Rayan Purewell - fey form, in his prime...



'Every Royal fey is gifted a child.  Just one mind.  One's enough.  Two is two many for to look after two is to split one's heart in two.

Your child is yours to look after, keep her safe and see that she grows into a fine adult.  When he is a grown man you watch him give life of his own and yet you are always the guardian as their life grows and eventually slips away.

Once your child is grown, and dies you understand life and death and then can be considered an adult fey and worthy of ascending the throne one day, for they will truly understand love and loss...'

...from the 'Tome of Ascension', a guide to adolescent fey by Salane Breeze, Seelie Court scribe in the 24th circle of the Green Moon.

Prince Rayan Noble House Purewell was the middle son of Lord and Lady Purewell, custodians of the Seelie Court ensconced in The Great Tree of the Land of Dreams.

His childhood and adolescence was filled with luxury, loved by his family, but also his peers and elders.  He was rich in the accoutrements of court life, sipping rose nectar and dancing under the friendly gaze of the Little Moon.  His wings grew early and he displayed an almost impish passion for japes and mischief, a recklessness and a sense of adventure that could only be acted upon by one of Royal blood, but nevertheless ensured he was the worst person to act on his impulses.

In the life of all fey though, eventually they must grow and for Rayan this presented an additional complication.  Rayan would never be regent of the court, that would fall to his sister, Feila and not for a five or six hundred human years at least.

However once there has been fifteen or sixteen circles of the Little Moon around the Land of Dreams a fey comes of age.  Whilst fifty years in the land of humans is a long time in one's life it is just the years of a child in the perspective of a fey.

And so it is a fey of Royal birth is given a child at adolescence to look after and raise.  Her fate and his fate are entwined and the health of one leads to the health of another.  A dangerous, reckless existence of one, leads to the death of the other.  And so, most fey who are blessed to be given a child see that babe grow and thrive into a man of distinction, of pure heart and good deeds.  That child grows, lives and dies and it is then that a young fey truly understands love and loss and can be considered mature and fit to attend court as an adult in their own right.

Rayan loved her, he truly did.  From the moment he set eyes on her.  The hungry scream, gasping for air he loved her.  His child to love and protect for as long as she lived....

He watched her grow as a child, into a beautiful woman.  A woman he adored with all his soul, he shared her laughter, shared her pain and gave more and more of himself to her.  Always close, but never seen.  Always on her shoulder, keeping her safe.

She met a man.  Rayan felt a tinge of jealousy for he wanted her for himself, and yet he knew he could not.  They fell in love and Rayan felt her pleasure and her elation for love is the most life affirming feeling there is.  As her years passed there was a sadness in her, a sadness that amplified in Rayan.  Her heart yearned for a child of her own, and try as they might they could not conceive.  He watched them both, making love and willing the creation of their child.  He watched them hold each other, love and support them, even though they both cried silent tears when they thought the other was not looking.

Understanding loss and suffering was fundamental to the life of an adult fey but Rayan would not concede this.  Her sadness at her empty womb gnawed away at him like the deepest hunger.  She was his child and yet he wanted another.  He wanted her to have a child.  His child, her child, their child, not my child.  It didn't matter.

The sage Salane Breeze, mentor to the young Royals advised him against this,  "You have but one...." but Rayan would not, and could not listen. He was warned.  To give of his own power would be to limit his life.  He would age and wither in the blink of an eye and be cast out as one who turned his back on his own kind.  Unfit for court, unfit to rule.  The Breath of Life kept them young, near immortal but it wasn't a gift to be wielded freely.  It was the very giving of oneself, the human equivalent of selling one's soul.  Rayan was impetuous, thought he could defeat the very biology that created the fey.

The night was still.  It was a early Summer, that time of promise when the weather is nice and people seemed that much more hopeful.  He passed through the Pool of Shimmer to the clear night.  They were asleep on their bed, rather than under the covers due to the heat as he slipped inside their window.  Rayan hovered over her face, her breath slow as she slept, he in turn whispered into her mouth, "I love you," as a pearl of iridescent light grew in his core, passed through his mouth and into her.

Nine months later Rissa was born...

Upon arrival...