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She comes to their village, her belly swollen with child, face streaked with tears, bleeding from wounds made by knives. The people have never seen one of her kind so close before, and they fear her: but their pity overcomes their fear, and they take her in.She knows few words of their tongue, but she learns quickly. She repeats her thanks again and again as they bandage her wounds and dry her eyes, but she refuses their offerings of perfectly good venison. They are frustrated until a child gives her a pear, and she embraces him in gratitude.The village can speak of nothing other than the visitor. Children come to stare at her, and she smiles at them and sings for them in her language. Shamans watch over her suspiciously, but she does not prove a threat. Elders gossip in the background, swapping tales of the last time they saw one of the fair folk. Warriors and healers alike are charmed by her smile, but the chief remains wary. She warns her people that the visitor may yet prove dangerous, and they must remain vigilant.She dwells with them for a sennight before she begins to scream. Her child, her child is coming! The healers banish everyone else from her presence; the shamans pray outside her tent while the chief stands guard.Her labor lasts three days. She is in terrible pain, and the healers do not know how to help her. She babbles in her own tongue and another, harsher one, with only a few of their words mingled in her cries.The shamans suspect her child is fathered by a demon, and begin to whisper among the people. A fire is lit, and the chief cannot soothe the people's fears, for she shares them.On the dawn of the third day the eldest healer emerges from the tent, arms drenched in blood, a girl child screaming in his arms. The babe is unholy, possessed: that is clear to all. The spirit of the fair folk has abandoned the visitor and her spawn, for the creature's ears are rounded—hair grows in places unnatural—her skin is paler by far than her mother's lovely brown color.The shamans seize the beastly child and pray over her. She screams and screams and screams, and they recoil from her awful cries. She cannot be saved, they declare, and prepare to cast the evil thing into the fire.It is then that the visitor emerges from the tent. She is weak and thin, unclothed and bloodstained, and the power of the fair folk shines in her furious eyes.The shamans flee from her wrath, and she takes her child in her arms. The infant calms as she coos to her, but the mother trembles with the effort. The birth has taken too much of her spirit from her, and she falls to the ground.The chief is disturbed. She orders the healers to purify the visitor and her unholy child, and commands the village to stay away from them.The visitor wakes, feverish, in the night. She begs to see her child, but the babe is being tended to by a healthy woman. The healers explain, but the visitor is distraught. She does not understand. Her spirit wanes, and the healers know not what to do.They have heard tales of the fair folk who live free in the wilds. They are reclusive and strange in their ways, and do not often mingle with common mortals. Some villages fear and curse them, but here the fair folk have always been revered. It is strange that such a mother would come to them, alone, in her hour of need, only to fade away with their life force spent.Why had she not stayed with her own people? From where did her wounds come? What was wrong with the child? Was she truly sired by a demon? The visitor could not answer, and the villagers could only guess.The eldest elder of the village tells children of a story from xir youth. Xe had seen one of the fair folk—an elf they had been called in those days—and learned a little magic from him. Xe professes xe can bless the visitor and her child, but the healers refuse xem entry to the tent.The elf was ancient and powerful, xe says. He healed xem from a hunting wound, and told xem of his people's long-ago wars. Xe warns the healers, and now the children: an elf can fade from grief, if they are separated from what they love.The visitor is fading fast. She is solid in the flesh, but her spirit is on the brink of death. At last the healers relent, and the eldest elder kneels before her.Xe prays as the elf xe met once had, murmuring strange words. The visitor's eyes flicker open, and she stares. She speaks back in the same tongue, but the eldest elder knows only the prayer. Xe cannot offer her further comfort, but xe understands one word: child.The child is summoned. The mother weeps and takes her babe into her arms, growing stronger in spirit by the moment. The eldest elder is jubilant: xe has saved her! The healers, humbled, honor xem and rejoice.The shamans return from their exile, muttering curses upon the visitor. The chief has grown fond of the new mother, but even she cannot stop the shamans from sowing seeds of anger among the village people.The mother is asleep when the head shaman steals the babe from her arms. She wakes and cries out: the healers come running, but it is too late. The head shaman raises his knife and smites the demon child.The mother screams. It is the most painful sound any of the village has ever heard, and all fall and tremble before the visitor's righteous wrath. A burst of fire consumes the mother, and the sky is lit for a brief moment.Ash falls to the ground. The chief rises to her feet, her heart heavy with foreboding. The sight before her is ghastly: the head shaman is naught but bones, his skin burned away and his knife melted to liquid steel. The mother is vanished, her spirit fled to the vapors of the stars. But the child...The child lives. The babe stares at the chief with wide and piercing eyes, and she knows that this is no demon spawn.The eldest elder is the next to rise. The village children support xem as xe stumbles toward the babe and takes her in xir arms. The chief kneels to xem, and the rest of the village follows her example.The eldest elder places the child in the chief's embrace. She is one of the fair folk, whatever else she may be, xe admonishes. Her mother sacrificed herself to save her. The fire has purified the village of the fallen shaman. It is a sign that the child must be protected.The chief raises the child to the sky. She claims the babe as her own, in penance for failing the visitor. The eldest elder hmms in approval, and each member of the village rises to kiss the infant's brow.The child grows in the village. The visitor is spoken of in reverent whispers. The child knows she is of the fair folk and of the demon spirits—or perhaps of common mortals in faraway lands—or perhaps of the mountain-delving dwarfish folk. But she is also of the village, and she honors her mother's sacrifice.The eldest elder passes into the lands beyond the day the child comes of age, taking her proper place amongst the village shamans. Xe believes she was sent of the gods, and it matters not who fathered her, and the child takes comfort in this even as xe's chest falls still.It is not the fair folk who fade away into mist, overcome by grief. The child closes the eldest elder's unmoving eyes, praying to xir gods and her mother. It is the mortals who perish and fade, but she will live on, carrying her mother's spirit and sacrifice. She will tell the tale of the visitor-mother, of the eldest elder, of the wicked shaman, of her own brightness to generations of villagers yet to come.The child—no, she is not a child any longer—the fledgling shaman is not of here, and yet this is the only place she has ever known. She is foul and fair, and she will teach the children of the future the old legends, and protect the village that robbed her of a mother and gifted her a home.