Black as Night

The Stag's Warning

The Autumn ball was one of the many balls held every year to celebrate a successful harvest. While the Autumn festivities were occurring, the nobility and their esteemed guests gathered in the pavilion of the palace. Music played, people drank, and dancers danced the night away. If you were lucky or drunk enough, you could see the Fae slip in and out of the party.

The Fae loved a good party as well as any other supernatural beings. Witches, Fae, the occasional Mermaid and so many more frequented human parties.

Just last Midsummers Dance, the Queen of the Unseelie court graced the court of King Gavin.

Of course, Winter was forbidden to go and Cora had told her that she was not of age. The Fae were know to ensnare poor and  unsuspecting girls at balls.

Now Winter was eighteen and she was determined to go. Winter had been allowed to go to only one ball each year and that was the Spring ball, easy for her and her father because it was a masquerade ball. It was much easy to sneak into those.

The dress she was wearing was comfortable, it was a pale shade of purple and flowed as she moved. The material was soft, made from the finest of cotton and silk. The waist was embellished with beads in a leaf pattern. The long flowing sleeves were slightly off the shoulder, exposing her collar bone. A necklace was given to her by Cora, a small silver choker that glinted in the torchlight.

The trial of her skirt, glided over the steps of the tower. It was only a few inches, but it snagged on stray nails. Giving up she damned modesty and etiquette, she lifted the skirt up to her knees and gathered the rest in her arms.

Directly across from the tower door was a tapestry. Turn left and you would come across a hallway, go through it and you would find a tiny drawing room.

It had one entrance and two exits. The left one lead to a spiral staircase that would take winter directly to the ballroom and the right would take her through the gardens.

"Halt!" A voice called, "Are you the Princess Winter?"

"If it's my sister, no," she looked up. Only a Stags head was pinned to the wall. It's antlers tipped in gold and eyes replaced  with glass. She looked around to see no one. Winter was fairly sure that dead animals didn't speak.

"Then why is a wayward girl seeking me?" The voice asked, "Yes, you impertinent girl. Thine true form is different than this stags head."

What Winter saw was a stag, it's head moving and it's ears staining to stay still. His antler were now plated with gold and sharp. Once so majestic, he was now a piece of furniture.

"Peculiar," she muttered to herself. That ball could wait, she wanted to hear this. "If you don't mind telling me, how exactly are you up there?" She asked.

"Thee has a father, though a fair ruler, an imbecile in everything else," the stag said so harshly. "Thy sister is born in hell and despises you immensely. I was a gift to that basilisk of sister of yours, and I have sat here for eighteen years waiting for the person who I was suppose to be gifted to."

"Why would father want to give me a stag? Isn't that strange for a gift?"

The stag shook it's head and looked down at Winter, his cold eyes reflecting nothing but wariness. "I'm not really stag , I'm a spirit of the forest who was killed while in this form. My dear, I am eternal and I am weak."

"Who wouldn't be, you've been separated from you body."

Winters neck started to hurt at this point from looking up. She hoped nobody saw her talk to a stag!

"Oh well, the only way I can be free is if the one who I was bestowed upon releases me. Unfortunate that it wasn't you, it was Morgan. That b-"

"I could try to get her to release you, Mr. Stag."