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Nothing is as it seems in the glade where the wind and earth forget its name. Where the confines of magic are strong, and the waters hide a tragic secret.
***
Iridessia glides through the air, light and smiling, pink candy-floss hair trailing behind her. Her crystal wings catch the sun, sparkling like jewels. It’s an afternoon made of breeze and sky. She squeaks, swerving just in time to avoid a tree, then giggles, shaking her head.
As she passes over a thick forest, the air thickens, tinged with the metallic scent of old magic. Life itself falls eerily silent, as if Mother Nature pressed a finger to her lips.
Her wings twitch among the now low-hanging mist as she hovers in place.
She hadn’t meant to wander this far from Pixie Cove, quickly realizing she’s close to the Seelie border. Twisted trees with bone-white bark cast shadows over moss-covered ground.
A shiver prickles her spine as a soft sigh brushes her ear, like a feather drifting across water. The wilds are strange here; in ways only elder magic allows.
Drawn by instinct, she shakes it off and lands in front of a door of ivy. It beckons her, the only aura of magic in this stifling place.
As her impulsive curiosity takes hold, she brushes through it to a sight of raw beauty.
There lies a perfectly round and still spring. Its surface glimmers teal blue despite its depths being murky, like smoke behind glass. It rests within a ring of pale stones, surrounded by silence so thick it’s oppressive—no life to be seen. And yet the pool glows faintly, as if moonlight glows within.
Dessie hovers at the edge, wide-eyed. “Well,” she whispers, her voice swallowed by the hush, “Aren’t you a beautiful, ethereal secret.”
She doesn’t expect a response, but the water stirs ever so slightly. Something echoes in her bones, and a voice brushes through her mind.
“A sight for sore eyes, little pixie.”
She startles, leaping up and spinning midair, wings fluttering as her heart pounds. But no one is there.
The voice returns, trembling and laced with sorrow.
“This water keeps prisoners.”
Her bare feet sink into the green cushion of moss as she returns to the ground, fascinated.
Iridessia steps to the edge. “Hello?” she murmurs. “Who imprisoned you?”
The surface ripples again but does not reflect her face. Instead, it offers something else.
Eyes.
Pale lavender and luminous Seelie fae eyes watch her with aching loneliness and agony.
Then, as quickly as they appeared, they vanish.
“Wait! Come back!” She calls out, but the magic quickly swallows her voice.
An idea sparks in her as she peers in. “I will return. And I may have just the thing to lure you out.”
The male’s chest tightens as he hears her, sinking into the spring and lying on a bed of weeds. As his eyes slip closed, he once again prays that sleep takes him quickly.
When Iridessia returns at twilight, clutching a thimble harp strung with spider‑silk. Fireflies swirl in the warm hush, their greenish glow dancing over the stones. She sits herself at the edge of the pool and plucks a trembling chord. The music rings clear, drifting into the hush like wind‑bells, surprisingly not stolen by the magic.
Upon hearing the beautiful melody, the male swims halfway to the surface.
Another of those whispers reaches Iridessia’s mind.
“Play on…it has been ages since I heard anything but my own regret.”
So she did. Soft, wandering notes flow until the air itself seems to sway. At the final chord, night looms overhead, and she clutches the harp tightly in her giddiness. It falls apart in her hands, eliciting a soft curse from her lips.
She supposes her own “curse” is destruction. Ever since she was young, she had a penchant for her clumsiness–even if others wouldn’t know it from the look of her.
When the male’s beautiful face appears, he looks concerned through the thin veil of the water.
Her eyes meet his. “Why bind you here instead of slaughter? I assume this is a sort of punishment for something deemed unforgivable. The Seelie can be...creative in their torture.”
Those lavender irises come closer to the surface, searching hers for sincerity. Against all instinct, Dessie leans in to see him more clearly.
“I used to be a great asset,” the male murmurs into her mind. “Until I dallied with someone…forbidden. The King believed he buried me where no heart would find mine again.”
The pixie swallows the lump in her throat. “Well,” she says, voice steady despite the empathy in her soul, “he misjudged the glade. Curious hearts wander. Even the oldest of magics bend for the lighthearted.”
The spring brightens, light swelling as she squints. When it fades, a single droplet hovers above the surface, glowing and crystalline. It floats to her palm.
“A gift,” the male whispers. “In payment for the song. But you must return home now. This glen will stifle your magic if you stay too long. It rarely bends to exception.”
He blinks once at the tender look on her face, freckled with starlight itself. The full weight of her beauty slams into him then, his hands raising inches above his head to rest on the surface of the water, pressing against it like glass. “Return one day if you choose, Brightheart. But know the risk. If the glen suspects anything artificial to unravel the curse, you will be cast out of it forever as punishment.”
Dessie closes her fingers around the gifted crystal, glistening like the depths of the spring as she rises. “I will return,” she states firmly, lifting her chin and meeting his gaze.
As she goes to pocket the gift, it slips from her fingers, cracking apart as it hits rock. Her face falls and she picks up the pieces tenderly. “I broke it...I’m sorry. I–”
“Do not apologize, Brightheart. Some things are meant to be broken. Look at the pieces. They sparkle brighter now that its core is exposed.”
