Faeries

[Timothy Toner]

-----Original Message-----
From: Gregory Paul Stolze <holycrow at mindspring.com>
To: UA at purpletape.cs.uchicago.edu <UA at purpletape.cs.uchicago.edu>
Date: Friday, February 26, 1999 9:56 AM
Subject: Re: Faeries


>At 10:47 PM 2/25/99 -0500, Paul C Duggan wrote:
>>
>>What are they?
>>
>>I'll go over the edge and affirm beyond the "souls of dead infants" that
>>they are the souls of aborted fetuses. There has been an upswing of
>>interest in them since 1973 or so.
>
> I dunno.  My brain just balks at the idea that there are MORE faeries
>running around now than there were two centuries ago.

Right.  Which is why, I suppose, it would make more sense to say that
they're the souls of children left to die AFTER birth (through exposure or
crowning, or some other practice).  Abortions, then, are a pre-emptive
strike, and actually work quite well in keeping the fae population down,
except in the third world (and in areas of the first world which experience
third-world conditions), where they still take on a mischievous form (La
Chupacabra, anyone?).  However, actions have consequences, and something
bigger and nastier has arisen as a result of the practice.  The dead souls
of the Neverborn are smashed, cut, snipped, partially dissolved, and
vaccuumed up after the fact, and tend to coagulate together with other
neverborn.  These bizarre amalgams often dissipate within weeks, since a
single questing soul is often needed to get a child through the first months
of life.  Occasionally, however, the Neverborn Amalgam latches onto a child
whose soul (as well as body) echoes with the same torture that they have
endured.  They slip in through the back, and bolster the failing strength of
the psyche.  Each bit of the amalgam then grows, often taking on
characteristic encountered when the amalgam roamed free.  The abused child,
aided now with a chorus of voices, survives.  The Amalgam has found a home,
but the fights for control among the neverborn often drag the poor sould
down into despair.