[ WP ] A fairy tells it 's children a human tale before bed

Twinkling through the hanging dew-beads of the heart-shaped doorway to her bedroom, bathed in moonlight, Alfasora tottered into her room on toddler feet and flung herself on her lemongrass bed. 
 
 Looking up at her ceiling, patterned with stars winking and sifting in and out of existence, she heard her mother's sweet voice intoning just a hint of tart-sour exasperation, `` Alfasora! Are you still awake?'' 
 
 `` No...'' said the doleful fairy-child, closing tight her eyes into scrunched crow's feet of forced somnolescence. 
 
 `` Alfasora.'' A plaintive voice said, and Alfasora opened her eyes to see the smooth, elongated features of her fairy mother, the shimmering pseudo-sky of her bedroom ceiling behind her. 
 
 Alfasora sat up and crab-crawled her way toward the headboard of the bed, eyes and face all the while held on her mother throughout the shuffle, and thrust her head back onto the pillow. 
 
 `` A story!'' She whispered with wide-eyed urgency, `` a story Mama! About Hearth, with the money men and the sky-machines and the boxes of sound!'' 
 
 Her mother laughed and glanced away, taking in the trinket-filled room, with its hanging baubles and gaud-covered walls. 
 
 `` A story then, of *Earth*, that's what they call it.'' She said, touching Alfasora on the nose as she corrected her. 
 
 `` Caesar! Or Eyes and Hour!'' Alfasora blurted as she tucked her feet under the covers and folded her film-clear wings more comfortably beneath her. 
 
 `` Who told you those! Your brother is growing up to be a real imp. No, nothing scary before bed.'' 
 
 `` Bu-but!'' She began to protest. 
 
 `` No Alfasora, something nice,'' at that Alfasora began to worldessly gawp her mouth in imminent argument, ``... but exciting, I promise.'' 
 
 Alfasora wriggled herself slightly in preparation. 
 
 `` And with an important lesson.'' 
 
 `` Once upon a time, in a far away republic, there was a man named Tre.'' 
 
 `` Like, to carry stuff with?'' The semi-fairy's face scrumpled in confusion. 
 
 `` No! T-R-E, now listen. 
 
 `` On Earth, in his republic, men and women have a different kind of magic. A magic for understanding things and dreaming them different. They look like you and me and your brother - and they talk with words like us too - but they have amazing powers. 
 
 They can speak into one rock and make their voice project from another. They can take a view, like of a nice valley or their friend's wedding or a distant castl-'' 
 
 `` They have castles!?'' Interrruped the fey child, struggling to reconcile this new detail. 
 
 `` They did. Well, they still do, but they do n't make any new ones. Well, they, do but they're not... whatever, it's not important. Their world is strange. Most of all, they can talk, not just with their mouths and ears, but with their eyes and hands.'' 
 
 The fairy only appeared more bewildered. 
 
 `` They can draw tiny, tiny pictures and when someone looks at the pictures they can hear the artist's voice in their head.'' 
 
 The child's eyes were glassy and full of amazement now. `` What do they use it for?'' 
 
 `` Gosh, for everything. To say hello, to make rules, to tell each other stories, to keep the things someone said or learned after they die.'' 
 
 `` Die?'' asked the child. 
 
 `` That's another magic in their world, a strange magic, where a human goes away forever if they do the wrong thing. If they crash while flying or if they eat something that humans ca n't eat.'' 
 
 `` Ok...'' Alfasora, unable to suspend disbelief on this detail, urged her to go on. 
 
 `` So, Tre, this boy Tre, was from a very poor family, and when he was a little human, his mother died.'' 
 
 `` But was she still in the things, the little pictures, what are they called?'' 
 
 `` They're called... I think...'weirds' or'wards', and no, you ca n't bring someone back from them if they died. But Tre grew up and was very powerful in human magic, it's called'smart', and he became what they call a'doctor'.'' 
 
 `` What powers does a doctor wizard have!'' 
 
 `` Well, if something is wrong with a human, they can usually fix it. Do you remember when you scraped your wing on that Snarf? On Earth, a doctor could put a magic spell on it and it would have been better sooner.'' 
 
 `` No!'' 
 
 `` Yes! And sometimes, if a human has something so wrong with them they might die, a doctor can fix them, and then they wo n't die.'' 
 
 `` What!'' 
 
 `` Yes. I know. Can I continue?'' 
 
 `` Sorry.'' Said the child, and tucked back under her cover, even deeper than before. 
 
 `` So, Tre was a special kind of doctor wizard who used magic to save people from exactly the kind of monster that ate his mother.'' 
 
