On the Night of the Full Moon

In the meadow beneath the wheeling stars, Eshin sleeps before the camp-fire that cracks and flutters in the fragrant, singing moonlight – filled with nightjars and wild flowers and whispering trees, all cast in tinted silver. The warm light of the fire turns his skin to glowing amber and his hair to fronds of golden bracken painted in an autumn sunset. There is a peace in him that stills and awes the mind, but I cannot sleep beside him...

... My mind too occupied elsewhere...

And so I rise from the seeding grass and heady flowers, and I walk into the night. I pass into the meadow...

... And out of all remembering...

... And into the velvet woods, rapt in the eerie moonlight and carpeted with daffodils and the silver-violet, starlit bluebells. The pollen hangs like anticipation in the cool air of nighttime: fragrant and intoxicating, calling me away from worry, away from bitter heartache and to the tender comfort of the waxen embrace of darkness. The grass and flowers are rich as velvet between my toes, and the nightingales are the forest's siren song...

... I pass deeper beneath the lazy, groping fingers of the trees where phantoms drift and mist creeps tentatively between the heads of blowsy bluebells...

A clearing. The grass grown long and wild, unkempt and untempered by the interfering hand of man but for the sky-washed, dusty purple of the altar stone, half-eaten by the grasses at the centre of the clearing, and reflecting back the hungry light of an already swollen moon.

Something moves me with all the deliberacy of a puppeteer. I am heavy and tired by the starlight. I stretch out against the altar... And I sleep.

I am woken by the gentle pressure of hushed voices like the ocean on my ears. I rise as the dreamer must surely rise from sleep, to see a face above me. She is far older than I believe I ever was, with raven hair and a raven's dress. She is crowned by the crescent moon. She smiles. There are others gathered near her, like shadows trying unsuccessfully to conceal themselves in darkness. I hear them. I feel them. I feel the pressure of their minds...

“I am in the Waking World,” I say, before I have chance to find my faerie voice, the voice that says: 'I am above you. I do not concern myself with mere statements, child. What I speak is my demand and you shall obey me, mortal!' I shall regret not finding that voice then, I know it too well even now.

“Yes,” she says, this woman, this moon-crowned, raven queen. “Tell me your name, faerie.”

I am compelled to answer.

“I am the lady Rosalie,” I tell her before I am indignant: “Now tell me, dreamer, what is yours?”

“I am Selene,” she tells me. “And you will do my bidding one year and one day from this silver-sculpted night... Although perhaps we may also become friends with time.”

“Selene,” I say to her, smiling to find my faerie voice at last. “It is not I shall do your bidding, but you yourself, and what is more you shall do mine besides... Although perhaps we may also become friends, with time.”

She smiles back. She does not seem concerned, but then... neither am I.

On Dyscrasia

I suppose that really it is only fair to stop playing at least one of my little games with you and offer up some sort of explanation as to what, exactly, may just be going on. Let me say first, however, that expecting any sort of consistency out of myself or anybody else that wanders in the World Between is foolish to the point of making you every bit as mad as we are. We faeries are not too fond of honesty, and even when we can bring ourselves to tell the truth, we prefer to make an enigma of our words – allowing a degree of imagination and forcing an amount of concious thought upon our readers. The same is true of me as is well true for the rest of faeriekind, maybe even a little less than most.

However, I do feel that the matter of Dyscrasia at least requires a few words to explain it, for it is something that you shall no doubt encounter often in the reading of my tales. As I am sure you are already aware of the nature of those like Eshin (who exists without me) and the Shadow Girl (who exists within) who are both a part of me, but not exactly myself either, then the nature of Dyscrasia should be an easy one to grasp. After all, you mortal men have had the knowledge of the four humours: Sanguine; Melancholic; Choleric; and Phlegmatic, for several thousand years. Although the knowledge has long since been dismissed as mere alchemy (and, while I know well someone that would argue for the cause of such medical, magical science, he shall have to wait for now), once everyone knew well what happens when the balance of those humours was disrupted in what was called 'Dyscrasia': Sanguinity would bring on a wild passion, coloured cheeks, high fever and good humour; Melancholia brought on a depression of the spirit and darkness of the soul; Cholera would bring sharp temper and an excess of energy and strength; and Phlegmatia would make the sufferer turn shy and cold and logical. Now, while that knowledge has long passed into heresy and folklore for your kind, for mine it is still very much alive. Indeed, we could not deny it even if we wished, for we are fickle creatures existing in a constant state of flux, and our humours are no different. So, while it is true that for the most part we exist in some sort of equilibrium, there are those times when all balance is disrupted.

