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The Fairy Princess Magweed blinked wearily in the harsh morning light and rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. It was then that she realized that she wasn't in her own bed. Instead, she lay under snow white blankets upon a huge, four poster bed in an enormous, cathedral sized, crystal-walled bedroom. A white light radiated out from the walls, floor ceiling... everywhere. Or perhaps it was merely reflected everywhere... as she, in her simple nightgown, leggings and (carefully tucked by her bedside) fuzzy purple slippers were the only things that were not pure white within sight.
"Maggie!" she heard her brother's voice echoing through the huge frosted door to the room. "Where are you?"
"In here!" she called out, throwing off the blankets and swinging her mis-matched legs over the side.
The door shuddered and opened slowly on its silent hinges and her twin breathed a sigh of relief. "Jeez, you have no idea how much I freaked when I woke up and didn't know where you... Hey! Your room is a heck of a lot bigger than mine was!"
"Sorry" she apologized, although she didn't know what for. "Do you know where we are?"
"I... not really" Griffin admitted, running a hand through his mussed brown hair. "I remember having this really weird dream... something about snow, and a mirror..."
"Zebulon!" Magweed remembered. "We were helping Zebulon to save Christmas! And we made a leap into the mirror to reach..."
"The North Star" a voice confirmed from the doorway. The elf himself hurried through, straightening his tunic and adjusting his hat. "And we made it, just as I promised. Admittedly, it was perhaps a bit more bumpy of a trip than I would have... Hey! Your room is huge!"
"What do you mean, we made it?" Griffin asked. "Where are we?"
"Hmmmm? Oh... At the Palace of the mighty Polaris, the Great North Star" Zebulon explained, tearing his attention away from the crystal carvings on the walls. "A important star isn't going to see travelers all dirty and rumpled from the road, so we were given rooms to rest and make ourselves presentable, naturally."
"Road? What road?! We fell through space!" Griffin argued with a tight edge in his voice. "And we can't be at the North Star! A star is just like the sun... and the sun is a mass of incandescent gas, a gigantic nuclear furnace! Where hydrogen is built into helium at a temperature of millions of degrees!"
"Griffin knows things" Maggie informed Zebulon in a conspiratorial whisper.
"Well, yes, but... It's complicated. Magic usually is" the elf explained, or rather didn't. "In any event, here... you'll want to wear these for our audience with His Radiance." He handed the twins each a pair of large black sunglasses before donning a pair on top of his own long nose.
The boy looked at the Ray Bans dubiously. "What do you think, Maggie?"
The princess considered the question, and then reached into the neck of her nightshirt, tugging out the necklace that she always wore close to her skin as her parents had instructed her. The gold locket hung from an intricate chain, somehow managing to be both heavy and light in her hand. It was shaped like a softly formed diamond, with beveled edges and slightly convex lines making up the sides. Her thumb found the hidden button that Ebony had shown her how to work, and the hinges sprung open revealing a cut piece of mirrored glass on the inside. "No matter where you go, this mirror will always reflect back the beam from the lighthouse" her father had explained as he gave the matching lockets to each of the twins. Her space-traveling mother had smiled. "Sometimes it helps to get a bearing on where you came from, to know where you're heading" she added. Carefully, Magweed tilted the locket until it pointed straight up, where the glass sparked green and reflected a bright emerald beam towards the ceiling. "I think... he's right" the princess informed her brother.
Griffin's hand went to his chest, feeling his own locket under his shirt. He looked up to the ceiling far above them, imagining what lay beyond that, and he nodded. "Okay then..." he sighed with resignation. "So I suppose we should go meet a star."
Now, meeting a star was perhaps not the most intimidating thing that the Fairy Princess Magweed had done in her short life... Being raised by a monster, goddaughter to a Faerie witch, chased by slavering gothenmanders and the like certainly rated high on anyone's scales of intimidating. But there was something different about meeting a star... Griffin explained that these feelings were perfectly reasonable, as plenty of children apparently went what he called "bonkers" over someone named "Hannah Montana", and she was simply the celebrity kind of star. The Great North Star was the heavenly body kind, and very few people managed to get the autographs of those.
