Long ago, there were two sisters named Iris and Eloise. They were children who resided in the poorer district of town once known as Essington Village. Although they weren't brought up from the greatest family, they were very well mannered and courteous.
Iris had the nature comparable with a fawn; careless, curious, and generally good. Eloise, even with the appearance of one as delicate as a rose, was the mischievous and clever fox, though retaining the polite countenance and feigned vulnerability that any young woman may hold. Together they balanced one another, so no suspicion was raised despite the disaster they often brought to their township. The sisters were so agreeable that even the strictest magistrate couldn't help but love them.
On a cool midsummer evening, they were trying to discover something amusing to do. Ideas and prepositions flew across the room, but were ignored for the reasons of the strong wind or the thick fog which enveloped the town. Eloise, although younger, had a fantastic imagination and knew how to transform boring, dull things into hours of fun. After pondering for a short time, she asked Iris, "Why don't we scour some things in Grandfather Earl's chest?"
"Oh, marvelous idea! We should check the cellar," Iris replied. Their great-grandfather had many interesting objects in a trunk he left for them when he passed onto the next life. Every time the sisters used something they had gotten from the chest, magical things happened, so it was a wonder they had not thought of this before. A handful of people are unsure of the cause of the magic, but the fact their grandfather was a renowned alchemist and magician drops hints of sorcery. When he was living, he often created objects of either little value, or which brought chaos and disarray throughout the region in the foreign lands where he lived for some time. For these reasons, he fled from his homeland and made a living collecting and enchanting strange artifacts in Essington. A foreigner's pay was meager in those times, so in his death, the initial inheritance's worth was not more than a shilling, but somehow the family couldn't part with the valuable chest, either for reasons of weight or sentimental value.
The chest, although shabby in appearance, had the significance only few can comprehend. In the centuries when faeries, trolls, and goblins ruled, magic roamed freely. A day could not go by without breathing the Brilliance. A day came when a troll named Gomer, a very selfish one at that, decided he wanted the magic to himself. He gathered all of his imps and demons and ordered that they captured the faeries and nymphs and other creatures of Brilliance and put them into a chest. The chest in itself was made up of nettleweave and iron, the weave of which those who belong to Brilliance are vulnerable and iron so that no creature of Earth could open it. Gomer, in all of his treachery, extracted the Brilliance by a small device within the chest, so that once the creatures were within his bondage, the Brilliance would be kept small ball. Gomer's invention caused the death and almost the extinction of the creatures of Brilliance, and only a handful still exist to this day.
The chest itself was relatively harmless to those who weren't faerie-folk. Still, the magic is powerful in both magnitude and goodness, despite the fact that the creator was a terrible troll. Gomer long forgot where he had placed the chest, to his dismay. Years went by without knowledge of the chest until a humble man, Earl Greenwich, stumbled upon it when he was looking for herbs. Considering it nothing more than a useful tool for storage, he brought it to his home and stored books and random items that had little significance within it.
The girls knew nothing of the history of their Grandfather Earl, nor the history of the chest. To them, magic was short of a fairytale, of lies. The chest was only a source of entertainment, and it only took a few minutes to find a pair of ivory white gloves. Eloise and Iris, captivated with the idea of being high-class noble women, walked to the cupboard to have prepare a tea party. Together, they walked with one glove in each hand. It wasn't until they tried opening their china cabinet that they saw the magic of these gloves. What was a simple cupboard with a matching set of porcelain became a magnificent bureau with bone china.
Unbeknownst to the girls, the magic wasn't from the gloves themselves; it belonged to Lenora the sorceress. Lenora had a strong ancestry with the sprites of the Brilliance, but the goodness within the magic was long forgotten. Although she had Brilliance in her vains, it was used for the wrong things.
It was a rainy evening when she was strolling down the England townships looking for some bloodroot and pearl moss to ward off bad spirits and basil for her own good fortune. Lenora was well known for doing selfish things, not to mention her infamous reputation of bringing bad will to others. It was only expected that her magic would eventually go to others that were more deserving. Almost instantly, at the same time two young ladies were fitting ivory gloves to their petite hands, Lenora felt the power disperse from within her. She became weaker and older without her magic. Supposing she had a cold, she used what magic she had to whisk her to the safety of her cottage a league away.