Challenge #04853-M104: No Need to Fret

Let me tell you of a bard I once heard sing. The voice had a strength and depth that no magic in the world could recreate. I felt the desire to steal them away and keep them for myself, but I knew the world needed them more. And so I became their patron. @internutter/challenge-04840-m091-fey-touched" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">https://peakd.com/flashfiction/@internutter/challenge-04840-m091-fey-touched -- Anon Guest

Legends tell of a Bard who can charm savage beasts with the sound of hir voice. One who can make music to forge peace using the weapons of soldiers and archers. And one who, for reasons known only to that Bard, sought out a Faerie ring.

Hir name was Haness, and in the times when Faekindred in the mortal realm kept some Humans captive, ze was not merely a Bard.

Haness had made a deal with a Faerie, and thus was also a Warlock. The first known to do so. Haness was fortunate that ze had won the favour of a Seelie Fae. That would be... me. You may know me as Betel, and for a time, Haness was my dear, beloved pet.

Nanogh knows no passing time, so the mortals are but toys to us. The fact that they wither and die fascinates us. The Unseelie are rapt. They take mortals away from time, and soak them in temptations until they get sick. In body, heart, and mind. Then they put them back, all poisoned, in the mortal realm and laugh at the results.

I stopped them doing that with Haness. I took hir hand, and guided hir back to the place ze started in. I kissed hir, so ze is mine. Well. Ze was when ze was alive.

And no mortal ever passes through Nanogh without taking something away. Madness. A mark. A gift that cost them too much. A leash.

Some of us are not kind owners of our pets. Compared to them, I am beatifically magnanimous. I took Haness back, and gave hir my protection, as well as the gift ze wanted. I gifted hir a lute, which would help hir learn to play in full. I could only do so much with mortal muscle and skill. To change Haness too much would make hir not hirself.

I don't do that to my pets.

The lute's magical. Of course it is. It resonates with the heart of the player and it wants to be helpful. So it's a little chatty from time to time, but Haness dealt with it well.

Most of the time.

And yes, I found it funny. We seek our own amusement in different ways.

The stories are true, of course. People have followed Haness into the woods to find the soft places where our rings form. They've watched in alarm as ze played around and inside a Faerie ring, and then almost lost their breaths at the music that joined hir.

All good things end in the mortal realm. That is the way of things. The stories say that the year Haness did not play for the Faeries was the year that Haness died. They're technically correct. Ze did die in the year that ze didn't play for us, and ze didn't play for us because ze was dying.

I loved hir when ze was mine, and love is never wasted. I have hir songs. Ze gifted them to me, after all.

All of them.

Playing in Nanogh and everywhere I reign. Forever.

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