Stardust
Title: Stardust
Genre: Fairytale (original achievement)
Rating: G. Its a fairytale. Please.
Characters: Original
Summary: A story of fairies, love and stardust.
Author's Note: Written for Viljami, and because I needed it.
Stardust
There is a forest where time doesn’t exist - at least in the way we know it. It is not timeless but time does not touch it, and so there are still things that live there which, in other parts of the world, are merely fading, glinting memories. The forest has a story of its own but that’s not what concerns us. It’s the story within the story that we care about now, and that story begins one day a long time ago but then again, not so very long ago, maybe last year, or 10 years ago, or maybe last week, who’s to say? It starts with a young fairy - as far as they go, for they too are timeless after their own fashion, they merely are until they are no more - sitting on a branch and dangling her legs over, watching the forest go by. It happens that this fairy was the Last Fairy, for the time of the fairy had come to an end and they had all melted in the passing of time, all except this one, the very Last Fairy in the forest. Her name was Keiju and she was lonely as she perched on her branch, swinging her tiny legs back and forth and twitching her translucent wings. The wind from her wings made the leaves on the branch sway a little, but she took no notice. She was merely wondering where all her friends had gone - though she knew full well - and why she couldn’t go as well. The fairy grove was quiet and empty; the bluebells and foxgloves drooped a little, and the tiny houses of moss and sticks had mostly fallen apart. The tiny clear stream still trickled and filled the forest with its silver music but Keiju was so used to the sounds of the forest that she took them for granted and paid them no heed. Right now she was lonely and bored because there was nothing happening; there was no one to dance and with no one to teach them, the bluebells and the foxgloves had all forgotten their songs, and so the grove was quiet and dull, fading like the others had faded, one by one. Keiju, however, was not fading, and though she wanted to - it had to be better than this boredom and loneliness - she could not figure how they had managed it.
So, Keiju decided she’d go exploring. She’d never been exploring. To her, the forest was just this small glade of flowers and tiny houses, but now it was empty, there was nothing keeping her from investigating the rumors that other parts of the forests were home to many other interesting, frightful, awesome things. She’d heard that there were nymphs that danced under waterfalls and that somewhere, there was cave with an Echo, and that the Echo followed you around wherever you went and made horribly beautiful sounds in your ears until you could stand it no more and had to leave. There were hundreds of things Keiju had never seen and now, as she was sitting on the branch swinging her legs back and forth, she had an inexplicable urge to investigate her home, the forest at large, like she’d never had the desire to do before.
She left her branch and flitted her wings, zooming through the trees and their branches, greeting them as she passed -for even when one is traveling one must observe the fundamentals of propriety and kindness - and her the trees that knew her well waved back at her as she passed. The new trees watched her with a passive curiosity, wondering what such a small fairy could be doing going so far away from home.
On her journey - it may be called such because it took her such a very long time - Keiju saw many wonderful and exciting things which made her wonder just why she had never left the glade before. Other fairies had, to visit their friends amongst the pixies that lived in the long grasses near the forests’ edge, or to help the centaurs that sometimes came near the glade to ask for some magic of some kind. Keiju was never really sure what. Mostly, she kept herself to herself and generally ignored the others. But what Keiju saw on her trip is not so important; what is important is what she found at the end of it.
At the center of the forest the underbrush is thick and the trees are ancient, and the air is cloyed and close, and full of memory and time and long forgotten magic that lingers, golden, in the air. The sun pierces through the thick leaves of the impossibly tall trees in sharp shafts of goldenrod light and Keiju amused herself, upon finding this odd part of the forest, for quite some time by flitting as quick as she could between one shaft and the other, giggling and laughing to herself, taking great joy in her game. So absorbed in the game was she that she did not notice that she was being watched by a pair of ageless green eyes until the face that the eyes belonged to burst into a smile brighter and kinder than the sunlight, full of delight at the antics of the small, winged creature.
Now, fairies prefer to be small. They commune with the flowers and live in houses of moss and twigs, with beds made from the petals of bluebells and the leaves of foxgloves. This is not possible when you are five feet tall. But all fairies go through a stage of experimentation where they investigate just how it is to be five feet tall, being able to become so tall at will. Most of them will revert back to their usual height of just a few inches after a few days of dealing with the cumbersome height, but when they are threatened, or startled or scared, they will choose this larger form, finding it somehow more comforting - in those situations. So, when Keiju noticed that she was being watched from the shadows by green eyes that seemed to have no perceivable end, she jumped with fright and took on this larger form.
