Once, long ago, there was a small kingdom, whose lands bordered a large forest.  The rulers of this kingdom had two young sons and both boys loved the forest, but for very different reasons.  The older boy, expecting to one day rule the land himself, saw the forest as his first kingdom, a place to hone his skills of dominance.  He hunted its lands relentlessly, taking great satisfaction in believing that everything in the forest lived or died by his whim and his whim alone.  The younger boy, who spent less time dreaming of his future and more time worrying about the lands and people his family was tasked with caring for, treasured the forest for the vast beauty and wonder it contained.  He spent countless hours wandering the trees, marveling at every new plant and creature he could find, exploring the lands until he knew them like he knew the halls of his family’s castle.  He considered himself their guardian, their steward, and sought to protect them from all who would threaten them—including his brother.

So it was that on one afternoon, the young prince found himself interrupted from a study of the rich society that had formed beneath a fallen log, by the sound of a bloodcurdling scream, followed shortly after by a loud and somewhat offkey horn.  His brother was leading a fox hunt.  Now the young prince did not care for any of the elder prince’s hunts, but his fox hunts were of particular distaste to him.  The scion considered them to be challenges of ingenuity and liked to lay elaborate and rather cruel traps for his quarry.  The fox, he would claim, is the cleverest of his prey, and thus allowed him to hone his tactics for the greatest game of them all—war.  The younger prince, who knew that their small kingdom had never once waged war since its founding, and in fact prospered in large part due to its diplomacy and care for both its citizens and its neighbors, saw it as his duty to rescue the poor creature his brother was cruelly stalking.

Drawing upon a strength he had never before known, he set off in the direction of the commotion, arriving quickly at a small clearing, in which a young vixen was caught in a fiendish contraption of rope and metal, a snare closed around her back legs, which tightened ever further the more she struggled.  His brother had not yet caught up to his victim, but he knew he had to work fast—if the older prince discovered his young brother thwarting his hunt, he would make the younger prince his new target in retribution.  Attempting to push aside his own fear, and exude a sense of calm in the frightened animal, he slowly approached the trap.  It was a fiendishly clever design, but the young lad was quite clever himself and by the time he reached the poor fox, he had worked out how to free her without further injury. And not a moment too soon, for a loud tramping in the brush nearby signaled the impending arrival of the huntsman himself.  The fox was freed, but the trap’s foul purpose had been well-accomplished—she was incapable of fleeing on her own.  So the little prince uttered a small apology to the vixen, scooped her up, and fled.

***

The prince ran with the rescued fox all the way back to the castle, where he hid her away in his room, tending to her wounds in secret, scared of what would happen if his parents, or god forbid, his brother, discovered her.  As she rested, he read to her, his favorite stories, and told her all about his greatest dreams and deepest fears, the people and things he cared about.  He bared his heart to this small creature, and as he spoke, the vixen listened. She didn’t understand his words, not in the way a person would, but the heart speaks a simpler, more universal language, and that, she understood completely.  She saw him as a truly kind and beautiful soul, and in that moment she knew that he needed her as much as she needed him.

When the vixen healed, she did not return to the forest, she remained, hidden, in the court gardens, watching over the prince as he grew, from a curious and clever boy, to a noble and kindhearted young man.  She saw as the compassion he showed her and others of the forest as a child, bloomed into a sense of duty and love for all in his kingdom.  And as the prince grew, so did the fox’s affection for him, from the enduring friendship of a life spared and a life shared, to something very much like love.

And so, when the sickness came to the castle, she was there to care for him, as he cared for her when she was injured—bringing him plants from the forest to ease his fever, bringing him food and water when no one else in the castle could, keeping him company through the worst of the nights when sleep would not come for him. And when his parents succumbed to the same illness, she was there to comfort him in his grief.

And when his brother and his friends of ill-repute came to the castle gardens late one night, to discuss their plans to ensure there would be no complications when he sought to inherit the throne, against the dying wishes of his parents… she was there.

