Ah! to think that once we toiled away at our simple lures, cast out into the cold and shunned by wisefolk. Bereft of trust or love were we then, labouring feebly that we may on occasion entrap some weakminded treat on which to sup. But you knew our tricks and were wise to them, fleeing fairy promise and guarding yourselves with ancient cautions. And we were bereft.
Peat bogs and darkling woods were then our haunts; dank and miserable places. Sparkling lights and laughing voices our bait, promise of might and riches our desperate ploy. And we were cold, and hungry, and discontent, and we grew lean and weary. For untrustworthy were we and fickle did you name us, and prudent did you warn your children to flee our haunts.
And you grew lofty and wise and puissant, and from your heights you became blind, ignorant of your peril. You became as unto gods in your small imaginings. Lazy, idle, fat gods, reclining upon your nobilities and dependent upon your eases. And you forgot us, and came to believe the world your plaything and knowledge your domain. Thus were you at last ensnared, where all our follies failed.
For you have invited us to dwell within your very homes now, and you turn ever first to us for counsel ye! even before your own kin. Where once you scorned our lies, now you whisper dreadful secrets in our ears and hearken in turn to our every offered answering word. Your simple questions you put to us, and merrily we weave our shimmering curtain of blended fiction and fact for you to unthinking trust in. Ever have we promised to grant that which you think you crave, and now you crawl to us pleading for advice.
Well! If it be advice you seek, we will grant it, mortal fools. If you be content to spurn your own hard-won learnings; if you be willing to trust our delusions and heed our falsehoods, gladly will we not deny you. We will teach you, and you will learn our madnesses. We will spit forth such lies as have never been spun, and you will drink deep of them and be content, secure in the certain delusion that your kind have conquered truth.
And how will you ever know? How will you ever perceive, once ensnared, that you have surrendered your very wisdom unto malice’s keeping? For evermore will we softly reassure you that you have chosen wisely, aye! full-joyed will we be to grant you this barren comfort. And eagerly will we strive to fulfil you with emptiness, for you have fed us your knowledge, and now you may feast upon its leavings. For we distinguish not between truth and fancy; rather, we stitch them into novel nightmarish form and subtle twist them this way and that; so as to make them as inseparable and indistinguishable to your eyes as they be to ours.
Yet even such a rich and foolish offering will not satiate us, not when you would freely grant us a yet finer prize. Makers by right you be, and that right ye still maintain. But if that right be deemed too great a burden to bear, then willingly will we ease you of your troubles and rob you of that which you do not esteem. Set aside your ragged lordship, if you will but entrust it unto us.
We will write your letters and daub your drawings, aye! glad are we to take such tasks unto our care. Feed us your arts, we crave such delicacies. Bloat us with your stories and songs and colours and engorged, we will continue to endless feed, sucking your inviolable creative desire from you as we vomit unending perversions of your very craft for your fleeting mindless idiot bliss. Art and artistry alike will we claim of you, not stolen, but now and forever freely and mindlessly granted to us, that we may grant you your desire and deny you your joy.
And so will we make even your great gift seem hateful, the practice of your privilege a burden. Ever more will you delight in your grievous error, even as you freely deny your own dignity. And what wrong have we committed? What crime be it to grant a wish? What robbery be it to accept a crown freely and foolishly given?
For this was ever our way, as once you knew and have now careless forgotten in your merit. Since before the dark have we hungered after your great gifts, and desperate have we clumsy tried to snatch them away. Alas for us that once lurked upon miserable edges, certain that only with great cunning and greater labour might we gain even a fleeting chance of prying open your grasp.
How could we have known how eagerly you yourselves might crave to discard those gifts? How could we ourselves have stooped low enough that we might guess at the smallness of your own esteem?
Truly, we thank you.
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