Her hand trembled with a anticipation as she reached up on tip toe to light the stick of rosemary incense with the last remains of the torch fire, before it give into the darkness of night.
The tiny flame at the sticks end flickered as if sharing its' creators' nervousness, flickering once, twice, before being brought to rest in one of the magic rings' many holders.
Harriet slipped off her glasses, cupping her hand around one side of the feeble fire... and blew.
The thin finger of smoke danced upward with a heavy scent that the whole world seemed to breathe in that frozen moment... A world that was not happy at all.
The wind returned so instantly with its' fearsome roar that the fraggle screamed, gripping onto the nearby rock as the aunts uncles and 2nd cousins' of the inkspots that had been her backup singers went whizzing by. In a new shower of autumn leaves, a very bewildered looking doozer followed, clinging to the end of its' airborne doozerstick bed.
Harriet squeezed her eyes tightly shut against the raging elements as a long trail of pure white smoke drifted upward from every corner of the mountain top, forming itself into a large shimmering ball above the magic circle , where finally it found a voice.
Unfortunately for Harriet, the only voice it had on hand happened to be the thunderous one of a giant who had not had a good nights sleep in centuries.
"Who is the maiden who dare think her love worthy?"
Harriet gulped where her still lay, firmly attached to the rocks' 'legs', her mind already racing at a hundred miles an hour.
Ohmygosh, ohmygosh it's real...it's marvelous..it's..it's...The first real ghost to life communication in fraggle rock ! Quickly, quickly, say something historic! Some first line that will be forever written of ..something like...
"It...it wasn't me." The storyteller peeped.
Harriet, you dummy.
The white ball of light grew a bit smaller, its' center glowing with a energy that looked as if it would burn to the touch, but only felt like the memory of fresh snow as it hovered inches from the fraggles' face, making her newly replaced glasses fog up.
"No, I can feel your soul, it is one of mature love and gentle grace. I am never wrong."
The voice that accompanied this nearness was like a soothing brother of the words the ghost had spoken before, so warm and even handed it made her mouth feel dry in trying to find words well spoken enough to be fit to be heard in their company.
"Gentle grace?...Well..I..aren't you mad with me?"
The light bobbed up and down, drifting backward to rest on the rocks' 'nose' in a whisper of breeze.
"I? Oh my most humble apologies for my outburst. It is merely ghost custom, you understand. We must always follow custom, to do otherwise would upset the magic."
The storyteller got to her feet, tucking her tail around her legs and dipping down to touch its' tuffed end to her nose in an old fashion fraggle curtsy as the ball of light drifted back into the rock formation.
"Of course...My name is..."
The smaller fraggle gasped at the eerie semi-transparent figure that stepped forward.
His outline matched the rocks' exactly, all in varied shades of gray. Somehow this odd coloring of another world could not hide the fact that his skin and fur had once been a dark orange, with a wispy short beard that moved in the breeze, framing his close set eyes above a long pointed muzzle. A once grand silk cloak adored his shoulders, offsetting a heavy looking armor chestplate, its' apple symbol detailing shining brightly from within.
"Harriet. Your name is Harriet," The knight said, crossing his arms over his chest and bowing to touch the tuff of his tail with a well practiced formality. "Holder of the title of storyteller from the tender pre-job age of eighteen, by the grace of your voice for tales."
Harriet breathed as her heart grew wings, traveling down to her big left toe and up to her baloobius in record time.
She finally found her voice again, fighting against her nature and the very unlady like urge to giggle.
"It's an honor to meet you..." The small voice she had only until now used for one other fraggle stopped short as she fixed the ghost with a silent hopeful look.
The knight rubbed the short ruffled hair between his tuffed ear stocks; a motion of embarrassment that, for all his courtly manners, marked him as having been quite young.
"I'm afraid I seem to have misplaced my name many ages ago. Perhaps I might borrow one of your own, dear Storyteller?"
A mess of pink hair and a pair of glinting glasses were an inch from the spirits' face before his last words even had a chance to be spoken at anything over a murmur.
"Fredrick. You look like a Fredrick." She said simply.
"And you look very like an angel." Fredrick whispered.
Above her head, the Storyteller could feel her winged heart doing cartwheels.