Threatened by Fae

When hiking, I don't pay as much attention to where I step as I should. I could've stepped on a snake's tail or into poison ivy, but today, I had stepped on something much worse.

At first glance, it was just a bunch of leaves and sticks next to a tree. I inspected it closer to find that those materials had been put together to form a sort of house, sticks weaved as walls and leaves used as a roof.

Probably just a kid playing around, I thought, carrying on my trek.

I found it a bit odd that a fly was buzzing around my bug spray-doused hat, but nonchalantly swatted it away.

Just seconds later, two more pursued me. I took out my repellant and covered more of myself, but that didn't stop them.

"Hey!" I was flailing my arms at this point, looking rather foolish to the other hikers on the trail.

The flies had decided to land on me now, the largest (maybe the first one to show up?) finding the bridge of my nose. Almost comically, I looked up at the bug on my face, and realized that it was not a bug.

Since I had my own Tinkerbell phase when I was five, I've seen my fair share of fairies on TV and books. But, given that these were horsefly-themed fae, they weren't exactly like the butterfly-winged rainbows I had imagined as a child.

"Wha...what do you want from me?" I repressed the urge to scream as I looked into a set of red kaleidoscope eyes.

She answered in a strained hiss, one of her sharp legs poking at me: "My houssse... Fix it now!"

"Oh." With her and the other fae still attached to me, I begin to retrace my steps.

I find the house in the same spot as it had been before, being slowly mended by other fly-fairies. Without a giant's help, it would take forever for them to rebuild.

Ignoring their agitated jabbing and hissing to the best of my ability, I carefully string the twigs back into their previous log house formation and find fresh leaves for the roof. Despite having fixed everything that I had destroyed on my path, they don't leave my side.

I groan. "What do I have to repay you in? My name? My firstborn child?"

The houseowner flies back from my face, looking at the trail in front of me. "Fix the othersss..."

There, at every single tree's nook and cranny, is a home broken by another hiker. I look around, and, sure enough, the other travellers had moved on before they could also get hassled by the forest's inhabitants.

All I can say is: today was a long day.