Fey are said to feel too much, nearly bursting from all the emotions packed into their bodies. It was one of the reasons feyers dull their own to better combat them, as fairies are master manipulators. Osmond has never really believed those stories, for the older feyers always painted them more as monsters rather than the dramatic actors the lessons implied.

He only changed his mind after his older sister, Edith, told him the true story behind Mournlight.

***

“Do you know why we celebrate Mournlight, Ozzy?” Edith had asked out of the blue. It was late at night, and they had snuck off with Edward and Herry, watching the celebrations from the roof. Like normal, Edward had gotten a bit too jittery after about an hour and had drug Herry off to actually go participate in the holiday instead of just watching it.

“It’s to celebrate the dead and honor the living.” A textbook response, the one Osmond had been told for years whenever he asked about it to his teachers.

Edith shakes her head, blond curls scattering about her face, hiding brown eyes that were already starting to darken from the effects of the pre-Joining Ceremonies she is undergoing. In a week, she will be fifteen, finally allowed to undergo the ritual to become a full feyer. “It’s a fairy holiday.”

Osmond tears his gaze away from the sparkling firelights from the town outside of their castle, focusing entirely on his sister in his confusion. Not in all of his fourteen years of life as he heard that. “Then why do we celebrate it?”

Edith smiles, showing off her crooked teeth. She had taken a punch from Alfred a few years ago during a training match that she refused to retaliate in. Alfred, with his fragile ego, had thought it a taunt, and her smile has been lopsided since, the teeth never quite setting back correctly. “And that’s the mystery! Our history teacher let it slip by accident when I was asking about the Siege of Black Flames for my report.”

“What does the Fairy War have to do with it?”

“Well, apparently,” and she takes on the familiar conspiratorial tone she has learned from Ward, “Mournlight is when the Seelie Queen mourns her prince, the one killed during the siege.” She explains, “As the master of fire, her grief affects all of Midgard.”

It is true that during Mournlight, all of the flames bleach themselves of color. Even giant bonfires have their light dimmed, becoming no bigger than a candle flame, glowing a soft, sad white. Osmond had even been told the original name of the festival was the Day of Mourning Light, but he just can’t—

“But that was 100 years ago!” he protests, struggling to align the disjointed information in his head. Never had anyone ever mentioned anything about the fey when talking about the holiday. “And she’s a fairy—”

“Even the fey grieve, Osmond,” Edith cuts in harshly. “Don’t buy into the nonsense the old farts tell you. They might not be human, but they still feel things, far more than we do.” Her eyes downcast as she looks at the festival below. “And especially more than feyers.”

Osmond wants to refute that claim, to defend his teachers, to stop thinking about the fey as something empathic, but the words stick in his throat. There is something bubbling under his skin, something he doesn’t want to name, perhaps shame of being called out by his favorite sibling. His eyes itch and each breath comes a tiny bit faster, the iron burning even hotter.

Edith sighs, obviously noticing the displeased look on his face. Osmond turns sharply, hoping she didn’t catch too much. He always tries his best to act like a feyer, but he is too expressive, his face an open book.

“Even Dad honors it, you know,” she says with a false lightness. “Haven’t you noticed there are never any feyer missions on Mournlight?”

Based on the scowl that always adorns their father’s face and the excessive amount of drink he supplies on the day, Osmond feels that choice is much less “honoring” and more “tolerating.” Most likely a discussion born out of politics and not wanting to risk starting another war.

The feyers themselves don’t really practice the holiday either. It is tradition to erase the history of all previous feyers, hoping to ease their path to Valhalla by completely severing their ties to Midgard (for as noble a profession as a feyer is, it is a disservice to be remembered as one). And it was common practice among feyers to destroy the bodies of the fallen, lest they rise back up as Helborne.

It was always non-feyers who celebrated the holiday, and Osmond has always found it a bit strange. (Another year from now, Osmond will be eating those words, clutching a candle he had stolen from the main hall, and watching the white light reflect off the brickwork in a room that is not his, mourning the loss of a sister no one else is allowed to grieve).

“Let’s talk about something else then,” Edith offers, and Osmond begrudgingly nods, throat still tight from the unknowable twisting feeling in his stomach. “Are you going to come for my Joining Ceremony?”

“You know I’m not allowed,” he grumbles, the weird feeling souring into annoyance. It’s almost comfortable having a familiar emotion back. He knows how annoyance should feel and what he’s supposed to do with it. “And I thought you weren’t going to do it?”

Edith hums, staring down at the festival below. In the light of the moon and white fire torches down below, her eyes were darker than black, as if she had already completed the Joining Ceremony.

“You can say no.” Osmond wasn’t sure how much he actually believed that, never mind understanding why his sister wouldn’t want to be a feyer when it was the only thing he wanted so desperately to be. But he loved his sister more, and she had never been happy with a life of combat.

“I could,” she agreed, “but I think my chances are better if I do what the old man wants of me first.”

Their father did nothing to hide his expectations of them. It was their responsibility and honor to become master feyers, protecting their land and fighting back against the fey. But… but that wasn’t what Edith wanted.

“That…” Osmond wasn’t sure what he wanted to say. Emotions so tangled and new and strange were a mess inside his head. Too many thoughts and the stinging weight of the iron. It always burned more around Mournlight.

“You don’t need to say anything, Ozzy,” Edith assured, smile soft. She reached over and pulled him closer to her. Osmond immediately melted; everyone else was so scared to touch him, as if he would break. Even Edith handled him with a gentle touch and only rarely let him sit so close. “Even if I can’t do it right now, my dream isn’t going anywhere.”

