Chapter Text
The last time Violet was in these woods was with her little sibling last year. She had made Powder promise to her that she would never step foot inside these woods. Vi, however, never promised anything. She wondered if the only reason she got such an unsettling feeling the first time she was here was because of how thick the forest seemed, and the
The constant feeling that they were being watched kept her arms rough with goosebumps, each individual hair sticking straight up as if preparing to protect her skin at all costs. But it could be different this time around, right?
She had never gone further than she had with Powder that one time. What did catch her attention was a trail of mushrooms in a clearing, forming a circle. "That wasn't there before," she muttered, scanning over the area inside. There was an eerie feeling to it, and Vi wondered how it had formed such a pattern in the first place. Stepping over a brown mushroom to get inside the circle, Vi held her hands out to balance her weight against the force of lightheadedness, her vision fading into a static of black. Filling her lungs with air, her vision returned, just for her to shake it off and kneel down to the mushrooms, trying to study the ground for an explanation as to why they would have grown in a pattern like this.
She had never seen anything like it. It is a perfect circle, with no mushroom out of place.
Shrugging it off and quickly standing back up, she was hit with another wave of dizziness. However, this time, when she went to open her eyes, she also felt her body collide with the cold ground of the forest.
Opening her eyes, the first thing she noticed was that she was moving, then that she didn't know where she was. She flails her legs to kick the air, hoping that could help pull her away from whatever force was dragging her across the ground. "Let me go!" She shouts to nothingness, not being able to turn around to see what was pulling her by the arms.
"Shut up," She heard a female voice grunt, feeling the person pull Vi up to place her hand over her mouth. That doesn't do anything to keep Vi from complaining and fighting.
"What the hell?" It is muffled, but enough for Vi to know that the mysterious woman could still understand what she was saying. Violet feels herself get shoved to the ground, the sound of a door slamming closed following. Vi's vision adjusted to her surroundings as she stretched her shoulders out. She knows she should be worried about not knowing where she is, but damn did it feel like she backpacked around Europe without ever taking the backpack off for two months straight.
"Damn idiot," she hears a mumble, as footsteps ran around the room. "Ruining everything they don't understand." There are a few incoherent lines that Vi couldn't care less about as she set her hands behind her, lifting herself up. Her head shoots around as she attempts to follow the sounds to locate the woman, continuing to make an effort to stand herself up. "Stop it," she heard as a slim hand pressed a cloth to her forehead.
She realizes she can't breathe, trying her hardest to. Sucking in shaky breaths, she blinks to see the brightest blue eyes she had ever seen. She swallows with force, and a wince falls onto her face, realizing the area where the cloth was being pressed against began to sting.
"You stupid humans never learn." Upon hearing that, Vi quickly pulls her head back to get a better look at her, curious as to why someone would say something like this.
"What?" She asks, the question coming out shaky, her mind trying to catch up to what was going on, still rudely stuck on how gorgeous this woman was.
"Rule number one about the human realm from our kind, don't mess around with fairy circles." Violet realizes that there is no more room to gasp, her breath being held at max capacity. She scurries backward, lets out that breath, and now sees the full form of the woman.
She had midnight blue hair to match her aforementioned bright, blue eyes, wearing a dark blue dress with gold trimming that looked like it was from the steampunk era. It was torn at the bottom, implying that she had been wearing it for a while. Her legs stretched like the Nile, down to her bare feet ridden with dirt. Surprisingly, the last thing she notices is the pair of silky gold wings attached to her back. She was looking at Vi with a curious expression at seeing her reaction.
"Y- Are you real?" She breathed out. She can't be.
The fairy scoffs at that. "Of course I am," her curious expression quickly changes to show her annoyance. "Every bit in folklore comes from some truth. I expected you humans to be smarter than this. I was told you are all fairly advanced."
"I thought fairies were nice," Vi argues back, sitting up as she gains her strength back slowly but surely. The other woman laughs out loud.