This disruption brings about a sudden change of character which leaves us so utterly transformed in thought and in appearance that even our dear friends may well not recognise us until the balance reasserts itself. And so it is that every faery you shall ever meet has five very different faces: One that exists from an disequilibrium in each of the four humours; and one that is a combination of them all the the closest we may ever come to a normal, stable state. However, far from being fearful of the change of seeing it as some kind of sickness as your mortal children would, we faeries revel in it. It is yet another part of living, and therefore we exist to take some pleasure from it. And so, when the first shiver of Dyscrasia appears, we rush to find our clothing chests and play dress up like children with ourselves and with our minds. What fun! And, after all, no matter what goes on, it never lasts more than a day or two...

The Gypsy & The Cad - Pt. I

A Dyscrasic Tale of Sanguinity for Rosalie and Lostway

The cad was riding westward
One cold February morn
From the bed of some young maiden
Whose looks had faded with the dawn,
And he was nursing at his sore head
And his family’s waxen scorn,
When he spotted a young Roma girl
Sitting down amidst the corn.

The girl was dressed in red and black
With a veil o’er her hair –
All bells and beads and olive skin,
Eyes ardent, black, and rare –
And perhaps it was the wine last night,
But he’d ne’er seen one so fair,
And she charmed him with a smoky smile
As he reined in his mare.

So he jumped down into the grass
And took her by the arm,
Then greeted her and kissed her hand
To win her with his charm.
“Oh, sir,” she purred. “You must aid me,
Or I’ll surely come to harm.”
“But why, my dear?” he said to her.
“Explain, and pray, be calm.”

He sat down in the corn with her
And took her by the hand.
“The wolf,” she said. “Has tortured me
And chased me from my land.
Oh, sweet gentleman,” she charmed him.
“You must aid me best you can!”
And she ran her fingers o’er his cheek,
Her skin warm and dark as sand.

“How may I?” he soon answered,
Won by her enamoured eyes.
“For I have no sword to slay it,
Though if I did, then I should try.”
“You do not need a sword,” she said.
“Just take me with you as you ride,
For there’s a barrow close to here
Where Oberon resides.”

“My dear, sweet girl,” he told her.
“I fear you quite out of your mind,
For Oberon’s the Faerie King:
We could not find him if we tried.
And even if we could,” he said.
“Then I’d rather be struck blind,
For it’s not for mere mortals
To go calling on his kind.”

“My boy,” she said. “What’s wrong with you?
Have you forgotten who we are?
We have not met like this before,
But I’ve seen you from afar.
You’re young,” she said. “That must be it:
He’s not their king, but ours,
And he alone can arbitrate –
Come now, it is not far.”

He stood up stiffly from the corn
Still reeling from the slight,
But although his head was spinning
He knew somehow she was right,
And he had so many questions,
But it did not seem polite,
And, anyway, words failed him,
He’d drunk far too much last night.

So he helped her slowly to her feet
And onto his white mare,
And he mounted up before her
And drew close as he would dare.
She wrapped an arm about him,
Brushed her fingers through his hair
And kissed him softly on the throat
As they rode away from there.

They rode for what felt like an age.
They rode the whole day long,
Until the sky was filled with dusk –
The air with evensong –
And with her sleeping on his shoulder,
He did not feel so strong
To see the barrow in the twilight
Where Oberon belonged.

He woke her gently from her sleep,
As they approached the mound
At the gateway to the kingdom
Of the lost, the mad, the drowned,
And she took his hand to comfort him,
But did not make a sound
As they slipped into the hillside
And were swallowed by the ground.