Our universe is far more varied than the average person has any desire to imagine. Indeed it has more variety that I suspect the human being is capable of imagining. Fortunately for us, we rarely have to face anything but the most miniscule slice of that reality. Unfortunately for us, sometimes we have no choice but to see things that shouldn’t, according to our limited imaginings, be possible. And yet there they are.

Take for instance the phenomena of the Faery realms. Anyone who has ever seen or interacted with the Fae will tell you that they are most certainly real, and show up around us when it suits them. But anyone who has not had this experience will uncomfortably recognize the delusion of those who espouse this experience. It is exactly the same with anyone who has ever had an encounter with aliens, pardon me, extra-terrestrials.

But these phenomena are not relevant at the moment, except as reminders that anything we have not ourselves experienced seems far less likely than the things we have. Which on the face of it seems to make sense, but when you think of the variety of the universe that simply must exist based on everything we know, it seems rather foolish to disbelieve anything we haven’t personally experienced just because we haven’t experienced it.

But I digress. The interesting bit of story I wish to relate to you tonight is one that has troubled the world for a long time. Many are the tales of how once, long ago, the many worlds were actually one world. The realm from which the Faeries hale is actually the same place we inhabit each day. It is also the same place that the dragons fly, and the unicorns frolic, and all other manner of beings inhabit, or have inhabbited at one time or another. Many of our people today will tell you that all of these realms are really the Astral realm, or different provinces of it, and they are real but not quite as real as our own terra firma. The many absurdities of this statement are will not be immediately discussed, except to say that it is absurd to believe in something while simultaneously espousing it’s lack of substance.

The truth, as is often the case, is that nobody today has the whole story, and they certainly are not trying to discover it. Like many historians, they content themselves with the pieces that they understand, that help them make sense of the incomprehensibility of the universe we so plainly fail to see in it’s fullness. The universe we are truly incapable of seeing in such a way.

But I was discussing the idea that all these realms, which most certainly do exist were once all one and the same. Except the one about the unicorns, that is. Unicorns have always been a silly metaphorical myth about the purity of masculine force controlled by the beauty of the feminine. They’re a myth perpetuated by silly girls who can’t get their minds off the idea of a magical horn that will grant them all sorts of pleasure etc. etc. Anyway, the point is, these other realms are indeed real, and there persists the idea amongst many people that at some historical time which we can not now recall all these realms were united in the same space-time and we all somehow coexisted with these magical beings and places (except unicorns).

This concept is very popular among people who like neat little packages, which is to say almost all mankind. But it is of course, an illusion. I will conceed that it is indeed exceedingly likely that at some point in the past, some of these realms may have intersected, or even been the same realm. But the idea that all the planes and dimensions were once one world before some cataclysmic event is absurd, unless you believe in the big bang theory, and somehow maintain that we were all extant as planets and cultures in the crushing force of that singularity before we were cast out into the universe as our own individual planets. If you do believe that, you are far beyond my own humble aspirations towards the understanding of how such things work, and I wish you all the best. Please read no further.

But let us look more closely at one of those realms, that of the Faeries. It’s relationship with our own realm does have a curious past, and it is not unfair to say that they were once the same realm, or at least overlapped to a far greater degree than they do today. There are many stories about wars between men and faeries, and how the gods interacted with both. And there are many tales that tell some plausible version of how our realms grew more distant in the past millenia. Those stories are of great import, and will be addressed in good time, but there is a more important story that has not been told. Because as surely as we can see that the Faery realm was once much nearer to our own, the truth is that before it was so much closer it was much further away.

Truth. Long ago, long before the worlds were pulled apart, they were pulled together, and this is where our story starts.

——-

In the 8th age of the Sidhe court there was a young prince. His name was Bidl. Bidl was the ninth son of the prince of the court of roots, and he was revered by all the realm as one of the most beautiful Fae to ever have walked the lands. It was said that his beauty rivaled that of the ancient goddess Sarrati. He showed favor to no single faery, but bestowed affection and love upon all who came to him.

A note here. The court of the Sidhe of which we know speak, is not the court which our myths would understand. In this time the Seelie and Unseelie did not yet exist. Indeed the division of the fae races into elves, and pixies, and brownies, and kelsies, and other manner of faery was not even a consideration. For ease, I shall simply call them Fae, or occasionally Elf (which originally denoted a Faery of nobility).