"I am actually considered nice. You're lucky I pulled you away before any of the others ate you alive, and I mean that literally. They would tear you limb from limb, and inch from inch, pulling off every single layer of skin, and they would thrive in euphoria over your cries for help." Every second, her talking gets more tense and ominous as she crawls towards Vi while she tries to push herself away from the non-human being, eventually hitting a wall. She gives up once she realizes she's cornered, only relying on her breathing to keep her alive. The fairy stops, her mouth parting as she watches the human tremble under her gaze. "Hm," she hums thoughtfully as if printing into her mind every last facial feature of Vi, tilting her head like a puppy. "I'm Caitlyn," she introduces herself.
"I'm-"
"Don't," Cait interrupted her. "Wow, you really don't know anything about us, do you?" She reaches over to grab the cloth she was previously using to press against Vi's forehead, and the bottle she hadn't noticed before, she poured some of the liquid onto the cloth. The fairy fixes her position, moving herself to sit between Violet's legs as she holds the cloth against her head to continue cleaning up what Vi assumed was a gash. "You don't say your name out loud if you know or assume fairies could be present with you. The minute any of these guys know your name, they could find you in a sea of people. Throwing your name around is practically asking for these guys to screw up your life.
"Along with that, don't make what you humans call, 'fairy gardens,' they paint a target on your back and let fairies know you're willing to let them in, and you never know if they're good or malevolent entities. We can do more than you think, and you don't want to find out some of the negative things we are capable of." Cait sets down the cloth and looked into Vi's eyes. "May I?"
The human couldn't even comprehend a fairy being in front of her, so it would take a miracle to understand what Caitlyn was asking of her. "Do what?"
"Heal you," She answers as if it was something anyone could have guessed.
"U-uh, yeah." Vi nods. "Sure." She does think it is nice that the fairy asked permission before she did anything. Maybe she is a kind spirit. Maybe she didn't even exist, and this was all a dream. A good, kind dream spirit. Or maybe she isn't, because Vi was sure she was about to die at this moment.
Her heart raced as her eyes darted to Caitlyn's lips, moistening with the fairy's tongue before she wrapped her hand around the back of Vi's neck. The human watched her lean up, and kiss the cut on her head, her lips softly running along the entire wound,
And then the throbbing in her head that she hadn't noticed before is completely gone, and the fairy's pulling back with a cringe, licking her lips. "What?" Vi asks, wondering about her face, and also what the hell just happened.
"Just because I was willing to do that, does not mean I enjoyed it. I've always hated the taste of blood. Absolutely horrendous," Cait stands up and makes her way over to a table with her cloth and bottle.
"Why did you have to do it like that?" Vi asks, slightly uncomfortable in the presence of the creature now that it was all coming to the surface of her thoughts.
"Again, you are all so uneducated when it comes to our kind." The fairy sighs and turns around to lean on the table. "I know it's weird, but fairy saliva heals. It can't bring the dead back to life, of course, but it can heal in time to stop death from coming. It's really only open wounds, our vocal frequencies can fix your basic injuries like headaches and stomach aches, but when the reaper says it's your time, it's your time." Caitlyn raises her head in thought.
"Why don't you just bottle it then?" Vi cringes at the imagery of Caitlyn and other fairies gathering around to spit in a bottle.
" Because ," Caitlyn gives her a stern glare. "It only works straight from the glands, and the powers of the saliva go away after a few minutes. So , you use it in action, and it heals, and by the time it's done healing, you're already fine." Cait sighs, a frustrated look forms on her face, and somehow, Vi knows she's more frustrated at herself for not being able to explain. "You just can't , okay?"
"Yes, ma'am," Vi nods and gives her a teasing salute. "What else?"
"We can travel between realms, but they come with prices. Hmm, we can hide our wings for about 10 human hours, but need to stretch them out every once in a while. We can't feel emotions unless they're strong enough, or we're a different breed of fairy."
"What can you feel?" Vi asks, calmer now. There's no way this is real, so might as well play along with whatever games her mind is playing. After feeling the energy from Caitlyn's look, she couldn't help but wonder exactly what the fairy was thinking.
"Well, I personally come from the Keeva Folk. We're a species of the fae that are the closest to humans, minus the obvious. We Keeva can feel every human emotion to an extent, and since we can't control them half the time, we try not to dwell on any of them. There are some that only know anger and malevolence, even toward their own kind." Vi observes the fairy space out into what seems to be a bad memory from what she could tell.
