Tag Archives: fey

In The Fairy Forest

Care of a Fey-Folk Fairy (Part 2)

Here is more about Tinker Bell’s naughtier cousins—the fairies flitting about in the woodlands near Lita’s castle.

A Water Fairy Helps a Friend

A Water Fairy Helps a Friend

This post is the second of two (go here to see the previous one) with tips on how to care for fey-folk. Last time, Gentle Reader learned the practical aspects of fairy care. Today’s topics focus on their magical matters.

Pixie Dust

Because they are so small, fey-folk cannot sing word spells like wizards, nor can fairies whistle magic like elf mages. A fairy instead sheds its magic when it flies and leaves a glittering trail. This fairy magic (also called pixie dust) settles, sparkles for a while, then fades. If pixie dust is kept in a corked bottle, the fey magic lingers indefinitely.

In the Clockpunk Wizard world, fairies are wee fluffs of trivial magic and disregarded by all serious magicians. Only elf mages, and a certain unconventional human wizard, find the fey-folk’s enchantments useful. Some humans are allergic to pixie dust–it makes them sneeze rainbows.

A House Cat Who Ate Too Many Enchanted Mice

A House Cat Who Ate Too Many Enchanted Mice

When they can find it, unicorns, boggarts, and dragons inhale pixie dust for its intoxicating effects. You could say that for a while they become fey.

Mice that chew shed alicorn (unicorn’s horn) also become a bit mad. They go about collecting pixie dust and create jewelry from it, namely sparkly tiaras. The bling, unfortunately, makes it easier for predators to spot them. House cats who eat these enchanted rodents develop a predilection for pearls. They caterwauler spells to transform their bell collars into luscious pearl necklaces.

A Woodland Fairy Hurt Her Foot

A Woodland Fairy Hurt Her Foot

Deepest Magical Sorrow

Fey-folk are carefree creatures. Their pixie dust brings happy thoughts and temporary silliness to the partakers.

But the fairies have a deepest sorrow. These tiny magicians are so closely tied to their habitat, they cannot survive without it.

In the plate-shaped ocean world of Clockpunk Wizard, its floating islands drift outward from the hub to the rim. The ferocious Rim Storms tear apart these spent lands, obliterating everything on them that cannot flee. The resident fairies sense their floating island’s pending destruction. They lie down, close their eyes, and will themselves not to awaken.

Sometimes a kindhearted mage will coax dying fairies to accept a binding enchantment to replace their habitat magic instead of taking the longest sleep. Here begins the tale of a young wizard who tried that very thing to save the fey-folk of doomed Hurt Island.

Forest Fairies

Care of a Fey-Folk Fairy (Part 1)

See the Strands of Pixie Dust ?

See the Strands of Pixie Dust ?

Meet Tinker Bell’s naughtier cousins—the fairies flitting about in the woodlands near Lita’s castle.

Today, Lita talks about the worldly fairies that go with Kadmeion on his wizard-for-hire adventures. These wee magicians fly in, lavish their wizard with effervescent pixie dust, and give him spicy relationship advice. Despite the frivolity, these pretty spell casters harbor a deep magical sorrow.

This post is the first of two with tips for Gentle Reader on how to care for a fey-folk fairy. Today we focus on practical matters. Next time, we will talk about a fairy’s magical concerns.

Let’s Straighten This Out

First of all, why are they called fey-folk, instead of fay, faie, fee, or fae? The wizard’s Bestiarum Vocabulum describes fairy magic as flighty, fanciful, fragile, fantastical, fickle, and foolish. To reduce the tongue twisting, Lita calls them fey.

A Highland Fairy

A Highland Fairy

Beautiful Ones

Fey-folk fairies are classic lovelies. They stand no taller than a hand length when measured from wrist to the longest fingertip. They weigh little more than a happy thought.

Fairies have elongated pointed ears similar to elf-kind, curvy attractive bodies, and beautiful faces. The boy-fey are just as comely as the girl-fey.

They use their multi-lobed gorgeous wings to soar like hawks on updrafts or hover like hummingbirds kissing flowers for nectar. Wizards, elf mages, and certain sorceresses hear the tinkling of tiny bells in a fairy’s thrumming flight. The jingling is a sure sign that all is well with the fairy’s magic.

Home of a Woodland Fairy

Home of a Woodland Fairy

Habitat

Fairies take their coloring from where they live. There are four types of fey-folk:

  • Highland fairies have wings the color of sunshine, and sound like the whisper of shushing snow during flight.
  • When water fey-folk flutter their turquoise wings, they sound like murmuring rills.
  • Woodland fairies gather in emerald or jade fairy clans, and their nighttime play is often mistaken for fireflies.
  • Fire fairies love volcanos, have flame-colored wings, and leap about as if they were sizzling lava sparks.

The tiny fairy magicians build their communal homes from materials rich in latent magic. Predators that hunger for an easy magical snack are a constant danger to fairies. To protect themselves, fey-folk often befriend elf mages and live in their sheltered gardens.

Next time, Lita covers the peculiarities of fairy enchantments.

For Furgo, time does fly

Treasure Under Furgo-Boy’s Bed

For Furgo, time does fly

For Furgo, time does fly

What a sweaty ride we had through Veldt Island’s hot savanna. Go ahead to your staterooms and freshen up–I’ll be along after a while. It looks like Furgo has a new treasure he wants to show me. Curious? Come along, then. We’ll follow the cyanthrope to his room.

