The stars above had been absolutely worth waking up at two in the morning. Scattered across the sky like glowing freckles, they seemed to wink down at Reese specifically as he stood next to Glais on the balcony, the Fae struggling valiantly to set up a tripod. He’d called Reese’s name from the doorway of his room just thirty minutes ago and, after some struggle, managed to get the human to agree to stargaze with him. Now, Reese was gazing in awe at the night sky.

“Wow, you really weren’t kidding,” the redhead marveled. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a sky this clear before.”

With a final grunt of effort, Glais finally got the tripod to yield to his will, and turned to beam up at Reese. “Told you,” he lilted in that playful, prideful way he did. “I’ve been coming out here since I was just a wee lad. Stargazing is the best for when you can’t sleep.”

Reese let a smile quirk across his lips, not necessarily because of the stars, but because he was imagining what Glais must’ve looked like as a little kid. Had he had longer hair, or perhaps shorter? Was he graceful and fast, or more wobbly like a newborn foal? What kind of clothes did he wear? Had he been one of those kids who would carry around a stuffed toy everywhere?

“It’s… wow. You’re really lucky, Glais. It must’ve been wonderful, growing up with this as your view every night.”

“It’s… wow. You’re really lucky, Glais. It must’ve been wonderful, growing up with this as your view every night.”

“Aye, it was. Our uncle used to take us out here and tell us stories about the constellations. They were just myths, but he managed to make it seem like they were true. I remember when he showed us how to use the telescope for the first time.”

One of Reese’s auburn eyebrows raised inquisitively. “Your uncle?”

“Eh, more like a great-great-really-long-time-ago-uncle, but definitely an uncle. He and our aunt babysat us a lot as kids,” Glais replied, standing up and finally taking the telescope out of its bag to attach it to the tripod. “They helped teach us a lot – showed us how to hunt and all that. Things that don’t get taught in school.”

“You guys have school here?” Reese blurted, then clapped a hand over his mouth when he realized how rude that was. “Sorry, sorry, I just wasn’t expecting-”

A gentle hand cuffed him playfully on the ear. “What, did you think we were all illiterate savages?” the taller boy teased, ruby eyes sparkling. “Looks like someone needs a crash course in Fae culture if he’s going to survive without offending the wrong person.”

Reese snorted, playfully batting his hands away. “Oh, come on, it’s not like anyone ever told me the details!”

“Let’s fix that, then. Come on, I’ll tell you the basics while we look at the stars together.”

Reese didn’t protest when Glais ushered him to look through the telescope. He was more than content to listen to Glais, who had already given him a few lectures clearing up the misconceptions from his grandmother’s old stories. Listening to his friend yammer reminded Reese of a podcast; soothing to listen to and good as background noise. He did his best to single out any particularly bright specks in the sky while Glais began his enthusiastic ramble.

“So the first thing you need to know is that we run our children through school from the ages of six to eighteen, where they’re taught how to read and write and do maths and harness any magical abilities they might have – like shapeshifting or dendromancy or prophecy or whatever. They also teach us how to strike deals and handle loopholes and get around the ‘no lying directly’ thing.

“We grow up with a very rich connection with our culture. Schools teach us about the history of our people, and families introduce important traditions like the Wild Hunt and Samhain and Midsummer. Most of us have a rough idea of how to use a sword or knife by the age of 13, and we’re familiar with all the important songs and dances and customs of our people.

“From the time we’re small, they also teach us about our key rules – like not breaking a promise and understanding what constitutes a favor. There’s this whole honor code that you just kind of get drilled into your head the second you can process words until it’s just part of you. It’s innate. Instinctual. Like-”

“Like muscle memory?” Reese interjected. “Like when you learn how to sew something, and then it just becomes second nature.”

“Muscle memory! Yeah, aye, like that. You just kind of live by it. You’re taught to uphold your values and oaths and eventually the idea of going back on a well-worded oath with no loopholes is basically unthinkable. Very impolite, you know?”

The redhead nodded, now inspecting what he was fairly certain was the big dipper (Reese was unfamiliar with most constellations, so it might’ve been a giraffe for all he could tell). “We think it’s impolite to break promises where I come from, too. Probably not as much as you guys though.”

