A brief bit of weirdness, heh, this is what happens when you read Neil Gaiman short stories late at night; your subconscious goes on a little trip. As far as I’m aware the magpie rhyme is credited anon and has been around in folklore for a long time. It’s one of the few superstitions that I have, I will always greet a magpie with the rhyme. Yup, I’m odd! Oh well, please read and review! ~etcetera-cat~

Charcoal and Ash.

See all the magpies,

Sitting in the tree,

Count them out loud,

And rhyme what you see,

Not many people come here any more you know. You’re the first in a long, long time that I’ve seen, and I myself have been here for longer than you would believe. Since you’ve made it here, I’d better explain. This place is, for want of a better word, my home. I live, or rather, exist here, all of us do.

Do you know what a First Place is? I don’t mean the kind that involves a ribbon and a silver cup, I’m talking about a meeting in space and time, a Place that was before everything else. A First Place is where a Creator stands whilst they are Creating.

You are looking confused. I suppose that is my fault, it has been a long time since any of your people have been here, and I had almost forgotten how to speak to you to tell the truth. I shall have to explain better… or maybe give you an example? Let me think a moment hmmm… I have it! The Garden of Eden, now lost to your world, well, plane of existence. That is most definitely a First Place.

This is also a First Place. I, and my siblings, live here. Well, we exist here. Always.

Doesn’t look like much, does it? Nothing but greyish soil the texture of sand with scrubby grass tufts, bushes and small rocks scattered about, receding into the ether. Pale blue-grey sky with a few small wispy white clouds floating high above during the day, and a velvety black sky picked out with stars at night. Harsh points of actinic white light arranged in no constellations that you’d recognise.

No sun, or moon, just the sourceless and bleaching daylight and the dimly bright starlight. And the Tree. No matter how far towards the Edge of this Place you go, you can see the Tree. It’s not that the Tree is particularly massive, well, it isn’t small either, but I digress; the Tree is very much central to this Place, in a way it’s the reason for this Place. The Tree is a First in it’s own right. A First Tree, the First Tree.

Not all the First Places are like this you must understand, some you would not even recognise as places, lets alone Places. As I said before, Eden was a First Place, the Place from which some of you and yours was Made from. Others you may have heard of, if you listen to the old teachings and legends. If you believe in magic.

Under-the-Hill, not all of it, but some of it, scattered parts of it are fragments of First Places. Fragments because Under-the-Hill, the Realm of the Faeries, is constantly shifting and changing as the current of magic that bind all together mould it in ever-new images. Unless you know how to navigate through it, you can spend your life wandering lost through the morphing landscapes of the Under-Hill. Not that you’d very likely last long. Your kind are very easy to find in the Faerie Realms, your blood sings with fragments of the Death Metal, and the Faeries; the Pixies and Elves, Brownies and Goblins and all their kindred, make it their business to watch, and to eliminate sources of the Death Metal, the things that distorts their magic and drains their life. But I digress, and so…

Now why are you looking at me like that? Narrowed eyes and slightly pursed lips that are coral coloured and speak volumes without a sound passing them.

I reiterate, I live here, we all do. We are allowed to sit, or rather perch on the Tree, it is our right to do so.

So, back to you, oh visitor to the First Place of the Tree. I shall fix you with a beady black eye that gleams like obsidian until you tell me why you are Here.

What? Why are you coughing and looking at me? Wait, I forget, you don’t know why you are Here. Well, in that case I shall tell you. You came here because you wished it. What do you mean that you can’t see how you wished to be Here when you didn’t even know about this Place until you arrived? Know about you may have not, but you still wished it. You said the rhyme at a Gateway and it brought you here.

What rhyme? The rhyme. The magpie rhyme, the one you use to greet us and to make sure we don’t jinx you. The little mantra that those who believe use to acknowledge us and all we do. Those that don’t believe may also know the rhyme and use it, bit not know why. And now that you are Here, I can explain the rhyme to you.

One cries with sorrow,

We weren’t always black and white you know. The first magpies were all different colours, the black and white came much later, at the beginning of your kind’s place. Fire, that’s why. A wise bob of my head and you still look confused. Who do you think helped steal fire, back in the beginning?

Good guess, it was the First Magpie, and the burning branch that she carried in her beak charred some of her feather black, and reduced others to the same colour as white, white ash. Her actions annoyed some of the Elder ones, the Creators and as a mark of their displeasure they forever made it so that all magpies would bear only the colours of charcoal and ash.

As you can see by my widespread wings and tail, the curse holds to this day.

Two call for joy,

This is our home, but we also travel through the other places, yours too. That’s why you see us around. Although we were now two colours and one shape forever, we could still go everywhere and it became apparent that we were supposed to do exactly that. Black and white, day and night, we could see and observe all. The magpies always know, and that will forever gladden our hearts.

Three seek a girl,

Seekers and finders, those are two of our ‘obligations’. Being able to go everywhere means that we can find all things, even those thought long lost and forgotten.

Four find a boy,

All the living creatures, whether they inhabit your place, one of the First Places, or somewhere like Under-the-Hill, register on our senses. An internal, mental map. A feather-light network of light and dark that lets us navigate our way between places and Places. It’s a useful talent to have sometimes.

Five steal the silver,

Sometimes we steal, or rather, liberate things. Of course, one person’s liberating in another person’s stealing. Bright, glittering things are the most common, hence the saying ‘hoarding like a magpie’. We like the glitter and the play of light, it remind us of the First Magpie and the fire she stole, and the colours that we used to have.

Six thieve the gold,

The precious metals and gems that we seek and thieve are useful for many things. Not just for admiring and wearing as decoration. Most pure gemstones can be used as reservoirs of power, of many kinds. Therefore they are much sought after by all kinds of people, from all the many places. As seekers and finders, we have an advantage with searching out the stones, this means that we can exchange them with those who need them. In return, our Place is inviolate, and much information that would be buried deep and dark is, if not precisely given to us, certainly made easier to find and to understand.

Gold, above all the other metals is an insulator. Gold wrapped around an object will shield it from scrying and unfriendly eyes. Even we cannot see something shielded by gold. We can sense and seek the gold, but we do not know if it hides aught until we are able to touch it and remove it.

And seven have a secret that can never be told.

So, there you have it. We are the watchers, the ones who know. And who do we watch for?, you may ask. For ourselves and for the Old Ones. Some of the Old Ones were the Creators who made the places, like yours and Under-the-Hill, keen to know how their Creations are faring.

Yet more of the Old Ones are still Creators, they are still shaping the places around them. In their own way. They use what we tell them to shape the places. You want some names? Their names would mean little to nothing to you, their true names that is. You would recognise their ‘common’ names, the ones that are half description more than name. Fate, Lady Luck and the Lord of Dream to name but a few.

Don’t believe me? You will soon.

And now, the sourceless light of our Place is fading to the twilight of our eternity. Join us, my sibling for there is much to be discovered and much to be taken. It is the time for the seekers to go far and wide, so stretch your new pinions of ash and charcoal towards the distant stars, and join with us, your kin, as we go out to all the places to see what may be found.

Count all the magpies, and rhyme what you see…