Feature Friday: LK Rigel

Words can not describe how excited I am to have LK Rigel here with us today! A fellow friend from H.P. Mallory Writer's Club and the author of Give Me, she has a post that you guys will love.

Wonderful book that you when you're done reading this guest post you need to go pick up. Like now. :) In fact, it's even on sale right now for $0.99! Down from it's usual $3.00. (So you have no excuse now!)

Without further ado...

Fairy stories are popular right now. They can be as fun to write as to read because with fairies, you just never know! Fairies exist in a range from cute, little, fanciful, playful and full of magical fun to dark, threatening, large, uncontrollable and full of sexual danger. Why wouldn’t we want to read about fairies?

Because fairy powers and weakness vary so widely in different cultures, each fairy story or series can have different “rules” of its own. A few of the many common rules of fae:

Fairies hate iron. Iron can bind a fairy and nullify his or her magic. It also gives fairies horrific headaches. In my Tethers series (beginning with Give Me) the war between the fae and the wyrders starts over iron. When a wyrding woman changes all the iron to make it more malleable, one of the side effects is that it no longer hurts the fae. The fae king Idris wants to know the secret, and he’ll destroy all wyrders to get it. 

Fairies don’t like bread or salt. Haha. I don’t understand where this comes from, but it’s a fun fact. It’s a good idea to keep a holy cake in your pocket when you go abroad at night, especially on Mischief Night (Halloween) when the fairies flood the human world to do … mischief. If you see a fairy, throw crumbs or salt at it – and run!

Fairies hate to be thanked. They feel insulted by thanks. As if a mere word is enough to acknowledge their favors! Related to this, it’s dangerous to accept a favor from a fairy – because your thanks won’t be enough. The fairy will want something in return, and if you’re in a fairy story you know he’ll want the one thing you don’t want to give at the time it’s most inconvenient to give it. Accepting fairy magic generally does not turn out well. If you think about it, in most fairy tales there’s always a problem with the wish a fairy grants.

In fae, time is different. Never, never, never go into the fairy lands unless you have an exit strategy. Time passes so fast there, a hundred years can feel like a day. Be careful! In the Tethers series, the breaking spell that lets a human escape fae is to say “I forgive you” to the one who is keeping you three times. 

Fairies like to steal babies and replace them with changelings. Okay, now personally I don’t get this. Babies require a lot of work, and fairies are more interested in play. If they wanted a human to play with, wouldn’t they steal one that’s at least potty trained? 

The enduring element of fairy tales is the magic. No matter how technologically complex our lives become, the world is still full of mystery, unfairness, cruelty – and boredom. When our all-too-human troubles become overwhelming and unsolvable, it would be fabulous to be able to throw a little fairy dust on our problems and make everything wonderful and exciting. In our imaginations, fairy stories let us do just that.

What are your favorite elements of a fairy story?

 _________________

Thank you sooo much for joining us today LK! It's been a blast having you and I cannot wait to see what's next in this series!

To see my review on Give Me, click here!