A short story for you all based on Stolen Kiss. The characters are the Lord of the Dance, Saoirse and Morrighan. Physically they look like Michael Flatley, Bernadette Flynn and Gillian Norris. The tale takes place in pre-Christian Ireland and makes reference to many ancient Celtic elements.      The morning mist rolled over the emerald landscape, the grass quivered as though the bright Goddess Bridget had blown upon it softly. It seemed too early for any, other than morning fairy folk, to be awake. The harsh, rushed steps across the knoll at the forest's edge left prints in the dewy grass and disrupted the sublime pastoral scene.

The young Saoirse wanted to reach the "Lovers' Bed" before daybreak, when the villagers would arise a begin a new day. It was a day, however, Saoirse had chosen to be her own. Her family would find her gone, and though pangs of concerns for them did reside, Saoirse had chosen her life's path. Her father would have her married to a farm boy she hardly knew and already disliked. She would be imprisoned a passionless life of few joys and many hardships.

She knew deep from within that her soul was intertwined with his. They had met, come to love, to body, and to soul a thousand lifetimes over. She had first seen him as she wandered through the fair at the festival of Beltain. He had stood far back from the crowd and was noticed by no one but Saoirse. She left her mother's side at the merchants' tables and walked to him, drawn by is clear blue eyes. She saw eternity in those eyes, ecstasy and tenderness. As she had neared to less than four paces, he turned and ran to the forest's edge, but then stopped to wait for her. She came to him again, and stopped when her torso touched his. He took her hand and led her out of sight from the village.

There amongst the oak trees of Eire, he moved his hands over the lines of her face and breathed in her breath. Tears came to their eyes as they stood alone in the forest, only the wind and the creatures bearing witness. Saoirse did not yet know his name, from where he came or even who he was, but she loved him instantly. Though the moment was divine perfection, she wanted to hear his voice, words of love come from his close lips. But before she could ask it of him, his lips were at hers, a pure embrace that had known no equal.

All moments after that were pale and insignificant. He moved his mouth from hers and tasted her tears, then spoke, low and earnestly. "I have come to take you back with me. I will cut the fabric if this world and we will step through to mine. We will be immortals, lovers for eternity in the last realm of true magic. When men become nothing more than fairy tales in books written by birds, we will locked in an eternal embrace - two bodies so close that you cannot tell where one begins and the other ends. Tell me that you know we are destiny and seal the bargain with another kiss." Saoirse brought her hands from his hips and pulled his head hers for the deepest kiss of true love's kind. He whispered his name in her ear and took the pendant from around his neck and put it around hers. A lovely chain that shimmered as if fashioned from links of raindrops laid to rest a diamond upon her breast. "This is a promise to open the door for you to pass into the Otherworld, I will be there on the morning of Lughnasadh to pass through with you." He kissed her neck and said in her ear, "I will not be long love, 'til our Wedding Day."

Saoirse returned without him to the fair and rejoined her mother, it seemed Saoirse's absence had gone unnoticed. The summer came soon enough, but her body, her soul had ached every moment for her love. Her parents had chosen her to a husband, the wedding would be on the morning of the Lughnasadh, the day she intend to wed the man from the Otherworld.

It became cold overnight and the grass was wet under Saoirse's feet when she left her family's home, the sun had not yet risen. She dressed herself in the white gown she had been given for her wedding, and slipped his pendant over her head and let it slide beneath her cloths. She made no sound and was running to the forest before the sun began to appear over the lip of the horizon.

Saoirse knew where the "Lovers' Bed" was in the forest, the place where her love told her to come. It was a lush clearing in the forest where the sun cascaded through the trees, young lovers would meet there.

Saoirse was cold and breathless from her escape over and across the hills, the forest's was in her sight. The dense branches and bushes did not slow her pace as she went on forward to meet her destiny. The sun was well in the sky and its rays cascaded down to illuminated the "Lovers' Bed". Saoirse came through the trees to see him waiting there for her, handsome, strong and welcoming. Before he caught sight of her, another appeared opposite Saoirse.

