Faerie Ball

Fairy Ball

The magic distilled in the glass sphere was dangerously strong. Prince Faylar felt the pull as he slipped the delicate ball into the intricately carved wooden casket. Padded velvet kept it nestled safely as he closed the lid. He felt the darkness that incased the sphere as a chill across his skin. He had weighed the cost and was willing to put himself in mortal danger to have her.

Faylar held the box against his chest as he mounted his horse.  He prepared to make the journey between faerie and the human world. His chiseled features, long straight dark hair and tall lean frame readily identified him as a son of the Faerie King. His father would be furious if he knew what his son was doing. Faylar was not the heir but the King loved all his sons fiercely. Even the thought of his father’s anger could not sway him. 

While patrolling the border he had seen her across the stream that divided their two lands. Her hair the palest yellow glowed with the touch of early morning sunlight as she dipped water from the babbling brook. Her movement and posture spoke of youth and grace. The dulcet notes of her song pulled him to her and when she raised her face as she stood he was struck. Their eyes met for the briefest of seconds, hers vivid blue, his palest silver and then she fled leaving her water pails behind her.

Hours passed before she returned. Hours, which were meaningless to an immortal that must have been the prescribed time for her to feel safe once again.  Her glance darted constantly across the stream trying to penetrate the tree line as she refilled her buckets. He leaned against a gnarled oak knowing he would be visible to her only if he wished it.

She lingered over her job and when she stood it was with a sigh. Her shoulders stooped from the weight of the buckets and maybe something more as she made her way up the tiny trail. The path took a bend and then disappeared from sight. She turned there for one last look and he rewarded her by stepping away from the oak.  Her eyes grew wide in surprise and her rounded mouth fought not to come up at the corners. He chuckled as he watched her flee, water sloshing from the buckets.

She did not come again. Others brought the pails, brother, mother, aunt. A year he watched, waited and was rewarded. A glimpse as she brought food to the old crone that lived at the bend in the stream, mornings when she gathered wood in the forest beside the rushing waters, sweet afternoons when she bathed in the pond above the beaver dam.

His family finally called him back only to have him wander about in a vague haze distracted from his courtly duties, only half aware during conversation and meandering off for days on end.

Now clutching the casket to his chest he galloped through the forest to the borderlands. The sound of rushing water greeted him as he slowed the pace of his horse. A sigh escaped him as his mind’s eye once again saw the girl dipping water from the stream and felt his heart leap as her eyes met his. He tied his horse to the gnarled oak. He waited until the forest’s song changed from a hundred avian melodies to a thousand insect calls as day gave way to night.

Stepping stones bridged the creek and he felt his skin prickle as he crossed the invisible barrier from faerie. He followed the path up the hill and around the bend. The moon bathed the small village in milky light.  Cows and sheep slept curled up in pens or standing with heads bowed. The soft cluck of chickens dozing in their hutch mingled with the sweet tone of cow bells as the bovines stirred. Human smells invaded Faylar’s senses; freshly turned earth, manure, baked bread, sweat, drying herbs and sweet soap.

He peeked in every window till he found her.  Gently he placed the box on the doorsill of her home. He cast the spell that would make the box invisible to any but her; others would step over and walk around it without realizing it.

He hesitated as he stood over the box only allowing himself a brief moment of trepidation. Wraith, like existence, awaited him if the sphere was mishandled or destroyed, a connection purer than light would be his with the ball in his lady’s hands.

The darkness enveloped him when he closed his eyes; he wallowed in it knowing these were his last moments of sanity. Raising arms above his head he turned his face to the heavens.

“Mine,” he whispered, into the night air, feeling the word whirl around him till it drifted across the windowsill of her room. A sigh shuttered from her dark window and he knew tonight she would dream of him. The human world feared the magic of faerie with good reason. They jealously guarded their children but to no avail. Mortality and all its brightness drew the ethereal faerie folk like moths to flame.

Faylar felt the temperature drop as the night waxed old, veiled in its darkest hour just before dawn. He ran feeling an urgency to be many miles away before the box was discovered. He leapt the stream in one bound, gathered the reins of his horse and jumped into the saddle. Trees blurred past him, his horse’s hooves thundered till froth flew from his stead’s mouth. 

A golden glade sprang into view just as he felt the first rays of morning sun on his face. He flung the saddle from his horse, giving him a quick rubdown and let him drink greedily from a small brook.  An abbreviated repast of dried mushrooms, berries and dandelion seed bread would help to sustain him in the coming hours.

He was unprepared for the first sensations.  Light beamed through him when she first opened the box and his body arched in ecstasy as her fingers brushed the surface of the glass. Dizziness overcame him as he felt her spin the ball he assumed she had hung in her window. The days passed in wave upon wave of sensation. Nausea gripped him when someone else casually  brushed their fingers over the sphere.

Nights were filled with dreams he knew they shared. Morpheus could not have wooed with more purpose, he teased her, petted her and coaxed her to kiss him. She in her turn was shy, flirty but always evasive.

He tried to remember to eat and drink but sometimes it would be days before he would come back to himself enough to meet his body’s basic needs. Mostly he lay dazed awash in sensation almost too exquisite to endure.

This is how his family found him. His father, the Faerie King, raged as they carried him home. A battle cry was sounded. The village would be razed, the fairy ball recovered. Faylar cried out in his agony. He would be lost without her he shouted. His protest was drowned out as the mounted hoard struck swords to shields.

Faylar’s body betrayed him as he felt overwhelming sensation, he cried out with the joy of it. Then she was there in his arms. Her lips, which had seconds before finally caressed the cool sphere, were pressed firmly against his. The sphere dangled in her fingers, slipped from her grasp and fell inert to the ground, the magic used up.

“Mine,” he whispered against her lips.

“Yes,” she sighed.