I left my home in one outfit, riding half way to the castle before I
stopped at an inn to change into my costume. The inn owner was one
who I knew somewhat well, his wife having been one of the local girls
my mother would occasionally design affordable but stylish dresses
for.
Though he didn’t know my plan, he knew that it involved a change of clothes, one that I would be returning for after tonight’s events, and I knew him well enough that I could trust him to not say anything to anyone if word did spread that someone that matched my description was reported to have done exactly what I was planning on doing.
My costume was not entirely a style that I was known for, and that was by design.
That way, if someone was sober enough to remember it, they would not automatically guess it was one of mine, even of a few of the guests were wearing my own works.
If I was pressed, I would tell them that it was mine, but I already had a convincing story as to whom I had made it for, one that I was sure would save me from every being held responsible for what I intended on doing.
When I was done changing I looked around my small, empty room, my other clothes folded on the bed, waiting for my return. I went to the window and opened the curtains to look out at the clear night, the moon full above and so bright it fulled the room with light.
I slowly pulled the curtains closed so only a slit remained, leaving just enough of the bright moon light to allow me to see my way to the door.
I turned from the window then, fixing my jacket as I crossed the room to the door.
“You are acting uncharacteristically foolish, Elliot.” I stopped dead in my tracks at the eerie, light tone. Her voice was smooth like silk fluttering in the wind, light and airy. A cold thrill ran up my spin as I distantly recognized it as something familiar, but still distinctly strange. “Going to attack the heir to you kingdom. Really.” She said, sounding tired and a bit annoyed. “I had thought you had a little bit more sense of that, after you had been doing so well tolerating your sisters’ antics over the years.”
I slowly straightened, swallowing thickly before I turned to see a figure half hidden in the shadows of the room, the light of the curtains that were parted near where she was leaning against the wall beside the window just enough to make her out.
Her arms crossed lowly at her waist and a curious look in her eyes-
Eyes that had a light moving across them like the golden sunlight pouring between the high leaves of a sacred tree, here and gone before they reappeared brighter than ever, glowing mutely in the darkness of the room.
A fairy.
Beautiful, tall and regal, dresses in a flimsy white gown under silver armor that glistened and glowed with the same weak intensity as her golden gaze, her armor fit her chest like a glove, the fairy wearing a skirt of chain mail that hung loose at her hips and frayed into delicate chains at her knees, armored boots visible through the strips of the billowy, transparent fabric that made up the dress that she seemed to wear under her chest plate. When she turned her head and pushed open the curtain to flood the room with the moonlight, I saw that there were marks on her face, pink like she had been wearing a helmet and recently taken it off, both her ears pointed and pierced over much of shell, though her earlobes were oddly naked.
“Are you the prince’s godmother?” I asked quietly as she looked out the window at the town with a tired gaze.
She suddenly looked back to me, seemingly shocked at my words. “I’m yours, silly boy.” she scorned, though she looked just as amused as she did annoyed.
My face hardened. The figure at my mother’s grave that Alan spoke of, surely. “Is that so?” I turned to face her completely, unable to hold my tongue as I demanded “Where were you when my mother died, then?”
Her curious, slightly amused look hardened and it oddly looked something like my own, though I couldn’t quite place why. “Your mother,” She said in a low, dangerous tone, “Was a shattered individual. She was beyond the help of my hands, unlike you are now. There was nothing there for me to help with her, but not with you. You I can still help.”
“You’re here to help me?” I asked in a tight tone, “Really? Now? After everything?”
She blinked, her eyebrows lifting. “What are you implying?”
“I’m implying that there were many, many times where your assistance could have been welcomed, but right now is not one of them. This I am doing by myself. I learned from all the things you could have helped me with that I can handle things just fine by myself.” I snapped.
“I wasn’t able to assist you before, now I am.” She said back coolly. “And now, more than ever, you need my help.”
“You weren’t able to help me before? How is that?” I hissed. “You are a fairy, are you not? A great and powerful being? Eternal and omnipresent? A God?”
She tilted her head with a curious look, her eyes wide. “Do you think I’m just sitting in a tree, strumming a lyre and singing songs about love and merriment?” She asked in a half amused, half annoyed tone, the frayed bottoms of her chain mail skirt making delicate noises as she moved, shifting her weight to a different leg, “I’ve been off at war, little boy, and I’ve only come from the heat of battle because the wind whispered to me that you got it into your head that you should act violently against the heir to the kingdom.”
I turned my face away, forcing my temper to cool.
War.
Of course she had been off at war.
How typical that my godmother had to be one of those.
I had been told about the fae’s wars, never truly ending, only going through phases of major and minor activity. Some fae were more active in battles, and mother had always said our godmother was a very active and mighty fae.