“I’ll travel Midgard three times over!” she declared, raising an imaginary tankard up like they’d seen the older feyers do so many times. “Maybe even beyond into the other realms!"

Osmond huffed a laugh. His sister could be as ridiculous as Edward sometimes. “You can do that even if you’re not a merchant,” he said with a teasing tone that wasn’t quite as teasing as he hoped.

“But merchants get paid to travel around.”

“Bards do too,” he reminded, torn between feeling happy for his sister and sad that, if she did get to live her dream, Osmond might never see her again. “And feyers, if you take a far contract or something.”

“I’d be a terrible bard and we both know it.” She shook her head. “And you really think dad will let me go that far for feyer work? I mean, you aren’t even allowed—” She stopped suddenly, face morphing into a grimace. “Sorry, that was mean.”

“No, it's fine. It’s true,” he admitted, trying unsuccessfully to keep the bitterness out of his tone. “I’ll leave once I’m better,” and it tasted like the lie it was. There is no “getting better.” Whatever illness plagued Osmond had only gotten worse as he got older.

“So, what are you going to sell?” he asked, forcing the conversation away from himself.

“Uh…” Edith glanced around quickly, eyes pausing on one of the merchant stalls far below. “Fruit.”

“Fruit?” he echoed, unimpressed.

“Okay,” Edith admitted with a shrug, “I haven’t figured that part out yet, but whatever I sell—it will do well.” She declared this with the certainty of someone who had pulled their string from the fate-weaving Norns themselves.

“I’ll be a part of a merchant guild—no, I’ll make my own!” she corrected, eyes glittering with excitement. “The best merchant to ever walk Midgard!”

Well, he didn’t doubt his sister would make an excellent merchant. She was like a hearth fire, warm and comfortable. With a gift for getting what she wanted, she had conned more than one bard out of their old instruments back when they were both in single digits. Unfortunately, they had soon all realized Edith had less than any talent for music, and she quickly decided to be a merchant instead of a bard.

“So, you’re really going through with the Joining?”

“I’ll tell Dad after the Joining,” she said, but despite her words, her tone faltered slightly.

“A feyer and a merchant?” Osmond didn’t remember a rule prohibiting being a merchant in the feyer code, but he was sure their mentors wouldn’t be happy at such an idea anyway.

“Why not? I can kill fairies and sell apples.”

“I guess?”

“Don’t worry about it too much, Ozzy! And once I get the okay, maybe we can twist their arms into letting you come with me,” she suggested. He almost believed her. “If I’m a full-fledged feyer I can keep you safe!"

“I’m going to be a feyer myself!" he protested.

She laughed, and it was such a genuine sound. Osmond was frozen for a second as his sister bent over herself, clutching her middle as she heaved gasps between her laughter.

Then he remembered where they were and scrambled to slap his hands over his sister’s mouth, muffling her joy before she further alerted the feyer on “Osmond Watch Duty” outside his door. He didn’t want her to tip them off that Osmond wasn’t as alone or as in his room as he thought.

“Edith, hush!” he scolded in a whisper, waiting for a few heavy breaths to see if anyone was going to check on him. After a minute, he deemed it safe and let go of his still-chuckling sister.

“Sorry, sorry,” she apologized with a chuckle. “After you become a feyer too, then we can both be feyer merchants.”

“Who said I was coming along anyway?” He questioned, giving her a glare as he crossed his arms, still not appeased after her laughing at his declaration of being a feyer.

“I did,” she boasted in a terrible impression of their older brother, Alfred. “I promise on my name as Edith Elizabeth Dale.”

Osmond let his arms drop, annoyance replaced by a dark twisting thing. They obviously weren’t fey, but still, invoking one’s full name was too much for a childish promise that was an impossible dream. “Edith…”

“Oh, sun’s almost up!” And she jumped up to her feet, stretching and pointedly avoiding Osmond’s look, her confidence a paper-thin mask. She didn't want this, not truly, and most likely, she didn’t believe anything of what she had just said. They both knew she wouldn’t escape the fate of being a feyer.

But there was something more than that, a sudden, collapsing fear opening in Osmond’s chest. It was a foreboding he couldn’t place, as if somehow he knew of the tragedy that was about to happen.

“Wait!”

He latched onto his sister’s arm, pulling her back from where she was about to jump down from the edge of the roof.

“Ozzy?” She turned back around, all false bravado forgotten. She was focusing solely back on him, concern coloring her tone. “You good?”

“Yeah,” and he let go of her as if burned, scolding himself for acting like a fool. Edith could make her own choices; it was her life. Osmond’s irrational fear shouldn’t hold back his sister.

The horrible feeling grew inside of him, so dark and looming it felt as if it would soon consume him, but he forced a smile and shook his head at Edith’s worried look. “Good luck.”

She smiled and reached over to ruffle his hair, something she was fond of doing but he hated. He is taller than her, but he let her that time, a lazy melancholy feeling weighing down his normal protests.

“Don’t stay up too late, Ozzy!” she scolded lightly, ruffling his hair extra hard once she realized he wasn’t complaining. “Even experienced feyers need their sleep!”

She patted his blond hair one more time before, with a showing-off backflip, she jumped down to the castle wall below, only fumbling the landing a tiny bit. She flashed him a double thumbs-up and began to race off along the wall before she was found by the guards. “I expect a present when I become the first feyer merchant ever!”

He waved back, unable to make himself agree. Something bigger than him was holding his tongue. This was not a promise he could keep.

And that was the last time he ever saw Edith.