Once upon a time, there was an Irish poet who dreamt a dream so strongly that it came alive. For many years, he had written of a beautiful woman with hair as dark as ink, skin as white and smooth as a pearl, and bright turquoise eyes set above a smile that could make the most stoic man weak with desire. By night, he dreamt of her, and by day, he immortalized her in verse until the candles spilled into wax across his desk. It so happ’d that upon just such a night, as he labored so dutifully, a shadow fell o’er the parchment. Looking up, he found his gaze held by the most striking aquamarine eyes; when she smiled his way, soft and slow, his stomach clenched. She took his name, his muse, and stayed there in his home, whispering words of beautiful things so sinfully sweet into his ears that he could not help but spend the rest of his days in fevered devotion to his faerie mistress. What else could he do when, poor angel, she could not write for herself? There was a time when, once, she would take up his quills and put them to the canvas of her skin with the inspiration that instilled her very being. Alas, even knowing the shapes and order in which to put them, she succeeded in making naught but pitiful scribbles. The same would be found to be true of those other fine arts to which her aide, but naught more, could be applied. And so, he wrote for her and spoke back the words she could not until at last he could not, his last breath given for her happiness. Standing o’er his grave, as much unchangéd as the wind, she had folded a carefully removed page from his journal, now buried with his bones while the rest had gone to the printing presses, and, bearing only a sad smile, had turned and gone her way.

Thomas Deòir was not, nor never was to be, however, the last mortal whose company she would keep. Drawn to creative souls like a moth to a flame, the muse flitted along from one human artist to another. While all she would ask was that they write but one piece with her name so that she might live on, like Thomas, many would have wasted an eternity of ink on the subject of her charms, and they sustained her well enough. It wasn’t, however, until she met one particular mortal that she acquired a fame as eternal as her life: many know him now as William Shakespeare. Such a bright golden glow of artistic ability she had never seen until she found him, and he, no greater muse to be found until she wandered into his life after one simple little play. She became his primary model for the faerie queen of dreams, Mab, and, most treasured of all, his inspiration for the play A Midsummer Night’s Dream. His works are among her most prized accomplishments, and even pending his death and the criminalization of the theatre, she saw to it that many a show was put on under his name, plaguing even the staunchest opposition with whispers of longing until even nobles would stand among the groundlings.

It stood, not too long ago, that this muse would, in fact, do anything to nurture the impulses of her collection of mortals until a day came whereupon she would at last draw a line. For a creature bound to the humans with whom she associates, it is appropriate that they and their actions may, in turn, mold her, though she would oft like to regard them as things—objects that, while useful, have little or no ability to impact her. There was, apart from Thomas, however, at least one. To this day, she knows only the euphemism by which the police addressed him, Jack the Ripper, and a poor lost soul whom she found that, in spite of all her normal tendencies, she would not could not abet. The art in which she deals best, which furthers her soul’s persistence, is an eternity, where he art in which he dealt was but a moment in time, and would breed for her name more nightmares than dreams. And yet, this is a faerie tale, and all faerie tales must have their all’s well that ends well; there may yet be to this story a happily ever after….

PLACE OF BIRTH, Ennis, Ireland.

FACE CLAIM, GET BACKERS, kazuki fuuchouin — lanthe deòir

INVENTORY, A pen for scribbling on her arms or any exposed skin, a four leaf clover, a faded piece of paper, worn from many times of folding and unfolding, and a copy of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

ELEMENT, Wind.