The Fayfolk and the Forester

Doran listened to the breeze approaching through the forest around him and felt thankful that he was nearly through the oak before him. This was just the second wind he needed to get the last bit of the way through.

His axe bit home and he left it there, leaning on the fallen oak as the rustling leaves and greenery arrived, the wind bound within. A cool sensation overtook him from the small of his back to the tip of each hair on his head. He sighed with relief, the summer heat dissipating for a moment while the breeze continued through toward an unseen destination.

Somewhere behind him, he could feel a presence spinning itself out of the passing breeze. Never a blessing without a curse. He enjoyed what little time he had in the relative shaded coolness in the breeze's wake. Eventually, the age-old back and forth of fay and man would have to begin; it was only a matter of who had the greater store of patience. A foregone conclusion if ever there were one.

He broke first. "I can hear you frowning from over there."

"You must be fayfolk to hear a frown," came the swift riposte.

Doran put a hand on the haft of his axe and cast a glance over his shoulder. Maenyr, the fay, was gone. "You'd think with all the attention I get from them I'd be one," he said as her presence bubbled up, closer this time.

"Mmm," she began questioningly. "Just the one. Don't think yourself so high and mighty, woodcutter."

"Forester." His tone was resigned. They'd had this conversation for nearly two years, every other day. Like a wheel with a stone lodged in its rim, the cycle of sharp, keen interruption renewed itself with the passage of time.

He inclined his head toward the sun and found a familiar silhouette waiting for him on the low branch of a magnolia. Her hair dangled through the leaves in a midnight waterfall, hanging moss from another world entirely. Her impish grin set itself firmly against her features.

"Is there a difference? You're felling someone's home all the same, woodcutter."

"And planting two in its wake." His axe rose and fell once. The fay shivered visibly in his periphery.

"How magnanimous," rose sardonically through the leaves. The raven-haired fay sank into the greenery and revealed herself further up the tree. "You take one home and plant another. How long must one go without shelter before your gift grows roots?"

"There are plenty unclaimed trees."

"And none with stories all the same." Her voice was matter-of-fact.

"We've been over this a hundred times, Maenyr. I take what I need and give what I can. You'll recall what the valley looked like before I arrived."

"Beautiful. Green. Alive." She twirled a few strands of hair around her finger and waited for his inevitable response.

"And what does it look like now?" he yielded finally.

"Broad. Bare. Stony."

Doran's axe found the trunk again and it punctuated her remark. A grin crept into the forester's features. "Does that describe the valley or the man?"

Maenyr rolled her eyes. "Your vanity is boundless."

"Yours is just the same," he returned.

"And yet my home fed your furnace."

He paused again. "Your home fed my home."

"Just the same; you stole it from me."

"And gave you two in its place."

This time, Maenyr was indignant enough to sit up, long hair falling over her shoulders. "You call two saplings a replacement for an oak as old as the moon?"

Doran shrugged. "They won't always be saplings."

"And how long must I wait to reap the generous reward you gave? Twenty, thirty, a hundred seasons?"

"As long as it takes." He restarted the iron rhythm causing the trees to whisper his name in fear, so the fayfolk had told him. It appeared that Maenyr's usual stockpile of banter was depleted early. He almost found the resumed silence, punctuated only by his axe, to be a little disappointing.

"You know, some of them never forgave you for what you did," she said eventually, picking through the woven greenery of her shirt. Bits of clover fell through her fingertips like little dartmouth raindrops.

"I paid them back in full." Doran's mind went to the blood and runes offered to the offended fayfolk years ago. Delirious nights spent wrapped in a fur cloak, the stars overhead, things from 'Neath deciding just how many years to shave off his life. He thought the night Yigun came to collect her due would be his last.

Maenyr nodded. "I know."

"Does that bother you?"

"Your blood? Of course not." Her expression changed. "But you settled debts and they still held grudges."

"Some people are like that. I suppose it follows that some fayfolk are too."

"They agreed not to be. They agreed to hold no grudges, and yet they did. They broke their word."

"They never agreed not to hold grudges, only to let me live," Doran corrected. "I don't blame them."

"I do." She turned her eyes away. "They reneged on the agreement."

Maenyr rolled off her branch and disappeared into the leaves like a shadow, reappearing on the ground and springing out of the leaves just as quickly. Her feet touched the pile of leaves on the ground like the surface of a stream, just so. She moved to stand a little closer, keeping herself at arm's length as she peered at the forester's handiwork.

