Under Hill, Over Hill

“WHERE dips the rocky highland
Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,
There lies a leafy island
Where flapping herons wake
The drowsy water-rats;
There we've hid our faery vats,
Full of berries
And of reddest stolen cherries.”
- W. B. Yeats "The Stolen Child"

They crave beauty, the people that live under the Hill. Are drawn to it, like moth to flame.

Sometimes they find it in a spider’s web beaded with dew. Or the silver-quick dart of a snake in the grass. In the music of the crickets, or the call of the owl at twilight.

But sometimes, they find beauty in an unlikely thing.

Sometimes, the people under the Hill find beauty in a human.

And what they admire, they must have.

But there are rules for these things, and something cannot be taken for nothing.

So when a human is brought away, led down the moonlight path and under the Hill to join the dance, another must be left in its place. To become, as best they can, the one that was taken away.

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Under Hill, Over Hill is an epistolary game for two players, exploring what it is, to become someone else. A changeling and the human they have replaced exchange letters about their lives, and their belonging, or lack thereof.