ONE PIXIE ARMY AT work. Allory gazed about the dust library in consternation. Her simple request had set off a storm worthy of a true desert tempest, according to a certain Golden Purrmaine, who was currently half mauve – his front half – and half luminous orange, thanks to the vagaries of the dust being puffed about the venerable halls of Pixiedom.
Libraries needed a good spring-cleaning in order to function well, she understood. Dust, when collected together for long periods of time, tended to develop ideas of its own.
A far cry from inferior technologies such as scrolls, books or bonded-metal sheets, the Scintillant had further been assured, but the sung legends of her kind certainly counted amongst the more impressive forms of recall – everyone kindly ignoring the fact that her people had lost a great deal of lore over the generations of their hiding in the deepest jungles and no-one knew how to make actual scintillance anymore. Just that minor side effect. Oh, and had she known that her wings sparked when she had healed Garobixi?
Fust static electricity in the dusty air, she demurred timorously.
That response earned her a two-hour lecture from Yaarah. The Dragon was always right, often stuffy and pedantic, but far less often, extremely dull. She now understood that electricity – Felidragon style, say – and scintillance were two very different phenomena. Excellent. How useful was said knowledge? An eleven-inch Fae knew better than to ask.
She knew to learn. Learn more. Never stop learning.
Padding up beside her, her dusty friend purred, “Aye, this is all your fault.”
“Eep, it is so not,” she peeped.
“Unintentional side effects of being the Sparkles?”
“Alright, Dustball,” she smirked. “Is the mighty scholar prepared to share his lofty insights with the poor little Faerie from the jungles?”
“Mrrr-ssst!” he snorted, blowing her new hairstyle sideways. “Poor, no. Little, in physical stature only. Of course, you are still a Faerie, and as for the reference to my undeniable loftiness, why, I thank you for the well-turned compliment and desire many more similar adjectives to liberally pollinate your erudite discourse with my knowledgeable self.”
His smirk came complete with fifty fangs, which was rather difficult to compete with. Allory did a fancy treble somersault to land behind his tufted ears. She gave his left ear a daring tweak.
“Ooh, I shall deliver my report at once!” Yaarah said brightly, drawing a giggle of unexpectedly zinging delight from his passenger. “Allory Fae, we have identified fifty-three references relating to your original request. That is, before the Pixies became – ah-hrrrm, mildly distracted, shall we say – and determined to undertake a much larger review of their library system.” He coughed delicately. “Work is … progressing in that peculiarly chaotic Pixie way. Now, our Garobixi has prepared a private index for you over here for your especial review.”
“Uh … where?” Allory asked.
“Hint: it’s the large pink bucket,” the Felidragon stage-whispered.
“A bucket of dust? Well dust my sparkles, or sparkle my dust, I should have known.” Allory appreciated his mild chuckle for her mildly terrible joke. “Now, where is the intrepid –”
“Freshly arrived from the battle!” Garobixi cried, arriving at a dangerous speed for a very rotund Pixie. His pixels saved him from an unfortunate collision with the cavern wall as he misjudged his velocity rather badly. “I have prepared for you a comprehensive and unfortunately, largely redundant index of salient references. Shall we review it together?”
One had to admire a Pixie who was so exercised by his craft.
It took Garobixi about twenty minutes to progress, digress and regress his way through the index, providing Allory illuminating insights into the nature of Pixie poetry, ancient cooking techniques and early romantic literature along the way. No surprises that, by and large, ‘skyfires’ was a term used to refer to sunshine. Five references arose from the work of a pair of notorious Pixie Apocalyptic Visionaries, members of a still-active sect that believed Pixie dust would one day rise up against the ‘abusers’ of the substance and destroy them all in a wave of righteous skyfires. Garobixi’s fat fingers dismissed that idea with a vigorous wriggle. The last and oldest entry was the most fascinating of all. To help explain this reference, he called over Amaboxi, an expert in ancient forms of Pixie languages, who confirmed that the text in question referred to skyfires as originating outside of the fabric of Spheris itself.
