Lunar Eclipse
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_For about twenty minutes one night the moon and her trailng Tears were cast in a rusty red hue of a total lunar eclipse. For twenty whole minutes…an ill omen? just a trick of the weather?
More than one observer noted seeing a raven not long before the eclipse. Some may have dismissed seeing the raven, but those that remember would swear up and down this raven...had been watching them.
In the days Norwick farmer, Jack N. Green, and his famly has gained some regional notoriety as word has spread of his giant pumpkins, pumpkins that some common folk say they can't help twittering on about whenever they see a raven watching over them._
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Later than normal. a rain of cherry blossom petals comes with a quiet front of the fluffiest looking cloudes late one day during a particuarly rosy colored sunset. The cotton candy clouds can be seen bringing their unusual precipiption from the Rawlins up north to Peltarch. The soft pink petals seem to carry color of the setting sun captured by the soft and fluffy clouds down to earth. In the half hour or so the quick moving front lasts, no Fey march nor are seen as years past, but individuals missing or presumed dead are rumored to show up after years and sometimes decades in the strange weather.
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_A little over a year later, the next Spring, it once again rains cherry blossoms as a procession of Fey knights on their flying unicorn steeds escorts Lord Tumluk, Herald of the Golden Court and High Queen Morgaine up from Norwick through the Nars to the walls of Peltarch, stopping to read the Queen proclamation all over again to each settlement of mortals along the way. The unuusal perciptation follows them the whole way does not vanish until they do.
"As a good faith gesture, Queen Morgaine, proclaims that the Fey of the Golden Court of Avalon, both Seelie and Unseelie, shall choose one mortal among their collections and release their guests back to the mortal realm."
And once again as the year before, the next day, mortals who had been goneor thought disappeared forever reappear all over Narfell, from Oscura to Peltarch to the Children of Hoar to the Silver Valley to Norwick and farms and wilds in between._
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_Cloudy with a Chance for Cherry Blossoms
One fine spring day, clouds gather over the Rawlins just south of Norwick. Nothing unusal in that, until the precipitation these clouds bring is not drops of rain, but the pink petals of cherry blossoms, snowing gently to carpet the ground. This unlikely precipitation is accompanied by a figure wrapped in a purplish dreamy haze. A magnificent faun clad in the finest silk robes of some alien noblity walks with preternatural grace over the bed of flower petals that the clouds rain down around him. The lordly faun is escorted by sidhe knights in gleaming, finely crafted armor, each riding a winged unicorn clad in matching ornamental barding.
Approaching the southern gate of Norwick, the faun announces himself as Lord Tumluk, Herald of the Golden Court and High Queen Morgaine. Unfurling a fancifully decorated scroll, he reads the High Queen's proclamation aloud. As a good faith gesture, Queen Morgaine, proclaims that the Fey of the Golden Court of Avalon, both Seelie and Unseelie, shall choose one mortal among their collections and release their guests back to the mortal realm.
Tumluk and his entarouge follow the clouds north. The rain of cherry blossom petals preceds their progress up the Nars Pass, replaying their pomp for the Children of Hoar, even paying a handsome toll for the privilage of crossing the bridge.
The Fey even follow the rain of blossoms under ground to the gates of Oscura to read the Queen's good news there too. Within the cavern's the petals seem to fall from the stony roof itself, no clouds needed.
The rain of blossom's further lead the precession of Fey up to the walls of Peltarch, Lord Tumluk reading the High Queen's proclamation aloud for their benefit as well.
Tumluk is lead to his own waiting winged mount, and the citizens of Peltarch are treated to aerial display of winged unicorns flying with military precision. As soon as the Fey fly out of sight, the clouds and their flowery precipitation let up and dissipate.
Not less than a day later, do people who have been missing or thought dead, some even for years, reappear all over Narfell. The appearance and age of those returning runs the game, some are older, some are younger and some don't seem to be a day older from they day they went missing._
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_In the time intervening since this last total eclipse, a new disturbing trend has arisen. The most desperate and improvished of families are stored to be selling their own children into slavery to shady characters who offer the family enough gold to feed themselves for a lifetime and promises of a better life for the child sold. Life as a servant in some warm noble house in a distant land must be better than starving and a life of the utmost poverty on a farm or in the streets.
A number of engrieved but suddenly rich families scattered across the lands would seem to offer proof of these stories, yet few actually know these families personally. It's always a friend of a friend's cousin or the like._
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Since the lunar eclipse, people who have gone missing over the years, like Dietrick Dardragon, return all over the region, mostly common folk. Some work there way back into their old lives right where they left off, more still scatter like seeds on the wind for elsewhere in the world just as mysteriously as they reappeared.
