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HMD - Permissions

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It takes an extraordinary amount of skill to outwit a member of the Fair Folk and walk away without consequences. Lacking in the kind of genius it would take to manage to do that, at the age of twelve Luighseach (pronounced lee-shock) instead did what she could when her two year old brother was stolen by Them. Having always been deeply interested in the mythological and paranormal, her research after her brother went missing looked to her parents like a bizarre coping mechanism and denial of the truth. Even though she had plenty of evidence, they didn't want to hear any more of her 'tall tales' and kept telling Luighseach to face reality. So she did: she faced the reality there was no way to get her brother Brennan back without trading away something to the sadists holding him they considered valuable.

She went in loaded down with all the jewelry her mother had ever owned in a box, a backpack full of honey and a contract she wrote up in a fevered frenzy of research and blind hope, for the Fair Folk's only weakness is that they cannot lie, and if they sign their name to an agreement or strike it under the full moon, it must be followed through on. Luighseach hit them up on a full moon with a written contract, but negotiations went a bit sour, and she had to modify the contract in order to get one of them to sign it.

Two weeks after his disappearance, Brennan Ultan O'Keefe was brought back out of the woods by his visibly shaken and exhausted older sister, but Luighseach was unable to explain how she'd gotten him back to anyone. Firstly, this is because if she does so in a way that even hints at the location or description of the Fair Folk, Brennan is instantly theirs again. Secondly, it's because no one listened when she said anything before.

Mostly it's because the Folk's magic did such damage to her vocal cords she will never speak again.

That was three years ago, and now, at fifteen, Luighseach is a sort of self-made paranormal investigator with a growing number of cases under her belt and more books than her shelves can hold. Contrary to all common sense, Luighseach wants to keep helping people, with her fight against the Fair Folk being the opening shot in that war against immoral non-humans. Note the word immoral - a big part of why she's tolerated by non-humans her lack of interest in revealing anything to the world or being famous by 'discovering' anything. She's even helped maintain the concealment of some non-humans in her neck of the woods, and that means she has allies now should the Fair Folk ever find a way to break the contract through a loophole of some sort.

It also means she has a lot more things that she can't say to her parents or anyone at school. But why should she even try? Luighseach went screaming to them with armfuls of evidence when something was wrong and they all ignored her. Other kids still tease her and call her creepy. She gave everything she had to save her brother, and was rewarded with a disability that makes it impossible to even hum on a spring day. Why should she try and explain herself to people who weren't there when she needed them most? They'd just push her away again, fail to act again, and more people would get hurt.

In the end it's best if she didn't say anything.