“As best I can infer,” Amaboxi said, adjusting his pixel-created spectacles fussily upon the bridge of his rather fantastically bulbous nose, “this ancient reference implies that the original skyfires are not those created by Middlesun, but the word sibhu-emi – see here – which means, erm, it’s close to ‘summoned’ or even ‘bade to a mustering’ –” he muttered quickly to himself “– which, to my mind, as you may observe in the referred sub-dustical grammatical tense-modifier here, implies that Middlesun bade the skyfires of other similar entities to be mustered to itself via the oxalbarykyoitic organs of the Sentinel Trees. By the way, those organs don’t serve any other known purpose.”
Allory blinked her long eyelashes over the word oxalbarykyoitic. Phew!
“Suggesting,” Yaarah put in, “that the original skyfires contributed to Middlesun’s formation or to the process of the creation of Spheris itself?”
“Quite, quite,” the Pixie agreed. “Perhaps we might posit an ignition or infusion of additional materials or energies essential for the proper physical functioning of our world?”
“Mrrr-prrrt, a most intriguing reference, would you not agree, Allory?”
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Allory glanced between the two scholars, wondering if they had missed what struck her most forcibly. If Middlesun had bidden the skyfires to gather to – to itself – then to her, that implied a truth to what the pompous Pixie dust record had recounted, that Middlesun therefore displayed volition, will and perhaps even personhood? Faerie creation mythology leaned strongly in that direction, yet it did not make any allusion to fires originating outside the shell of Spheris itself.
Did an Allory? Did she believe in a world-soul, in the illimitable spark of ariavanae? She must ponder this conundrum, despite that the notion snuggled its way into her heart and made itself at home in the deepest Fae sap of her being.
The Scintillant bobbed her antennae and then dusted her hands, a Pixie gesture of respect, she had learned. “How can I thank you enough, Garobixi and Amaboxi? I love to learn about the beliefs of my people.”
Garobixi said, “Dust my soul, we must prepare an index of all Scintillant-related lore for our wonderful Allory! To work, Amaboxi!”
The two Pixies promptly collided in a puff of dust.
“You’re wonderful!” she trilled as they rushed of on their seething beds of pixels.
Aye, what was lost must be found. Allory clenched her fists until the dainty knuckles turned almost wholly white, trying to marshal her utmost determination. Including finding her family. Aye. Most especially them.
* * * *
Four days and a great deal more research later – one did not lightly extract a Scholar Felidragon from the domain of his first love, knowledge – Allory and Yaarah took leave of the Pixies. Dusty hugs all around. Tearful admonitions to take care and behave herself properly for a change. Really? At least a hundred Pixies had turned up to see them off in style, a forest of crazy, ever-changing mostly green hairstyles bobbing about in a light, bracing breeze. Bracing? Maybe for those with fur. Those armed with handy hordes of future children to keep their undercarriages floaty and warm.
Those with scintillant wings, shiver!
Allory hugged Chenixipi and Garobixi as hard as she could. Huge gulp. She said, “Now remember, you two, ears generally like to remain attached to people’s heads, alright?”
“You tell them, dear!” Inixipi gurgled as the couple turned identical shades of rose-green. “We’ll be making inquiries of our own and conducting wide-ranging research as part of the cause. As you know, we’ve already sent coded messages to the other Pixie caverns, volcanoes and dust springs with the help of our Hyperdragons and I assure you, they will rally to help –” Allory threw herself upon the old Pixie’s neck “– there you go, dear. There now, don’t you cry!”
“Thank you, Inixipi. Thank you so much for everything.”
“Every so often, we ancient Pixies like to shake the old pixels and then, we get to leap into a vat of the most miraculous dust,” she murmured, ruffling up Allory’s hair fondly with her thumb. “I am sorry that we Pixies don’t travel well. Much too tied to the dust-wells of our lives – but I want you to know, my dear Allory Fae, that you will always have friends here. I do hope that you are able to find your family quickly and rescue them from the hand of the Slavers. ’Tis an evil turn that has been done to them, goodwill ne’erwill failil she of heart most truill.”
Allory blinked.
Something elemental had just brushed about her being in a way she could not begin to describe, leaving a dusty, delightful tingling in its wake.
“That’s you, dear.”
“You – what was that – a dustiferous breath of magic?”
Oh dear. Now she was even talking like a Pixie, ‘dustiferous’ indeed!
