Beware the Night

One fine day in the Shoal, the waiting space between worlds, the Maiden, the Mother, and the Crone were discussing the topic of love over wine. Once upon a journey on that very same day, a masked traveler met the Fates, the trinity of witches resting on the side of a dusty road, enjoying cups of wine, the kind of rare vintage that only time could make. Interested in their discussion, the traveler who was an Owl Mage asked the three what they thought love was, if it could be summed up in just one word.

“Hate.” The Crone spoke first for it was her right, though she was bitter and dried up as a husk. “Love is pure. Hate is vile, but pure as well. Love is hate.”

“Do tell.” The Owl Mage said, helping himself to some of their rare wine.

“Love is murder, plain and simple so keep that well in mind. Love is a trick blade that cuts to the wick of the heart. Love is pain...cunning pain, wrapped up into three neat little words. Those damnable words that can bind you so tightly to another, almost to the point of suffocation...those terrible words that render...that tortures…that can kill." The Crone expanded.

The Owl Mage nodded at her words, but kept in mind that her time was of endings. He turned to the Maiden who was lovely to behold.

Beautiful in her ripe youth and seemingly inexperience, the Maiden spoke next, her words like poisoned honey dripping off of full lips. “Sex. Love is sex."

"I am simply rigid with shock over your inevitable yet obvious response. Please, do go on." The Crone stated dryly, clearly not impressed.

"I listened to yours. Listen to mine." The Maiden said with a fair frown, pouting prettily as she resumed. "Now please understand, love and sex are not the same thing, but they certainly go hand in hand, so to speak."

The Mother smiled in encouragement while the Crone grunted a noncommittal answer, devoting more of her attention to her perpetually almost empty cup than her companion’s words.

"Love is a caress on sweat slick skin, the shiver of exposed flesh, and a silky wetness between the legs. It is the raw pounding rush of blood that swells in you. It makes your heart race, and your crotch throb. It is sweet anticipation, teasing foreplay, and a release of your most inner self. Repeat as often as possible." The Maiden purred in silken tones, gesturing dramatically. "Love is the salt taste of your lover's skin, the smell of their sweat. It is in their moans, their sighs, in their very breathing itself. It is when your neck is bit by sharp teeth, and your flesh is torn by desperate fingertips, when your lover is pushed to their peak. Love is when you hear nothing but the sound of their heartbeat, see nothing but the stars in their eyes, and feel everything move around you like you were one with the universe.”

“How trite,” The Crone complains. “Dull and entirely excepted from the young. What say you, Mother?”

“Hope." The Mother said softly in answer. “Love is hope.”

Both ladies and the Owl Mage blinked back in surprise, the short quiet statement cutting through any further argument. The Mother continued with a slight smile at their sudden silence. "They say time heals all wounds. They never mention the scars though, do they? Just because you have stop bleeding doesn't mean you are whole. Yes, time in its own way will heal anything, even if it does leave behind some reminders. Love though…love is what makes the scars worth it. Love heals. It is the balm that soothes, no matter how awful, how terrible it is. If there is love, there is hope, so love is hope."

"Hope?" the Crone said slowly, tasting the word.

“Hope?” the traveler echoed it.

A sad smile graced the Mother’s lips. "Yes, hope. People take the word and meaning of hope too lightly. To value hope, to truly know what it is…you literally have to lose all else...everything. You have to because hope is small yet perfect, like a star at the bottom of the ocean.”

“Once everything has been removed, and the waters parted, it shines. It has to shine too, because when all you have left is hope, everything else can appear to be dark, deep, and fathomless.” The Crone added in.

“Hope becomes the seed of the soul then, and love is the water and the sunshine. It is a kind word, a smile, a hand to hold. It is tears, a shoulder to cry on, a hug…..a moment. Sometimes a moment of love is all you need. Remember that if you can nothing else.” The Maiden finished for them.

To the Crone, the Owl Mage gave a coin. He gave a kiss to the Maiden, and to the Mother, the traveler gave her the last of his bread and cheese, because all answers come at a cost.

"If you tell us a story about love before you take your leave of us, you could find out that you have some unexpected luck when you need it most later on down the road." The Maiden said as the Owl mage rose.

"If you tell us a story that is true, you could find out that you have an unexpected blessing in thin times later on down the Road." The Crone said, giving the Owl Mage more reason to sit back down again.

"If you tell us a story about loss, you could find out that you have some unexpected hope for when things seem at their bleakest later on down the road." The Mother said as she passed the Owl Mage more wine.

Once upon the full moon, one much like any other, a little Death fell in love with a girl. The girl was in love though with a wise man of the wild wood, a Magi who was gifted with the flight, vision, and visage of owls. The winged night’s messengers were his brethren, and he kept close parliament with them.

From their secrets, the Owl Mage knew that Death loved the girl, but he also knew such things never turned out well for anyone involved in the end. Though she was his beloved, and it pained him to do so, the Owl Mage sent the girl away. Before they parted company, he gave her his heart to keep with her always. It hid her from Death.

The girl journeyed far and wide, over hill, over dale, through seasons of mist and soft rain, through mazes of shadows until she become good and truly lost in the deep woods of the in-between. Having nowhere else to go and every direction to go in, the girl let sleep take her to other destinations.

Protected from Death in waking by the Owl Mage’s gift, the reaper discovered that the girl was hidden in slumber as well by the Magi’s heart. Not so easily thwarted though, Death made up a song, one that the girl could not ignore, its notes made for the alone and lonely alike. She heard it, even in her dreaming, lingering along the edges of her consciousness like a film of dew on spider‘s silk. Shattering her dreams into waking, the notes drew her to Death, the girl sharing the same fate as moths drawn to flame.

The closer and closer she got to the music’s source, the heavier the gift of heart became until it slipped through her fingers, the protection it offered right along with it. So lost in the song of Death, the girl failed to notice that the heart was gone, shattering wet and red on the rocks at her feet. All she knew and saw was the dance of pale bones and the endless grin of a skull.

The girl sleeps forever now as Death’s beloved, beautiful in her ever-still repose.

"And this is why owls always ask questions that have no answers to them." The Owl Mage finished.

"What you are planning on doing will cost you dearly." The Maiden told him sadly for he had told her a story that was about love. She gave the Owl Mage a silver ring with the symbol of the Triquetra carved into the metal right off her own beautiful finger, slipping it on to one of his own."For luck."

"If you falter, you will fail. The only way is through for you." The Crone told him for he had told her a story that was true. She gave him the ragged cloak right off her own back, placing it over his shoulders. "The blessing."

"You cannot change your fate, but this will help change your destiny." The Mother told him for he had told her a story of loss. She gave him a long length of thread, the kind of which that not even angels could snap apart. "Your hope."

"I thank you." The Owl Mage bowed.

"Don't. Thank us if you survive. You'll owe us another story by then." The Fates promised, threatened, and warned all in the same breath.

"Of that, I have no doubt."