Dead, Mad, or a Poet

 The woman winces at the crunch of boots on gravel, each step an alarm she can feel in her bones. This has been the way of it for as long as she can remember. No matter how often she has wished it over the years, the Story is yet to change. Always the slow crunch of boots on stone, the sound as implacable as Fate Herself, then the shrill song of blades greeting sky as the two warriors take their places. The sound of combat. Metal ringing death in the air. Then finally, defeat. The dull but wet thud of a head hitting packed dirt, and an endless scream in her ears. Her heart shattering anew. This time she closes her eyes against the blade song. So many Turnings have now passed since this Story first played out, she’s lost count. She would have thought her heart hardened to it—that the sight of his head, his empty eyes staring up at the sky and body turning cold, would no longer affect her so. But if anything, it is the opposite. The violence of Calan Mai is like a knife to the apple ...

"Choose," she says. "You get one or the other. Which would you rather?" I look at her, study her, not quite understanding the task. She's always been both to me: the beauty of blooms and the sharpness of talons, a petal-soft being with a beak to tear flesh. "I am not the one you must choose for," she reminds me, feathers ruffling where flowers used to be. "I show only what is. We are yet to tell the story of what can be. That day is coming, but not yet." I look down again at the options. One: the soft beauty of petals and a shapely figure clothed in fine dresses. A life of being admired by many, of being pleasing to men.  Two: the warmth of feathers and freedom of wings. A life of hunting and relative solitude, of reputation as an ill omen. "These are truly the only options to aspire to?" I ask incredulously."What of other shapes, other forms? What of other ways of being?" Blodeuwedd shakes her head sadly. "I...

The cavern is low and rounded like the belly of a mare in coal. What light there is seems to come from the floor, a dim glow sprouting up in slices of white and black. It's been an age since he died, since the game began again. An age since the raven-shield was sundered and his path twisted from Annwn to this board Underhill. An age since all he's heard are the words, "Your move" over and over again. He still hears the whispers of lore on the winds, of course; his ravens see to that. They tell of a king asleep in a hall with his knights, ready to rise up from his cold slumber to defend the land. If only that lore were true—death would be far better if it were. A slumbering king is one without the thought or might to battle on the wood for the land.  For hundreds of years he lost. Lost pieces. Lost the game. Lost the battle. Hundreds of years of seeing his black stacked up on the opposite side of the board while his opponent's white pieces mocked him from the sq...