The Night Flight

when the prince of winter went for a ride.

 

Oh, blessed be the secrets of the night! Blessed be your name, Magpie Forest. Each night, you draw out your wintry fragrance of divine mysteries and such, such light!

Now pay attention, my dear friend, listen closely, for the story I’m about to tell you requires quick eyes, as quick as the wings of a bat. A bat? Yes, there is a bat, Mr. Pipi. No, I didn’t name him that, not my fault; he’s kind of Italian, or something. Anyway, I’ll tell you about the bat later. Our story begins at the forest, so for now, let’s just stick to it. See, Magpie Forest is located on the outskirts of a lovely little village called Magpie, which is by the Magpie River which is dark, dark, and has blue rocks that glow up from the riverbed, making the waters look like an explosion of galaxies, or maybe like a space war field. Yeah, definitely the latter. The trees are pitch back, sturdy and as tall as sycamores, as matter of fact, from the ground beneath your feet, the blooming berry shrubs or the mushrooms that grow on the bark of old trees, everything is a tad too dark, too tall, too little. You know, despite all this Magpie business I have to admit I have never actually seen a single Magpie around these parts. Maybe they were all turned into roasted pie for the Magpie’s Annual Roasted Pie Contest. It’s a mystery, or it’s magpie pie, I guess.

I’m stalling, aren’t I? I apologize for that; let’s start for real this time.

Once upon a time, there was an unruly fairy prince. He lived in the Magpie Forest underneath a red mushroom, or as is commonly known, an Amanita muscaria. - When I say lived, I mean, he slept. Fairies don’t actually have houses, it’s too much of a hassle, they simply sleep anywhere during the day and cause trouble at night. As a prince, he walked about adorned in finery and precious stones. In the fairy kingdom all royal dressed like that and everyone in the royal family was in charge of a season. The fairy king had to awake Summer; the queen, Spring; the young princess was the bringer of Fall and the luckless fairy prince was responsible for Winter.

I say he was unlucky because everyone hated winter. As a result, bugs and frogs, even flowers would blame all their misfortunes on the poor prince. Beetles used pictures of the prince as a way to scare their children into going to bed, now that’s cruel. As he was reviled by all, he had a hard time making friends; actually, he had only one, a fruit bat named Pipi. Pipi could make this annoying twittering noise that would always wake the whole forest and the prince found this ability to be particularly ingenious. Hence, the prince would ride on Pipi everywhere. The bat was basically the prince’s motorcycle.

One night, in late Fall, a few days before winter began, when the prince couldn’t stand any more nagging about how winter was coming, he decided to take Pipi for a long ride. As he was passing above the lanky trees and the strange crawling creatures from below, he saw an orange light flickering in the dark. Curious about what it could be, he decided to follow it.

The source of the light was farther than he had imagined, because when he got to it he recognized he was no longer in the forest, but in open field. That was risky! Exciting! Shockingly, the light was coming from inside a giant mushroom. Well, actually it was a house, but since the prince had never been out of the forest or seen a human in the flesh before, that is what he thought he saw. Albeit terrified he reached for the window. What he saw inside shook him to the core; a giant with its back to him leaning over a sink, its gray hair long and frizzy, a monster indeed. Yet, when it turned round the prince realized it wasn’t a monster. Human! He had seen pictures. A she! But what… her skin was like a crumpled leaf, her eyes glazed over, vacant, her lips were sunken, cheeks gone sallow. It was like time itself had walking in and robbed her of her bloom. She was winter.

The prince kissed the glass, heart thumping against his chest. Beautiful… He had always wanted to understand why winter was loathed, and whenever he asked they would shoot back, “Winter kills everything.” What does it mean, to die? Didn’t they simply go to sleep? Death must be really fast, for he could never catch it.

“Cough, hun, cough, ranh, cough,” and he snapped out of his wanderings. She shuffled towards the fireside. Was she sick? Now that would not do! He felt flushed and took a few wobbly steps. He knew a potion, he could make it in the flicker of a wand. He just needed some witch hazel and honey and morning dew and YES, he would go get it. Go go go dear Pipi!

While watching him zazz and whoosh into the darkness, I couldn’t help but wonder if the poor fairy prince could see the irony in trying to save her from that which made him fall in love in the first; mortality.

What happens next I wasn’t there to see. Some say that he came back with the medicine, turned the old lady into a fairy and then they rode off together into the sunset. Some claim the fairy king intercepted him and locked him away for trying to use fairy magic on a human. But that sounds like a lot of hogwash if you ask me. He probably just got distracted somewhere between collecting the witch hazel and the morning dew.

Fairies are timeless, you see.