dragonofdispair | Beltane at Tide's Reach

Tanya woke.

Both real and unreal, the library seemed like the landscape of a dream. The shelves loomed in the flickering light of the guttering candle, color washed away by the failing light.

Still feeing entrenched in the dream, she got up out of her chair and left the candle to die on its own as she left, locking the door with a click. With the logic of dreams, the iron key burned from its place hanging from her neck. Without a thought, she discarded the key on a table as she stepped out of Tide's Reach.

The scent of the salt water, the cold wind, the moon on the water -- they all were sharper, brighter and she stood for a moment, entranced. Then a sound, too faint to identify was carried to her by the wind, and gave direction to her enchanted mind. She turned from the sea and began walking.

From Tanya's first involvement with the re founding of Tide's Reach, she and the Magi had been plagued by the fae. They remained respectful and kept themselves in the good graces of the Little People, but she'd had ample time to learn to recognize when they were about and working their magic. All this occurred to her, bubbling up from the depths of her consciousness, as she stumbled through the brush, down a game trail. Blackberries and oak boughs snagged her clothing and tore her hair. The moonlight caressed her like a physical presence. There was fae magic as work this night, calling her deeper into the wood, toward some unknown fate. The thought almost broke her free from the spell.

The then wolf howled again, the clearest and most beautiful sound Tanya had ever heard and she pressed on. Even the thought that the Magi would worry for her was washed away by the magical sound.

The oaks and brambles reached out and grabbed her, grasping her clothes with thorns and wrapping around her. She struggled free and stumbled into a small glade. Moon and starlight turned the trees to dark shadow, green grass into the spun-silver dream of a mad jeweler, blue moon glory flowers into white fae-lights. The scent was heavy and as intoxicating as sweet mead. Shining hidden glade made magic only by the night, or small fae-court, she could not tell.

And there, in the center, a fragment of silver-white dream made real, was a wolf, nose still pointed to the stars as the last note of sound and magic trailed away.

The wolf locked eyes with Tanya. Its eyes were a color of blue and green, bright as the fae-lit flowers, that had never graced a mortal animal's eyes. No magic held her now, but nothing could have stopped Tanya from moving into the glade, closer to the dream made truth. Then the wolf shed its wolf skin, discarding the shining fur in a pile on the grass. In its place stood a tall creature. Bright wolf-eyes gazed intensely from near-human features, naked save for the fur of her hind legs, she stepped forward on graceful cloven hooves. Long hair and thick fur shone the same bright color of the discarded wolf skin.

Siofra.

Tanya had met the wolf-fae just before the summer solstice. They had tearfully parted over the winter one, as Tanya had returned to the realm of mortals and she'd stayed behind in Lady Bellantia's woodland Court. The wolf-fae had said she'd return to the small Covenant on the beach, but Tanya knew that time was a fickle thing in the fae-woods, and her own mortal life could slip away like water while the wolf remained immortal and unchanging. She hadn't dared hope that even a fae's given word could defeat Time.

She'd always been wild, a wolf-pup one always had to be cautious of, lest she nip off fingers as she played. But now, Tanya saw as the silver she-satyr stepped forward again, that wildness was tempered, mature. A prowling hunter had replaced the pup she had known. The first flicker of fear -- fear Tanya hadn't felt since the first time the white wolf had tamely taken the taste of her trail rations from her hand -- crawled up her spine.

But the she-satyr only held out an almost human hand to Tanya.

The magic that had lured her here had long since faded. No power sapped her of her will. There was only Tanya, Siofra, and the night.

"Tanya," the fae whispered in a voice like water, deep and sensual and completely unlike the sharp, barked words Siofra-the-pup had used, "Come dance with me."

Entranced by a force stronger than any magic, Tanya took the offered hand and felt the sharp claws gently close around her wrist. Crickets began their chorus, a night-bird sang, insects buzzed. The glade filled with the woods' music.

And under the Beltane stars, Tanya and Siofra danced.