There is an unusual fae who travels ethereal Glomdoring with knob-bent fingers and limbs all bone. When one comes to barter with her they may glimpse (for her voice is comparatively sweet) hands sliding like maggots from her fine silk sleeves. Long, grasping things, they tip and cup while yellowed nails scratch the air. She will croon to you, yes, this fetid-breathed unseelie, of the woes that came before yours; the woes woven in bracelets around a parchment skinned wrist.

Yet my dark darlings, any seeking her must know the price, for it is far more precious than gemstone or gold. The Collector, they call her, the Drinker of Sorrows. She will patiently wait while you sob your eyes dry into her cupped palms, or draw them from your ducts with but a single, many-jointed finger. She wants not your smiles nor cherished thoughts, but the wet things that drip like secrets refusing to clot.

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Through a forest of splinters and bone I scurried, my heart a stone in my chest. Amongst toadstools and vines I sought the confines of the weakness that spread neath my breast. My screams joined the eerie cries that streamed unsettlingly through those shadow boughs. Aching limbs found respite in deceiving emerald softness – the grass here glistening with dew and bright as a string of jewels on a Nightshade's throat. Bone-weary, soul weak, I collapsed near the inky stream that drew its source from some unknown. Red eyes glared at me as if perturbed by my presence, but they held little sway over the memories that sapped my strength and will. So there, fitfully, I slept.

Wyrden children know intimately the tales that their mothers offer like a sweet after dinner, the stories that aren't stories in which one should be wary of sleeping in the fae forests. There are things that prey on the vulnerable, that await but a moment of weakness to take their advantage. I knew better than to let the drowsy fingers tug me into slumber, into the hazy reprieve of the dreamworld.

“Come child, your cheeks are wet and salty,” sang the darkness. Cold fingers slide along my face, and the voice croons once more. “Awaken, little elfen. Come now, awaken.” Something sharp jabs my side and I flip over, eyes popping open to behold little more than a shadowed figure hunched over me. Rising quickly, I scurry backward, a sob that had built in my throat escaping like a curse. I had been weeping in my sleep. The nightmare had come again – or was I still asleep?

Chuckling softly, the figure holds out blue-veined hands as bent and twisted as the limbs above. This oddly delivered gesture one of peace, I know, though a thrill plays my spine as I behold nails (no, claws) that rival the talons on my dear companion Taalock. “I mean you no harm, child. I was merely settling down for centipede when your cries beckoned me from my supper.” Embarrassed, I scrub at my cheeks in an attempt to erase those traitorous residuum.

A bubble popping in the stream draws my attention. That is all she needs, and she is upon me with the scent of decaying moss and sour fruit lingering just like those too-long hands. They gesture in the air about my face, not quite touching. “Polite.” she observes approvingly, rotted roses in her breath. Glimpses of fangs and a distended jaw are seen within the cavern of her hooded robes. “I am thirsty, perhaps you would offer me a drink, having interrupted my dining?” Perplexed, my brow furrows, for I have no skin of wine nor water to share. Embarrassment flushes my cheeks, and I look downward, afraid to offend. “I have nothing, old one” I whisper, voice barely above a rustle. The sharp sound of a twig snapping echoes behind me, and when I look up she is no longer there. Movement to my right, a blur; a shadow in the trees slipping deftly by. “Oh but you do, child, but you do.”

Confused, I track the sound of her voice, searching the night with eyes adept at seeing what is so often unseen. “I don't understand...” A dry chuckle follows on the skirt of that admission, and though it is far away her fingers are suddenly brushing my hair. “The last tasted of pine and rosehips.” Her lips smack together, dry, hungry things. Holding out her right wrist, she shows off a ravenwood bracelet woven round gemstones large and small. Tilting her hand, preening a bit, she caresses a waxen jade shot through with watery pink threads. “My favourite is the one who left apples in my mouth, red-skinned and rotting.” Another finger flicks a ruby with ebon inclusions. “His grief was deep, and my belly was empty.”

Peering closely at the stones with a mixture of apprehension and fascination, I give in to curiosity. “What are they?” I am expecting an answer that much as gems will be hard to swallow. Shifting away, she covetously cups her bangle, eyeing me, I imagine though I cannot see her face to know. “Tears, child, sorrows. Every misery is unique and I drink them, I taste them on my tongue as a butterfly sips nectar.” She pauses, weighing my continued silence. “I know sorrow, and you are full. Why don't you weep, child, and I will take what there is to know.” Clicking her tongue eagerly, she extends a single finger. “They are thick and slow, like sap. They taste of smoke and ice, I would bet.”

Ants scurry under my skin, burrowing pathways deeper. “Oh...” My mouth works open, closed. She stares and waits. “I don't know if there are any tears left.” As breeze through the trees, my whisper flits through the shadows. Thinly veiled bones caress my chin, cup it, and tip it downward with gentleness that does not disguise the nigh impatient ache of her lilting murmur. “I knew you would come, they all do. I saw your face there one a starless night. Let them fall, one by one, until my palm is full to brimming and we can perceive the shape of your woe.”

My reflection is grotesque, staring back up at me in contempt from the slow-moving stream. Bubbles pop like pustules on my forehead, my cheeks, and the smile that writhes on her (my) lips is a maggot struggling to breathe as it drowns. A sob rips from the clutches of my throat and the Drinker leans forward eagerly, slough-skinned palm at the ready. “Yesssss...” Her sweet tongue is now the hiss of dying leaves rubbing together, of a serpent lamenting kill to the crow. Though I swore I could cry no more, my ducts swell and spill while my reflection weeps tears of oily black. They trickle reluctantly from my eyes and she catches them, one by one, with the patience of a mother soothing her babe.

Startled awake as a centipede's many legs traverse my throat, I look upward, the never-light of an evening sky greeting me in starless wonder. Immediately I roll to look into the stream, greeted by the black framed reflection of Wyrden perfection. A dream... only a dream... Feeling childish, I rise and brush moss and dirt from my cloak, a weightlessness carrying me on wings to home. To purpose. Silly elfen, I muse, an arrogant smirk tugging my lips. Yet I cannot help but look behind me as I depart, and through the eerie wood limbs brush against one another like the Drinker's final hiss.

“Mmm… thick and slow, bittersweet like broken eggs. Fine as a faeling’s wings…”