In the second golden age of mankind, in the great Western Desert, men built a city out of sun beams and the stars of the lady Night’s cloak. This desert city was new each day and never the same city in the day as in the night. Some years after the second golden age of mankind, a fabulist named Elijah came to be born in the East. When he was a boy he lived in the rain, and the ice, and the weeping green trees. He met a beast made of fire and steel, who walked the path of the Traveler. He made the beast his friend, and so it stood watch over his soul. When young Elijah became a man, he moved to the city of lights. He came from the East, and so he brought with him the rains and the thunder. He walked the paths of the oldest god and rode a beast of fire and steel which shared the Traveler’s heart.

At the edge of the city, as his eyes first beheld its buildings made of crossed sunlight and glass, Elijah met a crow making a nest in the great gates of the desert city, which stood always open. He took off his hat and bowed with all the courtesy which was the crow’s due. The crow asked him, “Why do you remove your hat, good sir?” And Elijah replied, “It was Crow who brought men the same fire as the gods’ own furnace, the fire of which this city is built. So I pay you her same respects.”

The crow was pleased that Elijah remembered the sacrifice made by her namesake so long ago, and so she offered to help the fabulist in any way she could. “You have only newly arrived in the desert, after all,” she said. “I can give you shade, and shelter, and I will carry your name if you ask.”

But Elijah thanked the crow and said, “I cannot take a favor from you. My respects are paid with no expectation of reward, nor may I take any favors from them. What I give is yours, crow, and your namesake’s, and it is not my place to take any part of it for my own, even in thanks.”

The crow said, “Your ways are strange, shaman, but you are not without honor. Leave at least with one of my feathers, so that my kind and my kin may know you.”

Elijah could see no harm or gain in this gesture, and he agreed to take the crow’s feather, thereafter wearing it over his heart.

Thus the fabulist went out in the desert at night with the crow’s feather over his heart. He listened to the stories of the whispering sands and rode under the stars in the roaring beast of fire and steel hearing the Traveler call out across his soul. He lived in the city of lights with all the stories of the desert in his heart, and the voice of the oldest god in his mind.

One evening, as Elijah sat beneath the stars, the beast warm against his back, and watched the city of lights, a spider descended from the cloak of lady Night and alighted upon his shoulder. Of course, the fabulist immediately removed his hat out of respect. The spider asked him why he removed his hat, and Elijah replied, “It is the spiders who know all the stories to be written, and have strung the world together with their webs, so I must pay you my respects.”

The spider was pleased by this, and accepted it as her proper due. “But though we weave all that may be into our webs, it is not our way to tell the tales. It is men who must pluck the strands and it is you, shaman, who know so many of our stories, who must write them.”

Elijah thanked the spider and said, “But the stories are not mine. I have not learned them for my own sake, for my benefit or gain. I could not write them for myself.”

The spider said, “Write the stories or do not, it is no concern of mine. The stories must be told, and you have a fine quill already near your heart. I think you should, but do as you will.”

Elijah mused on the spider’s words and, as he considered them, he found himself thinking of the stories the desert sands had told him. He took the crow’s feather from over his heart, dipped it in a well of black India ink he kept always by his side, and began to write the first of the stories on clean, white paper. It seemed to Elijah as if each grain of sand and each star had a story, and all he had to do was see them for a moment before their words came unbidden to his crow’s quill.

The fabulist always looked to the East while he wrote his stories, and thus at times he wrote them for the rising sun, and at other times he wrote them for the rising moon. There were times he wrote stories for his shadow, and sometimes he wrote them for no reason at all that he could see. But because he looked always to the East, he did not see the wolf which came from the West.

The wolf watched him write, and she read his stories. She saw his quill, and recognized her kin. After some time had passed, she said, “I know this quill, but not the hand which holds it. I know this heart, but not stories told by it. Who are you with the crow’s quill at his breast?”

Elijah did not still his writing or turn to the wolf. No one had yet asked about the stories he wrote and the pen he carried. As he wrote, he spoke, and learned the answer for himself as the words came to his lips. “I write the stories as I hear them, and I took up the crow’s quill for no gain or harm of my own. This quill and these stories are not my own, and might belong to anybody who so desired them. I do only what any man with ears to hear and lips to speak might do.”

