The peaceful sleep that Aqua so desperately craved doesn’t last long. Within a week or two he’s back to sleepless nights, tossing and turning, missing the ocean once more. It’s made all the worse because he can’t stop thinking about the sleep fairy. He absolutely refuses to go back and allow himself to be abused again, but it’s hard to remember that conviction when it’s nearly 3 AM and he feels like he’s going to melt through the bed with exhaustion.
The thing is, despite his actions, the sleep fairy clearly was magical. There’s no denying that. Assuming Aqua didn’t hallucinate the entire thing, what happened to him was definitely more than some sort of creeper doing magic tricks. And if there’s magic, well... maybe there’s more than one way to fix his sleep.
Out of other ideas, Aqua seeks help at the local library. He hasn’t spent much time here; he hasn’t spent a lot of time in town, to be honest; he’s still vaguely angry at the place for not being his original hometown. But searching “sleep fairy” on the internet didn’t turn up anything useful, and so he’s forced to resort to more analogue alternatives.
Aqua has to stand on his tip-toes to put his arms up on the library counter. The old man in a ratty sweater sorting books behind the desk looks up at him and pushes up his half-moon glasses. “Can I help you, young man?” he asks.
“I’m trying to find information on fairies,” says Aqua.
“Oh ho,” the man sounds amused. “Another treasure hunter, hm? Lots of people come around here looking for the fae. But most of them come to regret it, in my experience.”
A week ago Aqua would have thought the old man was crazy. Now he’s immediately rapt. “What do you mean? Do you know stuff about the sleep fairy?”
“Sleep fairy, hm?” says the man. “There are many fae around these parts, or so it’s said. People come from all over because they’ve heard about the King of the Fairies. They say he has a magic orb that grants wishes, and that he hosts a grand festival where one person is granted their heart’s desire. But of course, it’s not as easy as just walking up to him and asking for a favor.”
This sounds perfect. Better than he could have hoped. “How do I find him?” Aqua asks, eyes wide.
“Oh, well, you have to find their realm,” the man says nonchalantly, as though this is common knowledge. “There are many rifts into the land of the fae. But it can be difficult to know where and what makes them open. The easiest way is to follow one of the fae inside. But you must be careful in there. Time is strange for the fae; it doesn’t run the same way it does here. You might think you’re there for a moment, and step back out to find days have passed. Or you might think you’re there for years, and return to find that no one even noticed you were gone. You also must not eat or drink anything that they give you, or you will be trapped forever. It helps if they don’t know that you’re a human. Or so I’ve heard; never been myself. I don’t care to tempt fate like that.”
Aqua, on the other hand, very much does. His heart pounds with this new knowledge. An artifact that grants wishes? Forget sleep! He could wish himself back to his hometown. Or turn the whole forest into a beach. Or whatever he wants! He has to find it.
He spends the next several days making plans. He’s not sure any of it will work, but he has to try. Every day his lack of sleep gets worse and worse. He can’t keep living like this.
The first step is to find the sleep fairy again. Aqua waits for a full moon, when there’s at least a tiny bit of light in the forest, and makes his way out to the shed where the sleep fairy had first taken him. He hangs back by the treeline, watching the mossy clearing, fighting heavy eyelids and leaning against the rough bark of a tree as he crouches in the shadow of its trunk.
Luck is with him. Towards midnight, Aqua suddenly blinks awake as a soft glow illuminates the clearing. The sleep fairy. As he had been the first time Aqua saw him, the fairy enters the clearing as a tiny glowing ball of light before slowly growing into the shape of a winged man. He walks up to the old shed and opens the door.
To Aqua’s immense surprise, the room on the other side is not the tiny, dilapidated shack interior he remembers. Instead, the door opens to an enormous bustling crowd: a great hall filled with people of all kinds. Their laughter and jubilant conversation spills out into the clearing for just a few moments as the sleep fairy enters through the door, then abruptly cuts off as he closes it behind him.
Aqua blinks, waiting a moment to see if the fairy will come back out. When he doesn’t, Aqua creeps forward and opens the door himself.
Nothing. On the other side of the door is a simple, empty wooden shack, bare of any furniture or decoration, just as it was when Aqua was there before. He closes the door and opens it again. Nothing changes.
Cursing, Aqua goes home and tries (and fails) to sleep. He returns again the next night to see if the sleep fairy comes back. He does. And the next night. And the next. If Aqua’s ever going to get into this weird magical realm, it seems like following the sleep fairy is his best bet.
And so Aqua tries his best attempt at stealth. When he next sees the fairy, Aqua creeps along the edge of the clearing, then leaves the treeline behind to try and get as close as possible before the fairy travels through the door. He huddles as much as he can in the shadows of large stones, trying to keep out of the fairy’s sight.
