Chapter 9- Fairy Land

Together that very same night, they met up in Harry's Mansion, and they agreed to sleep together to test their theories. 

However, Anna had been worrying about her job and yet was persuaded not to worry about it as Mr. Camilton called her boss, Mr. Faiz, about her absence and the latter agreed without further questions.

*************

At White Mountain

As the trio traveled to the Moonland, their vision whirled in a blur.Together, they came to a halt in the wintry highland. The sunset behind the deer was spectacular. The orange-gold stretched far and vast, and the colour of fire hearths and tangerines was visible from a distance. It was but the reflection of the dawn, the promise of the rising sun that comes after the velvety twilight.

The serenity of a lone massive deer, which had a living velvet surprise in its eyes, was striking. A spirit inside an animal so proud and yet unnerving, it ran for its life as the promise of the unknown battle ahead was coming. They watched it fade away into the distant horizon, straight into the large descending sun.

Breathless, Nathaniel's body was drenched in sweat, his throat was burning from the experience, but he surveyed the land with the renewed energy of a man on a mission while the gusty wind promised a threatening adventure of a lifetime.

Harry's lips bear the similarity of a smile, just enough to show that he was relishing his thoughts, whatever they may be. Anna moves closer so he feels her presence, yet stays calm, allowing him to stay lost at the moment a while longer.

"So what happens now?" asked Nathaniel.

"We need to look for a shelter or maybe build a campfire to keep us warm. "The night isn't our friend here in the valley of White Mountain," Anna responded as she scanned their surroundings. It was a point she had long debated with herself if she could trust them enough, but recently, she had lost the sense of the argument.

Both were too ignorant to wander around these godforsaken highlands in all weathers and seasons. She didn't want them to die. The promise of a deadly battle was approaching, but she dared not broach it, fearing losing their trust.

Her joints creaked and her muscles were as wiry as month-old celery. Nevertheless, she felt tired and withered at the same time, but her fire inside her was burning like coal, waiting for her to kindle it. It warms her and gives her a welcoming feeling, but as she approaches it snarls and bites, and she is terrified right now.

Everyone she loves could be gone in minutes, because of a single nip. And she dreaded it. That's why she had hidden it from everyone. Nobody knew that she was the daughter of the Moon Goddess and the King of Fire. However, it was the ice in Anna's heart that led her to set fires, even at such a young age. Since her stepparents died in a car crash, she often played to her ability. The ability was that she could forge and control fire with her mind. Then one day, she discovered that she could burn things and destroy objects. At first, she just kept a matchbook in her pocket and would strike them while she sat on the swings, gawking at the obedient flame glistening in the breeze, darkening the wood, transforming it to charcoal at her command. A rebellious grin would spread across her skinny features that did not reach her eyes. Soon she was raised to the burning trinkets of her rivals. Frequently, the flare would be a different color or emit a cloud of black smoke that choked her.She raised her items in nail polish remover to hasten the heating. For that brief moment that the flames spanned, engulfing, she became tranquil. Only the blackened remains satisfied her, and she yearned for it even more.But eventually, she could control and hide it as the world wasn't ready yet for someone like her. But the best thing that ever happened to her was her ability to dream about the moonland. The ability to travel to the land of supernatural beings.

After an hour of wandering around and looking for the perfect spot to camp, the trio gathered some twigs and dried grass for the bonfire. When the fire came to light up the night to warm the air, it was more used to the winter chill. It lit each face, and they felt the heat go to their core. The dry tinder in the yard was lit and the flames rose against the raven sky. Every eye tests the flickering, each iris keeping a small picture of the bonfire before them. Yet, it wasn't just the sight that had them enthralled, so too had the crackling and the woody aroma of smoke.

"Anna, can you tell us the first time you discovered Moonland?" Nathaniel's curiosity kicked in.

She gave Nathaniel's questions a long and hard thought, and as she did so, those many dreams she had about this unexplainable phenomenon. She explained that this was a place in her consciousness, the White Mountain where the creatures and supernatural beings were everywhere, watching and waiting. Memories flooded in her mind, her skeptical, dismissive reaction for the first time when she was a teenager and alone. She thought it was just a nightmare, a recurrent claim of seeing many entities from the other side. But she was wrong. She thought her dreams were an elaborate hallucination as she kept on dreaming and visiting this land almost every night. But her dream became her reality, her solemn place of peace.

