but they have been pulled far enough into coherence that they can interact with narrative beings in comprehensible ways.
The process by which this occurs is not entirely understood, and the Fae themselves either cannot or will not explain it in terms I can parse. What I have been able to determine through extensive interviews and consultation with shamanic experts is approximately this: when a Lacuna entity crosses the Boundary, it is raw potential without fixed form. If that entity is immediately Named by someone who perceives it, the Name acts as anchor, as template, as invitation into narrative structure. The entity then compiles itself according to the Name and the expectations embedded in that Name, taking form that is influenced by the Namer’s understanding of what it should be.
This is not a gentle process, apparently. Silt-in-River describes it as “the void screaming itself into a shape it cannot quite hold, sustained only by the rhythm of Exchange and the pattern of the Name.” The Fae I have spoken with who remember their transition from void to Named being uniformly describe it as painful, disorienting, and accompanied by a hunger so profound that it defines everything that follows.
The Name itself becomes essential to the Fae’s continued existence. They respond to it, orient themselves by it, exist through it. A Fae who loses their Name does not simply become nameless; they begin to dissolve back into incoherence, losing the structure that allows them to maintain form in narrative space. This has happened, according to witnesses I consider reliable. A Fae whose Name is forgotten by all who knew it will gradually become less solid, less present, less able to interact with the world, until finally they simply cease, returning to the void from which they emerged or perhaps simply dissipating into nothing.
This creates a peculiar dependency relationship. The Fae need us to remember them, to call them by Name, to acknowledge their existence through the continuing use of the labels we have given them. They need this in a way that goes beyond social desire or psychological need. It is ontological necessity. Without Names, they cannot be.
Every Fae, without exception in the hundreds of documented cases I have reviewed and the dozens of individuals I have personally examined, possesses what appears to be a smooth, bone-white mask in place of a conventional face. The mask is not worn in any sense that implies it could be removed. It is not a separate object applied to the face but appears to be the face itself, or perhaps something that has replaced the face, or perhaps—and this is the explanation I find most disturbing—the face is simply not there and the mask is what exists in the space where a face should be.
The material defies analysis. I have been permitted to examine the mask of a deceased Fae (killed by void-iron through the throat during a dispute whose details I was not given and did not press for), and I can report only that the substance is neither bone nor ceramic nor any material I can identify through standard alchemical or physical testing. It is smooth, seamless, and apparently indestructible by any means short of the void-iron that killed its bearer. When struck with sufficient force to shatter stone, it rings like a bell but sustains no damage. When subjected to heat that would melt iron, it remains cool to the touch. When exposed to acids that dissolve organic matter, it is unaffected.
The mask is featureless in most cases, presenting a smooth oval that would be almost serene if it were not so profoundly unsettling to observe. Some masks bear minimal features: a slit where a mouth might be, shallow depressions suggesting eye sockets, occasionally what might be interpreted as a nose ridge. But these features are suggestions rather than functional organs. The Fae speak despite many of them having no visible mouth. They see despite having no visible eyes, or rather, they perceive through the eye apertures which show only that dull garnet-red luminescence that is the one universal feature beyond the mask itself.
The eyes, if we can call them that, are not organs in any biological sense. They are light, or perhaps the appearance of light, emanating from behind the mask apertures. The color is consistent: a deep red, like garnets or rubies or old blood, never varying in hue though the intensity may fluctuate. When a Fae is curious, the light brightens. When tired or weakened, it dims. When they feed on Exchange, it flares briefly with greater intensity. These lights track movement, follow faces, suggest attention and awareness, but when I was permitted to examine the interior of a deceased Fae’s mask, I found only hollow space extending back farther than the external dimensions of the mask should allow, and in that space, nothing that could be producing the light I had observed moments before.
This is deeply unsettling, and I am not embarrassed to admit that the examination caused me considerable distress. My assistant Kael, who was present as observer and support, left the room briefly and spent some time sitting with his head between his knees. He has since told me that looking into the mask’s interior gave him the sensation of “seeing the back of space,” which is a description I cannot improve upon. There was depth where there should have been shallow cavity, and that depth felt wrong in ways that suggested it connected to somewhere that was not here, not now, not part of normal spatial relationships.
The question of what lies behind the mask is one I have pressed with multiple Fae informants, and their responses have been uniformly unhelpful. Thistle-Thorn, when asked, said: “Behind the mask is the face that was never made, the visage that could not be, the self that exists by not existing, pretty much like all the rest.” When I asked him to clarify, he made a sound like laughter and said: “Beneath the white is the between-space, neither here nor there, the gap where I persist because you insist I persist through the rhythm of my verse.”
Mirror-in-the-Mere, another Fae I interviewed extensively, provided slightly more comprehensible response: “The mask is the compromise between what I was and what you need me to be. In the void, I had no form, just hunger and potential. Here, I need shape, structure, face to present to your narrative world. The mask is that face, built from your expectations and my desperation to exist somewhere, anywhere, rather than dispersing back into nothing.” When I asked if they had any memory of what they were before the mask, Mirror’s response was simply: “Hunger. Only hunger. And the terrible freedom of having no shape to maintain, no coherence to lose.”
The masks do not age, do not degrade, do not accumulate the wear and damage that normal materials subjected to centuries of use would show. I have examined Fae who claim to have existed for over two hundred years, and their masks appear identical to those of Fae who were Named mere months ago. This suggests either that the masks are continually renewed through some process I do not understand, or that they exist somehow outside of normal time, or that they are not material objects at all but rather manifestations of something else that appears material to our perception.
[Kael’s note]: Don’t stare at the masks too long. I know scholars want to examine and understand everything, but trust me on this: extended contemplation of Fae masks causes headaches at best and worse problems if you persist. There’s something about them that doesn’t want to be looked at too carefully, or perhaps looking carefully reveals things your mind wasn’t meant to process. I’ve seen grown adults start weeping after staring at a Fae mask for more than a few minutes, unable to explain why except that something about it made them profoundly sad or afraid or both. Do your observations, take your notes, then look away.
Beyond the mask, which is universal, Fae morphology exhibits considerable variation while adhering to a loose template that suggests either common origin or common constraints on what forms can successfully maintain coherence in narrative space.
The standard configuration, if such a thing can be said to exist among beings who show as much individual variation as humans do, consists of a roughly humanoid body standing between seven and nine feet in height. The build is elongated, thin in a way that suggests malnutrition but demonstrates surprising strength when observed in action. The limbs are disproportionate by human standards: arms slightly too long for the torso, legs that bend in ways that are almost but not quite correct, hands with three to six fingers (most commonly five) that taper to points that may be claws or simply long, sharp nails.
The stance is digitigrade, meaning they walk on their toes rather than flat-footed, which contributes to their uncanny gait and surprising speed when they choose to move quickly. The legs show pronounced joints, particularly at what would be the knee, creating angles that human legs cannot achieve. This allows for movement patterns that are distinctly non-human: a loping stride that covers ground efficiently, the ability to pivot instantly in any direction, and a kind of flowing motion that makes it difficult to predict where they will be in the next moment.
The body is typically covered in some form of integument, though the specific nature varies widely. Most commonly, I have observed dark fur forming a mane that runs from the skull down the spine to mid-back, leaving the rest of the body bare and showing skin that ranges from ash-pale to charcoal-black. Some Fae show scales rather than fur, arranged in patterns that suggest reptilian heritage though no known reptile matches their overall morphology. Others display what appears to be chitinous plating, hard panels that overlap like armor though they show no seams suggesting they were assembled from separate pieces. A few rare specimens are covered in what I initially mistook for moss but which proved to be something stranger, a growth that is neither plant nor fungus but seems to be part of their flesh, pulsing gently with something that might be circulation or might be something else.
Coloration runs from pale gray through various browns and blacks to occasionally more exotic hues. I have observed a Fae with skin that showed faint iridescent blue sheen in certain lights, and another whose fur was so dark it seemed to absorb light rather than merely failing to reflect it. The coloration appears to be permanent for any individual Fae, or at least stable over the months I observed particular individuals, but does not seem to correlate with any other characteristic in ways that would suggest subspecies or distinct populations.
Most Fae possess a tail, a long whip-like appendage that extends from the base of the spine. The tail varies in length but typically extends three to five feet, occasionally prehensile and capable of grasping objects or providing balance during complex movement. Some tails are bare, showing the same skin as the rest of the body. Others are furred or scaled. The tail moves constantly during normal activity, swishing and curling in patterns that may communicate emotional states or may simply be unconscious movement, similar to how humans gesture with their hands without deliberate intent.
The variations I have documented are extensive enough that I initially wondered whether there might be multiple distinct types of Fae, perhaps corresponding to different origins or different adaptation strategies. However, after observing how individual Fae change their forms over time, I have concluded that the variation is better understood as flexibility rather than fixed categories. The Fae body appears to be somewhat mutable, shifting gradually in response to circumstances or needs that I do not fully understand.
I have observed Thistle-Thorn over the course of six months, and in that time his configuration has shifted noticeably. When I first encountered him, he possessed four arms arranged in two pairs on his torso, a configuration that seemed stable and that he used with considerable dexterity. By the third month, the lower pair of arms had begun to diminish, shrinking slowly until they were vestigial nubs barely visible beneath his fur. By the sixth month, they had vanished entirely, leaving no trace that they had ever existed. When I asked him about this change, he said: “Four hands for trading, two hands for working, one hand for waving goodbye—the form follows the function, and the function follows the feeding, so the body builds what it needs and sheds what it doesn’t.” This suggested that Fae morphology responds to how they are using their bodies, adapting to their circumstances in ways that would take human evolution millennia to achieve but which occur for Fae over months.
This mutability has limits. The mask never changes. The basic humanoid structure remains stable. The red eyes behind the mask are constant. But within these constraints, considerable variation is possible and apparently normal. This makes species identification problematic, as any taxonomy based on physical characteristics would need to account for individuals who might look quite different from themselves given sufficient time and changed circumstances.
[Silt-in-River’s note]: The human scholar catalogues the physical forms as though they were the truth of what Fae are. This is the error of those who see with eyes alone. The body is the least important aspect of the Masked Folk, merely the vessel they have constructed to contain themselves in our world. What matters is the hunger, the Name, and the pattern of Exchange. Two Fae who look identical might be fundamentally different in their nature. Two who look nothing alike might be more similar than any human could be to either. The shape is the compromise. The essence is the hunger. Never forget this when dealing with them.
To observe a Fae in motion is to witness something that should not quite work according to the physics one expects from observing human or animal movement, yet which functions with fluid efficiency that suggests either that my understanding of physics is incomplete or that the Fae operate according to slightly different rules.
The standard locomotion is a loping stride, a kind of flowing movement that engages the entire body in a coordinated rhythm. The digitigrade stance allows for a springing motion where each step launches them forward with surprising force, the pronounced knee joints storing and releasing energy in ways that seem to defy normal biomechanics. The arms swing in counterpoint to the leg movements, but the swinging seems excessive, almost exaggerated, until you observe that this motion is maintaining balance and orientation during the complex ground coverage the legs are achieving.
