Extrasolar Faeryland by Avra Margariti

June 2021| Utopia Science Fiction Magazine

Titania and Oberon, Queen and King

of Faeryland, lovers

in dangerous times, migrate to outer space.

Gravity’s hold mere etiquette for their kind,

a slow arc of effulgent flight.

Weary of their mutinous fair folk, embittered still

by their family history:

Titania, daughter of the dreaded pre-Olympian ogres

who would rather squash their child underfoot than raise her,

and Oberon, bristling with the way cruel Camelot

treated his mother Morgan le Fay for her magic.

Together, Oberon and Titania crawl into the dark

of an unknown solar system

to lick their pus-weeping wounds.

Gas giants of hydrogen and helium

called failed stars, a fitting home for fae flotsam.

There, they watch celestial bodies explode

in mica-speckled ultraviolet supernovae,

and they do not evade the shrapnel’s trajectory,

only extinguish the fires from each other’s wings.

Faery Paradox: their kind, capable of becoming

small enough to curl inside a walnut shell,

or encompass an entire galaxy.

Impassioned by this newfound Ars Fantastica,

they fly past event horizons and into black holes,

slithering through wormholes

swirling with charm and strange.

This, they tell each other, is what healing

feels like.

Titania and Oberon, Queen and King

of space, lovers in exhilarating times

covered in cosmic gunk and dwarf luminosity.

A Faeryland of two, but not for long:

rainbowed eggs already laid, incubating

in nebular nurseries.

Together they wait for their stardusted offspring

to populate their little bauble of universe.

Originally published in the June 2021 issue of Utopia Science Fiction Magazine.

Avra Margariti is a queer Social Work undergrad from Greece. She enjoys storytelling in all its forms and writes about diverse identities and experiences. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Vastarien, Lackington’s, Flash Fiction Online, Daily SF, Arsenika, and other venues. You can find her on twitter @avramargariti