The Very Very Very Short Story...

So there was this challenge over at Fantasy Forums to write a very short story - 800 words or less. And somehow, magically, I found out about this when I was both feeling creative and actually had free time. So, the story below was born. I feel very negligent for my lack of posts here in April - the month was taken up with moving, unpacking, dealing with old and new landlords, and other random distractions - so I thought I would share this story.

Enjoy.

The sun was setting in the west. As it sank into a scattered bed of clouds, the sun’s dying light painted the treetops in copper splashes. It was strange, she thought, that it was the very last of the light hanging on against the dark, doomed to fade, that was the most beautiful.

She moved through the tall, reedy grasses and barely felt them, just as she barely felt the earth that was still warm beneath her feet, or the lilac-scented breeze. Spread before her, the meadow was lit by the growing light of pixie nests, luminous points of blue and green and gold broken up by the flitting shapes of pixies themselves. The pixies sensed her approach and stopped their dusk movements, turning as one to face her across the field as the hum of their stiff little wings took on a threatening note. But a moment’s observation and they returned to their own doings – they knew she was no threat to them. If she still had such idioms, she would have sighed. The thought that the insectile little fey, the only ones who saw her anymore, gave her no notice…well, she could no longer say it made her heartsick, but there was undeniably a dull ache inside her at the idea. Watching the pixies dart about cutting their jagged patterns in the air, she settled down to wait.

She waited. And she waited. And as the sun sank deeper within the cradle of the trees, she was forced to admit the truth. He wasn’t coming.

She hung her head. She shouldn’t be surprised – well, if she could have still felt surprise – she’d known this day would come. Oh, she still remembered the day they made their promise; the day he’d held her hand, fevered warm in his cool grip, and spoken of this place. It had been here, on the hill above the pixie’s meadow, that they’d shared their first kiss on a warm night in late spring. It had been on that same night, which she supposed had been a night much like this one, that they had pledged their love to each other for always. And as he’d held tight her burning hand, he’d promised to come here every year on the anniversary of that day and be with her.

He had done so, and more – at first. In the beginning he’d come every week, stained with sweat and dust from the trek, to sit with her, talk to her, share the setting of the sun. Then every two weeks. Then once a month, which became once a season. Now, his last handful of visits had been a full year apart from each other. With so much time between their meetings, she could see him aging from one visit to the next. She could see now that he had been barely more than a child when he first started coming here, but now there was a man coming to visit her in that boy’s place. She thought hard, struggling to concentrate on his last visit. Yes…yes, he’d spoken of another then. Of a cottage being built at the edge of the fields. Of the extra space near the hearth, where a crib would go. Of a third on the way... He’d wept. And many times, he’d said he was sorry. She hadn’t, couldn’t, grasp it a year ago – it was so hard to concentrate now, to remember anything. It had been many visits, many years, since the fever had claimed her life, and since then the old memories had faded like a half-glimpsed dream.

But now she understood what he’d been trying to tell her.

She rose from the ground, causing another brief stir among the pixies, and looked up at the sun. It was nearly gone now. Her gaze fell slowly to her hands, fading now so that she could see the dancing blades of grass right through her fingers. It was his promise, his memories, that had moored her to this place…and now that it had faded away, so would she. She had expected to feel sorrow, fear, regret. But now, with the moment finally on her, all she felt was a sense of quiet peace. It had been a long time, after all – perhaps, she thought to herself, she was finally ready to go home.

With a final flash of brilliance, glittering glorious deep and many-hued against the sky, the sun disappeared beneath the horizon. The pixies paused again in their twisting flight to glance up at the spot on the hillock – but there was no longer anything to see there. And so they returned to their dance on the warm currents of air, unobserved.