Disclaimer: I acknowledge that Disney Fairies & associated content are owned by Walt Disney Company. I am not interested in profiting from this document. It is for the enjoyment of fans only.
Author's Note: Here's my 6th TBell story. I started it back in the summer (2011), got stalled a bit, but wanted to finish before "Pixie Hollow Games" came out. Hope you like it!
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Marerittene - Chapter 1 - Lost Sleep
Queen Clarion awoke with a shout. She sat up quickly in a bed damp from perspiration and searched the darkness of her quiet room, panting. As she gradually became fully awake, she groaned "Not again." She slipped off of the bed and floated to her washbasin table, where she wiped her face, neck, and arms with a damp cloth.
Clarion then glided out to her balcony, knowing she'd not be able to get back to sleep for an hour or more. She gazed up at the calm night sky. These nightmares had been taking their toll on her for almost a week now. And they were getting stronger, or perhaps she was just remembering them better.
Always the same dream: An average day, then the storm rises, a terrible explosion, fire, frantic attempts to quench the blaze, injured fairies, wreckage... She filled her lungs with the cool night air, then gave a long sigh which became a soft moan. It all seemed so real, but...
Clarion decided she needed to talk to someone about the dreams, but who? She thought of all her fairies in Neverland. Although they each had specialized talents & skills, none of them could speak authoritatively on dreams. Perhaps the dreams were a harbinger of future events. She shuddered at the thought of that.
None of her fairies could foresee the future either. "But wait! The Mirror of Incanta!" she thought. Queen Incanta was an extremely powerful fairy sorceress. Certainly SHE could see into the future. Clarion resolved to find out, first thing in the morning. For now, she needed her sleep.
Clarion glided into her royal quarters, to the icebox in her kitchen. "Something with calcium, to put me to sleep." she thought, choosing a slice of mouse-cheese and a glass of mouse-milk. After finishing those, she left a note where her morning assistants would find it.
Clarion then went to her bedroom. She didn't want to crawl back into a clammy bed, so she pulled off the puffy blanket and curled up on her large couch. She forced herself to think happy thoughts, until she drifted off to sleep again.
Next morning, Queen Clarion's assistants had fetched the Mirror of Incanta from Dulsie's tearoom, as directed. Clarion took the mirror to her private study, propped it up in a stream of sunlight, then picked a dark purple lens out of her crystal toolcase. She clamped it in a holder and swung it into the beam of sunlight over the mirror.
"Good morning, Queen Incanta." Clarion smiled at the ghostly image in the mirror as she sat down. "I hope I'm not disturbing your daily routine."
"It's a welcome diversion, Clarion. What's up?" asked the elderly fairy in the mirror.
"I've been having dreams... well, nightmares lately."
"Oh-ho." Incanta nodded. "Tell me about them." Clarion gave more details than she comfortably cared to. She was unsettled before the end of it.
"These are strong signals indeed." Incanta nodded. "A fairy queen's dreams are not to be ignored."
"Could this be a sign of things to come?"
"Perhaps, but it could be in the past. I have no knowledge of these events. What about your own history?"
"I've never heard of this either." Clarion sighed.
"Then it could be in the future, but how far? Do you see any locations or faces you recognize?"
"No." Clarion suddenly realized. "The scenes are strange and the faces are strange. I guess I was so wrapped up in the emotion of it, I never noticed."
"Ah." determined Incanta. "That's very different. Either it's in the distant future, or it's some other location, which is not likely."
"It might be another location..." Clarion suggested. She told Incanta of her development of the pixie dust viewing table, her suspicion of & search for other fairy colonies, and the recent find & contact with the Scottish fairy colony of Dachaigh Sidh.
"Clarion, that is an amazing find." Incanta was in awe. "In all my years, I never suspected such a thing as other fairy colonies. But it makes perfect sense, now that you mention it."
"Just doing what I see as my queenly duty." Clarion blushed in modesty.
