Absinthe

Come away, O human child!

To the waters and the wild
With a faery hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.
~William Butler Yeats, "The Stolen Child"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The song was sad, an ode, almost, a funereal dirge for the loss of all t
hat is good, but the dance was lively, a celebration of the things that were, th
e life that was. The people of Revel did not mourn today, though they had recent
ly lost several of their numbers. Instead, they remembered. They danced. They sa
ng. They honored the fallen through revelry, as tradition dictated.
The press of bodies was tight, almost claustrophobic, yet the crowd move
d with an uncommon, rhythmic grace. The dancers moved in a sophisticated, but so
mehow primal sway that seemed to linger on the edge of violence, as if at any mo
ment the participants might rend each other limb from limb. The central dance fl
oor seemed to hold none of the modern dance techniques, the movements each mirro
ring a different time, a different style, each as diverse as the people themselv
es. Women in whalebone corsets danced beside men in leather; jeans appeared not
a bit out of place beside Victorian styles and Goth-wear. Even the dancers seeme
d to come from wildly different origins; Gaelic features, Asian, German, African
, all melted together in a swirl of silk and heady perfume.
The air pulsed with magic.
Moira Na Sióga pushed her way through the crowd, glorifying in the feel of the fles
h around her. For her kind, this was the best sort of place to be; filled with t
hose of her ilk, Revel was a place in which one could release their safeguards a
nd take off their masks. This club was a Safe Place, a haven, though its appeara
nce spoke to the contrary. According to a treaty formed longer ago than anyone c
ared to remember, within these walls the People could Do No Harm. This was one o
f the safest places on Earth.
She shivered from the very roots of her flame-red hair to the bottoms of
her black stiletto boots as a heavy wave of bass came rolling through the stere
o system, moving over her skin like a silken scarf. Part of the magic of this pl
ace was complete sensory overload; the music, the drinks, the sights, even the a
ir seemed alive. Walking out into the cold fall air of the real world seemed a s
hame, made one long for the Old World. Especially on days like this, where the w
ind whistled and the trees turned their color in poor imitation of the world Moi
ra had left behind.
The music swelled once more, this time into the final bars of the melody
, and the crowd around her let out a collective sigh. The dance grew more urgent
, more frenzied, as if, with the end of the music, came the end of the world. Th
e bodies on the dance floor writhed with power and music, contorting, each dance
r now changing, becoming less human. Moving just a bit too fast, bending just a
bit too far, contorting, losing the illusions that they hid behind... until it b
ecame apparent that they were not human. The music hit its crescendo.
The world seemed to stop on its axis, suspended on a single, weeping vio
lin chord. The entire club stopped at once and looked to the sky, through the ce
iling made of glass. Enraptured, they stared at the pregnant moon, seeming to so
ak in its reflected light. As one, the people in the club breathed a sigh. Then,
just as soon as it had stopped, time began again, and the dancers collapsed whe
re they stood, spent. The strange, yet by no means new, ritual was over. While a
good number of the dancers looked sated, an equal amount looked bereft, as if t
hey would just as soon spend eternity in that in-between place.
The dancers did not move, but rested where they lay, as the music ended, the las
t note of the violin fading into oblivion. Following a strange impulse that she
couldn't name, Moira began to dance. The next song came on, as if it were accomp
anying her, but she paid it no note. She felt the eyes of the club on her, but d
id not care. She simply moved to the time of the heavenly rhythm playing itself
out in her head.
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Titters ran through the crowd as the single Leanan Sidhe stood and sasha
yed her way across the floor. While the dance that had ended just moments ago ha
d been raw and poignant, this solo was sweet and pure. A shiver ran through the
bodies of the watchers and the dancers lying prone on the floor; it was obvious
to everyone present that she was steered by some higher power. No one interfered
.
Moira was considered young by the People, in experience and physical age
, though she was, indeed, quite old by human standards. The People were immortal
, or as near to it as was possible, and for them childhood lasted for around hal
f of a century. This was long enough, in their reckoning, to gather enough exper
ience to survive on their own, and this period was a time of learning, in which
many things were pardoned and excused because of youth.
Moira was the last child to have been born to the fae in a century, and
thus was treated with a degree of indulgence. She was, in a sense, a child of t
he fae, not just of the Leanan Sidhe. All of her needs were tended to, sometimes
even before she knew she needed them, and she was a frequent visitor to the See
lie Court, of which she was a member. Though she lived in neither Court, she was
welcome at both.
Now, as she danced, the eyes of the People present were opened to the po
ssibility of her having Power. After all, it is not often that one is used as a
conduit of a far more powerful being's magic. It was enthralling. After tonight,
it was likely that she would receive more calls than she ever had before, maybe
even be summoned to the Court to see the King. The room was silent but for the
music, not a single murmur of speculation escaping velvet lips as everyone watch
ed. But not all who stared did so with good intent.
