In the waning years of the Iron Empire, before the rise of the Marshfield dynasty, the third of the Marshfield scions, Thraebeig, caught a feeting vision, no more than a few seconds, that would change the course of his entire life. Thraebeig saw a fairy on a cool summer day, walking in the woods. A halfling himself, Thraebeig was but a scant 8 inches taller than the fairy, and saw her only from a distance as she flitted, flame-red hair flowing in the breeze and azure wings fluttering. She passed by his view, and, smitten, he rushed to where he had seen her, but could find no trace. Thraebeig told nobody of this vision, but for the next 50 years he spent every spare moment searching the woods. He had nearly lost all hope of ever finding her again, and had developed the sad reputation of a perpetual loner, by the time he finally found the tiny lever that opened a magic portal in a tree, a portal leading to the land of faerie, also called the feywild, where, he soon learned, his vision lived in a quiet glade. For over a decade Thraebeig left notes and small gifts before he dared approach the fairy's home. Eventually, however, Thraebeig knocked on the door of her tree-carved fairy house, and she opened the door, wanting to meet this strangely respectful halfling. Thraebeig fell to one knee and asked for permission merely to visit and speak with her occasionally. Seeing no harm, the fairy, who introduced herself as "Hibiscus" consented to this.
For the next century, as Thraebeig's family began building a dynasty in the lands of the fallen Iron Empire, Thraebeig visited the fairy glen at least weekly, and often daily, to speak with the fairy. Through all this time Thraebeig remained strictly alone and chaste, refusing even to be alone with any other woman. Centuries passed, for halflings and fairy are long-lived, and Thraebeig continued to meet and speak with Hibiscus often, as the conversations began to deepen. It was almost three hundred years after Thraebeig glimpsed Hibiscus in that forest glade when Thraebeig first spoke of courtship. Hibiscus laughed it off, and pretended not to have heard. It was unheard of for a man of the mortal world and a woman of fairie realms to court, and for a fairy to marry a halfling, ludicrous. Thraebeig continued to visit, and from time to time would again bring up courtship. Eventually, the years and persistence were repaid. Hibiscus agreed to permit Thraebeig a courtship; supervised by her parents, of course. The courtship lasted another 40 years until, in K65R, after four hundred years of determined pursuit, Thraebeig and Hibiscus were wed in a fairy glen, on midsummer's day, with only her family and two of his closest friends in attendance. The nobles of the city where Thraebeig had been elevated to the peerage a century before, a city named Triliobarn, would not soon accept a fairy duchess. For Hibiscus it was no burden, she remained in her tree-carved fairy house, and Thraebeig traveled the magical portal (with the help of a wise wizard, it had been moved into his castle garden many years before), between their home and his castle each day. Their first child, a son, was born in K70R, followed by a daughter in K73R. Life for the small family was very good and Thraebeig knew joy and contentment few could comprehend. The people of Triliobarn prospered also, and no person of good will had reason to question the apparent solitude of their "bachelor" duke.
In summer of K74R tragedy struck, when Thraebeig's older brother and sister, both steeped in horrific evil, betrayed him and murdered him in his own castle, unasware of his hidden family, and leaving his body cursed, poisoned, torn asunder, and infested with horrific other-worldly parasites. Hibiscus, heartbroken, had the body preserved in suspension through powerful wizardry, provided by one of her fairy cousins. A year and a half later Hibiscus, who had searched and prayed for hope that her beloved might be restored to her, approached one of Thraebeig's relatives, a princess who had recently proven true and noble, and who was accompanied by a faithful cleric justicar. These individuals were able, at shocking cost, to arrange resurrection for Thraebeig, reuniting the small family after many months apart.
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