Drynnan
I walked down the oh so familiar street. Away from the warehouse, away from the almost real to me. I closed my eyes to picture my dream, his long locks of black, his eyes green, his lips so gentle and warm.
A voice tore me from my thoughts, “Whither do you wander, fair kinswoman?”
I looked up from deep within my cloak. My eyes swept across the stranger. He was young, incredibly handsome, with a deep rich coffee colored hair, kept short and neat. He stood but a hand taller than me, about 5’5″ or so. His was dressed immaculately in a fine winter weight suit and beautiful black ankle length overcoat. His face had a fey, elvish cast and his ears a marked point.
“I wander to no where.” I answered. The stranger bowed very low, his hand elegantly sweeping to the side. He looked up from the bow, his eyes like mahogany. I inquired, “And where do you wander to?”
He stood straight and spoke gentle; “I wander the realm in search of a story. Do you have one?”
I reflected only a moment before I answered, “Only if you like sadness. What is your land of birth? Is it here on the Cold and Green?”
“Nay…I am from the land of the fey.” His eyes danced in the moonlight.
“How did you know I was kin? I cover myself to hide.”
The stranger smiled brightly, “I can smell it upon you..”
“Ah, the flame gave me away again.” I thought of the warmth of the cave and the bathing sands.
“I am Drynnan.”
I moved my right hand from my cloak, forgetting I wore my gloves. “I am Raven.”
The stranger started to take my hand but paused. He inspected the glove before taking it and bent over it with a kiss. “I am ever honored to meet with one of our kind.”
“Be happy you found me.” I pained at the lost of my beloved, “Not many of our kin here.”
“Nay…but a few… One day, perhaps…we will once more be plentiful in this world..”
That thought horrified me, “I hope not. It would be a sad day for our kind.” The coldness of the Green, the evil of the Green, the darkness of the Green, Oh how my people would fall to it and die.
“And I hate to disagree with one so lovely, for it will be a day to remember.” Drynnan smiled.
Silence covered the street as I looked at him for a short time. “You are right. I disagree.” I pulled my cloak tighter around me. “Do you need aid?”
“You are shrouded so in the dark, fairest maid. Please allow me to endeavor to lighten your burden.”
His words felt strange to me, “I think your compliments are wasted on me.”
“Nay…a compliment is never wasted, if truly meant.”
“And in which meaning do you tend to lighten? How can I be fair if you never seen me?
Drynnan smiled.
“Only a smile?” I questioned his unspoken meanings, “that can be taken many ways in the Green.”
“Maiden, I have been long of this world, over a three thousand years, and in all that time I have seen beauty…thou art high amongst those of the past.” His words flowed with sweetness, “Who so ever say me nay shall face my sword.”
“So if I disagree you will run me through?”
Drynnan laughed softly, a musical sound. “Nay, Lady, for I could ne’er destroy such as thee.”
“So you can see through my cloak?” I talked like one of the Green with questions on my lips, “or you have been watching me?” I chuckled but it faded from my soul, as a the pain throbbed.
“I have lay eyes upon thee but now… and no matter of cover belies thy form.” He explained.
“Than thee could not judge my beauty or fairness. You judge on shape? A shadow could look scary and only be gentle hands.”
Drynnan seemed to enjoy our banter, ” Nay.. for thy carriage, thy grace, give form to that which is not displayed..”
“Would you like to go for food?” I felt like his company might be nice, “I know a place that is vegetarian.”
“Only if thou wouldst be mine guest.”
“Yes.”
“Then I am honored beyond words.” He bowed deeply once more.
“Don’t be. I eat a lot.” I grinned under my hood at the false threat.
Drynnan chuckled softly. “Where might this wondrous abode of fine food be?”
I looked at the cloak and thought better of my dress. “One moment I need to change.”
I stepped into an ally and faded from sight. I wasn’t sure if he would watch but something inside of me told me to abide by the taboo of the Green. I became one with sight wearing my beloved’s shirt tucked into my blue jeans all my other things was tucked safely into my bag. “Okay Drynnan, I am ready.”