The Elf watching her, leaning against his favorite tree, was not startled by this transformation because he had seen fairies before, and even if he hadn’t, he would not have been surprised because he knew all things about the forest, as all elves did. It was innate knowledge, and he would have known as soon as he saw her, just like he knew, as soon as he saw her, that she was the last of her kind, the Last Fairy, and a very peculiar fairy at that.
Keiju peered at the Elf inquisitively, once she distinguished his form from the shadows. She wondered what sort of thing this could be, whether good or evil - though she had no real fear of that, there did not seem to be so much evil in the forest, not that she could find it - and what he was watching her for. She toyed self-consciously with the tattered edges of her green garments and flexed her wings a little, transfixed by the steady gaze of the Elf. They shone iridescent with innumerable colors in the goldenrod shaft of light, a delicate film, as delicate as a snowflake. The elf, watching, smiled a little, and Keiju felt something tug somewhere in her chest.
“Who are you?” she managed to ask, after regaining her senses, and her voice sounded like bluebells and foxgloves and the most delicate snow.
“I’m an Elf,” said he, and left it there, as if there was no further explaining needed. And indeed, this explanation satisfied Keiju, and she nodded.
“What do you do?”
“I look after the trees. You’re a fairy,” he observed. “You look after the flowers. Teach them to sing, and to dance, and you give them their colors. You make them from tiny pieces of your wings.”
The voice was calm and slow and timeless, and heavy with memory and age, and it held Keiju transfixed. His hair was white as the stars that could be seen sometimes, twinkling between the leaves.
“They don’t need us any more,” she said, shrugging. And it was true. The flowers had over time immeasurable gained some memory and they no longer needed shepherding like they used to.
The elf smiled. “No. But that’s okay. One day, maybe, the trees will not be so lonely, and we won’t be wanted.”
“What do you do?”
“Talk to them,” was the simple reply; but it was enough. The trees loved to talk. You just had to do it properly. Keiju knew this.
“I’ve never been here before,” she said, still a little self conscious.
“I know.” She smiled a little, timid.
“Will you show me around?”
The Elf took her to all the different parts of the forest that she had never seen before, nor even heard of, nor even begun to imagine. She met Echo in the cave and talked with her for hours - until she became bored of hearing the same thing hundreds of times and left the beautiful cave, bidding farewell to the beautiful Echo and all the other things in the cave that were so beautiful. The Elf took her to meet the centaurs, who told her about the stars and who let her ride on their backs; he showed her the nymphs playing beneath the waterfall and singing the river’s silver song that trickled back to the grove. And finally, he took her back to the grove where she had lived since time began and they were all placed there - or born of the flowers, or fell from the sky, she did not know.
“Where did we come from,” she asked the elf, sitting as her four inch self on his shoulder.
“From the stars, when they fell in love,” said the Elf, in his steady, calm, enigmatic but factual way. And suddenly Keiju understood where the others had gone, and why she was feeling so stretched, thin, dusty lately.
The Elf and the Fairy were now the best of friends, like Keiju had never found among her own kind. She had friends, but none like this. They were the best of friends, and - she began to slowly realize - they were lovers. The fairies had begun to talk of this strange thing, love, just before they had begun to fade away. They had started to talk of it and to fall into it, and then they had started to fade away, two by two.
“I love you,” she said to the elf, laying down on his shoulder and drawing his long hair about her for warmth, suddenly quite cold.
“I know.” For the Elf knew all things; he picked her up off of his shoulder and placed a soft kiss upon her tiny head. “You’ll fade away now, like the others, for finding love.”
“Why?”
But this was the one thing the elf had no answer for and in his heart he was sad, and held her close to him when she became taller again. He gave no answer but to kiss her softly again and to breathe in the air as she began to fade away, millions of particles iridescent in the goldenrod light, gold and silver, purple, blue, all colors under the sun. He opened his eyes to see her smile the soft smile that was her nicest and to hear the whisper of dust against his ears,
“You’re made of stardust too… I’ll be waiting for you.”
And with that she was gone, a gust of wind blew the stardust away, and it surrounded the Elf, and fell over the flowers that she had loved before, and filled the forest with light and color until it was gone, but the Elf smiled for he knew that now, she was a part of the forest he loved so much, and turning, he left the glade; but not before picking a sprig of foxgloves and tucking it in his pocket. He would see her again sometime soon - for time was irrelevant in the forest and it moved both slow as molasses and all at once with the silver tinkling song of the stream that ran through the forest and the wind that blew above it; and because love, like that, has no end. The stars overhead twinkled and grinned and he went back to his trees until his own time came, to melt away from space and time, in a breath of goldenrod light and stardust.
