Fae
The rotting folk, folk of the Lady Rot, and other names all have been used to describe the tiny-winged, headless creatures who aid in the decomposition of all that is dead. They appear as a small cloud over corpses and sheltered bodies of water. Though often described as tiny headless humanoids, no one alive is very likely to have witnessed one from close enough range to separate an individual from an entire cloud of fae.
Whatever they are, the fae folk appear as clouds wherever Death has walked. They also dwell in deep swamps and bogs all over the world, hiding from rain and wind but appearing during calm and misty evenings. While not aggressive and mostly harmless, they can inflict nausea, rotting smell or fainting on any who disturb them.
Appearance & Behavior
Though an individual fairy is impossible to see properly through human eyes, the grey swarms they form when many come together is the usual way of recognizing their presence. They hover above dead fauna and even people, frolicing above the dead in a silent dance.
Like all of the various folk of nature, these spirits of rot are known to be fickle things. Unlike their other kin, however, the fae are not ones to play mischievous tricks, and instead seem much more enamored with their work. Still, they have shows curiosity toward humans before, if milder than their cousins.
"There was this cloud, out in the swamp. The sun was so low and shadows dark that it was hard to see, but it all cleared up when I walked closer.
I swear, it saw me, that cloud, and I think it turned toward me. I could feel it stare at me, not with eyes but...I don't know, I just know there was a presence there. I froze, and I felt the air ice over too. This coolness enveloped me, but not cold like winter. More...absence.
And that cloud, it came toward me. I don't know why, clouds don't tend to speak, but somehow I thought maybe it wanted to communicate, or something. But it didn't, just came toward me, stopped right in front of my face. I couldn't see the things in the cloud, not really, just the swarm it made. Like they weren't really...separate, at all.
Then it started to change. At first I thought it just kept growing, but it stretched. From the top of my head to the ground, just a singular blob flickering like it existed behind some dreamy haze. It took me a second but I started to recognize the shape as it kept forming it, more and more detailed. Two limbs separated from that tall, central mass, and the lower half of it began to split as well.
That's when I realised; it was copying me! I didn't know if I should have ran or laughed or what, but I just stood there frozen, staring at it.
I don't know how long we stood there, or if it was even really standing, a flickering cloud as it was, but at some point I was staring at the face of something so completely beyond anything I had ever seen. It didn't have eyes or a mouth, not that I could see - difficult enough to focus my eyes on its form as it was - but then I could swear it...tilted its head, just slightly to the right. Like it was confused. Or curious.
I must have hold my breath for a while, cause suddenly there was this burning in my lungs. I gasped for air so fast it hurt but it cleared my head, too, enough to realize what exactly was happening.
Some primal part took hold of me, and I just springed out of there, barely found the path back from those woods. Took me a fortnight to gather up enough strength to go back there, but when I did there was nothing. No cloud impossible to focus on, and certainly not one that knew how to change shape.
I don't know what would have happened if I just stopped and waited a bit longer. Part of me wished I did. The rest of me is sure I might have never come out of those woods if I hadn't run when I did. But I still think about it, from time to time. And near every night now I find myself back at the edge of that swamp, beneath the sharp, dark shadows of the trees around me, sheltered from winds and the outside world. And I just...wait."
Other names: pikä, nutēti
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