Chapter Text
That morning, while Veronica had been out on her usual stroll through her palace’s gardens, a fairy had fallen from the sky.
It had all happened quite suddenly. One moment, she’d been casting her eye over everything the gardens had to offer: over the flowers of every colour, some from Embla and some from further beyond the border; over the diamond-shaped topiaries, planted at neat, regular intervals along the gravel path; and over the hedges, so perfectly trimmed that they’d grown as dull and lifeless as the stone walls of the castle itself.
Then, the next, she’d heard a shrill, distant scream, like the buzzing of a particularly annoying fly – followed, almost immediately, by the much louder sound of someone crashing face-first into the flower bed right by her side. Had they been but a few feet closer to the gravel, she might just have found herself buried beneath them.
The flowers, obviously, were ruined. But Veronica had been more concerned for—no, by—the creature lying where they’d once been. As they were, however, she couldn’t see their face; could only see the red gossamer wings, twitching weakly in the silence, and their absurdly long hair, parted into two thick tails and blossoming—almost unsettlingly—into flowers all of their own at the top of their head.
She’d wondered, briefly, if they might have been dead. The thought had annoyed her. Here they were, crashing so rudely into her home, and now she had to attend to the tedious business of dealing with their body – as if she’d had nothing better to be doing with her day.
Then, she’d realised they were snoring.
It had been simple enough to accommodate her. The Emblian royal palace had rooms to spare at every turn; and so Veronica had picked out a bedroom on the highest floor, just a few corridors down from her own, for the fairy to rest in. It was a room once reserved, so Bruno had told her, for only the most honoured of guests – and while the fairy was far more a stranger than an honoured guest, she also knew that both Xander and her brother—were they there with her, and not off somewhere impossibly far away—would have insisted that she show hospitality as Embla’s ruler.
Of course, she had many, many questions for the fairy. She wanted to know who she was, and what she was. She wanted to know where she had come from, and who she served. She wanted to know if she could be trusted, or if she was a threat.
Most of all, she wanted to know why—why, despite the fact she’d never seen her before in her life—she seemed so familiar to her – like a memory from a dream, faint and indistinct.
But even now, late into the afternoon, she still hadn’t woken up; still insisted on sleeping, like she hadn’t a care in the world. And Veronica’s patience, accommodating as she’d tried to be so far, was wearing thin.
“As far as her health’s concerned, milady, she seems absolutely fine,” Flora said, drawing up from the side of the bed and turning to face the princess. “Given how she, ah… made her entrance… I would have least expected a bruise or two – but there’s nothing to be seen. I’ll have to commend the gardeners for their work.”
Truthfully, Veronica would have preferred Bruno’s opinion, or Xander’s. Flora, who she’d only allowed to stay in the palace on Xander’s recommendation, and who had served her for just half the time he had, had still done little to earn her trust beyond serving diligently as a maid. But in the absence of anyone else, she’d have to make do with the few people she had left.
“Can you wake her up or not?” she asked. “It’s so terribly dull just waiting around like this.”
“I’ve done what I can. A bit of cold to the temple usually works wonders—it always did on Lady Corrin, at least, whenever she overslept—but this one’s hardly stirred.” She paused; looked down at the fairy again, then back at Veronica. “With respect, milady… it may simply be that she’ll wake when she’s ready to wake. If there are matters you’d rather attend to in the meantime, I’d be happy to watch over her in your stead.”
“Is there really nothing you can do?”
Flora bowed her head apologetically. “I’m afraid not, milady. As I said, though—”
“But I don’t have other matters to attend to,” she said, folding her arms and huffing. “It’s too dark to go back outside, and the rest of the palace is empty. As usual…”
“Ah… Yes. Yes, I suppose that’s true.”
Briefly, Flora seemed to fall into a thoughtful silence – but then, to Veronica’s surprise, she smiled.
“In that case, milady” she said, “I’m sure you’ll be pleased to hear that you’ve received a letter through from Princess Ylgr just this afternoon. I’ve had it placed on your desk for you.”