The speed they can achieve is remarkable. I have watched Fae cover ground at rates that would exhaust a running horse, maintaining this pace for extended periods without visible signs of fatigue. When I inquired about this, Long-Jack of the Low-Beam told me: “The void knows no tired, the between-space needs no rest, and though I wear flesh that should weary, the pattern of my being remembers that I’m not really here in the way you’re here, so the limits that bind you bind me more loosely, more lightly, if at all.”
This suggested that Fae stamina is not a function of physical conditioning in the normal sense but rather a consequence of their partial existence in narrative space. They tire eventually, I have confirmed this through observation, but they tire much more slowly than comparable physical activity would tire a human, and they recover much more quickly, sometimes seeming to go from exhausted to fully energized within minutes of rest.
The movement is not merely fast but also extremely agile. Fae navigate complex terrain with ease that borders on disturbing. I watched Mirror-in-the-Mere traverse a collapsed section of tunnel that would have required careful climbing for a human, and she simply flowed over and around obstacles without apparent effort or even conscious attention, her body seeming to know where to place limbs before she looked at the path ahead. When I commented on this, she said: “The body knows the spaces, the form understands the gaps, I don’t think about moving any more than you think about breathing—it simply happens because not happening would mean stopping, and stopping means dissolving eventually, so we keep moving, always moving, flowing from here to there to anywhere that isn’t stillness.”
This aversion to complete stillness appears to be genuine rather than merely philosophical. Fae are never entirely still. Even when at rest, some part of them is always moving: the tail swishing gently, fingers tapping rhythms on surfaces, head tilting incrementally as they track movements too small for human perception. When I asked Thistle-Thorn if he could hold completely still, he attempted to do so, and managed perhaps thirty seconds before beginning to tremble and then abruptly resuming motion with what appeared to be relief. “Stillness is too close to silence,” he said, “and silence is too close to ceasing, and ceasing is the fear that haunts us all, so we move, we speak, we exist through motion and through verse because to stop is to risk returning to the nothing we emerged from.”
The gait becomes even stranger when Fae move quickly or need to navigate particularly difficult terrain. They can drop to all fours, using their long arms as additional legs, creating a quadrupedal locomotion that is spider-like in its efficiency but deeply unsettling to observe. In this configuration, they move even faster than their bipedal stride, and they can climb surfaces that would be impossible for humans to scale. I have watched Fae ascending sheer walls, their long fingers and prehensile tails finding purchase on irregularities too small to see, pulling themselves upward with strength that seems disproportionate to their thin frames.
They can also, disturbingly, move in ways that seem to ignore or at least bypass normal gravitational constraints. I have observed Fae walking up walls for several steps before returning to the ground, not climbing but actually walking as though the wall were the floor for those brief moments. I have watched them leap from heights that should break bones and land without impact, as though gravity had temporarily decided not to apply full force to them. When I pressed multiple Fae informants on how this was possible, the responses were uniformly unhelpful, variations on “the void has no up or down, so sometimes we forget which way is which” or “we’re not entirely here, so the rules that govern entirely-here things don’t always remember to govern us.”
Kael’s more practical explanation is that they are cheating somehow, using minimal magical ability to augment their movement in ways that appear natural but are actually sustained by constant low-level manipulation of forces around them. This would explain both their stamina and their occasional defiance of physics. However, when I attempted to detect magical activity during Fae movement, my instruments registered nothing unusual, suggesting either that the magic involved is too subtle for conventional detection or that Kael’s explanation, while intuitive, is incorrect.
[Kael’s note]: I stand by my assessment that they’re cheating. I’ve seen Long-Jack walk across my ceiling because he didn’t want to get his feet wet from a flooded cellar. He just walked upside-down, chatting about the weather like it was the most natural thing in the world. Then he slipped on a wet beam, fell directly into the water, and spent five minutes sputtering and swearing in rhyme about “the boards were slick, a dirty trick.” If they could control their physics-defying completely, he wouldn’t have fallen. So they’re doing something, but they’re not doing it reliably or consciously. My best guess is that being partially outside normal reality means normal reality occasionally forgets they’re supposed to be subject to all its rules, and they just roll with whatever happens until reality remembers and reasserts the normal constraints.
All Fae are bound by what scholars have termed the Verse, an ontological constraint that forces their speech into rhyming patterns. This is not cultural practice, not learned behavior, not choice. This is fundamental to their nature, as essential to their existence as the mask or the hunger or the Name. A Fae cannot speak unrhymed prose. The constraint is absolute, and violation is not merely difficult but apparently impossible.
I have tested this extensively, with cooperation from multiple Fae subjects who understood my academic interest and were compensated appropriately for their time. The experiments were straightforward: I asked them to speak specific non-rhyming phrases, offering increasingly substantial rewards for success. In every case, the result was the same. The Fae would attempt to speak the requested words, and their voice would emerge already altered, forcing the phrase into rhyme through modification of the original words or addition of new words that created rhyming structure.
The most dramatic example occurred when I asked Thistle-Thorn to simply say the words “the door is open” without any rhyme or additional phrasing. He attempted this, showing visible concentration and what appeared to be considerable strain. After perhaps ten seconds of effort, his voice emerged saying “the door is open wide, step through with pride.” When I pointed out that he had added words beyond what I requested, he seemed frustrated, making a sound like cracking ice, and said: “Your coins I’d take, but speech would break—the deal you ask, beyond my task.”
I pressed him on whether he was choosing to add the rhyme or whether something was compelling him. His response was illuminating: “To speak is to rhyme, it’s my nature’s crime. Without the verse, I’d fade and disperse. The pattern that holds me requires the rhyme, the rhythm sustains me through space and through time. If I could speak truly as you humans do, I’d be silent or screaming, nothing between those two.”
This suggested that the rhyme is not merely a speech pattern but is actually load-bearing for Fae existence in narrative space. The rhythm of rhyme provides structure, creates pattern, establishes the kind of coherence that narrative reality recognizes and can maintain. Without it, the Fae would lose the framework that keeps them compiled into coherent beings rather than dissipating back into the formless hunger they were before Naming.
The quality of rhyme varies considerably between individual Fae and correlates directly with their feeding status in ways that are both predictable and diagnostically useful. This correlation has been documented by every trader, traveler, and scholar who has worked extensively with the Masked Folk, and it forms the basis for practical safety assessments when encountering unknown Fae in field conditions.
A well-fed Fae produces what I can only describe as artistically sophisticated rhyme. The patterns are complex, often featuring internal rhymes, slant rhymes that require thought to recognize, and multi-layered wordplay that rewards careful listening. Mirror-in-the-Mere, who had secured a long-term Exchange relationship with a merchant house and was consequently very well-fed during our interviews, spoke in verses that were genuinely beautiful, demonstrating creativity and linguistic skill that would impress any human poet. She could construct elaborate rhyme schemes across multiple sentences, maintain thematic coherence while meeting the constraint of rhyme, and even play with the expectations of rhyme to create humorous or meaningful effects.
One example that particularly struck me occurred when I asked her to describe the feeling of hunger that Fae experience. She responded: “The hunger’s a hollow that echoes inside, a wanting that wanders through all that I hide. It whispers of nothingness, sings of the cold, reminds me of formlessness, stories untold. I feed on exchange so I might remain, give value for value to quiet the pain. Without the transaction, without the trade’s art, I’d lose my coherence, I’d fall apart.”
The rhyme scheme there (inside/hide, cold/untold, remain/pain, art/apart) was sophisticated, but what impressed me more was how she had embedded meaning in the rhyme choices themselves. “Stories untold” connected to the idea of narrative coherence that Fae require. “Trade’s art” elevated Exchange from mere transaction to something approaching aesthetic experience. The rhyme was not merely ornamental but was carrying semantic weight, making the content and the form reinforce each other.
Contrast this with the speech of hungry Fae, who struggle to maintain even basic rhyme structure. When I encountered a Fae who had been unable to secure Exchange for what he estimated was perhaps three weeks, his speech had degraded to simple, lazy patterns: “Need food, will trade. My hunger’s made. Give coin or meal. Let’s make a deal.” The rhymes were technically present (trade/made, meal/deal) but they were the most obvious possible pairings, and the speech had lost any sophistication or art. The Fae himself seemed embarrassed by this degradation, and when I offered him food in exchange for his time in interview, he accepted with what I interpreted as relief mixed with shame.
The speech of starving Fae becomes truly disturbing. The rhymes begin to break down entirely, producing forced pairs that don’t quite work or that only work if you squint linguistically. I have heard reports of starving Fae attempting rhymes like “orange/door-hinge” where the phonetic matching is strained at best. Even more concerning, they sometimes simply repeat the same rhyme over and over, apparently unable to generate new patterns. One witness described a starving Fae who approached their camp and simply said, again and again, “I need, I need, I need, I need” without ever providing the expected rhyme, the repetition itself becoming the only pattern available.
When the Verse breaks entirely, when a Fae loses the ability to maintain rhyme at all, they have entered what Kael terms “feral state,” and they are no longer capable of reason or negotiation. A feral Fae makes sounds, certainly, but these are no longer speech in any meaningful sense. They are clicking, hissing, scraping noises, sounds that suggest language without actually being language, the vocal equivalent of their physical form which suggests humanity without actually being human. At this stage, the Fae is effectively lost, operating only on the base hunger that defines them, and they must either feed immediately or they will dissolve.
The progression from well-fed to feral appears to be relatively gradual under normal circumstances, measured in weeks or months depending on the individual Fae’s capacity to maintain coherence. However, acute stress or magical exposure can accelerate the degradation significantly. A Fae who is injured or who spends too much time near high thaumic radiation will struggle to maintain rhyme even if they are otherwise adequately fed. This suggests that the rhyme is not merely about nutrition in the conventional sense but is actually about maintaining the pattern-coherence that keeps them existing as distinct entities rather than dissipating into void.
[Kael’s note]: The rhyme is your diagnostic tool. When you encounter a Fae, pay attention to how they speak before you do anything else. Clean, clever rhymes? They’re fed and therefore safe to negotiate with. Lazy rhymes? They’re hungry but still rational. Broken rhymes? Back away slowly and either offer food immediately or prepare to run, because you’re looking at someone who might become dangerous within days or hours. No rhymes? Run. Just run. Don’t try to help, don’t try to negotiate, just get away because what you’re looking at isn’t really a person anymore, it’s a hunger wearing a mask, and hunger doesn’t negotiate.
The Fae do not eat food in any sense that would be recognizable as nutrition. They have mouths, or at least some of them have mouth-slits in their masks, and they can consume material substances. I have observed Fae eating bread, meat, fruit, and various other foodstuffs with apparent enjoyment. However, the consumption of these materials does not address the fundamental hunger that defines their existence. They can taste, they can experience pleasure from eating, but they derive no sustenance from it in terms of maintaining their coherence in narrative space.
What sustains the Fae is Exchange itself, the act of transaction, the process of giving and receiving. This is not metaphorical. It is not merely that they enjoy trading or that they have cultural values around reciprocity. It is that they literally, ontologically, feed on the act of exchange, drawing from it something that maintains their existence in ways that no amount of conventional food could achieve.