"That was Aurnur's home before he left. The tree you're chopping now."

Doran nodded knowingly. "He'll come back to two just like it. Just like Tuina and Gillondie before him."

"He's not coming back."

Doran stopped.

"He isn't?"

Maenyr shook her head slowly. "Neither are Tuina or Gillondie. Or Fwuri. Or Yigun. Or Birinost. They've all gone back 'Neath."

"That just leaves you and Finn, doesn't it?"

"Finn left yesterday."

The human turned, facing the fay directly. He wiped the sweat from his brow. "Did he? I always liked him. I wish he had come for a story by the fire before he left."

"He said it was time. He liked you, you know. Of the three humans he knew, he liked you the most."

"That's a surprise to me. He never wanted to stay long when he visited with Birinost."

"Who would leave Yigun alone for more than an evening?" she asked knowingly. Doran took a moment to contemplate leaving the seductive beauty of Yigun to its own devices for an evening.

"That's a fair assessment. Does that mean you'll be following the rest soon? You fayfolk do like to stick together."

"No, I think I'll stay. Someone has to make sure you don't strip the hills down to their bones." She made a show of walking across the underbrush behind him, sashaying her slender hips back and forth as went.

Doran drove his axe into the task half-finished before him. "I don't have enough arms for that."

"Then call me suspicious," she cast back with a wink.

"Have you even seen another human, suspicious?" His tone was playful.

"I have."

He weighed her earnest answer for a few seconds, making a show of deciding what to say next. "Did you need to remain watchful of them for years on end to judge their word?"

"No. I knew their word was no good from the start," the fayfolk said plainly, as if it were as obvious as the sun rising and setting every morning and evening.

"Pity," The axe came down again. "You and I must have known the same people."

Maenyr sat on the new stump beside Doran, running her fingers across the concentric rings of the fallen oak with care. Doran watcher her stare longingly at the purposeful ruin, bits of moss blooming where her finger touched in neat, tidy streaks.

"I know you'd keep your word, even if I left," she said after a long silence.

"I am a forester. I would just be a woodcutter if I didn't keep the forest."

She smiled at that. "You are a woodcutter. This oak attests to nothing more."

"Today a woodcutter, felling trees. Tomorrow a fayfolk, who hears what he sees. What a life I live."

Maenyr's hand reached out and pressed flat against the oak's trunk. A green vine sprouted from a seam in the bark, rolling forward like a coil of living smoke. It wrapped around the haft of Doran's axe and laid its root-spread down.

It was time for Doran to listen.

"Tomorrow a body, warm on the ground. In summer growth without a sound. Lying far afield, turned over. Fay beside, bedecked in clover."

Doran gave a long, thoughtful look to his axe trapped and embedded in the oak. How fitting it seemed for the wood cutter to be ensnared by his own work, just as his tool lay before him. "I suppose that means something, doesn't it?"

Maenyr nodded slowly. "It does."

"Well, I won't be needing this, then." The forester gave a look to the morning sun through the leaves and heaved a resigned sigh. "I didn't expect it to be so soon."

Maenyr played with the moss at her fingertips. "Why do you think they left?"

"Why wouldn't they stay instead? It seems a lot of work to clear out rather than wait it out."

As if to say he had a point, she actually looked him in the eyes. "Us fayfolk are jealous creatures. All in hand or none at all."

"Did a fayfolk do it?" he asked with an edge of resentment in his voice.

"In a way, yes."

He pried, despite himself, "Will you tell me which one?"

"Perhaps later." She hopped off her seat, nimbly finding footing in the roughage at her bare feet. Greenery made a home beneath them with each step she took, as if to please her with comfort like a servant to a master. Maenyr gave Doran an inviting smile. Come, woodcutter. Now, we wander."

"Where?" His hand took hers even as he said the words, realizing that Maenyr was going to take him where she desired no matter what he did.

"Wherever we'd like," she declared, as if divining his inner thoughts aloud. "The whole valley belongs to us today. There isn't a single soul left to tell us we can't."

"Did you have somewhere in mind?" asked the human as he was tugged gently onward.

Maenyr didn't look back as she spoke. "The tomb-home, I suppose. You seem hungry."