They were meet in the hall of the palace by the Star's retainers, brightly glowing ribbons of light that Zebulon called Spicu-elves. They reminded Maggie greatly of the Flibbertygibbets she knew growing up, mischievous balls of light that danced in the moonlight. These weaved about through the air, herding the visitors through the huge palace to a grand dinning room, all white and softly glowing. Seated at the head of the table was a tall, tanned man in a white suit. His carefully cut hair was black as night, as were his eyes, and his features were sharp yet handsome. Even with the glasses that Zebulon had provided, it was difficult to look directly at him... it wasn't just the brightness of the light, but something unseen that radiated from him as well. "Come in" Polaris bid them in a deeply formal voice. "Please, have a seat at my table and be welcome."
Magweed curtsied to him as the Spicu-elves pulled out the chairs for the guests. With a twinge of dismay, she realized that the table and chairs were overly high, making seating herself something of a difficulty with her ill-matched limbs. Griffin quickly came to her aid to help her up and into the chair with a tightening of his mouth. She thanked him, not only for the assist, but also for not shooting their host the look that was in his eyes.
"My apologies, Princess..." the Great North Star said, watching her carefully and impassively. "I had heard a great deal about you, but I did not realize you were quite so physically infirm."
"I manage, your Radiance" she responded formally, though she clasped her withered hand under the table and out of sight.
"So I see" he replied, sipping at his wine glass. "I don't often have guests from the mortal realms... It takes a remarkable amount of determination to get here. But then, that is not all that is remarkable about you, is it?"
"I... don't understand your meaning, sir" Magweed admitted.
"Not only are you a faerie Princess, but you are a daughter of both my brother Sol and my Sister Caph." He turned his dark eyes on Griffin. "What's more, you were gestated in a womb of light. For mortals, that is a rather remarkable pedigree, don't you think?"
"Our parents are... well traveled" Maggie replied, using the phrase she had once heard used to describe her Caphan mother.
"No doubt" the Star replied. "But come, you must be famished... what would you like to eat? Merely name it and it shall be provided to you."
The princess looked to her brother and Zebulon. "Um... We don't wish to be any trouble, sir... whatever you have will be lovely, thank you."
He raised a dark eyebrow. "I see your elfin companion did not explain the nature of things to you" the North Star noted mildly, turning the wine within his glass with a lazy gesture. "The truth of the matter is this: Everything you have ever known in your material world has come from the heart of a star. Your bodies, your parent's bodies, the ground you walk on, the air you breathe, the food you eat... every atom you come in contact with was born from a star. We are the beginning and end of all things in the universe. You wish for whatever I have? I have everything for which you might possibly wish."
Magweed had her doubts, but she kept this observation to herself. "Everything? I wouldn't know where to start..." she confessed.
"Deep fried French toast!" Griffin suggested. "With lots of powdered sugar, and syrup, and butter. And some of those flat sausages, and maybe some bacon... with a bowl of strawberry frosted marshmallow sugar Yo's on the side..." He paused when he realized his two traveling companions were looking at him rather sternly. "...er... are we not supposed to be hungry? It was a long trip, and he did offer."
"Quite right" Polaris intoned.
The table glowed to a blinding radiance, making spots dance before the visitors eyes as they blinked rapidly to try and regain their vision. When they did so, they found the immense table overloaded with breakfast foods from around the world... Huge stacks of pancakes, waffles and pastries, towers of fresh fruits and nuts, syrups and spices and breads and grains and sausages, meats, skillet cooked potatoes, eggs in a dizzying number of varieties, and such wonderful looking crullers that Maggie wondered if there were any possible way to bring them home to her father, who would surely be waking up soon himself. "Oh..." the fairy princess noted, impressed. "My."
She reached out with her good hand to politely help herself to a dish of the largest, deepest red strawberries she had ever seen while Griffin dug into the serving platters surrounding him with gusto. Even Zebulon was tempted by the sweets that piled high around them.
"And how do you find everything?" the star asked mildly as the princess took a dainty bite, trying to avoid allowing the drops of juice to run down her chin.
"I've never had anything so good!" Magweed admitted, astounded.
"Naturally" his Radiance replied. "You poor things have no idea what freshness really is, do you?"
The princess let that comment go past. "Thank you so much for the lovely breakfast" she answered and smiled instead. "I have heard of the generosity of Wishing Stars before, but have never had the privilege of meeting one..." She paused as she noted Zebulon's frantic gesturing for her attention.
