Greetings, and welcome to the Lightspeed Magazine podcast. Stefan Rudnicki here. Today, for your eager ears... We have not one, not two, but three startling stories. First up is the short shot, My Mother the Supervillain by Benjamin Blatberg, narrated by Roxanne Hernandez. right after this message. The Warning Woods has haunting horror stories that are sure to linger with you long after listening. I'm Miles Tridel, writer and narrator.
of The Warning Woods. Each week I write an original scary story and share it with you. If you're into scary stories you need to check out The Warning Woods. Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Just search for The Warning Woods and click play at your own risk. Can you change your personality? How does peer pressure work? Should you ever really trust your gut?
These are just a few of the topics we've recently tackled on my podcast, Something You Should Know. It's a podcast where leading experts give you valuable intel that you can use in your life today. I'm the host, Mike Carruthers, and with over 1,000 episodes and over 4,000 mostly 5-star reviews, I invite you to check out Something You Should Know, wherever you listen. And now, Roxanne Hernandez. My Mother the Supervillain by Benjamin Blackberg. Mom still has good days. Some days.
those days when i visit her at alpine rest she knows who i am and asks how her grandson jack is on her not so good days she tries to summon the fire cosmic and screams that I'm in league with Professor Incalculable, Otomo the robot boy, or the golden lady who has a room down the hall. Sometimes during these outbursts,
Professor incalculable only thinks he can sever my connection to the universal fire. A nurse looks in. How you doing today, Miss Mira? The nurse says, or sometimes with a big wink at mom. Lady Flame, you're a hot one. Mom laughs, instantly calm, sits back down in her recliner, turns on the TV loud. That's the best a bad day gets. At least after those interrupted outbursts, she's not here with me. But she's not elsewhere either. On those bad days, when no nurse comes in, when I'm alone with her.
She goes so firmly into the past that she takes me with her. Just another innocent bystander here for the monologue as she robs Mercury Labs or the Natural History Museum in her memory. In those moments. I don't remind her that incalculable died years ago, car crash, or that she went to the funeral. That was after the general pardon, when superheroes and villains could do things like that for each other openly.
Though even before the pardon, Mom would have gone to a super's funeral to show her respect and make sure they were really dead. She always made time for them back then. Back then, her powers, well. I know what she could do with the fire. There's a reason why I only microwave dinners and won't go to a barbecue and like a cool breeze even in the winter. Jack doesn't know what it was like.
And if I can help it, he never will. One time, at alpine rest, one time only, he saw his grandma cradle a spark in her hands, so gently, like a tiny living thing. I think she might have even cried a bit when it went out. Or maybe that was just some drops from the water I poured over her hands. Since then, Jack doesn't come inside to see his grandma during my weekly visits.
Maybe it wasn't that spark that scared him. Maybe it was seeing me or her lose control. He doesn't see a lot of that at home. Either way- He stays in the car, or if the weather's nice, sits on a bench doing his math homework. He's still young enough he's excited to show off to me, bringing me A-plus tests.
Extra credit questions in his scrawled handwriting, which is about all that's left of the little boy he was. These are the only smiles my serious boy gives me as we drive to Alpine rest after I pick him up from school. I would love you just as much, I say, if you got a few points off. The important thing is you always try your best. He sighs theatrically, which he doesn't get from me, and huddles in his puffy coat.
The AC high in my car. Not everything has to be a lesson, Mom. With Jack's safe outside Alpine rest, I brace myself before going in to see her. Even on good days when she remembers who I am and pats my hand, her skin soft with age, or maybe she always had soft skin, I don't have childhood memories of her holding my hand to compare.
Even on those good days, after asking about me and Jack, mostly she wants to reminisce about the past. Robbing Mercury Labs with Hex Wraith, the Lantern Crew holding the damn hostage. her short-lived team up with Ice Queen. Even on good days, I'm sharing her with this other life. Once, the golden lady catches me crying silently in the hallway outside mom's room.
I'm good at crying silently. I feel the itch behind my eyes that tells me someone is reading my mind before I see her rolling up in her reinforced wheelchair. I picture a wall, a vault. A big red stop sign, all tricks mom taught me to block a telepath. And then just the word please over and over, which is my own trick. The itch goes away. Her gold skin is too heavy to easily move, so she thinks at me. She did her best. It wasn't enough, I say out loud, louder than I mean to.
