A/N: I am thrilled that so many of you consider The Mists of Avalon among one of your favorite books. It is one of mine as well, torn cover and aged pages and all. I also have the 'Crystal Cave' series by Mary Stewart I had as a child that I have kept since then because I love the tale so much. Your love for the story is both a boon to this author and a fear. I am not trying to recreate Mists of Avalon by any stretch and have only chosen bits and pieces of that Morgan le Fay, and well as stories from other sources to make my story about how Sookie became Fay. I find it easy in this portion of the story to lose sight of the main characters and get caught up in the Arthurian Legend, which has nothing really to do with this story or these characters. I hope my use of Morgan le Fay, or Morgaine (I use the names interchangeably) , as a plot device does not disappoint those of you who hold The Mists of Avalon so dear. And again just as a reminder, I have not read past book 2 in the series, so I have no idea when or if Charlaine Harris has introduced how Sookie is Fae or not, just that I know she is part-Fae, and maybe I don't even know that. And, since I haven't read past book 2, I obviously haven't read the latest book where apparently she reveals how Eric was turned. One reviewer enthusiastically endorsed my version over the author's which I thought was very cool. I have not read any of the other books because I am trying not to let the original story affect how this story unfolds. Plus, since I pretty much just skim through to the Eric parts anyway, I'm probably missing huge chunks of story. Although some days, just given what I have read, I could write a doctoral thesis on why Bill is not right for Sookie with a thesis statement with some suggestions as to why Charlaine Harris insists on trying to put Sookie with such a sneaky, abusive man/vampire. But alas, I digress. (This is me trying to avoid packing my household goods for yet another move in 4 years. Color me happy-not). And the mists recede…Renee
Paradise Within…Happier Far
Chapter 19
A High Queen of the Faery '
Pray silence for Morgana, Queen of the Fae:
"First I must bid thee welcome and I wish you well in your travels, but
what thoughts does my name conjure for you? Throughout the ages the
Faery have watched in both dismay and delight at what mankind has termed
progress. Now is my time to speak; did Merlin really present the mirror
before myself, nay it was I who first presented the mirror to him...
such is my way.
Ah Merlin my friend, for a long time now I have listened to them live in
the past. Our story shall begin my tale and perhaps spread light as food
to eat. So why must I invite you to stand upon the fresh-hold of the
Faery, a sacred space indeed? One reason stands above all others: tis
true mortals have begun to disbelieve in those who dwell beyond the
mirror. This action amongst others has upset the balance in Nature and
her inner realms, you agree Merlin my friend although I know with heavy
heart, so let my story unfold.
Shall we reminisce for a while?
Many a tale I could recite, alas my muses call now from beyond the
throne. Now I must tend to these fair lands, but this glimpse was never
granted to soon. Return now to your mortal world and forget not this
mirror, nor those who dwell beyond it as they still aid those who
believe. For beyond this gateway and the many others which exist are
other fair lands where the Sun walks hand in hand with the Moon"
"Morgan Le Fay"
Taken from website called jeweldreamwitchesthegoddessuniteus, posted by Jewelgirl1966
Eric snatched up Sookie's cloak and wrapped it around her against the chilling mists as they followed Kindreth through the trees, hanging with moss and flowers. Sookie's head was still spinning about the word 'Kinswoman.' If Morgaine, or Morgan le Fay, was simply a character from a tale from more than a thousand years ago, how could Sookie be related to her? Sookie blindly followed the man Kindreth while Eric followed Sookie. The mist was thick and yet seemed to part as they came upon it and then close around them as they passed. Sookie found it eerie in some ways, the silence, the dampness, the weaving in and out of mists. And yet, she felt the mists surrounded them as a heavy blanket might, comforting and secure. She must be sleeping and all of this, the words she spoke, the silent prayers she offered in the stone circle, the mists, these must all be part of a dream. Or so she thought, or perhaps wished.
Kindreth led Eric and Sookie to a glorious house made completely of glass. One could see straight through the house as it sat in the woods and the mists. There were smaller houses, even huts, around with women dressed in white surrounding the larger house. Without stopping, Kindreth walked up the carved steps to the glass house. The house had no door and was completely open for anyone to enter, although both Eric and Sookie suspected that not just anyone would be allowed entrance. Kindreth kept his quick, confident pace, forcing Eric and Sookie to keep up and not linger looking at their surroundings. They passed through an open air garden and into Morgan le Fay's receiving room.
The room was layered in silk covered pillows. The Queen of the Fairies lay amongst gold and red giant pillows as Eric and Sookie entered. She gracefully rose to receive them, walking to them in her dark purple robe. She smiled graciously at both, kissing Eric on either cheek as if she had known him in the past. And then Morgaine took both of Sookie's hands in hers and looked deep into her eyes, searching for what she needed to know.