“It’s a grievous offence that would probably get you ostracized from society for the rest of your life.”

“Yeah, definitely not as much as you, then.”

Glais playfully poked Reese with one of his hooves. “Heathens,” he said with a wry smile. “Deviants, every last one of you.”

“Oh, shut up. As though you aren’t known to hide exceptions in the fine print of your deals,” Reese shot back with no real malice, gently grabbing and shaking Glais’ leg. “Now come on, keep telling me about growing up here. It’s actually really interesting.”

Glais gently placed a hand over Reese’s on the telescope, guiding the eye to the milky way. “I don’t think I can fit it all in one night,” he laughed softly. “I’m going to have to teach you little bits each day until you have everything you need.”

“Could I help by asking questions?”

“I mean, I don’t see why not.”

Reese smiled at the feeling of Glais’ tufted tail curling around the pair, twitching with casual attentiveness like that of a cat. “Even if it’s offensive?”

“I’d rather you ask me your offensive questions than assume something and then get cursed.”

The human nodded, trying to think of something to ask for a moment. His grandmother had told him many, many things about the Fair Folk that he was growing curious about again. There had been stories of name thieves and clever tricks and great kings and deals gone awry, all of which he knew he wanted to touch on eventually. The issue wasn’t actually coming up with things to ask, but rather finding out what to ask first.

Eventually, he settled for something simple that he felt was important to his peace of mind.

“Is it true that you kidnap human children and replace them with your own?”

Glais paused. Immediately, Reese assumed that he’d made a horrible social blunder, but before he could say anything to apologize, Glais shook his head vehemently. “Changelings? No, no, no, no we don’t do that anymore. It’s been illegal since before I was born. Child abandonment and all that.”

Reese should’ve been relieved, but for some reason he felt betrayed by the fact that he’d been wrong. It made him feel like he was helpless, out of his depth, with no knowledge to cling to at all. It was hard, questioning the rules his superstitious grandmother had taught him to follow, even if at the time he didn’t there was any reason to follow them. Still…

“What do you mean ‘anymore?’” Reese badgered, clinging to the hope that there was some fine print to this, that the old legends had been rooted in truth. “You’re saying you used to do it?”

Glais nodded. “Obviously I wasn’t around for it, but yeah, it’s a big part of our history. It was some kind of tradition that dwindled out after the war, although there are probably Fae out there who have ignored the laws.”

“The war?”

“Aye. There used to be some kind of massive war between humans and Fae,” the taller of the two confirmed. “I dinnae really know much about it, just that it was horrible and needless and had a ton of battles and statistics that they teach us in history class.”

Reese tilted his head, gazing briefly up at the stars with an almost wistful look in his eyes. “Isn’t that what most wars are? Horrible and needless?”

“Good point.”

The pair fell silent for a long moment, simply enjoying the night sky. Glais rubbed Reese’s cheek with a velvety finger, the claw at the end angled so there was no chance of scratching him. Reese felt like he could’ve closed his eyes and still been able to see Glais just by the heat of him.

I really did need this after everything that’s happened.

Still, rest couldn’t come quite yet. Reese had more questions to ask, and he was determined to ask them until he was all out.

“Is the war why humans are so…” Disliked? Frowned upon? “Uh… Controversial here? I know Aisling was saying something about-”

“Don’t listen to her,” Glais interrupted him. “She’s right that humans shouldn’t really be on this side of the barrier between our realms, but it’s not like you’re contraband either. Ashie’s loyal to the rules, she means no harm, just… Take the way she phrases things with a grain of salt. You’re not hated or forbidden here, just very, very unusual.”

“… Do you think someone will hurt me here?”

Glais brushed away a few of Reese’s quiet tears with an incredibly gentle thumb, crouching so they could make easier eye contact. “No. Not at all. Not unless they want to upset the MacCiar family and both our Archfae. Human or not, no one in this family is going to stand for hate crimes, I promise.”