Adair Caoine-Dubh, Unseelie High Priest, stood in the back of the room,
a watcher in the gloom. If the other fae had known he was there, they would not
be. He was a tall man, lithe and well built, and full of the dark, predatory gra
ce of the leopard. It was said that he was not fae, but something less... or may
be more. He had little interest in children, usually; prior to this, he had neve
r before encountered Moira. But she had never before done anything to spark his
interest. This, however, was very interesting.
To the humans, the beings of Revel were faeries, creatures of myth and m
agic. The true fae were, however, far more sinister than the shoemakers of human
legend. They did not fix shoes or do humans favors, and, at first glance, most
fae looked human. But if one looked closer, the difference became profound, as o
bvious as the difference between a human and a wild animal. The fae were, in gen
eral, leaner than humans, and their ears had slight points to them. Other than t
hat, their looks were fluid, as the fae often utilized to power of glamour to ch
ange aspects of their physical appearance-- facial features and hair color chang
ed with the seasons and the styles.
The fae were separated into two major Courts: the Seelie and the Unseeli
e. The Seelie was the Court of Illusion and Light, and the Unseelie the Court of
darkness and cold, stark truth. While the Seelie was seen as good, and the Unse
elie as evil, they were remarkably similar, and neither was lily-white, though t
he Seelie Court tried to make it appear as if they were.
Seldom was a member of either Court chosen as an avatar of one of the Go
ds, as the mortal embodiment of a deity's power, but it happened occasionally. A
dair had no doubt that that was the case here. As High Priest of the Darker Pant
heon, he recognized to touch of a God when he saw it; God-Power put a certain fe
eling in the back of his throat, a tickle that grew worse the closer he was to t
he power. It was as if his Gods were telling him that, though they valued him as
their High Priest, they could take just as easily as they could give.
"Bhuel le chéile, ceann ársa," He muttered, acknowledging the deity's presence
and making himself known, "Well met, ancient one.â There was a chance that there wa
s no God present, but if there was, it heard him. Besides, it was good policy to
be polite to the Gods; especially when they could squash you like an irritating
bug.
 There were two major pantheons of Gods- parts of a whole- one for each t
he Seelie and Unseelie Courts. Adair was sort of the go-between for the Unseelie
fae and their Gods. It was his job to commune with them, follow their orders, a
nd take care of the kingdom they called home. Adair knew the Gods of his pantheo
n intimately, and the other Gods to a far lesser degree, so one could assume tha
t he would recognize one of them when he saw one.
He did not recognize the being possessing Moira. That made her interesti
ng. He needed to find out what it was, and why it was in his territory, before a
nyone realized that it was here; that was another aspect of his position. He was
to protect against the magical threats, and this certainly qualified. However,
if worse came to worse, he did not think that Queen Ligeia of the Unseelie OR K
ing Amaethon of the Seelie would appreciate his killing of the last fae child to
be born in such a long time.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
After her dance was done, Moira received many plaudits from the dancers
who had gone before her. Now rested, they flocked about her, trying, she suppose
d, to glean from her how she had managed to surpass them. She didn't know hersel
f, and was therefore slightly afraid. That had never happened to her before nor,
as far as she could figure, had it to anyone else in her lifetime.
Tired and slightly dizzy, she made her excuses and headed to the bar for
a drink. She sat herself onto a high stool in a darker corner of the bar where,
she hoped, she could avoid attention for a while. Not that she was ever really
alone. She was sort of a celebrity among the fae; births were rare and treasured
, as the magic that the fae were primarily composed of was not exactly conducive
to creation. A fae woman could choose to have a child, but if she did, the chil
d would take magic not from its environment, but from her, as it grew. The child
stayed in the womb for four months, but during that time, the mother grew weake
r and weaker as the child absorbed the mother's life-sustaining magic. It contin
ued to draw upon the mother's strength for an additional year after the relative
ly painless birth. However, after the birth, the fae woman was extremely weak, a
nd could do no magic for about fifty years while she recovered.
Not many women chose to make the sacrifice. Moira's mother was an except
ional coincidence. Leanan Sidhe were, basically, the vampires of the fae world.
They seduced and bled men, but also brought inspiration and their magic was some
of the strongest of all of the lesser fae. That being said, the Leanan Sidhe ge
nerally squandered their magic, and had few children, preferring to instead take
women from the human realm, and convert them, as a vampire might. They were one
of the few fae races that could do this, and the ability had its drawbacks. Moi
ra's mother had had a strong vision of her own death and, fearing that she would
leave behind nothing in the world, she had decided to have a child. Shortly aft
er Moira's 25th year, barely any time for the near-immortal fae, humans had murd
ered Moiraâ s mother, and Moira had become everyone's child. The fae took the phrase
'It takes a village to raise a child" to the extreme; Moira had too many 'aunts'
and 'uncles' to count, and many of them weren't even Leanan Sidhe.
However, sometimes Moira got tired of the attention. In times, she wishe
d she could drown her sorrows in alcohol, but alas, alcohol had no effect on fae
systems. She could try, anyway.
So she sat, alone, wallowing in self-pity, until a handsome stranger cam
e along and offered her a drink.