Strange Things and Stranger

Written to flofx‘s commissioned prompt.

The Kirkavare can be found in Fairy Town stories, starting with Re-blessing the Church.

The was a boy in the church yard.

There were three boys in the church yard, but two of them were human. The third shone like starlight when Mirandabelle looked at him sideways, and glared like a demon when he caught her looking.

They were making a snow fort. It seemed strange, a fae boy making a fort in the church yard, but he was laughing along with his friends and seemed to think nothing of it, nothing of the iron so close. She set her mittened hand on the fence, and felt the soft burn even through the heavy wool.

A snowball whizzed past her ear. Mirandabelle jerked up her head, and say the demon-eyed boy grinning at her. Without thinking about it, she scooped up a handful of snow and lobbed it right back at the boy.

His eyes narrowed and he scooped up his own handful. Before he could throw it, Mirandabelle was running. She skidded in through the open gate – the iron gate that was never closed, that Father Nehemiah had firmly set concrete planters against so that it could not be closed – like she was making a home run, grabbing more snow on the way.

The handful of snow landed in the demon boy’s hood before he saw her coming, but he caught Mirandabelle in the face with a handful of snow as she skidded into their fort.

“No girls in the fort!” one of the human boys complained.

“What are you, ten?” The demon boy laughed.

“Girls are welcome if they can make it in. And this one has fire.”

“This one…” Mirandabelle launched a snowball at the demon-boy. “Has snow! Also, she has a name.”

“Of course she does.” He took a step forward, a massive snowball in hand.

Mirandabelle didn’t so much see the lamb as she saw an emptiness where it had been: One moment, there was some extra whiteness in front of the demon-boy’s legs, and the next it was gone, and the boy was stumbling and falling.

She took her opportunity and dropped a snowball down the back of his neck, while he sputtered and shouted. And then she saw-not-saw the flash of the lamb again, hopping onto and off of demon-boy’s back when he tried to stand.

“I think he likes me.” She tossed another snowball, although it really wasn’t fair when demon-boy was still down.

“I don’t even know you!” He obliged by surging to his feet. Mirandabelle readied another snowball.

“Not you, silly.” She grinned at him. “Though I wouldn’t mind changing that.” No harm in admitting that, was there? “The kirkevarer. The church-lamb.”

It was interesting, Mirandabelle thought, the way all three of them froze, not just the fae boy, demon-boy. It was more interesting, she noted, that it was the one who was against girls in the fort who spoke first. “There’s a corpse lamb here? But…” He looked at the demon boy.

Mirandabelle chuckled. “I told you, he likes me.” She patted the air where the spirit of the lamb was floating. “This church – this church is different.”

The demon boy made his way to his feet. He was eyeing the lamb – but he was eyeing Mirandabelle, too. “Yeah. It’s not the only thing that’s different, either.”

She jutted her chin out at him. He was an interesting one, this demon. “Nope. Everything around here -” she grinned, and gestured to include him – “we’re all strange. And that’s the way I like it.”

She was pretty sure, from the warmth under her hand, that it was the way the church lamb liked it, too.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/869643.html. You can comment here or there.

0 thoughts on “Strange Things and Stranger

  1. Demon? That’s … I think that’s new? And the church-lamb doesn’t chase him away, though it does side with Mirandabelle (though maybe that’s just to make three on one into three on two)? <wonders what interactions these boys have had with the priest and church before, as at least one of the human boys seems to have some clue about both their friend and church lambs> More please. ETA: Whose line is “Girls are welcome if they can make it in. And this one has fire”? I’d guess the demon boy, but there’s a paragraph break, so maybe the other human boy?

    • Just found this setting today, and given it was years ago you probably don’t remember this comment, but I believe “demon boy” is just her personal appellation for him in this case rather than being literal; he’s a fae-blood boy who “glared like a demon” when he noticed her looking.

      • It seems a sticky label, and … I’m not at all sure this ‘verse’s weirdshit starts and ends with fae. At the least, from a later story, there seem to be some things more like ghosts than fae. Glad you’re enjoying ‘s back catalog!

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