Wish me luck in meeting my 30,000 word goal :)
Wincing at the cold air, I ease my way out of the warm blankets and onto the cold stone floor. I thrush my shivering toes into satin slippers lined with pure white rabbit fur and tiptoe across the cold floor. I grab my lovely coat from inside my wardrobe and slip it over my nightgown. It's real fur, lined with raw white silk. It was also warm, something very important considering I was to be going out into the night.
Moving lightly, I dance over to the window. The bright, full moon shines into my room. Mentally preparing myself, I stand on the windowsill and jump, grabbing the branches of the apple tree outside the window. I’d done it a thousand times, the jump, but it never got less nerve-wracking or less exhilarating.
Shimmying down the branches, feeling the smooth and rough wood beneath my fingers, I let a smile to cross my face. Here I was, just a girl, breaking out of my own home at midnight for a Fayerie Reverie. A midnight dance with the Fair Folk, well it would be considered dangerous to many. Not to me, though, the Fair Folk were my friends.
I waited under my apple tree for but a moment before the Fayeries came to collect me. There were three, a woman as lovely as day, a man as strong and stable as an elder oak, and a smaller man, one who looked closer to my age. But, of course, the Fair Folk would not age as I would, they were immortal.
The woman touched m face when she reached me, tilting my chin up. She stared into my clear blue eyes, reading my soul. “Ardella, Princess of the Castle, you are Blessed. You are welcome to Dance with Us, but beware. One sip of Fay-wine, one bite of Our food, and you will be forevermore Ours.” her voice is high, clear, cold.
“Do you accept the Rules and Prices, and do you agree to descend into Our madness?” The man continues, old waiting for my response.
“I accept Your word, and freely and willingly Descend.” I let my words carry into the still, cold night. As my words fill the world, a bright fire fills my mind and I am taken into their world. The Fayerie world.
Laughter, Spring, Sunlight, are the first things that reach me as I enter the Fair Folk's Realm. A few Fay girls hop over, touching my face, my hair, my skin, giggling softly. “Look at her hair it's like little bits of sunshine!” I touch the flaxen strands self-consciously.
“Oh, and look at those eyes they're so pretty.” Another chirps. The third girl studies me, watching my reactions to the other's words.
“Hi! You're so pretty! I’m Lacie! Who are you?” Her doe eyes blink at me, the tiny deer ears on her head twitching slightly. All Fair Folk took on characteristics of Nature.
“I'm Ardella.” I spoke softly, afraid of the Fay, with their wild mood swings.
“Oooh, pretty name! I’m Willa!” The first girl sings. Her hair is pale brown with tiny leaves, like long tendrils of willow.
“And I’m Day!” The second informs me, eyes like miniature suns. She is day, as surely as there is one called Night. Everything from her fire hair to gold eyes is Day.
The three Fair Folk take me over to a few stones by a crystal clear lake. Chattering like a flock of birds, they weave my pale hair into a wreath of flowers, crowning it with ivy. My ivory skin is covered with their powder, lips colored with flower dye. They treat me like a little doll, so strange and so beautiful. Not quite Fay, but more then mortal.
Once my skin and hair shine with Fayerie Magic, and Beauty, the girls dance away in hunt of clothing for me. Lacie brings back a lovely cream corset and laces me in tightly. Her honey eyes glow with happiness as I let her dress me up.