But mom won't hear me over the TV. The golden lady musters strength to lift her hands like balancing scales. She did her best. It wasn't enough. The scales teeter-totter. Then balance. Two things can be true. I stomp off before she can read my mind more, before she figures out what's in that vault behind the wall, what my pleas hide. But it's Jack who figures it out, my clever Jack. One day, I get back into the car, obviously drained, and he tells me his theory.
It's a crude theory, but so is the truth. If you didn't come, she'd- He gestures with his hand, like a kid playing wizard, summoning flame. No one else loses their superpowers. Somehow you stop her. I can't think of any other reason why you'd visit every week. I think about lying, but I'm trying my best, so I show him Professor Incalculable's obsidian egg.
It's not really an egg, I explain, and it's not really obsidian. It's an interrupter, tuned to grandma's connection to the fire. She knows about it. She's the one who got it from incalculable back after the pardon, after her diagnosis. She's the one who told me how to use it, knowing back then, we both did, that soon she'd start having more bad days than good.
He takes that in. I can see him calculating. No extra credit for this one, Jack. Even after, he says, vague flapping of his hands, not knowing what to say. He doesn't know the details of my childhood, only the shape he sometimes pushes up against. That I'm the only mom who doesn't have a collection of scented candles, who orders ice in all her drinks. No photos of me as the birthday girl. No photos of me as a kid at all. My past, completely consumed by her burning.
I don't tell him, you'll understand when you're older, because I'm afraid he already understands. I nod and squeeze his hand, and still enough left of my little boy. He squeezes back. He'll have this memory, I tell myself. The feeling of my hands, strong and soft, not letting his hand drop, not holding so tight I bruise. For a moment. Just a moment. I feel a tiny spark cradled in his hand. Just static from the dry, cold air, I tell myself. But I don't believe it.
I don't say anything. I'll let him tell me when he's ready. I'll be here for him in the ways that I can be. It's the best I can do. I hold his hand till he's ready for me to let go. You have just heard My Mother the Supervillain by Benjamin Blatberg, narrated by Roxanne Hernandez. Ben Blatberg is a software developer, improviser, and writer currently living in Austin, Texas.
as long as there are no follow-up questions on any of those facts. His stories have appeared in Apex Magazine, Andromeda Spaceways, Etheria Magazine, Diabolical Plots, and elsewhere. Roxanne Hernandez is an Audi-nominated narrator and actress who records in English, Spanish, and Portuguese. She was born in Santiago, Chile.
and grew up in the United States and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She has recorded dozens of books in diverse genres, young adult, children's romance, science fiction, mystery suspense, and non-fiction. Up next we have another short shot. See now The Misfortune of the Thinking 10X by Lowry Paletti, narrated by me, Stefan Rudnicki, right after this message.
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integrated shipping solutions that actually save you time from startups to scale-ups online in person and on the go shopify is made for entrepreneurs like you sign up for your one dollar a month trial at shopify.com slash setup And now, See Now the Misfortune of the Thinking 10X by Lowry Paletti. See Now the Misfortune of the Thinking 10X.
It is alone. The other Tenekeys have been chased away. Their gore stains the thinking Tenex's mandibles, and its roar drives them further back. Their flickering eyes peer out from behind. belt's bathic spires. Though the thinking tenaxe's carapace is star-spotted with scars, wet with weeping wounds, the ground shines more so with the stickiness of the prey corpse.
The 10X crawls inside the beast's abdomen. Its opercula flutter in anticipation. Even as its antennae are pressed flush to its head by pounds of flesh, it looks... And it will eat, yes, but first it feels and smells. Inside, purple meat, which yields like loam beneath its snout. swells across too much of the abdomen, too soft, too wide. Worms, seen to some extent in every beast, writhe in and out of the intestines through holes of their own making.
The stomach contains sylvanate junk, leather, plastic. Snapshots of a hundred corpses sprawl across its mind. As it compares old to new, It shivers with delight. The thinking tenax has been haunted by its first thought since the birth of its sapience, when it tore open the flank of a beast. and stopped seconds before devouring it because sunlight hit the muscle, filling it with a glowing translucency that the Tenax had only seen in glass. It could not eat.