The fairy’s head lifts up and he glances around sharply. Aqua presses himself against the rock he’s hiding behind, heart pounding. Has he been spotted? But then the fairy seems to relax; Aqua lets out the breath he was holding and peeks up out of his hiding place.
Once again, the fairy opens the door to the shed to reveal a great palatial room on the other side. This time, however, when he goes through, he leaves the door ever-so-slightly ajar.
Aqua seizes his chance! He makes a break for the door and grabs at the edge before it can swing itself closed. Pulse racing with excitement, he opens the door and slips inside after the sleep fairy.
The room on the other side of the door is like nothing Aqua has ever seen. He’d thought it was some kind of grand ballroom, and it sort of is. It has a beautiful marble floor the color of fallen leaves, and a ceiling overhead painted with wheeling stars. But it also seems to have... no walls? The edges of the room are punctuated with ancient, twisted trees whose boughs rise up to support the dome of the ceiling. Beyond them are simply more trees; the edges of the room apparently open up into a deep and piercingly green forest, dense and alive and full of ominous presence.
Aqua swallows. If anything, the inhabitants of the room are even stranger. They come in all shapes and sizes: some are tall and lanky and willowy, some are short and deformed, some are impressively vast and commanding of presence. Some of them are pale and avian like Aqua’s sleep fairy, but others are dark with butterfly wings, or have skin that is rough and pitted and gray like tree bark, or are smooth and midnight-pitch, punctuated with stars like the night sky. They are breathtaking in their variety, and every single one appears to be wearing a mask.
It’s some kind of masquerade, it seems. An ambient music soothes the space, coming from nowhere at all. Every face is covered, at least partially. Some masks are worn tied around the face, while others are full, helmet-like covers, and still others are held up on a stick, carried in front of the face by their “wearer.” And everyone—every single person and creature milling about—is entirely nude.
Aqua hangs back, unsure what to do. He hides under a table of food—one of several dotted about the room—and watches.
He finds himself in luck only a minute or two later. A strange creature like a short stubby tree with legs walks up to the table and helps itself to some food. As it does so, it puts down the mask it was carrying to better fill both hands with tiny, cream-filled cakes. Aqua takes advantage of the opportunity and grabs the creature’s mask while it’s not looking, pulling it under the table.
He quickly divests himself of his clothing and holds the mask up to his face. There’s such an enormous variety of beings here that he doesn’t particularly stand out as he slips out onto the dance floor and mingles among the other guests. He’s not even the shortest one here. The tinkling of laughter and murmur of conversation flows around him as he tries to casually make his way towards the front of the room.
An enormous throne looms at the head of the grand hall, and as Aqua gets closer he sees that there does seem to be a man lounging atop it.
This new being has acorn-brown skin and tree branches like antlers rising up from his head. A wreath of tender green leaves and white berries sits atop his hair like a crown. His mask is one of an owl, carved in wood and staring ominously, covering only the top half of his face and ending in a sharp beak that dips down over his nose.
Next to him, on top of a scepter-like stand, is a glowing orb of pale lavender light.
The wishing orb. It has to be. Aqua stares at it. All he has to do now is figure out how he’s going to get a hold of it. There’s so much going on at this party; surely there will be some kind of lull where he can just grab it, unseen, and then whisk it away back the way he came?
As he stares, the king’s head suddenly turns and, unexpectedly, makes direct eye contact. Aqua freezes; the king’s eyes stare into his soul behind the mask. Aqua feels as though he’s drowning in them. The eyes are deep pits, a vast void on the other side that leaves Aqua paralyzed as he falls endlessly into them.
The king suddenly smiles, and it is the least human expression Aqua has ever seen. The smile is like a parody of pleasure, and combined with the empty eyes it feels like Aqua has just been spotted by some manic god of insanity.
The king claps, twice. The music ceases abruptly, as does all conversation in the room. A gap in the crowd opens around Aqua as though a spotlight had suddenly been shone on him. He looks around, panicked. Everyone is staring at him.
“He has arrived.” The king’s voice is unexpectedly high, but nevertheless strangely intimidating. He removes his mask; beneath it, the skin of his face is covered with a strange, leaf-like texture. His hair begins as a bright, spring green at his temples before fading into autumnal reds and oranges, and finally to a dull gray-brown at the ends, tinged with frosty white. His empty eyes are bright, piercing gold.
Everyone else in the room follows the king’s lead, dropping their own masks. Most of their faces are even stranger than the masks were. Their eyes pin Aqua, rooting him to the spot.
“Welcome, guest,” says the king. “Please forgive our rudeness, as we have not offered you hospitality. Will you not dine with us? Come, join our feast.”
