Prologue: Meet Serendipity

She stood, arms outstretched, and eyes closed, barefoot on the cool grass, completely encircled by wild rosebushes, not in bloom, but still just as fragrant as if they were teeming with the little white blossoms, save for the small gap through which she entered her private little paradise.

The wind stirred and tousled her hair gently, causing waves and ripples through the grass at her feet, and rustled gently through the leaves of the wild rosebushes, making tiny whispering sounds and soft touches that delighted her every sense, save sight. For you see, this delighted child standing here amidst these rosebushes, reveling in the sheer beauty of nature, was blind. She had been blind for most of her life, yet, since discovering this wonderful haven last year, not once did she miss her sight. For this was a place of great magic, and wonder. Enrapturing sounds, smells, sensations, and even the taste of the cool air on her tongue delighted her to the fullest extent. She sometimes thought, were she still able to see, she more than likely would never have appreciated her other senses thus, and as a result, thanked the mysterious forces that took away her sight and gave her this precious gift of sensory bliss.

Meet Serendipity, you'll come to know and love her as you follow along on her amazing adventures right there amongst the wild rosebushes, for what no one but she knew, was that this place was a mystical portal into another world, one that did not require sight, one that did not react with fear and misunderstanding, and sometimes outright hatred to her blindness. An alternate plane, where never a soul had seen a thing in all its life. From this tiny haven in a small forest, was a door to the most dazzling places, each one tailored to her every whim, and it is here that our story begins...

With her arms outstretched, and her eyes closed, as the cool breeze played gently with her hair and moved the grass about her feet and rippled her long skirt, Serendipity listened intently to the whispers of the wind through the rosebushes, the sound of excited insects and frogs chirping merrily. She felt the wind as it moved about her, and kissed her randomly about her face, exposed ankles and arms. She inhaled deeply and breathed in the scent of wild roses, the nearby algae scent of the pond, the smell of dirt on her nose from her crawl into her private paradise. She opened her mouth and put out her tongue to taste the breeze as it flitted by and the tiny specks of dust it blew onto it.

All of these sensations she experienced as one, and would become intensely aware of each sensation, in their own individual affectations, and yet at the same time be aware of them all about her in a sensational dream-like spiral of chaotic cacophony. As all this went on, were there another person around to see, they would have witnessed a most remarkable occurrence. For it was in this moment that her purest beauty was realized, for in that moment, she began to shine.

Shaking wildly with laughter Serendipity shone as bright as the sun with silvery tendrils of light and seemed to fade away her every cell riding along on these silver beams. Moments later, a small ribbon floated gently down to the grass, and she was gone, that ribbon the only trace that anyone had even been there at all. The ribbon landed on the grass, completely encircled by a ring of red toadstools speckled white that had not been there just a moment before.

Ribbons of light began coalescing in the otherwise dark forest illuminating the colourless trees and ground, and a loud whooshing sound accompanied it, and just barely audible over the noise was the musical trilling of joyous laughter that grew louder as the wildly rushing gales of wind died off, and the light began to spiral inward and take shape. The laughter grew louder as the light began to dim, and bit by bit little Serendipity stood in its place as it gradually faded back to the comfortable darkness that the trees were accustomed to.

Serendipity giggled raucously, clapped her hands and bounced around in delight as she took in the new sensations provided by her ears and nose and bare feet and she knew she that she had arrived. Where, she never knew, she only knew that each time it was somewhere different, and each time it was a wonderful experience, with ever changing scents and sounds and textures and tastes. 'Who needs their sight,' she would oft think, 'when there are all these other pleasures so seldom appreciated by those who still retain it.'

Once she had settled she let her senses out and gathered her bearings. There was a light breeze stirring, so she was aware that she was completely in the dark, in a thick forest, for as she listened she heard the rustle of millions of leaves overhead and they stretched out in all directions as far as her ears could perceive, and there were no detectable gaps in the sounds. She also learned that this was a very old forest, for the creaks of the ancient trees where spread apart by yards.