It did not yet have a word for love. Nothing in this thing or any other corpse explains why the beasts wander so close to the city. What business does a beast have with the slithering silk words of the Sylvanax, with Eldthul's sprawling towers? The thinking Tenax has been there once before. as it suspects all other tenekeys, when a sulvanax placed a collar around its neck and whispered, there's no other food but the wretched things in the wilds, nothing else that will sate your hunger.
Nothing inside the corpse but a flaccid stomach. But could it be so simple? Do the beasts stalk Elthul only to eat? See now. It slips out of the corpse, shakes the blood from its scales, and when it looks up at the other tentakeys, green like new weeds, mandibles chattering with hunger, it remembers that it is alone. Wya has forgotten the name of the supplicant on their table. Seventy-three hours ago, they pushed anesthetic into the supplicant's catheter. They used a saw to open the carapace.
a scalpel handle to scrape off the fascia, and they are still here, still awake. It will be another day yet until the supplicant wakes. Wires cobweb the supplicant's viscera. Wya measures gas and electrolyte concentrations along with the movements of each organ. Soon they'll have a map of the supplicant's circulatory physiology. an essential addition to the database which has yet to catalogue how a congenital hepatopancreatic shunt affects aortic function. They wish they were asleep.
or arranging instruments outside to be cleansed, or basking on the surface. Instead, ignoring their patient, they sit in darkness mandated by electricity rations. and carve into their forearm acute sympathetic response wire writes on paper as the priest surgeons did before pilgrims stole computers from
where their worship is shunned. But if the sun forbids Sulvanax from cutting into Sulvanax, it would not sterilize their instruments with its cleansing light. Every priest-surgeon knows that they are blessed. Incision extended, pachycardia noted, generalized weakness, vertigo. Unknown sensation in the abdomen will investigate. surgeons are rarely made supplicants they are too difficult to replace wire will say the wound was an accident and no one will suspect no one wire whispers their prayers
remembering the shame that befell them as a larva, cocooned in Elthul, and wanting for something they couldn't name. Shouldn't their supplicants' sacrifices sate them? They fumble for their ultrasound probe, third hand still writing. On screen, their ovarian filaments sway like kelp. They slide the scalpel deeper, and in a flash... Their vision fades. When they come back to themselves, they aren't sure how to note this finding. Repletion. Bloat. Desire. Desire. Desire.
Perhaps they'll wait until they can breathe again. An alarm rings deep in the temple, dragging Wya's mind back to the surgical suite, the hard ground, and the beeping of the monitors. They stand unsteadily to look at the security footage. A tenaxe. They back away. There shouldn't be tenakies this far from Eldthul. Created to be the great protector, the great killer.
The first tenax rose from a sylvanate corpse, stretched like clay until it towered over all others. See now the first tenax from which all other tenakes spawned. Corded lymphatics form a facsimile of muscle. Spines crown mountainous shoulders. And hunger devours the mind. So why is it here? Why does it lie still as guards throw ropes over its neck? Why do its mandibles open? Oh, look, the split fruit wetness of its mouth.
slowly, methodically, as if it speaks. How long would it take Wyatt to climb to... No matter. It is taken underground. a sylvanate priest-surgeon unlocks the prison the tanax has had to fold itself up neck bent in half by the ceiling its shadow blankets the cell turns the surgeon's carapace an inky black. They sit by its haunches. What are you? The tenaxe observes before it speaks. Their carapace is drilled with a constellation of holes.
redded with gold cord it cannot tell if they are old or young but it can hear their aorta flutter they wrap all forearms so tightly around their thorax that new lymph leaks out of their bandage. Ten axe, it says. No, you aren't. I am. A ten axe would have eaten me by now. Not this one. Who taught you to speak? I hatched to Sylvanate words. Since then, I have studied your tongue extensively. It lingered at Eldthul's gates, trawled through garbage.
listened to the voices that trickled through cracks in the walls. How strange it is to be exiled from the city it guards, to be created with a great purpose and hated for that very thing. Why are you here? I see the beauty of the inside of things. The ten-axis head snakes down. Again and again I kill and I see it and I cannot escape it. So I have come here. When it speaks, a line of saliva reaches the surgeon's waiting hand. This is what I have read of you, the 10X says.