Lita: You keep your room so tidy, Furgo. I thought lads and dogs were messy.

Furgo: Madam Lita, this is the first time I had a place of my very own. I love everything about my room. I can arrange it however I please, put my treasures in here, and no one will touch them.

Lita: You deserve the very best after your terrible adventures in Ephraim’s Curious Device. Your new treasure is a clock that flies. Did your friend Bright make the clockworks?

Furgo: He did, and Kadmeion gave it wings like a butterfly. It purrs when it flies, just like our fey-folk. Fairy Izlyesende wants to tell you something when we’re settled for treats in the dining room.

Lita: I’d better hurry and wash off Veldt’s dust, then get along to the galley. Izlyesende usually tells us silly or naughty things.

Malfunctioning Rig Monkey

Twice-Seventh Son Elf Magic

Malfunctioning Rig Monkey

Malfunctioning Rig Monkey

What a clear, fine day here on deck. Those brass monkey contraptions are the clockwork automata that Bright created to tend the airship sails. Quite nimble, aren’t they? Looks like Bright is coming down now.

Lita: Greetings, Sir Bright. Do you have time to talk with us?

Bright: I always have time to talk with you, Lita. I would have met all of you earlier when you came on board, but I had to retire a malfunctioning rig monkey. Wizard Nob on Mevil Isle insisted we take the Meat-Man’s automata as a gift. Its inferior minor demon went a bit mad. It damaged some of the pulley mechanisms before our clockwork homunculi captured it.

Lita: Considering Wizard Nob conjured the demon, I’m not surprised it was inferior. I hope you can repair the damage to the airship.

Bright: I fixed the pulleys and adjusted the rope tension just before you came up on deck. Don’t worry about the defective rig monkey bothering us. I used a standard spell to release the minor demon back to the Nether Plains. Because it was a dead body, I tossed the remains overboard. There was nothing I wanted to salvage from the ill-made thing.

Seven Sons

Seven Sons

Lita: Thank you for throwing out the trash. We wanted to ask you about your elf magic, especially being the seventh son of a seventh son.

Bright: Seven children is a big family. In contrast, Kadmeion was an only child, which is a typical situation for a human wizard or sorceress. Not so for elf-born children. Since my father is also a seventh son plus a talented magician, everyone had high expectations that I would be a rare elf wizard. Because my magical talent didn’t develop as expected, my older brothers picked on me. I guess they blamed me for being inferior.

Lita: Well, we all found out what happened to your magical talent in the Forever Boy story. Your father is full-blood elf, and your mother is human?

Fey Izlyesende's home

Fey Izlyesende’s home on the airship

Bright: Correct. It makes me and my brothers hybrid magicians called narfleets. We have a blend of human and elf magical abilities, but those talents are weaker than if we were full bloods. My mother’s heritage allows me to cast spells using sung words and magical props. Elves have glamour magic and talent with plants. My glamour is quite strong, but I have less talent with herbology. I enjoy puttering with my collection of miniature oak trees in the airship’s quercetum.

Lita: I understand you picked up some new shipmates who live in your onboard oak forest.

Bright: It was a near thing losing the fey-folk in the circumstances with Ephraim’s Curious Device. You might not see Izlyesende and the others today, since there’s a crowd of people with you. Fairies are shy and need quiet circumstances. Kadmeion and I are fortunate that the quercetum, and our magic, nurture them.

Lita: We might not have time to visit the fairies. Looks like we’re approaching Veldt Island. We must go below now and get ready for our onshore excursion.

Sneak Peek: Ephraim’s Curious Device Cover

Sure, call me impatient. Raring to go. Even label me hasty, when I am properly motivated like now. But you benefit, Gentle Reader.  Look here. I must show you my pretty.

I couldn’t wait to share the eBook cover for my next Clockpunk Wizard story.  Here is the just-completed face for Ephraim’s Curious Device.

Why a Forest?

Please don’t worry, the story has plenty of scenes aboard Kadmeion’s wonderful airship. This forest is on one of the floating islands, called Hurt Isle. Kadmeion and Bright visit because a minor demon oracle lives there, and she has information about Ephraim’s trinket. Hurt Isle is a very old island that has drifted far Rim-ward and will soon be torn apart in the Rim storms. Its ambient magic senses this oblivion and has soured, turning most of its native magical creatures, well, unpleasant. Kadmeion and Bright stumble upon a few who are deadly, and they must use their cleverness to come out alive.

Meet Izlyesende

Izlyesende is a male fey who lives at the edge of the oracle’s valley. As one of the few remaining fairies on Hurt Isle, he and his dwindling clan are under attack by the oracle and other malevolent creatures. In exchange for information on how to solve the oracle’s riddle, Kadmeion allows Izlyesende and his female fey-folk to hitch a ride on the airship.

Before you say Lita has gotten sentimental with her storytelling, I must admit something. Kadmeion’s kindness aside, we’re talking about mixing fey magic and wizardry. Once onboard, the female fairies discover Bright’s half-elf magic. That’s when the trouble really begins.

The back cover blurb for Ephraim’s Curious Device tells more.