It’s very interesting to see where you’ve taken this. The imagery is great — the world that’s familiar-but-not, the discarded things scattered around and Regina’s mother among them.

Marilyn’s point of view is a nice twist, too, resigned rather than frightened. The opening lines were both amusing to me and bittersweet.

Nicely done!

Yeah, I really liked this. It took a dire, extremely frightening situation and gave it a glimmer of hope, without really taking away from the ‘reality’ of it.

Incidentally, the “King of the Fairies” thing was influenced by the fact that the child’s name is Regina, a name that refers to royalty. Of course, it doesn’t have to be true – perhaps they all claim to be King when seducing human women.

I browsed baby name websites for a while before naming Marilyn, which somehow seemed to fit the character best. I wasn’t thinking of any existing Marilyns except perhaps the horse from Terry Pratchett’s “Night Watch”, but if it turns out she exists then please don’t tell her that she’s named after a horse.