The mechanism by which this occurs is unclear even after extensive investigation. Silt-in-River offers the most comprehensible explanation I have encountered: “The Fae are patterns of hunger that have been given names and shapes. They exist in our world only through the pattern, and the pattern requires rhythm. Exchange provides rhythm. Give and take, trade and barter, offer and acceptance—these create the back-and-forth flow that the pattern needs to sustain itself. Without exchange, the rhythm stops, the pattern fragments, and the Fae dissolves back into the formless hunger it was before someone Named it and made it real enough to interact with.”
This suggests that Exchange is not providing energy or substance in any conventional sense, but rather is providing the structural pattern, the beat, the rhythm that keeps the Fae coherent. They are beings sustained by rhythm rather than by calories, and Exchange is the source of that rhythm.
The nature of what constitutes Exchange is broader than simple commercial transaction. Any interaction where something is given and something is received, where value flows bidirectionally, can serve as nourishment for Fae. This creates a spectrum of sustenance ranging from minimal to substantial, and understanding this spectrum is essential for anyone who regularly interacts with the Masked Folk.
At the minimal end, simple conversation provides trace sustenance. When you speak with a Fae, you are giving them attention and they are giving you response, creating a minimal exchange that provides some rhythm. A well-fed Fae can subsist indefinitely on such minimal exchanges, going about their existence without requiring anything more substantial. This explains why Fae often appear in public spaces and seem to simply observe, occasionally offering comments or engaging in brief conversations. They are feeding, in their way, on the ambient exchange of communication and attention that characterizes human social spaces.
Slightly more substantial are small material exchanges. When a Fae offers you something, even something trivial like a found stone or a common wildflower, and you accept it and offer something in return, even just verbal thanks, this creates Exchange sufficient to provide meaningful nourishment. I have observed Fae lingering around markets, not to steal (though they do steal, we will address this) but simply to be near the constant flow of transaction, drawing sustenance from the ambient Exchange even when they are not directly involved.
The middle tier of Exchange consists of actual trades and services. When a Fae is hired to perform labor and is compensated for that labor, this creates significant sustenance. The key is not the value of what is exchanged but rather the clarity and completion of the Exchange. A Fae who works for a day and receives payment has experienced clear, structured, completed Exchange, and this provides substantial nourishment. This is why Fae make surprisingly good laborers when properly contracted: they are not merely working for payment but are feeding on the Exchange relationship itself, and they have vested interest in maintaining that relationship.
The highest tier of Exchange consists of long-term contracts and deep relationships. When a Fae establishes ongoing Exchange with an individual or family, receiving regular payment or goods in return for consistent services, this creates sustained rhythm that can keep them very well-fed. I have interviewed several Fae who have maintained relationships with particular families for decades or even centuries, and they describe this as the most stable and satisfying form of existence they can achieve. They are not merely surviving but thriving, sustained by the reliable rhythm of repeated Exchange with partners they have come to know and, in some sense, care about.
The question of what Fae value in Exchange is complex and cannot be reduced to simple economic calculations. They do not have consistent preferences in the way humans do. What a Fae wants in trade varies by individual, by circumstance, by factors I cannot reliably predict. However, certain patterns emerge from observation and can guide practical interactions.
Material goods are accepted readily enough, particularly food even though it does not nourish them in conventional sense. Food serves as universal medium of Exchange, and Fae seem to derive pleasure from eating even if they derive no sustenance. Coin is useful to them because coin can be exchanged for other things, creating future Exchange opportunities. Tools, cloth, decorative objects, all of these are acceptable and can serve as payment for services.
But Fae often request things that seem strange to human sensibilities, things that have no obvious economic value but which they appear to prize highly. I have observed Fae accepting as payment:
The memory of a specific experience, the Fae somehow extracting it such that the person can no longer access that particular memory though they retain intellectual knowledge that the experience occurred.
The ability to taste a specific flavor, again extracted somehow, leaving the person unable to taste that thing anymore.
The sound of a person’s laughter, such that afterward the person can still laugh but it sounds different to them, flatter, less joyful.
The warmth of a cherished memory, leaving the memory intact but emotionally neutral.
A year of certainty, meaning the person will experience no major unexpected disruptions for twelve months, though this seems to be more promise than extraction.
The fear of heights, entirely removed, such that the person afterward can work at any height without anxiety.
These abstract exchanges are deeply unsettling, and I confess I do not fully understand them. The Fae can somehow extract qualities, experiences, sensations from people and keep them for purposes I cannot determine. When I asked Mirror-in-the-Mere what she does with collected memories and sensations, she said: “We taste them, we keep them, we remember for you the things you’d rather forget or we hold onto the joys you’ve outgrown. We’re collectors of experience, curators of the things that humans shed as they move through their lives. You give us what you don’t need or what you never want again, and we preserve it, and in the preserving we sustain ourselves through the Exchange.”
This implies that Fae are somehow archiving human experience, though whether they actually use or benefit from these archived pieces or whether the value is purely in the transaction itself, I cannot determine. What is clear is that Fae are willing to accept highly unusual forms of payment, and clever negotiators can sometimes secure Fae services for costs that are economically minimal while being personally significant in ways that satisfy the Exchange requirement.
[Silt-in-River’s note]: The human scholar puzzles over the abstract exchanges as though they were strange, but he should understand: everything humans do is exchange. You exchange time for labor, labor for coin, coin for goods, goods for satisfaction. The Fae simply make explicit what is always implicit. When they take your memory of warmth, they are taking something you were going to lose anyway as you aged and forgot, and they are giving you in exchange the service you requested. The transaction is fair, even if it feels strange. The strangeness is in seeing clearly what humans usually hide from themselves: that everything has price, everything can be traded, and nothing you possess is really permanent enough to refuse exchange when the offer serves your needs.
Fae steal. This is documented, consistent, and apparently ineradicable behavior. They steal food, they steal objects, they steal things that have no apparent value to them. They steal from friends, from employers, from people who have fed them regularly for years. The stealing appears to be compulsive, and it creates significant practical problems for those attempting to maintain relationships with the Masked Folk.
The question of why they steal when they know it creates problems and when many of them have access to legitimate Exchange that should satisfy their needs has troubled me considerably. Through extensive interviews and observation, I have developed a theory that I believe explains the behavior, though not in ways that make it more acceptable.
Fae do not conceptualize property the same way humans do. To a human, or at least to humans in most cultures I have studied, property is possession, something that belongs to you until you choose to transfer it to someone else. Taking someone’s property without permission is theft, a violation of their rights and a disruption of social order. This conceptual framework is so fundamental to human thinking that we often fail to recognize it as a framework at all, assuming it is simply the natural and correct way to understand objects and ownership.
Fae do not share this framework. To a Fae, objects exist in relationships of proximity and utility, not in relationships of ownership. An object is near you or far from you, useful to you or not useful to you. When a Fae sees food sitting on a table, they perceive food that is not currently being used, and if they are hungry, taking it is not violation but simply utilizing available resources. The concept that the food belongs to someone and that taking it without permission wrongs that person seems to be genuinely difficult for Fae to internalize.
This is not merely rationalizing bad behavior. I have interviewed Fae who are genuinely confused and distressed when accused of theft, unable to understand why taking unused food from a table where they were present is considered wrongdoing. They understand Exchange, they understand reciprocity, but they do not understand ownership in the human sense. From their perspective, if they took food that someone was planning to eat, they would certainly owe that person compensation, because they have created imbalance that requires correction. But if they took food that was simply sitting unused, they have not created imbalance because nothing was actually disrupted.
The problem, of course, is that humans do feel wronged when Fae take their property, and these feelings are legitimate even if the Fae do not share the conceptual framework that generates them. This creates a practical impasse: humans see theft and want it stopped, while Fae see resource utilization and are confused by the anger directed at them.
The solution that has emerged in communities where Fae are common is not to eliminate the taking but rather to ritualize it and create Exchange structures around it. Families or businesses that regularly interact with Fae will designate specific food items as “available,” making explicit that these things can be taken without creating imbalance. In return, the Fae are expected to leave compensation, though the compensation need not be equivalent in economic value as long as it represents completed Exchange.
I observed this system functioning in a village called Hrafnstad, where a Fae called Long-Strider of the North Wind has served as night watchman for seventeen years. The village headman’s family leaves out a bowl of milk and a portion of their evening meal every night, explicitly designated as “for Long-Strider.” He takes these items without asking, consumes them, and leaves small valuable objects he finds during his patrols: interesting stones, lost coins, occasionally items of genuine value like jewelry that someone dropped and he recovered. The relationship works because the terms are clear, the Exchange is structured, and both parties understand what is expected.
However, even with such systems in place, Fae will occasionally take things that are not designated as available, apparently unable to entirely resist the compulsion. When this occurs, they typically leave compensation, either immediately or when they next encounter the person they took from. The compensation is sometimes greater in value than what was taken, sometimes lesser, apparently based on the Fae’s assessment of what constitutes fair Exchange rather than on any market calculation.
Long-Jack, mentioned earlier by Kael, has a pattern of taking food items and leaving shiny objects of various value. Sometimes he leaves copper coins worth less than the food he took. Sometimes he leaves silver pieces worth substantially more. The pattern seems to be that he values shiny objects based on how much they please him aesthetically rather than on their economic worth, and he assumes others will share this assessment. When this results in overpayment, recipients are generally happy. When it results in underpayment, they grumble but accept it because Long-Jack is otherwise useful and maintaining good relations with him is worth occasional losses.
The most problematic cases involve Fae taking things that have sentimental value to the owner but no obvious value to the Fae themselves. I documented a case where a Fae took a wooden carving that a father had made for his daughter, apparently attracted by its smooth surface and pleasing shape. When the father confronted the Fae, demanding its return, the Fae seemed genuinely confused about why this particular object mattered more than any other wooden object. The Fae returned it, but only after extended negotiation and additional compensation from the father, apparently still not understanding why the object’s sentimental value created special obligation.
These incidents create genuine grievance and make human-Fae relations more difficult than they need to be. However, attempts to train Fae to respect human property concepts have been largely unsuccessful. They intellectually understand that humans get upset when things are taken, and they try to modify their behavior to avoid creating problems, but the underlying compulsion persists. The best that can be achieved is teaching individual Fae what is acceptable to take and what is not acceptable, creating personal rules that substitute for the general property concepts they cannot seem to internalize.
[Kael’s note]: Lock up anything you truly cannot afford to lose. Everything else, consider it potential payment for services rendered or future services you might need. I’ve learned to price my inventory with the assumption that five to ten percent will be “acquired” by Fae, and I factor that into my margins. Yes, it’s annoying. Yes, it’s theft by human standards. But getting angry about it is like getting angry at rain for being wet. It’s just part of the reality of living where Fae are present. Adapt or stay somewhere they aren’t.
I find myself in the absurd position of needing to argue, in a scholarly document intended for academic consumption, that the Fae are sapient beings deserving of recognition as persons rather than animals or magical constructs to be exploited. The fact that this argument is necessary speaks to how effectively prejudice can blind otherwise intelligent people to evidence that contradicts their preconceptions.
