At dusk, the western sky burned orange through the gaps between the trees. Cold air had descended, and a pale mist hung upon the mossy banks and thick, rotting logs. Osric found a clearing with an open sky and placed the ring upon a thick, pale-pink mushroom cap. He retreated to the shelter of a narrow gap between two immense trees and waited in the dark for the faerie to approach.
He repeated the incantation in his head as he waited, focusing his mind on the pronunciation and accent of each syllable. He wanted to learn. He did not want to fail. His thoughts were broken by the sound of wind chimes in the rain. A lavender glow flitted from tree to tree from across the clearing. The sound was the fluttering of the faerie’s wings.
She was smaller than a housecat, with thin, delicate limbs and the figure of a mature young woman wrapped in a corset of lavender flowers and a short skirt of baby’s breath. Her hair was shoulder-length, dark indigo, and her wings glowed and buzzed like a hummingbird’s. She saw the ring and descended to take it.
As she placed her hands on the ring, Osric spoke the incantation: “Aério se ygró pros stereó.” The mist around the ground turned to water and swirled up around her, then hardened into ice. The idea to freeze the faerie came to him when he saw the mist in the forest. Improvisation proved to be good advice.
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