Disclaimer: Video is a cover of Pyotr Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake by WeroChan. I do not own the video. Just placed it here for sharing. :) Enjoy the first chapter!
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Autumn Boxes:
As mentioned previously, oaths, promises, and intent serve an important role upon Faerie. It is said that if you are in need or seek a certain Faerie Folk, if you leave a note expressing your intent in a small wooden chest upon The Winding Way it will reach the Faerie that can answer your question or it will find its way to whom you seek. Rumor has it that once an Autumn Box is closed and left upon The Winding Way, none can open it except for the intended.
Jennifer Tobin & David Jurns
W.A.R. Cosmology
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My feet led me to a place I knew not. For all I knew, the season was autumn.
Trudge... trudge... trudge... went the sound of hard leather soles. It echoed within the hollows of an old concert theatre, born of a fervent race of resurgent artistry. It was once a stage for opera; bystander to the age of forgotten renaissance. It was a legacy that died by the hand of vehement idealists; those who whimsically believed rational thinking supersedes the aesthetics of melody. Despite that, I was glad that I lived early enough to witness the maturity of a musical age: an age born in desperation against a dark, cruel world that terrified even the babies in their mother's wombs.
There still lies the old grand piano. Grotesque wood reflected the murky haze of the moon beams that peeked through the ceilings corroded over time. I watched it in silence, praying with all my might that the snow of the high mountain would crush this dastard manor.
But the snow has not fallen yet. It was a prelude to winter.
I sat on the mahogany bench, ignoring the light that bounced off my silver locks. God knows what treachery fate had done to my appearance, that my beauty was found dangerous to humanity. For that, I was hidden in the mysteries of the woods, where stories of Maribagoth, fairies, goblins, elves, and sprites loomed about. Half of those tales were true, and only I would know.
But no lore would surpass that which I had seen one autumn day when an angel in white buried her heart for me to find.
Before my fingers pressed the ivory, I could hear the sweet serendipitous melody of a swan in lament. My heart ached in sorrow, pierced by a hollow memory, testifying the same fate of the fallen Odette; the love which never came to be, and was never meant to be.
The young man begins to play the piano. The climax of Pyotr Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake.
I found a young woman weeping, by a terrain of trees close to the brook. Her hair spun in delicate waves, rippling as she walked, or so I assumed for I was twenty feet away. She dug a deep hole to hide a small wooden prism. It was a decoratively engraved box, as I could tell from a distance. And my curious eyes left where she had buried it.
Then she disappeared, like how a mirage escapes the eyes of a thirsty wanderer. I raced to the place of her secrecy, where the glories of youth overcame what had been morally right above privacy. The box, which contained a stash of letters, was her time capsule. I thoughtfully opened an envelope with the recent date and read a neatly scribed calligraphy in awe.
"Dear Midnight,
I always ask myself why I never get to see you. Not even at the welcome of Christmas Eve, or even at the wake of the New Year. Had I not been watched by my mistress, I would have stayed the night just to feel your cool breath caress my cheek, your radiance shine against my skin and. your eyes echo the same yearning as mine.
Love,
R"
I flushed at the passion in her words. In those very moments, when I was baffled to discover I could read, I realized that I was never given a name. But there I was... baptized by the name of Eve through the sinuous voice of her Lexis. I was young then, and I had absently thought that those letters were written for me.
The days that followed became moments of anticipation. I would patiently wait at the same spot, waiting to see if she would continue to tell me of her stories through her letters. Some I could understand, others I failed to comprehend. She would bury her letters in the same place, and I would wait for her departure so that I may read her letters in privacy. I could not reveal myself to her yet. I was too young then and bashful.
One time, I even found a letter crumpled, with ink blotches smudged by some sort of moisture. Tears. She was crying when she had written the letter.
"Dear Midnight,
Why had I been robbed of the freedom to choose? Why was I meant for a man I chose not to love? What if I had not fathomed marriage? All I ever wanted was to run away in your presence... I'd be free then. And I would gaze upon you always... if only I could see you...
Love,
R"
I shed tears. She was meant for another man. And if I had shown myself to her sooner. Perhaps we could have been what I had dreamt us to be, though I had never seen her.
And so I set the date, where I knew she'd return to that spot. By the redwood tree that guarded the secrets of her heart. I would reveal myself to her at last.
I wrote her my first letter.
I peeled off the bark of the tree, and with my blood wrote down the words I wanted to tell her a long time ago. In the process, I was baffled to learn that I could write.
"Dear love,
I had shared your mourning for a long while... and I pierce myself the blame. Had I not revealed myself to you sooner, I would have saved you from the trouble in which you perish in. I vow to make you merry all the days of my life and pray that soon enough, we would meet, betwixt the hour of night and day.
Love,
Midnight"
And it has been done. I placed the letter precariously above all the lavender-scented ones and hoped for a miracle.
And I waited... and waited... the following days, the following nights. I found the steadfast patience to see that my wish was to be made known. Where was she? I had turned desperate. And so were my fingers that stroked the ivory as I reminisced the days.
In my drunkenness of the past, playing the grand piano in desolation, I felt a presence enter in the gloom of the night. It felt like a dancing mist flowing with the grace of a petite woman. I couldn't know for I was still lost in the past.
And so that day came. The girl had returned and read my blood-stained letter in shock. Her Midnight replied. A thing she had not expected... for the midnight in her letters referred to a time she wished to escape... to the moon which she wished to see. I could see it in her eyes, from twenty feet away. I was pain-stricken.
Until to my glee, she wrote at the tree beside her with the sharp end of her diamond pendant her reply.
"MEET ME HERE. TOMORROW. MIDNIGHT."
That day, I met and fell in love... with the woman who took away my life.
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Author's Note: This was a little plot bunny I had since.... I don't know... a long time ago. I don't even know if I should update this. I just HAD to get it out. Haha... This story is only going to be around four chapters long.
For those reading my current WIP Arcana (Book I of The Wolf in The Fable Series), expect an update soon! Toodles!
August 8, 2017: Made some quick fixes ^_^ Will update this next week. Cheers!
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The Autumn Box
Short StoryHe was a human who was too ethereal to be one. So the fae took him from his mother's bosom and hid him in the forests. A changeling took his place and stole his life in the world of men. Years later, he finds a box of letters buried near his tree...