A blush flushes her cheeks, and she nods. “I will break your curse, too. Put my klutziness to good use.”
The male presses closer to the surface, a soft smile on his lips. She glimpses short, silver-white hair as he moves within the water.
Her wings catch the first sparkle of stars, and glimmer as she turns to go.
The male’s whisper follows her through the leaves, like a brush of fingers on her cheek.
“Tomorrow, then?”
She grins, eyes turning to the reflection of the stars on the spring’s surface, before soaring into the sky. “Tomorrow.”
At the first light of dawn, he waits for her. The stillness clings tighter now, laced with something he thought long buried—longing.
Wondrously, this pixie has consistently stepped past the ancient stone wards meant to keep wanderers away and looked at him without flinching. Just quiet interest. As if she had broken the very fabric of its magic with her presence, too.
He doesn’t know her name, and he could not tell her his own. The last time it was spoken, it damned him to this torment.
It had been a mortal woman then. Clever, kind-eyed, full of warmth and trust. He gave her all of him, and she had whispered his name like a gift so many times. Yet all the love they had shared didn’t matter when she spoke it aloud to the Seelie King to spare her own life. And for their forbidden affair, he was cursed.
The spring’s magic held no mercy, only numbness. Then this pixie came. At her voice, he had answered without meaning to.
He hums her song and recalls her eyes, teal as the water, forgetting what it felt like to be seen. The stirrings in his chest remind him that some soft part of him remains, but he can’t allow his traitorous heart to open again, so he drowns it with the silence of the spring.
When Dessie returns, her eyes scan the water for any sign of him.
Nothing.
She kneels at the edge. “Hello?” she whispers. “It’s me again.”
No ripple. No whisper. No warmth where his voice had once curled.
“You don’t have to come up. But I want to say something. I want you to be reminded when I am not here.”
She conjures a small glass bottle and a thorn-inked pen. A wide leaf holds her scrawled words:
{I feel your sadness. I’ll keep coming back. -Dessie}
Tucking it inside, she corks the bottle a little too roughly, and a crack spiders through the glass.
“No,” she huffs. The bottle’s neck splinters further. Thinking fast, she flits upward, scanning the trees for what she needs.
There. A line of amber sap glistens. She gathers enough to smear over the crack, and when it cools, it seals the glass.
That’s when she tosses it into the water.
When the message floats down to the male, he knows he can’t resist. No splash, no sound as he rises moments later against his own judgment—just a shape behind the surface.
He must see her; must feel her curiosity and joy.
Watercolor eyes meet hers, watchful and worn. She lowers again, heart thudding. “Can you tell me your name? Mine is Iridessia. You can call me Dessie.”
His lips move without sound and pain flickers through his features.
She exhales. “Can you show me somehow?”
One hand lifts. He circles his chest, presses a palm over where his heart would be.
Self?”
He shakes his head, hands arching into a heart, sadness softening those eyes.
“…Love?”
A nod and a smile. Then he signals his hand up and down—waves.
Her brow furrows. “Ocean? Lake? River?”
He shakes his head.
“Hmm,” she mutters. “Sea?”
His eyes brighten slightly with hope, and he grins.
Her voice is quiet as she thinks. “Love. Sea.” Looking over his hopeful face, her gaze goes to his pointed ear. Seelie Fae.
“Is your name in the Old Fae language?”
He nods furiously and presses his hands to the surface. “Yes.”
“Cae means love.” She could swear her own heart leaps with his excitement.
“And sea...” She was taught the language of the old fae years ago, but she’s rusty.
“Can you give me a hint?”
He holds up a hand, his fingers forming an ‘L’, eyes narrowing—leering.
“Look...oh! Lir! Lir means sea!”
He beams and nods. If he hadn’t been underwater, she’s sure he would be crying.
“Love. Sea. ‘Love of the Sea’. Cae-Lir.”
The name lingers in the air as light pulses in its depths. Cracks spread like ice on the surface, and the curse begins to fracture. Her palm presses to his through the thin separation.
“Caelir.”
The spring shivers and light ripples outward, soft and bright. The silence breaks, life bursting in with the sounds of nature. Their palms meet as he rises slowly from the spring, freed.
“You came back,” he says, voice rough and low from disuse.
Something deeper shifts between them.
“Yes. And I broke something worthwhile for once,” she breathes, fingers sliding between his.
Suddenly, there is a pull. A heat. A quiet, sacred knowing. The bond snaps into place, bridging their souls.
Mates.
“My Dessie.” Caelir’s voice breaks, and eyes line with silver as their hearts thud in unison.
His pale skin gleams as he towers over her, running his free hand through his silvery hair, those eyes still gloriously lavender.
Tenderly taking her face in his hands, he kisses her, igniting a passion that will fuel their future in Pixie Cove.
In the days that follow, she teaches him joy and quells his nightmares. He says her name like a vow and reaches for her at every chance.
They become something unbreakable.
Caelir and Iridessia. The cold sea and its sunlit sparkle.
A love that proves, with fate, nothing is as it seems. It is so much more.