Reese looked into those deep, strawberry eyes. Glais was always so earnest, so patient, so genuinely well-meaning in a way that went against most of the stories Reese had previously heard. He was so sweet and kind and lovable and- and-

Reese tamped down the sudden urge to lean in and kiss his friend, gently scolding himself. No, bad Reese. Terrible idea. Do not kiss the funny magic man, you’ll break his heart when you leave again.

Focus. He needed to focus on something else. More questions, new information, another valuable fact.

“What’s an Archfae?” Glais fucking grinned.

“Alright, get comfortable, this is a long story.”

Glais stood up like a teacher about to give a presentation to their class.

“So, an Archfae is more or less a war hero,” he began, pacing animatedly as he began his lecture, tail twitching in what Reese assumed was glee. “They fought in the Fae-Human War, but unlike everyone else, they had something that made them historically notable without dying. A high rank, a significant action, a story they survived under impossible odds, that kind of thing. After the war, when everything was in shambles, these Fae gathered together and decided they were going to do something about it.

“They relegated all the Fae to our native realm and began to work on rebuilding what had been destroyed, making new rules and laws to prevent another war from ever happening. They worked and worked and worked, and things began to get better, so Tìr Na Neart itself decided to reward them all. It gave all the Archfae the boon of immortality so that they could continue to protect and govern the realm and its people, and they all ascended to noble status because of how politically significant they were all of a sudden. Basically everything we have here today is influenced by them and the war in one way or another, so they’re held in extremely high honor and nobody wants to mess with them.”

Glais finished his explanation by leaning happily against the balcony railing with a very proud smile on his features, as though he’d just performed a song and won an award for it. Reese felt like his mind had been tied into a pretzel, but as silence fell again, it began to make a little more sense to him. It was basically like if America had made the Founding Fathers into miniature gods so everything could stay the way they meant it to. Weird, but Reese didn’t feel like it was his place to say so.

“And… your family has some? Two Archfae?”

The pallid Fae nodded, horse ears flopping a little with the motion. “Aye! My aunt and uncle are both Archfae. Really they’re more like distant ancestors, but they were the brother and sister of my grandfather hundreds of generations back, so they’re more or less considered part of the family. There’s always been one specific MacCiar family that they call themselves connected to, and it’s always been determined by which MacCiars stay in this house. It’s kind of like having a trunk to the family tree, otherwise they’d have half a million relatives to check up on and eventually there would just be too many.”

“So your aunt and uncle are both important political figures? And people don’t want to piss them off because of that?”

“Aye.”

“… And they fought in a war against humans, but they wouldn’t hate me?”

Glais made a gesture with his hand that indicated Reese wasn’t entirely right or wrong in his statement. “I mean, I don’t think they’d be thrilled about you being here, but Aunt Muir and Uncle Lachlan aren’t going to hurt you because of it either. The whole point about humans not being allowed here is that it limits interactions, and thus the chances of another war – which is the other reason why Changelings are considered outlawed now. Fae that still pull that kind of  shite aren’t really doing right by the law.”

Reese raised an eyebrow. Frankly, his curiosity was more than a little piqued after the explanation he’d been given. “How many Archfae are there? How many do you know?”

Glais paused, obviously thinking for a second. “I mean… there’s at least 20 that I can remember off the top of my head. I’ve met a lot of them in passing, I guess, but I would only really call myself familiar with three of them at most, other than the two in my family.”

“Okay, so five.”

“Aye. Five.”

After that, the two young men fell into a comfortable silence, gazing up at the stars together. With Glais, no matter how cold the night or vast the world, Reese felt like he had a safe place to fall. Glais had found him, had helped him, had brought him in out of the cold, and asked for nothing in return. Reese almost felt guilty for not having an idea of how to pay his friend back for his kindness, but at the same time he was glad there weren’t any weird bargains or strings attached. It was nice to just… be. Be near Glais, be here, be quiet, be at peace. For that moment, for just that little snippet of time, Reese was right where he felt like he needed to be, with the cool night air filling his lungs and Glais by his side.

And so, without a word, he let his head fall onto Glais’ shoulder – more difficult that Reese felt was fair, given their height difference – and closed his eyes.

The last thing he really paid any attention to was the feeling of Glais’ arm around his waist.