The Quicksilver Sphynx
Miscellanea, December 1993
Evaline 'Winter
You get me, this month; Nick came down with a nasty flu a few days ago, and he's in no condition to sit at the computer. Since Sonja is working and Liam is with Nick trying to help him get over this, and since this space has to be filled by tonight... (sigh) I guess it falls to me.
I don't have any gossip for you; Nick will have to catch you up next month. I do, however, have something I'd really like to bring up: a few days ago, I heard someone refer to a wolf killing a demon, to protect her witch.
There is a trick I would devoutly love to see, since 1) wolf abilities only work on predators, and 2) who on earth called a demon to kill this poor witch?
Kids, there are three, count 'em, 3, types of esoteric (Greek esoteros, inner; secret, mysterious, “unnatural”) beings out there, that is, three distinct categories into which fall those creatures not alive like the rest of us yet alive nonetheless. Granted, faeries and demons are scarce these days, but can we try to keep things clear anyway? Please? Just to humour one obsessive wolf?
Just so no one can say they don't know the difference, how about a mini-lesson to remind you of any details you may have forgotten?
Predator: (Latin praedator, a robber) These are the ones we usually see, looking for unprotected highly-gifted snacks. They come in a wide range of forms (I've seen all too many personally, like most wolves), usually ugly. They have no physical reality; they exist on the astral plane, though they can interact with ours in limited ways. These are the ones wolves kill, because wolves have neat abilities that let us do that, even when magical and physical attacks by the rest of you are a waste of time. This is why you put up with our various quirks and eccentricities, or so my coven tells me: so we'll kill predators for you. (Ah, yes, now we all remember!)
Demon: (Greek daimon, a spirit) Demons live on a plane of their own, a long way from this one. When called, and only when called, they can take physical form on this plane. Theoretically, that physical form could be killed, but I've never heard of anyone who knows how, or whether it would be permanent. Demon forms are reported to be incredibly strong, fast, well-armed, and either ugly or beautiful. That's not counting the shapeshifting, hypnotic, and other powers some are said to possess, which even wolves aren't immune to. If you figure out how to kill one, I'd love to hear it. Seriously. These things are bad news: they like to cause suffering and they like to play mind-games. This is why one of the very few absolute rules of our whole community is to not mess with demon-summoning, at all, ever, no excuses.
Faerie: (long history, from Latin fari, to speak, and/or Latin fata, the Fates, to most recently Old French faerie, enchantment) These are those beautiful (sometimes), capricious (always) immortal beings that our oldest legends tell us had a part in teaching us about magic and the cycles of life and death. No one has seen them reliably in a century or so, so most likely they've gone back to wherever they came from (theories include Underhill, Alpha Centauri and the sixth dimension; does it really matter?). I suppose seeing the mess that's being made of Earth might depress an immortal into heading for home.
Anyway, that makes three clearly-defined types of esoteric races. Please, no more tall tales about wolves killing demons, or elvenmages being adopted and trained by predators, or witches being drained psychically dry by faeries, or anything silly like that!