Three Twisted Knots

I admit it. Even I love when Disney gets it right. And, I guess I’m the right age for this….

I love Beauty and the Beast. I very nearly wrote my thesis on it, but got talked out of it because there were so many novels and stories on the same topic coming out at the time.

I know this, of course. I know it because, duh, I read them all! I don’t care if the writer has subject verb agreement problems and an ongoing love affair with the apostrophe, if it’s a retelling of Beauty and the Beast, I’ll give it a shot.

So when Bran popped in one morning this week to tell me that one of the lovely people from Silvan Moon Designs had dropped by with a dress for me to try on approval, for the recently opened Enchantment Faire, let’s just say…. there was squeeing. In fact, I jumped up and down with glee.

“Your Majesty?” He was bemused, but then that’s Bran’s normal state. He’s somewhat like my beloved Nathaniel in this. “I don’t understand.” He stared at the dress. “You do not wear a lot of yellow,” he said.

“But it’s Belle’s gown!” I said.

He stared at me.

“Oh, for goodness’ sake!” I fired up the Apple TV and downloaded a copy of the animated Beauty and the Beast. I downloaded the live action version for good measure. And made Bran sit down and watch them both, plus the Lindsey Stirling video where she does like half the score on solo fiddle.

It is not often that you see a grown Sidhe cry. I admit I was smug.

After four hours of straight-up Beauty and the Beast, I was incapable of waiting any longer. “I have to put on this dress right now.” I said.

Bran didn’t protest, except to note that we had no ball planned. I retorted that I didn’t care, and I made him and Clutie follow me out with an iPhone and a gimbal, because I wanted pictures. Clutie just rolled her eyes, bless her. Then again, she’s seen the films.

.

Of course, it being always summer here in Faerie, we couldn’t escape the pixies. They are kin to us, but they’re also pests, and they love nothing more than the iridescent meadow that is my grove garden. So of course we had to deal with them: they certainly weren’t going to leave us alone.

I tried to strike some romantic and dramatic poses, but look at those little photo bombers!

“Try turning the other way, Your Majesty,” Clutie suggested. She’d enlisted the help of a couple other demifae, because Bran was impossible. He just kept looking at me and sniffling.

“Gwneth, you look so….so….” he’d say, and then start sniffling.

One of the pixies was particularly problematic: he(?) kept getting right up in my face and trying to land on my nose or something. To be honest, the other ones weren’t much of a problem, as pixies go: I think they just wanted to be near us while we worked, and of course they spend more time in the garden than I do. This one little guy was really getting on my nerves, though.

At one point, I admit I lost my temper. “Look, you little so-and-so,” I said. OK, I might have been slightly more profane than that. “If you don’t keep getting in my face, I’m going to call the redcaps. You hear me?” He was unfazed. He might have known we don’t really see a lot of redcaps in this little island of Faerie.

“Best just let him have what he wants, Your Majesty,” one of Clutie’s helpers said.

I scowled. “And what exactly is that?”

“He just wants to be in the pictures,” Clutie said. “They like attention, and because we’re not in a …technological wasteland, they pick up on the fact that you’ll probably post these photographs on social media so other people can enjoy them.”

I raised a brow: Clutie was using my own description of the Wylds against me.

“If that’s what it takes,” I reasoned. “Go ahead, little guy: grab your moment of fame.” I told him to smile, but I’m not sure pixies know how to smile, really. Or maybe they are always smiling: it’s hard to tell. Mostly they just buzz around little big fae bees and try to land on your nose, but when organised they can get pretty destructive. I remember my Gran blaming them for everything from spoiled milk in the fridge to that time one of her cats came back from the Great Welsh Outdoors inexplicably covered with gooseberry jam.

After that, we just decided that as long as they weren’t causing trouble, we’d pretend they were part of the plan all along. This seemed to please them, and I admit they put themselves into mostly pleasing configurations for the rest of the time Clutie and the three other demifae it took to handle the camera were taking pictures.

“Your Majesty, we should all go to the Enchantment Faire tomorrow,” Clutie prodded. “Who knows what else they’ve got there besides this gown? We might find some beautiful things for the castle. I’ve always wanted a talking candlestick.”

“Really?” I was convinced about going to Enchantment, but not about the candlestick. “Always?”

“Always,” she persisted.

“I suppose we could take a day for a Faire based around Beauty and the Beast, I said. It didn’t take much convincing. “But I am not filling the castle with dancing cutlery, and no way are we bringing home a harpsichord.”

Clutie giggled, and we fell into a nice rhythm of singing songs from the musical as we shot more photos with our pixie hangers-on.

This one is my favourite, though after we spend tomorrow at the Faire who knows what lovely things we’ll have to do more creative play in the Bower. I could even get used to a tribe of dancing pixies wanting to be in most of the photographs.

If those little pests try to cover me with gooseberry jam though, all bets are off.

Style Card:
Body: Maitreya
Head: Vista Bento Mesh Head, Lia
Skin: 7 Deadly s{K}ins, Venua (Available at the BRAND NEW 7 Deadly s{K}ins Main Store! —don’t forget to update your landmarks!)
Eyes: Izzie’s, Winter Eyes (fantasy)
Ears: Lumae, Leevi Long Ears
Dress: Silvan Moon Designs, Belle’s Enchanted Ball Gown (Available NOW at Enchantment!)
Hair: Truth, Caralisa
Jewellery: Baiastice, Boudicca Crown, Bangles, Earrings and Necklace (Available NOW at The Liaison Collaborative!)
Wings: Bitter Heart Boutique, Skylar Wings
Pixies: Hextraordinary, Pesky Pixies (Available NOW at The Gacha Garden!)
Ground Cover: The Looking Glass, Ichi Fields
Background Trees: Various; the big one is Pan’s Oak from Cube Republic
Poses: from Musa and Apple Spice’s range of gown poses