The case against Fae sapience, as I have encountered it in conversations with other scholars and in published literature, rests on several supposedly disqualifying characteristics. They do not build civilizations, create art, or develop technology. They speak in compulsory rhyme, suggesting linguistic limitation. They steal compulsively, suggesting moral deficiency or lack of self-control. They appear to lack long-term planning and complex social organization. They sometimes behave in ways that seem almost childlike in their simplicity. Therefore, the argument goes, they cannot be considered truly sapient in the way humans are sapient, and they should be classified as clever animals or perhaps as magical phenomena that mimic intelligence without truly possessing it.
This argument is wrong in ways that range from simple factual error to profound philosophical confusion. I will address each supposed disqualification in turn, and by the end I hope to have demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt that Fae possess sapience, self-awareness, complex cognition, moral reasoning, and all other markers of personhood that matter.
First, regarding the supposed lack of civilization and culture. It is true that Fae do not build cities, do not create lasting monuments, do not accumulate technological knowledge across generations. However, these are not prerequisites for sapience but rather are specific strategies that some sapient species employ to organize themselves. The lack of these strategies does not indicate lack of intelligence any more than a human who chooses minimalism and transient lifestyle indicates stupidity.
More relevantly, Fae do possess culture. They have shared values, particularly around Exchange and the importance of maintaining it. They have social behaviors and customs, including the practice of leaving compensation for things taken. They have knowledge transmission, teaching younger or newly-Named Fae about safe interactions with humans and about the dangers they must navigate. They have individual names and social relationships, forming bonds with each other and with humans that persist over time. They have preferences, personalities, individual quirks that make them recognizable as distinct persons rather than interchangeable instances of a type.
The culture is not human culture, certainly. It is adapted to beings who exist partially outside narrative reality, who sustain themselves on Exchange rather than food, who can be unmade if forgotten. But it is culture nonetheless, and dismissing it as insufficient simply because it looks different from human culture is pure chauvinism.
Second, regarding the compulsory rhyme. Yes, Fae cannot speak unrhymed prose. This is a constraint on their linguistic output. However, constraint does not equal limitation in the sense of cognitive capacity. A human with locked-in syndrome, able to communicate only through eye blinks, is not thereby rendered non-sapient. A human who speaks only one language is not less intelligent than a polyglot, merely more constrained in their communicative options. The Fae rhyme requirement is a formal constraint on expression, not a limitation on thought.
Moreover, Fae demonstrate within that constraint remarkable linguistic sophistication. Well-fed Fae produce poetry that would shame many human poets, deploying complex rhyme schemes, internal rhyme, wordplay, and semantic layers. They understand abstract concepts, grasp metaphor, employ irony and humor. When Mirror-in-the-Mere told me that “the void is a mother who cannot hold her children, so we slip through her fingers into the world and pray we find someone to give us shape before we dissipate into nothing,” she was expressing sophisticated understanding of her own condition using figurative language that required complex cognition to generate and to understand.
The rhyme does not limit their thought. It merely constrains how they express that thought. This is a disadvantage in some contexts, certainly, but it no more disqualifies them from personhood than any other disability would disqualify a human.
Third, regarding the stealing. This is not moral deficiency but rather conceptual difference in how property is understood. I have addressed this extensively in the previous section. The relevant point here is that Fae understand reciprocity, understand fairness, understand obligation and debt. They have moral reasoning, just applied within a different framework of property concepts. When they take something and leave compensation, they are attempting to maintain balance, to ensure Exchange remains fair. They are not stealing in the sense of taking without regard for others’ interests; they are taking while trying to ensure fairness according to their understanding of what fairness requires.
This is sophisticated moral thinking, not absence of morality. The fact that it produces outcomes that upset humans does not make it less sophisticated, merely incompatible with human expectations.
Fourth, regarding long-term planning. Fae absolutely engage in long-term thinking when their needs require it. I have documented Fae maintaining relationships over decades, carefully cultivating Exchange partnerships that provide sustained feeding. I have observed Fae planning complex operations, such as construction projects or salvage expeditions, requiring coordination of resources and timing over extended periods. I have spoken with Fae who save unusual objects for years because they anticipate future Exchange opportunities where such objects might be valued.
What Fae generally do not do is build toward distant abstract goals in the way humans often do. They do not save money for retirement because they do not retire in the human sense. They do not build permanent homes because they prefer mobility. They do not create multi-generational projects because they lack the social organization to maintain such continuity. But this reflects their nature as beings who can dissolve if forgotten, who must maintain constant motion and Exchange to persist. It is adaptation to their circumstances, not cognitive limitation.
Fifth, regarding the supposedly childlike behavior. Some Fae do behave in ways that strike humans as childlike: they are playful, easily distracted, fascinated by novel objects, prone to what seems like impulsive decision-making. However, other Fae demonstrate gravitas, careful deliberation, complex strategic thinking. The variation between individuals is enormous, likely larger than the variation between individual humans.
Moreover, even the most playful Fae demonstrate, when observed carefully, sophisticated understanding of social dynamics and skilled manipulation of Exchange relationships. The playfulness is often strategic, a way of putting humans at ease or of creating opportunities for favorable Exchange. I watched Thistle-Thorn play a counting game with a merchant’s child for half an hour, seemingly just enjoying himself, and then casually mention to the merchant that he had noticed structural problems in the building’s foundations that should be addressed before they became dangerous. The merchant, having seen Thistle-Thorn be gentle and patient with his child, trusted this advice and hired him to perform repairs. The playfulness was building social capital for later Exchange. This is not childlike behavior; this is sophisticated social intelligence.
The strongest evidence for Fae sapience is simply observing them carefully over time and listening to what they say. They discuss their own experiences, reflect on their nature, express concerns about their future. They form friendships, they experience loyalty and betrayal, they remember kindnesses and grudges. They learn from experience, modify their behavior based on outcomes, develop skills through practice. They create and appreciate humor. They experience emotions including joy, fear, anger, sadness, hope.
When Mirror-in-the-Mere told me that she was afraid of dissolving, that she worked constantly to maintain Exchange relationships because the alternative was ceasing to exist, she was expressing self-aware mortality anxiety. When Thistle-Thorn described his relief at finding steady Exchange work, comparing his current security to the desperate early period after he was Named when he did not understand how to persist in narrative space, he was demonstrating autobiographical memory and reflective capacity. When Long-Jack laughed at his own clumsiness after falling into water, showing awareness that his supposed grace had failed him in that moment, he was exhibiting self-monitoring and humor at his own expense.
These are markers of personhood. These are the characteristics that make beings count morally, that give them rights, that obligate us to treat them as ends in themselves rather than mere means to our purposes. The Fae possess these characteristics as clearly as humans do, perhaps more clearly than some humans given the range of human cognitive variation.
The argument that Fae are not sapient is not merely wrong but is actively harmful, as it provides justification for exploiting, abusing, or killing beings who are persons in every meaningful sense. I reject this argument utterly, and I hope that this document will contribute to its final abandonment in favor of recognition that the Fae, however strange, however alien, however difficult to relate to, are people deserving of the moral consideration that personhood requires.
[Kael’s note]: Valerius is right but he’s being too polite about it. Anyone who actually spends time with Fae and still claims they’re not people is either stupid or deliberately blind because acknowledging Fae personhood would be inconvenient for their purposes. I’ve had Fae friends, Fae business partners, Fae acquaintances who saved my life or helped my family. They’re as much people as humans are, just people who look wrong and talk funny and need things we don’t need. That’s not grounds for denying their personhood, that’s just grounds for treating them as foreign people rather than as objects or animals. It’s not complicated.
Beyond the general case for sapience, specific documented incidents demonstrate cognitive capabilities that should put to rest any remaining doubt about Fae intelligence.
Mathematical reasoning: I left a geometric proof incomplete on my desk, a problem I had been working on for several days concerning spatial relationships in the arcology’s deep levels. When I returned to my study, I found the proof completed in chalk on my wall, with a caricature of me drawn below it that was quite unflattering but also quite accurate in its rendering of my habitual expression of scholarly concentration. The proof was correct, employing a solution approach I had not considered but which was more elegant than the method I had been attempting. The Fae who completed it, likely Thistle-Thorn though he neither confirmed nor denied this when asked, demonstrated not only ability to understand abstract mathematical relationships but also ability to find creative solutions and, through the caricature, to observe and capture essential characteristics of individual humans.
Strategic planning: I observed a Fae named Compass coordinating a salvage operation in the buried levels of Salvação. The operation required timing a team’s entry to a dangerous zone to coincide with a predictable lull in radiation levels, positioning backup support at strategic locations in case rescue was needed, arranging for specific equipment to be available at specific times, and maintaining communication across teams working in different areas. Compass managed this coordination through a combination of direct instruction and careful delegation, demonstrating ability to model the operation in advance, anticipate problems, and adapt the plan when circumstances changed. This required holding multiple complex variables in working memory, projecting future states based on current actions, and making real-time decisions based on partial information. These are executive functions requiring sophisticated prefrontal cognitive capacity.
Social modeling: I watched Mirror-in-the-Mere navigate a dispute between two merchants who had incompatible claims on a salvaged artifact. She interviewed both parties, assessed their actual needs versus their stated positions, identified a solution that gave each party what they truly wanted while requiring both to compromise on face-saving concerns, and negotiated acceptance of this solution through appeals to their self-interest and their reputations. This required theory of mind (understanding what each party wanted and why), social intelligence (knowing how to approach each party effectively), and strategic thinking (structuring the solution to be acceptable to both). The dispute was resolved to both parties’ satisfaction, and Mirror received payment from both for her mediation services. This was masterful conflict resolution demonstrating interpersonal intelligence at high level.
Long-term memory and learning: Multiple Fae I interviewed demonstrated detailed autobiographical memory extending back decades or even centuries. They recalled specific events, specific people, specific conversations with clarity that allowed for verification against written records where such records existed. They learned from experience, modifying their behavior based on past outcomes. Thistle-Thorn told me about a contract he had negotiated poorly forty years prior, resulting in much work for little compensation, and described how he had changed his approach to contract negotiation based on that experience. This demonstrated not only long-term memory but also reflective capacity and adaptive learning.
Creative problem-solving: I presented several Fae with puzzle boxes, mechanical devices requiring manipulation of several interlocking components to open. The Fae approached these devices with interest and, after examination and experimentation, successfully opened them, sometimes faster than humans attempting the same puzzles. What struck me was not merely that they could solve the puzzles but that they approached them systematically, testing hypotheses about how the mechanisms worked, discarding approaches that failed, and building on partial successes to reach full solutions. This is structured problem-solving, not trial-and-error stumbling toward success.
Linguistic creativity: Within the constraints of rhyme, Fae demonstrate remarkable verbal flexibility. They create neologisms when existing words do not capture what they wish to express. They employ sophisticated rhetoric to persuade or manipulate. They use language playfully, creating puns and double meanings. One Fae, when I asked how he had learned Common so well, said: “Words are food for those who feed on exchange, and to speak well is to eat well, so I chew language carefully, swallow meanings whole, digest the grammar until it becomes part of my soul.” The metaphorical mapping there (language as food, learning as consumption and digestion, skill as bodily incorporation) is complex and creative.
