The Defiant Fairy Short Story

The Defiant Fairy

©The Defiant Fairy, 2023 by Claudia Carbonell, is copyright protected. All rights are reserved, including the right to reproduce the materials in whole or in part, as well as their dissemination by any media.

The Defiant Fairy

Every hundred years, planet Earth yawns, stretching its tectonic plates and causing tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, and earthquakes. It’s no wonder that during the century of the greatest seismic and tsunami activity in your planet’s history, a rebellious fairy was born. Her hair was scarlet like the lava pouring from the volcano on the Pacific Island where she was born. Her eyes paid tribute to the emeralds abundant in her region, framed by thick eyelashes that weighed down her blinks. The arch of her fine eyebrows would mirror all the stretched temples of the inhabitants of my kingdom whenever they mercilessly criticized her. You see, although this creature’s singularity was unquestionable, it was diminished by the circumstances of her birth. Instead of being born in the fairy kingdom, she had been born in the world of Man. Her father, of mortal nature, was the fairy of virility, while her mother was the immortal fairy of industry and commerce.

Years before the little one’s birth, the union of this couple had caused much controversy. It was not well regarded for a prestigious immortal fairy to marry a mortal, and worse still, to procreate! Another mortal fairy like her father might emerge, and those were not welcome in the kingdom.

But for Varón, mortality was not his only human failing: loving only one woman was a concept as foreign to him as immortality. When he flew to the kingdom, he charmed the fairies, and when he landed on Earth, he courted women. His charm and sense of humor served him well for this purpose. Since the human world was vast and full of women who did not yet know his tricks, he resolved to settle there. To his wife, he justified his stay on the concrete planet by claiming he motivated Man in the arts of conquest. But Aurora, the mother of the fairy in this story, knew well her husband’s intentions. 

So she decided to return to the kingdom with her newborn in her arms, leaving her unfaithful husband behind. Oh, but she was terrified of the judgment she would face: condemned both for being abandoned and for bearing a child in the world of Man. 

“Look at Aurora! She should be ashamed to enter the kingdom carrying her offspring and without her husband,” sneered Ocacia, the guardian of twilight.

“She returns without Varón because he no longer wants her,” declared Liana, the fairy of climbing vines that strangle trees to feed on them. She had never forgotten that Aurora’s husband had once courted her. “I don’t understand what he could have seen in her. I’m far more devoted. I know how to hold on to what’s mine. If he had married me, we would still be together because I would never have let him go. Besides, I would have given birth to our baby here, where it belongs.”

“My wand never ceased to record the plethora of comments, and I longed to go deaf because I couldn’t stand the cruelty pouring from those vicious tongues. Then I broke one of the main rules of my profession: never harm the integrity of a story by erasing portions of it. But I did it. Forgive me! I crossed out so much gossip from this tale to avoid wasting space in this book and boring you to tears. What I could not erase, however, were the unfortunate events that arose when the baby grew up.

With each rotation of the Earth around the sun, this fairy grew full of energy, curiosity, and eagerness to play with other fairies her age. However, mothers forbade their children from befriending the little one. Their justifications were damning: this creature with scarlet hair and intensely green eyes had been born in the world of perdition, that fallen place the fairies had escaped to free themselves from the evil of its citizens and the destruction of their habitat. And her father, who should never have married her mother, had abandoned them both.

The Earth had not finished rotating for the tenth time around the sun since the birth of this redhead when she shattered. She could no longer endure the criticism, the hateful glares, and least of all the rejection from children her own age. 

She became aggressive toward everyone, including her mother. The little girl’s magic wand absorbed her mistress’s fury and transformed one of its rounded edges into a sharp point. With it, she attacked without mercy! Many times I considered abandoning my profession as narrator because the behavior of this character, along with her weaponized wand, became torturous to record.”

“Behave… daughter,” her mother begged, the word barely escaping her lips.

“Of course you call me daughter! What else would you call me? I have no name yet, and until I prove myself in this ‘so call’ “blessed kingdom,” I’ll remain nothing but ‘the redhead,'” the little fairy screamed until her voice gave out.

There were many things that enraged her about the kingdom where her parents were born: the cruelty of immortal fairies toward mortals, for one. Both sides fought constant battles. Mortal fairies demanded equal rights to marry immortals and to be treated with the same dignity. The mistreatment of fairies born without wands was severe; many were banished to planet Earth as if they carried a plague. Those born with wands were treated no better, forced to compete endlessly to prove who possessed the most spectacular magic. But perhaps the most offensive custom for the redhead was this: if fairies could not demonstrate their gift, they were denied the right to a name.

