GENDER: Male and female
AGE: 15 and ageless, immortal
ORIGIN: Danach
OCCUPATION/RANK: A son of the Morair of Keep Leoede, and the daughter of the fey matriarch
HAIR: Wavy, short and ruddy auburn; long, straight, shining black
EYES: A dark green; shining, dark and black
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: Tall and strong, with tanned skin; short and slim, giving the appearance of tallness and strength, fair, with a dust of freckles across nose and cheeks.
CLOTHING: Everyday breeches and tunic; flowing dresses in bright colors, often self-made and made from things such as spider thread and holly leaves.
JEWELRY: None; none, save the dew, rain, or snow that make natural jewels.
PETS: They share the wolfhund Leone.
SKILLS: Anache is strong and able, a good hunter as well; Aizel hunts, and her voice is powerful and hypnotic.
PERSONALITY: Anache is friendly and respectful, but adventurous and very curious; Aizel is wise and matter of fact, and rather set apart in her manner from anyone, even Anache.
But for one reason or another the humans loved power. They hungered and lusted after it, and the fey were driven from the bountiful lands and the humans killed the Sithe and everything else that Danach loved that was fey, and the fey sped in terror from the mortal world and lived under the tree roots and in the canopies. They vowed never to have anything to do with the humankind. The fey and the mortals that remembered their love and the Sithe wept bitterly; but soon there was nothing but hatred to be remembered.
For year after year it was as such.
One day, the young son of the Keep Loede's Morair--Anache was his name--walked out beyond his Keep seeking a wolfhund lost outside in the night. It was his favorite hund, as old as he was, which--since he was just past fifteen years--was quite old indeed.
He called its name, "Leone, Leeeeeone!" The wind slapped the name back against his face but the hundnever answered.
The day was chilly, the wind was a spiteful nip, and mist swirled about the young Morairson. But many days in parts of Danach are such, and he thought less about the chill and the cold than that he must find his old hund, lest it die.
Anache paid no heed to where his feet led him, through the bogs and over the hummocks. This was his land, and he knew it well. He could not see the towering crags of Rocher Noire, though he knew they were there. He could not hear the chen crying from the bay. Leone was all he cared about--a Loede took care of his own.
Without knowing it, Anache crossed over a strange, low, stone drochit, a bridge the likes of which he would never have found on a sunny day, for it was the bridge into Faery.
As he crossed over, he heard his old hund barking. He would have known that sound were there a hundred howling hunds.
"Leone!" he called. And the hund ran up to him, its hind end wagging, as eager as a pup, so happy was it to see him. Leone had been made young again in the Faerie land.
Anache took the dog in his arms and was just turning to go home when he heard a girl calling from behind him.
"Leone. Leone." Her voice was as full of longing as his own had been just moments before.
He turned back, the hund still in his arms, and the fog lifted. Running toward him was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. Her dark hair was wild with curls, her black eyes wide, her mouth generous and smiling.
"Boy, you have found my hund. Give it to me."
Although that was no way to speak to a young Morairson of the Loede Keep, but the girl didn't seem to know him, and he did not know the girl, although Anache was sure he knew of everyone near the Loede Keep.
"This is my hund," said Anache.
The girl came closer and put out her hand, touching him on his bare arm. Where her hand touched, Anache felt such a shock, he thought he would die of love, not fear. Yet he did not.
"It is my hund now, Anache of Loede," she said in a crooning voice. "It has crossed over the bridge. It has eaten the food of the fey and drunk our nectar wine. If you bring it back to your world, it will die at once and become nothing but dust."
Anache set the hund down and it frolicked around their feet. He put his hand into the girl's but was not shocked again.
"I will give it back to you for your name--and a kiss," he said.
"Be warned," answered the girl in a low tone.
"I know about faery kisses," said Anache, "but I am not afraid. And as you know my name, it is only fair that I should know yours."
"What we consider fair, you do not, boy," she said. But she stood on tiptoe and kissed him on the brow. "Do not come back across the bridge, or you will break your parents' hearts."
He handed her the sprig of juniper from his cap, and she kissed it as well and put it in her hair. "My name is Aizel and, like the red hot cinder, I burn what I touch." Then she whistled for the dog and they disappeared at once into the haar.
Anache put his fingertips to his brow where Aizel had kissed him; it was still warm and sweet to his touch, and it burned like fire.
Despite the faery girl's warning, Anache searched for the bridge not once but many times. He left of fishing to look for it, and interrupted his hunting to look for it; often he left his sleep when the mist was thick to seek it. Even in the mist and the rain and the fog he could not find it. Yet he never stopped longing for the bridge to the girl.