"Hey, how are you so tall?" Vi asks, standing up to make her way around the small hovel, looking at trinkets hanging from the ceiling.
"My species," she answers, walking over to small pictures above a fireplace. "My parents," she points to a picture with two fairies, a man and a woman. "It's just in my genes, I guess." Vi walks over and raises her eyes at the picture, turning her head to watch Caitlyn's face change.
"What happened to them?" It's calm and steady, with no room for the fairy to think she is pitying her or demanding an answer.
Caitlyn takes a breath, turning away as her face quickly changes. "Kelpies. Despicable things." Vi notes to herself that she should do research on the Fae Folk when she wakes up from whatever dream this is. "This is why you must leave. We need to get you back to the human realm. It isn't safe here, and I'm not allowed to ever harbor a human so it must be done-"
Knock Knock Knock
"Oh, Titania ," The fairy curses, walking forward to push Violet backward to hide behind a curtain.
Knock . It's louder this time. "Kiramman!" Vi wonders if that's her last name, or if it's some other name that came from a different situation. They're fairies, how's she supposed to know?
Turning to the door, Caitlyn yells, "Just a minute!" Back to the human, she leans in towards her ear and whispers, "Don't talk, don't move, don't breathe, don't even feel anything." The curtain is shut, and she realizes that it's a closet, judging by a few coats and blankets. Vi hears footsteps fade towards the front door, right before the door opens. "Jayce! What brings you here?"
"Viktor does. I'm just here to vent," he sighs, and Vi can sense him walking into the house after the door closes. Then, she hears sniffles. "Do you have someone here? Is that-?" another sniff. "Is that a gnome? No, that's-"
Violet can't see what happens after he said that, but she did hear the next thing he said.
"Is that a human ?" He hisses, ignoring Caitlyn's, 'wait!' before Vi's cover is blown, and she sees a tall man's eyes widen. "Caitlyn!"
"Don't tell anyone, please. I'm getting her out as soon as possible. It's not my fault she's here!" The fairy's hands are waving as she speaks, obviously wanting to clearly state her case with a more expressive attitude.
Then, Vi feels a hand wrap around her wrist that pulls her out from inside the closet.
"Don't touch her!" Caitlyn shuffles over to the two, pulling the man's hand away from hers. Vi has no time to be taken aback by the sudden defense before Caitlyn is rushing more words out. "She made a mistake, she won't ever disturb us again. Look, can we please just talk about this after I get rid of her?"
"Oh yeah? And how do you plan on doing that? You know what happens to humans who cross into our realm, Cait." The man has his hands on his hips, and Vi is trying her hardest to take them seriously, especially when they look like a scene from Tinkerbell.
"I'm handling it. Now either vent to me about your little boyfriend or leave and I'll find you as soon as I'm over with her." Right, she has no place to be offended when it is technically her fault she's here.
"W- boyfriend?" God how Vi wishes her mind could have manifested a bowl of popcorn into her dream.
" Jayce ." Even being a human, Vi can feel the annoyance radiating off of Cait.
"Okay, okay," Caitlyn pushes her friend out of her house, having a second to whisper something to him that Vi couldn't care less if she heard. Instead, she occupies herself with some extra things in the tiny home that caught her eye. To a table full of jars and hanging vials. She steps toward it, leaning down to look at what was inside of them. What did Caitlyn need this stuff for?
I mean, seriously.
Rabbit's foot? How did she get that?
Gnome beard?
Mermaid scales?
Banshee hair?
How did she get banshee hair?
"Found it foraging," Vi hears behind her, a gasp falling from her lips as she turns around, Cait closer than she expected her to be. "Some of it was obtained through trading." Vi steps back, her tailbone hitting the table. Her head whips around to make sure nothing got broken with the force of her ass, glad to see that nothing was harmed. She could feel Caitlyn step closer to her, and she turns her head back toward the fairy, watching her expressions closely. Violet Lane did not blush, but this may have been an exception.
"I was just um-" Vi loses her thoughts at the look Caitlyn is giving her.
"Looking at my collection?" Cait asks, smirking and tilting her head to see behind the human, onto her table of belongings. She wasn't ever sure if she would ever need half of the things she has acquired but it makes her comforted to know she has it just in case. Her mother would sometimes call her a hoarder always having things that weren't necessary.
