One of the staples of The Faery Crossing must be Merry Meeter Manor. Few things so embody the journey of our lands through time than this elusive place that, like the lands themselves, has been a solid constant, yet ever-changing, which is truly what the Fae are all about. So let us take a journey into the waters of memory and see where the currents take us.
A long time ago, after The Faery Crossing left the Elf Circle covenant to embark on its journey of independence, one of the things we had learned from our older cousins was the value of welcoming newcomers in a personal and warm way. Where many lands simply had group joiners that people could click, many of the Elven, Wyrm, and Fae lands had a dedicated corps of greeters. In the Faery Crossing, these are the Merry Meeters, named after our trademark hail: Merry Meet!
When Maerian Dagger, at the time the Meeter-in-Chief, started training Meeters in 2008, she needed a place. She used one of her own Greek villas on Foxglove Knoll in Madrigal, which did the job for the smattering of students she had. Over time, however, SL population grew at an alarming rate – and so did the number of students. So much so, that a dedicated schooling area was needed and the small building was replaced by a beautiful terracotta manor that was dubbed “Merry Meeter Manor”.
This version of the manor was synonymous with the golden age of SL, FC, and the Merry Meeters. Now under the wings of Jeanette Villiers and Bugs Larnia, the Merry Meeter Mentors trained an impressive number of some of the most well-known Merry Meeters of the day, such as Meadow Copperfield, Elanor Avonside, Effy Fenwitch, Taneeya SecretSpy, Branimir Alphaville and many, many more. The manor itself also had many adventures, having been accidentally deleted by bad aim on several occasions.
After many, many years of service, the ever-changing nature of The Faery Crossing took hold, and it was deemed time for a new Merry Meeter Manor. This incarnation was a huge tree house that – since Madrigal was boasting a tropical theme – was relocated from its historical site in Madrigal to the mystical banks of Betwixt – losing half its prims as it passed through Woodhenge, since the Meeter Mommy hadn’t taken the prim limit of that region into account. After some scavenging and magical carpentry, the new Manor was ready to write the next chapter in Meeter history.
This new Manor was also the first one to be fully co-dedicated to the Gateway Guides: the specialists who guided newcomers safely through their first tentative steps in Second Life. While the Guides had been training alongside Meeters for years under the inspiring example of Meadow Copperfield, here they were fully co-represented with their own heraldry and office space (not that anyone ever used office space – we’re Fae!).
But alas, once again, time caught up with Faerie. Second Life had reached its peak in the years before and visitor numbers – while still high – were noticeably dropping. This impacted the revenue needed to keep regions afloat and Betwixt was one of the reasons that ultimately sank beneath the waves.
But while SL and, by extension FC, was shrinking, Merry Meeter Manor endured and once again changed both shape and location. From an airy, breezy tree house in Betwixt, it settled in Faerie Mere in the form of a more solid and sturdy keep – where it still stands today, ever ready to train the next generation of Merry Meeters and Gateway Guides.
And that is a short story on the long history of an institution that has always been more than a building and more than a place. Merry Meeter Manor has a history almost as long as The Faery Crossing itself and has been an enduring symbol of what made the Fantasy lands so unique and wonderful: their dedication to building a community. And even though the tidal waves of newcomers and new Fae Kin have slowed to a trickle, there are still those who are dedicated to make the joining of The Faery Crossing an experience to be remembered.
So when you wander Faerie Mere and you come upon this tower, now you know what it is, what it was, and that as long as our Faery Crossing exists, there will always be a Merry Meeter Manor to welcome people in.