All at once, Flora’s words lit a fire in Veronica’s heart, melting away the despondency – and as if suddenly forgetting about the strange, sleeping fairy altogether, she spun on her heels and rushed out the door without another word, bounding through the halls and all but sprinting towards her room.
And there, on her desk—right beside the stack of tomes she’d been pouring through just the night before—was a rolled-up letter: the pure white parchment she’d come to know so well, shimmering like the snow and sealed with Nifl’s insignia.
She took it in her hands, delicately as she could – and with nerves dancing somewhere between excitement and anticipation, she cracked open the seal and unfurled the parchment to read the message within.
For reasons she still couldn’t fully understand, the first glimpse of Ylgr’s handwriting—penned in ice-blue ink, and so effortlessly elegant—never failed to make her heart skip a beat.
By the time she’d finally finished reading, the sun had almost set, leaving just the faintest flicker of candlelight across her desk for her to read and write by. It was perfectly ordinary, of course. Even when the letters were short, she’d always taken her time with them: lingering over every word, savouring every sentence, letting Ylgr’s voice settle over her as gently as the snow settled over Nifl’s highest peaks.
Not once had she ever felt any desire to rush; to glance over the words as mindlessly as she skimmed through the dullest chapters of a book. Regular as the letters were, they were also precious to her. She only had one chance to read through them for the first time—to enjoy the full weight of Ylgr’s thoughts and feelings, laid bare just for her, and to live in her presence for a few cherished moments—and the last thing she wanted to do was squander that chance.
Each letter, after all, was a gift. A lifeline to the world outside her palace, far beyond the empty, endless halls and the suffocating loneliness – and to the one and only person she could gladly call a friend.
Carefully, as if preserving something fragile, she rolled the parchment up and set it back down on her desk, letting her fingers drift across the surface. It was soft to the touch, and cold without being unpleasant; and when she closed her eyes, she could imagine—just briefly, but so very clearly—that it was Ylgr’s hand resting just beneath her own. As though she were right there, sitting shoulder to shoulder with her; as though she were smiling and laughing in that terribly annoying way; as though, with just a little more pressure, their fingers might lace together as easily as they’d always done, and the distance between them would vanish…
Veronica’s cheeks grew warm at the thought, and her chest started to ache – and with a quiet sigh, she withdrew her hand and sat back in her chair, shattering the illusion.
She was being foolish. It was just a letter; just words in ink. No matter how hard she tried to pretend otherwise—no matter how desperately she tried to summon her with thoughts alone—Ylgr wasn’t really there.
In truth, she was miles away – miles from the palace, miles across the border, and miles beyond Veronica’s reach. And the letters she shared with Ylgr, wonderful as they were, could only do so much to settle the strange emotions stirring in her heart.
Maybe it was all her fault. Tired of feeling so isolated, she’d asked Ylgr—quite selfishly, on reflection—to leave Nifl at a moment’s notice just so that she could pay her a visit up in Embla – but now that the week they’d spent together had come and gone, and Ylgr had long since returned home, Veronica found herself more conscious than ever of just how little one could really say in a letter, and of just how intolerable a week’s wait between replies really was. Even if she’d used rolls upon rolls of parchment, all but clearing out every cabinet in the palace, she still wouldn’t have been able to write enough.
She missed her. She wanted to see her face again. Hear her voice. Hold her hand.
And most of all – most of all, she wanted to…
Veronica shook her head. It was a useless thought. As useless as wanting her brother and Xander to come home, or wanting her father to still be alive.
And she hardly had time to waste on dreams when Ylgr was still waiting for her reply.
Dreams. Why did that word burn so brightly in her mind? And why did it make her think, above all else, of the fairy sleeping just a few halls away?
She was halfway through writing her reply when there was a knock at the door.
“Milady,” she heard Flora say, calm and steady but with just a hint of urgency. “The fairy’s awake.”
Immediately, her attention snapped up and away from the parchment, towards the sound of Flora’s voice, and she felt her nerves tense up in a peculiar way.