The wolf said, “I do not think they could. I have seen many stories, and many men who have told the tales. Some speak to the moon, but few listen. You listen, whether you know it or not. I will speak of you to the moon, when it grows full and looks down upon us, and if you listen, she will speak to you in turn.”

Elijah was disturbed by the wolf’s words, and by her certainty of speaking to the moon. She had left silently, and so it was as if no one had been behind him at all. It was as if the words had come into his mind from somewhere beyond him, where he could never hope see, and placed a great burden on his shoulders. He stood up and put his quill aside, and hoped the strange voice had not made a terrible mistake.

The fabulist left the desert and journeyed back to the East, riding the thunder and fire. He journeyed until he reached his old friend the Ocean, and he sat upon her shores with his crow’s feather and wrote stories about her waters, and the depths beneath their surface. The ocean marked time with her tides, curtseying for the gentleman, while the fabulist patiently wrote and marked time with his pen, paying his own regards. At last the Ocean noticed her friend writing on her shores, and rose through her waves to greet him. Elijah told her what the wolf had said to him, and how it had unsettled his thoughts.

The Ocean said, “I know the Lady Night as well as the wolves know the moon. I know the stories they tell her. The wolf means you no harm, and her words are only the truth, for the wolf speaks always with honor.”

Elijah thanked the Ocean for her kind reassurance and, though he still feared the wolf, returned to the city of lights in the desert, prepared to listen to her words. He dipped his crow’s quill in ink again and told stories for the rain and the wind, so that they would not be forgotten in the desert. A dove saw these stories and landed near the fabulist, though she was too shy to speak to him. But the fabulist saw the dove and asked after her.

Thus the dove came to sit upon the fabulist’s shoulder, and cooed in his ear. At last the fabulist declared, “Let me write a story on your wings, little dove, and you may carry my words to the stars and the moon.” The shy dove was flattered, and spread her wings so that Elijah could write upon them. He wrote a story, and he lent his voice to the dove’s wings, and when it was done he said, “Now fly, far above the clouds, little dove, let my words carry you until you are before the Lady Night’s eye.”

The dove flew from the fabulist, higher and higher, until she reached the clouds. However, before she could reach the stars, she hesitated and looked at the ground below. She became afraid and would not fly beyond the clouds. She never returned to the fabulist, too afraid of what he might think of her after she could not carry his story to the lady Night. Yet still the fabulist waited, every night, to see if the lady Night’s eye the moon would look upon his words. On the seventh night, he understood she would not, and he sat without writing thereafter, having given up his stories for a frightened dove.

Time passed, bowing to the lady Night and her glittering cloak, and the wolf came from the East to see Elijah once more, and read what new stories he had written. He watched her approach for hours until she sat before him, eyes yellow to his maddening hazel. “Your crow’s feather is not at your breast, shaman, nor at your page. What ails you?” she said.

“I gave up my stories for a dream. I listened to words that were sweet and ignored a frightful truth, and my voice was stolen away.” He held the quill in his hand, and showed it to her, empty of ink, lifeless.

“The weight is not so easily lifted from your shoulders, shaman,” said the wolf. “For a child of light and shadows is born in the Northern lands. I go tomorrow to carry her name to her, but tonight you will tell her story.” And the wolf brought Elijah paper, and ink. She brought him food and drink, and sat before him, but would not move his quill or place the pages in his hand.

The fabulist began to form words, meaning to tell the wolf she should not do him so much kindness, but as he opened his mouth he found other words. A story began to flow from a grain of sand, to his lips, to his heart, and to his pen. He reached out and took up the paper, he ate the food the wolf had brought him and drank the water set before him, and as the lady Night drew her cloak across the sky he wrote a story for the wolf.

“We will sing your song to the moon,” said the wolf, “and if it pleases you, we will tell the moon your name.”

The fabulist said, “You have my thanks, but this story is for the child of light and shadows, and none other. It is not my place to take any part of it from her.” And so saying, he folded the pages of the story and handed them to the wolf.