These are not isolated examples but representative samples from extensive documentation. The Fae consistently demonstrate cognitive capabilities that match or exceed human capacity in domains ranging from mathematical reasoning to social intelligence to creative expression. The claim that they are not intelligent is simply unsupportable by evidence.
[Silt-in-River’s note]: The human scholar proves what should need no proof. The Masked Folk think, feel, choose, suffer, hope, fear, love after their fashion. They are people. Strange people, hungry people, people who exist at the edge of being and must constantly work to remain coherent, but people nonetheless. Those who deny this do so not from honest assessment but from desire to use them without moral cost. Recognize them as people and suddenly you must consider whether you are treating them fairly, whether the Exchange is balanced, whether your actions toward them are ethical. Deny their personhood and you need not trouble yourself with such questions. The scholar demonstrates that denial is intellectually dishonest. This should matter to those who claim to value truth, though I suspect it will not matter enough to change many minds hardened by self-interest.
I turn now from philosophical questions to practical guidance, for those who must interact with Fae in professional or personal contexts need reliable information about how to do so safely and effectively. The contracting of Fae services is simultaneously simpler and more complex than contracting with human service providers, and the difference lies in understanding exactly what a Fae contract is and how it functions.
When a Fae accepts a contract, they become ontologically bound to fulfill their end of the agreement. This is not a matter of honor, reputation, or legal obligation in the human sense. The contract becomes part of their being, a pattern they must complete to maintain their coherence. Failure to fulfill a contract does not merely breach social trust; it threatens their existence as coherent beings. This makes them extraordinarily reliable contractors once terms are agreed, but it also makes the process of establishing those terms absolutely critical.
The binding occurs through formal acceptance. A Fae must explicitly agree to the terms for the ontological constraint to engage. The agreement can be verbal or written, but it must be clear and complete. Ambiguity in terms does not prevent binding, but it means the Fae will fulfill the contract according to their interpretation of ambiguous terms, which may differ substantially from the client’s interpretation. This is the source of most contract disputes and most horror stories about Fae who fulfilled contracts in technically correct but practically disastrous ways.
The classic cautionary tale, repeated in every community where Fae are common, involves the contract to “watch my back.” A merchant hired a Fae to “watch his back” while he slept in dangerous territory. The Fae stood behind him for eight hours, literally watching his back, staring at his spine. When bandits attacked from the front, the Fae did nothing, as the contract specified watching the back and the threat came from the front. When the merchant complained, the Fae responded: “I watched your back without a slack, the front was never in the contract.”
This story is likely apocryphal in its specific details, but it captures a real danger: Fae will fulfill exactly what was said, not what was meant. The solution is not to avoid Fae contracts but rather to be extraordinarily precise in specifying terms.
The essential components of a safe Fae contract are:
Clear statement of the task: What specifically must be done. Avoid vague verbs like “help” or “assist.” Specify concrete actions and observable outcomes. Instead of “protect me,” say “prevent physical harm to my person from hostile human or animal actors, using non-lethal force when possible and lethal force when necessary to preserve my life, until sunrise tomorrow or until I release you from this contract, whichever comes first.”
Definition of completion: When is the task finished? Provide specific endpoint, whether temporal (“until three days have passed”), conditional (“until the cargo is delivered to Threshold”), or achieved (“until the structure is repaired to stability sufficient for safe habitation”). Open-ended contracts (“forever,” “always,” “until the task is complete” without defining completion) create problems, as Fae live much longer than humans and may be bound to contracts that outlast the original client.
Specification of methods: If there are constraints on how the task should be accomplished, state them explicitly. “Drive the bandits away from this valley through intimidation, without killing them” provides crucial specification that “drive the bandits away” lacks. If you have no preference on methods, you can state this, but understand that the Fae will choose whatever approach seems most efficient to them regardless of your probable preferences.
Compensation terms: What will be paid, when, in what form. Be specific. “Forty silver coins, delivered upon completion of the task to your satisfaction, with satisfaction determined by inspection showing that the structure stands without collapse for minimum of three days after repairs are complete.” This removes ambiguity about amount, timing, and what constitutes successful completion.
Release conditions: Under what circumstances can the contract be terminated before completion? This is particularly important for ongoing contracts. “Either party may terminate with three days notice for any reason” provides flexibility. “This contract continues until the client’s death” creates potential for eternal binding if the client proves to be long-lived.
These specifications may seem excessive for simple tasks, but they prevent the catastrophic misunderstandings that result from ambiguity. Yes, negotiating such detailed contracts takes time. Yes, it can feel pedantic. But the alternative is the back-watching incident and its many variations.
Professional contract negotiators, particularly those in regions where Fae are common, have developed standard contract templates for common services. These templates have been refined over generations, with problematic language removed and necessary specifics added based on historical disputes. Using these templates dramatically reduces the risk of adverse outcomes.
I was provided access to the Hrafnstad standard contracts by the village elders, and I have reproduced one here as an example:
Standard Guard Contract (Hrafnstad Form 3-A)
“The Fae [Name] agrees to provide watch services for [Client Name] for the period beginning [date/time] and ending [date/time]. Watch services are defined as: maintaining vigilance for threats to the client’s person or property; alerting the client to any observed threats by voice or gesture; taking action to prevent harm if the client is unable to act on the alert, with such action to be proportionate to the threat and to prioritize client survival over all other considerations; accompanying the client during travel or remaining at specified location during the contract period.
“Threats are defined as: human or animal actors showing hostile intent through weapon display, aggressive approach, or stated intention to cause harm; environmental hazards including fire, flood, structural collapse, or dangerous animals; magical attacks or entities that pose immediate danger.
“The Fae is not required to: anticipate unstated threats; protect property beyond what is immediately on the client’s person if protecting that property would require abandoning direct protection of the client; engage threats that exceed the Fae’s capacity to address while maintaining client safety.
“Compensation for this service is [amount and form], to be provided at the end of each day’s watch or upon contract completion, at the Fae’s preference. The client may terminate this contract at any time by providing verbal notice and immediate payment for services rendered to the point of termination. The Fae may terminate this contract if the client fails to pay as agreed or if the client deliberately places the Fae in danger beyond what was reasonably anticipated at contract signing.
“Agreed this [date] by [Client Name] and [Fae Name], witnessed by [Witness Name].”
This contract is verbose, but it addresses the major sources of ambiguity that lead to problems. The services are defined clearly. The limitations are specified. The compensation and termination terms are established. A client using this form can reasonably expect that the Fae will do what the client wants rather than some technically correct but practically useless interpretation.
The binding nature of the contract also means that once engaged, the Fae becomes remarkably capable at the specified task. Whatever skills or abilities they need to fulfill the contract, they will manifest, sometimes seemingly from nowhere. A Fae who contracts to build a structure will demonstrate carpentry skills even if they have never done carpentry before. A Fae who contracts to translate will acquire sudden fluency in the relevant languages. A Fae who contracts to teach will develop pedagogical ability that makes them effective instructors.
This is not magic in the normal sense, though it may involve magical capability. It is the ontological binding manifesting as competence. The Fae becomes what they need to be to fulfill the contract. They are, for the duration of the binding, perfect instruments of the specified task. This makes them extraordinarily valuable contractors, as you can employ them for complex or difficult tasks with confidence that they will find a way to succeed.
The limitation is that this competence ends when the contract ends. A Fae who builds a structure during a contract is not necessarily a skilled carpenter outside that contract. The skills are available as needed to fulfill the binding, but they do not persist as permanent capabilities unless the Fae continues to practice them.
[Kael’s note]: Get everything in writing if possible. Verbal contracts are binding for Fae, yes, but they’re harder to prove if disputes arise. Have a witness if you can. Use standard forms when they’re available rather than trying to craft your own contracts from scratch. Consult with someone experienced in Fae contracting before agreeing to unusual terms. And critically: once the contract is signed, hold up your end absolutely. Don’t try to renegotiate midstream, don’t withhold payment because you’re unsatisfied with some minor aspect that wasn’t specified, don’t do anything that could be interpreted as breach. Fae who feel cheated remember, and they talk to each other, and you will find yourself unable to contract with any Fae in the region if you get a reputation for unfair dealing.
What Fae will accept as payment varies wildly and unpredictably, creating both opportunities and complications for those seeking their services. I have devoted considerable effort to understanding what determines Fae valuation of different payment forms, and I have reached the unsatisfying conclusion that valuation is largely individual and contextual rather than following universal rules.
The simplest payments are standard currency. Fae understand that coins can be exchanged for goods and services, creating future Exchange opportunities, so they will generally accept payment in silver or gold. However, they do not value currency the way humans do. A Fae does not need to accumulate wealth for security or status. They need only enough coin to facilitate future Exchange when they need it. This means they may accept what seems to humans like underpayment for valuable services, simply because they do not need large amounts of currency and smaller amounts suffice for their purposes.
Food is almost always acceptable payment despite providing no nutritional value to Fae. They enjoy eating and they can use food to trade with humans, so food serves as universal medium. The value of food to Fae does not correlate closely with economic value. A simple meal of bread and cheese might be sufficient payment for a day’s work, while elaborate feast provides no proportionally greater satisfaction. This creates opportunities for economical contracting: offer good food that you can obtain cheaply, and many Fae will accept this as full payment for services that would cost significantly more if hiring human workers.
Objects of personal or artistic value often interest Fae more than economically valuable objects. A Fae might refuse ten gold coins but accept a carved wooden figure that cost one silver to purchase. The determining factor appears to be whether the object pleases them aesthetically or holds some quality they find appealing. What pleases a Fae is not reliably predictable from human aesthetic preferences. Shiny objects often interest them, but not always. Carved wood sometimes attracts them, but sometimes they show no interest. I have observed Fae accept payment in the form of: interesting rocks, particularly those with unusual colors or crystalline structures; bells or chimes that produce pleasing sounds; fabric with intricate patterns; mirrors or other reflective surfaces; hand-drawn pictures, even crudely executed ones; written poetry, which they cannot necessarily read but which they seem to value for the rhythm of the lines.
The abstract payments, which I discussed earlier, are the most complex category. Some Fae will accept memories, sensations, or other non-material things as payment. The negotiation of such payments requires careful consideration, as the client is giving up something that may be more valuable than they initially realize. I recommend extreme caution with abstract payments and advise consulting with someone experienced in such negotiations before agreeing to these terms.
The question of what constitutes fair Exchange is answered differently by different Fae. Some seem to have well-developed sense of equivalence and will negotiate carefully to ensure both parties receive equal value. Others seem almost indifferent to value matching, accepting payment that seems inadequate or demanding payment that seems excessive by human standards. The variation is large enough that I cannot provide reliable rules beyond: negotiate clearly, ensure both parties are satisfied before finalizing agreement, and recognize that what seems fair to you may not be what seems fair to the Fae and vice versa.
