This is to kelkyag‘s and flofx‘s prompt here to my February Giraffe Call.

Names from Seventh Sanctum.

There were fairies in the church again.

Bishop Macnamilla was no longer a young man; indeed, he had not been able to make a pretense at youth for longer than most of the priests of the city had been alive.

And he had been watching the rot spread through his City and his Church for decades. He had seen the spread and done what he could – but not what he should – to stop it, back when he could make a pretense at youth.

The elders of the Church had not listened back then, and the young in the Church would not listen now. It had been up to him, no position and only the strength of his conviction, as a young man. And he had failed.

He tottered – he hated to admit it, but pride went before a fall and he was indeed tottering – back from Father Nehemiah’s abomination of a church. He could not do what needed to be done there, but there were other places. In this city, there were always the proper sorts of places. Before this place had been called ‘fairy town’ by the common people, before it had fallen to rot, it had been called the GodTown.

The Bishop went walking – limping – in the heart of the city, in the heart of a park where angels and demons feared to tread, where the dirty and the dusty had taken over. He tottered to the crossroads in the center of that park, and, from there, walked without fail, his back suddenly straight again and his steps sure, seventeen paces due north.

It did not take long for the fae to find him. In this park, they were lousy on the ground.

It took almost less time for the fae to realize where they were, and only a moment for them to realize who he was. But by then, the Fate was sealed.

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