Those desert heretics who deface the living and see that which must never be seen, the surgeon is startled from their reverie, wait, shall be eradicated and buried in shadow. Stop. Why? Why do you think I want to hear that? I do not think at all of your wants, the tenax says. Should I? I am thinking of yours. The tenax is quiet, so the surgeon says. my name is wya and they put their hand on the ten axis flank until finally it says i want if i am not welcome here i want to leave
And if I cannot leave, I will devour all of you myself. But I do not want to devour you. Is that all? I want you afraid. because then you will obey without violence. And so it is pulled inch by inch out of the tenaxe as if the surgeon were in its mouth, hooking their fingers in its crop. and wrenching it inside out. I want to see inside of everything. Everything. What a voice the thinking 10X has.
It echoes down the caverns of its body. The vibrations reach Wya's palm. Wya peels off their bandage. With each aortic beat, hemolymph leaks out of their wound. This... The tenaxe slips its proboscis inside. It has never tasted the living. Granulation tissue licks against the tenaxe like a mammal's tongue, warm as if the sun reaches hereto. The Tanax wedges one claw in the carapace and pulls. Each time it cracks, wire's vessels throb, but still they name each structure the Tanax finds.
Viridescent pigment stains the superficial tissues, but nerves and cartilage are as clear as water. The Tenax has no other corpses to reference. Wya will be a new prototype. How long has it been since it has been inside of something new? It wants to say, yes, this, but when it meets Wya's steadfast gaze, sees the hand stuffed in their mouth, their scales shuddering. It freezes. They, Tenex and Surgeon both, are filled with a strange hunger. No, a longing, a burning.
a need see now it does not hear the storm of footsteps it does not know why why a stumbles upright before the sullivanikis even arrive nor why they do not fight when they are dragged out into the hall. The other priests dote over Wya's wound and hold Wya's face in their hands and cry, What did it do to you? What did it do?
in moments they are gone the silence that returns is unlike any other silence see now it is alone it waits You have just heard See Now the Misfortune of the Thinking 10X by Lowry Paletti, narrated by Stefan Rudnicki and directed by Alison Bellevuse. Lowry Poletti is a black author, artist, and veterinary student from New Jersey. They write a variety of fantasy, sci-fi, and horror fiction, unified by their fascination with gore.
When they aren't writing about monsters and the people who love them, they can be found wrist-deep in a formalin-fixed lab specimen. Their other pieces appear in Strange Horizons, Baffling Magazine, and Fantasy Magazine. You can find more of their work on their website, lowrypoletti.wordpress.com. Stefan Rudnicki is a double Grammy-winning audiobook producer.
and an award-winning narrator who has won 17 audio awards, as well as more than 35 earphones awards, and been named one of audiophile's golden voices. Stefan has been producing Lightspeed Magazine podcasts since 2010, eventually adding Nightmare and Fantasy Magazine, and sharing the Hugo Awards for Best Semi-Prozine in 2014 and 2015. And now for our final story, When the Fairy King Toured the Human Realm by Vanessa Fogg, narrated by Susan Hanfield, coming up right after this message.
Hi, I'm here to tell you about Good Morning Night Vale. Welcome to Night Vale's official recap show and unofficial best friend food podcast. Join me, Meg Bashwiner, and fellow Tri hosts, Hal Lublin and Symphony Sanders, as we dissect all of the cool, squishy, and slimy bits of every episode of Welcome to Night Vale. Come for the insightful and hilarious commentary.
and stay for all of the weird and wild behind-the-scenes stories. Good morning, Night Vale, with new episodes every other Thursday. Get it wherever you get your podcasts. Yes, even there. Buckle up. We're going to Lightspeed. When the Fairy King Toured the Human Realm by Vanessa Fogg When the fairy king takes his tour of the human realm, he becomes, of course, a viral hit. The first posts and videos.
stream out from Shanghai just after the new year. He's seen waiting patiently in line at a popular dumpling stall. Comments multiply under the posted photos. Who? Is he so handsome? I'm dead. The woman at the counter hands him his shaolong bao in at bays. At his sweet smile, there are audible gasps. He eats his dumplings slowly, savoring each bite. He closes his eyes after the first one.
as though he's never tasted such a thing before. The staff tries to give him more when he's done, but he politely thanks them, smiles again, and leaves. More photos pop up. He's at a park. He's strolling through the U Garden. Snowflanks catch in his jet black hair. He's seen- taking in the city skyline along the bond. He wears a deep purple cloak against the chill, the color of twilight bleeding into night.