A murder of crows flew over the clearing as a blanket, preventing the sun's rays to rest on the green bed below. Saoirse suddenly felt very cold, and alone. She called "Michael!", but her cries went unnoticed. The woman on the other side of the clearing saw Saoirse and gave her a venomous smile, her eyes revealed her intentions.

The dark haired woman draped in red veils walked slowly and catlike towards Michael, her eyes ever fixed on Saoirse. Saoirse cried out again to him, but his line of vision stayed with the other woman. Michael was transfixed upon the red of her dress, and by what it revealed. Helpless it seemed was he to allow his eyes to leave the red body that moved through the shadows as if she had come from them. Panic arose in Saoirse with each step the red woman took towards Saoirse's love. But then something stirred inside Michael and he moved.

Hope sank from Saoirse's heart as the body he grasped for was not her's, but the lady in red, and he called not for her but for "Morrighan". He moved his hands to Morrighan's waist and pulled her to him and her eyes turned to his that had now turned gray. "Why take the mortal girl for your bride? I am your equal, a woman cut from the same earth, we are two sides of the same magic, Michael. The Otherworld is no place for and innocent, simple and impotent as she is. I am power, energy, ecstasy! I am a queen, a warrior, a partner who will fulfill your desires far better than a pale mortal girl who is without any magic of her own. She possesses nothing to excite you, to arouse you, to satisfy you, I can, a thousand times over." She moved her hands to caress his bare chest, and trace his muscles with the tips of her nails. Michael forgot the forest around him, the cries of the crows above were silenced in his head, nothing existed but the temptress.

As Morrighan moved her lips closer to Michael's, her eyes turned back to the mortal girl, a malevolent victory stared back at Saoirse. The murder above spiraled down around Morrighan and Michael wrapping them in a black cyclone. The caws of Morrighan's crows became deafening. Each thrash of a wing, every sound they made was a dagger thrust into Saoirse.

Saoirse felt death coming into her and taking hold. She fell heavy to her knees with gasping sobs. The pain overcame her and her soul began to leave her. At the last moment a hand touch hers and Saoirse was quickened. She turned to see a maiden of striking beauty, dressed in the green of the earth with hair like the snapping curling flames of a fire. The reassurance in the Goddess' eyes was enough to remind Saoirse of the love she had for Michael, the love she would fight for.

Saoirse rose and advanced to free Michael from the temptress' hold. The crows were an impenetrable wall standing between Saoirse and her true love. She stepped into the path of their flight and her skin was cut and torn by their feathers, beaks and claws. Saoirse screamed in agony as her soft white skin was shredded, blood stained her wedding dress. Saoirse would not give in to the pain, it drove her through the wall of crows.

She was before Morrighan and Michael and their loveless embrace. Saoirse pulled Michael from Morrighan and took his head as she had before. She kissed him with spirit of all of Eire in her and bruised his lips with the fervor of her embrace. His eyes were made blue again.

Morrighan's crows broke form and scattered in between the trees and away deep into the forest. A slighted Morrighan ignited in flames and surrounded the pair, but their love extinguished her and she faded into the Otherworld. Michael broke from the kiss to look upon the woman who had fought for him and won by true valliance. "Saoirse, my love." His heart broke at the sight of the blood on her dress, the agony he had caused her. Michael removed the stained dress from her body and put over her a gown made from the white of the snow , the songs of the birds and the light of his soul. His gift was as light as the wind and as soft as the waters of the Eire's rivers. He took her hands and led her in their wedding dance. They moved gracefully and passionately over the "Lovers' Bed", embraced by the daylight and the Goddess Eire pronounced them married. They danced until the moon appeared and made love under its silver light. The mortal world faded around them and the magical realm of the Otherworld took shape.

The Lord and Lady of the Dance exist still in the Otherworld with unwavering love and light, forever bound in true love's beauty.

The End © 1997 Erin Allen   
  The artiste extraordinaire.. READ THE SEQUEL TO STOLEN KISS: 'THE NIGHTMARE'