Caitlyn's thing was that she would rather have something now and maybe need it later than not have something, and desperately need it for something. Everything she has could be used for something, whether that's repaying a favor with a pixie she might have asked for help, or to sprinkle away the paralyzation of a Zeke that poked her foot, especially since she never wore anything to protect her feet.
There was a time when she didn't have trow tears to heal her from that creature.
It was with Jayce. She asked if she could tag along in his journey to find a magical mushroom for his professor, and he agreed. Halfway through the journey, she felt the skin layers from the bottom of her heel break with a puncture, a sharp wince coming from her as her ankles gave in. She groaned when she saw the eyes of the Zeke blink, looking around to see what disturbed him. His eyes shone with worry and concern, and Cait had assured him that it was okay, that she would get him out as soon as possible.
It was easy when she couldn't feel it bringing a string of blood out of her foot. She could see the apology in his eyes and shook her head to insist that it really was her fault. Then, she let him walk off guiltily.
"You handled that... surprisingly well," her best friend had told her. Right before she told him that it didn't feel like anything, he then informed her that the venom from the spike-bug temporarily paralyzes.
She quickly wrapped it up, and Jayce helped pull her along to a cave that they stayed in for the night. She would remind him that she was sorry she was ruining his quest and wasting his time, but he was adamant about him being tired either way.
She woke up and gained enough feeling to limp on her own without it hurting (that was courtesy of a potion she took).
From then on, she always kept every maybe-this-might-come-in-handy item on her.
"It's not witchcraft if that's what you're thinking. Though, a lot of those items may help with some spells my friends have done before."
"You have witch friends?" It shouldn't come as a surprise to Caitlyn to get that question. She reminds herself that this human knows nothing.
"Of course I do. They're not from this region, but I see them quite often enough."
"How does this realm and like... lands work?" Vi asks curiously.
"The realm itself is called Runeterra. There are different regions. Right now, we are in Piltover, though it is the lower end of it. Our sister region is Zaun, and then there are others like Ionia, Damacia, Noxus, and a couple of others." Cait watches as Vi nods, and her expression tells her that the human doesn't know what to say anymore.
So, Caitlyn turns, walks to a book she currently had open, and sits on a stool to skim over it. It is a book about humans, published by one of her friends at the library. She had picked it up about a week ago from the forbidden section. She chuckles, who knew it would actually be put to use? She asks herself, flipping to the next page.
She knows the human is standing behind her and can feel her nagging energy. For someone who isn't a believer, she sure is curious.
"Does this book tell you how to get me back home?" Vi asks.
"No, I know how to get you back. I'm just trying something that doesn't involve testing your worth by tossing you into a Nuckle circle," Cait says casually, wondering if Vi can tell she's teasing her or not. Though, the thought of Vi's heart racing, spinning around as she looks at the flesh monsters does come to mind. Would she even panic?
"Into a what?"
Cait turns around. "There's a species of demon, a horse-human hybrid."
"Oh, it can't be that bad," Vi waves her hand in dismissal. Caitlyn raises her eyebrows, standing and leaning over her desk to grab her book full of different species, easily flipping to the page she was looking for. Nuckelavee .
"How's this?" She asks cockily, pointing calmly to the picture it provided. She takes great pleasure in seeing the face Vi makes, where all of her facial muscles go limp and he skin turns a few shades lighter, and all color has seemingly gone from her whole body. Cait chuckles heartily, slamming the book shut. "I might be joking," the dark-haired fairy shrugs.
"You definitely are," Vi argues.
"Mmm..." Caitlyn's voice fades, returning back to her human book, jotting down every way they could get Vi home, to find the safest as soon as she's done.
More than half of these could even just be myths , she thinks.
Really, it's not every day you find a human stumbling into the fae realm without already getting torn to bits by several different species. Some would take turns, some might just take her skin and leave the rest of her body for the others. Vi would be immediately found with the scent her skin emits, the wind added to spread it around and announce that she was in Piltover. The smell of a human is very distinct, and unlike anything, she has ever smelled before. It's quite alluring, she must say.
No .