The Fae themselves sometimes express frustration with human obsession with precise value matching. Thistle-Thorn told me: “You count your coins and weigh your goods and measure everything against everything else, trying to ensure no one ever gives too much or gets too little. We care about the exchange itself, the flow, the rhythm of giving and receiving. If I work for you and you feed me well and we part as friends, the exchange was good regardless of whether the economic value matched to your satisfaction. You humans miss the point, focusing on the numbers while ignoring whether the exchange felt right, whether it created connection rather than just transaction.” I have paraphrased his speech here so the reader does not have to parse through complex poetic metaphor.
This philosophical difference means that Fae may accept payment that seems inadequate to humans simply because they experienced the Exchange as satisfying, or they may demand payment that seems excessive because the Exchange did not satisfy them even though economic value was present. Understanding this requires abandoning purely economic frameworks and considering the qualitative aspects of the transaction.
[Kael’s note]: When negotiating payment, I generally start with an offer of standard currency at normal market rates for the service, then adjust based on the Fae’s response. If they seem uninterested in coin, I’ll offer food or interesting objects. If they request something abstract, I’ll ask for clear specification of what exactly they want and what the consequences will be. I’ve paid Fae in memories twice, both times for services I could not have obtained any other way, and both times I’ve felt the loss was worth the gain. One memory was of a childhood embarrassment that I had no desire to continue carrying with me. The other was of a mundane afternoon that held no particular significance. Neither loss has caused me problems, though I am aware that I could not make such trades frequently without risking losing too much of myself. Use abstract payment as last resort, but recognize that sometimes it’s the only way to secure services you genuinely need.
In regions where Fae are common, communities must make decisions about how to integrate these beings into social and economic structures. The approaches vary dramatically, and examining this variation provides insight into both human and Fae nature.
In the United Lanx Imperium, particularly in the northern territories where proximity to the Lacuna makes Fae encounters frequent, integration has advanced to the point where Fae are largely treated as residents with most of the same rights and responsibilities as citizen Lanxes. They are not citizens in formal legal sense, as citizenship requires things that Fae cannot provide (stable residence, property ownership, participation in civic ceremonies), but they are recognized as persons with legal standing. They can own contracts, sue for breach, testify in legal proceedings, and own personal property. They cannot vote or hold office, but neither can slaves or non-citizen humans, so this is not unique disability.
The practical result in places like Hrafnstad is that Fae move through society as somewhat exotic but generally accepted community members. Shops serve them, though they must pay like anyone else. Taverns welcome them, though some owners charge them extra for the entertainment value their presence provides to other customers. They can join guilds if they can demonstrate relevant skills, though few do as guild membership requires long-term commitments that many Fae find uncomfortable. They appear in public spaces, attend festivals, participate in markets, and generally live alongside the other residents without excessive friction.
This integration is not perfect. Prejudice exists, with some Lanxes viewing Fae with suspicion or distaste. Violence against Fae is rare but not unknown, usually stemming from misunderstandings or from Fae encountering individuals who view them as monsters rather than people. Theft remains a chronic source of friction, with Fae taking things and leaving compensation that owners do not always find adequate. But the system works well enough that the northern territories have achieved stable coexistence that benefits both populations.
The human Confederation presents a stark contrast. There, Fae are viewed as dangerous monsters to be avoided or killed. Religious teaching describes them as demons or as corrupted creatures who should be destroyed as a matter of piety. Cultural narratives depict them as tricksters or threats. Legal codes in some regions classify them as non-persons, meaning killing a Fae is not murder and stealing from a Fae is not theft.
The result is that few Fae enter Confederation territory, and those who do conceal their nature when possible or stay in remote areas away from human settlements. The humans lose access to valuable services, while the Fae are denied large swathes of territory where they could otherwise thrive. When encounters do occur, they are often violent, with humans attacking Fae on sight and Fae defending themselves or fleeing. This creates a self-reinforcing cycle: humans believe Fae are dangerous because every encounter is hostile, but the encounters are hostile because humans attack first.
I asked multiple Fae who had traveled in Confederation territories about their experiences, and the accounts were uniformly negative. Mirror-in-the-Mere told me: “The southern humans see the mask and the claws and they do not pause to wonder if a person lives behind them. They grab weapons or run in terror, and we must flee or fight, and either option confirms their belief that we are monsters. I avoid their lands now, though I remember when I could trade there, before their priests convinced them that anything from the void must be destroyed rather than welcomed.”
The Mountain Lanxes, as noted by Silt-in-River throughout this document, take a middle approach that reflects their shamanic worldview. They recognize Fae as persons but as persons who are fundamentally different from embodied beings, existing at the boundary between reality and void. They treat Fae with cautious respect, engaging in careful Exchange but maintaining distance, neither fully integrating them nor driving them away.
The Mountain Lanx relationship with Fae often involves shamanic mediation. When a community needs Fae services, a shaman typically conducts the negotiation, as shamans are trained to navigate liminal spaces and beings. The shaman ensures the contract is properly structured, that both parties understand the terms, and that the Exchange remains balanced. This reduces misunderstandings and creates safer interactions, though it also means that Fae have less direct access to Mountain Lanx communities than to the more open northern territories.
The Najari Free Cities, which I visited after my time in the northern territories, have perhaps the most purely transactional relationship with Fae. They are welcomed as trading partners, their services are valued, they are protected by contract law, and they are otherwise left alone to do as they wish as long as they do not disrupt commerce or public order. The Najari understand Exchange in ways that align well with Fae nature, and the mutual understanding creates relatively friction-free interactions. However, the relationship is emotionally cold, lacking the warmth of integration in the northern territories while avoiding the hostility of the Confederation.
The variation in approaches demonstrates that Fae integration is possible and that the benefits of integration are substantial. Communities that accept Fae gain access to reliable services, often at reasonable cost. They gain trading partners and sources of information, as Fae travel widely and hear much. They gain defenders, as Fae who have established Exchange relationships will protect those relationships. The northern territories are safer and more prosperous for their acceptance of Fae, while the Confederation isolates itself from potential allies and creates unnecessary enemies through its hostility.
[Silt-in-River’s note]: The human scholar judges the Confederation harshly, and rightly so. To kill a person simply because they look strange or emerged from the void is barbarism dressed as piety. But I would add that full integration, as practiced in some northern territories, also carries risks. The Fae are not humans in masks. They are void-things given shape, sustained by Exchange, always one famine away from dissolution or ferality. To forget this, to treat them as simply another kind of person, is to court danger. They must be acknowledged as people but also acknowledged as dangerous people, beings who can become threats if their needs are not met. The middle path, the one my people walk, respects both their personhood and their peril. This is not perfect, but it is honest about the reality of what they are and what we risk when we allow them near.
The question of how Fae propagate, if they do at all, is one that has troubled me throughout this research. Unlike other sapient beings, Fae do not appear to reproduce in any biological sense. They do not bear young, they do not lay eggs, they do not bud or divide. Yet their population is not static; new Fae appear regularly, and older Fae sometimes cease to exist, suggesting some kind of population dynamics that must be understood.
The process, as I have pieced it together from fragments of information and occasional direct testimony from Fae willing to discuss it, works approximately as follows:
New Fae emerge from the Lacuna continuously. Entities cross the Boundary, carrying with them the raw hunger and potential that characterizes void-things, and if they are Named before they dissipate, they compile into beings capable of existing in narrative space. The Naming can be deliberate, performed by someone who recognizes that the entity needs a Name, or it can be accidental, occurring when someone perceives the entity and calls it something, creating a label that sticks and becomes identity.
The entity does not fully understand what is happening. From their later testimony, the transition from void to Named being is traumatic and confusing, accompanied by sudden imposition of constraints (the mask, the rhyme, the bodily form) and equally sudden ability to interact with the world in comprehensible ways. They emerge hungry, desperate, and confused, barely understanding what they are or what they need.
If they are fortunate, they encounter someone who understands what has happened and can teach them the basics of surviving in narrative space: that they must maintain Exchange to persist, that they must learn to speak in rhyme or cease to be coherent, that they should find Name-users to remember them. If they are unlucky, they stumble through those early days without guidance, and many fail to adapt and dissolve back into incoherence within weeks or months of emerging.
This means that Fae population is sustained not through biological reproduction but through continuous emergence from the Lacuna. The population reflects the rate of emergence versus the rate of dissolution. In regions where Fae are well-fed and well-integrated, dissolution rates are low and the population grows slowly over time. In regions where Fae face hostility or where Exchange opportunities are scarce, dissolution rates are high and population declines despite continued emergence.
The Fae themselves do not reproduce with each other in any sense. I have observed Fae who maintain long-term relationships that might be analogous to friendship or partnership, but I have never observed or heard reliable report of anything that could be described as sexual or romantic behavior between Fae. They seem to lack such drives entirely, or perhaps they experience attraction in forms so alien that I cannot recognize them.
However, Fae can and occasionally do interbreed with other sapient species, producing offspring that are neither Fae nor fully the other parent species but something in between. These hybrids are called Changelings, and they present fascinating case studies in what aspects of Fae nature are inherent versus emergent.
A Changeling is the offspring of a Fae and a human, Lanx, or other sapient being. The biological mechanics of how this is possible when Fae do not appear to have functional reproductive organs is not clear to me, and the Fae I asked about it provided unhelpful responses along the lines of “forms are flexible when Exchange of that kind occurs” or “the void knows how to create children even if we don’t know how we do it.”
What is clear is that Changelings are real, not merely mythical, and that they possess a unique combination of traits from both parent lineages. I have interviewed seven Changelings over the course of this research, and I have reviewed medical and social documentation for dozens more. The patterns are consistent.
Physically, a Changeling appears approximately ninety-five percent like the non-Fae parent. If a human and a Fae produce a child, that child will have human body structure, human skin, human proportions. If a Lanx and a Fae produce a child, the child will be recognizably Lanx with the appropriate species characteristics. The Fae parent’s influence manifests primarily in subtle ways: slightly elongated proportions, sharper than average teeth, a quality of movement that is almost but not quite normal for the species.
The one universal tell is the eyes. Under direct light, a Changeling’s pupils reflect garnet-red, identical to the luminescence behind a Fae mask. This reflection is visible only under specific conditions—bright light shining directly into the eye—and can be concealed through various means, but it is always present. This is the reliable marker that identifies Changelings, and it cannot be removed or altered by any means I have been able to discover.
The psychological traits are more significant than the physical ones. Changelings possess an obsessive need for transactional balance that appears to be inherited from the Fae parent. They cannot comfortably accept gifts without immediate equivalent repayment. They cannot maintain debts without experiencing physical discomfort described as “itching behind the eyes” or “a hook pulling at my chest.” They feel compelled to keep Exchange balanced in all their relationships, tracking who owes what to whom with precision that seems excessive to most humans but which is experienced by Changelings as simple clarity about relationship states.
This compulsion makes Changelings extraordinarily fair in their dealings. A Changeling merchant will never cheat a customer, because creating imbalanced Exchange causes them genuine distress. A Changeling judge will weigh evidence with scrupulous attention to all sides, because they need the judgment to be balanced. A Changeling accountant will be meticulous beyond what is strictly necessary, because incomplete or inaccurate accounting creates the sensation of unbalanced Exchange.