I had told her that I would have wished for one that was dumb and lazy it if meant seeing her more often so she could make mother well again.
I caught sight of her fond smile and I gave her a hard look. “Unless you are here to give me a blessing of some sort, I have to be going – I have a prince that need to have very unfavorable behaviors corrected.” Her face tightened and I turned to the door, going for the knob but finding it wouldn’t move, immobilized in a way that could only be done with magic. I tensed, but forced myself to relax before I turned my head to give her a flat look. “Have more to say, Godmother?” I drawled. “Perhaps advise to share? Tactics learned from the battle front?”
“I see you have control over your temper – that’s a very useful skill, one that took me ages to master.” She said with a bitter little smile, “But I do have more to say, and you will stay with me until you don’t just hear it, but listen.” She said in a sharp but quite tone, “I understand that the prince had wronged you and the ones you love terribly and you will go to punish him no matter what I have to say, so I thought I might give you a little bit of protection to hide your identity. I highly suggest you don’t do anything foolish like stabbing him,” She said in a stern tone as she withdrew a wooden wand from her long, loose sleeves, “But this will allow you to do what you meant to do without him recognizing your face, and then leave without being found. Whenever you put on this periwinkle coat, your identity will be hidden.”
I watched as the air above my head sparkled briefly before vibrant blue lights danced around me, disappearing quickly.
I didn’t feel a thing. I looked to her, nodding with a little frown. “Thank you...Godmother.”
She nodded with a little frown of her own. “What do you plan on doing, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“He’s acted like a spoiled child, so I’ll treat him like one – he’ll be getting a spanking.”
Her lips twitched like she wanted to smile before she carefully sat down at the window ledge. She seemed conflicted as she looked me over with a sort of longing, one I had seen before on the face of parents that had to send their children away for school or off to learn a trade, unable to ask them to stay because they knew it was better that they left so they could do better for themselves.
“He is a bit of a brat, isn’t he?” She mused quietly, “We knew he would be, which is why he wasn’t given magic.” She sucked in a long breath, exhaling with a smile. “Couldn’t risk great power falling into greatly spoiled hands again.”
“But you still blessed him with intelligence, and he can do just as much damage with that.” I said as I smoothed a hand down my jacket, pushing the fabric to rid myself of a crease at my waist.
“True, but nothing that can’t be done with a little bit of the magic he was not given. Magic has…” Her gaze darkened. “far more lasting consequences.” Her gaze slowly lowered, her frown deepening before she lifted her gaze to me. “The spell will hide your identity from him for exactly one full moon to the next. You could spank him every day for the next twenty nine days if it so pleased you and he wouldn’t be able to recognize your face – your voice, yes, but not your voice. After that, if he sees your face again, he will be able to place your face to the voice he remembers, so get whatever poison is in your system out so you can return to the lovely, simple little life you are making for yourself and avoid crossing paths with him, least you want him to recognize who had been punishing him.” She frowned, looking troubled before she added “I am...so very pleased how well you have done, Elliot. You are my absolute pride and joy in a very grime and difficult reality…” A muscle in her jaw jumped. “And for what it’s worth, I am...incredibly devastated about what happened to you mother. I blessed her with sensitivity to others needs, but the curse of that was she was a very vulnerable woman, and I’m afraid it was the death of her.” Her face face a little. “Her death was...a terrible lesson for me. My heart will never recover from the loss of such a beautiful, kind soul.”
I frowned. “Did you bless me? When I was born?”
Her expression cooled and she lifted her chin a little. “I did, yes.”
I dreaded the answer. “Well?” I asked then, “What was it?”
“I blessed you with forgiveness,” She said simply.
“Forgiveness?” I murmured. “What does it enable me to do?”
“It enables you to do what I can’t.” She said quietly, “I have the inability to forgive others, and it’s caused many terrible rifts, one of which I am still suffering the repercussions of, and so I blessed you with that so you might do better. Forgiveness frees you from the anger and hatred that binds me in chains.”
I frowned at that. “And the curse?”
“The curse is that you are easily slighted.”
My face twitched.
Yes, I was.
But I suppose my ability to forgive helped ease that curse.
Though I wasn’t in a very forgiving mood right now.
“Thank you,” I said after a moment, “I think...maybe your blessing is the only reason why I’ve ever been able to overcome this...rage in my heart, sometimes.”
“Yes, the rage.” she sighed quietly, tilting her head back. “I am familiar with that dark emotion. But I am very, very pleased to see how you battle it so valiantly. It gives me hope for myself, I think. One month, Elliot. Be mindful of that. The enchantment will begin at midnight’s last stroke, which is about the time I imagine you will arrive at the palace…” She frowned, her eyes narrowing. “Do be careful though, young one. Regardless of what everyone thinks, nothing can ever fully be hidden by magic.”
Comments (6)
See all