Aqua clears his throat, remembering what the old man at the library had said. He leaves his mask up, afraid to lower it. “Oh, uh- no- no thank you. I’m, umm... not hungry.”
“Wine,” then, coaxes the king. “Surely you will join us for a drink? A toast, to your arrival!”
“No thank you,” Aqua says again, his voice small.
“Well, then, we must go right to the festivities, I suppose,” says the king. He tilts his head oddly to the side, in a way that makes Aqua feel like he could just as easily turn his head all the way upside-down, like an owl. The king claps again. “Have at him.”
The court descends upon Aqua. He loses his mask almost immediately as dozens of beings swarm him and grab at his body, pulling at his limbs and stroking him, lifting him, petting his skin.
“Hey, wh- hey wait!” Aqua protests, but the words fall on deaf ears. Every inch of his body is touched by strange fingertips. Some are warm and soothing, some cool and damp, some lightly scraping like claws. Each touch is a new and unfamiliar sensation. Aqua begins to panic and thrash, trying to get away.
The hands hold him firmly, as though his struggles mean nothing. He feels something that could be the wet lick of a tongue on the back of his shoulder blade, or perhaps just another strange touch. It’s impossible to tell. He tries to twist around to see, but his vision is blocked by the press of beings surrounding him.
The touches have no decorum or hesitance. Unfamiliar hands grab his buttocks and squeeze them, while something warm and slick begins to rub between them, teasing at his hole. At the same time another being eclipses the space in front of him, enormous and pink, and touches Aqua’s face, tracing his features with vast fingers before slipping them into Aqua’s mouth and tracing the contours of his cheeks from the inside.
The slick heat behind Aqua begins to press inside him. He gasps, allowing the fingers deeper into his mouth, as some unseen prehensile muscle worms its way into his passage. He can’t see a thing, only feel the strange sensations as it wriggles up into him.
It’s not alone; before long a second object begins to press into him beside it. This feels more like the sleep fairy’s cock that Aqua is familiar with, but he has no way of knowing who exactly it is that is penetrating him; the press of bodies is just too thick.
The touches continue; no inch of his flesh goes without caresses. He sees bare cocks among the many limbs that fight for access to his skin, there and gone again as they rub briefly against him and then fade back into the crowd.
The fingers in his mouth withdraw and something else slips inside. Someone’s member? Another hand? A new, stranger limb? Aqua’s vision is nothing but a sea of flesh of varying colors. Whatever it is in his mouth, it begins to thrust, pumping into him in a base rhythm.
The ambient music has started up again. Aqua is whirled around almost like a dance. Strange things penetrate him for a thrust or two, then withdraw and are replaced by something new and stranger. To say he loses track of what has gone into him implies that he ever knew in the first place; everything happens so fast and so chaotically that he barely registers one thing happening to him before it has metamorphosed into something else.
Sometime along the way the beings do begin to come inside him, if it can be called that. He swallows fluids that range from thin and salty like seawater to a thick sweet tree sap. An equally strange variety of liquids are pumped into his rear, or spilled across his skin in unpredictable splashes. Aqua is soaked in a strange mess of substances, barely able to tell where any of them are coming from.
He has no sense of the passage of time. All he knows is that eventually the sea of bodies in front of him parts as the king rises from his throne and approaches Aqua.
He does not speak, does not cajole, simply inserts his member into Aqua’s mouth. He doesn’t even thrust with it: he simply impales Aqua’s throat deeply onto the generous spike and begins to pour a liquid of his own into Aqua’s stomach. What little Aqua can taste is rich and heady, like the smell of wine and honey. The taste blooms on his tongue as the king begins to draw back, still coming.
He continues to come as he pulls out of Aqua’s mouth, coating his face and hair and leaving him dripping. Aqua swallows and clenches his eyes tightly shut to avoid the substance as it trickles down his forehead and brows.
“You see?” the king says finally. “All mortals love the taste of this realm. There is no need to fear it.”
Chuckles ripple among the other guests as the circle of onlookers closes around him and the strange touches and penetrations resume.
“You’re so lucky,” he hears a voice say.
“Oh to have drunk from the king!” sighs another.
“You’re ours now.” Each voice that speaks is different from the last, though they all seem to share the same sentiment.
“You have drunk of the seed of the land of the fae.” “Now you are truly ours to rights.” “It has been so long since we have received a new plaything.” “We look forward to playing with you into eternity, tender young morsel.” “This place will transform you soon enough.” “Enjoy it; you might as well.” “You’re here forever.”
As another strange object slides into him from behind, Aqua’s brain feels like it’s filling with a strange, static hiss. Everything seems wrapped in cotton fluff; he can’t concentrate at all. His mind fades as time stretches out around him like a vast ocean. All that is left is the neverending parade of touches on his body as he is used and toyed with, on and on and on and on...