Sprites

About Sprites

Characteristics of Sprites
Sprites & Honeywine
Sprite History

Characteristics of Sprites:
Sprites, also known to humans as fairies or pixies, are little humanish beings with wings. They love to chatter and sing, and they hate being ignored. They dress in colors of their favorite flowers, they usually measure four to five inches tall, and their wings resemble those of a bee. This description often shocks humans who have always imagined sprites with glorious butterfly wings.

Sprites are nectar gatherers and refiners. Their wings move faster than the human eye can see, which creates a buzzing sound similar to that of bees. Their hips also move from side to side like bees' hips (or butts, depending). Cherubians used to think the hip movements were a secret form of sprite communication. A couple of them spent over two hundred years trying to decipher it until they realized that sprites shook their hips to let out pent-up excitement. Sprites have a nasty bite when they are provoked, and they fly away so quickly that even the quickest cherubian can’t whack them. Sprites never take anything seriously. A couple of cherubians (the same stubborn fools who tried to decipher the hip-shakes) took the time to learn their language, only to find that most sprite-talk is filled with utter nonsense.

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Sprites & Honeywine:
The sprites' most precious craft, and the reason cherubians tolerate them, is honeywine making. Honeywine, once called ambrosia or the food of the gods by the ancient Greeks, is a delicacy that few humans have ever had the fortune to taste. It’s sweeter than honey, almost as light as a fine morning mist, and it goes down with a smooth, tingle. It also provides quite a kick (especially when compared to the humans' laughable excuses for distilled and fermented drink) and the cherubians can't get enough of it.

The sprites tried to teach the craft to the bees, but the bees, who have attention spans shorter than sprites, never fully learned and could only produce the gummy, waxy, sticky, sweet goo humans call honey. The sprites also tried to teach the humans, but the humans never acquired the finesse needed to make decent honeywine. They did learn to replicate the process with grapes and grains, and that’s when the cherubians discovered that humans didn’t have as much self-control as they originally assumed.

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Sprite History:
Before the sprites were banished from Earth, they spent most of their time hanging out with the flowers, bees, and butterflies, until they learned how to turn nectar into honeywine. Unlike the cherubians, who exercise extreme amounts of self-control, the sprites never stopped drinking the stuff. Whatever society they had broke down as they drank themselves into a permanent drunken stupor.

The sprites’ banishment from Earth is another story in itself, but it begs to be told if simply to explain the relationship between the sprites and the cherubians. One day, one of the little troublemakers flew too close to a poppy flower, inhaled too much of the pollen, and discovered opium's less-than-medicinal qualities. (This discovery led to the myth that sprites had magical powers. The only magic a sprite has, however, is in its snuff sack.) Sprites, who aren’t nearly as affected by the drug as the humans, often enjoyed playing with the humans, laughing at the humans' reactions to their “magic dust” and, well the rest is recorded in fairy tales.

Most cherubian guards began to despise the sprites toying around with their charges, and arguments between sprites and guards often ended with two hundred sprites attacking one cherubian, biting away at him or her until they got bored and went on to play somewhere else. Mornachts often took advantage of such attacks, and countless humans suffered and sometimes died while their poor guard swatted away at the pests. Cherubian guards began to beg the Elysian government to banish the sprites from Earth. Unfortunately, Ezzer had died, and those in power were too scared to make a decision that might anger the sprites without proof.

Then, one sprite convinced a little English boy that her magic dust would keep him from growing up and give him the ability to fly. That little boy spread the joy to other young children. The children thought they had kept what they imagined to be midnight journeys to a place they called Never Never Land a secret, not knowing that a gentleman listened to them giggle and tell their stories from their bedroom window. He recorded their stories, which gave Elysia the written proof it needed to banish the sprites from Earth.

Unfortunately, the mornachts noticed how the "magic dust" affected humans, and they took over the drug and alcohol industries once the sprites left. Unlike sprites, mornachts don’t get humans addicted to drugs just to watch them make fools of themselves. They do it to cause pain, to torment families, to destroy lives and careers, and hopefully to cause humans to harden. The number of hardened humans more than tripled once the mornachts took over the drug industry.

The sprites now live in Heaven’s Realm where they can laugh all they want with the flowers, bees, and butterflies and where they are encouraged to hone their honeywine craft by a species that not only appreciates it, but also has the self-control to enjoy it without excess.

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Other Creatures in Heaven's Realm
Unicorns   Sprites   Hawks
Gnomes   Dragons   Fawns   Nymphs
Mornachts   Wolves   Sabers   Vultures

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