 `` What did the monster look like?'' 
 
 `` Well, on Earth, they do n't really have monsters like we do, even mean humans are n't monsters, but this thing is like a monster. It's an invisible monster called a'disease'. And sometimes if the monster gets you, it will get anyone you touched. Or sometimes, it will get anyone you even came close to. Or sneezed on. But some of the worst monsters, wo n't go for everyone you're close to, some monsters will just come after your children. And their children. And their children.'' 
 
 `` Mommy! *You* said not a scary one!'' 
 
 `` Sorry, right, well, diseases do n't eat fairies, they do n't like us. But on Earth, they eat people. And the same disease that ate Tre's mommy was going to eat Tre. This monster is invisible. You ca n't lock it out of your house. You ca n't escape it. You ca n't touch it or hit it or bite it. It can go wherever you-'' 
 
 `` Mommy. This. Is. Scary.'' 
 
 `` Ok, hold on, so, doctor wizards, can create special spells to destroy a disease. Before it hurts you or before it even finds you. So Tre used all of his powers to create a spell, all of his'smart' magic, to find the right spell to destroy the disease. 
 
 `` But the disease made him weaker, made him slower, made him seem older than he really was. He still had n't found the right spell but he was trying. 
 
 `` His friends told him to stop, to just enjoy Earth, to look at picture-weirds and do what Earth-people do for fun. 
 
 `` But he did n't, he stayed in his special doctor-magic dungeon called a'labradory'- 
 
 `` With the little furry things!'' Alfasora asked, suddenly hopeful. 
 
 `` Not always, maybe some do, maybe that's how they got their name, but not this one. This one just had magical potions and wands. He worked day and night, he worked on and on, fighting the disease. 
 
 `` One day, his friends went to check on his work, but there was no answer at the door. They knocked. They shouted. They went around to sneak in through a window, when they saw him on the floor, fallen out of his doctor-wizard chair still in his white doctor-wizard robe.'' 
 
 `` Why? Was he stuck to the ground?'' 
 
 `` No Alfasora, he was dead. He would never finish his spells. He would never laugh with his friends again. He would never get to go to do all the fun Earth things he ever did or all the fun Earth things he never got a chance to do. Even though when they found him his body was all in one piece, when a body dies it slowly falls apart and then just becomes dust and dirt, so on Earth they put friends who die in the ground.'' 
 
 `` What happened?'' She asked, very quietly and sadly. 
 
 `` The monster, the disease, that made his Mommy die, made him die too.'' 
 
 `` So, so,'' the child's voice wobbling and eyes welling, `` so the monster won, he'died'. The disease ate him.'' 
 
 `` Shh, shh, it's okay, I'm sorry, I should have picked a better story, wait. This is a human story, this is n't a fairy tale. Tomorrow I'll tell you an Orc story and if you really ca n't fall asleep tonight, I'll tell you an otter story.'' 
 
 `` With bees!'' demanded he child. 
 
 `` Yes, with otters and bees. But in this story, of Doctor Tre who died from his mother's disease, something amazing happened. Something that only human magic could do.'' 
 
 `` He came back!'' 
 
 `` No, well, almost, he did die. So he ca n't come back, someone who dies is really gone, really forever. But, the'weirds', the tiny pictures that people use to talk to each other, he left those behind for his friends, and the friends of his friends. 
 
 `` So his friends could learn everything that he knew about the disease and help to find spells to save people like Tre from the disease that ate him and his mother. 
 
 `` Did his friends do it? Did they beat the disease?'' 
 
 `` Not yet, they're still trying. But even if each one does n't quite get the whole thing, another one is ready to take his place, to start where he left off.'Die' is n't the right idea, because he did n't go away forever. All of his magic stayed behind and stayed with his friends. 
 
 `` Now in our world, we have murgles and fiefinors and schlabelhunds and snarks, maybe we have different magics and different powers to humans, but you can be just like Tre and, I think, he's just like you. 
 
 `` Whatever your magic is, whether it's doctor magic like a human or sugarplum booning like a Hurbottor goblin, you've got to find out what that is and use that to make the world a better, happier place. 
 
 `` So no matter what happens, your magic will always be left behind. 
 
 `` And maybe your magic is just being as cute as a little fairy button,'' she finished as she kissed the now sleeping fairy girl on a round, rosied cheek. 
 
 `` Good night Alfasora, I love you and be a good fairy,'' said the girl's mother as she slipped carefully through the hanging dew-beads in the bedroom doorway and hummed a human tune as she snuck down the stairs.
