Two identical infants lay in the cradle. “One you bore, the other is a Changeling. Choose wisely,” the Fae’s voice echoed from the shadows. “I’m taking both my children,” the mother said defiantly.
Once upon a time there was a peasant woman who was unhappy
because she had no children. She was happy in all other things – her husband
was kind and loving, and they owned their farm and had food and money enough. But
she longed for children.
She went to church and prayed for a child every Sunday, but
no child came. She went to every midwife and wise woman for miles around, and
followed all their advice, but no child came.
So at last, though she knew of the dangers, she drew her brown
woolen shawl over her head and on Midsummer’s Eve she went out to the forest,
to a certain clearing, and dropped a copper penny and a lock of her hair into
the old well there, and she wished for a child.
“You know,” a voice said behind her, a low and cunning voice,
a voice that had a coax and a wheedle and a sly laugh all mixed up in it
together, “that there will be a price to pay later.”
She did not turn to look at the creature. She knew better. “I
know it,” she said, still staring into the well. “And I also know that I may
set conditions.”
“That is true,” the creature said, after a moment, and there
was less laugh in its voice now. It wasn’t pleased that she knew that. “What
condition do you set? A boy child? A lucky one?”
“That the child will come to no harm,” she said, lifting her
head to stare into the woods. “Whether I succeed in paying your price, or
passing your test, or not, the child will not suffer. It will not die, or be
hurt, or cursed with ill luck or any other thing. No harm of any kind.”
“Ahhhhh.” The sound was long and low, between a sigh and a
hum. “Yes. That is a fair condition. Whatever price there is, whatever test
there is, it will be for you and you alone.” A long, slender hand extended into
her sight, almost human save for the skin, as pale a green as a new leaf. The
hand held a pear, ripe and sweet, though the pears were nowhere ripe yet. “Eat
this,” the voice said, and she trembled with the effort of keeping her eyes
straight ahead. “All of it, on your way home. Before you enter your own gate,
plant the core of it beside the gate, where the ground is soft and rich. You
will have what you ask for.”
Pog as slang comes from the twitch emote, taken from a video with pogs in them. What is a pog? A small cap from a juice drink that is traded and used in games by 90s kids. The juice drink was called POG, short for passion fruit orange guava. Passion fruit was named after its flower, the passion flower. Passion flowers were called “flower of the five wounds” in Portuguese, eventually being translated as passion fruit by the English in reference to the passion of Jesus, aka his last moments alive before being crucified.
I love history, language, words, communication, and humans.
You pay very close attention your body because it doesn’t know how to lie to you, and pay very little attention to your mind because it is lying to you all the time
