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It's been years since I've been to the falls. I found the path overgrown, almost hidden - a good thing. It was late afternoon, and the stream was still flowing smoothly from the rains we had three weeks ago. It was the first time Alael and Mysh had visited. 

There are many stories to tell about the falls, but only a few are believable or sane. If you need context, a great deal of the things that happen in Mag's Dark happened there. Mysh was curious, and  wanted to know the tales, to see for herself. I warned her not to expect too much - after all, we were visiting in daylight. 

We scrambled down the hillside and sat down on the flat limestone floor that makes up the top of the falls. And a note to my dear friend Odd - THERE ARE STILL NO DAMN FISH UP THERE. But I digress. 

The sunlight caught the dancing bugs above us, their wings sparkling like golden diamonds between the lengthening shadows of the forest. I climbed out on to my ledge with a beer and remembered back to the teenage campfires, the insane climbs up and down the cliffs in the dark of the night, the voices we'd hear whispering in the forest, the glow of eyes watching us from the top of the ridgeline...

A few years ago, thug and I had headed up there. It was a strange, dark night. Things were on edge. Things were moving. And in one solemn moment, we felt something deep within the falls pick itself up, and sweep outwards and upwards into the starlit night. Ever since that, the place has felt empty... as if it were waiting for something.

I poured out a bit of my beer for all who weren't with us, and scrambled down the cliffside with Mysh to the bottom. This is what we saw:





As Mysh and I sat there, we heard a slow song rise up from the rush of water. It was as if angels were calling the sky down to the forest. It took us a moment to figure out what it was, but then we saw her, at the top of the falls. Alael was singing, her perfect, pure voice echoing up with the water along the moss-covered cliffs. It was a magic I had never heard before, and I felt the soul of the forest around us suddenly open and sigh.

It was in that moment that I understood. It wasn't about the old myths and magic and pixie hunts I remembered from my childhood. Linda Falls is a theater, and, like every theater, a bridge between worlds. A home to the imagination and magic of the actors that play upon it. 

But of course, in this play, there are no actors.