Once Upon an Autumn Eve

Epilogue Afterthoughts

And thus ends this part of the tale that began eight moons and a fortnight and a sevenday past, when, upon an autumn eve, Princess Liaze of the Autumnwood went for a moonlight swim, and a wounded knight came crashing into her quiet willow grove.

Or perhaps this tale really began some years ere that, when a babe was born to a comtesse, and a twelvemonth after a vicomte decided to do away with the child.

Or perhaps this story began when a dreadful mage was locked in a dark castle from which there seemed to be no escape but by means of a special key.

Or perhaps this story began even farther back when a Keltoi bard spun a tale so enthralling that the gods decided to make it manifest.

Regardless as to when this story began, at heart it is a romance, wherein we find a lonely princess, a noble knight with a wicked stepfather, Goblins and Trolls and a dreadful witch, three Fates, a howling castle, a Brownie, a terrible Wild Hunt, a Pixie with a crowing rooster, and a black glass mountain, and much more, indeed much more, including Sprites and a Ghillie Dhu and Nixies and Satyrs and a Faun and Nymphs and mysterious twilight borders and things unseen and unnamed, some perilous, others not.

That might seem an overabundance of wonder, but that is the way of fairy tales, and the way of Faery as well.

— Oh, and as to the answer to Liaze’s last question, the one where she asked the whereabouts of Celeste and Alain and his Camille, the one where Saissa answered that they were probably wishing they were at the ball, well, Alain and Camille were reading poetry to one another in the great library of Summerwood Manor, but as to Celeste-the Princess of the Springwood-oh, my, she was… But wait, that is a different tale.