Come near, come near, come near - Ah, leave me still
A little space for the rose-breath to fill!
Lest I no more bear common things that crave;
The weak worm hiding down in its small cave,
The field-mouse running by me in the grass,
And heavy mortal hopes that toil and pass;
But seek alone to hear the strange things said
By God to the bright hearts of those long dead,
And learn to chaunt a tongue men do not know...
~William Butler Yeats, "To the Rose Upon the Rood of Time"
Lise Emery...a young woman of mixed race, who left the mortal world of her mother behind her, long ago, and escaped to the world of her father, seeking him, new beginnings, and escape from the harsh, yet fragile world she left behind. Lise's mother was half-Gwyllion, who had spent the first ten years of her life sheltered in the Middle Kingdom. The stories she fabricated for herself - as the mortal world proved too cruel for her fragile soul - inspired her daughter to seek out this other world when her mother died. Lise also sought her father, a wandering Ly Erg, who never even knew of Lise's birth.
Yet when we came back, late, from the hyacinth garden,
Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not
Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither
Living nor dead, and I knew nothing,
Looking into the heart of light, the silence.
~T. S. Eliot
Yet when Lise managed to blindly stumble her way into the Middle Kingdom, she discovered that the Faerie world was far different from what her half-Fae mother had led her to believe. Nothing was perfect, and not all was beautiful, and her new life, at first, seemed no different from the one she had sought to leave. Determined to survive, though, she apprenticed herself to a retired storyteller for a year, before moving on again.
In my craft or sullen art
Exercised in the still night
When only the moon rages
And the lovers lie abed
With all their griefs in their arms
I labour by singing light
Not for ambition or bread
Or the strut and trade of charms
On the ivory stages
But for the most common wages
Of their most secret heart.
~Dylan Thomas, "In My Craft or Sullen Art"
Lise took to the road as she searched for her father and herself, mostly through the lands of the Unseelie and Wild Faerie. On her wanderings, she discovered that people had a taste for more than stories. They wanted news. And she realized that this, until her storytelling was more successful, could be another source of income: bearing news and messages would earn her a welcome, and perhaps extra coin...but certain news, sold to the right people, could bring a great deal of profit for her. So Lise became more than a mere storyteller; she became a messenger and dealer in information for a brief time.
Yes, I have done wrong
But what I did I thought needed be done
I swear
Unholy day
If I leave now I might get away
This weighs on me
As heavy as stone and as blue as I go...
~Dave Matthews, "Stone"
Eventually, Lise wearied of sellig information, but was at last able to earn a decent living with her stories alone. Now well over twenty, Lise's mother has died, and suspecting that her still undiscovered father met a similar, albeit more violent, fate some time ago, she gave up looking for him. However, she remains in the Middle Kingdom, preferring it to the world she was born into. She takes no place with any of the Courts, an oddity which earns her some suspicion, but little emnity.
Thus in the winter stands the lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet knows its boughs more silent that before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone,
I know only that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more.
~Edna St. Vincent Millay
Lise stands five feet tall, slim, with her mother's grace and father's lean strength. Her hair is black, and her unusual eyes are also entirely black. Due to her Ly Erg blood, the palms of her hands are red, a trait that she hides with gloves. She most often wears a black dress that reaches halfway past her knees and is slit up both sides, revealing soft black boots and snug leggings of the same dark shade. From a chain around her neck hangs a silver knotwork pendant, set with a faceted, diamond-like gem in the center, her most prized possession and symbol of her trade. Lise is wary and cynical, yet below that, she is a warm and gentle soul. Ever wandering, she tells her stories and continues to search...though what she seeks now, even she does not know.
Tell me the tales that to me were so dear,
Long, long ago - long, long ago.