She walked delicately towards the nearest tree, for though she did not feel any pine needles, nor smell a pine-like scent, she knew from her experiences that it did not mean that there would not be a sharp pinecone waiting to pierce her little feet. One could not judge based solely on Earth's rules, when one travelled about to places that could not possibly exist on that solitary planet amongst the countless planets in the countless galaxies of the universe. Not to mention the dimensions!

She reached out her hand and touched it lightly and felt its bark...no, its skin, she giggled at the delightful preposterousness of it all. Who knew a tree that creaked like wood, would be made of flesh. She kept her hand lightly on the surface and walked slowly around to be sure, yes, this was a round tree made of flesh, complete with knots and branches. Fantastic, she absolutely had to know what the leaves were made of!

Before she could begin climbing up this fascinating tree she heard a faint buzz and felt something alight upon her shoulder. She moved her hand up to her shoulder to identify what had landed there. She felt two tiny hands grasp her finger and begin vigorously shaking it, and the creature on her shoulder emitted a sound not unlike an excitedly chirping squirrel, and bounced around happily upon her shoulder.

"Desire!", Serendipity exclaimed, "I just knew I'd find you here! This place is lovely! Is this the one?"

The little creature called Desire shook Serendipity's finger negatively, and chirped almost a little sadly.

"Oh, drat," she intoned softly, "that's too bad, but I'm sure we'll find it someday, meanwhile, this place is such a lovely change from the dreary place I come from, let's wander and explore a bit shall we?"

Serendipity felt Desire slip her feet promptly out from under herself and flop down rather gracelessly on her shoulder and chirp affirmatively.

` So it was that they set off, to explore this strange world where trees were made of flesh, and leaves made of, of what Serendipity did not know, nor was she as curious to find out, now that Desire had her attention.

She still wasn't fully sure what, exactly, Desire was, for the little creature wasn't always so little, but this was the form she used most around Serendipity because she had picked up on the little girl's daydreams of the Sidhe flitting merrily about throughout the Enchanted Wood of the Emerald Isle where she had found her special little rosebush haven.

The Sidhe were little folk who celebrated nature and life, and relentlessly and mischievously tormented mortal folk, especially the ones who actively set out to disbelieve their existence, but had a well-known habit of befriending little girls and boys, perhaps in an attempt to torment the mortal adults even further. Not that they ever meant any harm, they simply wanted to remind them just how fragile their existence could be if they lacked a certain amount of self-sufficiency, imagination, and didn't properly live in harmony with nature.

As they wandered, Serendipity's thoughts wandered, as they typically do, to their first meeting, and how neatly it fit to her name's meaning, for serendipitous occasions had a habit of falling into her lap on quite the regular basis.

Chapter One: Desire

On that particular day, oh so long ago, for that was when Serendipity still had her sight, and neglected her now precious senses of hearing, smell, taste, and touch, as is typical of humans, who never realize just quite how gifted they are, until one of those gifts are taken from them, Serendipity had somehow managed to become separated from her family and got lost in the woods where they were camping.

Of course, it was several hours into being lost did little Serendipity realize that she was, in fact, lost. As she frantically ran around searching for her family, and bawling huge tears of frustration she came upon something that stopped her crying immediately. So overwhelmed by curiosity at what she had just observed, she immediately forgot about being lost and went to investigate.

What that something was, was a strange music, played by odd stringed instruments, and pipes that did not sound particularly like the pipes normally played in Ireland, they were as high pitched as the pipes she was accustomed to hearing, but the performer would rarely, if indeed at all, stop for a breath! Also, she heard a drum thumping and the jingle of shells, and little bits of metal clashing together. The part that she always remembers fondest, however, was the laughter! These people, creating this strange, lovely music, were so very, very happy, and full of joy, as she, even at such a young age, had never imagined possible.

'I must find out what is going on over there!', she thought, feeling a bit like Alice, only but a few steps away from a tumble into a rabbit hole. Oh how right she was, dear reader, oh how right she was!

