Dealings with the fae are often frustrating, but Peysk has always been at least willing to grant me an interview, if not to always answer my questions how I would like them to be answered. They tend to flit about in speech as they do on their gossamer wings, moving from one topic to the next as a butterfly might alight on the different flowers that catch their fancy. I once had the opportunity to ask Peysk about curses and markings that they had leveled on mortals after seeing them curse a sneak-thief to glow like an incandescent mushroom in darkness.

In return, Peysk told me a rambling series of anecdotes that bled into one another, moving back and forth with the fluidity of a bar tale. In one case, they had bestowed a “gift” upon a freckled “friend” that led their freckles to constantly change their arrangement when no one was looking, and for them to tend toward the seasonal stars above. Another mortal so “gifted” was vain about her hair, so Peysk made it react with air as with water, flowing and waving as if submerged and always regrowing to the same length.

Some “gifts” were less mundane. A man who had shouted at Peysk was cursed to speak in singsong, as if singing through a musical play, except when he tried to sing, at which time he would be scratchy and out of tune. A particular tough had been magicked to change all of his tattoos to pixie wings, with each new skull or dagger meeting the same fate.

Peysk seemed proudest of their curse on a petty nobleman most of all, clutching their sides with laughter at the thought. He had been cursed so that no one in a meeting would ever remember his face or what he’d said, condemning him to obscurity and ridicule.

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