A not-so-quick-explanation of the Land of the Fallen Fairies

I'll repurpose and expand on this later to be a lore document... because holy herbs is there more.

But yeah. I tried explaining the Land of the Fallen Fairies to a friend... and this abomination sprung up from the depths of 1 am. (There's so much passive voice; I sob)

Other than that... I used to rant about my little story a lot on tumblr @anulithots. Not that I have access to it anymore (hence me making my own website) but. There's some things there. 

The basics of it are (I started ranting. I think it's not that much until I have to explain it) that all my characters are tree fairies, known as dryads. They go by fae/faer/faerself pronouns and each one has their life tied to their tree. After the ~ pixie crisis ~ one of the three territories of Trinity Hollow created a system to prevent it from happening again. They use their celestial fates to weed out any 'weird' dryads who could be swayed by the shunned pixies - fungal fairies, who have a whole thing...umm... look up 'the wood wide web' if you'd like the whole thing /nf /pos. This is called the Fallen Fairy system. 

AND NONE OF THAT MATTERS TO THE MAIN TRIO BECAUSE THEY AREN'T AWARE OF THEIR ENTIRE HISTORY BUT THIS ALSO GIVES THE NEEDED CONTEXT OF THE WORLD BECAUSE OTHERWISE I JUST THROW MY AUDIENCE INTO THE WORLD THROUGH THE POV OF THE MAIN TRIO AND LET THEM FIGURE IT OUT BUT AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Okay MAIN TRIO - 

Kamari - fae's not the main character but fae seems like it. Fae's the magnolia with short curly roots, shiny leaves, wings and weird-working legs. A planted fairy. Obviously, a planted fairy. When fae was little fae realized that everyone deemed faer a danger to their society (it has to due with the pixie crisis). Kamari would die like this, everyone cheering for how much safer they are without faer. 

So Kamari decides to become the High Protector - the dryad who enacts the fates' will and kills fallen fairies. (there's a whole process to condemning a fairy to be a fallen fairy because the Unseen Territory wants their system to be fair BUT IT'S FINE IT'S FINE IT'S A WHOLE THING). 

Kamari ends up living faer life hoping to finish being the High Protector so fae can earn community, equal treatment, a full life lived without fear... but by being the High Protector fae kills innocent fairies and stains faer own morality. so. there's that. 

 Anuli - what's this? A silly little side character? Nope! The main character! (fae's the one I have the doll of... two actually, but my parents threw the previous one out.) 

Anuli is a fiddle leaf fig, a houseplant. EXCEPT, faer tree is in a human house, so no one knows that Anuli actually does have a tree. A treeless dryad is pretty much the most unnatural sort of abomination dryad society could have soo... to the fallen fairy system fae goes! 

... wait, I should explain the fallen fairy system now. screams 

Okay so the fallen fairy system consists of either the High Protector or one of the underlings - an ambassador - choosing a fairy under the guise of 'acting in the fates' will' (There's MYTHOLOGY having to do with THE STARS AND A WHOLE STORY ABOUT THE MOON WHY DO I DO THIS TO MYSELF) 

The ambassador deems the fairy condemned if the ambassador can prove they are against the natural order of things. All that’s to say… if the fairy shows traits of being ‘weird’. (*cough* neurodivergent cough).

 Have one interest that overshadows all other parts of your life? CONDEMNED! Can’t communicate with others? CONDEMNED! A conifer? (the trees with needles, they’re a different type of tree. Here there’s a lot of pines so they aren’t really a minority here but screaming) CONDEMNED!

Once the ambassador condemns the fairy, the fairy gets their roots tied with a tether to a fence for about a month. (“Have to let the moon see your character in every one of their phases”). A fairy is pretty much dead by this point, but “our system is the fairest and most reliable system for ridding of fallen fairies”.  After this, the condemned fairy is deemed a fallen fairy, and must defeat the High Protector - Kamari - to be redeemed. 

