The Quest For The Gold Medallion
Copyright 1994 and 1997
True Star Press

It was the Night of the Sweeping Frost, when all the
little people on the Isle of Dwarfdom met for the Celebration
of Immortality. All, that is, save one; Nakira MacIlduy,
the half-breed from Village Slumber. To her fell the task of
guarding the Sacred Treasure, a gold medallion engraved with
the face of him we now call Pluto, god of all the
leprechauns, the source of all their powers.
It was this medallion, more than all the gold at the end
of all the rainbows, that gave the little people the
immortality they held so dear, the wealth of wisdom they
guarded so closely, the courage and temerity on which they
staked their lives, and the devil-may-care attitudes they
would rather not acknowledge.
To Nakira MacIlduy, then, fell the greatest honor ever
bestowed on a leprechaun, and the greatest curse ever thought
or uttered. For if Nakira failed in her duty, she would no
longer be a half-breed leprechaun, but a full-blooded
disgrace to all she had ever known.
As Nakira took up her station in the Hall of the Sacred
Powers, she knew all this, and one more thing. It was her
mind's conviction that she had been placed in this position,
not as an honor, but as punishment.
But it truly wasn't her fault, she thought indignantly,
that her mother was a watersprite. It was her mother's fault
for getting caught unaware. It was her father's fault for
not being more careful in his dealings with the girl. It was
their fault she came to the family way, not Nakira's. And
yet, as a leprechaun/ watersprite cross, she was never
allowed to attend the Gatherings, or more than one or two
Festivals. Put simply, they didn't trust her.
Which was where her reasoning faltered. If they didn't
trust her at Festival, why would they let her guard the
fantastically more important gold Medallion? If they were
afraid she'd give information away to the watersprites, with
whom the leprechauns had an uneasy forbearance, did they not
fear she'd give away their life source, the very object they
set her to guard?
This never occurred to Nakira, though. Her mind,
questing for some reason for her segregation from the other
leprechauns, went only so far as to identify mistrust. It
didn't include such intuition as has been placed here.
On the Night of the Sweeping Frost, at the Hour of
Repast, Nakira MacIlduy, the half-breed from the Village
Slumber, took up her station in front of the Hall of the
Sacred Powers. At first she stood at stiff attention, but no
one knew it but Nakira. There was no one there to
acknowledge how well she guarded the Sacred Gold Medallion.
After a while of standing Nakira began to ache. So she
sat at stiff attention. Then her back became sore and stiff,
so she leaned against the wall, her eyes alert. A little
while later, Nakira's eyes grew weary and closed of their
own accord. She dreamed.
* * *

They were flying. The horse's tail waved like a banner
in the wind. The little girl, breathless with exaltation,
yelled for the horse to go faster! Faster! Beside them, the
stream hurled onward, gained a short lead, lengthened it, and
swept under the bridge, on course for the sea.
The girl slowed her heart- and hoof-beats and turned
back to meet the disappointed stares of those who awaited
her. Somewhere in the distance, another horse took up the
race she had lost.
* * *
Nakira woke suddenly to the sounds of hoof-beats and
yelling, and the angry and disappointed glares of those who
were most dear to her. The hoof-beats she had heard in her
dream were those of the retreating horseperson, who had
stolen the Gold Medallion while she slept.
On the sixth morning of the Month of the Silver Stars,
scarcely a week after the Theft, Nakira MacIlduy was brought
in front of the Greater King for her Trial and Penalty.
Though, with the Medallion gone, they could not give her the
penalty their Law described, they did have the power to
punish. . . And the punishment brought about by their lack of
power was far worse, in the end, than that demanded by their
law.
Nakira stood at attention to receive her sentence, one
that she had anticipated: She was stripped of her citizen-
ship in Village Slumber on the Isle of Dwarfdom. Her
leprechaun status was taken from her. She was to go into the
worlds of the watersprites, the nymphs and the mortals, to
find that which was stolen.
If she did not find the Gold Medallion in the time it
took a mortal to age and sicken, she would die, and all the
leprechauns with her. And so began the Quest of Nakira
MacIlduy for the Sacred Gold Medallion, engraved with the
face of him we now call Pluto, god of all the leprechauns,
and the source of all their powers.
In the Month of the Silver Stars, which we now call
December, a child appeared in the Banshee Square, somewhere
in mortal lands. She wore the raiment of a peasant girl,
greens and browns, and a bronze medallion with a raised
picture and some writing, which no one could decipher.
She gave her name as Nakira MacIlduy. Her age she
didn't know. Her origin was a mystery, her destination
vague. Her mission, so she said, was to find her long lost
kinsman, who had a gold medallion identicle to her own.
To no one did she tell the tale of her exile from the
leprechauns. To all, her only words were these, "Have you
seen them?" To her the only answer was, "No. Can't say I
have. . ." And still she searched.
Alba. Japan. Corsica. Macao. Cathay. Rome. Here,
she quested. There, she searched. The answer was always
"No". No one had seen the Gold Medallion.

