Ralph and the Pixie

‘What will you have done with them?’ one of his aides asked.

‘I have given orders for them to be put to the sword, once they are out of sight of the others,’ the Thane replied quietly. ‘They are too dangerous to be released or kept prisoner.’

‘You do not seem overly surprised by this occurrence,’ the aide said, who was himself obviously shocked, and partly at the way the Thane dealt with the matter.

‘It is only that you’re not used to seeing this sort of behaviour displayed out in the open, for all to see,’ the Thane told him. ‘This has always been the problem, that it is shocking when you see it first hand, disturbing when you hear about it second hand, troubling when it comes to your ears in the form of distant news; but by the time it becomes a familiar tale indistinguishable from rumour, little remains to stimulate our sensibilities, which by this time are able to react only with a sort of detached, morbid curiosity.’

Turning to his aide, he said, ‘Such behaviour, as you have just seen it, is rife throughout the Elf Kingdom, and has been for many years. You are taken aback by what little you have seen, but try to imagine, if you can, those same soldiers, turned loose upon our Faerie kindred, or even upon certain of our own people, with no eyes to mark their unspeakably barbarous acts, with no one to answer to, and encouraged by the likes of Prince Cir.’