A small part of her cursed the fairy for choosing now—now, of all times—to wake up. Now, when she’d been so engrossed in her writing. When she finally had much more important things to be getting on with. Moments ago, she’d been speaking with Ylgr, even if she hadn’t been able to see her; and Ylgr, so she’d felt, had been listening attentively, hanging onto every word. Now, she was gone – and the room was cold and dark and empty again.
But another part of her, far greater than her feelings of disappointment, was brimming with interest – and with her heart all but leaping from her chest, she tossed her quill aside, threw open the door, and sped down the halls, hearing Flora hurry after her as she went. She flew around the corner, quickly reaching the fairy’s bedroom – and after briefly pausing to collect herself, remembering what Bruno and Xander had once taught her about the proper etiquette when receiving guests, she crept towards the door—still ajar, as if Flora had left in a hurry—and peered into the darkness…
…only to find the fairy still sprawled out over the sheets, slightly more dishevelled than before, snoring peacefully away.
Veronica gave her a long, hard look, hoping that it’d be enough to wake her up – and when that didn’t work, she glanced over her shoulder and fixed Flora with a glare.
“You said she was awake,” she hissed.
“She – she was,” Flora managed, looking bewildered. She stepped past Veronica into the room, hurrying towards the bed. “Just a few moments ago, she – we even spoke – oh, but she can’t have fallen back asleep already…!”
Veronica paused; noted the very real confusion in her voice. The utter dismay.
Was it true? Had the fairy really woken up… just to immediately fall back asleep?
In that moment, she felt her last sliver of patience—already barely a thread—fall away – and she took several long, measured steps towards the bed, her fists clenched up into balls.
“Milady.” Flora, right away, seemed to have felt the change in Veronica’s temper, and her voice rose in caution. “Frustrating as it is, I think it’d be best if—”
But Veronica wasn’t listening. Even if it had been Bruno or Xander trying to calm her, she wouldn’t have heeded a word of it. As she was, Flora didn’t stand a chance.
And before the maid could stop her, she seized the fairy by her leaflike collar, lifted her just a few inches off the bed, and started shaking her back and forth.
“Would. You. Just. Wake. Up…?!” she snapped, jostling her violently about with every word. Then, remembering what Ylgr would doubtlessly have said in her place, she added: “Please?”
Maybe it really had been the magic word, or maybe her last shake had been just forceful enough. But something seemed to have done the trick – because at that moment, the fairy’s eyes finally started to open, blinking up at Veronica with a startled, sleepy look and letting out a strange noise somewhere between a yawn and a yelp.
“Wuh… Waaaah…”
It was a low, long, pitiful sound, and Veronica was almost compelled to let her grip loosen around the fairy’s collar; but she also knew she’d likely fall back asleep the moment her head hit the pillow, so she swallowed her sympathy and held on tight.
How bothersome it all was, she thought. There she’d been, ready to treat the fairy with all the courtesy of a guest – but they’d just had to go and test her patience. And now, courtesy was the furthest thing from her mind.
“Who are you?” The question came out perhaps more harshly than Veronica had intended, despite how she was feeling, but she’d waited long enough for answers. “Why did you fall from the sky?”
“The… the sky…?”
Like Flora before her, the fairy sounded quite sincerely baffled. She blinked again, and again, and a few more times for good measure; until at last her gaze seemed to meet Veronica’s own, flailing her arms helplessly about.
“Wah… I… I don’t know…” she murmured, slurring the words and smacking her lips as though she were still half-asleep. “I don’t know anything about anything… One minute, I was asleep, and… the next, I was…”
“Asleep?”
She’d meant it as a snide remark – but then the fairy nodded earnestly.
“I think I’d gone to sleep in the flowers of Ljósálfheimr, like always… Then, I was… There were more flowers, flowers I didn’t recognise; and then… and then…”
“That was my flower bed,” Veronica said, glowering down at her. “When you fell, you crushed them all.”
“Did I?” the fairy asked, like she really couldn’t remember at all. “Wah… I’m sorry… I really don’t remember what happened, or… how I got here, or…”
As Veronica’s glare held, her weak voice trailed off. Suddenly, there was a flash like recognition in her eyes – and her flailing picked back up with a new, alarming urgency.