“As am I.” He offered his arm as his eyes moved over me. Out of habit my arm slipped into his. “I fear you must lead, for I am not native…”
“Than how did you find your way to me? I sound like… Forgive the words.” I realized I did nothing but question him, “I become more like the Cold and Green everyday.”
“I have but come onto this city but this night, for I have a duty here, now discharged and is my want, I explore for new stories.. Tell me of thy story that I might put thy words into a saga to stand for all time.”
“Let’s eat first.” My mind slipped off to the star. This one was different. He touched something else. Something I was not afraid of but leery of.
“As you will, fair Raven.”
I walked in silence as I guided through the shabby streets of the city. His voice lifted in a soft song. My pain grew as I tried to summons my voice, the star blinding my mind. The star scolded me, it had already allowed me voice this very evening and swore never again. Drynnan sang songs of the wood and the realm of enchantment. My spirit sank further. I walked up to the old building.
“Doesn’t look like much outside but the food is good.”
The room was filled with odd chairs and small tables. A very old lady showed us to a table. Her words obscured by her native languages as she spoke that of this land.
“So sing about her.” I thought how nice it would for Kowlee to be remembered for all time. I looked to the star and pleaded for but one song.
“About who?” Drynnan inquired as he removed a set of panpipes from the inside pocket of his overcoat.
“About the old woman. She traveled from a far away place in the land of Cold and Green and here she tries to make a way for the few of her family that still live. ” The star refused.
“Hers is not the story I seek.” Drynnan blew lightly across the pipes, a trill of notes filled the room. I looked out the corner of my eye at him.
Kowlee came back with two huge trays of food. Drynnan began a light and lively song, tapping a bass line as if his foot on a loose tile. Kowlee hurried as she sat up water glasses, plates and chopsticks Drynnan watched the woman from behind the pipe and subtly alters the tune to an odd a-tonal song. The woman eyed Drynnan, looking to me with the unasked question I knew. I shook my head no and declined the offer. Kowlee turned to depart. Drynnan played a bar that stopped her in her track.
I looked to the one I sat with, “How and why?” Drynnan played on, the woman turning, her body moving slightly to the notes. Anger or was it fear or a little of both stirred in me.
“She has other things to do. Who are you?”
Drynnan stopped the song with a trill. Kowlee disappeared to the kitchen. “I am a bard, a minstrel in the gallery…”
“What is the gallery? A bard I know.”
“The gallery of the play…. I am the background music to the lives of the players.”
A smile swept over me. He to must know the star and see the play. He smiled in kind.
“Now you speak something I understand.”
“Once I did say to a bard of renown…’Life is but a play, and we are but the players…’ I am grieved that he never thanked me for that line in his later work.”
I nodded at his word and reached for some food passing it to him. He laid his pipes down and took the food. “This is really good stuff.” I served my self a few bites of everything.
Drynnan nearly filled his plate. I passed the other dishes and began to eat. Drynnan ate his food with a passion I never seen. Between bites he stopped, “We pine for a fine vintage!”
I called out, “Kowlee, I changed my mind.” As if magic Kowlee came back in with some warm saki.
Drynnan smiled, “Saki! Would that the wine matched the food! Then all will be well with the world.” I looked at my dinner companion and took a small glass. “Thou art too morose for one so light.” Drynnan poured a coffee cup of saki.
“When you collect stories who will see them?” I asked.
Drynnan held the cup up. “To the wonder of thy story and thy beauty.”
I held mine, “To the wonders of the unknown.”
Drynnan smiled as he drank from his cup. He returned to his food. I excused my self and went to speak with Kowlee. His eyes followed my movements. The music of his pipes filled the air once more.
I returned and spoke but his music played on, the song filling the room, the tune seeming to circle endlessly. Drynnan made the pipes almost speak, the words forming without effort in my mind *Nothing is so sweet as thy lips, all else is but sustenance.*
“Did you wish to go else where I am not dressed for many places but Kowlee will loan me something of her granddaughters. If you wanted to see something else
“You dance … Would you join me then?” He asked in a strange-distracted way.
“It is the way of my people. ” I corrected my self. “Well the way of the land I came from and that of song.” I tried to smile, “To a place of dance?”
Drynnan grinned, “Then dance we shall.”
“Let me go change again.” I sighed, “The Green is funny about clothes.”