She shakes her head, pulling herself away from her thoughts and snapping out of every tantalizing idea that came with the memory of Vi's smell the second she found her on the ground in the forest. And even now, especially with Vi willingly this close. It's quite driving.
Caitlyn groans out loud, shifting her shoulders before turning to Vi, and giving her a glare. "You're in my space and it's bothering me."
"What am I supposed to do? Go on a walk?" Vi asks exaggeratingly.
"I don't know, make yourself useful and find a book that might help get you home. Or maybe something that can educate you about my kind, because you have gotten on my nerves quite a lot, and you could have avoided half of that if you knew anything about us. You wouldn't even need to be here if you just left things how they were and didn't let your curiosity get the better of you!" She hadn't even realized her speaking had sped up, the volume of her voice raising with every word. She can't figure out if she was truly annoyed about this all happening, or if it was just coping with the thoughts she was having at the smell of Vi.
She decides that it was because she was actually frustrated. She was annoyed that humans didn't even try to read anything about them, all because they didn't even believe they were real. It's not like nobody in Runeterra hadn't learned about humans. They were all taught at young ages of them.
"Woah, cupcake, it was just a joke, I can find something to do." Something about the way she replied dejectedly didn't sit right with Cait( and what is a cupcake? ), but she shrugged it off to let the human walk to the set of books Cait owns, sliding out one about the fae, and sitting down in the armrest chair adjacent to the bookcase. Cait watches her for a minute as she flips the page to the table of contents. She pays attention to the way the human fixes a strand of hair that fell to the wrong side of her head, and as she leans forward with the book in hand, her legs spread in a contrasting position to Cait's rod-straight back and crossed legs.
No matter how mannerless this human seems, it's quite endearing.
Caitlyn shakes her head once again. She can't be thinking any of those things, not when she's trying to get this human gone and out of her life.
After a while of thoroughly reading half of the book, Caitlyn hears a gasp escape the human's lips. It had been quiet enough, but maybe she found something important. "What hap- Avon," Caitlyn addresses her cat, currently wrapped around Vi's foot. "What are you doing, silly girl?" Standing up from her seat and crouching to the ground, she picked up her animal and pet her softly. "Sorry about that, she can be very curious. Can't you, little one?" Cait gave her cat a soft kiss on the head before setting her down on the ground. "We're working, so try not to distract too much."
" Meow ?" Caitlyn chuckles. She was almost fluent in feline, so she could put together two and two with that meow, knowing her cat was asking why Vi was in this realm.
"She walked into a fairy circle," She replies. To that, her cat lets out a low noise, close to a growl or a trill.
" Idiot ," her cat tells her.
"Yes, I know. But now we need to figure out how to get her back before she gets eaten alive." The next meow that came out sounded a lot like, 'let her." Caitlyn laughs, standing back up. "Maybe she keeps getting on my nerves, but right now, I plan on helping her get back soon." Cait glances up at Vi's confused expression as the human watches the interaction between fairy and feline.
"Um, what was that?" She asks, looking between the two. The fairy returns to her seat, patting her lap to offer the seat to Avon.
"I understand her, I've been learning feline for a while now."
"You just casually speak cat?" Vi asks, an eyebrow raised. Cait could sense the confusion radiating off of Vi, and frankly, it was rather amusing.
"You shouldn't seem so baffled, I've said before that you don't know all there is to know about fairies. In fact, all you know are the things I've told you. We can do a lot of things, keep reading." Caitlyn points at the book next to Vi, and the room goes back to silence.
The studying takes about another hour in fairy time before Cait lifts up Avon to set her on the ground. The fairy stands up, stretching her legs out before straightening her back and letting her wings unfold, fluttering to hover before setting herself back down. Having a mind of their own, she allows her wings to continue stretching themselves from being in one position for almost two hours. Feeling eyes on her, Vi's eyes, she turns to look at her, seeing the stunned, open-mouthed expression right before the human turned away and cleared her throat.
"I know how to get you home," Caitlyn smiles softly.
"Really?"
"Yes." Caitlyn takes a breath. It was a bit difficult to put together pieces and figure it out since fairies themselves could travel between realms, but humans couldn't. It was simple. "We need to turn you into a fairy."