At dawn, young fairies flew to the academy of earthly preparation, where they received instruction about the human world where they would one day share their gifts. The most discussed topic was the students’ talents, and all of them were brilliant.

The guardian of discernment was a handsome, eloquent young elf who knew how to humiliate the redhead so prudently that she often thanked him for the insults he wrapped in praise. The fairy of joy was the most popular and beloved by all, though our protagonist secretly despised her. The deity of nature, adorned with all the garments of mother Earth, was pure beauty and color. The fairy of music was a vain, plump fairy who deafened everyone with her operatic voice and shot them cruel sideways glances. And the guardian of the Amazon forest was an unpredictable menace who appeared and disappeared at will. Inside his pointed hat, he hid a court of tiny fairies who flew out for one purpose only: to hurl themselves at the redhead’s wavy hair and tangle it into knots.

“I’ve had enough harassment from all of you!” the fairy shouted in front of the class on the day she turned fifteen on the earthly calendar. For the first time, my wand froze in its own ink from the shock of this young fairy’s ferocious voice. She flew at Hututú, ripped off his hat, and hurled it out the window. Then she launched herself at the guardian of discernment and delivered two sharp slaps across his face, followed by these words: “This is payment for all your disguised insults. And I warn the rest of you: don’t mess with me!” Her wand slipped discreetly beneath her right wing and pricked her hard, forcing her to flee immediately.

By the time she arrived at the cavern where she lived with her mother, Gossip’s mother was already there, breathless with scandalized delight as she recounted every shameful detail to Aurora. Her beloved daughter, the most diligent fairy in the kingdom, had sent her wand, the kingdom’s loudspeaker, to announce the redhead’s violent rampage in class to every mother the second it happened.

“Get out of my house!” the redhead bellowed the moment she set her fierce gaze on the mother of her worst enemy. Gossip’s mother fled the cavern, visibly shaken, and within minutes had broadcast throughout the kingdom not only the classroom rampage but now the redheaded fairy’s disgraceful outburst in her own home. She was so intent on documenting every offense that she confronted me directly and ordered me to record this new scandal.

The redheaded fairy grabbed fistfuls of her wild curls and pulled violently. Her hair weighed as much as the kingdom’s relentless judgment. Her wand, instead of comforting her, jabbed her again, this time stabbing her right hand. “I’m done with you!” she screamed at her wand. “You’re just like all of them—I can’t stand you either!” She seized the traitorous thing and flew far from home. Aurora’s face drained of all color, as pale as the day her husband announced he would live on Earth forever.

I followed the redheaded fairy, muttering bitterly about my cursed obligation to shadow my protagonists and record their stories. This one had completely shattered my sanity. And truthfully? She absolutely petrified me.

She flew to the summit of Mount Osaires, where a volcano slumbered above vast chambers of molten rock deep within the Earth. “Here you will melt in the lava!” the redheaded fairy shouted and hurled her wand into the crater. The instant it vanished, my wand convulsed violently and died in my hand. I had no choice but to rely entirely on my memory to record what happened next.

The fairy descended to the foot of the mountain, pursing her lips. Even though it was impossible for her to know I was following her, I sensed she was holding back tears. What she had just done with her wand was unforgivable, regardless of how much it had tormented her. In the plain, a flock of sheep grazed on the weeds of the pasture. She sat down to observe them, and her gaze grew peaceful like the river of seven colors at Caño Cristales in Colombia, the Liquid Rainbow, the green intensifying in her eyes. She stood and set herself to the task of shepherding the sheep, running her hand along their backs and feeling the thick, wavy fleece, more peaceful than the waves that had cradled her in the Atlantic Ocean where her father used to take her. She asked the shepherd to allow her to take over his work: herding them and shearing them. While she performed these tasks, she questioned herself: Is this what I am meant to do? Truly, I don’t have any magic. I don’t have any friends. I can never go back to school. My only faithful companion is melting in lava. And I won’t even earn a name!

During sunset, she flew to a cotton field to contemplate a magical scene: the snowy tufts of cotton plants reflecting the kaleidoscope of colors as the sun went down. At night, she returned to her cavern exhausted from so much work. But instead of resting, she paused beneath her mulberry tree at the entrance to observe delicate filaments unspooling from the branches, descending and cradling bright cocoons that glowed under the moonlight.

“They are so white and soft,” she whispered every time she entered her home. “Perhaps my gift is related to these cocoons. Or to the sheep. Maybe to the cotton.” She spoke so quietly, as if voicing such hope were somehow forbidden.

