Do You Believe In Fairies?

Rodney Scorpionwax was the worlds greatest expert on fairies. An unfortunate honour; the dullards who populate this world do not care a jot for fairies, and call true believers mean names.
What magic there exists for one who believes! Pixies dancing atop thimbletips, a brownie spying its reflection in a spoon in every pantry! The little gibblesprites, which could sit comfily on a gnat's lap always fly extra close to show their colourful wing-patterns to the fairy connoiseur, and the large winged walruses don't mind leaving their cloudy home to show off to the trained eye.
For most fairies, disbelief is like pollution, or a disease. In this day and age, the sky-walrus flies on tattered wings, gibblesprites bear duller shades, brownies cough and hack up magic dust among the pots and pans and pixies often feel too said to dance.
Goblins, however, are not weakened by disbelief. Rather they thrive on it. While other fairies languish, they frolick around a toxic bonfire, roasting duckling-hearts and occasionally breaking out into festive violence.
But their festivity was not perfect; the goblin-king felt a damp pain in his toe bone. From that pain he knew that somewhere someone believed in fairies with passion. He sent an elite team of stealth-goblins to the fairy-bower where Rodney slept, a butter-dove cooing dreamily in his breast-pocket. With enchanted claws as sharp as a razor and as fine as a spiderweb, they set to work. They removed the part of Rodney's brain that let him believe in fairies. The goblins scampered off as Rodney started to stir, feeling indomitable now that no one believed in their existence.
Rodney's pocket cooed no more. Pale ash seemed to descend from the clouds. Rodney chalked it up to a distant volcano, or a new kind of plane fuel.