Sleeping Beauty

Huisha

Something felt strange here.

Huisha and Lady Mór had been out for a leisurely stroll around the forest, enjoying each other’s company as they crunched through a fragile layer of ice coating a light bank of snow. As they made their way deeper into the woods the snow gradually receded, until only a light dusting of crystals was left to sparkle from the leaves where the snowflakes were caught.

Something about this place… it almost seemed to hum, magically speaking. The fawnlings’ conversation quieted and eventually drifted to a stop as they looked around them.

What was this place? The magical energy here was strong, waves upon waves of it. Where was it coming from?

Huisha almost turned to ask Lady Mor if she could feel the source of it, but was distracted by the foliage. What was that? A field of lilies? Not ordinary lilies, these. He’d never seen anything like it, not that vibrant and lush and impossibly delicate. If you’d asked him earlier he would have sworn this was just a grassy hillside, same as any other in these woods. But now it was a riot of color and smells, plants he’d never seen in his live much less in the heart of Glenmore.

Lady Mór

Mór and Huisha had actually been on one of their usual strolls through the Glenwood, enjoying the peacefully sleeping plantlife and discussing all kinds of theoretical and practical matters that came to their mind, as well as sharing a good laugh or two. It all had started as nothing special, that still was the most special to Mór, ever since she had met the dark stag, who had managed to wrap himself around her heart, like a vine around a tree, Mór often thinking that, like the tree, she wouldn’t be able to stay up right anymore without him, by now.

The snow crunched under their hooves and it all was humble and as it should be, until it suddenly became odd.

Mór first began feeling a strange, well, radiation of magic in the air, a kind of magic she never had felt before. It made goosebumps rise underneath her fur, making her coat puff up, while she turned to look at Huisha, knowing he definitely felt it, too.

About the same time their surroundings suddenly changed and instead of the forest sleeping in mid-winter, they were standing in a lush glade, covered in the most beautiful, delicate and exotic flowers Mór had ever seen. It was so unreal, for a moment she wasn’t sure if this could even be reality. Was she having some sort of vision? But Huisha was with her, so it had to be real or were they sharing a vision, like the many other things they shared? The chestnut doe was excited and confused the very same time.

“What is this place?” she finally managed to breath, staring through big eyes.

Huisha

“I don’t know”, Huisha murmured under his breath. “I don’t know…”

He wandered slowly towards a dangling honeysuckle vine, full with nectar and green as a summer’s day. Slowly, slowly he reached out his neck to brush a low hanging flower ever so gently with his nose.

His nose tingled as the flower fell, drifting towards the ground and he immediately regretted disturbing it. This place was made of magic. There was no other possibility.

Returning to Lady Mór’s side he leaned into her shoulder with his own. “Is this even possible?” he asked in a voice both hushed and reverent.  Before she could answer he caught sight of a patch of starflowers twinkling amongst the lilies and was drawn to it. Huisha had never seen so many in his life, let alone in one place. And how they glowed, as if reflecting the magic buzzing around them.

“Can you feel where the magic is coming from?” he asked Lady Mór absently as he tried to get a closer look at the starflowers without harming them. Her magical senses were nearly as sensitive as his these days, and he was a bit distracted.

Lady Mór

Mór could only agree to Huisha’s words, she also had no idea was this place was, well, she knew what it was, but how it had gotten like this, in the middle of the winter, buzzing with magic, was an utter mystery to her.

While Huisha wandered to take a closer look at the many, lush, exotic plants that filled the place, Mór let her gaze wander, too. She did not dare to move a hoof just yet, to mesmerized by the beauty and magic of this place, never before she had felt anything like this.

“Obviously it is, otherwise we wouldn’t be here, would we?” she answered Huisha’s question, when his shoulder gently touched her’s. It was confusing and exciting the same time, would somebody have told her about Huisha and her making this discovery a day or even only an hour ago, she probably would’ve smiled at the imaginative dream, but never thought things like this could become real. Obviously, she would have been very wrong, for the all of the sudden stood in the midst of a dream.

Huisha’s attention had already trailed off again, the stag marveling at a patch of most unreal starflowers. Mór couldn’t blame him, the amount of magic around them made all her senses tingle with delight.

At his next question, she looked around again, before very carefully letting her magic touch the place, it made her give a little gasp of surprise, for this little touch of magic already made her fur stand on end with all the wonderful power this place was filled with.

