#faebrurary

Bonus screenie!

Realizing now there’s not actually a whole lot of flowers in the image I picked to edit lol

Here are some honorable mention screenies hehe

Da bonus:

"We got lost," he said shakily, when Hawise knelt in front of him and demanded to know what had happened. "And when we tried to get back, we saw a light. Elis followed it into the swamp. I told him not to," he insisted. "But he didn't listen."

"A will-o'-the-wisp," someone muttered. That was when people first began to talk about fairies.

But the search went on. Hawise ignored any requests to stay back and followed the men of the village through the woods and into the marsh. They called his name until dawn began to break, looking for some sign of where he had gone.

The next day, when the light was better, they found the footprints, which disappeared into the deepest, most treacherous pool of water.

Now people were muttering in earnest. The Fair Folk had led him to his doom. That was what happened to anyone foolish enough to follow a pixy-light.

Hawise could only keep them searching for so long. After another day and night, everyone gave up. Poor Elis had followed the fairies and drowned in the swamp. There was nothing else to be done. Everyone went home and lectured their own children not to stay out at night, and never to follow a spirit who would lead them away from town.

But Hawise could not be so easily dissuaded. She returned to the marsh every day for weeks, trudging through the mud and calling for her child. People wondered what she was hoping for. Elis would have returned by now if he could; the best she could hope for was stumbling across his body.

One month after her son had vanished, Hawise stayed out long after the night had fallen. There was no moon in the sky, and everything was dark except for her lantern. Her voice was hoarse from calling, and finally she paused, leaning against a tree, her body sore and tired. She closed her eyes for a moment, then let out a long, shuddering breath.

A breeze blew by, shaking the leafless branches. She heard little sounds scampering about. They could have been animals, but she imagined that they were something else.

"I'm not leaving," she said, in a slow, rasping voice. "I won't leave until I get him back."

Silence fell. The wind and the scampering stopped, and the night was unnaturally still, tense, waiting.

Then she heard Elis laugh.

She looked up quickly. Everything outside the circle of her lantern was black, except for a small, lone light far away across the swamp.

"Elis?"

There was no reply, but she heard the laughter again. The light bobbed in the distance, like a lantern held by someone running away.

"ELIS!"

The light vanished into the darkness.

Hawise was not a fool. She knew that the fairies might very well be tricking her. She knew that the ground she was standing on was treacherous, and that she was at risk of drowning even without troublesome spirits to worry about.

But she also knew that the fairies didn't always kill people. Sometimes they led them back into their own realm or made them part of their wandering troops.

And if that had happened to Elis, then there was still a chance to get him back.