Twenty mortal years passed, with no sign of the
Medallion. At last, Nakira turned from mortal lands. She
would not find it here.
On the Night of the Long Since Gone, now called
Halloween, Nakira MacIlduy walked through the Gate into the
Land of Youth. Though she no longer had the power of the
leprechauns to change her own appearance, she was not
discovered. As a leprechaun/ watersprite cross she was
naturally small, a perpetual child no matter what her age.
The nymphs she met she didn't question. They would not
tell the truth. They could not tell the truth. A nymph's
tongue will choose the safest path, the one most gainful to
himself, no matter how one pleads. So Nakira combed the Land
of Youth alone.
Tiller's Cave. Lighthouse Rock. Mirror Pond. The
Beknighted Backlands. Nakira searched all these borders of
the Land of Youth, and all points in between. It took her
seven mortal years. Though she saw much of interest, and
learned much of value, Nakira had not found the one thing she
still lacked.
The Sacred Gold Medallion was not in the Land of Youth.
Of that she was satisfied. So Nakira made the Jump and
Crossing into the Waters of Life.
In the Month of the Falling leaves, November in our
land, there appeared for a moment a peasant girl in the
Mortal Land of Threes. In the next moment, she was gone.
There was no sense of homecoming for Nakira when she
arrived in the Waters of Life. Though her mother was a
watersprite, her father was a leprechaun. She had been
raised to his way of life. She was so much a leprechaun, she
found, that she even carried with her a suspicion of the
`Sprites, their homes and ways.
For ten mortal years she searched the Waters of the
`Sprites. She swam their waters with the ease of one born to
it. She searched the Lesser Seas, the Greater Lakes, the
Rivers and the Raindrops. She learned much of value, found
much of interest. And she found something that she lacked.
It wasn't the Sacred Gold Medallion that she found. It
was an inner awareness of who she really was. All her life
before this, she had been ashamed of what she was. As she
grew into her father's people's ways, she was repentant of
her mother's background. An unkind word from a leprechaun
child took away her pride and self-esteem. She soon lost
track of herself. It took this trip to her ancestral waters
to regain her self-image.
A great gift it was when Nakira first discovered it;
she found herself becoming proud of her heritage, her
diligence in her search for the treasured Gold Medallion,
and, eventually, of everything she was. It was only now,
near the end of her quest, that she truly became a
leprechaun and a watersprite. She was no longer a half-
breed, but a complete being daring anyone to contradict.

In the thirty-seventh mortal year of her exile, Nakira
finished her Quest in the Lands of the Mortals, Nymphs, and
Watersprites; the only world left for her to search was that
of the Leprechauns themselves.
On the Night of the Flaxen Fires Nakira MacIlduy, the
lepresprite from the Village Slumber on the Isle of Dwarfdom,
called upon the rainbow and took the Step into the Land of
Immortality.
No one questioned her right to be there. One look was
enough to tell that she was indeed a leprechaun. In her eyes
was the wealth of wisdom they guarded so closely. In her
bearing was the courage and temerity on which they staked
their lives. And in her stance was the devil-may-care
attitude she took no pains to hide.
For thirteen mortal years, scarcely a Day, Nakira
MacIlduy followed her Quest. In the end, she went to the
Hall of the Sacred Powers just to look inside. There, on the
Pedestal of Pedantry, lay the Sacred Treasure she had looked
for all this time.
* * *
On the Night of the Sweeping Frost, at the Hour of
Repose, Nakira MacIlduy, the lepresprite from the Village
Slumber on the Isle of Dwarfdom, awoke from her Hour-long nap
to the sounds of hoof-beats and yelling. She panicked,
thinking it had started all over again. But soon enough the
hoof-beats and yelling resolved themselves to the drum beats
and laughter of those at the Festival.
When she rose her back and neck were stiff from leaning
on the wall. But that didn't stop her from jumping up to
enter the Hall of the Sacred Powers to check up on her
charge.
The Sacred Treasure was where it was supposed to be;
where it had always been. It seemed to glow a little more
but that was the only difference.
No. There was one other change; Nakira was different.
She was no longer the timid creature who tried to hide her
fear and resentment in a rigid, stiff attention. She had
found, on her Quest, the self-esteem she thought she had
lost, the knowledge of her own worth, which was the greatest
gift she had ever received. And the Curse became a Blessing.