When
Love fails
Souls wither unto dust
Into the boneyard
Banished
HAVING ALMOST DROPPED THE harp again, flown headfirst into a branch and exploded through a leafy bough-tip, Hansanori finally gave chase. Tiny as she was, the apparition moved like quicksilver, slipping between the trees in mischievous glints of light, like a will o’ the wisp possessed of a spirit of impish wilfulness. He felt like a blundering frog in comparison, hopping hither and thither in pursuit of he knew not what.
The Argent Fae flew at his top speed for hours, never coming close to catching up. Hill and dale, deep forest and wildflower-strewn meadow, he passed through some of the hoariest and most secret glades of the Deepwoods, places never trod by the foot of Elf or Fae. All the unspoiled greenery and serenity around him was completely at odds with the continued, almost-panicked thumping of his heart, the buzzing wings and sweat-soaked straining he was forced to put in just to maintain the pursuit. He dared not even stop for a sip of nectar.
Yet why the great urgency? For that, he had no answer, not even as the night deepened beyond its darkest hour. The glinting apparition teased him unceasing.
At last, as dawn peeked over the horizon, he collapsed in a helpless, wheezing heap. Alright. Playing the harp and dodging one’s heritage did not leave a Faerie fit enough to keep this up all night. He was quick. She was unbelievable.
“I’m sorry,” he groaned, and collapsed on a bough. “I just … have to … breathe.”
He meant only to shut his eyes for a moment.
Waking in the early afternoon, Hansanori had a minor panic attack before working out that his pouch had slipped loose while he slept, dangling a little beneath him in the rich, emerald-green leaves. The Astral Harp was safe. Could he even fly? He ached in every bone of his body. Aches on top of his aches. Not sure if he could lift a wing … except, that beseeching expression in her eyes … if ever a cluster of gemstone-bright sapphire sparkles could be accused of conveying emotion, he knew he must find her again. Help her. The imperative burned within his Faerie soul, uncontainable.
Groan. Rub his tangled silver hair. No pampering options out here.
The fey creature. Her plight. Nothing else mattered – most especially not his hair! Hansanori had rarely despised himself more. Hope he did not have too many other ridiculous affectations trained in from tender age, but it took no especial insight to guess at the truth of that …
He unslung the harp. “Alright. I know I’m going to regret this, but here goes.” He plucked a chord. “Ouch. That’s bad.”
Shaking out his wrists, he embarked upon his worst, most error-ridden stanza in years.
Obsession. Overdoing it. Wince!
“Pickle my antennae in – by my sap!”
He might have been awful enough to curl his own antennae, but the advent of his otherworldly visitor could not be missed, for an entire corridor of tall, straight immoriki trees in his line of sight had just begun to sway and dip in turn as she approached. The Deepwoods bowed. Not even the King of Elves merited this treatment!
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“Who are you?” he wheezed.
Worse, he was evidently in such a sorry state that when the motes slipped up to him and offered a respectful bobble, they reached out to touch his fingertip with a trembling, apologetic mien. Excruciatingly shy. Yet this almost-touch was enough that an azure spark leaped across the gap between them.
Hiss!
“Yeeooww, my Momfae’s sap!” he swore, wringing out his fingers, his body, his toes! Arcane energies laced his body, shooting from his wingtips in showers of pure silver sparks. “You little … you pestiferous miracle! What did you – you – what?”
Splutter! Cough! Aye. His aches had vanished into the aether. His wings buzzed with a surge of vitality. In other news around the boughs, he felt as if he could fly a thousand leagues and never stop. Alright. This was certifiably insane.
If he was not mistaken, the cluster of iridescent Fae life paused to snicker at his scandalised expression before – away! The miniscule spirit hurtled off between the V-shaped trunk of a towering azmargin tree. Yelling something zesty, Hansanori slung the harp upon his back and gave pursuit. Heartily! Manfully! Musically!
By evening, he had reached the mighty Sarimaki Heights, a region of deep burgundy coniferous trees that lay above the permanent snowline. Overnight, he slept the sleep of the dead – dead tired – before taking up the pursuit just after dawn. The elusive mote led him by devious paths into a canyon that took him right between the dangerous, beautiful Sarimaki Peaks, so tall that they housed the Deepwoods’ largest population of Glacier Wyverns, before swooping into the Hasarapin Swamps, another region of the Suylas Deepwoods one did not exactly go visiting if one preferred to remain alive. The carnivorous floral Fae forms endemic to the swamps made quite sure of that.
No problem for the impudent Elemental – for he was convinced that this must, against all logic or reason, be some manifestation of an Elemental Fae. All were meant to have died out hundreds of years ago, yet he had with his own eyes observed Elemental Naiads mere days ago. Believe it, Hansanori. Did he even know these Deepwoods anymore?
Spreading the spangling glitter of her cheery presence across the colourful swamps, where beds and towering columns of gorgeous Fae flowers waited to sup upon the unwary, the flying silver-chased sapphire sparkles cleared a path through the chomping maws of crimson, yellow and pink floral obeisance as far as the eye could see.
He passed through without losing a single body part.
One for the ages. Never in living memory.
Five nights and five days passed in endless pursuit. Each day, Hansanori chased her farther and farther, until the journey came to resemble a mystical experience, all the places and wonders he had seen blurring together in his mind. All his senses focussed on the irresistible mote who led him on such a merry, maddening chase. He composed and sang new songs as he flew along, celebrating the manifold wonders of the Suylas Deepwoods they passed by – racing across the terrain in tandem, past the almighty Sentinel Trees, down past the bubbling sap-green dust springs inhabited by the Forest Pixies, along mighty canyons that housed the last of the splendid many-tiered Elven cities standing in branches a mile off the ground, through the endlessly beautiful flower gardens tended by Floral Sprites, and onward into the farthest sun-spinward reaches of the Elven Kingdom.
Few creatures travelled this way. It was a wild, oft-untrod country, province of the few and the hardy, much closer to Chor-Ahm Syliasa, the capital city of the Dark Elves, than to Ahm-Shira. The Elves and Fae who dwelled out here were a hardy bunch altogether.
Others might say deadly. Nor were they very close to the Crown.
This morn, the effervescent phenomenon came to him without his calling her via music. The first Hansanori knew of her presence was a touch like a feather upon his left antenna. Then, the lightest of pressures tickled his forehead, like a tendril of mist.
Hiss!
Magical power smacked him from three quarters asleep to awake in a millisecond. Five feet above the bough bower where he had spent the night, Hansanori collected his wits at the speed of light, his quivering wings from various points of the compass, his jaw from somewhere else in Spheris and the harp before it slipped around his neck and smacked him in said dangling jaw.
Had he just been kissed awake by a mystical marvel?
So buoyed up that his wingtips buzzed involuntarily, the Harpist bowed and grinned, “Well, a very fine morning to – sap’s sakes!”
Clearly, she was an early starter.
And fast. Ridiculously fast.