"I'm not. I take it I should eat before we go?"

"It would be wise." She cast a glance back at him and he could see a grin forming on her face, despite facing opposite from him. Her entire demeanor was light and impish, as if she had yet more new games to play with him. Today would be the last of them, it seemed.

"Something hearty," she continued to draw him out of his thoughts. "And apples. I'll take one if you've got any."

"What do you have in return?" he shot back.

Another sideward glance. "You'll have to wait and see."

"Then I've got no apples."

And, the duel has begun.

Maenyr made a full turn on heel and threw Doran's hand away to raise her own toward the sky instead. "I saw you pick four yesterday!"

He smirked. "Oh? And when I asked for help tending to my mint, which of us let it wither? Too busy seeing Finn off to 'Neath?"

Maenyr's ivory cheeks flushed a fantastic shade of red at the implication. "You'd do well to remember Finn has Yigun, Doran. And that they are both my dear friends."

"You're not one for jokes today, are you?" the forester ventured, continuing toward his home past the fay. She matched his pace, avoiding the glance he shot down to her red face.

"Not that kind, in any case."

He picked up his pace. "Then come on. If you're no good to trade volleys with today then you can keep me company while I heat up the apple stew."

She looked at him now, provoked with incredulity. "You really don't have any apples then?"

"In a stew, yes," he returned, grinning. The fay pursed her lips and leapt into a cartwheel, clipping his ear with a finger as she did. She bounded ahead of him, cloak of vine-woven leaves trailing her like a green cloud.

"A thief who loses what he steals. May you never cease to amaze me."

He chuckled, running a hand through his hair. "And may you never leave me be."

They traded their idle, usual banter back to his cottage. The stone structure was flanked on all sides by piled earth covered with moss and useful weeds like mint and shepherd's purse. It looked remarkably similar to the burial mounds at Drogheda across the Irish Sea. After thoroughly investigating his abode inside and out, Maenyr had given it the unofficial title of-

"The tomb-home."

"My home," he corrected for the thousandth time, rolling his eyes. "It's not a tomb...yet."

Maenyr put a hand on his shoulder and looked up at him, smiling. "Birinost loved this place; he said it looked so cozy. Like a river stone lost in the woods."

Dronal shrugged. "He liked the evening fires."

"And the stories," the fay added.

"And the stories," he conceded. "He had more than I do. And that's a life well-traveled...around the Isles at least."

"He's been to farther lands than the rest of us. Al-Karak, the Tigers and Euphrates, Byzantum. East. Far east. We listened to his stories about men with turbands. Curved swords. Bare, restless tombs with towers as tall as an ever-oak. Men who wore steel-iron robes and fought each other with blades of Damascus. He always had such a way to bring the stories to life, as if the elefints were truly just beyond trees and the barbars' ships were pulled to the sand not far away."

"I don't see how he enjoyed any of mine. I've only been as far as a place called Francia."

Maenyr shrugged. "That's farther than me. I've only ever been here."

"And yet you want my apples, from a seed born of the east," he observed, moving to the door.

Her counter was swift. "They are from the valley. Which you would do well to remember is a fayfolk claim."

"And does the last remaining fayfolk claim me as well, in her valley?"

Maenyr pushed the door open and gave Doran a broad, inviting smile. Her movements were exaggerated, as if she were inviting a guest of honor to a lavish estate filled with glories and treasures from base to beam.

"All things in this valley belong to the fayfolk. Living and soulless both."

Doran knocked on the stonework framing the doorway. "How sorely disappointed you must be with the disobedient stones who refuse to bow before you."

"Some are far more disappointing than others." Her eyes narrowed playfully.

Crossing the one interior room, Doran picked through a basket of fresh vegetables and berries he'd picked yesterday. "Perhaps this might change your mind." He produced a ripe, red apple from beneath its shroud of cabbage leaves and turned around. Maenyr's mouth opened to give him some new barb of wit, but stopped short of letting it loose as her eyes fixated on the object of her desire.

A begrudging smirk bloomed across her pale, youthful features. "I believe it does."

"Take it." He placed the apple in her hand and her eyes glistened with joy.

"You will be repaid in full for this, Doran." She took a tentative bite, barely grazing the meat of the fuit under its rich red skin. A shiver ran up her body from toe to tip. "Oh, the taste is delightful!"