He walks along a busy street, and traffic literally slows. Heads turn, a spreading pool of silence as those closest to him notice and gawk. That small, stunned delay before the cell phones are brought out to record. The photos and videos spread internationally. Who is he? The world wonders. An actor? A model? Some preternaturally beautiful new star of the Chinese entertainment industry? Ambassador for a fashion brand with his striking clothes?
But no one can place him. No one's seen him before. And no one would ever forget that face. He wears exquisitely tailored outfits. suits and jackets of modern design, but of rich, luxurious fabrics and colors, black and silver brocade, plum and gold. Shimmering silks of midnight blue, that deep purple cloak of night. He's next seen on a beach resort in Hainan, ordering noodles.
from a street vendor in Bangkok. Perhaps he's trying to escape winter's chill. Yet he keeps his cloak on, even in the tropical heat. He's seen for one day in Sydney, Australia. A tour group eagerly posts the photos when he joins them on a climb up the Sydney Harbor Bridge. A passing drone films him at the top of the bridge. His cloak flaring out in the wind. The resulting pictures are the most popular yet. By the time he appears north again.
People are cosplaying the viral star. He comes face to face with a few on a Tokyo street. There he is in the photo. Resplendent in jewels. Endarkened. lustrous silks. He's holding a rolled up sweet crepe in one hand. Next to him are the pale imitations. A teen boy and girl in their garish purple cloaks. They're cheap. gems and glitter. Yet their eyes shine like stars to be beside the Fairy King. The Fairy King. This is the hashtag that finally sticks.
Variations in English, hashtag fairy king, hashtag faking. Approximations in all major languages online. He doesn't speak much. When he's tired of the shouted questions, the searching crowds, he has a trick of silencing everyone with a little flick of his head, a hammer blow of awe. hits and creates a widening space about him. But he's generally Janiel, if treated with proper respect. He accepts selfie requests, engages in small talk.
Answers polite questions. Yes, he's king of the fairy realm. Yes, he's enjoying his tour of the human world. Yes. He'll consider visiting that city, that restaurant, that recommended five-star or secret attraction. There's a sadness in all his smiles. A gentle air of melancholy. Like a subtle perfume. Watch enough videos and you'll see that it's always there. This quality.
only makes humans more crazed. In late February, he attends Milan Fashion Week. He's invited to sit in the front row of all the major shows. The head of every fashion house is desperate to meet him. The most beautiful celebrities of Earth flock to the city. Models strut the runways in the newest designs. But every eye... Every camera is fixated on him. He accepts and deigns to wear only one gift of clothing, a black silk scarf.
shot through with silver, a piece of night threaded with starlight. The designer who created it cries, not for the coming fortune and fame, the boost to her career. but because he touched her hand when he thanked her. The scarf matches the black suit he's wearing that night. It compliments. The silver pendant he always wears on his chest. In video of that night, he sits in the front row of a show, fingering the pendant. It's a silver half moon.
pure and gleaming. He caresses it, tenderly lifts it. His dark eyes go distant and sad. It's that sadness. These brief glimpses of it that drives watchers wild. We're all watching, and we gather on internet forums, in the comments of news articles. to debate and dissect what we see, to piece together his story. For surely, he has a story. He's not really just here on a holiday, is he?
There must be some meaning, some mission, a quest that he's on, an explanation for his sorrow. There's meaning in everything he does and says. The scarf that he chose. The cappuccino he ordered. There's meaning to the moon pendant he wears. It's a gift from his lover. A key to a kingdom. A memorial of lost, tragic love. In a cocktail bar in Oslo, he finally spills it. He gets tipsy with a table of new friends.
