Time and time again inspiration eluded you like smoke in the wind. You could nearly feel it, nearly taste it as it slipped through your fingers, as sporadic utterances left your lips. Yet your implements felt heavy in your unworthy hands. You who had no story to tell, in a world where every story had been told a hundred times over. It was a cruel existence for an artist. To be brimming with artistic passion and prowess, a variable bonfire rife with dry branches and crumpled autumn leaves, yet without even the meekest spark to light it.

In a string of many, sleepless and dull nights, on one in particular you looked out your window to dancing lights in the woods. Glowing insects flitting about in a mesmerizing pattern. You felt a pull then, to go out there, to walk through the woods and perhaps find the inspiration you were so desperate for. Stepping outside, the Autumn chill was an unheeded warning against your investigation, causing you only to pull your cloak more tightly around yourself. The forest was unwieldy, and with no clear path to follow, you instead followed the insects. The insects led you deeper and deeper into a mossy grove, where you spotted a figure. Tall and elegant, draped in gossamer silks and blanketed in fur like white snow. He was the most beautiful thing you'd ever laid your eyes on. And then he laid his eyes on you.

You could never forget the way those amber eyes cut you down where you stood. Split pupils narrowing as he studied you intently before he extended a delicate clawed hand and beckoned you closer. His voice was like rainfall on leaves, and when he spoke you felt goosebumps bloom across your skin.

“The forest has a way of bringing people together… and tonight it seems to have brought you to me.” He all but purred, tracing a clawed finger across your jawline before it settled under your chin. “And as a moth, who am I to resist a flame such as yourself?”

Growing up you’d heard tales of Faeries. Creatures of immense power and beauty. They were usually solitary, though a rare few would convene with mortals. They would offer boons or gifts, yet they always came at a great cost. As you grew up, these stories were put to rest in the back of your mind, never again expecting to be unearthed as an adult. Perhaps that is why you failed to heed the tales’ warnings.

The Fey, Eleseus as he later revealed himself to be called, spent the night telling tales of the Fey-King and his court. Of the sprites and faeries he knew. Of lives, he'd lived and loves he'd had and lost. Each word Eleseus spoke had your rapt and utter attention.

When dawn broke he said farewell, sending you off in the direction of home. You spent the next week creating. The spark you had been eager for was now a roaring flame that licked at your very soul. Absorbed in your work, you hardly realized the coughing, the slight pallor that had befallen your face. You hardly realized what he'd took from you.

After the first taste you realized you needed more. Setting off into the woods, night after night as love budded and bloomed each time you sought out Eleseus. Sought his stories, his touch, his mellifluous voice.

“So my sweet mortal returns,” Eleseus called out to you across the clearing, his attention fixed on the glowing moths that seemed to be keeping him company. He let one land on his finger, inspecting it as it ruffled its wings. “You just can’t seem to stay away, can you? It’s endearing truly, that you keep running back to me despite…”

He trailed off, finally sparing you a glance.

“Tell me dearest, would it trouble you to know that our time together may be short?” His expression was always as still as a moonlit pond, yet you could see the faintest hint of a smirk on his soft lips. Something almost cruel in the melancholy of his inquiry.