Tinker Bell mixed red millet, oats and sunflower seeds into the mortar. She pushed and twisted the pestle to crush the foods into a fine powder. Even though she was a tinker, the twisting and crushing motions were not a regular part of her daily duties. Her arms and hands began to hurt from the repetitive movements and she had to switch back and forth between her right and left hands to grind up the food into the fine powder she desired as quickly as possible.
"Is this your idea, Tink?" Fawn asked.
"Yeah, I'm going to crush all these foods into powders and pastes," she said. Arrayed before her was a small collection of foods that the mice loved to eat including carrots, apples, raisins, bananas, dates, figs, corn kernels, bread, oats and some cake crumbs from the kitchen. In a bowl were some strawberries and bananas that had been mashed together. "I'm going to pack so much nourishment into each spoonful that Roquefort will get all he needs even if he only eats a little bit."
"Outstanding, but why didn't we ever think of it?"
"Probably because no one's ever stuffed mice into Vidia's house before," Tinker Bell joked.
Fawn snickered.
"There is an old tinker saying," Tink said, "'necessity is the fairy queen of invention.'"
"Gotcha, can I help?"
"Well, I've already mashed some fruits for him. Maybe he'll be able to eat some of that."
"Let's give it a try," Fawn said taking the bowl. "I'll let you know how he takes to it."
Upon returning to the queen's office in the Pixie Dust Tree, Lyria showed the monarch, her advisors and Fairy Mary several manuscripts for old plays which seemed to partially explain the existence of the old law. As the queen flipped through the pages and read some of the directions and dialogue, Lyria explained its contents.
"Thousands of years ago tinker talents were not prohibited from going to the mainland," she began. "However, with no tasks to perform there, none ever went. Until a curious young sparrow man flew to the world of the humans one spring season to learn more about the lost things that washed up on the shores of Never Land. When he arrived he saw wonders of human ingenuity that inspired the tinker to create new devices for Pixie Hollow."
"Sound familiar?" Sunflower told Hyacinth. The Minister of Spring grinned in return.
"When the next spring season came several tinkers followed the sparrow man to see the amazing sights he had described. During the night they went into the shops and workplaces and found so many new inventions and ideas that it kept the tinkers inventing for several years."
"Very familiar," Hyacinth whispered back with an even bigger grin.
"Unfortunately, the curiosity of some of the tinker fairies got the best of them. It was no longer enough to see these inventions they wanted to know how the humans applied them. They began to sneak into the towns and hamlets during the daylight hours to watch the mainlanders work, but a few of them were seen by the human children. When the tinkers retreated to an abandoned castle some of the children followed. The humans concluded that the fairies lived there and sought them out. Believing that the fairies were enchanted, benevolent creatures who could grant wishes through fairy magic the humans left offerings of food, gold or other precious items in exchange for protection, revenge or good fortune."
Queen Clarion listened intently to this amazing tale of Pixie Hollow history. As Lyria spoke the queen kept wondering why this was never included in her history training when she was a princess. Instantly, though, she answered her own question. The old oral histories are not maintained by The Keeper or the scribes, but by the performing talents and were never transcribed to our history texts. It was an oversight she intended to rectify immediately after this business with Vidia was concluded.
"This began a series of very unfortunate events which turned the human population against us for several millennia. The humans of the mainland began to seek out fairies everywhere, hoping to befriend them and win their loyalty and industry. A few of the tinkers who ventured into the towns during daylight hours were captured by adults who wanted to use them to their own ends. However, the tinkers used their talents to escape their captivity. Believing that they had offended the fairies, humans began to blame all manner of bad fortune on fairies seeking retribution for being treated poorly."
"Soon, when a child disappeared, the humans reckoned that fairies must have stolen it, carrying it off and turning it into a half human, half fairy creature. Most likely what really happened was that a child simply got lost, disappeared, died or was abandoned, but these kinds of miseries were regularly attributed to the fairies. According to several folk tales a fairy tried to befriend a human child and helped it to learn about us. Supposedly the child recounted to its parent all that it had learned about fairy society. The humans believed that the only way a child could know such details was that if it was actually a fairy in human form, also known as a changeling. This tale spread and soon human children accused of being fairies in disguise were persecuted or often put to death."
"Oh dear, how awful," Fairy Mary gasped.
"These and other stories were all retold often enough that they soon gained wide acceptance throughout the mainland. Before being sighted, fairies were considered neutral or benevolent, after these events emerging folklore cast fairies as everything from pranksters to beings of pure evil. In one collection of these stories there is even a description of the Fairy Queen as taking a human lover and then tithing him to the underworld. A ritual she would repeat every few years."
"They can't be serious," Hyacinth said rather defensively. "Her highness the queen would never do such a thing and she most certainly has no attachments to evil forces of any sort." Realizing that he had just said this out loud and that everyone was staring at him, the Minister of Spring turned several shades of red before sliding behind the Minister of Summer to hide.
