The standing stones stood tall and grey in the morning light. The ridges and bumps of their stone hewn bodies stood out like mountains and valleys. A low vaporous cloud hung over the moor, a slight breeze rustled the dry grass, cracking and snapping it. That was the only sound to be heard that morning. The air smelt like rain and promise, the dirt was moist underfoot.
The standing stones stood there much like they always had, for as long as they, or anyone could remember. They had watched as the small town with its thatch-roofed townhouses had grown from a few ramshackle buildings to a town with stone-brick roads and inns. There used to be a mound where that inn was; a great king who had ruled the country many hundreds of years ago was buried there.
The standing stones remembered the day he had died. The country had mourned that day. Many people had come to the stones and crossed into the green. There the fae folk still danced yet unseen. The people wished many healings of pains the fae could not fade. The stones protected them throughout that long, long night. They watched them bargain with the queen and fae all.
When the sweet sun’s gentle beams broke through the cloudy night and reached out their lacy hands, sprinkling the great country in drops of fairy dew the townsfolk began to leave.
The stones remembered that day well for it was the last people came in numbers such as that. The people dwindled in their visits, all their wishes lessened. The stones were dark and slept. The fae no more answered the few people that still came. The green withered and the sun shone bright once more. No clouds hung low over the moor and the stones dreamed of blue skies and grey clouds, of green trees and little white sheep dancing like puffs of cotton upon a still lush country. They dreamed the dreams of kings.
The stones dreamed while the world fell into strife and ruin around them. Bomber planes flew over the stones and tanks rolled through the green, and the stones still did not wake. They slept through the icy grips of the Wintersmith painting patterns onto the great stones with his frosty brush. They slept through the spring when gophers and rabbits made burrows in the long-forgotten green. They slept through the Summer Queen, heating the stones like a furnace with her rays of golden light.
Then came the childing autumn with her dress of reds and yellows; golds and silvers. Then winter came again and the stones still did not wake. No more people came to see the stones and fae. They left them to slowly errode. Their old souls drifted away on the winds of time and found their way to the otherworld were they sat alongside the old gods, forgotten but no longer lost. Ogma, Taranis, the Lady of the Night.
They sat on the greens under the silver-lined night and spoke of times long forgotten, of dances of the fairy folk and changing children; of what it felt like to have a physical form and of the dull colours of the world, for here everything was bright and colorful.
Sprites came and gave them the news of the outside world being torn by war and death, of the foolish mortal men building empires and tearing them down overnight. More and more souls crowded the twisting paths and gardens of the otherworld until it seemed that all mortal life had died off the face of the earth when it stopped. Peace came and governed over a new world and the spirits began to slowly make their way into the mortal realm. The stones stayed in the otherworld. They sat in the many gardens and watched the fae dance and sing and play music again alongside the gods. The stones were happy. They dreamed still when the music became too loud or the dancing too wild. Soft deams. Sweet dreams. Clanchan dreams.