His mother and father grew worried. They had guessed by the mark on his brow what had occurred, and to occupy him they gave great parties and threw magnificent balls in the hope that he might meet a human girl and forget Aizel.
But never was there a girl that he danced with that he danced with again. Never a girl did he hold for long. Never a girl he kissed that he did not remember Aizel at the bridge. As time went on, his parents grew so desperate for a grandchild that they would have let him marry any young maid, even one of fey.
On the eve of Anache's twenty-first birthday, there was a great festival at the Utopian Cathair. All the lights were set out along the walls and they twined through the branches of trees and bushes as well. Lights also flickered, bound between shining braided plaits, in the hair of a young woman who watched through the haar.
Anache walked the ramparts and stared out across the land. "Och, Aizel," he said with a great sigh, "if I could but see you one more time. Once more, and I'd be content."
And then he thought he heard the barking of a hund.
There were hunds in the cathairs and hounds in the town and hunds who ran wild. But he knew that particular call.
"Leone!" he whispered to himself. He raced down the stairs and out the great doors with a torch in his hand, following the barking across the bog.
It was a misty, moisty evening, but Anache felt he knew the way. He came quite soon to the cobbled bridge he had so long sought. For a moment, he hesitated, then went on.
There, in the middle, looking not a day older than when he had seen her last, stood Aizel in her green gown. Leone was by her side.
"Boy," murmured Aizel, eyes shining, "I came to wish you the best."
"It is the best, now that I see you," Anache said, smiling. "And my old hund."
Aizel smiled back. "No older than when last you saw us."
"I have thought of you every day since you kissed me," said Anache, "and longed for you every night. Your brand still burns on my brow."
"I warned you of faery kisses," said Aizel.
Aizel stepped up to him and pushed away his ruddy hair to see the mark. Anache shivered at her touch.
"I have thought of you too, boy," said Aizel, "and how your people have kept peace in this unpeaceful land. My chief says I may bide with you for a while."
"How long a while?" asked Anache.
"A faery while," replied Aizel. "A year or an heir, whichever comes first."
"A year is such a short time," Anache said.
"I can make it be forever," Aizel answered.
With that riddle Anache was content. They walked back to Cathair Utopia hand in hand, though they left the hund behind.
If Aizel seemed less fey in the starlight, Anache did not mind. If he was only human, she did not seem to care. Nothing really mattered but his hand in hers, her hand is his, all the way back to his home.
Anache's parents were not pleased with the match. But that Anache smiled and was content made them hold their tongues. So the young Morairson and the faery maid were married that night and bedded before day.
In the evening Aizel came to them and said, "The Loedes shall have an heir."
The days went fast and slow, warm and cold, and longer than a human it took for the faery girl to bear a child. But on the last day of the year she had lived with them, Aizel was brought to labor till with a great happy sigh she birthed a beautiful babe. The Sithe child did not cry but lay peacefully in the midwife's hands.
"A boy!" the midwife cried out, standing on a chair and showing all of Loede Keep. A great cheer rippled through the Keep then. Anache was happy for that, but happier still that his faery wife was well. He bent to kiss her brow.
"A year or an heir, that was all I could promise. But I have given you forever," she said. "Loede Keep will prosper and never fall."
Before he could say a word in return, she had vanished and the bed was bare, though her outline could still be seen for a moment more.
The cheer was still echoing along the stone passageways as the midwife carried the babe from room to room. But the Morairson put his head in his hands and wept.
Later that night, when the fires were high in every hearth and blaeberry wine filled every cup; when the harp and fiddle rang throughout Loede with their tunes; when the bards' mouths swilled with whisky and swelled with old songs; and even the nurse was dancing with her man, Anache walked through Loede seven times round, mourning for his lost faery wife.
The youngest child of Loede lay in his cradle all alone. So great was the celebration that no one was watching him. And in the deepest part of the night, he kicked off his blankets and cried out with the cold. But no one came to cover him. Not the nurse dancing with her man, nor his grandam listening to the tunes, nor his grandfather drinking with his men, nor his father pacing the halls. No one heard the poor wee babe crying with the cold.
It was a tiny cry, a thin bit of sound threaded out into the dark. It wound its way into Faery itself.
Now they were celebrating in the faery world as well, not for the birth of the child but for the return of their own. There was feasting and dancing and the singing of tunes. There was nectar wine and faery pipes and high, sweet laughter of the fey.
