What She Is

From Friðros:

She brought me to a strange, almost empty landscape in the middle of the night. There was an Oberon standing guard, a single mill on a river, and a massive horn.

‘What are we doing here’? I asked.

‘I’m going to do some making’, replied Gwyneth, ‘and I thought you might find it interesting’.

‘OK, sure’, I replied. It’s not every day that Her Majesty takes you to a desolate wilderness and invites you to watch her make stuff. I wasn’t sure what that meant, but it was better than my continuing and seemingly endless task of decorating the castle terrace exactly as the Queen might like it. ‘I remember when you got this Horn. Has it changed from its original purpose’?

‘Its original purpose was to celebrate the movement of time towards a resolution in the Fairelands Realm of Scrimshaw Warrens’, she replied. ‘That quest to return the water dragon to their original state within the Realm’. She looked at me and gave one of those it-might-be-a-smirk style smiles. ‘The quest probably had been going on for thousands of years before we glimpsed the Warrens as a Fairelands Realm, and in a sense it’s still going on now’.

‘So the Horn is in two Realms at once’?

She nodded. ‘You got farther than most folk would when I talk about it’. That’s pretty high praise coming from her. ‘It exists on multiple levels, and it’s been soaking up this quest magic for so long, I’m going to use it to help with this making’.

‘And because it’s existing simultaneously in different planes, any magical effects we gain from it’—

‘Will in fact increase the magic held in the Horn at Scrimshaw Warrens, not deplete it’, she finished. ‘Very good. You’re sharp, Friðros; I’m glad you’re on my team’.

I smiled and hid the squee that was building up inside me.

Then, she turned and blew gently into the Horn. I recalled the sound from hearing it in the Warrens months ago, and although there weren’t so many walls for it to bounce off of, it sounded just as loud here.

Everything went dark.

Except for her. She was bathed in moonlight that suddenly formed around her, and as she spread her wings wide, I could sense something building.

‘Best hop off the steps, Friðros’, she said. I didn’t argue.

It seemed then that a lot of things took place at once. Or maybe I should say a lot of places took thing at once. Or form. Or something. Wherever she turned, wherever she pointed, wherever she looked, something different happened: a canal cut through. A mountain rose in the distance.

I barely had time to react and jump backwards when a shallow pool appeared before my feet; within moments, it became a canal so deep I could not see the bottom (and we see pretty well in the dark, you know).

We are told from childhood that fae time is different from mortal time, but we don’t perceive it in our own realms; that’s for those who cross realms and end up someplace not native to themselves. Perhaps that’s why dawn seemed to come so quickly, and as I turned and looked at the still-empty of many things but now fully realised Land, I felt what it must be like to be a mortal re-entering their own world to discover that seven years have passed. It was dizzying and scary and heartbreaking, all at once.

‘What is she exactly’? I wondered under my breath.

‘Right’! All this time and she still talks like an English person. You always know she’s done when she starts saying, ‘Right’.

I lifted a brow, looked at her in the growing golden light.

‘That’s enough for one night, I think’, she said. ‘I’m not exhausted, but now there’s planning to be done! Let’s make a proper Fae Town for Awenia, and we’ll keep some things to ourselves in the Faerie Wilds above; what do you say’?

So casually. Let’s make a town. Let’s make a forest. Let’s cut a canal through this darkness. I glimpsed a gondola out of the corner of my eye. It’s like she can’t stop making when she starts making.

A monster. She is a monster.

Notes & Credits:

Enchantment’s Toss A Coin event ends today, y’all. You have just a few hours to visit before it’s all gone; after that you’ll have to search out these beautiful clothes from the creators’ Main Stores (which is totally not a bad thing to do!).

Friðros:

Clothes: Old Treasures, Child of Destiny (Featured at Enchantment!)
Hair: Monso, Sunmi
Shoes: Empire, Euphoma
Skin: DeeTaleZ Aria for Lelutka EvoX
Head: Lelutka, EvoX Ceylon
Body: Maitreya

Gwyneth:

Gown: Poet’s Heart, Helmiina (dress, coat, shoulders) (Featured at Enchantment!)
Eyes: Arte, Enchant Eyes (Featured at Enchantment!)
Wings: Evolved Creatures, Fae Wings 8.2
Hair: Magika, Midnight
Crown: Static, Rakish Crown (Currently featured at Ritual)
Skin: Lumae, Lelutka Eden, T1
Head: Lelutka, EvoX Avalon
Body: Maitreya