Muse

Submitted for the 2025 Forest & Fawn Faerie Writing Challenge.

In this challenge, participants are given 10 days to write an original short story of 2000 words or less. In addition to the theme (in this case, “Faerie”), three specific prompts — announced on Day 1 of the challenge — must be incorporated. The three prompts were as follows: Someone who is notorious for breaking things, a message in a bottle, and the first and last sentences must be “nothing is/as was as it seems/seemed.” I hope you enjoy :).

Nothing was as it seemed. 

First, the wine bottle that was left as a gift at Eleanor’s doorstep was not, in fact, filled with wine. This came as a great disappointment to her, as wine had become her dearest friend these past few weeks. Wine did not judge her. It permitted her, if only for a few hours, to silence the inevitable self-judgement that plagued her mind. 

Second, this wine bottle was regrettably filled with sand. Coarse, dry, non-potable sand. Eleanor only discovered this after she had tried to chug straight from the bottle. It was horribly unpleasant. She hurled it against the wall, glass shattering all over the floor. She would probably have to clean that up later. Probably.

And third, the bottle was filled with more than just sand. Hidden within and scattered amidst the wreckage was a small parchment, tied into a tight roll by a white ribbon. 

Eleanor recognized that ribbon. Her mind was flooded with images of green eyes. A cluster of freckles at the tip of a pointed ear. Curly ginger hair tied by that very ribbon. Fuck. 

Eleanor spat the last granules of sand out of her mouth. She might have felt ashamed for her impropriety, were she not alone. Nor intoxicated. Nor already buried in the depths of self-loathing.  

She resolved not to open the note. She spat again, even though her mouth was clear. She wouldn’t read it. Couldn’t read it. She already knew how this story would end — the same way it began: alone, in her house, drinking herself into oblivion. 

She stared at the parchment. It stared back. At least, it would be staring back, if parchments could stare. 

Eleanor’s legs moved before she had a chance to stop them. If the glass cut into her bare feet, she didn’t notice, or didn’t care. Let them bleed. Cover her floors in stains of red. It would probably be better than the shit she called ‘art’ these days. 

Her fingers tore at the ribbon. It still smelled like her. Were she not so desperate to read the note, she might have relished in the perfume just a little longer. Instead, she tossed the ribbon to the ground. Her hands trembled, the letter shaking as she read: 

“El,”

“Fuck!” Eleanor screamed, tossing the parchment to the floor. She didn’t want to read anymore. The moment she saw the word, she remembered the lips that spoke it. She could practically feel them on her neck. Angry tears welled in her eyes. Had these weeks all been for nothing? Where was her pride, her dignity? All this time, and still she grew weak at the mere thought of her. Was she really so pathetic? 

No, she thought. I am better than this. And she would prove it. 

With a deep breath, Eleanor picked up the letter once more. She delicately brushed the bits of sand from it, as if to demonstrate how composed she could be. 

“El,

Nothing is as it seems. Please, if you do nothing else, read the remainder of this letter. I can accept a fate in which we will never see each other again, if that’s what you want. I owe you that much. But what I cannot accept is the narrative you have painted of who and what we are.

“Last we spoke, you accused me of being many things: a faerie, an enchantress, a heartbreaker, to name a few. It’s true, all of it, save for one: I am not a liar. Complicit in deceit, perhaps, but never a liar. (Unless you count the wine — I’m sorry. I could think of no other way to ensure you’d read this.)” 

Eleanor paused there. It felt strange, reading the accusation and confession together on the page. It made them more real. She felt both vindicated and — disappointed, perhaps? She had her proof here, in these very words. She was right. Surely, this was enough. Surely she could put down the letter and allow herself to move on. But she did not. Eleanor sat upon the floor, barefoot and drunk, and read on: 

“I did not reveal my lineage to you. I can see now the fault in that. But can you not understand why? When you met me, you did not see a Leannán Sidhe. You did not see a path to glory or fame. You saw me. I have never felt so seen in my life as I have by your eyes.” 

Eleanor remembered the night in question. She remembered it vividly. Flushed faces. Clumsy hands. The inexplicable smell of spring. Eleanor let out a sound that could only be described as a mewl: a pathetic, whimpering mewl. 

A teardrop fell to the page. Gods be damned, when had she started crying? She stupidly looked around to make sure no one else had seen. Of course no one had seen.  She was alone. Alone, alone. Still, she wiped the tears away quickly.

“And so, I kept my secret. I told myself it was to protect us both and the little piece of forever we had created for ourselves. But it is as I said: I am not a liar, and I will not lie to you now. 

I see now that the only thing I was protecting was my own fear. I was afraid that if you found out what I was, your love would change. You would no longer see me. You, like a thousand others before you, would see only the splendor I could give you. We would devour each other, and you — like those thousand others — would lie broken at the end of it all. I couldn’t do it. I was afraid, El, because I knew you gave your heart to your art long before you ever gave it to me. I would only ever come second to it. To tempt you like that was too great a risk.” 