“I think it might come from . . . there . . .” Mór turned towards where her magic had pointed her, but what she saw made her eyes grew wide, her ears falling back, her words getting lost, while she could only stare for a moment. There she lay, pure  as the morning and glowing with magic - a doe, but her hide adorned with soft, white feathers, her features peaceful as she lay and slept, apparently oblivious to the two intruders to her precious den. Could it be? Could it really be?

“ . . . Huisha, dearest . . . do you . . . do you see her?” Mór eventually managed to say, her voice a whisper of awe.

Huisha

Lady Mór’s words confused him and brought his attention back to the present. Her? Why would there be a ‘her’ here, in this place?

Huisha looked up from the starflowers and caught a glimpse of what she was seeing- a soft glowing light radiating from a sleeping fawnling. A doe?

He stepped gingerly- so careful not to disturb the scene around him that he nearly held his breath- and joined Mor’s side once again to contemplate the sleeping doe.

She was curled up tight, like a fawn, adorned with light and magic and impossible downy feathers. This doe made no more sense than the thrumming magic in the glade around her.

Huisha leaned forward to inspect her as he’d inspected the starflowers. She gave off the same glow, the same hum of power. Was she creating this place? Who would have the power to do that?

As he craned his neck to look at her, a careless exhalation ruffled the feathers on her shoulder and he jerked backwards, terrified of waking her.

The feathers, the power… could this be…?

“Áillte?” he whispered, and turned to Mór in case she had any more idea than he what was happening here.

Lady Mór

Mór stood frozen with awe, while she stared at the peacefully sleeping doe in front of them. Just when Huisha came to stand at her side, she was able to briefly force her gaze away from her, to look at the stag beside her, the doe’s head shaking ever so lightly at his question.

She had no idea. Could it be? Could they really stand here, in this wonderful paradise of magic and love and find themselves in the presents of Òganach’s sacred daughter?

Even if the did, what could it mean? Did it mean Òganach had forgiven them for their laxness? Was he sending Áillte to show them he felt they had learned their lesson?

Or had he just sent her to praise Huisha and Mór for their tries to bring magic back to the herd, who had begun to forget the gift they were meant to appreciate?

But why should their god bless them? A humble doe and her stag with such a gift? They had just done, what every fawnling of Glenmore would do, had they also realized the danger they had been in. No, this definitely was not just meant for them, Mór suddenly felt ashamed of having even thought this thought in her ever on-going search for praise she really was being foolish sometime. No, this was meant for the herd! It was a sign that change had come! It had come in the shape of a shining swan.

“It must be . . . but how?” Mór eventually breathed, carefully taking a few delicate steps towards the doe, lowering her head to sniff at her gently, when suddenly the smell seemed strangely familiar to her, like she already had smelled it long ago and these spots, the way she lay there, innocent and beautiful, a pure beauty. She had seen that unspoiled perfection before.

“Princess Nuala.” she suddenly gasped, her eyes wide. She never had been all too close with her, but they had occasionally met and Mór had always liked the Princess’ unspoiled, maybe sometimes a little naive nature.

She turned to look at Huisha, apparently not realizing that ‘Princess Nuala’ might not be a full explanation for him as to why she was so surprised to not only see her like this, but here. Alive.

“But how?” was all she was able to mumble.

Huisha

Huisha wondered idly if the magical glowing wisteria was dropping magical glowing pollen into the air that was making his head spin. He was certainly having trouble thinking about anything past what was immediately in front of his eyes.

How could this be Princess Nuala? He’d never met her, not close enough to recognize her face, but he trusted Lady Mór’s word. No one knew royal society better than his lady, and he’d never known her to forget a face.

Princess Nuala was dead, or at least that’s what he’d been led to believe. She’d run unprotected and unprepared into Blackwood and hadn’t been seen in over a year.

But to be here, covered in light and feathers and humming with power? He shook his head, no closer to understanding.

“Perhaps we should wake her?” he asked Lady Mór. “See if she’s alright? I hate to disturb her but…,” he cast a nervous glance back at the perfect sleeping form, “I can’t tell if she’s breathing. Does she look asleep to you?”

Lady Mór

Mór just stood, still hardly able to grasp the situation they found themselves in. First this divine garden and now the sight of not just their beloved goddess sleeping in it, but Àillte in the shape of Princess Nuala, who had been gone for so long and whom everybody already had proclaimed dead.

