Chapter 5

"Hmm, hmmmm, hmmm..."

The hummed refrains of her favorite song seem to roll from the pretty celestial voice of this one particular fairy princess. All of the fairies in Eixip could sing of course. It goes without saying. For one of the first fairy lessons on etiquette and training was in song.

This well-honed tradition had been passed down for genera---well, what am I saying? Considering their longevity, their unaging beauty due to the magic fairy dust they possessed--there aren't past generations of fairies to be had. Only one generation before who were all gone now.

And now, it was just the same five sisters who had never yet passed over and never would. For those who lived in the enchanted world of Eixip were immortals.

The magic fairy dust on their wings kept them safe and pure and protected from the ravages of time. As for the unclean world without, that was kept well away by their fellow immortal, the Water Nymph, Sallie who long ago had sworn allegiance to remain here, hidden beneath the river's currents, vowing to protect the delicate, last precious fairies who lived within.

Yes, the waning small number sisterhood of fairies were all immortal--but they could be killed by outside evils. Their lives were as delicate as the fragile iridescent see-through wings that were attached to their smooth-skinned backs.

In ancient days, the ancient sisterhood of fairies had been hunted down by the mortal, wicked ones. Their precious wings had been plucked to become part of some powerful sorcerer's conjured brew. Magic such as their wings held was a vital and much sought after commodity in the outside world filled with magic and men with the ambition to rule.

Everybody who was anybody was well aware that this world could not be conquered without the pure energy of fairy dusted wings and Sallie, the Water enchantress was not about to let any foolish mortal men touch the last few fairies that were left in this world again. They lived under her sworn protection in this sacred enchanted forest.

The river of magic that surrounded the small isle of Eixip was all that stood between these fairies and their total annihilation by greedy men.

And yes, it is because they are men that they are so dangerous. They're untrustworthy.

Sallie had somehow come to her own conclusion on this subject. All things important and precious to this underwater translucent nymph were taken away from her by the despised male species of human. All things taken...and yet, something given in return...

Sallie's water-filled eyes (were those tears?) follow the river currents back to the golden riverbank shores of Eixip, where one tiny fairy's wings flutter over the waters.
Her teeny little toes dipped into the water's crest.

"Oooh, the water's so cool, Aunt Cathy. Come play in it! Come play!" A teeny, tiny voice matches the teeny, tiny sunshiny face who spoke in anticipation.

"I'll be right with you, dear. Just let me finish mending this falcon's torn wing." Cathrine, the fairy of beauty, was indeed the kindest and most beautiful of gentle souls. To all living creatures who were injured or in pain, anyone who needed her dainty fingers and graceful attendance were never turned away.

Her magic was used only for the good of others. The beloved and adored fairy healer whose beauty inside the purest of souls was only equalled by the beauty portrayed on her outside as well.

With her glowing auburn curls that bounced in the sunlight as if to dance about her perfect shoulders and slender neck that led up to her face--ahh, the face of a fairy goddess. She was unparalleled with only goodness and light radiating from her.

Her gorgeous purple eyes added to her beauty, and made her breathtaking to the human eye. That is, if any human eye would ever catch a glimpse of her.

Sallie had seen especially to Cathrine's safety for she knew full well that the beauty and radiance, and moreover the powerful magic held within her body, would stir up such desire and want for any man who ever saw her brilliance.

And then her light would be captured and extinguished.

"There you go, little one." With a whispered kiss of healing on the feathery cheek, the falcon, it's wing mended, flaps its healed wing away into the distant sky overhead.

"Now, what enchants you today, Princess Mariemaia? May I play...too...?" Cathrine smiles as she too flutters her own iridescent lavender fairy wings to where her young charge was just moments ago splashing her feet about.
She had taken this child under her wing (pardon the pun) when Leia, Cathrine's cherished friend and sister, had passed on. For no magic power of healing Cathrine herself held, could bring back the purity lost that kept them alive in immortality.

The exchange of one life for another, the balance Leia herself understood and she was fully prepared to touch the impossible fantasy because she was the fairy of dreams.

Beautiful dreams were broken that day. Seven mortal years ago by a human man. But Leia must've seen something even more dazzling than her own dreams in that man. Cathrine knew her sister so well in the knowledge that Leia's powerful mind at times was so serious. She was frightening then to a simple hearted fairy girl as Cathrine was. And the depths of her dreams could not be tricked nor enchanted by any mere man.

And that is all he was. The proof was in the blood of the child that Leia had given birth to. For though Mariemaia was a fairy princess in every sense of the word--from her fairy magic dusted wings down to her dainty pixie toes--she was also a part human girl. The beating heart inside her little chest told them that it too, would one day cease its cycle of beating--and in so saying, Mariemaia was not immortal.

Her time on this world would come and pass, just as that of every human being living in the vast land outside Eixip's perimeter. She would not know time immemorial. She would one day, die, just as she lived--in the beating flash of a second.

That's the way it seemed to immortals anyway. A human lifespan was so short and fleeting that it made compassionate Cathrine want to weep. And over these past seven years she and other fairies had raised Mariemaia as their own, as Leia would have wanted them to.

They taught her of fairie lore and of her role as the future dream fairy.

But what future is there? For dreams that end far too soon?

Cathrine wanted to know this just as all of these years she wanted to know what level-headed Leia had found so alluring in a single human man that she would willingly give up her immortality, just to be with him for a split second in infinity...

But at the same time, flighty Cathrine feared both the questions and moreso, their answers. For either way, she felt something eternally precious would be lost to her loving heart.

"Mariemaia?" Brushing back the tear from her glistening eye, Cathrine swallows down hard.

I won't think of these things until the day comes. That's all.

She sends her curiosity back to its small, dark corner in her mind. She returns to reality and her view searches for the small bundle of joy she loved and adored far too much to think ever to lose. And in so realizing that....

She lost her.

"Mariemaia!" A moment of panic and Cathrine flutters her wings at full blinding speed over the river's rippling waves. Surely in that moment of inattention the child could not have slipped and fell under the water's currents to her watery death?
No, she couldn't possibly have.

"Mistress Sallie! I need your help!" Rarely did Cathrine call out to the ominous nymph guarding these waters. But over the past seven years, Cathrine had found no better advisor than the wise Water Nymph.

Not a single fairy in the palace back there had any idea how to raise a child possessing the curiosity and adventurous spirit of a human being--and the speed and magic of a fairy princess combined.

"Princess Cathrine?" A solemn voice echoes from the deep.

"Mariemaia was just here. I looked away and then up again and she disappeared!" Cathrine, even in her angst ridden excitement was a sight of pure beauty. Her curls fluttered on the wind her wings were circling around.

"Fear not, Princess. She is safe above the water still." Sallie says with the kind understanding of a wizened old granny.

"The little child is hovering near the far shore. There, do you see her now?" Sallie could keep the fairies safe, just as long as they remained on this side of the river she protected.

"Yes! Oh thank you, Mistress Sallie!" Cathrine's flying wings zip off in the direction towards the far end of the riverbank. It was quite near the forest's edge where the tiny figure of a yellow fairy was buzzing about.

She was picking flowers from the bank's edge there.

"Careful she doesn't wander into that forest! There are creatures you wouldn't want her to play with there." Sallie warns. She and the elven race at play never got along well at all.