Danny peered intently into the bright green eyes of the piksie hovering before him, gossamer wings a kaleidoscopic blur. He thought as hard as he'd ever done in his life. After a moment, he ventured a hesitant question to the tiny flying girl.
"So... ye mean I dinnae get three wishes?"
"How the...och, ye giant gobshite, what d'ya keep in that great noggin, old cheese? Feck! Damme if I'll be explainin' this to yer stupid face again. Bloody agreements with the sodding big folk be damned. Ye'll get what ye desire, ye daft old bean, fer freein' me from that old hag's spell. S'how it works, how it's worked since the fey and folk first met. Sod off home, ye beer-soaked, hulkin' buffoon. When ye wake, yer desires'll be met. Just like feckin' magic, which it bloody well is."
With that, the mossy-eyed fey flew away, disappearing into a swirling mass of autumn leaves. When they stilled a moment later, she was nowhere to be seen.
Danny looked about, taking in a deep breath of the crisp, cool air. Nodding - just a habit to get him moving, not to indicate he had any understanding of what just happened - he stepped back to the street with the deliberate air of a man who knows damn well how drunk he's gotten.The sun's light pouring through the cracks in his walls woke Danny, hours after the cock first crowed. Stumbling about his tiny hut, he flailed through his morning routine. First he stripped off his clothes from the night before, then splashed some water on his face from the one good bucket he had. But Drunk Danny last night had decided it was very important to rearrange things, so sober Danny got a handful of chamber pot in his face before he knew what he was doing. Spitting miserably, he grabbed the good bucket and staggered out to his mean well, relieving himself as hand over hand he hauled up buckets of clean water to wash himself. He'd nothing to eat again, so once dressed and somewhat clean, he picked some dandelion on his way to the mill, to ease the gnawing in his belly. Something tugged at the back of his mind, but Danny had been born stupid and learnt well that such things weren't very important. He had to get to work, so he could get food. He'd been paid yesterday, so he had six more days until he could buy beer again. These were the things that mattered.
What *was* that he wanted to remember? A dream, was it?"Late again, Danny. Ye'll be working until nightfall today, then. Here's yer belt, put it on. Good lad. And now yer axe, good. Ah, ah. Saw. Good lad. Off ye go, then."
Humming contentedly, Danny finished cleaning his saw as the last rays of evening sun faded away. Old Gran Aine had brought fresh barley bread for the workers today, soft and just slightly sweet, and she gave Danny an extra piece and a smile for the good work he'd done. Chewing happily on his slice of bread for supper, he walked back homeward, to start anew on the morrow.
"Oi! Oi, lad. C'mere, would ye? Me boys need a hand with a cart. Help us, would ye?" Danny nodded and walked off the road with the stranger, but when they'd gone perhaps a hundred paces, they came upon three dirty lads, and no cart.
"Uhh...is yer cart missin', mister?"
Danny didn't know he told a joke, but the men laughed all the same.
"Seems it is, lad. Seems we're in need of a bit of help to get a new cart."
"Oh, that costs money. I don't have money, mister. I only get paid once a week."
"Ah, but ye've shoes, and seems we need those more than ye. And that shirt - wool, is it? Warm. Wouldn't do to be cold at night, aye?"
Barefoot and shirtless, Danny wandered lost, looking for the road to get home. His eyes stung from how dark it was and maybe the cold too, but he was a man and wasn't crying, even though it was too dark to see the road. So when he tripped and rolled down a slope, he wasn't surprised, even though his wrist had made a bad sound and now hurt. Clambering back up the slope, he found what he'd tripped upon; a still-warm body. A big man, all in hard leather and iron rings, still grasping an axe and a rod. The axe was wrong, with a cutting edge too large, and a backspike instead of a hammer face to counterweight the blade, but it was proper fine metal it was. Smooth and pale, unmarked though the leather-wrapped wooden haft was split as though it had been twisted apart.
The dead man showed no blood, and cold as he was, Danny decided it was better to take a dead man's shirt than to freeze to death, alone and lost. The man wore a strange triple belt, which Danny took to keep the shirt - more a tunic, come to think - tucked properly on his waist. There was a purse, knotted oddly and unworkable to Danny's stiff fingers, that stayed on the belt. Something about the rod called to him. As sure as he'd ever been, Danny took up the rod, and turned to go home. But he could not move his feet. Something held him fast. Something called his name, so quiet it didn't even break the silence his clumsy fall had draped over the wood.The axe. A shame to leave such a beautiful piece of metal, even if it was all wrong. Even if it was going to be twice as heavy as a proper felling axe and like to stab him in the eye or shoulder if it bounced off a knot in a gnarled old oak. He took a step back, and lifted the smooth haft with surprising ease. The axe felt light, though he knew it was not. The leather was somehow old but smooth and unstained; the wood darker than any beer or bread and delicately carved with the shape of a dragonfly along the smooth grain.
Was that odd? Danny didn't know. Nodding to himself, he tapped the hard leather of his breastplate to hear the toll of the demigaunt against iron rings, rolled his ankles in his well-strapped boots, and strode off, unerringly homeward.
The axe light in his hand. The rod heavy at his waist.