A chill rushed through her when she considered how paranormal claims of most unnatural phenomena might be true. 

She did her best to check on the internet for what was happening to her or to someone like her. Nevertheless, she wasn't successful, not until Harry and now Nathaniel. 

As the frosty night passed, they discussed her life and Nathaniel's theory. He believed that the circumstances of finding more dreamers were attainable. His speculation made sense other than Anna's doubt. His theories were that Anna's could be the bridge to the Moonland, as those people who lost their supernatural faith altogether, for lack of such experience, could now access their deepest thoughts and consciousness like Harry and himself.

"So you mean I am the fifth spirit, like Elsa?" she suggested as she picked up the thread of her thoughts, smiling, thinking about the movie Frozen II where Elsa was considered to be the fifth spirit and, together with Anna, they were both the bridge that had two ends.

"What are you talking about?" Harry asked.

"Oh! Gosh, seriously don't you have any humanity left? I'm merely trying to make a point here, okay? If I was the bridge, then who was on the other end? A bridge has two ends, remember?" She seemed rather uncomfortable knowing that her privacy in the Moonland had just been invaded.

Nathaniel intruded into their slight bickering.

"Hey you two, ...My guess is… Look, when the two of you met for the first time, you went through the familiarity, right? And of that, maybe your meeting has set a motion to open the bridge. " He exclaimed while the two looked at him with confusion, visible from miles away. My guess was, you two are the "bridge" and nobody can cross it over without knowing both of you, and to make a point, I'm here, remember?" He added and wiggled his eyebrow a little. Through him, I met you, Anna. I knew Harry since birth, and together we'd been dreaming about the White Mountain forever. Through him, I'd met you, too. Dan, Dan...and here I am." He concluded by pointing to himself.

"But you said, you've been to the White Mountain before?" Anna asked.

"Yes, I did many times as Harry did, but my theory was that 'the White Mountain' was the 'Landing' area of all the dreamers, and maybe there were many of us out there who couldn't travel far away from it, unlike now we are on the other side of the land and those who could dream here eventually travel somewhere rather than stuck at the heart of that mountain by knowing the bridge. The both of you. Did you get what I mean?" Nathan paused as the two were listening like a child hoping for a bedtime story. "...See? My point is, I've never been here before, and even though I've been dreaming of the White Mountain for years, I was stuck and so was Harry. But knowing you both have allowed me to travel further away from the White Mountain, the landing area of dreamers." He added as he kindled the campfire and two just watched him in awe. "... In other words, when the three of us met, everything changed. I could cross over because of the bridge. Now do I understand?" He asked them again.

"Yes, I did." Anna answered him back while the two of them nodded in agreement as almost as soon as the lightning had struck the tree, midnight became illuminated. Distantly, they could hear the song of the unknown creatures feeding their madness with a promise of a sleepless night.

*********

In the morning.

Waking from an uncomfortable slumber was something Harry never got accustomed to. The return of sensation to his numbed body was like a thousand spikes nudging him beneath his skin. His eyes were crusted and vast. Even his bones had turned against him, stabbing him when he went to sit or lie down. The screeching of the bird greyed his nerves, and the sun smarted his eyes. But nothing was bad about it. He then seized a tentative sniff. The smell of the fresh morning air, the calming dewy smell of the morning, makes him smile. He stood and then cracked his jaws and stretched his arms. "Wake up everyone," he said, fighting the urge to sleep back, but he knew they needed to keep moving. He added with a manly yawn.

The sunrise radiated off swans like clouds and the rising air breezes buoyed him. It was his first far-venture away from White Mountain, and he felt fascinated. He was curious to see what adventure lay ahead and maybe answer her many questions.

The ground was enormous and the early sun was clouding his vision as his two companions had kept their bearing. He watched Anna with her still sleepy self and stretched her arms when the silhouette of her hair against the morning light made her magical in his eyes. But today wasn't a day to be self-conscious, as she tied it up behind her head and in its messiness, it was even more desirable to Harry.

Two hours later, the chirping of the birds gives rise to calmness in their mind, a soothing melody, a natural lullaby. Their journey passed the highland morning scenery; a tincture of the morning lingers, like dew on leaves, a gift of freshness as they travel north. However, both came to a halt when Anna began vomiting and throwing up in the nearby bushes.On Anna's right side, she saw Harry standing unmoving, as if trying to wait for the inevitable crisis to occur. 'Woah! He looks rather bored and waits a bloody minute, unconcerned?' 