One night she decided to collect hundreds of these cocoons. My wand had already recovered from the panic it suffered when the redhead threw her wand into the volcano’s crater, and I had lost my voice from repeatedly promising my wand I would never do such a thing to it. I followed the fairy inside the dark cavern, and suddenly a broken voice, raw with hurt, stopped me cold.

“Are these the hours to come home?” I heard a sharp tap against the rocky ground. The young fairy must have jumped in terror at her mother’s sudden voice.

“Yes, Mother, I had a long working day. You should be used to it by now,” the redhead replied in an irate tone.

“You’re not working! You’re just wasting your time. Instead of striving to unlock your wand’s magic and discover your gift, you insist on wasting each day taking care of sheep, an unworthy profession for you!” Aurora scolded her. Had she discovered her daughter’s crime against her wand, the reprimand would have doubled.

“Of course, since you are the immortal fairy of industry and commerce, you think that your daughter who enjoys shepherding sheep lowers your goddess status. Well, you know what? I love sheep.”

“Do you also like observing the cotton plantation?”

“I visit those crops during sunset to rest, and it’s my business! Besides, how do you know?”

Sparks of fire flashed before my eyes. If they didn’t come from the head of the irate redhead, then from where else?

“Aaah! Who told you?” Few things drive me out of my mind, but the deafening cry of this fighter made me jump. A stalactite struck the crown of my head and miraculously didn’t embed itself in my skull. My wand made my invisibility blanket appear to wrap myself in it and cast a ray of light from its tip to illuminate the path where the young fairy was heading. Meanwhile, as I massaged my head to ease the pain, I removed pieces of porous rock from my scalp and thought bitterly: I hope you’re enjoying this story because it has drawn blood from me! My stained fingers proved it.

Her mother was slow to respond, stammering: “Uh… The wand of your friend Go… Go… Gossip took on the task of monitoring all your activities and reporting them. The young fairy, fulfilling her duty, communicated it throughout the kingdom.”

“I’ll destroy that damn wand, I swear!” her daughter affirmed, and to avoid seeing her face, I made sure to keep my gaze fixed on a formation of stalagmites that looked like extinguished candles.

The fairy went deeper into the cavern and placed the white cocoons and several branches of the mulberry tree inside a rocky concavity. Next to it, she lay down on a bed of cotton, and when she fell asleep, I thought happily: What do I have wings for? And I flew from there.

The following weeks were filled with great commotion, as our governor, the Enlightened Master, was late in making an important announcement because Gossip’s wand had beaten him to it, spreading the news throughout the region. The most important competition in the kingdom was coming: the wand contest. Fairies everywhere drew sparks from their wands, training them to achieve their finest works. Whoever executed the most grandiose creation would win the opportunity to fly to the moon and contemplate the world of Man from above. This competition was held every hundred years, and the one hundred twenty winners in its history all said the same thing: from up there, planet Earth looked like a bright jewel emerging from a dark void.

Our Protagonist enjoyed so much contemplating the cocoons that dwelled in the mulberry tree under the moonlight and the cotton tufts under the sunset sky. Oh, how much more she would be dazzled observing from another star the very planet where she was born!

However, she would be the only fairy who was born with a wand that would not participate because she had annihilated it. What have I done? she meditated. Well, even if I had it, my wand only served to torture me. Although the purpose of her reflection was to calm her, she longed for her wand. Each sunset she simultaneously observed the cotton field and the summit of that volcano where she had thrown her best accomplice. The tears stuck inside her emerald eyes burned them.

When the wands had almost exhausted their magic and their owners were left with their tongues hanging out, the long-awaited day of the Wand Skill Contest arrived. Our nameless fairy was lost.

“I finally made it!” I thought aloud. I had lost sight of the bad-tempered one. However, it troubled me to leave this story unfinished, leaving you in complete limbo. So I headed to the pasture. “She’s not here,” I told myself. “I’ll take up another story.” Nevertheless, in the middle of the flock of sheep, I saw a scarlet flag waving. “Please don’t let it be the redhead, don’t let it be her hair fluttering!” I begged the wind.

You guessed correctly! It was her. The breeze ruffled her mane like a banner. She was kneeling, crying out loud while holding the leg of one of the lambs. 

“The shepherd broke it because the lamb tried to escape for the second time!” she complained to my face. Unfortunately, I had forgotten my invisibility blanket, and now she knew I was following her. More than the terror of being slaughtered right there amongst the flock of sheep, I was surprised by the way this young fairy had treated the animal’s fracture. She had already stabilized it and wrapped the leg with gauze filled with cotton.

