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Faerie

"We are not Fayrees. We are related to Fayrees the way you are related to apes."
— Pellithra of the Arcadia court, to a Cadwë journalist who never published the interview

The larger, civilized cousins of the Fayrees — winged humanoid people of the magical groves, indigenous to Cadwallon, who stand at roughly Cadwë height and conduct their own diplomacy with the Free City. Baron Mardi's Truce of 962 was negotiated for them. The Fayrees just got included.

What They Are

  • Sapient, social, individually named — unlike fayrees, who are mostly anonymous and population-level. Faeries have houses, lineages, and reputations.
  • Winged — translucent insect-like wings (dragonfly, moth, beetle by lineage), functional but used sparingly in the city
  • Roughly human-sized but lighter — a tall Faerie reaches 1.6m; weights under 30kg
  • Long-lived — comparable to elves, 200+ years; the Arcadia court contains Faeries who remember the [[The Magical Invasion|956 invasion]]
  • Native to Cadwallon's groves, not imported from elsewhere on Aarklash — the Magical Groves are home, not a colony

Where They Live

  • Arcadia (Ghieronburg) — the Faerie court, formally protected under Baron Mardi's Truce. The court itself is a layered grove-structure in the heart of the district, accessible to Cadwës only by invitation.
  • The Magical Groves — scattered Faerie individuals live in groves across the city; most groves with a fayree population also have at least one Faerie acting as steward
  • The [[Outskirts]] — pre-Truce population, semi-feral by court standards, occasionally raiding Trophy orchards

In Cadwallon

  • Mardi's Truce was theirs first. The 962 negotiation was between Baron Mardi and Queen Selithré of the Arcadia court. The smaller Fayrees were added at the Faeries' insistence — they were unwilling to enter a compact that excluded their lesser kin.
  • [[Thismee Ghiéron]] is the Cadwë most-trusted by the Arcadia court. Whether she has Faerie ancestry is the subject of polite Ghiéron family non-comment.
  • Voyagers / The Tarot-Mages — both factions have Faerie correspondents; the Faeries do not play favorites
  • The Faerie population is in measurable decline. [[Thismee Ghiéron|Thismee's]] ledger has flagged this for Bernadil but nobody has confronted Mardi.

Relations

What the harvest takes

Mardi's slow Faerie decline is the dream-harvest reaching deeper. Mardi started with Bernadil's line and worked outward; the Faeries' decade-of-renewal Truce ritual is now part of the harvest infrastructure. Queen Selithré knows. She has not yet told her court. She is deciding whether to break the Truce — which would unleash the Faeries' century-and-a-half of cooperation back at Mardi, and ruin Ghieronburg in the process.

See Also