But in all that fine company, Aizel alone did not sing and dance. She sat in her great chair with her arms around her brachet hund. If there were tears in her eyes, you would not have known it, for the fey do not cry, and besides the hund had licked away every one. But she heard that tiny sound as any mother would. Distracted, she stood.
"What is it, my daughter?" the great chief asked when he saw her stand, when he saw a single tear upon her cheek, glittering, that Leone had not had time to lick away.
But before any of the fey could tell her no, Aizel ran from the faery hall, the hund at her heels. She raced across the bridge, herself as insubstantial as the haar. Aizel reached the edge of the bridge and left it, but as soon as the hund's legs had touched the ground on the other side than it crumbled into dust. Aizel hesitated not a moment, but followed that thread of sound, winding her way back into the world of men, through the great wooden doors and up the stairs.
When she entered the baby's room, he was between one breath and another, his little body chill with the cold.
"There, there," Aizel said, leaning over the cradle and covering him with her shawl, "thy Mama's here." She rocked him till he fell back asleep, warm and content. Then she kissed him on the brow, leaving a tiny mark there for all to see, and vanished in the morning light.
The nurse found the babe sleeping soundly well into the day. He was wrapped in a cloth of stranger's weave, and his thumb was in his mouth. None of the Loede Keep could guess how the cloth got there.
But Anache knew. He knew that Aizel had been drawn back across the bridge by her son's crying, as surely he had first been led to her by the barking of his hound.
"Love calls to love," he whispered softly to his infant son as he held him close, "and the fey, like the Loedes, take care of their own."
In the morning, there was a great outcry of voices about the Keep. Anache woke up, gazed for a moment at his son to make sure he was alright, and finding that he was, stood and left the Keep.
Outside, a large green dragon stood calmly as a flock of people clustered about her. Equally calm, a ruby-tressed woman stood next to her dragon, arms folded, a grin on her face. She beckoned to Anache.
"Hey there, stranger," the woman said, "the name's Rubiae, and this is my dragon Maoith." Anache stared in wonder, for although he knew of dragons and they were common enough, they were awesomely powerful when that close.
"Maoith seems to be attracted to you," Rubiae continued, "so I wondered if you'd do me the pleasure of coming with me to the Healing Den." From on top of Maoith's massive emerald back, Aizel waved and smiled, flowers woven into her shining hair. Anache smiled and nodded.
Once in Tripaldi, the mortal boy and the fey girl were set to work. They did not mind the chores, for Aizel in the kitchen, with her nimble touch and knowledge of herbs and such, and her merry singing, produced delicious concoctions. And Anache was eager to prove his mettle in the forests, where he hunted for the meals that Aizel cooked. All the while they waited with delightful expectation for the day when they both would be set upon the sands, for whatever outcome.
Excerpts from THE HATCHING!
At Tripaldi the entire Weyr was in confusion. The dragons were all humming and most people figured they had all gone insane as there wasn’t a clutch on the sands, not there at least. Xalia leapt to Frinaith’s back as soon as she was dressed and the gold leapt into the sky her powerful wings taking them quickly to the little-known side of Tripaldi that was the SCZ. Frinaith plummeted into the hatching sands and landed in their place as Weyrwoman and Queen dragon.
The first egg exploded, sending sharp egg shards flying everywhere...
Aizel and Anache stood together and separate from the rest of the huddle of Candidates as a cluster of eggs burst open - around six, and bets were made in a flurry. Another knot of Candidates drifted up towards the new dragonets who were on the Sands - all of a green or blue shade it seemed - but the two stayed back.
}Why do you stay here hidden, Anache? I can not seem to get to you easily.{ One of the blues stood up on his haunches, trying to see over the heads of the other Candidates. Anache glanced at Aizel, but the fey girl gestured for him to move up to accept the dragonet, and the blue-silver nearly toppled over into Anache's arms as he rushed to meet him.
A silver followed Anache's blue-silver towards him, weaving an erratic path, and Anache hoped it would go to Aizel, but the silver was intent on finding her own path.
Later...
Anache had stayed behind to wait for Aizel, and his wait paid off as the last Hatchling of the group went towards Aizel, not hesitating. She didn't have the same shimmer effect as the others, excepting Anache's blue-silver, and Aizel gave a small smile at the green.
"My own," she murmured, as the green sat back on her haunches, wet wingsails trailing in the sand. "Don't do that. Your wings are much too precious to get dirty like that." The green raised her wings obligingly, revealing the same silver sails as Anache's blue. The pair went to join Anache and his bond; the fey and Danachian walked side-by-side, following those who had left previously.