Blurry-eyed, Eleanor looked around the room. It did not look like the home of someone who loved their art; it looked like the home of someone who was at war with it. Half-painted canvases were strewn across the furniture. Brushes caked with dried paint lay ruined on the tables. The past few weeks had Eleanor convinced it was part of her process. She snorted. This was not a process. This was a travesty. 

“I was wrong. I should have trusted you. I should have had faith in what we had. And I recognize that this failing, my failing, was the beginning of our end. I’m sorry.” 

Eleanor blew out a heavy breath. In truth, she hadn’t realized how badly she needed this, to hear her take responsibility. If she had known, perhaps she would have given her the chance to say something all those weeks ago, that night she confronted her. But Eleanor gave her no such chance. She hadn’t allowed her to say a word. She was afraid that if she did, her rage would give way to tears — tears and vulnerability, and worst of all, surrender.  

Fucking tears. They still hadn’t stopped. 

“But can you do the same, El? Can you acknowledge your part in this?”

Eleanor furrowed her brow. Surely she misread the words. She reread them once, twice. Surely she was mistaken.

She wasn’t. Eleanor’s hands began to shake again.  

“Please, read on.” 

Fuck her. Fuck her for knowing. Eleanor almost stopped reading, just to spite her. She instead settled for wiping away her tears, resolving not to shed any more. 

“Be honest with yourself: I am not the only one whose trust wavered. You told me that you had never been so proud of your art. You marveled at how your creative voice had developed. No matter how many times I denied it, you swore I was the source of your inspiration. You told me you would be lost without me. You called me your muse.” 

“You were,” Eleanor whispered. She felt the room shrink around her, the unfinished paintings of the past weeks looming.

“So when you discovered my origins, that knowledge validated every fear you ever had about yourself: that you were never good enough. You were a fraud, an imposter, an unexceptional husk biding her time in a beautiful life before she was discovered and dragged back to the mundanity she deserved.” 

A shiver ran up Eleanor’s spine. It felt like cold electricity. Suddenly, she didn’t feel wine-drunk anymore.

“What a convenient story I was. Why face the demons within you when you can blame the one in your bed?” 

She lingered on the words, frozen by the blow. Her gaze drifted to the bedroom as if the sidhe were still there, hurling the accusations from the next room.

“I am not angry with you, El. Not anymore. I feel only regret: regret that I could not do more to convince you of your own light. But I know, better than most, how ephemeral power can be when it comes from a place outside ourselves.  If you believe nothing else in this letter, believe this: I may have been your muse, but I was never your Patron. The source of your creativity was your joy. Your light. You were not enchanted; you were happy, Eleanor. You were, and always have been, enough — with or without me.”

A few lines remained. Eleanor could not bring herself to read them. Her mind swam with thoughts, clouded by emotion and wine and weeks of restless nights in an empty bed that still smelled like her. Was this just another scheme? An insidious ploy to win back her human pet? Eleanor’s tears renewed. Her chest seized with a sob. She wanted to believe her. She hung upon each word, searching desperately for some proof in them: sincerity, deception, anything. 

It wasn’t enough.

“I can’t,” she concluded, shaking her head. “I can’t trust it. Not her, not me, not any of it.” 

She expected to break then — just like all the others had broken. Maybe she already had. She sat motionless, the hollow of her chest a ceaseless ache. What does one do when they’re broken, anyway? 

Enough, the letter said. She didn’t feel like enough. She felt like shit. But how long could she go on blaming someone else for the misery she so diligently nurtured?

Eleanor stood. Sand clung to her bare legs, but she had managed to avoid the shattered glass. She walked carefully to the broom and dustpan in the corner of the room, and with deliberate movements, she swept up the mess: the sand, the glass, the parchment, the ribbon, the fallen tears. In a matter of minutes, it was done, a neat pile atop the dustpan.

“I am not a pet,” she said aloud, with only the walls to hear her. “And I am not broken.” With a deep breath she added, “Broken people don’t sweep up their messes.” 

It took Eleanor nearly an hour to clean her living room. She threw away the ruined brushes, rolled up the half-finished canvases, and hung a new one on the wall to hopefully inspire something, someday. It didn’t feel good, exactly — but it felt better. It felt like something broken people didn’t do. When she came across the uncorked wine bottles on the kitchen counter, she poured their remnants down the drain. Finally, trash bags in hand, she opened the front door to take them to the bins out front. 

She hardly recognized the woman sitting at her doorstep. 

Red curls hung limp around her face. Anxious fingers twisted knots in her lap. Her green eyes were swollen with the vestiges of long-dried tears. Eleanor knew the look all too well: it was the same one that stared back at her from her mirror all these weeks. 

“Layla.” Eleanor could not stop herself. The word felt like home on her tongue. 

The sidhe smiled weakly, revealing more than her letter ever could. And it was enough.

Indeed, nothing was as it seemed.