***

The vixen knew that the cruel prince intended to kill his brother, but she also knew that there was nothing one small creature, no matter how trusted by the kind prince she was, could stop his plots.  But she could not bear to think of anything bad happening to her beloved prince.  So she prayed and pleaded, with any being that might be listening, for the power to save his life, as he once saved hers.  And someone was listening. 

All creatures of the forest know of the faeries, of course.  For forests are one of the gateways between the realms of man and fae.  The creatures of the forest know that faeries can be fun to play with, but should not be trusted, for they are tricky creatures, whose games do not always remain fun for long, and whose whims often run counter to those of this world.  But the fox was desperate, and willing to pay any price to protect her prince, and so when the bargain was offered, in a language any living being could understand, she accepted without hesitation. 

And that is how the mysterious Lady Callistra appeared out of nowhere to foil an assassination plot by the elder Prince Swiftheart, to steal the throne from his younger brother, its rightful heir.  The young prince was besotted by his beautiful savior, and they were wed not long after his coronation.  The now Queen Callistra Swiftheart proved herself to be as clever and compassionate as her husband, and together they ruled the kingdom in peace and prosperity for many long years.  Rumors persisted among the citizens of the kingdom that their beautiful queen was fae-touched, as her insight was uncannily accurate, her counsel almost prescient, her guidance preternaturally sage.

And as the decades passed, she hardly seemed to age at all, remaining as vibrant and youthful as the day she appeared in the court, even as her beloved husband gracefully aged into a handsome grandfatherly figure. And when the king passed on, of natural causes, at the age of 100, the queen lead the kingdom in mourning for a month and a day, and then, as mysteriously as she entered, she disappeared from the kingdom entirely.

For this was the price extracted from the vixen, in exchange for the life she was granted.  For this life, this body, was given of the fae, and was not touched by the mortal world the way her husband’s were.  To watch her husband die, to watch her own kits grow old enough to pass stewardship of the land to THEIR kits, to know that someday she would outlive them as well, it was too much for her to bear.  She remained as long as she could, to be a comfort to those in her life, and when she could take the sorrow no more, she fled, back to the forest, back to the life she had left behind, the day she was saved from the hunters snare. 

***

But alas, having tasted of the human world, she found she could no longer live as she once had.  The life of a beast, once shed, could not simply be reclaimed.  She had lived among the humans for so long, she had taken on something of their spirit.  Their yearning to be more.  Untold years passed, as she wandered the forest, longing for the world she left behind, but unable to bear facing it without her beloved husband at her side.  Until one day she spied a woman wandering amongst the trees.  The forest had been off-limits to people since her reign began, having been declared a royal sanctuary, but she quickly recognized this woman as her kin, a descendant, although not one she recognized—she did not know how long had passed since she fled.  The woman was despondent and, in that moment, reminded her so much of her prince when was worried about his people, that she felt compelled to go to her.

She approached in her original form, as a creature of the forest, and the woman’s expression brightened ever so slightly.  Her family knew of her origins—she had confided the truth of herself to her prince not long after their wedding, unable to bear the thought of keeping such a secret from him, and he embraced her fully, and declared the fox the patron spirit of their line.  Much like the young prince had done so many years ago, the young woman, the now queen-regent of the kingdom, poured out her heart to the vixen.  The kingdom was facing a crisis, the first outside threat in generations of rule and a sudden challenge to her authority from within, and she was lost.  No one in the court had ever dealt with a problem like this and she had no idea who to trust.  As the fox listened, she realized that her family needed her still.  Her wisdom and experience, and her uncanny sense for distress and dissatisfaction, and her razor-sharp understanding of people and their desires, were unmatched in the kingdom, and at this moment sorely needed by those ruling it.  She revealed herself to her young progeny and proffered her services, to guide her through this crisis, to save the kingdom and secure her rule.

And there she remained, her true identity hidden to all but the innermost circle of trust among the ruling family, the kingdom’s most trusted advisor, guiding them through the struggles of growth, periods of unrest, and the ever-growing collisions between their realm and the others, including faerie.