14.

"Betrayed?!" It was a startling admission.

Actually, it was the second startling admission. The first was that warm and winter fairies weren't always separated by temperatures. Some catastrophe must have happened to isolate one fourth of the fairy population and leave them stranded forever in an icy land with very little color.

The person who was most affected by this startling revelation was Zarina. Before Clarion could resume her story Zarina wandered to the other side of the room and gazed out of the large window. In the distance were the white mountains of the Winter Woods. The young woman looked pained and distressed.

"Why so melancholy?" the queen asked her.

Zarina, wiping her eyes, trembled a bit as she spoke. "I thought… I was so certain that this was the first time in our history that winter fairies could visit the warm seasons without… without..."

"Without relying on the snowmaking machine?" Clarion guessed. "Allowing them to go wherever the please whenever they please?"

"Yes. That's right. But I guess what I did wasn't so important after all."

"Oh no, dear. Quite the contrary," Clarion told the disheartened fairy. "You have set right something made wrong. Your revolutionary pixie dust has completely unlocked all four seasons for the first time in centuries. It has reunited our world in a way no one ever thought possible."

Tinker Bell stood next to the alchemist and stared out the window at the amazing view. She said nothing for a moment before putting a hand on the alchemist's shoulder and told her, "Zarina, what you did was something truly wonderful. With your dust I can take my sister to the mainland in the middle of summer. Together we can play games with Lizzy at her cottage and enjoy picnics under the fairy camp tree while Dr. Griffiths reads stories to us. Maybe we'll even sit outside under the night sky and count the shooting stars as they streak across the heavens, just to say we did."

Periwinkle jumped to her feet in excited anticipation. "Yeah. I can't wait. It'll be so much fun. And there will be butterflies, too. So many butterflies."

"You see? All of that will be because of you and your amazing talent. You've given us something we are both truly grateful for. Something I couldn't even give my own sister. You have every reason to be proud."

Zarina threw her arms around Tinker Bell in a warm embrace. "Thank you," she whispered. "You don't know what that means to me."

"Ooh ooh ooh. I want to hear more," Gliss said excitedly to Queen Clarion.

"Yeah," Rosetta agreed. "Who betrayed you? Tell us the rest of this story."

Clarion chuckled ever so slightly. "Very well. Be seated and I will continue." The queen refreshed everyone's cup of tea and handed out more treats as she continued with her history lesson.

~O~

As it turned out, there was another person who had an interest in Lord Milori's affections. Her name was Mariposa, the Minister of Summer during the reign of Queen Mab. Mariposa, whose name meant "butterfly," was an excellent minister. She was intelligent, possessed a keen eye for detail and was very creative. Mariposa was also most cunning and put that to use playing games of politics. She spent her life currying and maintaining favor with the queen.

Mab, you see, treasured mindless obedience and slavish adherence to protocol above all else. Whenever a fairy or overseer made a request Mab would extort "compromises" to mold the behavior of her subjects in exchange for approving the request. Mariposa, however, was immune to these manipulations thanks to her astute political mind.

Fairies of the realm soon realized they could ask Mariposa to bring their proposals to the crown in order to avoid Queen Mab's often draconian requirements. Mariposa, however, quickly learned to use her favored status as currency and willingly offered her good standing with the queen in exchange for "promises" she would collect on later. Despite being placed in virtually the same situation, fairies often agreed to her demands as Mariposa's favors were usually less distasteful than Queen Mab's oppressive extortions. This had the effect of making Mariposa the most popular fairy in Pixie Hollow and the most hated fairy, too.

~O~

"Oh my, how could Queen Mab be so mean?" Silvermist queried.

The queen took a sip of her tea before answering. "Mab thought she was doing a service to the community. In her mind she was helping fairies to reach the very pinnacle of their talents by eliminating, as she called it, 'extraneous and unnecessary behavior.' She would never have been able to tolerate someone like Tinker Bell, Zarina or Vidia."

"Wow, I feel so lucky all of a sudden," Tinker Bell said.

"Yeah me, too," Vidia added.

"It's nice to know you recognize and appreciate that our penchant for rule breaking is a significant part of our creative processes," Zarina told the queen. "We are very grateful."

"Thank you, dear. But truth be told, I can appreciate it because in my youth I was very much like you."

"You?"

"The queen?"

"A rule breaker?"

"Oh yes. I was quite the rebel in those days," Clarion ashamedly admitted. "Mab chose to be aloof and distant from her subjects. I wanted to be a princess of the people. On any given day you could find me in the trenches with a talent guild working as hard as they did. The reasoning was that knowing how they lived and how our laws affected them and their work would make me a wiser queen. Mab thought such ideas were nonsense, but I insisted."

"So you got… dirty?" Tinker Bell asked.

"Very. The first time I met Lord Milori, a levy was failing after a particularly heavy rainfall. Tinkers were scurrying to reinforce it and I was right in the thick of things. Then, as if on que, the ground gave out from under my feet and I fell flat on my face with a splat. When Milori arrived to greet me for the very first time I was covered in mud from head to toe. I looked an absolute fright." Clarion began to laugh as she remembered that moment. "Oh the expression on his face was priceless. It was the look of the doomed. Oh, dear, what a day that was."

"Wow! I can't believe you did that!" Fawn said, shocked.

"Oh, but it didn't end there. You see, I didn't just work alongside the fairies of the realm, I played alongside them, too. In fact, I remember this one year when the Tinker Guild held an end of summer dance, with a contest as its centerpiece attraction. Naturally I joined in the merriment and even participated in the tournament. As it so happened, Mary and I were the final two contestants standing.

"You should have seen us. Mary was stiff as a board while her legs were churning away underneath her while I chose a more demonstrative form of dance, with my legs swinging and kicking and my dress flaring out in all directions. We went at it through eight long songs, each with a faster tempo than the last until finally Mary emerged the winner. It was so very tiring, but so much fun. And as I recall, that night was also the moment which forged my lifelong friendship with Mary. Has it really been so long?"

The girls looked at each other with such disbelief. Their queen dancing with Fairy Mary in a contest. Mary was well known as an expert and highly coordinated dancer, but Queen Clarion?

"It's like you were an entirely different person back then," Vidia commented.

Clarion smiled. "I was. And I still am, but the demands of my office do not allow me to be so cavalier. I must be upright, proper and in control at all times. Knowing my fate, I chose to make the most of my early years and those fond memories have seen me through more than I care to remember."

The queen then took another sip of her tea and resumed her story.