Trigger Warning

As you know, I wasn’t invited to the Christening. Get over it, you tell me.
But it’s the little formalities that keep the world turning.
My twelve sisters each had an invitation, engraved, and delivered
By a footman. I thought perhaps my footman had got lost.
Few invitations reach me here. People no longer leave visiting cards.
And even when they did I would tell them I was not at home,
Deploring the unmannerliness of these more recent generations.
They eat with their mouths open. They interrupt.
Manners are all, and the formalities. When we lose those
We have lost everything. Without them, we might as well be dead.
Dull, useless things. The young should be taught a trade, should hew or spin,
Should know their place and stick to it. Be seen, not heard. Be hushed.
My youngest sister invariably is late, and interrupts. I am myself a stickler for punctuality.
I told her, no good will come of being late. I told her,
Back when we were still speaking, when she was still listening. She laughed.
It could be argued that I should not have turned up uninvited
But people must be taught lessons. Without them, none of them will ever learn.
People are dreams and awkwardness and gawk. They prick their fingers
Bleed and snore and drool. Politeness is as quiet as a grave,
Unmoving, roses without thorns. Or white lilies. People have to learn.
Inevitably my sister turned up late. Punctuality is the politeness of princes,
That, and inviting all potential godmothers to a Christening.
They said they thought I was dead. Perhaps I am. I can no longer recall.
Still and all, it was necessary to observe the formalities.
I would have made her future so tidy and polite. Eighteen is old enough. More than enough.
After that life gets so messy. Loves and hearts are such untidy things.
Christenings are raucous times and loud, and rancorous,
As bad as weddings. Invitations go astray. We’d argue about precedence and gifts.
They would have invited me to the funeral.

The Sleeper and the Spindle

It was the closest kingdom to the queen’s, as the crow flies, but not even the crows flew it. The high mountain range that served as the border between the two kingdoms discouraged crows as much as it discouraged people, and it was considered unpassable.

More than one enterprising merchant, on each side of the mountains, had commissioned folk to hunt for the mountain pass that would, if it were there, have made a rich man or woman of anyone who controlled it. The silks of Dorimar could have been in Kanselaire in weeks, in months, not years. But there was no such pass to be found and so, although the two kingdoms shared a common border, nobody crossed from one kingdom to the next.

Even the dwarfs, who were tough, and hardy, and composed of magic as much as of flesh and blood, could not go over the mountain range.

This was not a problem for the dwarfs. They did not go over the mountain range. They went under it.

* * *

Three dwarfs, travelling as swiftly as one through the dark paths beneath the mountains: