The Defiant Fairy | Our Story of Dreams and Defiance

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 that poured 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 be the presage of all the stretched temples of the inhabitants of my kingdom whenever they mercilessly criticized her. You see, although this girl’s beauty was unquestionable, it was diminished by the circumstances of her birth. Instead of being born in the fairy kingdom, she was 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.

Apart from having his days numbered like the men of Earth, Varón, the baby’s father, had another human characteristic: he pursued other ladies. 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. As the human world was larger and consequently more populated by females, he resolved to settle there. He justified to his wife his stay on the concrete planet to motivate Man in the arts of conquest. But Aurora, the mother of the fairy in this story, knew well her husband’s purpose.

So, she decided to return to the kingdom with her newborn in arms, without the bad company of her husband, and fearful of facing double criticism for having been abandoned by her daughter’s father and because she had been born where she didn’t belong.

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

“She returns without Varón because he no longer wants her,” assured Liana, the fairy of climbing vines that entwine over the forest canopy to suck their nourishment from them. She observed with suspicion the new mother whose spouse had courted her some time ago. “I don’t understand, what did he see in her? I’m more dependent. If he had married me, we would 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 insults from the sharp tongues. 

Then, I disobeyed one of the main rules of my profession: never to attempt against 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 to avoid boring you. What I couldn’t suppress 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 getting involved with the little one. Their justifications were that this creature with scarlet hair and intensely green eyes had been born in the world of perdition, from which our species had to escape to free ourselves from the evil of its citizens and the destruction of our habitat. Furthermore, her father, who should never have married her mother, had abandoned them.

The Earth had not finished rotating for the tenth time around the sun since the birth of this redhead when she exploded. She could no longer endure more criticism, bad looks, and much less the rejection from the little ones. She became aggressive towards everyone, including her mother. The little girl’s magic wand was impregnated with her mistress’s bad temper and turned one of its rounded edges into a sharp point. With it, she attacked without mercy! Many times, I renounced my profession as narrator because the behavior of the character in this story, along with her wand, was torturous.

“Behave, eh… daughter!” her mother begged.

“Of course! You call me daughter because I still have no name, and until I prove my worth in this blessed kingdom, I’ll remain with the nickname of the redhead,” the little girl screamed until she lost her voice. There were many things that bothered her about the kingdom where her parents were born: the discrepancy between immortal fairies towards mortals. Both sides maintained a constant quarrel. Mortal fairies claimed equal rights to marry immortals and to be treated with the same respect as them. The mistreatment suffered by those fairies born without wands was severe. Many of them were banished to planet Earth as if they were a contaminating virus, and the situation of those born with wands was no less unfortunate. They were forced to compete with others to prove who had the most surprising magic. But perhaps the most offensive thing for the redhead was that if the fairies did not prove their gift, they were denied the assignment of names.

At dawn, the little ones flew to the academy of earthly preparation, where they received instruction about the functions of the human world where they would one day share their gifts. The most discussed topic was the talents of the students. All of them were brilliant. The guardian of discernment was a handsome, eloquent young man who knew how to humiliate the redhead so prudently that on repeated occasions she thanked him for his disguised censure that seemed like praise. The fairy of joy was the most popular and loved by all, although our protagonist secretly repudiated her. 

The deity of nature, adorned with all the garments of her mother Earth, was pure beauty and color. The fairy of music was a petulant plump girl who deafened everyone with her opera and looked at them askance, and the guardian of the Amazon forest was an intermittent antipathetic. He appeared and disappeared at will. Inside his pointed hat, he hid a court of tiny fairies who came out of that hiding place to throw themselves at the redhead’s wavy hair with the purpose of tangling it.

“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 got stuck in its own ink due to the astonishment caused by this young woman’s strong voice. She addressed Hututú, removed his hat, and threw it out the window. She launched herself at the guardian of discernment and planted two slaps on him followed by these words: “With this, I pay you for all your disguised offenses. And I warn the rest of you, you’d better not mess with me!” 

Her wand discreetly slipped under her right wing and pricked her to force her to fly away immediately.

Upon arriving at the cavern where she lived with her mother, the mother of the guardian of gossip was already choking for lack of oxygen, telling the scandal caused by her ill-mannered daughter. Her little sprout had taken the trouble to order her wand to announce to all the mothers of her friends the unpleasant spectacle formed by her study companion.

“Get out of my house!” bellowed the redhead as soon as she set her intense gaze on the mother of the worst of her enemies. She left disturbed and in minutes, spread throughout the region the bad behavior of the fairy who would forever remain without a name, Gossip’s mother assured, and even addressed me to publish it.

The young woman took her curly mane and pulled hard on it. Her hair weighed as much as the criticism of the kingdom. Her wand, far from comforting her, stung her once more. This time, in her right hand. “I’m fed up with you! Like everyone else, I can’t stand you anymore!” with these words she took her terrible wand and flew far from her home. Her mother’s face was as pale as the moment when her husband told her that he would stay living on Earth until the end of his days.

