Nymph

You proffered three coppers,

your open hand an innocent offer

to trade coin for a story

from a jester in mourning.

Caught him at a fine time,

between a lie and a sunset's sky

diffusing into night,

tempering the land's hot plight,

and the words he kept quiet

like bones locked in a chest.

His dried lips cracked and bled,

as he told you a story again;

one you had not heard before,

while you rested,

your hand upon your head.

While the sky continued to creep

into that quiet melancholy

in which the world turns to sleep.

He told of a nymph's handkerchief

found bloodied on soiled ground,

used to wipe the blood from a sword,

that slew a whole army and horde.

And beside the cloth there was

a body, ivory and twitching,

as his wounds failed to clot.

His eyes quivered and sought

resolution in the dark dawn

of a battle long fought, and lost.

The jester, then, 

did something rather unlike him;

used the word I to describe

how he knelt beside the body

as it attempted to die.

And when it came time

to recite the man's final words in rhyme,

the tired jester closed his eyes,

and whispered under a grin sly,

Will you watch her, tonight?

With a jingle of his hat,

he nodded to the far off distance,

of a forest resting in the twilight yawning,

to a curious figure like silver

glittering beneath a dark river.

A maiden's silhouette lingered on the edge,

then ebbed and swayed,

slinking to the sage of her domain,

where she used to sing,

but now weeps, wails, and screams.

For her mercenary, despite solemn swears,

never returned to her embrace.

So now she lingers there,

watching, waiting for his tell-tale trace.

It will perhaps never come,

for his ghost slipped and escaped

far, far from this realm,

unlike hers, bound to the gnarled ground.

For that is the story,

the jester concludes,

as her figure slips back into the gloom,

and your head dips, nods, and swoons,

of how the nymph became

the banshee of Grim Lake.