By Maradas Graham

Long ago, when Greymist was little more than a hamlet, there lived a carpenter by the name of Michael Barrelcaster. He was a humble man of powerful hugs and a loud laugh, known for making children's toys in his off hours. Despite his joviality, though, he was thought of as a lonely man. He had been married at a very tender age to the village baker Susana Krildoven. Unfortunately, neither his wife nor the childe survived her first birthing. Since that day he lived alone in his large house, making things to make others happy.

One eve he was working behind his house on a bench when a woman appeared out of the woods. She was a beautiful woman, by all accounts, and bore a striking resemblance to Michaels wife. She asked him to repair her carriage which had broken on the road west of town. Taking his tools he traveled to the road and began to work. He knew from the carriage, which seemed to be made of wood still living and was covered in a moving shimmer, that she was a faerie woman of some kind. As he worked, he talked to the woman, who introduced herself as Leigh. Through the discussion Michael found she rode by the riverside regularly at night in her wagon, though she avoided all questions of her homeland. The wagon was quickly repaired,Michael denying all attempts Leigh made to pay him. He returned home after bidding her good night, and climbed back to his workshop despite feeling a sudden weakness in his limbs.

After that everyone was certain he was bewitched by the woman as his craft suffered. He seemed to lose his carpenter's skill that night, his work growing a little less. Michael traveled out to meet the woman on several occasions as she rode in the moonlight. Over several weeks this occurred, with whispers circulating throughout Innismoor of the love between the two. Still, Michaels craft fell to the wayside and his massive arms and chest seemed to shrink over time. Then, one night, in the company of Leigh, he died on the roadside, turning to dust in her arms and falling to the earth. His dust was watered with her tears, from which grew a flower within moments.

For the next few weeks Leigh was seen caring for the flower each night, weeping silently by its side, until she was slain by a wood alchemist known as Edward Killian of Greymist. He met a equally untimely end, but that is another story. The flower died that night, but returned the next year on the night of Leigh's Death, only to wither before the dawn. Each year the flower returned and withered on the eve of Novembris the 15th, blooming at midnight but wilting by dawn. The area by the road around the flower stayed barren of all but grass so nothing would diminish the beauty of that one flower, which came to be called Michaels Lament. The flower has been sought by magician, brewer and lover for it's rumored properties, which vary from power over memories, love and fey. Of all those who may have harvested its power, though, none have come forward to say what it is. Some still say that on nights of certain moons the two still talk near the roadside surrounded by dancing fey, celebrating their happiness in death.