Yet, Harry thought that this dreaming aftershock was his nemesis. He too had started vomiting earlier, and so did Nathaniel. He still hadn't used it after years of practice. He saw Nathaniel surveying the terrain not far from them and investigated the place. They were not within the White Mountain boundary anymore. However, he saw a human settlement far down below the valley. With his unique eyesight and enhanced senses, he knew it was a simple village, a peasant village maybe? It had settled in the foot of the nearby forest, a dark wilderness in the small landscape hill.Somehow, he knew the peasant village sat there rain or shine, doing exactly what it was supposed to do, raising nourishment for a predator like him and using the valley to feed the elegance of his kind. Unbeknownst to Anna, Harry has the bloodline of a long-lost werewolf. That's why he has been so keen on discovering and developing the DRI Dreamers Device for the sole purpose of finding answers to his lineage. He knew he had werewolf blood. After all, it was all written in his grandfather's diary. At first, he didn't believe it. The absurdity of the possibility was indeed crazy, yet with all his enhanced senses, his hearing, his strength, and his physical power, which was not all human at all, it had given him the notion that maybe his grandfather wasn't just a delirious old dying man. So he started his research and it led him to find Anna.

"Harry, where the hell are we?" Nathaniel asked.

"I don't know, ask Anna. She was, after all, the expert on this land. "

"I believe we are somewhere between the Highland and the Valley of Fairy," Anna responded. Surveying, she saw that the aural terrain was at once familiar to her and yet, watching Harry surveying the landscape with his dark jeans, waterproof red jacket, a cap, and hiking shoes, made his marvellous body sparkle in the sunrise, which showed the greens and blues rising into a new and vibrant glow under the sun. His utterly gorgeous and glorious self was stunned by the beauty of the sun that illuminated the earlier morning sky as if it were igniting the most perfect flame. '

"We need a change of clothing if we don't want to attract attention from the supernatural folks. Don't you think?" Nathaniel interrupted her silly thoughts.

"Yes, I believe so, we should go now. Actually, I'm fine now. Not that all of you are concerned, by the way. So follow me and we go to that fairy settlement." 

"Fairy? As in Fairy? " asked Nathan.

"Yap!"

"Wow. Unbelievable. Do you know anyone there, Anna? "

"Yap!" 

The trio continued their travel down; they didn't dare stop. Though Harry wasn't tired, his mind was weary with the burden of worrying about Anna; the need to protect her was screaming at every nerve and power within him. With Anna, he becomes subconsciously awake. So I'm up to protect her!To protect her from the darkness and from someone darker than the night itself. And he wonders why?

Reaching the fairy village, they took a pair of clothes and wore them immediately, but still couldn't find anything edible to eat. So they ventured further ahead; they needed women's clothing too for Anna and by the look of the surroundings they knew that the common people in the area were largely rural and illiterate and poor. Checking for a pair of women's decent clothing, they went further ahead. Anna was only covered by dry leaves to mask her human clothing.

This poor village was almost on the verge of dying, but their world was not sluggish. Anna explained. She's been here before with her friend, the Fairy Sister. This fair settlement saw the growth of trade and cities, and the rise of rebellions against the werewolves who, once upon a time, introduced some opportunities for new wealth and independence. Yet this village was poorly built; sickness and famine were everywhere. Lost and forgotten.

Death was upon them. On the other hand, for many commoners, it was already a dangerous world that was disrupted by more rapid economic fluctuations and the loss of traditional rights. There was also the disruption of spiritual discord and war.  Commoners' fairies had few resources in their efforts to understand and control their lives. The werewolf trials are one example of how illiterate peasants attempt to do so, and in the village square, they saw one death on trial. Screams of ignorance were everywhere, and fear for the unknown. The fairies were afraid and loathed the werewolves' packs. They hunted and killed them, even massacring them one by one. Somehow, werewolves began their hiding, packless, and without an Alpha to lead them, they became feral.

Minutes later, Harry noticed the fairy men wore stockings and tunics, like what he and Nathaniel wore, while women wore long gowns with sleeveless tunics and wimples to cover their hair. Sheepskin cloaks and woollen hats and mittens were worn in winter for protection from the cold and rain that he knew from his first visit here. Yet, his werewolf senses tingle in a way where it warns him of something. Something like a call from the enemy. Though he couldn't shift into his werewolf form yet, he knew he had the bloodline of that creature. He believes so. His guts told him so.

