NECROCITY TIMES - Issue #2 - VALENTINE'S SPECIAL

Fae: Love Letter from the Dark

"Darkling, I listen; and for many a time I have been half in love with easeful death."

-Ode to a Nightingale by John Keats

Love Letter from the Dark
By Lynn Santiago
(LynnS13)

There were times in which I wondered if I felt guilty. After all, I presided over his dispatch.

Then, in times of clarity, I recall that guilt shouldn't be the word.

Why should I pretend such deep, human emotion when I've never been bound to most of the requirements of flesh and blood?

I missed him. There. Acknowledged.

I shouldn't have, really. Our relationship was an anomaly for the Leanan Sidhe. Left to my own devices, I had no one to confide in, none to ask advice of. It was expected I'd move on, find another soul to quench my thirst on... Excuse me... another poet to inspire. But he left me empty. The thrill of the chase is gone, there's no blessing to be poured from my chalice. I'm a muse that can no longer inspire.

The first time he summoned me, he was so young. A child of eight years barely, suffering his father's untimely death.

They told him the man fell from his steed, which was every bit true. However, to a child whose father was something close to God, it was such a simple and plain death that it became impossible to process.

In his mind, there was a higher purpose behind his father's death. A noble pursuit. Some beautiful lady in need at the edge of the road, perhaps close to the ravine. His father, dashing gentleman, ran to the rescue and lost his life in an act of chivalry.

At night, alone in his room, he'd imagine the Lady, with eyes touched by the wild. Beautiful as life itself, merciless as the Death that surely followed her.

He called out to me, drenched in tears, wishing me out of the dark. I slept beside him, kissing the last of his innocence as it was chased away by grief, running my pale fingers through the ringlets of wet curls in his hair.

I wished I could have given him sweet dreams. I had none to give; only the touch of alabaster skin, staple of those born in dangerous realms... and the call of night birds.

I waited, for years, silently wishing for that child never to call upon me again. However, he kept seeing my face everywhere, hearing my voice in the song of nightingales. In darkness, I listened until it was made evident that he was more than half in love with death.

We deserved one and other.

I returned, and he remembered. But this time, he saw me without the imaginings of a child to paint me holy. And still he took me in. I was his muse, his inspiration.

He built a world for both of us, a plane where the sun hardly broke through the clouds and withered things could be as joyful and beautiful as those brimming with life...

Where was I? Oh yes. Melancholy. We were inevitably drawn to one and other.

I'd visit upon him every time he closed his eyes; half hidden from reality, in a mystifying dream. Disembodied, as a projection of consciousness reaching beyond my realm, I'd follow.

I saw him write, by candlelight, and against the morning sun. I kissed the nape of his neck, leaving a cold spot that forced him to close the window, believing the paralyzing frost that crept into his heart was due to the autumn breeze.

No. I simply wanted him all to myself. It's in my nature.

It was obvious, though quite vexing, that even fae couldn't have eternity and then some. His time was done. I was the instrument of his undoing.

His life slipped between my fingers and there was nothing I could do. That was the making of our pact; a short life, a flash of genius in the dark.

There was no repair, no other bargain to be struck. I simply counted the length of his years, barely twenty five, and cut the chord.

I became a mournful muse, a grateful muse, a muse in... love?

Impossible. There has never been such a thing. But then, he was a part of me, and I lived in him for longer than any mortal or fairy should have. I think he had a little of the cruelty of the fae in him, towards the end. He condemned me to live forever twice.

The life of a Leanan Sidhe, when patron of the arts, is meant to be a private horror. We are forever attracted to both beauty and death, dragging the mortals we touch to experience both in a quick step. Dark muses that take, having nothing to give. Inspiring for a moment, cashing in on a lifetime. And then, back to the shadow lands, until the need moves us to find another.

But he didn't allow me to stay nameless.

Be it because love or for revenge, he crafted a second life for me, pulling me out of the dark into the light. He left a picture of me in pages turned. In those, I am forever an elfin child, a thing a beauty, just one step away from reach. Not only did he name me, he gave my name into the world and I've been in his thrall since then.

I've cried a single tear every day since I lost him. I'm not sure if it is sentiment, it simply rolls down, and I care not to wipe it.

Considering I'll live forever, eventually, I'll cry an ocean and make it worth his while. After all, for a beautiful lady without pity, he was the human child who once embraced me, and showed me a measure of love.