He has a weakness for djinn gimlets. I'm looking for my queen, he confesses. She was last seen in the mortal realm a thousand years ago. I waited and waited, and she never came back. The internet explodes. His comments are first reported secondhand, but soon enough. He's confirming them on live TV. His eyes glimmer with unshed tears as he looks into the camera. His melodious voice stumbles.
and catches. Around the world, hearts clench. We all promise to help him find her. We beg for descriptions, details, a clue. But he's spare with his answers. He acknowledges his quest. Thanks us for our concern. Says he'll be open to any of our reports. But he doesn't think she'll be seen by one of us. If you do see her, he tells us, you'll know she is the queen of dawn and day. What he doesn't say, but what we figured out on our own.
He is the king of dusk and night. I check the internet every day following my king's travels. It's spring now. And he's touring Europe's great capitals, Berlin, Rome, Paris. He's seen eating a sausage roll in London while strolling the south bank of the Thames. He makes an appearance at dawn at Stonehenge. Not during the vernal equinox, but several days afterward, when the crowds are gone. Then, all sightings stop. It's as though-
He's fallen off this world's surface, disappeared like his missing queen. We're all frantic until he finally turns up in America. And I'm- in America. But I know that I'll likely still never meet him because I don't live in a glitzy or romantic city or a place of rumored fairy power. I'm in a three-stop light town in the American Midwest, surrounded by cornfields. This place will never make any tourist list. It doesn't have any street food.
It's hundreds of miles away from anywhere interesting. And I'm a 20-year-old girl still living with her mother, commuting half an hour to community college, and working part-time at the one grocery store in town. The fairy king will never come here. I'll never see him in person. But I can still dream. I track his travels on a map taped to my bedroom wall. I'm in a chat group with others.
And we keep each other updated on news. We watch him strolling under flowering trees in New York City's Central Park. We see him in Montreal, ordering bagels. We see him eating a hot dog in Chicago by the lake, then posing for selfies by the famous bean sculpture. Something has changed. In Chicago, he allows a few group selfies. But more and more often, he pulls his head flick trick to keep the crowds at bay. His smiles are fewer. He stops accepting invites to galas and premieres.
His expression is solemn, even as he tries cotton candy for the first time at a fair. Days go by between sightings, even weeks. He's traveling the hidden roads. Someone in our forum says. He's picked up her trail. It's serious now. Someone else opines. He's getting closer. Another agrees. Not so much time to play tourist anymore. A rare interview from his time in America with a YouTuber who has been tracking the Fairy King for weeks. Are you enjoying your time in our country? Yes.
What do you like best about the mortal realm? The food, of course. He's answered this before. Explained that fairy food has a habit of evaporating in one's mouth. It doesn't have weight. Like human affair. What human food do you like best? What's your favorite city here? A shrug and enigmatic smile. How's the search for your queen going? Can you update us on that?
Do you think you'll find her? The fairy king frowns. His eyes sharpen and glow. The interviewer cringes, anticipating the silencing head flick of awe. The king's mood can be unpredictable when it comes to his queen. But a moment passes, and the king's glare fades. His face relaxes into its usual genial expression. The human exhales and hastily moves on to other topics. Where are you headed next? The interviewer asks as they wrap things up. The king pauses. His eyes seem to look.
inward and soften. Then he gestures toward his moon pendant, or maybe it's to his heart beneath, wherever. This calls me, he says. Rumors fly of what he's said in exchanges that were never taped. People of all types claim to have met him, to have spoken to him off camera. or out of audio range. They claim deep confidences, secrets, or just passing remarks. We comb through the gossip, relying on translators for different languages.
We weigh the credibility of sources. He said that he quarreled with his queen and she left him. He said that they visited our world together once long ago. He said that he once drank in taverns with the poet Li Bai. He said that he's fond of melted cheese over fries. He told me that his queen is more beautiful than the dawn itself. He told us that she loves dry wind and heat.
Desert sunlight and the alertness of shy desert rabbits. He said that he won't give up looking for her. He'll look for her as long as it takes. A thousand years, ten thousand years, or more. If I knew where he were headed next, I'd fly out to see him. I don't care about the cost. I charge it to a credit card and damn the interest payments. But no one knows where he's headed.