“Oh… I-it’s you…!” she warbled. “Waaaah…! T-the scary lady… You… With Peony and her friends, you…!”
Veronica tilted her head. “Scary lady? Peony? What are you babbling on about?”
“You were there in Ljósálfheimr… when the nightmares attacked.” Just briefly, the fairy fell silent again, and Veronica couldn’t tell if she was lost in thought or drifting back to sleep. Then, she went on: “Ah, but… you probably don’t remember… It was a dream, after all…”
She was talking nonsense, of course. Veronica had never met her before in her life. There was no way she could ever have forgotten meeting a fairy, especially a fairy as strange as the one currently wriggling around in her grip; nor did she have any idea what she’d meant by ‘nightmares’, or by ‘Ljósálfheimr’, or by anything else she’d said.
And yet, for some reason she couldn’t explain at all, Veronica found it increasingly hard to shake the feeling that she had met the fairy before. Her wings were familiar. Her voice was familiar. Even Veronica’s own feelings towards her—the impatience, the irritation—were familiar.
Nightmares. Ljósálfheimr. Peony. Words that shouldn’t have meant anything to her. So why did they weigh so heavily on her mind?
She’d had… a dream. Yes – yes, that was it. Last night? A few nights ago? Weeks ago? It didn’t matter, she supposed; and she could only remember that she’d dreamed at all because dreams so rarely visited her. Most nights, there was nothing at all. And when there was something, it was only that voice—the one she knew so well—whispering to her in the dark. That horrible, horrible, voice – telling her to maim, and to conquer, and to kill, and—
The dream. She was trying to recall the dream. Everything else could wait.
As far as her memory served, that dream hadn’t made much sense at all. Sometimes, it had been filled with colour – saturated to the point of making her nauseous. Other times, it had been completely drained of it, like the long, dreary halls of her palace. She could remember faces, too. Princess Sharena of Askr, as bright and cheerful as ever. Another fairy, so oddly similar to Princess Sharena that she struggled to pick them apart in the hazy uncertainty of her dream. And Prince Alfonse, who – no, but… had he really been there? Or had it been the summoner, that woman who’d always trailed behind in the prince’s shadow, so alike to him in every way…?
She was getting distracted again. The details weren’t important. It was just a dream, after all: inconstant, illogical. None of it had really happened.
But this fairy… This fairy had been there too. She was sure of it, now. Even as the events of that dream were so muddled and distant, she could remember her clearly.
She frowned. This was all starting to get terribly confusing. That one of the fairies from her dream had somehow shown up in the waking world was impossible enough; but on top of that, that fairy was talking like she remembered Veronica. Like it hadn’t been a dream at all, but rather—
Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of snoring, followed by Flora sighing in exasperation – and she realised that the fairy, despite her position, had fallen back asleep, dozing off even as Veronica held her up by the collar.
This time, though, she was too distracted to be upset, or to give her another few shakes. Her thoughts were elsewhere – on the dream, on the fairy; on everything she’d forgotten, and everything she was desperately trying to remember.
And little by little, a name rose to her lips.
“Mira… bilis…?”
It hadn’t been any louder than a whisper; and for a moment, she wasn’t completely aware she’d said anything at all. Even Flora, usually so quick to respond to anything she said, didn’t make a sound.
Then, the snoring stopped – and the fairy’s eyes fluttered open again.
She didn’t know how she’d managed to forget. Didn’t know how it could have been possible to forget.
No sooner than she’d remembered Mirabilis’s name had everything else come flooding back. The rumours of a ‘sleeping sickness’ spreading throughout Askr. Her arrival in Ljósálfheimr, the realm of dreams, where she’d met with both the Askrans and the ljósálfar. And the armies of Dökkálfheimr, the realm of nightmares, pouring in to overwhelm the light. At the time, she thought she’d been out searching for Bruno and Xander when she’d found herself pulled into Askr’s mess. Now, she realised that she’d never been on such a journey at all.