Lyria continued, "Unfortunately, much of what humans believed about fairies came from their own fervent imaginations. Humans during that time period were poor, uneducated, illiterate and grossly unsophisticated. They used stories recounted in folk tales of magical creatures to explain anything they did not understand. Like our own pre written language period, these tales were embellished and expanded by each person who told them as they spread across the land. Soon the entire mainland believed these grossly inaccurate stories. More were later added that supposedly furnished methods of repelling fairies and protecting children from being snatched in the middle of the night. None of them worked, but that didn't stop the human population from trying such absurd things as leaving scissors around infants to keep them safe from being stolen by fairies in the middle of the night."
"The tinker influence on humankind was very far reaching. The legends that the humans spun would eventually send pirates searching for Never Land. Some found our island home and have tried to use it as a sanctuary to escape capture by the nations whose gold they plunder. This would eventually lead to the loss of the Enchanted Mirror of Incanta, the presence of Peter Pan, the Lost Boys and Captain Hook on our island and even the arrival, centuries ago, of the Indian tribe who thrive on the headland."
"Is this why the law was first written?" Queen Clarion asked Lyria.
"That is correct, your highness. When Queen Elphame became aware of how much the tinkers' interference was influencing the humans and endangering human life and threatening both fairy life and Pixie Hollow itself she banned tinkers from ever going to the mainland again. At least until a future queen decided it was appropriate for them to return. She also forbid the use of lost things in any tinker made constructions and removed all the new tinker inventions that were inspired by the human technology. Queen Elphame wanted to eliminate all human influence from Pixie Hollow to prevent the tinkers from being tempted to return to the mainland."
"That's why no tinker in recent memory has ever had an interest in going to the mainland," Fairy Mary opined. "Over the thousands of years during prohibition they convinced themselves that they had no purpose or task there. They even rejected lost things because of this old law. It simply became part of our culture to stay in Pixie Hollow and use only what was around us. We never even knew why."
"That is a likely conclusion, Fairy Mary," Lyria said.
"If we allow the tinkers to return to the mainland could history repeat itself?" Clarion asked her advisors.
Although the question was directed at the queen's ministers, it was Lyria, the performer and part time history scholar who spoke first. "Humans seemed to have changed in recent years," she said. "Their shift towards scientific exploration and away from folk tales means that such a reaction to our presence were we ever seen, wouldn't result in farfetched tall tales or the devastating repercussions that followed."
"Yes, but would their desire for scientific discovery send them looking for us?" Hyacinth asked. "Tinker Bell seems quite bold when it comes to the humans and their inventions."
"To be fair ministers," Lyria spoke up again, "the human adults have increasingly rejected the old folk tales as mythology and unscientific nonsense. The children believe in us because the parents have reduced those old folk stories to fairy tales. Something for children to enjoy while young, but grow out of as they age."
"Like the stories of Pinocchio, Snow White or Sleeping Beauty?" Snowflake asked.
"Yes, exactly," Lyria stated. "In this day, many of the old tales are being rewritten to teach children caution or preach good morals. Not to be believed as fact. Were a child to ever see a fairy and tell his or her parents, the adults would simply dismiss it as little more than a child's vivid imagination. Even the adults would not likely believe they saw a fairy were they to glimpse one."
The queen drew in a deep breath and let it out as she absorbed and processed what had been told to her. She remained in deep thought for several minutes while her advisors, Fairy Mary and Lyria waited. Clarion once more stared out across the forests and meadows, looking directly at the snow covered mountains of the Winter Woods. She looked through the window pretending she could see her Lord Milori flying on his owl across the snowy mountains. It brought her some comfort to imagine this, even though she knew there would never come a time she would ever see him again.
"Your highness?" Redleaf spoke. His voice woke Clarion from her reverie.
"The ministers have come to a decision," he said.
She turned around to face her advisors. Clarion thanked Lyria for her help and then dismissed her. Fairy Mary turned to leave, but the queen asked her oldest and dearest friend to stay.
"Yes, ministers, what is your decision?"
Redleaf stood front and center and delivered the verdict. "We, the assembled ministers and advisors to her majesty, Queen Clarion, by unanimous decision, put forth a vote of full and unwavering confidence," he said. "It is our opinion that Vidia failed in her responsibility to inform the queen when she concluded that the law may have been unjust. We also believe that the queen relied on reasonable expectations, as all the fairies did, that the law had a reasonable and meaningful purpose. We find that the queen did not commit a high crime or misdemeanor against Pixie Hollow. Further, it is our firm belief that the queen acted appropriately and with proper authority once she considered the law to be unjust. We recommend that no action should be taken against her."
Then the four ministers assembled stood side by side and said in unison, "All hail Clarion, Queen of the Never Fairies and ruler of all Pixie Hollow. Long live the queen."
The queen smiled both at her ministers' loyalty and because she could finally put this ordeal behind her. With this done she had one last task to perform. Complete the sentencing of Vidia.
Author's Note: Some of what Lyria explains to the queen and the ministers was taken from research off of Wikipedia. The rest I just made up and inserted into the in universe canon.
I hope you enjoy and thanks for reading. Please review.