Genre: Fairytale (original achievement)
Rating: G. Its a fairytale. Please.
Characters: Original
Summary: A story of fairies, love and stardust.
Author's Note: Written for Viljami, and because I needed it.
Stardust
There is a forest where time doesn’t exist - at least in the way we know it. It is not timeless but time does not touch it, and so there are still things that live there which, in other parts of the world, are merely fading, glinting memories. The forest has a story of its own but that’s not what concerns us. It’s the story within the story that we care about now, and that story begins one day a long time ago but then again, not so very long ago, maybe last year, or 10 years ago, or maybe last week, who’s to say? It starts with a young fairy - as far as they go, for they too are timeless after their own fashion, they merely are until they are no more - sitting on a branch and dangling her legs over, watching the forest go by. It happens that this fairy was the Last Fairy, for the time of the fairy had come to an end and they had all melted in the passing of time, all except this one, the very Last Fairy in the forest. Her name was Keiju and she was lonely as she perched on her branch, swinging her tiny legs back and forth and twitching her translucent wings. The wind from her wings made the leaves on the branch sway a little, but she took no notice. She was merely wondering where all her friends had gone - though she knew full well - and why she couldn’t go as well. The fairy grove was quiet and empty; the bluebells and foxgloves drooped a little, and the tiny houses of moss and sticks had mostly fallen apart. The tiny clear stream still trickled and filled the forest with its silver music but Keiju was so used to the sounds of the forest that she took them for granted and paid them no heed. Right now she was lonely and bored because there was nothing happening; there was no one to dance and with no one to teach them, the bluebells and the foxgloves had all forgotten their songs, and so the grove was quiet and dull, fading like the others had faded, one by one. Keiju, however, was not fading, and though she wanted to - it had to be better than this boredom and loneliness - she could not figure how they had managed it.
So, Keiju decided she’d go exploring. She’d never been exploring. To her, the forest was just this small glade of flowers and tiny houses, but now it was empty, there was nothing keeping her from investigating the rumors that other parts of the forests were home to many other interesting, frightful, awesome things. She’d heard that there were nymphs that danced under waterfalls and that somewhere, there was cave with an Echo, and that the Echo followed you around wherever you went and made horribly beautiful sounds in your ears until you could stand it no more and had to leave. There were hundreds of things Keiju had never seen and now, as she was sitting on the branch swinging her legs back and forth, she had an inexplicable urge to investigate her home, the forest at large, like she’d never had the desire to do before.
She left her branch and flitted her wings, zooming through the trees and their branches, greeting them as she passed -for even when one is traveling one must observe the fundamentals of propriety and kindness - and her the trees that knew her well waved back at her as she passed. The new trees watched her with a passive curiosity, wondering what such a small fairy could be doing going so far away from home.
On her journey - it may be called such because it took her such a very long time - Keiju saw many wonderful and exciting things which made her wonder just why she had never left the glade before. Other fairies had, to visit their friends amongst the pixies that lived in the long grasses near the forests’ edge, or to help the centaurs that sometimes came near the glade to ask for some magic of some kind. Keiju was never really sure what. Mostly, she kept herself to herself and generally ignored the others. But what Keiju saw on her trip is not so important; what is important is what she found at the end of it.
At the center of the forest the underbrush is thick and the trees are ancient, and the air is cloyed and close, and full of memory and time and long forgotten magic that lingers, golden, in the air. The sun pierces through the thick leaves of the impossibly tall trees in sharp shafts of goldenrod light and Keiju amused herself, upon finding this odd part of the forest, for quite some time by flitting as quick as she could between one shaft and the other, giggling and laughing to herself, taking great joy in her game. So absorbed in the game was she that she did not notice that she was being watched by a pair of ageless green eyes until the face that the eyes belonged to burst into a smile brighter and kinder than the sunlight, full of delight at the antics of the small, winged creature.
Now, fairies prefer to be small. They commune with the flowers and live in houses of moss and twigs, with beds made from the petals of bluebells and the leaves of foxgloves. This is not possible when you are five feet tall. But all fairies go through a stage of experimentation where they investigate just how it is to be five feet tall, being able to become so tall at will. Most of them will revert back to their usual height of just a few inches after a few days of dealing with the cumbersome height, but when they are threatened, or startled or scared, they will choose this larger form, finding it somehow more comforting - in those situations. So, when Keiju noticed that she was being watched from the shadows by green eyes that seemed to have no perceivable end, she jumped with fright and took on this larger form.
