All The Little Children... [Cessa's Stories]

All love stories are as old as time itself. This one is no exception.

The Leanan Sidhe has a curse of misfortune upon any she takes as her lover and consummates the relationship. For five long years the lover who has been touched by the Sidhe, will have great fortunes of money, power, luck, et. But at the end of those five years, comes despair in the form of death, loss of fortune, loss of luck, et. And that, is the curse laid upon this race of all-female Sidhe.

In a village on the outskirts of the forest a young mage was practicing his magic. He was practicing defensive magic, to be more specific. He was to be us family's fighter, as he was the only son in his branch of the family. His name was Maxius.

Maxius' family often scolded him for believing in myths and fairy tales, often calling him names for such belief. His father was a blacksmith and his mother was not loyal, and nobody expected her to be.

He was in his fifteenth year when he saw the Lady of the Black Cloak. It was the title given to a beautiful, dark haired woman, who in their legends would steal the hearts of young men. It was said that her voice was a whisper upon the wings of the winds, and her eyes as deep as the sky above. And Maxius would agree. This woman was beautiful.

But she was gone as soon as she had come. The trees whispered of her absence, if one could listen to the murmurs of the leaves they would have been able to find her. To follow her. But that was not this young mages skill.

With the image of the Lady of the Black Cloak in his mind, the young mage returned home. And he slowly tried to forget her. She came to him in dreams, in whispers, she was everywhere and forgetting her was futile.

When Maxius was nineteen, once again practicing in the same spot he had for the past four years, in hopes of seeing her again, she came. He happened to glance across the forests face, and there stood the woman from so long ago.

And she had not changed. She had not but he had. He was taller, stronger, he was no longer a boy -- but he was a man. And this man, Maxius, was taken into the Forest of the Fae...

He left his small village for the Lady of the Black Cloak; the Lady in Black...

Five, five long years. Five years long.

Those five years, how bright the woman glowed. She was so alive while Maxius was with her; and the curse that was promised by her own mother and father before her, never came to mind...

A year into the relationship, the fae-lady, Deleariah, began to swell. She was with child -- oh, the gift of life, the gift of birth. Creation was lovely. Deleariah, that mysterious young fae who had entrapped the boy from his village, was pregnant. 

And when the due-date came, the midwife cried. For one child, a young little girl, was born. Healthy as could be. It was said that Deleariah's blood-line could never produce healthy children... because of the curse. And if it was not the child the curse was taking away, it was going to be the father of the child.

And, four years passed. The clock chimed midnight, the night the relationship began, and Deleariah held tight to their young child; who was named Anasie. The breathe left Deleariah's husband, and the child's wail entered the air.

He was gone. 

The woman attempted to find an alchemist to bring her husband back -- how dear he was to her... and the transmutation ended very badly; something inhumane in the place where she had hoped to find her husband.

She was the one to end the creature's life; her daughter's eyes covered, and the alchemist she had enlisted lay in pieces at her feet -- the price had been too great, much too great. She feared she would be next -- and with her daughter in tow, she fled the Forest.

Years passed, Anasie was sent off to schooling in another of the Kingdoms -- somewhere her mother would never go to see her. Deleariah never thought to check that her daughter was truly safe -- no, the girl looked too much like Maxius for the woman to deal with her.

As a decade passed...

The decade passed slowly. The woman sat in the darkness of a village deep within the Forest of the Fae. She was a long ways away from Maxius' village, her first and only love -- oh, oh yes. She was not going to allow herself to love again.

Her daughter, being the child of both mage and fae, aged slowly. The decade that passed only caused the Bonnaire child to age to the gentle age of sixteen. By the time Anasie decided to seek her mother out, the woman was long gone from the known regions of the realm.