The Spicu-elves froze in their twisting dance along the edges of the room as they watched their master's reaction. "Wishing Star?" Polaris intoned dangerously. "I am no foolish Wishing Star, child... I am the Lodestar. I am the axis of the night sky around which your own world spins, never rising, never setting! Do not mistake my simple hospitality towards guests with the shameless pandering of my misguided brethren." He rose to his feet, looming over his end of the table. "But then, you are just an ignorant little princess, far from home and unknowing in the ways of things. Allow me to educate you..." he offered with an edge to his voice. "I do not go about currying attention from mere mortals too lazy to go about fulfilling their own desires through hard work and sacrifice. The universe around us is cold, princess... so very cold and empty, save for whatever fire you generate within yourself. You cannot rely on the charity of others... You cannot count on the love of family. It's a lesson... it's the lesson all of your temporary ilk should most assuredly learn, rather than begging for handouts and favors like rabble, pretending that the universe gives a damn if you live or die."
Griffin paused with his mouth full of pancake and Zebulon cringed in his chair, while the Fairy Princess Magweed simply squinted to look more closely at the Great North Star, but what she was searching to read was missing.
He met her gaze, but then looked away, returning to his seat. "Excuse my outburst, Princess" he stated flatly. "Finish your meal, and then we shall conduct what business you have that has brought you all this way."
Griffin pushed his plate away from his seat. "Yeah, I think I'm done" he offered.
Magweed didn't take her eyes off their host. "I can count on my family" she replied softly, but with absolute conviction.
"Ah, maybe we should give breakfast a chance to settle, your highness..." Zebulon interjected delicately.
The star's dark eyes bored through her, ignoring the elf. "Can you now, little princess? What about when you and your family want mutually exclusive things? Can you count on them, and they on you?"
"My sister can always count on me!" Griffin declared angrily.
Polaris turned his attention on the boy, his dark eyes somehow burning. "Always... is a very long time indeed" he observed. "Would that be your wish, here and now? To always be there for your sister?"
"You can't grant that" Magweed challenged. "Even if you stooped to granting wishes. You could only give material things... things made "in the heart of a star"."
"Exactly" his Radiance proclaimed. "And that is the exact point. No one can grant such a thing, and so no one can ever truly be relied upon. You wish to stand at your sister's side, boy? I can promise you this, there are only two ways that can possibly end. Either she never learns to support herself and you leave her crippled her entire life, or someday she straightens that twisted little body of hers and without so much as a glance back she will have left you behind."
"That's not true!" Griffin challenged.
"She grows stronger every day, does she not? Leans her misshapen frame upon you more lightly each week. Limps alongside you more easily each month..." The Lodestar snorted. "Her need of you is not the stuff of "always", child. There is destiny about her. She is a Princess... but you? Tell me, as intertwined as your lives have been... has anyone ever referred to you as a Prince?"
Griffin's mouth opened but no words came out. He cast a glance to his sister instead.
"Exactly... Even you know your lives are destined to diverge. And when she is gone, what point will you have then? You'll have wasted your life foolishly giving yourself away."
"Giving of yourself is never foolish!" Magweed argued hotly. "And I will always love my brother, for all he has done for me and more!"
"But not enough to stand by him forever" the star assured. "No, you will be whisked away to the Faerie Courts, but not him. And he will finally know the truth... that giving simply leaves less for yourself, and that nobody can ever be trusted to be there when you need them."
"We can trust that our family will be" the Princess asserted again.
The Great North Star sneered. "Wishful thinking."
There was a crash as two figures broke through the fine crystal ceiling to plummet down into the center of the table in an explosion of cakes, pastries, waffles, whipped cream and other breakfast foods. Magweed blinked from behind her withered hand, which she had used to shield herself from a spray of yogurt, and gasped in surprised recognition of His Radiance's latest guests. She turned to their host smugly. "Not so" she answered.
Dancer raised her head from a huge tray of pancakes. Syrup, butter, powdered sugar and jams coated her from toe to tip. "I recognize this dream..." she noted, licking some boysenberry syrup from her lips. "Jacques, was it? Or Jean-Michael? I should warn you boys I don't have time for the whole routine with the spatula, as I'm off looking for..."
"ZEBULON!!!" Cinderbelle roared, launching herself from the stack of custard filled pastries to tackle the Christmas Elf with a vengeance.
To be concluded. No, really.
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