The Elf watching her, leaning against his favorite tree, was not startled by this transformation because he had seen fairies before, and even if he hadn’t, he would not have been surprised because he knew all things about the forest, as all elves did. It was innate knowledge, and he would have known as soon as he saw her, just like he knew, as soon as he saw her, that she was the last of her kind, the Last Fairy, and a very peculiar fairy at that.
Keiju peered at the Elf inquisitively, once she distinguished his form from the shadows. She wondered what sort of thing this could be, whether good or evil - though she had no real fear of that, there did not seem to be so much evil in the forest, not that she could find it - and what he was watching her for. She toyed self-consciously with the tattered edges of her green garments and flexed her wings a little, transfixed by the steady gaze of the Elf. They shone iridescent with innumerable colors in the goldenrod shaft of light, a delicate film, as delicate as a snowflake. The elf, watching, smiled a little, and Keiju felt something tug somewhere in her chest.
“Who are you?” she managed to ask, after regaining her senses, and her voice sounded like bluebells and foxgloves and the most delicate snow.
“I’m an Elf,” said he, and left it there, as if there was no further explaining needed. And indeed, this explanation satisfied Keiju, and she nodded.
“What do you do?”
“I look after the trees. You’re a fairy,” he observed. “You look after the flowers. Teach them to sing, and to dance, and you give them their colors. You make them from tiny pieces of your wings.”
The voice was calm and slow and timeless, and heavy with memory and age, and it held Keiju transfixed. His hair was white as the stars that could be seen sometimes, twinkling between the leaves.
“They don’t need us any more,” she said, shrugging. And it was true. The flowers had over time immeasurable gained some memory and they no longer needed shepherding like they used to.
The elf smiled. “No. But that’s okay. One day, maybe, the trees will not be so lonely, and we won’t be wanted.”
“What do you do?”
“Talk to them,” was the simple reply; but it was enough. The trees loved to talk. You just had to do it properly. Keiju knew this.
“I’ve never been here before,” she said, still a little self conscious.
“I know.” She smiled a little, timid.
“Will you show me around?”
The Elf took her to all the different parts of the forest that she had never seen before, nor even heard of, nor even begun to imagine. She met Echo in the cave and talked with her for hours - until she became bored of hearing the same thing hundreds of times and left the beautiful cave, bidding farewell to the beautiful Echo and all the other things in the cave that were so beautiful. The Elf took her to meet the centaurs, who told her about the stars and who let her ride on their backs; he showed her the nymphs playing beneath the waterfall and singing the river’s silver song that trickled back to the grove. And finally, he took her back to the grove where she had lived since time began and they were all placed there - or born of the flowers, or fell from the sky, she did not know.
“Where did we come from,” she asked the elf, sitting as her four inch self on his shoulder.
“From the stars, when they fell in love,” said the Elf, in his steady, calm, enigmatic but factual way. And suddenly Keiju understood where the others had gone, and why she was feeling so stretched, thin, dusty lately.
The Elf and the Fairy were now the best of friends, like Keiju had never found among her own kind. She had friends, but none like this. They were the best of friends, and - she began to slowly realize - they were lovers. The fairies had begun to talk of this strange thing, love, just before they had begun to fade away. They had started to talk of it and to fall into it, and then they had started to fade away, two by two.
“I love you,” she said to the elf, laying down on his shoulder and drawing his long hair about her for warmth, suddenly quite cold.
“I know.” For the Elf knew all things; he picked her up off of his shoulder and placed a soft kiss upon her tiny head. “You’ll fade away now, like the others, for finding love.”
“Why?”
But this was the one thing the elf had no answer for and in his heart he was sad, and held her close to him when she became taller again. He gave no answer but to kiss her softly again and to breathe in the air as she began to fade away, millions of particles iridescent in the goldenrod light, gold and silver, purple, blue, all colors under the sun. He opened his eyes to see her smile the soft smile that was her nicest and to hear the whisper of dust against his ears,
“You’re made of stardust too… I’ll be waiting for you.”
And with that she was gone, a gust of wind blew the stardust away, and it surrounded the Elf, and fell over the flowers that she had loved before, and filled the forest with light and color until it was gone, but the Elf smiled for he knew that now, she was a part of the forest he loved so much, and turning, he left the glade; but not before picking a sprig of foxgloves and tucking it in his pocket. He would see her again sometime soon - for time was irrelevant in the forest and it moved both slow as molasses and all at once with the silver tinkling song of the stream that ran through the forest and the wind that blew above it; and because love, like that, has no end. The stars overhead twinkled and grinned and he went back to his trees until his own time came, to melt away from space and time, in a breath of goldenrod light and stardust.