"Sookie, my child, my daughter, they say that the eyes are the mirror to the soul. Your soul remains pure, just as I had hoped, just as the Sight showed me."
Sookie answered with a whispered, "Milady…"
Morgaine laughed a crystalline laugh, one where Eric and Sookie could practically see the crystals shine in the air with their full spectrum of color. Such was Morgaine's laugh.
"Please sit, both of you. Thank you Kindreth for your service. I will call for you when you are needed again."
Kindreth ducked his head and turned on his worn leather heel and left the open air glass house.
Eric helped Sookie off with her cloak and removed his as well, getting them situated comfortably on the pillows. Morgaine asked one of the women in white to bring food and drink suitable for their guests. Sookie finally took the opportunity to look around. There were tapestries hanging to divide the rooms, candles provided all the light for the house, and plants and flowers overflowed everywhere.
"Jarl Ragnar, I understand that you now go by Eric the Northman. Shall I call you Eric?"
"Thank you, milady. Eric will be fine."
"I am glad to find that after a thousand years or so you still remember how to find Avalon. I am afraid that knowledge is lost to the world." She sighed sadly. "But it is just as well. We have fought our conflicts in our time, and in this time the world still fights the same conflicts. The Lady of the Lake once told me 'For all the Gods are one God, and all the Goddesses are one Goddess, and there is only one Initiator. And to every man his own truth, and the God within.' (TMOA, Prologue) And yet the world still fights the same fight. It is just as well Avalon has been lost to the world within its mists. But now, what the Sight prophesized almost 1500 years ago in world time has come to pass, and you have brought my daughter to me."
Eric answered solemnly, "I believe so, your Highness."
"I know so, Eric my love. I have followed the path, generation by generation, offered prayers for their safety and that the Sight and my own will would not betray the course of my progeny. And it has not. All has come to pass as it was meant to, and here we are."
Sookie looked at the beautiful woman in front of her. She looked no older than her own 25 years, with long black hair and very pale skin. "Your Highness, I'm afraid I do not understand. You call me daughter, but…"
"It is a lot to understand my dearest, but I shall explain it all to you tonight. And you and Eric shall stay here for a few days so you can learn together just what it means for the two of you, being what each of you are, to be bonded. You are the Sun to his Moon, Sookie, the light to his darkness, the food for his light. The two powers of Sun and Moon combined will be more powerful than the world has ever seen. But you are both pure of heart, or you could not have entered here, so the power is in safe hands. I will explain much during the course of the evening, and more tomorrow night."
A large mirror surrounded with intricately carved wood nymphs, fairies, trees and apples stood beside her where all could see. "You will watch the mirror as I tell my truth, you will see what has unfolded over time, and perhaps we will be able to scry the future as well. That is up to the Gods and Goddesses. Long ago, our mirrors were still ponds where we could see the past and the future. Now, we have a more modern mirror, even if it is hundreds of years old. You will notice the reflections are slightly blurred as the glass has been bent and the mirroring in the back is not quite as good as it is today. But perhaps the blurring will be a help and not a hindrance as I tell my tale."
"This is my truth: I who am Morgaine tell you these things, Morgaine who was in later days called Morgan le Fay. (TMOA, Prologue) Arthur had died along with the dream of a united Britain. The knights of the Roundtable were either dead or dispersed. The Lady of the Lake and her priestesses, including myself, carried Arthur's body across the sea to Avalon. The people of Britain believed him to be sleeping, but we knew he may never rise again. I remained at Avalon for the rest of my time, having no idea how long that would be. Fae do not live forever, but we do live a very long time. This all happened about 1500 years ago in world time."
"While I had never been chaste in my earlier years and took my pleasure as it came to me, my later years were as if I was a virgin again. I have not been with a man since that time." She looked at Eric knowingly, "I have loved, but I have not been physical with any man."
"After I had risen to High Priestess just behind the leadership of Lady of the Lake, and had been chaste all those years, I looked into one of my favorite mirrors. I had the gift of Sight and knew the hearts and minds of men as well, much as you do Sookie. You have not discovered your gift of Sight yet, but it is there, just waiting to be found. Anyway, as I looked into the mirror it glimmered and rippled until it became still and showed me this Prophecy. I would bear a daughter in my virgin state. This daughter would be of pure and powerful Fae blood. She would be raised here on Avalon and eventually grow to give her virginity to another male Fae worthy of her. At their first coupling, they would conceive yet another daughter of pure and powerful Fae blood. This would happen over and over again throughout generations. Eventually, many Fae wanted to leave Avalon and reside with the humans. I prayed and prayed that the prophecy would hold true and the line of my power would remain pure. Somehow, I know not how, it did. The girls born to fae in the human world would somehow only find other male fae to mate with. And again, their first born was always a girl. Eventually the truths of the women turned to legends and myths and were soon forgotten all together."
