The golden hour is a term used in photography to describe the sun's warm toned rays at dawn and dusk. It makes the light warmer and softer than at any time of day. then again it's also used in medicine to describe the brief period of time in which treatment is most likely to be successful.
In this story we visit a valley-trapped village that lies between a great mountain range in some country, perhaps your own and perhaps mine. Their days are short and the nights seem to last forever, smothering them in grey light. They've never seen the golden hour - that amber warmth hadn't reached the villagers since their ancestors first found themselves trapped in a valley that supplied them with everything they needed. Everything but that golden glow.
Their eyes had long since adjusted to the gloom and all that walked beside them within it. Such grey and overcast places quickly become home to the things that roamed the world before humans had even made their first fires. The world had been theirs and they hadn't forgotten that. They didn't let the villagers forget either.
From the roaming roots of the tree-looking blood-drinkers calling themselves Dryads to the herd of wild Kelpies whose coats were drenched with water and blood in equal measure. The villagers had long since adapted to deal with these beings, carrying iron in their pockets and leaving nightly offerings around the perimeters of their homes in the hopes that nothing will cross over them.
In return for their careful measures they received perfect harvests, pure water and never fell sick unless they displeased one of their neighbouring creatures. The last person to do so found themselves unable to stop dancing until their heart wore out and they fell to the ground dead as can be.
Visitors are rare and often tricked into entering by unusual weather or simply losing their way among the deliberately tricky paths criss-crossing the mountains. It wouldn't do for the village population to grow stale and die out. If they did then who would appease the last of the twilight dwellers?
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