“Your ways are strange, shaman,” said the wolf, “but you are not without honor. I will convey your regards to the light and the shadows.” And so saying, the wolf thanked the fabulist, and left for the Northern lands that very morning, as Twilight’s birds began to sing.

Thus the fabulist took up his quill again, understanding now that what stories he would tell to the moon or the stars, what he might hear if he listened, that these things could not be taken or given. In this way, when he saw the moon grow enormous on the horizon, while the lady Night still slumbered, he wrote a story for her. He did not know if she saw the story, or if it pleased her, but on some nights he heard the howling of wolves, and their song was kind to his heart.

Elijah measured time in pages, and journeyed many times between the desert and the Ocean, between the city of lights and the East. When he wrote in the East, he sat beneath an apple tree which grew beside a creek which ran behind the house where he was raised. In the spring, he was surrounded by appleblossoms, and in the fall he ate apples from the tree’s branches. When the sun was high overhead, the tree shaded the fabulist, and when the wind blew, the tree surrounded the fabulist with a gentle perfume. The apple tree never asked anything of the fabulist, but gave all its gifts freely.

With time, the fabulist came to enjoy writing beneath his apple tree more than anything else. He picked blossoms from it and carried them in the thunder and the rain out to the desert, letting them free in the sands. He found crow and peacock feathers along the roads he traveled, and left them at the foot of the apple tree. And it was not long before crows made their nests in the tree’s branches, and raised their young amongst the apples.

Sometimes it seemed the branches were whispering to him, as they swayed in the wind. “I miss you,” spoke the appleblossoms, softly in his ear. Sometimes, when Elijah sat beneath the stars in the desert, with his back warm against the beast of fire and steel, feeling the wind in his hair, he said, “I miss you, too.” He imagined the wind carried his words to the apple tree, so that it would not be so lonely in his absence.

One morning Elijah came to stand before the tree, and he said, “Your blossoms do not last in the desert. Let me make you mine, and write your story, and take you into the desert with me.” Though the tree could not speak, he thought he heard a whispered assent.

Thus Elijah took branches laden with flowers from the tree and laid them on the ground. He took the peacock feathers he had left at the base of the tree and set them about the petals. He ran his fingers over the feathers, and made arms and legs out of them. The peacock feather legs became rosy with life, like pale white flower petals. The grass growing at the base of the tree grew through the apple tree’s blossoms, and breathed life into the body Elijah had made. He took two dark stones for her eyes, and he held a tiny pink appleblossom to his lips, and breathed life into her.

The fabulist put pen to paper again, and he wrote paradise wings onto her back. He named her Appleblossom, his peacock feather fairy, and wrote her name on a secret place in her heart, where no one could take it away. He placed three drops of ink in her mouth, and asked her, “Will you come to the desert with me, with the rain and the thunder, with fire and steel, and sit beneath the stars, and tell stories to the moon?”

“I will come to the desert with you,” said Appleblossom, “if you will rest in my arms when you are weary, and let me sleep in your dreams when I must rest.”

Elijah took Appleblossom in his arms, and put crow feathers in her hair. Together they walked to the beast of fire and steel which guarded his soul, and rode into the desert with the rain and the thunder. She lived in his dreams, and when the fabulist asked his peacock feather fairy if he might write stories about her eyes, or tell tales about her lips, she would tell him that all she gave him was for him, and that it was not her place to profit by it.

The fabulist asked her, “What do you want, most of all?” And Appleblossom answered him by taking a crow’s feather from her hair and holding it out in her hand. She said, “What do you want? I am as you made me.”

“If you know what you are asking, Appleblossom,” said the fabulist, “then keep the crow’s feather, and keep it close to your heart.”

Elijah’s fairy took the feather she gave him and held it close to her heart, where he had written her name. She sat beside him as he took out a fresh sheet of paper, blank and clean, and dipped his crow’s quill in black India ink, which was always at his side. She leaned her head on his shoulder as he began to write, and they sat together, under the stars in the desert, for a very long time.

And if the moon is still rising, they are still there today.