Mirror

The olden tales tell of the Fair Folk, and how they covet what is fleeting. They crave the bloom of mortal youth, the craft of mortal hands, the sorrow of mortal hearts, things their deathless kind cannot keep. They bind with lures: a tune too fair to silence, a gift too bright to leave lying, a light where no light ought to dwell. Doors are said to open in such places: in the ring that mushrooms make after rain, in the drifting mist upon a hill, in a likeness that shifts when no mortal stirs. Step across unknowing, and the path is sealed behind. Feast with them a single eve, and wake to find a hundred years fled from thy world. Thus are the warnings given, tread not where beauty lingers too still, nor reach for what was never thine, lest thou be counted among the lost.