“I have noted.”
I left him and Kowlee slide the silk oriental dress over my body suit. It barely came to the top of my boots. She dabbed a little perfumed oil on my neck and pulled my hair up, held by a comb. I walked back in, his eyes lifting to me, “She says this should do.” I spoke feeling out of place.
He stood. A bright beaming smile covered his face as his eyes danced with passion. “It will more the ‘do’!”
“I guess we should go.”
“Will you be warm enough?” His eyes never leaving me, “Have you a cloak?”
“Not one for this.”
“A moment.” Drynnan disappeared into the kitchen. He returned a few minutes later with a short silk jacket in black embroidered to match the dress.
“It is very nice.” I spoke as he helped me on with it. Something like electricity ran up and down my spine..
“I have taken the liberty of calling for my car.” He spoke softly. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “If you are uncomfortable, please do not hesitate to tell me, I will not be offended.”
“I am not uncomfortable.” I was not sure what I was feeling. He reminded me of Gene, my one and only friend of my childhood.
Drynnan inclined his head slightly, “Have you a preference, this evening?
I thought for a moment. “Yes, only two. That you can dance as a couple without the music …” How could I explain Linda’s noise she called music, “to Green and one that I can truly dance.”
Drynnan smile stayed on his lips, “I know of a place, if I may suggest….”
“Yes, but I thought you new to the city?”
Drynnan smile brightened, “We can always sense a place to dance, can we not?
“Sometimes if there is a dance to be danced.” I felt funny about this but I wanted to follow. Just as I let Gene drag me off to a new adventure.
Drynnan slipped into this coat and straightened his cuff. He offered his arm I took his arm and nodded to Kowlee as she peeked out of the kitchen. At the curb a white limo awaited, a stunningly attractive young woman in a black tux waited at the door, opening it as we exited. I slide in and Drynnan moved next to me. The girl lowered the partition between the driver compartment and the passenger area.
“Where to, sir?”
Drynnan closed his eyes and seemed to scan the area. “North…cross a bridge…” He settled back and watched me. He laid the pipes on the seat beside him
“Tell me of your land.” I requested.
Drynnan laced his fingers, his thumbs tapping his lips.
“There is nothing like it.” His eyes looked into the far past. “The land is gentle with low hills, hidden hollows, luxurious meadows… All the colors of the rainbow delight the eye.. The water is like crystal in riles dancing over rounded rock …it tastes….like ambrosia. The air is scented with flowers and the trees…the grass is plush and verdant… Dryads dance in the meadows, the unicorns pluck golden apples from the trees. I have sat for days on the shores and traded songs with the sirens.”
“I sounds like a lovely piece of the Green.”
‘It is not of the Green you speak, fair Raven… ” His eyes looked off. “For it no longer touches this Green.”
“This is the Cold and Green others travel to other lands.”
“Nay.. in three thousand years, I am the only one to travel hither.” He sighed, “You would not know that this is our mother realm, would you? Four thousand years ago.. this world was a paradise… as lovely as my lost realm is now… but the magic faded and with it…our people…those enchanted…. where trapped in the Fey.”
“Than they should go to the land I was raised, ” I slipped off to the stars out the window, “maybe…”
“Nay, fair one…we would return here and reclaim what was taken from us.”
“Why take this dark land.”
“We die.” his eyes grew cold, “Slowly…we die…for we are away from the land that is so much a part of us… By the time I had departed many had gone into the darkness, never to return… The smaller go first… the fairies.”
“You have a sad story too. So your duty you spoke of is to take this place back unto your people?” I paused and thought of the few little folk that fluttered in the forest of my birth. “I like fairies. They sing so pretty.”
Drynnan looked up at me, his face filled with an incredible intensity. He hissed between clenched teeth “Yes…. We want back what was ours… Humans have raped the land, destroyed the forest.” Drynnan sat back staring out into the night. “I am weary….” He closed his eyes.
I was in this play. His pain touched mine but I disagreed with him. The land was that of the humans. I fished for words to speak, “Than no dance?”
“We will dance…for thy beauty requires it.” He looked at me with a small smile reappearing on his lips. “Ever will I have the where with all to dance…to play…to celebrate the beauty in life.”
