The fairy archives

The fairy archives was legend. A legend so well known, in fact, that no council had ever been able to keep the stories of its existence from spreading. Luckily, the term "fairy tale" helped keep the truth in doubt. Somewhat ironically this was the place where the term originated from.

The archives was a vast castle, a city of silver, hidden the clouds above ****. There it slowly orbited the nexus, siphoning power from it. Gil and Tess arrived with BANG! as always, though this time it only took them as far as the entrance as the rest was walled off. Fairy magic had it's own sort of logic to it, and no one had ever felt it necessary to find a way to counteract it.

The gate to the silvery castle was a great arch, or so the fairies thought. Actually it was barely two men in height, and in it was a tight fit for two people to walk through comfortably side-by-side. Though Gil and Tess had no qualms about doing so.

The were no guards or obstructions of any kind, though many fairies were buzzing around the room, some even throwing out a greeting as they flew by.

The fairies were about the size of a human hand, mostly identical to humans, except for the pointy ears, wings, their slight luminescence and their clothes. Most were garbed in some kind weird furry overalls of all kinds of colors and designs. They looked uncomfortable to fly in, but Gilligan figured this was just the latest fashion among fairies They were quite fond of their trends. In fact, when Gil had last visited they had all been naked except for little leaves over their private parts. He was then told that the right leaves were very rare and that many fairies would much rather go around buck naked than wear the wrong kind. He cringed at the memory. He had not been back here for quite some time after that.

"Excuse me." Gil said as they reached the reception desk. "We'd like to access the archives. Could you help us?"

The tiny young man before them shone up, figuratively and literally, as they approached him.
"Well of course! What can I do for you?"
He was an odd fairy. Not only was he not wearing the popular garb the others were, instead wearing a strange black suit (Gil assumed it was some sort of work-uniform) But also his wings. They were jet black bird wings, like that of a raven or a crow. Fairy wings took many different shapes but wings like bird wings were exceedingly rare. Dark ones practically unheard of. They did, however, match his uniform quite nicely, Gil noted.

"To begin with, we'd like to read any books you have on the veil."

"The veil, huh? Those books haven't been touch in a while, but they should over by.. let's see..." the winged man kept on mumbling to himself as he went over the books in front of him.

"So, what are you really looking for?" Tess asked at last.

"Well, this first part has to do with a project I worked on a few months back. Just need to check a few things. But after that I'm gonna find out what the hell started all of this." Gil looked determined.

"Ok. Need any help?" Tess kind of hoped he didn't. She was not a big fan of books.

"No, it's probably better if you don't. Fairies don't write easy reads."

As Tess let out a silent sigh of relief the little man looked up from his books. "Here we are. Now, if you'd just follow me." he said, and started walking, to the surprise of both Tess and Gil.

After maybe fifteen minutes of making their way through twisting corridors they came into a big, square room, with every available piece of wall covered in books.

"Almost every book in here is on the subject. And if you finish these there are many more throughout the archives, but I figured you'd want to start with the most complete collection." the fairy explained. "Good luck to you now." he said and flew away, a small black blur darting down the hallway.

As they looked around they saw what must have been a hundred thousand books in the room. Gilligan was not looking forward to this. While fairies were exceptional at gathering information and, in fact, recorded most of history in this library, they were very very very very bad at intelligible writing.

The fairy folk had a great story telling tradition. Problem was that whether the stories were true or not didn't matter, they only had to be good stories. So whenever a fairy told any sort of anecdote it would be exaggerated, added on to and enhanced until it was not much more than a "fairy tale", hence the term.

Utimately this meant that though basically everyhing you could ever want to know was to be found within the walls of the fairy archives, none of it was easy to verify or even make out from the embellishments.

Obviously you could ask a fairy to translate it for you, well versed in fairy-speak as they are. And they could easily make out what the actual truth of the story is. But, when they try to tell it back to you, they can't resist the urge to add things to it themselves. So you always end up with a different story altogether. And you're back to square one.

"Well, we'd better get cracking then" he said and began trying to make sense of the organizational system.

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"Wonderful!" "Wow!" "Amazing!" Tess kept exclaiming under her breath as she walked along the halls of the fairies' city. She had left Gil alone when he had become to difficult to be around, his frustration turning into anger as he tried to make sense of all those silly books he'd picked out. She now wondered around aimlessly, marvelling at the things she saw.

