I watch them dance, caught up in the gayety of the festival, faces red from the sting of the winter air. Our festivals were magic once, at a time when magic still filled our lovely isle. Now they are desperate things, groping to reclaim that which has ebbed away and cannot be reclaimed. I do not know why the magic has abandoned us, left we, the children of this emerald land orphaned. The others will not face what has happened. They will not admit to themselves that we have become as others are, abandoned by the gods we worshipped. Perhaps they do not feel the emptiness, the void which I cannot deny, which permeates my being and leaves me aching. So I watch them sadly from afar as they try to drown out their sorrows in the sound of a fiddle. The fiddler has caught my eye. He stands swaying to the music he creates, eyes closed, beautiful voice singing in a tongue most have long forgotten. But I remember. The song he sings is of a timeless love, of loneliness and anguish, of the Old Ways now lost. For a moment I think I will die from the beauty of it. His hair, like strands of moonlight, frames his fine face. So strange he looks amongst the crowd, his golden hair amongst our russet and chestnut. His skin is fair, like cream. I wonder where one so fine of form came from. Not from our stock. As if he can sense my gaze, the fiddler opens his eyes, dazzling blue, and looks at me across the crowd. He smiles and goes back to the song. A long while later, I am sitting on a cold stone watching as my friends and kin weave in and out of the great circle of stones, hanging garlands of evergreen and holly. The cruel wind blows my hair about my face and I wrap my cloak of hunter green closer about me. "Come dance with us!" The call as they pass me by. "Come dance Muirne, beloved one." I shake my head. I will not join in their vain attempt to recapture that which is gone forever. Perhaps they cannot feel the hopelessness of it all. I have seen our future days. Days of new ways, a new god. They will forget these times and I alone will carry the burden of our past. I lose my self to the visions and dispare, when out of the night comes a gentle hand upon my shoulder. I turn and look into the face of the fiddler. "Come away with me." He says. His voice betrays his foreigness. He is not one of us. "Come to the sea." I do not know why I follow him. My future-sight is twisting, changing in ways I cannot understand. He is changing things. His mere presence is reshaping that which is to come. I give him my hand and we cross the snow covered field to the edge of the water. The beach is of rounded pebbles, sea-slick and glowing like jewels in the starlight. The wind is blowing his moonlight hair around his face as he stares out into the blackness of the water. The waves are crashing with a roaring sound, foamy crests glistening in the light of the great round moon that hangs overhead. Voices whisper in the wind, telling me of things to come. "You are not one of us." I am not referring to merle the island people. This man who stands before me is no child of men, I realize. "Why have you forsaken us? We were your children." He looks at me now, sorrowfully. "We have not forsaken you." He says quietly. "It is your people who have forsaken us. The Old Ways are lost." He caresses my face. "Muirne, who's name means Beloved. You are the beloved of my people, and of me." Hs eyes close as he steps away. "My people are dying Muirne. *I* am dying. We cannot live in a world which does not believe." "I believe." I said softly. "I see before me a world devoid of your touch, and it frightens me. I would do anything to prevent that." He looks at me solemnly. "Do you know what you say?" I nod. "I would do anything." He steppes close, taking my hand. "You have the power to save us." He whispers. "I was not sure until now." He nods, affirming something for himself. I close my eyes, but even in this blindness I know he leans closer. His lips are on mine now, silken and gentle. But for all his gentleness there is a fire which suddenly burns within me, pervading my limbs then fading, staying only in the pit of my stomach. I open my eyes to see he already stands a pace away. "What have you done to me?" This strange sensation causes my voice to tremble though I am only slightly fearful of it. He places a hand upon my abdomen. "Even now a child grows within you. My child. He and his descendants, alone among man, will remember and believe." He looks into my eyes and I can see the gratitude there. "You will be remembered and favored by my people. We owe you our lives." He smiles and kisses me again. I do not want him to go, but I know he must. I have seen what the future holds. With the sound of flapping wings he is gone and I am left alone on the beach. No, not alone. For within me lies the salvation of a people. His, and perhaps someday, mine as well.