I turned my head and looked out the window. “You can see beauty here?”
Drynnan stared out into the night as the car crossed a bridge. “No…. I see humans… They do not see that which they destroy.”
“Not all humans are bad.” I defend the shadows of my lost soul. “many yes, but not all.”
Drynnan turned his head slowly, his eyes considering. “No…not all.”
“Play a tune, please.” I shivered as we crossed the water. “I never did learn to play music.”
He took up the pipes and held them to his lips as I watched him. A faint line sound drifted across the air. Drynnan closed his eyes and began a tune that evoked the songs of a myriad of birds in song. The pipes sang in two voices, one high and light, the other middle octave a counterpoint to the other. A third voice, deeper somber voice, one of bittersweet pain underlying the sprightly duet joined in.
Drynnan stopped with a trill, “We are near…” He pushed a button and the partition lowered. “East” Drynnan looks out upon the terrain. Trees flowed past. “Here!”
The car slid to a stop, pulling off the side of the road into an unpaved verge.
“Guess I didn’t need to change.” I smiled and wonder where he was leading me.
Drynnan pushed the door open to the night. “Come…we have but a few minutes.”
He climbed out, offering a hand.
I followed. “Only a few moments for what?” I questioned.
Drynnan kicked his shoes off. “The door…it will open…but only for a few moments.”
“Where does it go?”
Drynnan tugged on my hand, “For us…nowhere…Come!” I took a deep breath as he almost pulled me down the side of the road and into the forest.
“Why do you need the door?” I followed unsure of my actions.
Drynnan moved quickly and without a sound. In the distance I saw a faint glow…like a candle in the fog…it grew brighter as we approached.
“By the flame what is that?” I froze at the sight. The star began to scream at me.
Drynnan broke into a fleet footed run, leaping fallen logs…pushing through briars… dancing around trees until he vanishes from your sight. The sound of the pipes whisper out of the night, the song slow and poignant
I moved slowly forward, “Drynnan?”
The glow expanses, the end sharply defined as I approach. It stops a few feet from me a warmth bathing my face. The pipes’ song becomes glorious, bright, carefree… joyous.
The happy song twisted me. The star shouted warning. I looked at the glow. Shadows, figures moved about within the glow. I heard the music. I turned away, my voice shook as I spoke, “I am sorry Drynnan. My carefree days have died.” I felt part of me dying.
I walked feeling more pain inside as the Star punished me for not listening as it released selected pain to me. As I reach the road, the distant sounds of the pipes faded to nothingness. The night sounds slowly reestablish themselves…the crickets, the hoot of an owl…. I looked back into the woods, the glow had disappeared. Upon the road was the limo.
“Excuse me. Will he return to you?” I spoke out to the driver.
A single note song rose out of the forest, the tune melancholy and very lonely. I closed my eyes and strained to hear it. I found a song. I tried to hum it, the music floated in my mind as crisp as it played in the woods but my voice was a flat line. The sadness of it filled me but yet relived my own loneliness. The song now rich and full throated. I sat down on the trunk of the limo. An emptiness filled me,
“I can’t.”
I felt the sadness in, the music filled the void. I leaped from the trunk spinning to the sway of the sadness. Swaying to one side I brought up the images of little children of the forest. They danced in a circle and one small one danced off to it self, a dark one off alone. The others played happily, with all the lovely blondes and browns of the forest. I danced to the dark little one and the others children faded. Except a young male. Sweet Gene danced with the little dark one. The two little children danced together as I circled them in dance. The image became a stage of flame, a large Dragon in outlined stood tall.
I danced before the dragon Blue as two teen-age elves Join in . An older version of the dark girl and Gene. The dragon took wing to the sky carrying the boy into the darkness. The image faded and my dance was done. The loneliness filled me and the vast emptiness started to soothe the pain. The Star eased the pain.
Drynnan voice echoed from the shadows, “You would not join me….”
“I could not enter.” I turned to where the voice spoke. Drynnan stepped silently out of the bushes, his suit gone, his chest bare, his pants barely more then a loin cloth. “I am sorry.”
Drynnan turned his head slightly, the starlight gleaming off something on his forehead. I looked at his forehead, slowly I moved closer. Above each eyebrow a small upturned ivory horn that caught the light.