These traits make Changelings valuable in specific roles. They are employed as judges, as arbitrators, as accountants, as any position where absolute fairness and inability to be bribed are valued. They are also employed as negotiators, particularly in complex multi-party agreements, because they can perceive and understand the Exchange needs of all parties in ways that others cannot.
The social integration of Changelings varies by culture. In regions where Fae are accepted, Changelings are generally accepted as well, treated as people who have inherited useful traits from an unusual parent. In regions where Fae face hostility, Changelings face discrimination, viewed as tainted or dangerous simply for their parentage. The Confederation is particularly hostile, with some religious sects teaching that Changelings should be killed as abominations.
The Changelings I interviewed expressed a range of feelings about their condition. Some appreciated their inherited traits, finding that the compulsion toward balance made their lives clearer and their relationships more honest. Others resented the compulsion, feeling that they could not be spontaneously generous or build the kind of unequal relationships that normal people could maintain. Most occupied a middle position, accepting that they were different while neither celebrating nor mourning the difference.
Red-Eye Mara, a Changeling accountant I interviewed extensively in Threshold, provided what I consider the most articulate description of the Changeling experience:
“People think we’re cold. That we don’t feel generosity or gratitude. That’s not true. I feel those things. But I also feel the weight of unbalanced exchange like a physical burden. When someone gives me something, it’s not that I don’t appreciate it. It’s that until I’ve given something back of equivalent value, I can’t rest. The debt sits on me like a stone. I’ll wake up at night thinking about it.
“My mother—my human mother—used to cry when I was little because she thought I didn’t want her gifts. I wanted them desperately. But I needed to earn them. Now she understands. She’ll give me a cake for my birthday, and I’ll give her preserved fruit from my garden. We exchange. We’re balanced. We’re happy.
“The Fae father? Never met him. Don’t care to. But I understand why he did what he did—seeking Exchange is as natural to me as breathing. I just got lucky that I can breathe and do other things. From what I hear, they can’t.”
The question of whether Changelings are more human or more Fae is not meaningfully answerable. They are their own thing, a hybrid that takes from both parent lineages but is reducible to neither. They age and die like their non-Fae parent. They are not bound to rhyme like Fae. They do not need Exchange to survive, though they need it for psychological comfort in ways that go beyond normal human preferences.
The Fae attitude toward their Changeling offspring is generally indifferent. The Fae view reproduction as an Exchange like any other: one party sought that kind of interaction, the other party provided it, a child resulted, the transaction is complete. There is no expectation of ongoing relationship or parental responsibility. Some Fae do maintain contact with their Changeling children, apparently finding them interesting or useful as intermediaries with non-Fae society, but this is exception rather than rule.
[Kael’s note]: I knew a Changeling named Senna who worked as a contract mediator in Threshold. Best in the business at resolving disputes because she could see both sides clearly and could structure agreements that satisfied everyone’s need for balance. She told me once that being a Changeling was like having a superpower that was also a disability: it made her extraordinarily good at certain things while making other things nearly impossible. She couldn’t maintain friendships that weren’t transactionally balanced, which meant most casual human friendships were unavailable to her. But she had deep, lasting relationships with people who understood her needs and structured their interactions accordingly. She seemed happy enough with her life, though she admitted she sometimes wondered what it would be like to just accept a birthday gift without immediately calculating what she owed in return.
Fae do not age in the way humans or Lanxes do. Their bodies do not deteriorate with time, they do not develop diseases of senescence, they show no signs of biological clock. I have met Fae who claim to be centuries old, and they appear no different from Fae who were Named mere months ago. This suggests that biological aging does not apply to them, or at least applies so slowly as to be undetectable over human-scale time periods.
However, Fae can and do die. They die from violence, suffering wounds that even their resilient bodies cannot survive. They die from starvation, dissolving into incoherence when they cannot maintain sufficient Exchange. They die from magical attacks or from exposure to void-iron or other materials that disrupt their ontological coherence. And they die from being forgotten, gradually fading when no one remembers their Name.
The death from violence is straightforward enough. A Fae can be killed by conventional means—sword, arrow, sufficient blunt trauma to critical areas. They are resilient and heal quickly, but they are not invulnerable. A solid strike with void-iron causes them to decompile instantly, their form dissipating as the material disrupts their existence in narrative space. Silver causes them extreme pain and suppurating wounds that heal slowly. Fire can kill them, as their integument is flammable and they can burn like any other organic being.
When a Fae dies from violence, they leave a corpse initially, though the corpse decays unusually. The mask remains intact even after the rest of the body has decomposed, sitting empty long after the flesh has returned to dust. These masks can persist for years or even decades, lying where the Fae fell, unsettling markers of a death that normal beings would not leave.
Starvation death is more disturbing to witness. As a Fae goes without Exchange, they begin to lose coherence. First the rhyme degrades, as I have described. Then their physical form becomes less stable, flickering slightly at the edges as though they are not quite solid. Their movements become more erratic, less coordinated. They begin to forget things, their memories fragmenting as their coherence degrades. In the final stages, they become transparent, visible but insubstantial, and finally they simply cease, fading into nothing like smoke dissipating in wind. No corpse remains. No mask is left behind. They simply are not anymore, as though they never were.
I have witnessed one starvation death, and it haunts me still. The Fae was a transient who had been unable to secure Exchange for what was estimated to be six weeks. I encountered him collapsed in an alley in Threshold’s lower districts. Kael and I attempted to provide food and offer Exchange, but we were too late. The Fae looked at us with those red eyes, now dim and flickering, and managed to say in broken rhyme: “Too late, can’t wait, dissolving into formless state.” Then he simply faded, becoming translucent, then transparent, then gone. The entire process from our arrival to his complete disappearance took perhaps five minutes. Afterward, there was nothing to mark that he had been there except my memory and Kael’s, and the knowledge that we had witnessed someone cease to exist.
The death by forgetting is more gradual and, I suspect, more common than we realize because it happens to Fae who have already become marginal to society. When a Fae’s Name stops being used, when people stop remembering them, they begin to lose the pattern that keeps them coherent. They become less substantial, less noticeable, less able to interact with the world. Eventually they are simply gone, and because no one was remembering them anyway, no one notices their absence.
This creates a terrible dependency: Fae need to be remembered to exist. They need people to use their Names, to acknowledge them, to keep them present in the social world. This is why they seek Exchange relationships, why they linger in communities, why they try to be useful rather than merely surviving on stolen food in isolation. They need to matter to someone, need to be remembered, need to be Named, or they cease.
[Silt-in-River’s note]: The death by forgetting is the true terror of the Masked Folk’s existence. To know that you persist only so long as someone remembers you, that your being is sustained by others’ awareness, that isolation means not merely loneliness but literal dissolution into nothing. This is why they seek us out, why they offer services, why they work so hard to be useful and memorable. They are begging us, in their way, to keep them real through the simple act of remembering they exist. It is a profound vulnerability, and it should generate compassion in any who understand it. They are not parasites seeking to extract from us. They are desperate beings clinging to existence through the only means available to them, hoping that we will remember them long enough for them to matter.
I must address directly the danger that starving Fae pose, for this is not merely academic concern but practical matter of life and death for those who might encounter such beings in their travel or work. A feral Fae is among the most dangerous entities one can encounter, combining human-level intelligence with utter disregard for human welfare and possession of physical capabilities that exceed human norms.
The progression to ferality follows the pattern I have outlined: degradation of rhyme, physical destabilization, memory loss, increasing desperation. At some point in this progression, the Fae crosses a threshold where they are no longer capable of rational thought or meaningful communication. What remains is hunger, pure and absolute, combined with the physical capabilities and rudimentary cunning that allowed them to survive to that point.
A feral Fae does not speak. They make sounds—clicking, hissing, scraping, guttural noises that suggest language without being language. These sounds are disturbing to hear, triggering visceral discomfort that may be instinctive response to something that should be human-shaped but is behaving in decidedly inhuman ways.
A feral Fae moves differently from a coherent one. Where a well-fed Fae moves with fluid grace, a feral Fae moves with predatory intensity, dropping to all fours, tracking movement with the single-minded focus of a hunting animal. They are fast—extremely fast—and they show no hesitation or self-preservation instinct in the way that healthy Fae do. A healthy Fae will retreat from danger. A feral Fae will charge directly at threats if those threats stand between them and potential prey.
The attacks, when they come, are brutal. Feral Fae attempt to force Exchange through violence: “You are the commodity, my satisfaction is the payment” appears to be the logic, though they cannot articulate it in their feral state. They will attempt to grab, to bite, to restrain. The long claws that in healthy Fae are used for climbing and manipulation become weapons. The jaw that in healthy Fae might be used to eat with enjoyment becomes something that bites to wound and to hold.
The intent appears not to be killing, though killing can result. The intent is to force some kind of interaction that might register as Exchange and thereby provide temporary relief from the dissolution that drives them. They want you to respond, to engage, to provide attention and interaction. If the interaction is violent, that is acceptable to them; any interaction is better than the nothing they are experiencing as they fragment.
The proper response to encountering a feral Fae is immediate retreat. Do not attempt to help them. Do not attempt to offer food or Exchange. They are beyond the point where such offers can be processed. Simply leave the area as quickly as possible. If retreat is not possible, then defense becomes necessary, and you should understand that defensive measures must be extreme. A feral Fae will not be deterred by pain or by minor injury. They must be incapacitated completely or killed to stop their attack.
Void-iron is the most effective defense, as it causes instant decompilation on contact. A blade edged with void-iron will end a feral Fae with a single solid strike. Silver is less immediately lethal but causes extreme pain that even a feral Fae will retreat from. Fire works if you can apply it effectively, though this requires opportunity that may not be available in a sudden attack. Conventional weapons can kill or disable a feral Fae eventually, but they require multiple strikes and create opportunity for the Fae to cause harm before being stopped.
The best defense is awareness. A feral Fae has usually lost the ability to maintain their form fully, appearing flickering or translucent. They do not rhyme when they vocalize. They move in the predatory manner I described. If you observe these characteristics in a Fae you encounter, you are looking at a being that has crossed into ferality, and you should leave immediately.
Communities in regions where Fae are common maintain protocols for dealing with feral individuals. In Hrafnstad, the village elders employ specialized hunters equipped with void-iron weapons to track and kill feral Fae before they can harm anyone. This is not done with pleasure or malice but with grim recognition that a feral Fae cannot be saved and cannot be safely left to wander. The killing is considered mercy as much as protection, ending a being’s suffering while preventing harm to others.
I asked one of these hunters, a woman named Tyra who had killed eleven feral Fae over her fifteen years of service, how she reconciled this with the knowledge that Fae are people. She responded: “The person is already gone by the time I encounter them. What remains is hunger and desperation and danger. I’m not killing a person. I’m ending the remains of a person who has already ceased being what they were. It’s sad. But it’s necessary. I do it quickly, and I hope that wherever Fae go when they stop being, they find rest from the hunger that drove them.”