Ever since this all began she had adapted an immunity towards it all, passively accepting the insane revelations that kept being thrown her way. Now, alone here in this mythical place, she finally let herself go. She could at last allow herself to be amazed at the incredible, impossible things she had seen and experienced. And this, this wondrous place she was in, it was a fairy tale. No, it was all fairy tales. It was beyond anything she had ever dreamed could exist, and it was bringing the world of logic she had been building inside her mind her entire life down around her. It felt good. Tess felt free. A wave of emotions drove her on with a smile as she explored the halls of the titanic structure.

She could not believe how an ancient castle could shine like this one did, every piece of the wall reflecting the light from the faint glow of fairies going by. While she was wondering wether they just were very diligent about cleaning or if it was just another spell fo some sort, she noticed a small gaggle of fairy girls following her sneakily (or so they thought). She caught glimpses of them when she heard their excited whispers and turned around to see them quickly slip behind a corner. Tess smiled. The stalky girls made her feel rather like a celebrity, and she liked it. She decided to humor them and walked on, not letting on having noticed them.

She saw machines unlike anything she'd ever seen, the tiny quarters of the fairies; which looked quite like they did, self-glowing and all. She saw what appeared to be a guest room, only it was as big as the biggest towers of her hometown. And she saw more books than she had thought there could be in the world.

After just over three hours of squeezing through tiny doors and being amazed at what she found behind them Tess got tired. She could've sworn that she'd walked halfway through the castle by now and realized the she would have no way of finding her way back. So she decided she had to confront her fans at last. She turned around and called out.

"Hello? I know you're there! I've gotten lost. Could you help me find a way back? Please?" Tess pleaded to the corner she was certain they were on the other side of. One of the tiny fairy girls peaked out behind it and quickly pulled back in when her eyes were met by Theresa's. "Please! Come out. I really am lost."

Slowly a girl came out from her hiding place. She was an especially small fairy, with short red hair and green butterfly-like wings, she wore fur overalls like everyone else but in a strange green tint that Tess had never seen on an animal. She uneasily came out to a spot straight across from Tess where she stopped, hands behind her back and eyes to the floor. Tess thought that this must be the most timid-looking girl she had ever seen.

"Hi. I'm Tess. What's your name?"

"Nikka" The girl said, ever so quietly, blushing.

Tess started to wonder if she would be able to help her after all. "Do you think you could help me get back to my friend?"

At first she only nodded, eyes diverted, but a moment later she managed to add "Wh.. where is he?"

Tess smiled. "He's reading some books somewhere. I don't know where, but if you could take me to the entrance I'm sure that the boy at the desk could help me the rest of the way."

For some reason Nikka blushed an even darker shade of red upon hearing this. She nodded again, more enthusiastically this time.

"Oh thank you! Show me the way, will you?"

She gave one last decisive nod and with a single flap of her wings the fairy took off from the ground, two more and she was at eye-level with tess. She waived to follow and darted off. The pace was high, and even though Nikka flew very slow compared to the fairies around her, Tess could hardly keep up. As they passed the corner Tess caught another glimpse of the rest of the fairy-gaggle. This time they were flying the other direction, no doubt to gossip about her to their friends. Tess hurried after Nikka down the corridor.

Nikka kept accelerating and, before she knew it, Tess was running. And as she ran on, passing hallway after hallway, she kept on catching glimpses of the most incredible things in the rooms she ran by. At one point she could even have sworn she'd seen a unicorn. It made her giggle. She felt like the little girl dreaming of unicorns again.

Suddenly it all stopped. They were in a corridor emptier and darker than any before, and something was pulling in her chest. Her heart felt... cold. She couldn't describe the feeling beyond that, but she knew she didn't want to run anymore. All the laughter had left her and she felt like crying. Soon the cold grip around her heart tightened and she fell to her knees, tears running down her cheeks.

Nikka, who had flown on without noticing Tess slowing down, now returned with a panicked look on her face and a wide open mouth. Screaming. She was screaming. Tess couldn't hear it, but she could see it even through the tears. The fairy began pulling on Tess, urging her to keep moving. Tess didn't see the point of it, but the look on the fairy's face eventually became too much, and Tess took a few steps just to make it stop. As she walked on the cold in her chest got stronger and stronger with each step. Until they reached the single giant door in the middle of the hallway.

Barely able to breath through the pain Tess walked on, fighting for each step. As they passed the door she looked inside and she understood. There was no hope. No point. She might as well die right now. No one could save her. Nothing could escape what stood before her.

Inside the room, behind long thick iron bars, stood a gigantic dragon of brightest white. It had eyes the blue of coldest ice, and they were looking straight through Tess's. It peered into her soul, she knew, and didn't find it wanting.

Tess had seen death. And death had looked back at her with hungry eyes.