I followed the little girl, grumbling about my obligation to pursue my protagonists to narrate their stories. This one had driven me out of my mind, and I must confess, it scared me to death!

She flew to the top of Mount Osaires where a volcano rested from all the accumulation of molten rock from the interior of the Earth. “Here you will melt in the lava!” shouted the fairy and threw her wand into the crater of the volcano. My wand convulsed and stopped working. So, I had to resort to my memory to relate the following events.

The fairy descended to the foot of the mountain. In the plain, a flock of sheep ruminated on the weeds of the pasture. She sat down to observe them, and her gaze pacified like the river of the seven colors of Caño de Cristales in Colombia (the Liquid Rainbow,) intensifying the tone of her eyes. She stood up and set herself to the task of shepherding the sheep while caressing their curly fur. She asked the shepherd of the flock to allow her to exercise her task. It consisted of shepherding them and shearing them. The second task was performed once a year and consisted of detaching the wool from the animal’s skin. The shepherd trained the fairy in all his trades and felt rested from his labor. She performed these tasks in the mornings and afternoons.

During the sunset, she flew to a cotton field to contemplate the most beautiful magic: to see in the snowy tufts of the plants the reflection of the kaleidoscope of the sunset. At night, she returned to her cavern feeling exhausted from so much work. 

But instead of resting, she stopped under her mulberry tree located at the entrance of her cavern, to observe some filaments unrolling, descending from the branches, and cradling some bright cocoons that shone under the moonlight.

“They are so white and soft,” she invariably repeated every time she entered her home. “Possibly my gift is related to these cocoons,” she whispered almost as intelligibly as an improper occurrence.

One night she decided to collect hundreds of these cocoons. My wand had already recovered from the panic caused by the redhead when she threw her wand into the crater of the volcano, and I had lost my voice from insisting that I would never dare to do something similar. I followed the fairy inside the dark cavern and suddenly, a broken voice of a hurt woman immobilized me.

It said, “Are these the hours to come home?” I heard a tapping against the rocky ground. I supposed it was a jump of terror given by the young woman upon hearing the sudden voice of her mother.

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

“You’re not working! You’re just wasting your time. Instead of striving to figure out the magic of your wand to know your gift, you insist on wasting each day taking care of sheep, an unworthy profession for you,” Aurora scolded her. And had she found out about her daughter’s feat 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 lambs 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?”

Don’t think I’m crazy for assuring you that in front of me I noticed sparks of fire flashing. 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 hit the crown of my head and miraculously didn’t get embedded in my skull. My wand made my invisibility blanket appear to wrap myself in it and hide a ray of light that it released from its tip to illuminate the path where the young woman was heading. Meanwhile, as I massaged my head to appease the pain, I removed the pieces of porous rock from my scalp and wondered, I hope you’re enjoying this story because it has drawn blood from me! Indeed, my stained fingers proved it.

Her mother was slow to respond, stammering the following: “Uh… The wand of your friend Chi-chi…me, took on the task of monitoring all your, your activities and re-porting it. The, the-the young woman fulfilling her duty, communicated it throughout the kingdom.”

“I’ll end that damn wand, I swear!” affirmed her daughter, and to avoid seeing her face, I made sure to keep my gaze fixed on a formation of stalagmites similar to 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, happily, I said, what do I have wings for? And I flew from there.

The following weeks were of great commotion for everyone, as our governor, the Enlightened Master, was late in making an important announcement because Gossip’s wand had beaten him in communicating it to the region. There would be the most important competition in the kingdom: the wand contest. Their owners drew sparks from them, training them to achieve the best of works. Whoever executed the most grandiose creation would win the opportunity to fly to the moon to contemplate the world of Man from above. This competition was held every hundred years, and the one hundred and twenty award winners in history said that from up there the planet Earth looked like a bright head coming out of a dark hiding place.

Our character 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 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 big 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 achieved it! I meditated aloud. I lost sight of the bad-tempered one. However, it troubled me to leave this story unfinished. So, I headed to the pasture. She’s not here, I told myself, so I’ll take up another story. Nevertheless, in the middle of the flock of sheep, I observed the appearance of a scarlet flag waving. May it not be the redhead, may it not be her hair, 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 calves. “The shepherd broke it because it tried to escape for the second time!” She told me 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 among the crowd of sheep, I was surprised by the way this young woman 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 buzz over my head forced me to look up. It was a blackened and pointed wand that threatened to stick 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 cooked it in the boiling lava, and now its tip was more refined than before. With the rear part, it slapped its mistress while discharging a bunch of buzzes only understandable among wands, although mine refused to decipher them.

“A thousand pardons, little wand! I ask you to heal this sheep’s leg and let’s go to the wand contest. I want to win to silence a few.” The wand faced its mistress, turning and remaining pointed at a centimeter from the center of her eyebrows. “Don’t be mean, let’s compete. Let’s win. Let’s leave this kingdom speechless.” Not a buzz more did the wand release, and instantly it disappeared with her.

