Emain Ablach - The Isle of Apples

From the Quill of the Mad Tea Mistress

Oh, you sweet summer mortals. If Tír na nÓg was eternal youth wrapped in longing, then Emain Ablach is temptation dressed as paradise and pretending it has no strings.

Come closer. This one smells like blossoms and bad decisions.

Beyond the western edge of the world - past the last polite wave and the final sensible thought - lies Emain Ablach, the Isle of Apples. A place so beautiful it should come with a warning label and a chaperone.

The apple trees there do not grow. They flourish. Always heavy with fruit. Always in bloom. Apples that gleam like gold and taste like laughter, memory, and just a hint of danger. Eat one, and hunger forgets you. Eat too many, and so does time.

Naturally, mortals could not resist.

Sailors glimpsed the isle through sea-mist and obsession. Kings heard whispers of it in dreams they should have ignored. Poets, poor things, wrote about it until it started writing back.

They say Manannán mac Lir ruled Emain Ablach, sea-god, trickster, and professional keeper of thresholds. Cloaked in illusion, sailing a boat that needed no oars, he watched who came close and who was ready. Spoiler - almost no one was.

Those allowed to land found a place without decay. No sickness. No age. No grief sharp enough to linger. Music drifted without musicians. Feasts replenished themselves. Time moved sideways and occasionally forgot what it was doing entirely.

But do not mistake this for kindness.

Emain Ablach does not trap you. It invites you. It lets you stay long enough to forget what leaving costs.

Mortals who lingered too long began to blur at the edges. Their names softened. Their homes became half-remembered. The apples did not steal their lives. They simply made everything else feel unnecessary.

Some tried to return.

They stepped back onto mortal shores and found centuries had passed. Kingdoms erased. Bloodlines ended. Their bodies remembered age all at once and collapsed under the weight of lost time.

Others never left at all. Whether by choice or by forgetting why they ever should have, the isle does not say. Emain Ablach keeps its secrets beneath petals and salt.

Here is the truth, my darlings. The Isle of Apples is not a fairy tale reward. It is a test. A question whispered sweetly into your ear.

If nothing hurts, if nothing ends, if nothing asks anything of you - who are you, really?

Some answers are best left unspoken.

So if you ever find yourself sailing west and catch the scent of apples on the wind, do be polite. Do not eat recklessly. And for the love of all things enchanted, remember your own name.

Signed in blossom and brine,
Alice, Queen of Ink & Lore
Weaver of Truth, Lies, and Stories