"And that dust table of yours, that shows advanced use of both crystal and pixie dust magic. If you keep going, you may one day be as powerful as I was."
"Surely not!" Clarion laughed.
"You MUST show me that pixie dust viewing table of yours."
"The room is darkened," Clarion considered, "But I'll make arrangements."
Queen Clarion had her carpenter-talent fairies construct a light duct from the dark dust-table room, to the nearest outside sunny wall. She then called-in Fairy Mary, to install whatever optical components were needed to bring a relatively undisturbed beam of sunlight through the duct.
This took the entire day, which meant Clarion had to endure another night of dreams. This time she tried to watch for anything or anyone familiar in the dream, but recognized nothing. She was ready for the Mirror of Incanta, next morning.
"Where does the pixie dust flow from?" asked Incanta, from the mirror.
"It's diverted from one of the main streams." explained Clarion. "It trickles onto the table, but the raised edge keeps it off the floor. It empties through a drain on the table, then flows back to the main stream."
"But the key is your crystal."
"Exactly." confirmed Clarion. "I've toyed with it for years, but only lately found a way to put it to work for me. I got the idea from our storyteller-talents"
"Well let's see if it can point the way to your dream troubles." Incanta suggested.
Clarion cupped her hands around the crystal and gazed at the table. The pixie dust rose off the table, and formed into a 3D image over Pixie Hollow, just above the Pixie Dust Tree.
"Oh wonderful, Clarion. I wish my real self could have seen this. Now softly, ...remember your dream." The pixie dust re-arranged itself into startling images of fire and destruction. Clarion gasped, and pulled away. "No good." Incanta decided. "Let's try another technique. Close your eyes, and let me be your eyes."
Clarion again cupped the crystal, this time blindly. The Pixie Hollow image formed.
"Okay. Now gently, think of the beginning, before the storm." Incanta began to drone calmly, like a hypnotist. "Just an average day, nothing happening. Where is it? What direction?" The pixie dust image shifted. "North-east. Let's visit the average-day fairy colony." The image moved quickly across Neverland, and out over the sea. "Approaching land."
"That would be Wales." Clarion spoke softly, eyes still closed. The image rocketed over the land.
"More sea coming." Incanta droned. "Average day, in an average fairy colony." The water whipped past. "More land here." The image slowed a bit as the landscape flew past, then stopped suddenly. "Where's the average colony?" The image tilted down. "Clarion? Open your eyes."
Clarion gasped at what she saw. "I think that's it!" She panned the view about a large tree, showing a fairy-sized village around it, with tiny figures moving amongst the buildings. "It does look like a typical fairy colony."
"Except for one thing." Incanta seriously noted.
"Oh?" Clarion prompted for an explanation, but then she saw. "Oh!"
Some time later, Vidia and Prilla sat in the darkened room with Queen Clarion, their faces lit by the pixie dust floating on the table. They both sensed there was something different about this meeting.
"I've been having dreams lately." Clarion confided to them. She shaped her hands around the crystal before her, and the dust jumped off the table. Vidia & Prilla both recognized the fairy base outside of York on the mainland. "With some valuable assistance, I discovered the dreams may be of another fairy colony." The view moved rapidly forward across land, then sea.
"The direction is north-east." Clarion continued. "In the southern part of a land humans call Norway." The dust-view showed land approaching, and charged inland, gradually slowing to a stop. They saw a very tall tree, on a small island, at one end of a small lake. As the view slid inward, they could see fairies moving on the pathways around the tree.
"Another Pixie Hollow." Prilla smiled.
"Notice anything unusual?" asked Clarion.
"No one's flying." Vidia was quick to spot.
"Precisely." Clarion let the dust drop to the table. "I think something has happened there. Would you like to investigate?"
"Yes." Prilla answered, as Vidia nodded with concern.
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Author's Post Note: "Marerittene" is Norwegian for "the nightmares".
Next: Prilla & Vidia are off to Norway!