Heart's Desire

"Oh, silly, silly emperor. You cannot banish human nature. Might as well banish your own heart. You brought me here after all."

        "I did no such thing," he said. She continued to laugh at him.

        "Besides," she went on as if he had not spoken a word, "we are not in Your City. You are in My Forest. Can you no tell the difference?" Her tail flicked in an encompassing gesture, strangely human in a twisted way.

        "Send me back," he said stiffly.

        She sighed, "No sense of adventure. Pity. Come now, you don't want to go back so soon, do you? You've jus arrived -"

        "Send me back." He turned sharply on his heel and started to march back along the path although I did no look familiar.

        Another drawn out sigh as the fox trotted alongside him. "Ah, dear me, If that is what you wish. I had only though to help you as I happen o know your little maiden of the night before."

        That stopped the Emperor dead in his tracks. "Who is she? You know her?" He demanded.

        The fox pretended boredom. "Yes."

        "Is she one of your followers?"

        Another fox-ish laugh. "She is dear to me."

        "Tell me her name!"

"No" With a flip of a russet tail, the insolent creature turned away and vanished into he underbrush. "Go home silly man." the words chimed and shook the air. The Emperor made a mad dive for the bushes, but Liri was gone. As he stood, pulling twigs from his hair another wave of despair washed over him.

        "Your Eminence?" A tentative gardener was looking on the Emperor with eyes agog. "Did you… lose something? I can send some boys to search for you…" His voice trailed off as the Emperor glared at him.

        The stillness was gone. The wind blew again, and he knew he was no longer in Liri's wood. "It is nothing." He stormed off to the palace.

        After he realized that Liri had some unnatural connection with the maiden of the night before, the Emperor reluctantly tried to put her from his mind. He refused to have anything to do with the fae goddess of chaos and wildness.

        And yet…

Her scent haunted him.

        Her phantom eyes seared him.

        Her ghostly touch whispered in his memory.

        He threw himself with frantic relish into his daily routines. He heard his petitioners with desperate attentiveness. He rode his stallions so hard, their mouths foams and their heads drooped when he returned them to the stables.

        But thoughts of her would not leave him in peace, and he knew that with every woman that walked past him, he could not help but stare and pray that her lips would break in the smile of his maiden. At last he conceded that he must find her. He needed her as he needed nothing else.

        He sent out proclamations to the corners of his land. He offered great rewards to anyone who could tell him the name of his mysterious fox maiden, with russet hair, and cobweb gowns. Months passed. An endless train of women stepped forward claiming to be her, but the instant he set eyes on them he knew they were false.

        A month later he was standing in the gardens when that breathless stillness suddenly blanketed the shadows. Once more the bird-cry stopped, and the leaves ceased their rustle. The only sound was the familiar mocking voice.

        Aimless hunt and foolish cries. Lovelorn wits of royal swain!

        He goes searching far and wide, seeking for a hidden flame!

        Beg me! Liri is my name.

        He scoffed.