It is hunting season again, but now the fairy, in love, no longer hides, no longer protects her brothers and sisters. Wings almost colorless, drooping onto the ground, she stands so very still. Still except for the uncontrolled trembling as the pain fires through her, feeling her beautiful brothers death. Trembling as she sings the ancient chants of blessings and thanksgiving for the gift of the brothers life. Trembling in the understandings that while these ancient rituals ease his spirit from this world, it is empty, as his death is not needed in this time. Needless because the hunter does not need her brothers life to feed or clothe himself. These needs now provided for by other means that do not steal and poison our dwindling wild nature. Realizing, understanding that her hunters need is ancient instinct, hunt-kill is to survive. As ancient as her instinct, hide-live, to nurture-heal, is to survive. The circle of life, two different places on it. Trembling in her anguish over the understanding that her time is over, the world is no longer shared. No longer shared with her kind, or the elves, or other spirits, no longer shared with her animal kindred. No longer even shared with the native, the first people, love children of the fairy and elves and mortals. The only ones that may still carry the blood of the immortals. Understanding all the shared world is now enslaved, possessed by the hunters, possessed by the mortals. Standing unprotected now, and trembling, forces herself to accept that the sharing will never be again, accepting that her drooping wings will one day fall from her, and she will die, no longer is she immortal. The sharing has stopped; there is not enough magic spirit to give her UN-ended life. |