[Kael’s note]: I have encountered feral Fae three times in my life. All three times, I ran. I am not ashamed of this. Fighting a feral Fae is risking serious injury or death for no benefit, as they cannot be reasoned with and cannot be helped. Two of the three times, I reported the sighting to local authorities who handled it. The third time was in remote territory where no authorities existed, and I simply left the area and hoped the Fae would disperse or someone better equipped would handle it. Maybe that was cowardly. But I’m alive and uninjured, and I would make the same choice again. Do not be a hero when you encounter feral Fae. Be practical. Be safe. Leave.
The Fae emerge from the Lacuna, they are sustained by the patterns that narrative reality imposes on them, and one might therefore assume they would avoid the Lacuna, staying as far from the source of their original formless hunger as possible. This assumption would be wrong. Fae are drawn to the Lacuna, particularly when they are weakened or desperate, and this attraction is often fatal.
The mechanism appears to be that as a Fae loses coherence, as they begin to fragment back toward the formless state they emerged from, the Lacuna calls to them. It is described by Fae who have resisted this pull as a feeling of home, of belonging, of rest. The void that created them promises relief from the desperate work of maintaining coherence, promising return to the formless state that does not require constant effort to sustain.
This is a lie, or at least a misunderstanding. The Lacuna is not home in any meaningful sense. It is the source, yes, but returning to it does not mean rest. It means dissolution, cessation, the end of the named individual who chose or was forced to return. A Fae who enters the Lacuna does not survive in any sense that matters. They unmake, dispersing into the formless hunger that might eventually emerge as some other Fae with some other Name, but the individual who entered is simply gone.
Yet the pull is strong, particularly for starving Fae. I have been told by shamans who work near the Lacuna boundary that preventing Fae from walking into the void is a regular part of their duties. They intercept desperate Fae, provide food and Exchange, anchor them back in narrative reality through use of their Name and through insistence that they continue existing as distinct beings. Sometimes this works. Sometimes the Fae is too far gone, and they slip past the shamans and walk into the Lacuna, their forms dissolving as they cross the Boundary, and they are seen no more.
The healthy Fae avoid the Lacuna entirely, staying well away from the boundary. They understand intellectually what it is and what it would do to them. But the pull evidently increases as coherence decreases, creating a feedback loop where starvation leads to Lacuna attraction which leads to dissolution which completes the starvation’s work.
This creates a practical boundary for Fae populations. They cannot thrive near the Lacuna despite originating from it, because the proximity makes them vulnerable to the pull. They must exist at some distance, close enough that newly emerged Fae can reach communities where they might be Named and taught, but far enough that healthy Fae are not constantly resisting the call to return. The northern territories have achieved this balance, with communities located near enough to the boundary to serve as receiving stations for new emergence while far enough to maintain safe distance for established Fae populations.
There are no Fae in the Lacuna itself. They cannot exist there. The void is what they were before Naming, and returning to it means ceasing to be Named beings. Divers report no encounters with Fae in the deep zones, and shamans confirm that Fae simply dissolve upon crossing the Boundary if they are not immediately re-Named by someone on the other side. The Lacuna is absolute death for Fae, yet it calls to them when they are weak, and many answer that call.
[Silt-in-River’s note]: The Lacuna is the promise of rest for those who can no longer bear the work of existing. We should not judge Fae who choose to return, who decide that the constant struggle to maintain coherence has become too much and who seek the formless peace that the void offers. It is not suicide in the way humans understand it, because what they return to is not death but rather the undifferentiated potential they came from. Is it better to dissolve with awareness or to eventually dissolve through starvation without choosing? I do not know. But I honor those Fae who make the choice consciously, who walk into the void with open eyes, preferring their own timing to random chance. And I work to save those who would choose differently if given opportunity, who are called by the void only because they are weak and cannot resist. Both responses are appropriate to different circumstances.
I close this practical section with perhaps the most important question for those who must interact with Fae: can they be trusted? The answer is complex and contextual in ways that cannot be reduced to simple yes or no.
Within the bounds of a formal contract, Fae are absolutely trustworthy. The ontological binding means they will fulfill their end of the agreement exactly as specified. You can rely on them to do what they said they would do, without betrayal or breach. This makes them more trustworthy than humans in purely contractual contexts, as humans can choose to break contracts while Fae literally cannot.
Outside of formal contracts, trust becomes more complicated. Fae will lie to you. They will mislead you. They will tell you things that are technically true but which create false impressions. They will manipulate you if they believe manipulation serves their purposes. They do these things not from malice but from the fundamental transactional nature of their thinking: if lying produces better outcomes for them, why would they not lie?
However, they also value sustained Exchange relationships, and they understand that maintaining such relationships requires some degree of honesty and reliability. A Fae who has worked with you for years will be more honest with you than a Fae you have just met, not from affection but from recognition that the long-term Exchange relationship is valuable and should not be jeopardized through excessive dishonesty that might break the relationship.
The stealing creates constant trust problems. Even Fae who are otherwise reliable and helpful will take your things, leaving compensation that may or may not satisfy you. This makes it difficult to maintain the kind of casual trust that humans build with other humans over time. You cannot simply leave valuable objects around a Fae and expect them to still be there when you return, even if the Fae is your friend and would never harm you. The compulsion to take overrides relationship bonds.
Personal loyalty exists among Fae but manifests differently than human loyalty. A Fae who considers you a valued Exchange partner will protect you, help you, prioritize your needs when making decisions. But they do this because you are valuable to them, because preserving you preserves the Exchange relationship, not from abstract commitment to friendship or duty. If circumstances changed such that you no longer provided valuable Exchange, the loyalty would evaporate.
This may sound cynical, and perhaps it is. But it is also honest. Fae do not pretend their motivations are other than they are. They tell you directly: I help you because you help me, I stay because you feed me, I remember you because you remember me. There is clarity in this, a transactional honesty that some find refreshing compared to human relationships where motivations are often obscured behind social niceties and claims of altruism that may or may not be genuine.
My recommendation regarding trust is: trust Fae within their nature, not against it. Trust that they will fulfill contracts. Trust that they want to maintain Exchange relationships and will act to preserve them. Trust that they will do what benefits them, and structure your interactions so that benefiting you also benefits them. Do not trust them to act from pure selflessness, because they don’t. Do not trust them not to steal, because they will. Do not trust them to prioritize your interests over their survival, because they won’t and shouldn’t.
But also trust that they are people, that they experience their own form of connection and care, that the relationships you build with them are real even if they are more consciously transactional than human friendships typically are. Trust that when a Fae has worked with you for years, protected you, remembered you, there is something more than pure calculation in that history, even if they would describe it in transactional terms because that is the only language they have for relationships.
Thistle-Thorn, who has been my most consistent informant throughout this research, told me near the end of our time together: “You pay me, yes, and that makes our exchange clear and fair and good. But I also choose to help you when you don’t ask, I correct your errors when I notice them, I warn you of dangers because I would be sad if you ceased. Is that transactional? Perhaps. I value you because you value me, and we’ve built something through our exchanges that has become more than the sum of each individual trade. You call that friendship. I call it sustained Exchange relationship. We’re both describing the same thing, just using different words. So yes, trust me. Trust that I want this relationship to continue, and I will do what is necessary to maintain it. That is as much trust as anyone should give to anyone, really. The rest is just pretty words covering the same underlying reality.”
I have spent six months researching the Fae, interviewing dozens of individuals, observing hundreds of interactions, consulting with experts across multiple disciplines, and attempting to compile comprehensive account of what these beings are and how we should relate to them. I close this document with some final observations and recommendations.
The Fae are here. They are people. They are strange people, dangerous people when starved, people whose needs and natures are fundamentally different from our own, but people nonetheless. They possess intelligence, self-awareness, capacity for growth and change, ability to form relationships, all the markers of personhood that matter. Denying this is intellectual dishonesty in service of prejudice or exploitation.
They are also not human, not Lanx, not any existing category of person that we had before they emerged from the Lacuna. They are something new, or perhaps something very old given that we do not know what existed before the Breaking. They think differently, value differently, experience reality differently. Understanding them requires setting aside assumptions about what personhood must look like and accepting that it can take forms we did not anticipate.
The communities that have successfully integrated Fae are more prosperous and safer than those that have rejected them. This is empirical observation, not opinion. The northern territories that accept Fae gain reliable workers, useful services, additional defenders, and trading partners. The Confederation that rejects them gains nothing but the satisfaction of having killed some beings who could have been allies, and loses access to all the benefits that Fae could provide.
The successful integration requires certain accommodations. Communities must accept that Fae will steal and must create systems to manage this rather than treating it as grounds for rejection. They must learn to negotiate contracts clearly and precisely. They must provide Exchange opportunities sufficient to keep Fae fed and coherent. They must remember Fae Names and acknowledge Fae presence. These are not onerous requirements, and the benefits vastly outweigh the costs.
For individuals, the recommendations are simpler. If you encounter a Fae, assess their rhyme quality first. Good rhymes mean safety. Degraded rhymes mean caution. No rhymes mean flee. Negotiate contracts clearly using established templates when possible. Pay fairly and promptly. Don’t leave valuable objects unattended. Maintain Exchange relationships if you want Fae assistance in the future. Show respect without necessarily showing warmth, though warmth is acceptable if it feels genuine rather than forced.
And remember that behind the mask, behind the rhyme, behind the hunger, there is a person. A person who did not choose to emerge from the void, who struggles constantly to maintain coherence in reality that was not built for them, who survives through Exchange because Exchange is the only sustenance available to them. They deserve recognition of their personhood. They deserve fair dealing. They deserve the basic moral consideration that all persons deserve.
The Masked Folk are part of our world now, perhaps permanently. We can choose to live with them in mutual benefit, or we can choose to fight them in mutual harm. The former is obviously superior, and I hope this document contributes in some small way to choosing wisely.
May your exchanges be fair, your contracts be clear, and your relationships with the Masked Folk be profitable to all parties involved.
— Scholar Valerius Thorne Written in Threshold, Year 288 Post-Breaking
[Kael’s final note]: Valerius did good work here. Better than I expected when he started, honestly. He actually listened, actually observed, actually tried to understand rather than just cataloging them like interesting monsters. The Fae are people. Weird people who steal your food and talk funny and need things most people don’t need, but people. Treat them like people and you’ll do fine. Treat them like monsters or tools and you’ll have problems. It’s not complicated, but apparently it needs to be said over and over because folks keep refusing to believe it. So I’ll say it one more time: They. Are. People. Act accordingly.
[Silt-in-River’s final note]: The human scholar has written well of the Masked Folk, seeing them clearly enough that others might learn. I add only this: They are hungry people, sustained by Exchange, existing at the boundary between being and unbeing. They are not demons, not monsters, not servants, not pets. They are people who need what they need to survive, just as all people do. We who are embodied, who are solidly real, who do not risk dissolution with every sunrise, we owe them mercy. We owe them Exchange. We owe them the simple kindness of remembering their Names so they might continue to exist. This is not burden. This is the basic obligation one person owes to another. May the Weaver’s pattern hold them, may the rhythm of Exchange sustain them, and may we have wisdom enough to welcome them rather than driving them back into the formless hunger they emerged from.
[End of primary documentation. Supplementary materials including sample contracts, feeding schedules, and emergency protocols for feral Fae encounters available upon request from the Threshold Archives.]