I've been telling myself this occasionally to put myself to sleep. The story developed pretty well and so, since tomorrow I'm going to visit Dallas and Nixon, I thought that today I'd write it out for them and for Fae since those three are the only little ones I have right now. 12/18/25 5:20
The Witch Queen and Her Monster
The fey. The Fairies. The sidhe. The fair folk.
They have many names and even more stories, but though they once were as common as the grass beneath your feet, today they're as rare as a flying car.
It isn't that they ceased to exist. It's just that they aren't exactly here anymore.
They've retreated from this world of noise and iron and steel to a softer, quieter world of their own making.
Since they built it as their new home, it suits them. The only thing it lacks is people. You might think the faries have no need for people, but I assure you that they do.
To understand that you must know a thing or two about the fair folk.
First and foremost, they are not truly little people. Some of them are quite large and even the tiny ones aren't people at all. They may look human but they do not think or feel as you and I do.
They exist for pleasure. They only care about their fun.
The Scots will tell you there are two courts or groups of the fey, the Unseelie Court and the Seelie Court. The Unseelie Court are not nice at all. They find their joy in hurting humans. They don't think of themselves as being cruel or mean. They just think of humans as toys to be played with and discarded when they aren't any longer fun. They are very like a cat which plays with the mice it catches --not to be cruel, but just to have some fun.
The cat never understands that the mouse is alive and has feelings. As far as the cat knows, it's just a fuzzy squeaking toy.
Do not start to think that the Seelie Court is entirely friendly. They like people, or did in the days when they lived among us. They thought of the people as belonging to them, not as toys, but rather as pets. As long as people were nice to them; they were nice to their people.
But even with them you needed to be very careful. If you offended them, whether deliberately or accidentally, they were angry. Having even a Seelie Court Fey angry at you was like having a curse of the worst bad luck you can imagine.
Bad things would happen to you all day long, every day… Or at least they would until the fairy got bored and then forgot about you altogether.
So now that you have a quick bit of knowledge about the ways of these strange beings, I will tell you the story of how a small human child came to be called the Witch Queen.
The world is a very old place. It has a lot of history that we know and a lot of history we haven't yet learned and a lot of history that has been lost in the distant depths of time. This story tells of a time very long ago and long since forgotten. It took place in a great island kingdom that has long since sunk deep beneath the waves and now is not even known to memory. How I got to hear the story, I cannot tell you. If I did, the Seelie Court would not be pleased with me. And only once in all my life did I offend them, and I learned the lesson and will never do so again.
It all happened back in those days when the world of the magic and the world of the ordinary often bumped into each other. Then there was a kingdom which produced many goods, but lacked some others. A neighboring kingdom was a good trader with them and each could provide what the other lacked, but the two countries were separated by a mountain range and all traffic had to go through a pass which was known as the Ashthorn Pass since it went along the edge of the Ashthorn Valley. It was high in the mountains and no one lived there but merchant caravans went through in both directions all the time. As the journey was a long one travellers often camped along the roadside. And, as humans always do, they told each other stories as they sat by their fires. One story which was often repeated because it was so exciting was about a great monster, a beast that was half real and half Fey.
In those days, when the line between real and magic was thin, simply telling a really good story was often enough would make it come true. Sure enough, one night when a merchant was telling the old tale about the horrible monster of Ashthorn Valley, everyone in front of him suddenly screamed and ran away into the darkness. He very slowly turned around, hoping they were pretending just to make him scared, only to find himself looking at a creature that was bigger than the largest bear he'd ever seen. Its claws were like the sharpest daggers. Its teeth looked like a thousand giant nails... he didn't know much else about the monster because he fainted from so much fear.
The next day his friends came carefully creeping back into camp they found him still out cold, and he was cold. The fire had sputtered out hours before.
The monster wasn't from the Unseelie Court, so once it chased them away it disappeared. Still, from that day forward, it loudly roared that, This valley is mine!"whenever it saw a caravan attempting the passage. This quickly convinced everyone that it wasn't from the Seelie Court either.
So the caravans stopped traveling, and the trade dried up on both sides. Both nations suffered.
In his palace, the king gathered all of his counselors and they prepared a war plan. It wasn't wise to offend the fair folk, especially huge monstrous members of the fair folk, but both nations needed their caravans to get through.
The night before the army was to march and set fire to all the woods to drive the creature out, the king and his generals sat about their table discussing what would happen at sunrise. The army would set out. The plans were complete. They would confront this beast and they intended to win.
Suddenly a chill rolled over all the table and everyone began to shiver. They looked out the windows and saw only a thick black fog. There was a crashing sound in the throne room. Their swords were swiftly drawn and all rushed out to confront whatever was there.
In the room they saw only a shattered window and a bunch of strange black fog rolling in. Right in front of the window it began to curl and swirl and wrap around itself until it became the monster.
"Mine! All the Ashthorn Valley is mine!" The beast roared so loudly that all the windows in the great room shattered.
These were not merchants. These were a king and his warriors and they had their swords drawn as they closed upon the threat. The enemy was unlike any that they had ever faced.
