Three Twisted Knots

Oh, the things that run through my head! Realm-hopping as we do, we discover a wide variety of music and art, dance and culture if we want it, classy or seedy, take your pick.

After a week of satisfying and physical work in Eclectica, we were ready for a change, so we moved on to a little town in a mountainous area. Good, crisp air, the sort of town where you can get anything, a shipping port, and a lot of things that need fixing. Towns like this, they love it when we come through: the boys and I have plenty of carpentry skills and we’re not afraid of back-breaking work, and then of course there’s the evenings back at the camp. It’s funny, all the people who come through.

Nearly a month away from Faerie, and I began to admit it was getting to me. I had the shakes. I couldn’t hold my liquor, and food tasted like ashes in my mouth. By this point everybody had stopped teasing me about going back to Faerie, and I’d begun to notice some worried glances and whispers as I went about my business.

Finally, I went to see Auntie Cher, one of our healers, the sort of lady who keeps to the vardo and only comes out when there’s a need. Her wagon is full of potions and poultices, and she once took a splinter out of my leg the size of a lion’s claw. Hurt like hell, but she sewed it up with a bit of linen and you can’t even see the scar any more.

“Uncle,” she said to me, “I’ve got nothing for you. Far as I know, there’s no cure for the Faerie sickness. And you’ve got it bad.” She handed me a mirror, and it’s true: I was a pale shadow of myself. Now, I didn’t feel sick. But I was starting to get tired earlier in the day, and the real trouble surfaced as we spoke: my relations with women have not been as usual. When we arrived in town, I whistled and I sang til the dark streets rang, but I won no hearts.

“Listen,” she said. “There’s a man in town I’ve heard of, says he can cure the Faerie sickness, but I’m not sure I believe him.” Still, when I pressed her, she gave me the address.

It turned out to be a fortuneteller’s shop. Now, we are in the business of fortunetelling, but there’s always new stuff to be learned, people who have a different take on things, so I figured I’d check it out. Still, with my city clothes on and my hair bound up, I felt out of place.

I was just about to knock on the door when I heard a familiar voice behind me. “You’re never going in there.”

I stopped and turned. “Dyisi?” It was the Satyr, a friend of the Faerie Queen and her frequent companion.

“I come when there’s need of me,” she said, as if it were just a normal occurrence. She called me some sort of friendly diminutive in Greek; that language just slips through my ears, in and out, and I never remember what she says when she talks Greek. “And you have need of me, not that fellow.”

I folded my arms across my chest. “Really,” I said, not believing her. “Tell me, what can you do for me?” Her glasses caught the light, and the satyr horns seemed to glimmer with some magical energy. I think my senses must have been dulled: she always seemed much brighter and more powerful in Faerie and I couldn’t imagine her light dimmed when she left there: her magic, like all the ancient folk, lives in her and does not wax or wane with the seasons: It just is.

“Come now, sit down with me. You look like you could use something to eat, Davey.”

So instead of knocking on the fortuneteller’s door, I let her lead me down the street to a café, where they brought food and drink but she touched nothing. I made myself eat something, even though nothing tasted right.

“We’ve missed you in Faerie,” she said, “though I understand why you wander so far away. “And though you look good, you don’t look yourself. Tell me, how does the food taste?”

I stared at the street. “It doesn’t taste,” I admitted. “And I know it should. I can tell it’s good; I can tell the wine is excellent, but nothing tastes right to me.”

“And you’re pale,” she said. “Pale and wan. You know what will happen if you go on this way. You’ll waste away, lose your way. And your folk will lose their leader.”

“I’m no leader,” I protested.

“Bah. They follow you,” she said. “You’re a leader. But you’ll fade, if you keep on like this. “And that fellow, in the shop, you know what he does? He says he has a cure for the Faerie sickness, but what he does is slip a little Fae mead into the potion he gives. And then instead of having to go back to Faerie, you’ll have to go back to him. It’ll sustain you, but it won’t cure you.”

I folded my arms, leaned forward on my elbows. “And I suppose you have a cure?”

I could see sparks coming from one of her eyes, behind the glasses, I swear. “Aye,” she said. “That I do. And a good one. “But I can’t give it to you here. We’ll have to go to my domain, and the trip’s a long and dizzy one. Drink up,” she said. “Even if you can’t taste it, you’ll need it for the journey.