“Take me to the grove in front of King Harper’s palace,” I ordered mine. That’s where the grand event would take place. Upon arrival, all the participants were lined up on the grass in front of the king.

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

The fairy of music in her highest voice demanded of her baton, “Wanda, compile the most celebrated musical pieces of the earth in the order I indicated.” The wind intensified in the forest as soon as the magical Wanda began the symphony. Everyone’s ears were saturated with the magical sound and energized the extremities to move to its rhythm.

The next participant was Poetry, who placed the audience, including the king, inside a cave. There her wand in the form of a pencil materialized the best books in human history. They belonged to anonymous writers who never dared to write their works. Her wand extracted each novel, poem, essay, and story from these living and dead authors, and planted them in the brains of the congregation. Everyone left stunned because of having experienced the whole range of human feeling exquisitely executed.

Art followed, Poetry’s twin sister. As they did everything together, it was no wonder that Art took the same concept as her sister and turned a cavern into an art museum with works conceived in the minds of unknown artists, yet never brought to light. Thus, the eyes of the audience were impregnated with beauty, color, and brilliance which surpassed the beauty of our kingdom.

The wand in the form of a knife, of 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 stand out with their magic. The last contestant was the redhead. All eyes focused on her. After a deep breath, the young woman raised her dark wand with the tip to the sun. It began to push and shake in a convulsive manner. After a while, it acquired a prominence in its tail and from there it released a wooden square contraption.

It was so heavy that it perforated its tail. Besides, it was ugly! I felt sad for the tree used for such a task. My wand couldn’t describe it. I meditated a lot to decipher it to you in the best way: a monstrosity made of oak with horizontal and vertical beams. The wand slowly descended, made a turn in the air, and landed on one of the rear crossbars. Anyone could assure that it felt proud of its work.

Following a long pause, the audience didn’t take long to release a laugh impossible to stop. The king choked on his laughter and cried at the same time. The Enlightened Master, who was also laughing, began to pat the elderly monarch on the back to prevent choking.

The redhead flew from there. The tone of her face matched her hair. She arrived at her cavern crying and lamenting. Her emotions were many: humiliation, anger, and disappointment. The greatest of all was the desire to make her wand disappear!

“I’m going to annihilate you!” she threatened, following it 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.

She got out of her bed and took one of them. It looked like an elongated, fibrous pearl. Eager to discharge her frustration, she pulled on a filament and continued doing so. It stretched and stretched. She continued pulling on those yarns, telling herself, Forever, I will remain without a name and without purpose.

Meanwhile, her wand pushed the oak monster, centimeter by centimeter, until it positioned it in front of its mistress. By then, both arms of the fairy were wrapped in the strands. To free them, she discharged the entire roll of filament, and one end introduced itself into a hole in the upper beams of the frame.

The wand buzzed, made several turns in the air, released a burst of sparks from its lower hole, making the beams of the device move. The swaying of the contraption was in a zigzag pattern and braided the strands until forming a thread that thickened and widened until becoming a solid piece.

“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. That one 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 achieved by her when she is clean of chemicals made by Man. Without a wand, she was living magic.

Meanwhile, I was amazed in the cavern of my heroine, watching her feeding her loom with cotton, wool, and fibers from the flax plant. When she had a good arsenal of fabrics, she dedicated herself to collecting bark from maple and oak trees. She asked Poetry to lend her her magical pen, and with it she traced her designs on 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 slot through which it had discharged the loom, more open than before to hear her better. With a jump, it put its slit between one of the holes of the loom where a silk thread passed and got threaded. It danced with the thread in the air and flew straight to its mistress’s chest. I closed my eyes because I thought the wand would pierce her. It did, but in the bodice of her dress. From wood, the wand transformed into metal and changed its dark color to bright silver.

“You’re a needle!” exclaimed the fairy excitedly. With it, she hand-sewed an entire luxurious trousseau for little ones. Every time her needle slid its tip through the fabric, it released little laughs of absolute happiness. It pleased her so much in her function 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 out and, in an instant, returned with Art. This fairy traced the images of the kingdom’s residents on each garment, and her needle didn’t take long to pass the colored threads over them. Thus, all the mothers and companions who didn’t want to relate to the redhead were captured. 

But she faced them this way: “I don’t need to receive my name from you. 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 form 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 as soon as she set eyes on her newborn daughter.

“Thank you, my little daughter, 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 continued, addressing me. “The talent of both will form part of our business whose objective will be to immortalize all of you. In such a way there will be no distinctions between mortals and deities.”

King Harper, the Master, and the other fairies applauded. Gossip, the fairy of music, the one 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! They’ve all been written down already,” I scolded them.

Her 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 renounce my job as narrator of my kingdom, because now I have the deities of industry and commerce and that of fashion design to show you, my work. I only beg that you read them.