“I have not been able to share such with another of the fey in three thousand years…
I reached out and felt the one of the horns, “Do they hurt?”
Drynnan moved completely out of the shadows, his furred legs and hard little hooves revealed in the moonlight. He shook his head. “Why should they?” He took my hand and held it to his lips. “The fairy has gone…and with it the visions of my home. For those few moments.. ” A single tear rolled unheeded down his cheek, followed by a steady stream. “I was home.”
I took my free hand and wiped his tears. I fought the urge to take the pain of his tears. “At least you have a home. A home. I cannot return to…,” The pain welled as I thought of my love’s arms. The only home I would ever know. I wipe more of Drynnan tears.
“What home is that? Three thousand years. “
I cut him off, “More than I have.”
Drynnan looked into my eyes, “You know what it is like to love something you cannot have. As do I. Granted, our hearts desire differ…but does that matter to the broken heart?”
“I don’t know. I am new to all of this. In the land I was raised we do not have this thing of the Green called love.”
Drynnan looked up into the starry night. “Your realm must be sad indeed.”
“No, it is very happy. All the songs and dance of joy. The great celebrations of the gift of flame. No one knows the pain I now feel. The Green did this.” The star called out to me.
“I would hate to see others fall to the way of the Cold and Green.”
Drynnan shook his head, “Would you give up love? If it could be taken from you is moment…would you give it up?”
I stood emotionless to his words as the pain of my action filled me before I could call for the help of the star, “I already did.”
Drynnan shook his head again, “No.. you did not… It is still in you. You feel it now … This moment … If that feeling … the one that hurts you now … could be taken from you.”
“No, I feel a torn, pain, that is not the love.”
“Would you give it up? Love … Love hurts.”
“I wish they would give a handbook out on it. How is one suppose to know how to deal with it? They don’t even have good educational books.”
Drynnan smiled. “You don’t deal with it. You experience it. There is no other way.”
“And if one refuses to?” I moved a wild strain of his hair back into place.
“Can you refuse it?”
I felt lost. “I have to. I should never have let the Green trick me in the first place.”
Drynnan pulled me into his arms, hugging me tightly. His touch felt good but strangely wrong. “How did two such as we end up in this realm?”
“I was created to fulfill a greatness. I was sent here to find it. I only find myself lacking in all things, Just like my wing told me.”
“And I was sent to find my own greatness.” He added. The scent of the green woods clung to his skin.
“Guess this is the land to test out greatness,” I gave a half smile as I pulled from the embrace my stomach flipping. I so wanted to be held.
“Where would you go, fair one?”
“I don’t go anywhere. I just wander Seattle. It is where I am but I do have to return these to Kowlee before I ruin them,” I started unbutton the top button of the shirt. I remembered the taboo. Why was it so hard for me to remember something so simple, “Damn forgot but you’re not from here.” Drynnan fingered the silk. “Tell me of the taboos in your land.”
“Taboos?” He laughed lightly, “In the fey, there are no taboos.”
“Much like the land where I was raised.” I felt strange in the silk dress. So out of place. I unbuttoned the shirt revealing my body suit and the dragons glowing through it. From bag I pulled my gloves and cloak and tucked the dress safely away.
Drynnan smiled softly “I am vindicated, I see…” His eyes danced on my form.
I pulled the comb from my hair. The hair fell freely to my knees. “Now what do you mean by that?”
“Thy form…entices as I knew it would.”
I dropped the comb in the bag with a sigh, “I am but an ugly ducking in a pond of swans to use the terms of the Green.” I shook my air out wishing Valoki was around to comb it.
Drynnan moved close again touching my hair. His finger stroking through the softness “How can you say that?”
“It is not hard to speak the truth.”
He took my chin in his hand, “You eyes are beyond compare. Your lips beg to be kissed.” He leaned in and brushed my lips with the warmth of his.
I pulled back unsure. My spirit pained my more. The vision of green eyes flashed in my mind. ” I… I have to go.” I grabbed my things.
“Do not let one’s rejection color you world into shades of black and white.”
He laid a hand on my arm. I pulled back my tears. “Feel, Raven. Don’t hold it in. Let the tears come…. They heal.”
