Fairies: Sprites and Pixies

Raindrops on the River

Tanya woke up, her excitement bubbling up in her stomach and leaving what may have been considered butterflies, in human anotomy.

The sun wasn't even up yet. Nevertheless, she crawled out of her hammock, and looked up at the two enormous trees that held it. "Those big trees started out as seeds," she thought, "They grew and grew until they could hold my hammock for me. Thank you trees!" and then continued aloud, "Did you know today is the sprite ceremony of seven? I'm going to get to learn my element, and plant my Ledah, and best of all, I get to find my familiar!"

In the morning, when she woke up, often no one else in the sprite kingdom was awake, so she would talk to the trees or earth or air, just to do something until some of her sleepyhead friends came back from the dead.

The sun was coming out now, so in a little, some of her sorry-excuse-for-early-rising friends would be up.

Instead of chatting some more to things who wouldn't talk back, she decided to survey the village from the air to see who was awake and what kinds of creatures she had to pick from for her familiar.

She glanced around at her friends. They were all sleeping soundly. Some of them had red hair with blond highlights and dark roots. This displayed the presence of fire within them. Others had hair that changed color depending on surface and angle, like water. Some had white hair, like a gust of wind, and some had some had brown hair, with all different tones in it, like earth.

However, not all of her sprite friends would be the element their hair displayed right now. At the ceremony of sevens, each of the hundred fairies would stand in front of the masses, for the first time since their birth. The royal seamstress had the honor of mixing fairy dust with unicorn tears to make Veritem, and then sprinkling a dash on the head of each sprite to possibly change hair color, and to trail the color of his or her true element as he or she flew in a (hopefully) neat circle around the crowd and back on stage.

She saw one of her friends stir out of the corner of her eye. She flew closer to her. Leala was her most loyal friend. She looked at her fierce friend. Leala woke up and looked around. "Hey, Tanya, you excited?" she said, careful not to wake anyone up. "Are you kidding? I woke up before the sun did," replied Tanya enthusiastically. "What else is new?" remarked Leala, looking at her friend, the one who was never caught sleeping by anyone.

Some people joked that she might be a winged elf or something, just because she never slept. Of course, elves are green, but it was only a joke, after all. Leala and Tanya continued talking about the ceremony, talking about which elements they wanted to be. "I hope I'm water, my hair has always shown earth, but I want to be wind," said Leala, anxiously. "I hope you get wind too, Leala. I don't know which element I want. They all seem just as good to me, I can't choose.

Leala and Tanya flew off, looking at the baby griffins and centaurs that would make good familiars, but be dangerous to catch, since griffin and centaur mothers are the fiercest kind.

Of course, this was why griffins and centaurs made good familiars, especially the females, be cause they were fiercely loyal and protective. However, no one they knew had one of these familiars, since sprites get their familiars when they are so little.

Leala and Tanya used to play pretend when they were three and four that leala caught a centaur, or sometimes a pegasus, and Tanya would get a griffin, or even sometimes a dragon, the rarest of all familiars.

They had to be caught as eggs, because hatched dragons are impervious to magic, therefore making them impossible to bond, but they were the greatest and most powerful, loyal, intelligent familiar. No one had had a dragon familiar in probably 2400-3600 years, a couple of generations. Even the empress didn't have a dragon.

"Leala, I think you are going to be wind," said
Tanya I've always thought so. I don't know, I just have a feeling. You are so soft and gentle, and good-natured, but strong. I don't have a clue what element I'll be, though. I don't act like any element all the way, or even half way. I like them all the same. I guess the veritem will choose for me..." she trailed off.

"Well, the veritem isn't actually going to pick you're element," Leala corrected, "I don't know what element you'll be, either. But that just makes you a lucky duck, you don't have to worry about not liking the element you get," She pointed out.

"I guess you're right, Leala. Thanks. I feel better now," said Tanya.

"Anytime you need me, I'm there," Leala assured her.

"It's almost time, we shouldn't go much farther," said Leala, after a few moments.

"Ok, let's go over by that cave, and then we'll go back," replied Tanya.

The two friends flew a little farther on, to a cave. As they approched the entrance, they heard a musical voice, that sounded like raindrops falling on a river. They stood a second, dazed by the enchanting melody. Leala snapped out of it first, but Tanya noticed first. There, in front of them, was not a ruby dragon of fire, or a saphire dragon of water, a diamond dragon of wind, or an amber dragon of earth, but an opal dragon. The rarest kind of dragon. She was strikingly beautiful, and below her were her most precious possession, 4 little dragon eggs. As she sang to them, the girls backed out, still mesmerized by her tranquil tune.

Once the girls were out of dragon earshot (quite a ways), they excitedly talked quickly, all at once, mystified by what they just saw. Leala was the first to calm down, a bit.

"Leala," Tanya said quietly, "I'm going to get a pink dragon egg," with a sureness in her voice so strong, that it took Leala a second to talk back, to completely comprehend the magnitude of the danger in what she wanted to do.