Morgan continued after taking a sip of wine. "I feared that by forgetting their heritage the prophecy would once again be broken, but again it held fast. These later generations had no idea they were fae. They had some special powers that they usually hid from others, not wanting to be different. Much like you tried to hide your own ability to read other's minds. It is easy to understand. In today's society, being different in the way of magic and mystery immediately labels you as either crazy or scary, neither of which people want to be seen as."
"Even though these women born to women born singularly from me, Queen of the Fairies, they no longer understood their Fae roots, or believed in magic and things now seen as unbelievable, they still unknowingly sought out the few remaining purely Fae men in the human world. Until your mother, a fae, met your father, a human. The prophecy was fulfilled at that time. I had always known that a pure fae woman would meet a human male and the prophecy would be different after that. But it had to happen many generations from the time of the prophecy. It had to happen when Eric was ready and present for you. Instead of your mother and father having a daughter as their first born, they had a boy. That boy, Jason I believe is his name, is half-fae and at some point may be called upon to fulfill his own destiny. He has little mystery to him, and his only gift that has yet to show itself seems to be a phenomenal ability to seduce women, even multiple women in a single night. After Jason, you were born several years later. The half-fae, half-human girl child I had been waiting on. As was necessary for the prophecy to be fulfilled, you, Sookie, would be present for the vampires and shape shifters who are only part of magic themselves, although most are significantly less pure of heart than our Eric here, to come forward and take their rightful place among society. Eric would be at the same time and place in space as you, and I believed ultimately you would meet, as you did. When you gave Eric your virginity, it started a different prophecy that will define both your destinies."
Morgan ceased talking and watched her two guests who were transfixed by the mirror and its images as they flew by as she talked. They saw pictures of themselves meeting the first time, making love, fighting, bathing, and exchanging blood.
After minutes of silence and looking over at a very pale Sookie, Eric asked, "Morgan, do you know what we are destined for?"
"No, Eric I do not. Tomorrow night we will make prayers and offerings to the Gods and Goddesses to show us your path forward. I have seen my prophecy fulfilled. Now, perhaps we will be shown your prophecy."
Morgaine looked at Sookie with sympathetic eyes. "It is always hard, little one, to know your whole existence has been pre-ordained. Everyone has a destiny to fulfill, even if that destiny is to raise a child that will ultimately have a child that will have a child that will solve the problem of world peace. Many go through their lives without any idea what their destiny is because they are a part of a bigger plan. You my daughter, you my beautiful Eric, have been destined for each other for almost 1500 years, long before even Eric was born, much less turned. Many angels, fae, Gods, and Goddesses must have interceded on your behalf to bring us to this day. We must be grateful to those that interceded and those that came before us allowing this prophecy to unfold as it should have."
"Kindreth will take you to your guest house. You both look as though you could use the rest. Sookie, you have no need to concern yourself with your safety here, or Eric's or his special needs. He is safe from the sunlight here and can sleep beside you as a normal man. No harm will come to either of you. Whatever time you wake, food and beverage will be provided for you and we will speak again. Sookie, Eric, tomorrow I would like to learn what powers you have already discovered through your bond. And we will begin to explore what others might be brought forward. And tomorrow night, at the best time, we will ask the Gods and Goddesses to hear our prayers and allow us to know what your destiny together is. Goodnight my children. Sleep well."
TBC
A/N: I hope this story of how Sookie became half-fae met or even exceeded your expectations, if you had any to start with. I really do need a short break to figure out the next steps in what is turning into a much longer and much more complicated story than I originally thought. Plus, unfortunately real-life does require me to pack our household belongings. I don't think it is in my destiny to have any angels or fae come in at night and get it all done for me. Just a couple little boy Minnie-hoonies (Hawaiian word for mysterious imp, spelling is subjective) that will simply undo what I have already done. They are great kids and wouldn't it be wonderful to believe that they might be, or their progeny might be, the ones to solve the world's problems? Knowing that, would give certain purpose to a life that sometimes seems purposeless. I find it personally interesting that TMOA may actually lead me back to finding God. I read that Marion Z. Bradley found Christianity after writing the book. She became an Orthodox Catholic, which is another doctoral thesis in the making as to why she would make that choice given the entirety of her beliefs. And for the record, in case anyone considers that a condemnation of Catholicism, I am a convert and whatever spiritual struggles I have now, I still consider myself one. Even so, she still believed there was room for pagans, gods, and goddesses. What an incredibly spiritual woman to find room in her heart and in her religion for all. Renee