The Healer Sage smiled a most mysterious smile at the Fae. “Well dust my heart, dear, that hasn’t happened for – well, at least a couple of centuries, I do believe.”
She peered at the Pixie in bewilderment. “Your Eminence, I … don’t understand?””
This butterfly now etched into her hairstyle – they had never discussed it, but the spot tingled oddly. What should she make of this? Not only was she mentally touched, now she was dust-touched in addition? Fizz her sap!
The Sage appeared to regather her thoughts from a faraway place. “You know that Pixie dust is semi-sentient, right? That it has a will of its own, often inexplicable and unbiddable?” Allory nodded eagerly. “Well – it’s hard to explain. There isn’t really even a technical term that Pixie scholars agree upon, nor, for that matter, do they agree upon whether or not the phenomenon even exists, for we hypothesize that it involves Pixie dust attaching itself to other races, which to some is blasphemy and existentially impossible.”
“Great-grandpixie, you’re muddling up the poor Faerie,” Chenixipi admonished. “Allory, it’s called, ‘dust’s kiss.’ ”
“Mmm, did someone call for a kiss?” Garobixi piped up, suddenly energised.
Chenixipi slapped his hand away before it completed its attempted grab of her right ear. “Not that sort of kiss. Garobixi! You grow positively bold, I do declare.”
“Well, the other sort is proven nonsense,” he said, full of said boldness but perhaps slightly lacking in wisdom and discretion.
The Sub-Under Librarian wilted visibly at the filthy glare Chenixipi cast in his direction.
“Or …”
“Or indeed!” she snorted. “Do sprinkle a little romantical dust inside your heart, you rogue. The so-called ‘other sort,’ Allory Fae, is a wonderful and mystical expression of the favour of Pixie dust, itself the quintessential manifestation of our souls. It’s … a blessing upon a life. A fabulously rare blessing.”
Allory’s spine tingled at her friend’s enthusiasm. In a piping voice that carried to all present, she exclaimed, “So therefore, am I to conclude that Pixie dust is in truth but another facet of ariavana, a way of expressing your unique linkage to the world’s own soul?”
Kerfuffle!
Kerfuddle!
One hundred flushed, flustered and fusty Pixie scholars started a minor intellectual war over what she had meant for a question but, to be fair, had perhaps come over a touch more strongly than she had intended. Hands flew. Pixels sparked and hissed at neighbouring flotillas. Hairstyles popped open and slapped one another, raising puffs of multicoloured dust that soon added to the squabbling and confusion by enveloping the Pixies in billows of pretty, multicoloured clouds.
Dust definitely had its own ways.
Upon Inixipi’s urging and amidst open laughter from Garobixi and Chenixipi, before the Pixie dust really started to fly, Yaarah took her aloft out of harm’s way at a healthy clip.
“Troublemaker-rrr,” he purred.
“Was it something I said?”
“You just can’t say something like that to a bunch of scholars, Allory. It’s bad for the constitution.”
“They did seem rather exercised.”
“About time,” he suggested, waggling his ears rudely, and they both laughed. “Now, here’s Henzaroseflash. Rather than sitting on me – even the tiniest snicker out of you, Sparkles, and this friendship will be ruined forever – she has offered to give us a head start on our journey. She’ll take us out to the end of Hyperdragon territory, which lies just past the peaks, to be precise, frrr-grrr, at top speed.”
“Supersonic travel?” she squeaked happily.
“Quite.”
“How will you keep your wings on?”
“I’ll stow them lest they get torn off by those exact shrieking supersonic winds, is the idea,” he clarified, sounding less than certain about the enterprise. “I believe I am about to be cuddled like a baby Hyperdragon by a rather enormous bundle of charming maternal instincts.” He grinned immodestly. “Obviously, the females just can’t keep their paws off me.”
“Dare you to say that to her.”
“Mrrr-yrrr! I wish to live longer than the next minute.”
“Your sagacity knows no bounds.”
“Mrrwll!”
His complaint evaporated beneath the Dragoness’ withering glare. Aye. The Golden Purrmaine appeared to have learned at least one invaluable lesson here at Healers’ Reach – when to keep his jaw firmly shut. Now was such a moment.