The Weary Woman and the Fairies

Once upon a time there was a woman who was weary of the world.

     There were any number of reasons why she felt this way, and all of them amounted to a mad desire to spend the night in a glade in the center of a wood under a full moon on a crisp and bitterly cold autumn night. It was, perhaps, the chill that bit into her swirling mind filled with anxious musings that set it to other things. For suddenly her thoughts left her at the sight of frost creeping upon the ground onto blades of grass and up trees, the infinitely tiny bits of glassy ice caught in the moonlight.

     Indeed, the moon was shining fully when she saw them. Cautiously they darted from behind leaves and branches, trunks and roots. And then came one that shined, his gossamer wings glowing with a light all his own. His hand extended, he bowed to the air. Another moment, and a second a fairy came and joined him, her delicate crown upon her hand as she placed her hand in his.

     They began to dance.

    Slowly they circled about the air, a partnered movement of grace unlike any in a mortal realm. 

    After a breath that seemed to know infinity, the air was filled with the glowing luster of small immortals dancing in the night all about the clearing. 

    About the woman, who had stifled back a gasp, and then gazed in wonder: her heart felt light as her eyes filled, and then her feet began to wander. A music made only of elemental things; true and right and simple and fierce. In the next breath of cold, chill air, she caught the breeze, and...

     ...that is all we know, for she has never been heard of since.

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