I Hear Destiny

The rules of the world had always been simple to me. Keep your head down, tread carefully through life, and the jabs it takes at you won't be personal. Nobody gets through unscathed, so I didn't expect to either. Still, I did my best to remain as unobtrusive as I could manage.

Unfortunately, the other players didn't seem to abide by the rules. They spat into the breeze and were surprised when the winds of fate brought it back in their faces. Even though I did my best to steer clear, I wasn't always successful.

It wasn't my fault that my best friend seemed to be a magnet for trouble. Tall, slim, and angry, Tammy seemed to be trying to prove just how personal the fates could get.

I knew better than to go along with her. Really, I hadn't even done that; I'd followed her, because for all my protests of neutrality, my affection and concern for her had led me just where I didn't want to go.

The fairies usually didn't mess around with people like me. That is, until we messed around with them.

Tammy had gotten into her head that she could capture a low-level fairy and either convince it to do something for her or sell it. I told her to forget it. She laughed.

The fairies didn't congregate where you'd expect them to be. No mystical walk through the woods for us; Tammy and I found ourselves picking our way through the rubble scattered across the grounds outside an abandoned mine.

"The dangerous ones usually stay inside the mine," Tammy whispered, weighing the enchanted jar in her hand. She'd bought it from some street-vending runeskeeper back in town. It was supposedly able to contain a weak fairy if you kept it out of direct starlight. I supposed that was why we were doing this on a cloudy night.

"I'm really feeling comforted," I retorted. What should have sounded sardonic came out more anxious than I'd meant it to.

She looked around at me, brown eyes wide and shining in the gathering dusk. She always grew more animated by danger or the thought of a tidy sum. In this case, it was both. "'Riah, don't worry about it. People do this all the time."

"You haven't," I reminded her.

She ignored me and looked around. With the jar in one hand, she stretched the other out in front of her. You could usually sense a tingling in the tips of your fingers if a fairy was close, and you would know to look for the telltale shimmer in the air.

"I feel something!" she whispered excitedly. "Do you see it?"

I looked around half-heartedly. "No."

"There!"

With one fell swoop, she caught up the shimmer inside the jar and clamped the lid on. Immediately, the passive little twinkle of light grew more dense. It started hitting against the sides of the jar with clear little dings, and I thought I could hear angry buzzing.

Tammy quickly stuffed the jar into her satchel and turned to go. "Come on!"

I could see the triumph on her face, but didn't have the heart to tell her that I was positive that the whole situation could go nowhere good. "Let's just get out of here."

As we started to lightly jog away, I tripped over something on the ground. Tammy didn't notice and kept moving. I hurried to my feet, worried that she would leave me behind with a bunch of angry fairies, and only glanced at what I had fallen over.

It was a silver compass, with a leather chord strung through a loop welded on top. It was stretched over two rocks, and was probably what I had tripped over. The partially open cover had strange runic markings over it. It was too quick of a glance to try and make out what they were, but I had seen enough. Everybody knew not to touch or mess with items that had been around fairies, especially if they had magical markings.

I caught up to Tammy as she reached the footpath leading back into town.

"You good?" She asked, one hand laid protectively over the satchel as she scanned the darkened roadside.

"Everything's fine," I said, despite the unsettling feeling that nothing was fine, and probably wouldn't be for a long time.