I killed the bottle.

She was careful not to touch me: I don’t know how she brought me in to her realm walking without touch, but somehow she did. And the place we went! It was as far from the pastoral hills I imagined she inhabited as one could get: it looked like nothing more than a surfer’s shack from the outside.

Inside, she had a confusing array of clutter, but she brought me to an apothecary shelf, asked for a strand of my hair, and began mixing something up. It smelled like some tropical concoction, which I guess wasn’t out of place for a surfer shack.

“Strip.”

“What?”

“You heard me. Get out of those clothes. I can’t heal you in that suit. Sexy turban, though.”

In the end, I talked her into letting me wear a pair of men’s trousers she had hanging around for some reason.

“Now lie down and let me spray this on your chest.”

She knelt over me and began spraying the coconut-scented concoction on my chest and shoulders. “You’ll have to rub it in,” she said. “It needs to soak into your skin. Faerie’s a physical place, and there’s no cure but a physical one.”

I felt something almost immediately. My skin began to tingle, and something I’d not felt for weeks stirred inside me. “Surely,” I said, “surely it will be more effective if you rub it in with your hands.”

Her lips curved into a smile. “Oh, now, that’s a road I don’t often go down any more,” she said. And she looked me over: I could tell, even though her eyes were hidden. “You’re ashen,” she said softly. “Fading. But still a feast for the eyes, Oh, I see what she saw in you.”

“Don’t mention her,” I said. I reached forward and put my hands on her legs, without permission.

Somewhere in my memory, there is a fragment of a story about how a satyr’s touch leads a person to bliss or madness. I think touching Dyisi led me to both bliss and madness, a beautiful madness, and I did not resist this madness, nor did I surface from this bliss for, it must have been, it felt like hours. She was my world. I was the canvas upon which she painted, and every nerve in me was alive beneath her touch, and I believed, I know, that every nerve in her was alive for me.

The more the poultice she gave me sinks into my skin, the more alive and like myself I feel. Today, one of the boys gave me a little flat of strawberries from one of our box gardens. They were tart, and sweet, like Dyisi.

There are no words for what she’s given me. I can already feel the colour blending back into my skin. I will thank her again and again.

Style Card:

At The Looking Glass, First shots at Dyisi’s:
Skin: 7 Deadly s{K}ins, Ragnar T3
Suit: Zaara: Nehru Suit in Grey (at Uber!)
Turban: Zaara: Aahil Turban in Red (at Uber!)
Shoes: FATEstep: Anthony Boots

At Dyisi’s:
Skin: 7 Deadly s{K}ins, Ragnar T3
Shorts: Magnus Male Outfit FashioNatic
Hair: Damselfly: Gustov, Onyx

Dyisi:

Hair – little bones. Shaaswat w/scarf (from this round of Uber)
Skin – Plastik Astrali Skin (Vaaliarah)
Tats – Tiki Tattoo, Bora (dude seriously needs to make tats again)
:(SH): Face tat, Solaris 50%
Plastik, Asaia Markings
Eyes: Plastik Galaxie eyes (R- Plura L: Arc)
Hooves: [Gauze] Faun Naturals
Horns: Illusion Nivicola Runed Horns

Top: ::Rush:: Peace! Knotted Top
Pants: *FH* Bali Pants Navy

Body Jewelery:
. aisling. Darshana Hand jewelery
(Yummy) True Believer Charm Necklace
Earthstones Belly Crystal: Lapis
RO – Hipster Bag, Coffee
[Since 1975] Minigoggles
Earthstones Bikini Beads, Moonlight
Kibitz Aela Body Chain, Silver
Earthstones Katya Bangles, Garden
Kibitz Tulip Nose Chain
~Soedara~ Pearl Berjuang Tari Bindi
Schadenfreude Long2 Earth Digital Alchemy Necklace
Schadenfreude Long1 Water Digital Alchemy Necklace

Shape: Self Made
Staff: Self Made

Locations:
The Looking Glass
Dyisi’s Home

Spiffy photos taken with the indispensible aid of my LumiPro. I never leave home without it!