Fey of Wood and Wind, a piece I wrote for Dragon Magazine #420, is out today.
Since it's St. Valentines Day I'll leave you with a hard learned lesson on love, drawn up for this article (plus, the beautiful illustration by Beth Trott, above).
To Hold The Wind
There was a lonely young shepherd who loved to
watch the sky. As he lay in the heather, he imagined
he saw the shape of a fair maiden dancing among the
clouds. “If only she were mine,” the shepherd sighed.
One day a storm came, pelting the pasture with hailstones. When the storm had passed, the shepherd discovered a beautiful sylph lying in the field, her dragonfly wings tattered and full of holes. Her name was Levene, and the storm had broken her cloud and cast her down.
In the weeks that followed, as the shepherd nursed the sylph back to health, Levene fell in love with her savior. “Stay with me,” the shepherd said, “for I have loved you since first I saw you.”
Levene promised to stay on one condition. “I am a daughter of the wind,” said she, “and I must always have my freedom.” And because he loved her, the shepherd agreed.
The sylph stayed with him, and their love grew as a gentle breeze fans spark to flame. But Levene was a spirit of the air and often traveled to faraway skies, and the shepherd soon became lonely again. Many solitary nights he thought about what he could do to keep his love at home, and at last he decided on a solution. “Marry me,” he said to her. And because Levene loved him, the sylph agreed.
On the day they were married, the shepherd slipped a ring of cold iron onto his wife’s finger, for he knew that only iron could bind the fey. “Now we shall finally be together,” he said.
One day a storm came, pelting the pasture with hailstones. When the storm had passed, the shepherd discovered a beautiful sylph lying in the field, her dragonfly wings tattered and full of holes. Her name was Levene, and the storm had broken her cloud and cast her down.
In the weeks that followed, as the shepherd nursed the sylph back to health, Levene fell in love with her savior. “Stay with me,” the shepherd said, “for I have loved you since first I saw you.”
Levene promised to stay on one condition. “I am a daughter of the wind,” said she, “and I must always have my freedom.” And because he loved her, the shepherd agreed.
The sylph stayed with him, and their love grew as a gentle breeze fans spark to flame. But Levene was a spirit of the air and often traveled to faraway skies, and the shepherd soon became lonely again. Many solitary nights he thought about what he could do to keep his love at home, and at last he decided on a solution. “Marry me,” he said to her. And because Levene loved him, the sylph agreed.
On the day they were married, the shepherd slipped a ring of cold iron onto his wife’s finger, for he knew that only iron could bind the fey. “Now we shall finally be together,” he said.
They remained happy for a time. But on windy days when Levene looked to the sky, her smile vanished like the sun behind a storm cloud. Slowly she began to diminish, and soon she dwindled into a frail wisp of a thing.
“Why do you fade away so?” asked the shepherd. “Are you not happy by my side?”
“Happy, my love, but not free.”
“You roamed so far I feared you might never return.”
“To love another is to hold the wind,” said the sylph, “never knowing which direction it will blow.”
Ashamed, the shepherd removed the iron ring from Levene’s finger. “You are free to come or go as you choose,” he said.
A great gust of wind filled the shepherd’s hovel, and the sylph kissed him once upon the lips before the wind bore her out the door and away.
The shepherd ran after her. He reached out to hold her, but the wind swept Levene from his arms. He called out her name, but the wind tore it from his lips. Again and again he called, until her name was only a cry, like the bleating of a lost sheep—until his voice was lost in the tempest that carried the sylph ever farther away from him.
3 comments:
I thought your article was marvellous. Thank you!
Thank you, Will!
Lovely!
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