Sure, there had been many wild rumour about her disappearance, but would somebody have told Mór about this she probably would have laughed at the craziness and marked it as the least possible of the many rumours going around. Sure, she had hoped Nuala was still alive, she had always liked her. Maybe happy with a stag she loved in a far away kingdom, like some rumors told. Maybe even starting a new kingdom in secret with the banished sons and daughters of their former king. But this. No, this was something way beyond her imagination.

At Huisha’s question, Mór snapped back to reality, her ears twitching uncertainly, her head shaking slightly.

“I don’t know.” she whispered, “What if her sleep is sacred and harm will come to her, if we wake her?” she suggested, not at all sure what would be the best way to act. She didn’t want harm to come to Nuala, whatever divine being she might have turned into.

“I don’t know, if we should go tell the King? The Guards? Oh, Huisha, look how peaceful she is, I don’t want them to harm her.” Mór sighed, followed by stretching her neck slightly, “I think she is . . .” she mumbled, turning to look back at Huisha, “But I’m not sure if I dare touching her.”

Huisha

He leaned in towards the princess again, nearly hypnotized.

“I don’t know,” he murmured. “Do you think she’ll get in trouble with the Guard for running away? I couldn’t bring myself to turn her in if she might be punished…”

That tiny face, framed under oversized ears, looked so delicate and innocent. Like a newborn fawn or a gangly cygnet. But she was so still…

Huisha dipped his nose towards her pink nose. It was moving, ever so slightly, as she drew in breath, in and out. He nudged his nose against her neck, checking for a pulse. It was there, slow but steady and strong. She didn’t seem ill, and she didn’t react to his prodding.

Again he turned to look questioningly at Mór. “Should we go find her sister, or perhaps a healer? I don’t know what would make her sleep so deeply. Poison, maybe, but if she was poisoned I imagine she would be weaker. And I don’t know why that would cause all this magic…”

Lady Mór

Mór slightly shook her head again, unsure of what their next actions best should be. She didn’t want anybody to hurt Nuala or whoever divine being she had turned into on her mysterious journey. She however also wasn’t sure if they should wake her, she never had been faced with such a truly mesmerizing event before and was just little knowledgeable with mysterious happenings, aside those, that she knew from the stories old Princess Olenna had used to tell her and her friends, when they had been fawns.

“In the tales there is always a handsome, dark knight, who comes to wake the sleeping Princess.” Mór eventually said, not able to hold back a little smile, when she turned to look at Huisha,

“Sadly neither of us qualifies for that.” she added, with a humorous little chuckle.

Watching Huisha carefully taking a closer look at the sleeping beauty in front of them, Mór’s ears perked and her neck became even longer, when Huisha checked her breath and pulse, the glowing doe not even seeming to stir at her touch, but at least he could assure Mór, that she was indeed still breathing and alive. So Nuala at least had not died and only her spirit had returned to them in this wondrous ways.

“Oh, I don’t believe any poison could harm her any longer.” Mór spoke softly, while her gaze once more rested on the sleeping Princess, “Maybe she really is just waiting for her knight to come along, so she can wake up? I also needed to wait many years, before I found mine and finally could wake up to a world far better than any I had ever known.”, she smiled at Huisha for a moment, before heaving a sigh. All this magic and light and love in the air made her a bit tipsy, she was afraid.

“We also could just leave her here, she looks so peaceful.”

Huisha

Huisha bumped his head against Lady Mor’s shoulder at that, enjoying the compliment. It wasn’t everyday that he was compared to a handsome dark knight from legends and fairy tales!

“I think she’ll be safe here,” he conceded. “Sure this much light magic will protect her from harm, if nothing else.”

He began to move away, but stopped and looked back at the princess. She just looked so tiny and vulnerable.

He glanced at the glowing thicket around him, then back to Mór. “What do you think? Should we keep watch over her for a while, just in case? I hate to leave her without knowing what is going on and what happened to her.”

Lady Mor

Mór smiled, when Huisha lovingly bumped his head against her shoulder, moving down her head and placing a little nose kiss on his forehead. No matter what the others would say, he would always be her dark knight.

She then nodded in agreement, “I think so, too.” she looked around some, the beauty of the glen was really beyond anything she had ever seen before.

“Yes. Yes, let’s do that.” she eventually said, looking over her shoulder at Huisha, who had moved a bit, but stopped and turned again. Maybe she was safe here, but also Mór felt it might be best for them to stay a while and if only to make sure nobody else would find her with ill intentions.