I hadn’t finished closing my mouth when a buzzing over my head forced me to look up. It was a blackened and pointed wand threatening to stick itself into my head. “Why do things in the shape of a lance insist on attacking me!” I shouted, flying several meters above the flock.

“You’ve returned!” cried the fairy upon recognizing her wand. No wonder it carried the tone of its mistress’s bad temper. The volcano had overcooked it in the boiling lava, and now its tip was more refined than before. With its rear end, it slapped its mistress while discharging a barrage of buzzing only understandable among wands, although mine refused to decipher its meaning.

“A thousand pardons, little wand! Please, please forgive me. I also beg you to heal this lamb’s leg, and let’s go to the wand contest. I want to win so I can silence a few.” The wand positioned itself just a centimeter away from the center of her eyebrows.

“Don’t be mean, let’s compete. Let’s win. Let’s leave this kingdom speechless,” begged the redhead. The wand released not one buzz more, and instantly it disappeared with her.

“Take me to the grove in front of King Harper’s palace,” I commanded my wand. That’s where the grand event was taking place. Upon arrival, all the participants were lined up on the grass in front of the king.

“Begin!” exhorted the master, initiating the contest.

In a voice that rivaled the combination of an orchestra of canaries, the bravado of thunder, the crescendo of ocean waves, and the symphony of the Wild, the fairy of music demanded of her baton, “Wanda, perform the most celebrated musical pieces of Earth in the order I indicated.” The wind intensified its race through the forest as soon as the magical Wanda began the symphony. Everyone’s ears were saturated with the enchanting sound, and it compelled their limbs to move to its rhythm.

The fairy of Poetry was next. She placed the audience, including the king, inside a cave. There her wand in the form of a pencil materialized the greatest books in human history—works conceived by anonymous writers who never dared to execute them. Her wand extracted each novel, poem, essay, and story from the minds of these living and dead authors and planted them directly into the brains of the audience. Everyone emerged stunned, having experienced the entire range of human feelings exquisitely rendered.

Art, Poetry’s twin sister, followed. Never one to be outdone by her sibling, Art took the same concept and transformed a cavern into an art museum filled with masterpieces conceived in the minds of unknown artists but never brought to light. Thus, the eyes of the audience were impregnated with beauty, color, and brilliance which surpassed even the splendor of our kingdom.

The wand in the form of a knife belonging to the kingdom’s chef fairy delighted the audience’s palate by offering them the most varied banquet ever served.

The wands of the other fairies continued to astound with their magic. The last contestant was the redhead. All eyes focused on her. After a deep breath, the young fairy raised her darkened wand with its tip pointed toward the sun. It began to push and shake in a convulsive manner. After a while, a bulge formed at its base, and from there it released a wooden square contraption.

It was so massive it was no wonder it had perforated its tail. Worst of all, it was ugly! I pitied the noble tree reduced to this. My wand sputtered, unable to find adequate description. I meditated a long while to decipher it for you in the best way: a square monstrosity of horizontal and vertical beams. The wand slowly descended, made a turn in the air, and landed on one of the rear crossbars. Anyone could have sworn the blackened wand felt proud of its work.

The entire kingdom paused. The air forgot to blow. But it did not take long for the audience to release laughter impossible to stop. The king choked on his own laughter and cried at the same time. The Enlightened Master, wheezing and clutching his sides, managed to stagger over and pat the elderly monarch on the back to prevent him from choking.

The redhead flew from there. The color of her face matched her hair. She arrived at her cavern crying and lamenting: “Why me? Explain to me, you cruel and despicable wand! Was this your way of avenging what I did to you? Well, congratulations. You succeeded!” Her face became a canvas of shifting hues: ghostly white drained to ashen blue, then blazed crimson before settling into the volcanic red of molten lava. A tempest of emotions raged within her: humiliation, anger, and disappointment. It was easy for me to guess that the greatest of all was the desire to destroy her wand.

“I’m going to annihilate you!” she threatened, following her wand all around her home. Exhausted, she threw herself onto her bed, and sinking her face into the cotton tufts, she cried. She turned her body. She was facing the cocoons. A ray of sunlight slipped through the entrance to the cavern, making them shine.

“Why am I so dumb?” she wailed. “Why do I care about these cocoons, silkworms, and sheep?”

In that moment, she heard the tick-tock of her mother’s sandals. “Daughter, are you here?”

She covered her face. “No, I’m not home. Go away, Mom!” To be seen crying was not an option.