Further, and perhaps equally important, it should be noted that the Fae in these times had both more and fewer genders than we consider ourselves to have. Reproductively the Fae were of four genders which we can correllate to a general similarity with male, female, and what we would consider hermaphroditic, and sterile. As all Fae at this time were talented shape-shifters, the presence of genetalia is of less concern then the procreatitive function of the gender. Females could carry children. Males could inseminate females. Hermaphrodites could serve either function (with themselves as well), and the sterile could serve neither function.

Culturally and Societally however, they Fae were of a single gender, and they did not recognize or adhere to any of the strictures that we later attempted to force upon them. The titles of King, Queen, Prince, Princess, and other gender-identified terms are used here so we can have some comprehension of their culture, but indeed none of these terms are accurate. Please take these terms, and all pronouns, as vague indicators at best.

So Bidl, shared his affections with many other Fae, and in so doing was given many opportunities to serve the function we would call fathering a child. And indeed, Bidl wished greately for a host of children who would bear his beauty and memory. This was unlikely of course, the Fae have always been notoriously slow breeders for various reasons. Pregnancy was a period of nearly 5 years as Earth reckons time, during which the mother must not shapeshift too often or risk damaging the child. It has been speculated that the necessity of shapeshifting during the conflicts between Faery and Earth immediately following the events of this tale are what created the vast diversity now observable in the Faery realm.

Too, because of their long life-spans, the Fae would easily have overwhelmed their ability to feed themselves if they bred like bunnies, or even humans. As a result, though Bidl desperately wanted a child with his same dark skin and honey eyes, no child was forthcoming.

Bidl accepted this as gracefully as he could, and took solace in the variety, beauty, and closness of his many lovers. Physical intimacy is a great comfort, and almost casual amongst the Fae, even today. (In truth, humans were once similarly inclined to intimacy, and we tried to force our new morals upon the Fae when that closeness left us. But that is another story).

Time passed for Bidl, and he began to pray at the altars of the ancient gods. Each opportunity he had he would lift his voice in song, or his hands in the creation of art, or his magic in the beauty of creation. And with every effort of his prayer he asked to be granted a child. Surely he was deserving of such a boon. There had been many deaths and no births for several years at the court. Though Bidl didn’t know it, there had been plenty of births in the countryside, away from the excesses and pleasures of the court.

One day, Bidl lay amongst a pair of fair skinned Fae, their pale skin glowing, casting streaks of light against his own darker glow. He caressed the hair of the one to his left and sighed. They were asleep, left their bodies here to seek wisdom and joy in other places, now that the joy of the body had been sated. He lifted his eyes to the ceiling of the chamber, a spiral of silvery-branches woven with silk and spider webs to the specifications of the colden spiral. Sacred to all his kind. He closed his eyes and once more prayed to the Ancient Gods.

And was struck mute for long minutes as a vision descended upon him. He had prayed, and from the Ancient gods an answer had come. He cried before it was even begun, feeling, knowing that the vision he was being given was powerful, that it would lead him to a child.

The room went black, and then there was a circle of light. And a young boy, no more than 20 years old stood there. He looked much likd Bidl himself, dark skin that glowed with a fire of it’s own. Honey colored eyes. But his hair was something altogether new. Not the dark black of Bidl (indeed of most Fae at the time), but fair, so fair as to nearly be silver. And his fingers, long and supple, but not as narrow, or quite as long as Bidls. And not quite as tall.

The boy, Bidls son, looked at his father through the darkness and smiled. And before Bidl’s eyes he aged from the blossom of youth to the beauty of manhood, and Bidl cried further upon seeing such beauty. So like his own, but more powerful for with it came a softness, a vulnerability, that Bidl, being immortal, could never posess.

The boy turned and walked into the distance, and Bidls spirit followed ever so swiftly, chasing the boy out of the chamber, through the corridors and out into the world. He chased the boy down the pathways of the court and out into the wilderness beyond. Through the gardens and marshes and deep into the sacred woods. There finally, he found the boy standing upon a slab of stone at a shrine of Sarrati.

The stone slab was carved with spirals and patterns of magic and changing. And the boy began to shrink. From the fullness of manhood to boyhood, to childhood. And as he became a baby Bidl watched as he was unborn, and there upon the slab laid a woman of remarkable beauty and softness, un-grunting with the power of her labor. The vision faded and Bidl found he was back in his body. His tears had mositened the hair of his lovers. He quieted himself and sent up a prayer of thanks, and began to plan the journey that would take him to that shrine, where he hoped he would find the woman that would bear his son.