Perky-Thief here, bringing you another faerie-tale fic for your enjoyment. The inspiration for this story came from the idea of Peter Pan's Tinkerbell, but isn't really connected that much. This story was just an idea I had floating around in my head.
The title of it is Dreams & Beyond. It takes place in a three-part sequence: prologue, story, and epilogue.
Let me know if you like it, or if I should just scrap the entire thing now.
Enjoy!!
Dreams & Beyond
Prologue
Each night when a mother tucks her sleeping babes into their beds there is a hushed whisper, as gentle as the wind, too soft for any mother to detect. It is the final kiss given to the babe by his or her faerie.
Now you may or may not know this, but every child who dreams has a faerie. They can't sense it, or hear it for that matter, but sometimes the lucky ones wake up just in time to see their faerie depart from their room.
What is a faerie? Where does a faerie come from, you may ask? Well, I'll tell you…
When the first baby laughed for the first time, its laugh was shattered into a thousand tiny pieces. Those pieces flew throughout the world, and attached themselves to every little child still believed in what grown-ups call 'fantasy' or make-believe. The eternal job of the faeries is to protect the dreams of the innocent child, and bar off all nightmares and horrid things.
However, there is a catch, once a child stops believing, that faerie just disappears. They sort of fade away, if you will, into nothing, just an empty void left in space.
Now, eventually, another faerie will take up that space, guarding his or her own dream child.
Except one…
It was a frosty December night, upon which our story is to begin. Its setting is in a bedroom, belonging to a child no older than eleven. There is a fireplace with a wooden rocking chair beside it. Pictures of unicorns and mermaids grew on the pink walls, and children's storybooks were laid about messily in a corner. We see a small light pink canopy bed, with a beautiful woman sitting on the edge, and a young brown-haired child sitting up, listening eagerly to her mother's final story, before she is to depart into slumber.
O0O (Official Beginning)
"So Cinderella and her Prince lived happily ever after. The end." Mrs. Marin closed the storybook and placed it on her lap. "There now, my angel. You must go to sleep and dream happy things. And in the morning, I want to hear all about them. Okay?" Mrs. Marin smiled, standing up and moving gracefully towards the door.
"Yes mother," Noreen replied, smiling widely. "Mother," she called softly after a moment.
"Yes my dear?" Mrs. Marin said, still portraying the elegant smile.
"Do I have a Fairy Godmother like Cinderella?"
"Yes, precious. Everyone has a Fairy Godmother, even you."
"When can I meet her?" Noreen asked eagerly.
"Maybe one day if you are lucky enough, you will wake up, and see her sitting by the fire."
"Do you really think so?" Her eyes held tiny, innocent sparkles of hope.
"Yes. Now go to sleep." She walked back over to Noreen's bed and tucked her in again. With a final kiss and a quick 'goodnight,' she left the room and headed downstairs towards the drawing room.
Noreen yawned widely, and drifted off into her own land of dreams. Her dreams were unlike those of any other children her age. She enjoyed many magical things: pirates, sirens, mermaids, unicorns, dragons; all of which resided in her dreams. Of all the mystic things she knew, it had never once crossed Noreen's mind that faeries guard dreams.
But it was that night, while she lay snuggled up tightly in her covers, that her own faerie was sitting atop the head of the bed, watching her sleep peacefully.
Her faerie, personally, was very talented when it came to the barring of nightmares. She had never let one get through, leaving Noreen completely nightmare-free, and unaware of such anguish.
Outside, a dog barked loudly.
The faerie lost her focus, and glanced towards the window instead of Noreen. It was at that moment that one of the most horrid images slipped through her grasp, and into the mind of her sleeping charge.
Noreen twisted and turned in her sleep and slowly a tear dripped down her cheek whilst she slept. The faerie became confused and unsure of what to do; this had never happened to her before. She was usually so professional…
She knew that she was not supposed to wake her charges, but in this case, she thought it might be the best thing.
The faerie, no bigger than a thumb, jumped down onto Noreen's cheek and began kicking her in the nose. "Wake up! Oh, please, wake up. WAKE UP!"
Noreen awoke with a jump from the visions, flinging the faerie with her hand all the way to the end of the bed. She noticed the creature, and in fear, threw her blankets over her head, as most children would.
The faerie, startled by Noreen's sudden actions, flew gracefully toward her, her translucent opalescent wings fluttering rapidly behind her. She landed directly in front of Noreen, smiling gently.
"Please don't be frightened, little girl," she spoke in a soft whisper. "I meant not to scare you. I would like to be your friend, if you allow me."
Hearing this, Noreen cautiously lowered the blankets. Her innocent gaze beheld a stunning little creature standing there; acorn tops covered her breasts, and a skeleton leaf encircled her waist. Strands of silver were imbedded into her cocoa colored hair, creating a heavenly glow encircling her head.
"What are you?" she asked, her voice slightly trembling.
The faerie giggled childishly. "You silly girl. A faerie, but if you want to be technical, your Dream Guardian."
"What's that?"
"Well, duh. I guard your dreams. It's my job to keep out all the nightmares. Boy, and you humans claim to know everything…"
"Oh, well, I didn't know," Noreen said, with slight offense. "Um, what's your name?"
The faerie appeared startled. No human had ever asked her that before…but she saw no harm to it. "I'm Selene. What's yours?"
"Noreen Marie Catherine Marin. Wow, I've never met a faerie before."
"Not many do. Normally, we faeries guard your dreams from our homes and-"
"Where's that?" Noreen cut in.
"I live in the Vale of Moonlight, where all faeries live. Anyway, we normally guard dreams from there, but on occasion we travel to the actual homes of our charges to check up on them personally. It's all very routine. However, tonight, I accidentally let a nightmare through. Sorry."
"It's okay. It wasn't that bad anyway, just a couple of dragons attacking innocent villages, no biggie. So what do you do when I'm awake?"
Selene smiled, for she did many fun things while Noreen was awake; however, Noreen had probably never even heard of any of them. "My friends and I like to play all different types of games: Flower Tower, Mine Hunt, Follow My Leader, to name a few. But the best game of all is Bumble Racing."
Noreen looked puzzled. "What's that?" she inquired.
"It's when we race across the Vale on bumblebees. They're our main mode of transportation; mine is named Buzz-Bee."
"Wow," Noreen exclaimed in amazement. "You actually ride on bumblebees? That's so cool!"
Selene only rolled her green eyes, "everyone owns one; how else would we get from place to place…you humans are so behind with the times."
For many hours they spoke of interesting conversations, each inquiring more about the other. Noreen wanted to know more about faeries, while Selene wanted to hear more concerning Noreen's dreams. (It was an honor to hear how good of a job you were doing for your charge.)
You need not ever worry about a grownup hearing you talk to a faerie, for only children hear their language clearly. Adults hear only a light tinkle of bells. However, if you were an adult and you did happen to hear the tinkle, you would swear that you'd heard it once before.
Selene would normally only come to Noreen's house once a month to check on her. But since they met, Selene came almost every night. Days turned to weeks, weeks turned to months, and months to years.
Well, that's the end of the first part, don't forget to Read & Review.