A Fairy Tale

Once upon a time:
the fairy queen sat,
upon her mushroom throne,
that grew out of the naked stone.
While she sat, eating flowers,
out of the skull of an oathbreaker.
Around her neck.
three stars were strung,
humming their radiant tune,
and shimmering as they hung.
They were named:
Alde
Misna
Ophel
And the day of the festival came,
at the doors of her kingdom,
where the humans gather,
giving their firstborn to the gods.
so their second born would be strong,
so they sang in their song.
They circled a rock,
upon which the tiny fruit would be crushed,
like grapes for the gods,
and the ghastly wine,
that stained both hands and the ground,
and made the Earth shiver at the sound.
So appalled by their cruelty,
the fairy queen,
unseelied herself,
snuffed her three suns,
snuck into the crushing stone,
and ate the little unfortunate ones,
as soon as they were thrown.
And the people panicked.
“Our children!” they cried.
“They have been stolen!”
And the people ran to their gods,
wailing,
screaming,
slashing at their skin;
praying to be avenged.
But the gods were long since dead.
And so in the years to come,
strange new folk would come out at night,
Alde from the ground,
making a mournful sound -
singing a song like moan,
that rotted flesh and snapped bone.
Misna from the very stone,
crawling on their bellies, prone,
with hands that catch,
and teeth that snatch.
Ophel from the air,
wisp-like, neither here nor there,
silent as the night,
and deadlier by far.
These children spirits came like armies,
by their hundreds,
night after night,
to steal the firstborn of the humans,
as soon as they were born,
to be raised as fae,
by elf they were amended,
by sprite they were bended,
by queen queered and splendid,
So the race of humans was ended,
and not a single tear was shed.

-o0o-