Or for how long? He's glimpsed briefly in St. Louis, on the downtown riverfront. He's caught in a jazz bar in New Orleans, unnoticed in the dark, until the lights come on after the show. He's seen in a cornfield in the middle of nowhere, after all. A cornfield that's nowhere close to where I am. I would chase him over the miles if I could, if I knew where he'd be.
just for a glimpse of him in person. We all would. We all want to feel part of something bigger, part of his quest, his story. We all want to see beauty. And I want a love story like his and his queen's. Undying love. Love that spans centuries and worlds. Rapturous love. Love that crazes the mind. Love that launches ships and poetry and myth. I have never been in love. I've only been on a few dates. I've never kissed anyone. Not with love.
West, he's headed in his erratic, meandering fashion. West, ever westward from the beginning. He remembers the great bison herds that once grazed the American plains. He said that he loves mountains. He said that he and his queen both love the sea. It would seem near impossible to vanish in this modern age, not with the eyes of the world looking for you.
Not when you shine out from the crowd like a moon among stars. Not with all the cell phones ready to record. Not with closed circuit cameras and drones that can surveil the tracks of pathless wilderness. But the fairy king doesn't. When footage radically surfaces, after weeks of absence, it places him far from population centers. He's at a remote lake in Montana, on a mountain peak in Colorado.
by an unnamed canyon stream in New Mexico. The days are lengthening. Summer approaches. His queen's power waxes with the sun. He's been in our world. for nearly half a year. A report from one final city, Las Vegas. He's seen on the strip at dusk. The glow of lit fountains on his face. His cloak. The same color as the desert sky. He's seen entering one of the fanciest casinos. And then all footage cuts off. There are no cell recordings from within the casino.
or from the rest of the night rumors abound of the wildest of benders an unbelievable party the casino cleaned out but the drink orders massive no one will talk about it There are no first-hand accounts. The casino and all local businesses refuse comment. No one leaks any security footage. The King's silencing powers are more potent than we thought.
What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas indeed. In the end, my king escapes into the desert. Scattered reports of him in the vast scrublands of the Mojave. in its red rock canyons, among the sandstone cliffs. Surely this is where he'll find her, in the place she's said to love, this place of dry heat and quick desert rapids. of brief blooming flowers and scurrying life. This place of the sun. There's one final shot of him, standing atop a great red rock outcropping. His hair is-
black against the blue desert sky. His cloak of purple falls to his knees. It's over 100 degrees Fahrenheit. But he doesn't break a sweat. He never sweats. Cool twilight is gathered in the folds of his cloak. Each hair on his head is... perfectly groomed. His eyes are distant, unreadable. As he gazes toward the sun, the moon pendant flashes. Timestamp on the video.
the day before the summer solstice. It's the last image I've saved to my phone. The world moves on, even if I don't. There are always other stories. coming and going in our world. The next year, a dragon prince comes to Earth, seeking his lost princess. Then a heavenly goddess appears. She's looking to gather and resurrect the scattered remains of her dismembered lover.
which fell to our world on the backs of shooting stars. A different goddess comes, one who's leading a rebellion against a heavenly tyrant, and she seeks hidden weapons in our realm. Perhaps the greatest excitement comes with the arrival of a demon king. He's evil, but intensely charismatic, and he promises to select his new consort. From among the mortal humans of Earth. I follow these stories. I fall for the hype. But I never forget my fairy king. I still dream of his-
perfect face, his sad, gentle smile. All the emotions in the world flicker briefly in his eyes, all the depths of the sea. I escape my hometown. I try on different careers. I travel the world. I find myself on America's west coast in Los Angeles. It's another move, another home. A job that's not quite my dream job, but closer than I've come before. On a chill February day, I leave work early. I drive to the sea. I park and walk to the Santa Monica Pier. It's sunset.
And the sky is a riotous swirl of pink and gold, where it meets the horizon, fading to purple and blue above. There's only a few tourists about. It's a weeknight in winter, after all. I wouldn't be here myself. I haven't been to this tourist spot in years. If I weren't meeting an out-of-town friend. I'm early. I walk to the end of the pier to wait for her, and I stare out at the sea. Slowly, I become aware of the man standing nearby. At first, I think he's a cosplayer, a street performer.