For as she soon discovered, after she had followed the music to its source, it was being produced by a most queer folk. A people to the likes to which she had nary seen before, yet would see again, and again, from that moment on. There was a clearing in the woods, a small, but comfortable looking grove and in this grove were three wagons decorated in a most vibrant and colourful way and decorated up with fabrics, dyed colours that little Serendipity had not know existed before.

A short distance from the wagons were six horses grazing contently in the grass, their tails swishing merrily to the sound of the music, and occasionally one would neigh loud and long, right in tune with the music, seemingly intentionally. These were not like other horses little Serendipity had seen, as they had no harnesses, nor bits, or reigns, they appeared completely content to be right where they were without the necessities of being tied up by the people they were sharing this happy camp with.

That thought stopped her short. 'The people! The ones playing that wonderful music, where are they?'

She realized that she hadn't seen them because the wagons were in the way, and she had apparently come up on the camp from behind. Being curious, and young, and innocent of the dangers prthey were, in fact, gypsies, Serendipity had learned as she was telling her story, she also learned that they preferred the term Romani,) stood collectively and gasped, and with her eyes full of tears, little Sidhe Desire floated up noiselessly to Serendipity and gently kissed her on her eyelids, her tears dripping down Serendipity's nose and cheek, and then her entire world went dark.

Her eyes did not sting, nor did they seem to be shut, but try as she might, she discovered, much to her dismay that she could no longer see. Her last sight, which was permanently burned into her memory, was Desire's tearful, loving kiss to each eye.

"What have ye done child?" the eldest Romani woman asked, Serendipity could hear the tears in her voice, "Know ye not, to ne'er make lightly an oath as such in the presence of a Sidhe on the Emerald Isle? 'Specially if ye bein' within the Enchanted Wood. Dear child, you've done it full up too, four of the magical verses ye quoted invented righ' off the top o' yer head, and rhymin' no less! Poor, poor dear, I fear ye shall ne'er see the light a' day again."

Serendipity tried to look about, and failed. She closed her eyes, and then popped them open real quick and still, failed to see. She tried opening them slowly, she tried holding them shut for 20 counts, but still, failed to see. She was not particularly distressed, however, not nearly as distressed as the Romani folk who had just taken a likin' to her, and her keen sense of sight. For what a tale she had woven! Through her words they saw themselves as they never had thought to look before, they were certain that this lovely child had the Gift of Sight, and now had, only moments after hearing her vivid recounting of their own beauty through her eyes, had that precious gift taken from her, with nary a thing could be done to reverse it.

Upon kissing Serendipity's eyes Desire began to wail, a newly wrought Bean Sidhe, not by mortal death, but by immortal vision that this child's sight had promised to offer the world, and fled. In that moment the rains begin, and did not cease for one moment until the two would meet again.

No gypsy no matter how knowledgeable in the natural arts, could reverse that spell woven by a Sidhe. Of all them, however, none took to it worse than the Sidhe, Desire. No tale more tragic was told than of that of the newborn Bean Sidhe who bawled so hard o'er that poor little girl's eyes that all of Ireland heard the wail, and all of Ireland felt the cold, year long rain that came along with her tears, and wails, and all in the country wept who heard the tale of little Serendipity, the gypsies, and Desire.

It took Serendipity and the gypsies a full year, from harvest to harvest to find the poor little Bean Sidhe Desire, and they had scoured the whole of Ireland, save the war torn parts of Northern Ireland, which begun just beyond the border of the Enchanted Wood where serendipitous occasions had provided the girl with a new family, and the newer, more precious gift, by her thoughts, of full appreciation of the senses she had never used to their full potential before. The Romani soon learned that this lovely addition to their nomadic band of vagabonds was equally as gifted at such vivid recollections through all of her senses, not merely sight, and to this precious child, the loss of one sense meant little after what she had seen that night, she was certain that she had seen more true, pure beauty in her very small time on this earth than many had seen in all their lives.