It made too much sense, really. That she should only be allowed to escape the confines of her palace through the boundless freedom of a dream.
For now, at least, Mirabilis seemed to have properly woken up. She sat perched on the edge of the bed, those long sleeves of hers almost touching the floor, and had spent a whole five minutes—far longer than Veronica had expected, given what she now remembered of her—answering questions. Not that what she’d had to say had been of much use, of course. Even fully awake, she was utterly clueless as to anything and everything.
“I’m sorry,” the álfr said, hanging her head and stifling a yawn. “I can’t explain what happened, or… why I’m here, or… anything…”
Such vague, meaningless answers couldn’t satisfy Veronica’s curiosity one bit. All the same, though, she knew that Ylgr wouldn’t have wanted to see her shaking Mirabilis around any more than was necessary; and so she’d relented, leaving the álfr be and addressing her from an armchair next to the window, where the late evening light—far brighter on this side of the palace than in her room—filtered through in orange streaks and stopped just shy of Mirabillis’s dangling legs. She’d sent Flora off to fetch some tea—she didn’t know if álfar ate or drank anything at all, but it would have been rude not to have offered her something, at the very least—leaving the two of them all alone in the darkening room.
“It’s fine,” she muttered, as if to convince herself she wasn’t disappointed. “I suppose I should be glad enough that you survived the fall. I wouldn’t want to give the gardeners more than one mess to clean up.”
She looked down at the floor; and then, finding the stone stabs far too dull, quickly looked back up at Mirabilis. She was colourful bordering on garish, but a splash of colour was preferable to the lifeless masonry of the palace.
“You should only exist in the realm of dreams,” she said at length, partly in realisation. “If you’re here rather than there, what does that mean?”
“I don’t know.” Mirabilis, still hanging her head, didn’t look up. “I thought I’d return there when I fell back asleep, but… when I woke up, I was still here. Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve been to this world in a very, very long time…”
Questions upon questions, then. A few unanswered questions were irritating. A whole pile of them was nothing short of infuriating. But if she had no way of answering them, then Veronica supposed there was no point in getting frustrated. That was what Bruno would have said, at least, and Bruno was rarely ever wrong.
“As I recall, you ljósálfar bring dreams to sleeping mortals,” she said. “If you can’t reach your home, is that still even possible?”
“I… I’m not sure about that, either,” Mirabilis replied. “It’s just something we’ve always been able to do… I don’t know if we need to be able to reach Ljósálfheimr for it, or if we can do it by ourselves…”
“…I see.”
Really, Veronica ought to have left it at that; ought to have just let Mirabilis go back to sleep. She’d been kept from finishing her reply to Ylgr for far too long, now, and if she wanted the princess to receive it as soon as possible, then she needed to have it written and sent off by the end of the evening. She could figure out what she was going to do with the álfr later.
But her curiosity was keeping her rooted in place. A ljósálfr had arrived in Embla, crossing what should have been impossible boundaries, and had been completely cut off from their home. If the answers had been in her dream, she could no longer remember them – and judging by Mirabilis’s confusion, it probably wouldn’t do them much good even if she could recall one or two small details.
Had something happened to Ljósálfheimr? Was Zenith in danger? Did she need Flora to send a message to her sister in Askr, and have her warn the Order of Heroes?
Again and again, she turned the countless questions over in her head; tried to consider the implications of everything she knew, and what her responsibilities were as Embla’s ruler, and how Bruno might have acted in her stead.
And between it all, a much more selfish thought arose.
She’d thought of the way the ljósálfar, in their proper state, could weave perfect dreams from nothing. She’d thought of the way they could thread those dreams through the minds of many different mortals at once, bringing people near and far into a single, shared reality.
She’d thought of Ylgr’s letter, still unfolded on her desk, and of her own half-finished response, laid out right beside it.
“Mirabilis,” she began, leaning forward. “If we want to find out what’s going on… then why don’t you try making a dream for me?”
The álfr, on the brink of nodding off again, peered up at her from the pillows with a quizzical look in her eyes.