After that, she made short work of summer's last apple, allowing him a rare look at her unbridled satisfaction with a gift well-received. The forester pulled his eyes away from her alluring smile, sitting down beside the smoldering fire and quietly packing the bits of wood around the edge back into the coals at the center.

Maenyr shook him by the shoulder and scolded him. "Hurry and eat! Let's be off soon, you magnificent lumbermaid!" At that, he made his way down to the cellar and took a bit of cheese and venison from their places, leaving the ferment of berries where it sat in a clay jug. He didn't have any need for it now and Maenyr certainly wasn't going to see him off while he was drunk. Maybe she would take it when he was gone?

Outside, Doran took a leisurely stroll around his home, Maenyr following in his wake, nothing but the tiniest bit of apple core still held in her delicate fingers. The forester opened the goat pen and untied his two goats, Tonar and Gera. The animals looked at him curiously and then, deciding his intrusion wasn't worth notice anymore, went back to grazing where they stood.

"What?" Maenyr asked, tilding her head in the same curious fashion as the goats.

Doran frowned. "I thought they'd want to leave."

"They like it here." Maenyr took his arm.

"They do?" Looking down to the fay, he expected a joke at his expense. Asking her for answers was like trying to discern what lay at the bottom of a loch at night.

Her tone relaxed, allowing him a genuine response. "They like to roam too, but they like this place you've made for them. And you, some."

"How do you know?"

She gave a smug, sideward glance. "They told me."

"Did they now?" the human said with genuine surprise. He knelt down and held his hand out to Tonar, who bleated amiably and obliged with an affectionate nuzzle. "Have you been telling Maenyr all my secrets, dear friend?"

"Only that you think I'm the most beautiful of the fayfolk you've ever seen."

"Oh really?" he replied with dramatic, mock surprise. In response, Maenyr took a step away from where Doran was kneeling and squatted down with her knees to her chest. Her hand called Tonar to its palm with an unspoken command. As if to add insult to injury, he bleated at her with more vigor than he had to Doran. "Tonar here is a gossip. If only you could hear what he says."

Doran rolled his eyes. "Goat shank is sounding good for dinner." Across the enclosure, Gera bleated in protest. "I wasn't serious!"

"Come on." Maenyr stood up and shrugged the cloak from her shoulders. "Let's go wander now."

"After I open the roost and-"

She cut him off. "It can wait."

"I'll-"

In protest, Maenyr flung open the small chicken roost's gate with a nearby thistle and the five chickens trotted out aimlessly. With no more objections levied against her wishes, the fay looked back at Doran with an arched brow.

"There. Shall we?"

Doran knew better than to push her irritation further. "If you insist."

"I do," came the matter-of-fact reply.

She led them down to to cross the nearby stream, dipping her toes into it as she gracefully tapped her bare feet against the stepping stones Doran had laid across the stream years ago. A shiver ran all the way up to her head as she waited for the forester to follow.

"Always so cold! How can you stand to bathe in it?"

He shrugged without much thought on it. "The same way you can."

"I bathe in the elm I claimed when you so rudely took my ever-oak from me," she jabbed, sticking a finger against his chest indignantly.

"I always though you found a willow," Doran returned playfully.

Maenyr rolled her eyes and hopped back across the stream past him, feather-light footsteps silent against the stepping stone. She paused for a moment with her back turned to him.

"Willows make me restless." Suddenly, she leapt backwards and flipped in the air, using a stone for a springboard to launch herself over his head. She defied the weight of her form, almost as if she were being carried on the wind. She landed on one foot, sweeping the other across the grass with a bloom of fresh, green clover in its wake.

"Restless indeed," observed Doran as she fay cast him a look over her shoulder.

"Willows are exhausting in ways that even I cannot understand. Tuina liked willows, though. She always said they felt so willing to share in the revelry of being alive."

"Tuina." Memories of the fay's bizarre activities came to the fore. "She was a whirlwind when she visited. Renaming the chickens. Taking Gera into the forest for days on end. Leaving stag crowns that drew the bucks for Anlach at my door. Nibbling on my tools to make her teeth itch. Pulling Birinost's ears during stories."

"Willows are like that. Always moving. Full of...life. Tuina fits a willow well."

"And an oak?" the human ventured.

Maenyr thought for several moments before answering. "Slower. Much slower. Like a river to rain."