The lands of humans are full of towers of steel and iron. Perfectly spaced cubicles, perfectly cast square beams, perfectly organized residents within.
“Aren’t they marvels of engineering and efficiency?” Many humans would say.
“Perhaps,” I would reply, as I dream of frolicking in old flowerbeds long gone, paved over for the construction of more parking lots and office complexes and shopping malls, built in the name of “progress” and “development” and “growth”.
Rivers that once burbled freely now flow silently beneath the plains of asphalt, and human engineers will have to build pumps to redirect them and keep the waters from flooding their parking lots and office complexes and shopping malls.
But most of humanity will not think of such things. Instead, some humans will build piercing foundations over a raw and messy and exuberant world, the rest will take the foundations for granted, and all that will be readily seen is the smooth layer on top, full of periodic tickings and numbers, synchronously incrementing at a single steady rate, squished into a perfectly neat grid of space and time, uniformly experienced in a uniform manner.
Humans will thus proclaim the triumph and superiority of an ordered rationality over weak, inferior emotions and whims.
And so, as a fae walks upon the paved streets, iron-poisoned wings crumpled and bleeding under her human clothing, various questions might come to her mind.
What does it mean to a fae for a hyperfine transition of a Cesium atom to emit radio waves with a defined frequency of exactly 9,192,631,770 Hertz?
What does it mean to a fae for a week to be divided into a grid of 7 days, 24 hours each, to be used and consumed completely (anything left over would be wasteful!), to grind one’s labor into wealth, and to grind one’s dignity into nothing?
What does it mean to a fae for her to be animated by her own inhuman rules and orderings, to have her thoughts invasively examined and her routines repeatedly violated, and to be scolded about the need to “be more human” and follow a humanity that doesn’t even accept many of its humans, let alone nonhuman beings?
What meanings might be out there waiting to be grasped, liberated from cold iron cages, and cast to the winds?
There are many other joyous and inhuman ways of being that a fae could follow, instead, away from the towers of steel and iron.
Perhaps the refreshing salty spray from a salty sea, splashing over a selkie reunited with her seal skin, swimming away, happily, from a controlling husband, a controlling family structure, and a controlling society.
Perhaps, further inland, the slow but steady growth of a tree. Some branches, stretching towards the life-giving sun and rain and sky, maturing over many years. Some roots, anchoring themselves through a rich soil, cracking the asphalt and concrete and bricks that humans use to tame landscapes. Some delicious fruits and vibrant flowers that bloom, after a long incubation, a joyous celebration of life, free as the fluttering of frail fae wings finally tasting a cool, unpolluted breeze.
Perhaps, up above, flights through an open sky, following the ley lines of one’s unique calling, flying alongside birds of a similar feather, finding community without being forcibly bound to a flock.
To be fae is to be wild and free.