Visions of Fae Tide
Afternoon
On the last Friday of June, in the warmth of the waning sun they arrived at the park. It was late afternoon still hours before sundown. In the waning light of day they looked more like a catering crew for a company picnic than those touched by the Fae. Tables, awnings, chairs, and coolers, all so ordinary and mundane. That would soon change with the dark.
The clans eyed each other suspiciously. Some had been boasting for months the marvelous light creations they would unveil. Others had been working in secret on chemical luminescence, LEDs, lasers, fibre optics, smoke, fog, bubbles and other even more eclectic and arcane things. There were even rumors (there are always rumors) that a trade group would be showing a new type of phosphor-luminescence. Like so much in Fae Tide made of mirrors and illusions, no one really knew what was real.
Sunset
By sunset everything was out to be seen (if not fully understood). Some clans, surreptitiously, used the last minutes of full sunlight to get their one clear glimpse of the mechanisms of magic. One clan had the ubiquitous maypole, decked with glow paint and glow bracelets, but in the light it looked like nothing more than a 12 foot pvc pipe sticking in the air. Nearby was an awning bespangled with fluorescent paint, ribbons, and banners, looking almost ridiculous in the light.
Another clan seemed to be displaced from time and space. Medieval princesses, knights, 'elves' and one lost guy in a Star Trek uniform. They all sat in lawn chairs eating hot dogs and laughing. They were here to see, not be seen, but they did have a bucket of candy, and two cases of cold fruit soda to be shared with anyone who happened to be passing.
A clan of moms were busy putting out the last of their giant papier-mâché toadstools in one corner of the park. Each gaily painted pseudo fungus already starting to emit a soft glow, giving a hint of the candies and prizes inside, free for the taking. Some clans like the moms claimed and area of their own to make as they saw fit while others added here and there throughout the entire park. There were other clans. Some there to be seen, others just to see. Some to give stuff away and others to get stuff.
Twilight
After the sunset but before first dark, the world seemed to hold it’s breath. Time stood still, while an otherness seemed to build in the air. The park was pregnant with anticipation and here and there a few impatient lights began to glow. It felt as though the whole park was being moved sideways through the surfaces of an immense glowing but invisible sea.
First Dark
First in a few places, but gradually moving from booth to booth, person to person across the entire park like a magic spell gaining momentum and power the Fae Tide Lights began to appear. Blue, Aqua, Green, White, Purple and every combination thereof, flittering about, on necklaces, bracelets, beach balls, frisbees, and flying through the air (directed at the top of an impossibly high glowing pole).
Despite the thousands of lights moving in a chaos frenzy or floating about lazily, none seemed to cast any real illumination. The faces remained dark, the forms remained indistinct, and only the sounds and the love of friends and family seemed concrete as reality slipped away and the fantastical became real. Voices with no forms, lights with no light, and the warm dewy night air infusing it all.
Full Dark
And then they came. Small forms, some already festooned with myriad glow items, others with bags waiting to be filled with loot, began to interweave with what had previously seemed to be only humans. In the light speckled darkness the small shapes ran from booth to booth, and game to game. Some pumping forward eagerly on stumpy legs, others seeming to glide and flitter in the darkness like fireflies, or things that didn’t walk at all. The multitudes surged and flowed, a river of spirit lights, from place to place, into and out of the park, and time became a distant memory.
Midnight
After a thousand years or an eye blink the Fae Tide Lights began to thin. Not dieing, just leaving one by one. With the power of the spell spent and winding down, some holdouts stubbornly held to the hope that it could last forever, but eventually even the forms most touched, most ethereal, departed leaving only the clans to pack up and go home.
After
At home, safe in their beds, little forms enthusiastically coddled tiny treasures of candies, toys, and glowing sticks as they fell asleep. The next morning they wondered, “was it only a dream”?
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