On their left, the massive stone pillars that bridged the peasant town and the dark forest had been placed to a point about halfway up what would eventually be the slope of the massive structure. The monstrosity would serve as a daily reminder not to venture into the dark wilderness. They noticed that this place smelled like a market area. Fairy folks were everywhere. Their massive bodies and pointy ears were intermingled with the different creatures such as hairy three-foot trolls, fairies with luminous faces, and green elves.

Those fairy folks who wore articles of decent clothing were the lords of this village. They wore lord's clothing and wore leather boots covered with wooden patens to keep the feet dry. However, the peasants had a different situation. Their outer clothes were seldom laundered, but the linen underwear was regularly washed. However, none seemed to notice them. Nathaniel and Harry had lord's clothing, and Anna was covered with banana leaves, just like some mundane peasant fairy serf.

No one would notice them and with his newly washed lord's clothing, those folks didn't glance at them and had merely thought that all fairy folks, men, and women interacted the way that they did with peasants, to be their lords. 

Today, the village was brimming with activity. Regardless, the peasant smell of wood smoke permeated most of those peasant clothing and seemed to act as a deodorant. However, peasant women spun wool into the threads that were woven into the cloth for these garments. In this land, there were thousands of werewolf trials throughout Moonland. The concern about them was a sign of troubled times. Firstly, was the fact that most people accused of being werewolves were men, especially older men, and/or women who were packless or otherwise independent of Alpha control. In reality, they are indeed feral werewolves, some powerful and some aren't. And mostly, some may have indeed engaged in rebellion. But it was also true that this class of wolves was both vulnerable and suspect because they were on the social fringes of the community. Some have even argued that such beings are a burden on poor and struggling communities.

How did these fairies' peasant villagers determine that werewolves were at work around them?  Anna explained that most fundamentally, by observing the moon.  The common thought was that evil forces directed by the Moon Goddess caused bad things to happen.  It was a logical argument: after all, actions must have a reason.In a community that observes evil around them, the most fearful prospect is that evil will infiltrate the people in their community on whom they depend. Yet these ignorant folks never realised that those among them were, after all, wolves among sheep.

The lifestyle of a fairy peasant in these lands was extremely hard and harsh. A miserable community existed not only in the built-up area of cottages, old outbuildings, dry gardens, haggards, and dying orchards, but also in the surrounding fields from which the dwellers derived their livelihoods. They could see how different this land was from the human world. Yet, they didn't expect it to be that busy. Many of the people who live within the village walls work in a trade or a craft. In the middle of the town, they saw the wet market and noticed that it was the centre of activity and the trades and craftspeople serviced its needs and knew the dwellers also paid taxes to the village lords for the privilege of living within the safety of the town walls.

As they strolled further, they saw a living quarter behind the bridge, for the fairy peasant who doesn't have a family or an orphan. They were the poorest people in this land and lived primarily in the countryside. They were called Fairy Serfs. They were the poorest of the peasant class and were a type of slave. Lords owned the fairy serfs who lived on their lands. In exchange for a place to live, fairy serfs worked the land to grow crops for themselves and their lord. They were also powerless and mostly orphans. Similarly, they were expected to work the farms for the fairy lord and pay rent. To his left, behind the wet market, were the farmers. They were a bit better off than peasants, as some owned their farms. Most worked the farmlands themselves or with the aid of peasants and serfs, yet the village itself screamed of death and famine. 

Many worked as farmers in fields owned by the lords and their lives were controlled by the farming year. Certain jobs had to be done at certain times of the year. Their lives were harsh, but there were few rebellions due to a harsh system of law and order. The fairy peasants were at the bottom of the fairy system and had to obey their local lord to whom they had sworn an oath of obedience. 

After a minute of looking into one of the lord's houses, Anna took a new piece of washed women's clothing for herself from the drying rod, and luckily it wasn't peasant clothing. It was a colourful gown with a framework petticoat, and the fullness of the skirt was drawn to the back. A sash encircled a high waistline, and a soft fichu and a light-colored scarf were draped around the neck. These are gentler yet elegantly feminine, and from a low, wide neckline, the gown flared out freely over the hoop petticoat. After acolourfulof trying to dress herself, Anna was ready enough to not cover herself with banana leaves. 

"So what now, Anna? Where are we going?" asked Nathaniel.

"We will go to the fairy woods. My friends live there. Just follow me."