She got out of bed and grabbed a cocoon. It looked like an elongated, fibrous pearl. Perhaps to release her frustration, she pulled on a filament. The cocoon unraveled a long, long thread. She continued pulling, rolling the growing strand around her forearms. Her mom observed in shock, sadness, and disbelief. Had her daughter gone mad? Her mother’s thoughts were easy to read: I want my furious daughter back! The filament kept stretching and stretching endlessly. While she was pulling on those yarns, she muttered, “I will forever remain without a name and without purpose.”

Meanwhile, her wand started pushing the oak monster, centimeter by centimeter, until it was right in front of its mistress. By then, the fairy’s arms were completely wrapped in the strands. To free them, she placed the entire roll of filament on one end of the wooden monster. I have witnessed all sorts of magic. Trained wands can do absolutely anything. But never could anyone, let alone me, have anticipated something so utterly miraculous that superseded magic itself. One end of the thread introduced itself into a hole in the upper beams of the frame.

The wand buzzed, made several turns in the air, and released a burst of sparks from its tail, causing the beams to spring into action. The contraption swayed in a zigzag pattern and braided the strands, bellowing and hiccupping with each movement: thump-CLACK, thump-CLACK, thump-CLACK, shaking the cavern walls. In seconds it formed a thick thread that grew larger and wider, becoming a solid length of fabric!

“Divine monster, you’re making fabric!” shouted the redhead so thunderously that she deafened Gossip’s wand, which was several meters high, pretending to be a stalactite. Gossip’s wand carried the news to the entire region. By then, the prize had been awarded to the only participant without a wand. It was Mother Earth, who demonstrated all the wonders she achieved when clean of chemicals made by Man. She didn’t need a wand to be living magic.

Meanwhile, I was amazed in the cavern of my heroine, watching her feed her loom with cotton, wool, and fibers from the flax plant, which produced linen fabric. Once she had a good arsenal of fabrics, she dedicated herself to collecting bark from maple and oak trees. She paid a visit to Poetry and asked to borrow her magical pen. With it, she traced her designs onto the bark. Courage offered her sword so that the fairy could cut the fabrics.

“Now, how will I sew my designs?” she wondered. Her wand had that hole through which it had discharged the loom more open than before to better hear her master. With a jump, it put its slit between one of the holes of the loom where a long silk thread was passing through. The wand got threaded.

With the glowing silk thread looking more like a pompous tail, the wand danced in the air and directed its flight straight to its mistress’s chest. I closed my eyes because I thought the wand was about to stab her heart. It did, but in the bodice of her dress. From wood, the wand had transformed itself into metal and changed its dark color to bright silver.

“My beautiful wand, you’re a needle!” bellowed the fairy, jumping from side to side as if imitating the movement of her loom. With her wand-needle, she hand-sewed an entire luxurious wardrobe for the kingdom’s fairies. Every time her needle slid its tip through the fabric, it released little laughs of absolute joy. She was so pleased performing her duty that once she finished sewing the garments, she threaded herself in threads of different colors and jumped on the upper beam of the loom, eager to draw her mistress’s attention.

“Don’t tell me… I know what you want,” our protagonist assured her. She flew outside the cavern and in an instant returned with Art.

“Please draw the kingdom’s residents on each garment,” the redhead asked Art. Once she finished a drawing, the wand-turned-needle didn’t take long to stitch colored threads over the stunning artwork. Thus, the images of all her classmates and their mothers who didn’t want to have a relationship with the redhead were memorialized in embroideries.

The redhead faced them this way: “I don’t need you to name me. My name is Adriana, and I am the fairy of fashion design.” She turned her face to her mother and said, “Mother, I need to go with you to my Earth so that between the two of us, we will develop a company. It will be for children’s clothing, and we will call it Only for Princesses.”

Aurora’s eyes lit up as much as in her two happiest events in her life: when she met Varón and when she set eyes on her newborn daughter.

“Thank you, baby, for allowing me to be part of your organization. To make it something great, we also need to count on the collaboration of Poetry and you, Narrator,” she turned to me. “The talent of you both will form part of our business, whose objective will be to immortalize all of you. So, there will be no distinction between mortals and deities.”

King Harper, the Master, and the other fairies applauded. Gossip, the fairy of music, the fairy of discernment, and the other harassers from long ago approached me, smiling and with pleading looks.

“Don’t you dare ask me to omit your wickedness! It’s all been written down already,” I scolded them.

Adriana’s wand-turned-needle flew to a suitable distance so that the entire kingdom could read in space the notice woven in gold thread that said: This is the happy ending of a great story.

I must confess that since then, I no longer complain about my duty as narrator of my kingdom, because now I have the deities of industry and commerce, and of fashion design to show you, my work. I only beg that you read them.

THE END