Not only was he strong, he was a magic creature so the king and all his men found themselves moving very very slowly as if they were trying to run while deep underwater. The monster thought to put an end into them until he heard a noise that made him turn and look.
The king had only a daughter who, knowing that one day she would be queen, disobeyed her orders and often came sneaking out when they were councils of war to be spied upon.
She looked at the raging fairy and was frightened to the bone. But when it looked at her, instead of running away, she ran over to a soldier and pulled what for a grown man was a long dagger out of his belt. For a man, a long dagger. For such a little girl it might as well have been a sword.
It shook in her hands because it was heavy and because she was frightened. But she was more angry than frightened and so she shouted, "You leave my Daddy alone!"
Then she charged at the creature and began stabbing him as hard as she could. There are things I didn't mention about the fair folk because I thought you already knew them, but I'll say now just in case you don't. They are very allergic to iron. Not much else can cause them any harm. As this was so long ago, people weren't making swords and knives out of iron. They were making them out of a thing called bronze. Bronze can't hurt a fae.
The monster was surprised, but even more it was interested. The little girl in her nightgown was so interesting that it just stood there and watched her stabbing and chopping away at its knees. Her father the king and his generals were still trying to move and could barely do so, all they could do was to watch in horror as she put herself in danger.
In fact, this was about the best thing she could possibly have done because it made the creature amused by her. He was not an unseelie monster who simply enjoyed hurting people, he just wasn't committed to the Seelie Court either. He thought that this tiny little thing so desperately trying to hurt him might just be fun.
He reached down and pinched the sword between his thumb and pointer finger and lifted it high above the floor to just above his head.
This, of course, also pulled her up since she wasn't about to let the only thing that made her feel at least a little bit safe out of her grip. She couldn't swing the dagger any longer, so she began fiercely kicking at his chest. This was the most fun he'd ever had in his short existence. It was so much more fun than merely scaring merchants.
He thought about what he knew of human ways, which wasn't really much but he had asked around among his fellow fair folk for "details you should know before taking on a human royal court".
He thought of a very fun game to play. This was even more fun because he would set all the rules, but he would be doing so by pretending to follow the rules that humans had laid down, forcing them to honor it.
He smiled happily, which made his teeth show and made everyone in the room think he was about to eat her. Instead, he gently lowered her down and knelt before her. "They call you a princess, do they not?" he asked a very surprisingly gentle tone.
She nodded since she was too afraid to speak without shouting.
He grinned even more widely. "Well then, Princess, make me your Lord Monster and grant me the fiefdom of Ashthorn Valley for me to command forever after and I shall swear my fealty to you as my liege."
Everyone in the room stopped struggling as they stared in wonder at such a promise.
The little Princess, having observed such rites before knew what to do. She managed to lift the dagger up and drop it down upon the creature's shoulder, then lift it up and drop it on the other. Her voice trembled and she said the words as best she could remember, "I dub thee my Lord Monster. I grant unto thee the fiefdom of Ashthorn Valley."
The monster had not stopped grinning, but bowed his head and said, "I swear unto you my fealty and vow that I shall protect your lands as long as you protect mine."
"But," she added in a voice that could barely be heard as she was frightened as she had never been before, "You must grant passage for caravans through the pass." She knew that this was the cause of all the troubles because she was a good little spy who seen far more than her father ever intended her to know at her young age of his supposedly secret meetings with his generals.
"Yet they would intrude upon my fiefdom, surely you would permit me to tax them." He was obviously enjoying the game.
"What tax would a fairy want?" she asked in a voice quite strong because she was so surprised she forgot to be afraid for a moment.
"Every month when the moon is new and the nights are dark, I wish the freedom to hunt the King's deer in his private estate. And I shall take no more than two." After all, he was a monster, and hunting came quite naturally to him.
She nodded since it seemed fair to her.
The monster then put out his hand and above it bright light grew. The light came swirling and spinning in and it spun itself into a globe the size of her head. The globe turned pale silver blue and became a copy of the moon. Then the beast blew on it gently and light spun out making it smaller and smaller until it was the size of a cherry. Another breath and threads of light streamed out of it and formed into a beautiful chain of silver. Very carefully the beast placed it over her neck and said to her, "This shall be the sign of our pact. It will shine as the moon does shine and when it turns dark I shall have my hunt. Further, should you have need of me, My Liege, call to it and I shall hear and answer."
Then he spun about turning back into a black mist which floated out through the shattered window and washed away out into the night.
Many years later, when she sat upon the throne, the two still held to their pact. Being the only kingdom in all the land that had a monster Fey upon their side, her kingdom knew peace. Those who supported her called her the Fairy Queen, since her oldest and most loyal subject was now a member of the Seelie Court.
Those who did not like her called her the Witch Queen because she ruled a monster.
All this was so long ago that no one remembers any more detail. What were the names of these people? What was the name of their kingdom? For that matter, what was the name of the monster? No one knows...except the sidhe, and they're not telling.
Still, it is rumored that the enchanted necklace of the moon still holds its power and that if only it could be found, the monster can yet be called to become a friend to whomsoever finds it.
