Disclaimer - Pan's Labyrinth has never been, and will never be, my property.
Dammit.
Click-click
The faeries that had once upon a time fluttered amongst dusky gold leaves, silkspun wings a vibration in the air as they danced and played in the evening's final shafts of sunlight, now lay dead or dying amongst dank brown foliage, little broken bodies just empty husks of dull green, red and blue. Now the evenings are dark and shadowy, and no golden light has filtered through the spreading boughs of the trees above for many a year.
Click-click
Forest floors are littered now not in bright tones of red and amber, but in dark, soggy leafmould that smothers even the faerie-cases in its choking grasp. It poisons the sprays of flowers that used to spring up from the old velvety green of long-forgotten grass, and over this damp, clogged floor staggers flaky cloven hooves, their once-dark sheen now pale, faded and sickly. Connecting to spindly legs quivering with the untold effort of supporting the emaciated body above them, the hooves pick their unsteady way along, clicking against stones and pebbles, every now and then stumbling in the mush and nearly sending their long-suffering owner pitching headfirst to the ground.
Click-click
The Faun is dying. He lifts the broken shells of the faeries in skeletal hands, raises them to eyes misty with cataracts, tries his utmost to breathe life back into them. But the dead stay dead and the Faun can only weep from those eyes that, once so bright, have not seen for generations. Breath ghosts over pale lips and a silent, silvery wind stirs the wisping grey locks that fall from beneath curving, flaking horns.
Click-click
He used to play. He and the princess. He remembers. Together they would run and tumble in the golden halls of the Underland, his hooves clicking loudly on the marble floors and her pretty laughter ringing high in the twilit caverns, and her smiles would make Him smile too, and everyone who saw her. But the Faun is a creature of two worlds, and now and then He must inevitably visit the Topland, and what He finds there makes Him weep. His faeries lay dead, gold is turned to brass is turned to ash, and all the colours of the world seep from His eyes in the wake of what the Great Mother, in all Her infinite wisdom, called Man.
Click-click
Once upon a time he would spend a little while on the Topland and feel himself dying, but on his return to the Underland his youth would return in a flash of colour and joy and life and love, and his hooves would click on the marble floors. But now…now, not even the joys of the princess can reignite the spark, the dousing of which has left Him so devoid of all that once made Him who he was.
Click-click
He steps, he stumbles, he falls. The Faun is dying, and there will be no comfort for him. He cannot move, he bleats for his faeries to come, to help him, but they lie as husks in the mush and he is alone. Not even the princess dares to venture onto the Topland to find him, for fears she will once again be stolen away by its empty promises.
Click-click.
He is dying, and he is alone.
Click-click
But as he lies there
Click-click
he can see the sun once more.
Click-click
The winds whisper through the branches
Click-click
and he knows
Click-click
he would not change this moment
Click-click
for the world.
Click.