Fairies' Music Sheet
Keeper of Ages
An elder Fairy sits before his desk, wings tucked close to his back, glasses perched on the end of his nose. Another piece of his collection has arrived from the north, returning to the land from wence it came. With a colored fey light above him, he gently removes the shining white coin from its pouch, admiring its illustrious color, before placing it into the dark wood of its "page." Another line complete, another portion of the ongoing melody ready to be played. Only if he is lucky will he complete the melody before the end of his life; if not, these coveted coins will pass through his family until the ballad has found its end.
The item known as the Fairies' Music Sheet is a decorative way to display Ages in the order of their release and in the order of the musical notes depicted on their faces. Each one of these display boxes is considered to be a "page" of music for the ballad composed by Festival Snix known as "Moonlight." Completed "pages" are coveted as the time required to collect the necessary coins to finish a "page" may cross lifetimes, passed through families as a much-loved heirloom.
Those that have the most complete collections will fill many of these cases over the years, slowly transitioning to more elaborate and decorative cases as the wealth of their collection grows. It is common for the most invested of collectors to spend hundreds of gold to have someone carve or mint them the perfect case, one that depicts their journeys to collect these coins and the breadths of their collections.
Design
Collectors that are highly invested in the collection of Ages may invest in cases made of expensive fey woods, but these items have been known to be made out of various common metals as well as woods such as Dragon Pine and Juniper depending on the level of decoration the collector wishes. Most commonly, these items are made with woods that are easily found within the Fairy King's Wood to keep the price down. While the Fairies' Music Sheet is meant to be used to collect Ages and complete the ballad known as "Moonlight," smaller cases are made and sold to create interest in coin collecting, especially amongst the younger Fairies. These smaller cases may only hold an entire "age" of coin, having slots for the mithril, gold, silver, and bronze coin of a certain time frame.History
Long after the first Ages were minted did people, Fairies and others from outside the Fairy Kingdom, choose to invest in their collections, creating display cases that showed the graduer of the ballad Festival Snix had composed. Nearly five millennia after the first coins were minted were the earliest cases created, little more than wood hastily glued together to make ramshackle shelves to display the coins. As the centuries passed, the Fairies' Music Sheet changed, becoming more defined and elaborate as the collection of Ages grew. Instead of a series of small shelves, decorative boxes were created that had specific slots for the coins, nestling them in perfect safety while also being legible at a quick glance. These boxes were often made of scrap wood, but craftsmen quickly moved to using common metals and woods that they could find throughout the Northern Continent.
Fairies' Music Sheet
Fairies' Music Sheet
by
Image via Midjourney, created by Riverfang
The Fairies' Music Sheet is an interesting item that is often made out of wood or metal and is used to store the curreny of the Fairy Kingdom. When Ages are placed in this item in the correct order, it makes up one "page" of the ballad known as "Moonlight."
I've been waiting for this article since I read the Ages one. This is such a fun idea. I kind of love that it ends up being a multi-generational collection.