The Autumn Keeper

Daughter of the Dark King III

The leaves rustled, they were deep and green and rich, and they were almost within reach. The walk was long, an hour, a day, perhaps an age; but it was long and the wood looked inviting and cool under the eaves.
She knew them, though she did not know why, the tree tramps. They could be seen in the deeper wood as she approached, some tossing sunlight in autumn’s colors to the wind that shook them and shattered there peace, some smiling as it abated, becoming once again just trees. Their’s was a light much like her own, though she did not know it, and they cast it about more freely never having had visitors and all.
She stopped at the wood’s edge for a time, watching, and letting the cool green grass tickle her toes; it was long and played both between and atop them. It whispered to her then – the grass, and bid her stay and take root with the rest.
“The rest?” she said, mostly to herself.
She was surprised when the grass answered in its wispy tone, “The rest who stopped here to let the grass entertain them and chose to stay, this place is of them, with green leaf and thickened bough they are all – all except the sprites, the tramps you know, and her!”
“Her?” she asked, but the grass had fallen silent and lay now silent at her feet – in shadow. A dry wind passed over her and took her comfort and she stepped into the wood, if that is what it was, to rest and watch the tramps play in the sun.

…

“Who are you?” said the Dark King’s daughter. She had seen her as she walked moving deeper and deeper into the wood. She had followed the tramps for a time, as they slipped away from her every approach, then tired of pursuing them as they fled. She spoke now to a dark haired woman who sat weaving grass in the shadow of a cottage. It seemed odd to her that anyone would build a cottage so, with the sun rising behind and setting for it’s front door’s pleasure.
“Is this your cottage?”
“I am the keeper here, and yes, this is my home.” said the dark haired woman as she turned her dark and somber eyes from her work to look for who had spoken to her.
“Why do they flee?” said the Dark King’s daughter.
The dark haired woman did not answer, she merely looked more closely at her visitor.
“Do you wish to rest here, are you alone?” the dark haired woman asked, and peered around and about her as she answered.
“I am alone and would rest for a short while with you if I may.”
“None may rest here for just a short while my dear. If you sleep the grass will take you and give you autumn for your eternal fair. But my, you have no shoes, let me get for you some that I have made of the grass, to comfort your feet and speed you on your way. You are young yet for autumn’s rest, as all here would tell you if they could.”
She turned away then into her cottage and returned with eyes aglow and trembling hands holding slippers woven of golden grass which she brought and placed at her visitors feet. She looked once again about her as her eyes grew wide with wonder as she spoke.
“Upon your feet my dear, upon your feet!”
So the Dark King’s daughter came to step into the slippers of sleep as had all the rest who had come here and asked for a moments rest before her. But her feet did not spread to root as had the rest, nor her shining hair to leaf and branch, but only did a smile cross her face and a light shone from her breast, the like of which the Autumn Keeper had seen before.
“How old are you?” she asked with dark and widening eyes.
“I have been for a day, and slept a night, and have clothed myself against the nakedness and the cold. And now I have slippers against the stones and dust – and you?” she said as she admired them delightedly.
“I have been autumn here for long and long again, I have gather my sleepers as I was bid and lived well for my time, which I see now has become very short, very short indeed!”
“Thank you for the slippers my lady, but as you say, I must go. Is there a path I should follow?” the Dark King’s daughter said as she stepped away. But there was no answer as she sought the sunlight once again, and a moment again to watch the tramps before she left the forest behind.
And the Autumn Keeper watched as the king approached, satisfied now to go to her final rest.
And the Dark King took her, and the wing covered the forest and the desert wind withered to dust the cottage. The Dark King waited now as the people he had hidden began to awake one by one, as leaf retreated and root crumbled away.