“I will think on it.” My mind spun, the star quiet allowing this scene,
“Maybe our paths will cross again.” He smiled, “I did say I would give you a story.”
“Yes, you did… “
“Not sure which tale to tell.” I pulled my cloak around me tight, “What type where you looking for?”
Drynnan smiled “I have my story…”
I pulled the pain far inside. The star slept. I looked around the woods, “I should get back to my streets.”
“I will have the limo take you back to the restaurant.”
“Where will you go?” Something inside me didn’t want to let go of the moment.
Drynnan smiled, “A friend comes for me.”
“May the flame be with you than and I can walk. I need to work off all the food I ate.”
“As you will….”
I tried to smile, “It has be wonderful to meet you.” I brushed his cheek with my hand. So many males had approached in so many different ways. And only three had tempted my passion, besides my beloved. “Your music is.. well you know.”
“You will see me again, fair one.”
“One can dream. I am not easy to find as a rule.”
Drynnan laughed lightly. I turned to walk away. Confusion filled me. He was not human nor was he elf. He was a creature of legend and lore. I looked back him. He looked off into the near distance. A huge figure stood in the shadows a few dozen meters away.
Drynnan laid a hand on my arm, “My friend has arrived.”
“May the flame be with you in your travels.” I watched the figure in the shadows. I felt so strangely odd. The Moonlight glinted off something metallic as the figure in the shadows shifted position. Drynnan smiled, his hand slid up my arm to my cheek.
His finger drew my eyes to his. I closed my eyes and remembered the touch of another.
Drynnan slipped his hand behind my neck, pulling me, his lips meeting mine. I hesitated but the flashes of the green eyes formed in my mind. He parted his lips, his tongue seeking mine as his body molded to me. Oh my beloved, how I want you. Drynnan caressed my body with his free hand, feeling the curves through the cloak.
I pulled from the kiss and whispered, “Your friend is waiting.”
“He can wait…” His lips moving over the length of my neck, “Or…I can send him away.”
I stood in silence feeling the tingles but wanting my beloved. I looked into Drynnan’s eyes to read them. He placed both of his hands at the small of my back, his eyes gazing deep into mine. His eyes a flame. I looked the forest where his friend had been. He was gone.
My lost voice came to me, “I should go before… I should go”
“You don’t have to go….” He brushed his cheek against mine.
“Your friend waits for you and…”
“My friend…is gone…” Drynnan nibbled on my earlobe,
I spaced my body from his. Urges where stirred in me but passion was not.
“It’s just…”
The chattered began as I tried to sort the feelings the star was feeding me. Their suggestion to indulge this male, moved in my mind. Drynnan’s sweet words fogging my mind. His fingers ran over my living art sending waves want through me as he caressed the skin under beneath. My mind spun to the teachings of mating. This is what they told of, not that of love.
His words broke the spell, “I feel something..” He closed his eyes with his palm over the head of a dragon that now rest between my breast. “She speaks.”
“What do you mean?”
“E’en now I feel her pushing me away.”
I looked to the living art, “The living art thinks? But I have always had it.”
“It thinks…it also does not want me near. “
“Are you dark or are you light?”
“What must I do to be either? If I love my people….If I fight to give them back their world to save them… then I am Light. If I will do anything to accomplish me goal…am I Dark?”
He stated the question I had asked throughout the journey of the Road.
“I really should go.” I moved from his reach and pulled my cloak tight around me the memory of my beloved touch slightly stronger.
“I will find you again, fair Raven.”
“May be.” I turned and ran into the darkness. My mind spun as I cried out “CUFAEN!” I felt wrong in my action with Drynnan. I wanted to be held, I wanted to be loved but I only wanted my one and only.
****
Drynnan turned to the figure that loomed up behind him as Raven ran off.
The voice is deep, from the bottom of a well. “Kindred spirit, my friend?”
The satyr looked up into the single living eye of his oldest friend.
“Perhaps an ally,” he said softly.
Moonlight illuminated the massive steel-clad body of the Minotaur. Taurus chuckled, the laser red of his artificial eye flashing in the dark as he scanned the surrounding area.
“Perhaps,” he rumbled.
****