There's been a revival of interest in the viral stars of yesteryear. The purple cloak is beautifully made. But then he turns his head. And I see the famous profile. The features, both delicate and strong. He's here. Finally. In front of me. At the end of the continent, just a few feet away, I could step forward and touch him. And he hasn't changed at all. Of course, it's been 30 years.
and I dye my hair to cover the white strands. In my mirror, I see the clear marks of age. But he's eternally young. He still has the face that captured my heart. The face that enthralled the entire world. I'm not sure that I'm breathing. He's looking out to see, and my chest hurts with his beauty. My throat's tight. Everything burns. And my mind's a rush of questions. I want to ask him, did you find her? Did she come back to you?
Because I need to know. I'm not the naive 20-year-old I once was. I've known love. I've had it. I've lost love and found it again. And now, I'm 50 years old. well into middle age, and I still want to believe that love lasts, that it overcomes all, that for someone, at least, it can last for all time. Is she here with you?
I want to ask him. Perhaps they came together to Earth this time, and maybe she's right around the corner. She's browsing souvenirs in one of the pier's kitschy shops, and she'll be back any minute. She's gone to get a snack, and she'll return to him with hot, sugared churros. Maybe I've said something out loud. Maybe I've made some movement or noise. Or maybe...
He just feels the weight of my stare. He turns, and his black eyes catch mine. Is there anything of the old sadness there? His lips start to curve into a smile. And there were voices approaching. And now they're here. A group of loud tourists walking between us, crowding the end of the pier. My phone buzzes. I step angrily around the group, looking for him again.
My phone keeps buzzing. Of course, he's gone. We never knew the end of his story. For all of them. These viral visitors from other worlds. Brilliant stars shooting across our timelines. We never knew the full story. I pushed my way to the place where he was. Touched the railing he touched. I'll still never know. The last bit of daylight burns above the sea. All the colors of dusk, fierce and glorious. And then gone.
Welcome back. You have just heard When the Fairy King Toured the Human Realm by Vanessa Fogg, narrated by Susan Hanfield. Vanessa Fogg dreams of selkies, dragons, and gritty cyberpunk futures from her home in western Michigan. She spent years as a research scientist in molecular cell biology. and now works as a freelance medical writer. Her writing has appeared in Lightspeed, PodCastle, The Deadlands, Giganotosaurus, Neil Clark's The Best Science Fiction of the Year, Volume 4,
and the Bram Stoker Award-nominated anthology Unquiet Spirits, Essays by Asian Women in Horror. Her debut collection, The House of Illusionists, is forthcoming from Interstellar Flight Press. For a complete bibliography and more, visit her website at vanessafog.com. Along with a diverse career on stage and screen.
Susan Hanfield is a prolific audiobook narrator with hundreds of titles to her credit. Susan is an Earphones Award winner, three-time Audio Award finalist, and a Voice Arts Awards nominee. From her professional studio in Los Angeles, Susan's favorite fiction genres include literary fiction, historical fiction, young adult, and science fiction slash fantasy.
Nonfiction genres include faith-based, inspirational, personal self-development, and business. Susan is known for her wide range of voices, accents, intonations. and her ability to bring the written story to life. These stories were taken from the pages of Lightspeed magazine, which is edited by John Joseph Adams. The podcast is co-produced by Stefan Rudnicki and Alison Belbus at Skyboat Media. And the stories and podcast...
Our copyright 2025. Post-production was by Alex Barton at Phase Shift, and our music was composed and performed by Jack Kincaid. I am Stefan Rudnicki. Thank you for listening. Hi, I'm here to tell you about Good Morning Night Vale. Welcome to Night Vale's official recap show and unofficial best friend food podcast. Join me, Meg Bashwiner, and fellow Tri hosts, Hal Loveland and Symphony Sanders, as we dissect all of the cool, squishy, and slimy bits of every episode of Welcome to Night Vale.
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On Grim Grimmer Grimmest, we tell a grim fairy tale to a bunch of kids. Perfect for car rides or screen-free entertainment, Grim Grimmer Grimmest activates kids' imaginations and instigates fun conversations. Fairy tales speak to all of us at a very deep, primal level, and they raise interesting topics and questions that are worth chewing over together as a family. Every episode is rated Grim, Grimmer, or Grimmest. So you, your kids, your whole...
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