Anuli’s been condemned for much longer than a month. Kamari, for a lot of reasons we won’t get into now, took a liking to Anuli and started taking care of the tiny thing. This includes pleading with the elders to extend Anuli’s time being condemned… which also extends Kamari’s time as the High Protector. Kamari can’t catch a break. 

ANYWAYS. ANULI. 

Anuli doesn’t know… any of this. (wow a whole rant and now we’ve come to the point). 

Anuli only knows that Kamari makes things better, that fae can deal with the world and understand things when Kamari’s around, and when Kamari leaves, the tether that ties faer to a fence becomes unbearably itchy. 

In essence - Anuli wants to understand the world, to not have to rely on things outside of faerself to fiddle with so that fae might obtain happiness, to not have faer emotions constantly fluctuating and overwhelming faer… in essence fae’s autistic AF and isolated from the world and the tether is itchy enough to make faer constantly overstimulated. 

Anuli also tries to understand the world through narrating it, thinking that if fae perfectly described the true nature of something, fae could invoke the feeling it gives faer, allowing Anuli to regulate faer emotions without needing things that constantly change. 

In trying to do this, Anuli contacts the pixies, the ancient fungal fairies that caused an entire pixie crisis and the fallen fairy system. Anuli also breaks faer tether because fae loses faith in faerself to stay okay without Kamari around. (Kamari leaves a lot to complete High Protector tasks). 

SO YES ANULI HAS TO FIGHT KAMARI IN A BATTLE OF THE FATES! YES THIS IS THE WHOLE CLIMAX. THE WHOLE THING I’M BUILDING UP TO! THE THING IT TOOK ME 964 WORDS TO GET TO!

(Anuli can only count until six. Fae forgot the other numbers and kept forgetting to ask. So whenever fae counts further than six fae says ‘six and another three’ or something like that. Wow. I should not have worked on this story for eight years.) 

And, as promised, the third member of the trio:

Ankh - cough Kamari’s semi-platonic, semi-something-else-since-dryads-don't-have-romance-partner cough

Ankh also hates Anuli. 

So. 

Found family tragic love triangle… what am I even saying. 

Ankh is a conifer who’s farsighted. Being farsighted in a society without glasses… that lives in the treetops…where you need to see what’s right in front of you…. 

Yes, Ankh falls a high distance and never returns to the treetops. Fae’s fine, though. Ankh’s tree took the majority of the damage because - according to Ankh - fae has a good connection with faer tree. 

Which creates Ankh’s belief system - that trees are the solution to the pixie crisis’s effects. 

Ankh also deadpans all faer words, has muted emotions and doesn’t express them as much, wants to be a healer but no one allows faer to be because of faer bad vision… so yes, Ankh hates society in general. 

Ankh believes society is a disease, that the fallen fairy system is the worst symptom of it, and that fae’ll fix the world with faer abilities and faer knowledge. 

(ALSO HEALERS COME IN PAIRS! HEALERS USUALLY HAVE A COMFORTER PARTNER! THE COMFORTER ACTS AS A PREVENTATIVE HEALER/THERAPIST/HELPS WITH PAIN-KILLING! KAMARI CAN SING VERY WELL! IT’S FAER WHOLE THING! ANKH SEES HOW KAMARI’S SONGS AND FAER GENTLE NATURE ALLOWS FAER TO COMFORT OTHERS! ANKH THINKS THAT SOCIETY WASTED KAMARI’S TALENTS IN ORDER TO MAKE FAER A KILLER. ANKH WANTS KAMARI TO BE FAER PARTNER! I PLATONICALLY SHIP THEM SO MUCH! I ALSO MAKE THEM BLUSH FOR EACH OTHER AND KIS-) 

Anyways. Ankh thinks Anuli is a parasite to Kamari. A treeless dryad who burdens Kamari, takes advantage of faer kindness. Anuli also expresses faer affection through telling stories and whenever someone is hurt, fae doesn’t know what to do so fae freezes and tries to remove faerself from the situation. Ankh sees this. Ankh makes faer warped deductions. Isn’t everyone a hypocrite. 

… anyways I barely finished a chapter because I’ve rewritten the story so much that I have over 100 pages of scrapped writing anyways-