The Pixies of Shadow

Hello friends! I was very excited to receive an invitation from Misery Duff, clan head of the local pixie tribe, to join her and her friends on a walk in Shock Forest. Now when I say excited, you must temper that emotion with the knowledge that pixies are very hard work. You'll see why. Nevertheless, I could not pass up an opportunity to gain some insight into the enigma that is the Pixies of Shadow.

Let me explain.

Lately the pixies have an unusual attraction to morbid things like skulls and the colour black.

Muse Flower recently joined some pixies on a walk through Shock Forest.

The pixies appeared in Shadow for the first time some eighty or ninety years ago as a ragged band of travellers. They would never speak of whence they came or where they wanted to go, but wandered from place to place, pursued by hostile fairies, their numbers decimated by cold, hunger, misadventure and occasionally vampires. I found them decades later, and gave them an abandoned village to settle near Shadow City. They took this opportunity to build a thriving settlement-only to once again fall on hard times during the troubled years of the Guild's oppressive regime when vampires attacked Pixietown and turned every man, woman and child there.

These rather odd people did not take all that well to vampirism, and began to starve and die, until something even stranger happened: a mysterious man known only as Mort moved into Pixietown and began to turn them back. Don't ask me how, nobody else has ever achieved such a thing.

However, Mort's reversal of the vampire disease had a devastating side effect. Every pixie who underwent the process changed, irrevocably. They started wearing black, moping around, writing angsty poetry and talking about death.

At first we were all very worried, but they remained reclusive, and did not seem to present any threat, so we left them to it. I mean, what is there to do with such a people? All I can really tell you, as I mentioned before, is that they are very hard work.

However, I could not possibly turn down the following invitation:

Unfortunately Misery couldn't make it to the walk, as she had to deal with an emergency on the day. (Apparently a cheery yellow flower popped up in someone's garden and she had to go into damage control before town-wide hysterics set in, bless her little black cotton socks).

Plenty of others came along though! Here's some more pictures from the expedition.

Our little group takes a rest deep in the forest, to recover from the shock discovery of a tree bearing bright orange fruit. I was not allowed to stay long enough to take a picture of the tree!

Long-time sweethearts Doom and Gloom stop to share their sorrow with a leafless, windswept tree.

We paused for reflection on a little island surrounded by a half-dry riverbed. I asked them to smile for this picture.

Gloom and her cousin Hysteria. Hysteria is considered something of a miscreant by the other pixies. It seems she smiled at a rainbow once.

Darkness, Doom and Hysteria stop to enjoy the sunshine.

I hope this has given you some fresh insight into Shadow's enigmatic pixies. Very soon I will introduce you to Misery herself, as she has promised to guest star on this blog with a cooking corner, on the proviso we do not require her to cook anything unless it is black.

Stay tuned!

-Flower of the Great North Island Beyond the Night-Flickered Sea