#*literature

Dawn Court has a mountain palace in the clouds, made from what can only be described as sunstone, a near-opalescent golden stone that seemed to hold the gleaming of a thousand sunrises within it. Steps and balconies and archways and verandas and bridges linked the towers and gilded domes of the palace, periwinkle morning glories climbing the pillars and neatly cut blocks of stone to drink in the gilded mists wafting by.  The verdant countryside rippling away far below, speckled with red-roofed little villages and broad, sparkling river. A lush eternal countryside, rich with the weight of summer upon it. 

“He was a lovely boy, clad in skeleton leaves and the juices that ooze out of trees but the most entrancing thing about him was that he had all his first teeth. When he saw she was a grown-up, he gnashed the little pearls at her.”

“Child, in the Great Wood we have a saying — a Woodlands heart always finds its way home. We speak it over our newborn. We speak it over our dead. We speak it to one another as we live. I may be the forest’s Guardian, but it’s not for me to question into which bodies Woodlands hearts are placed, or when they call out for home.”

“Here, anything is possible. In real life people, are afraid of what they can’t understand [...] That’s why only children read fairy tales where I come from. At some point, people become afraid of life’s mysteries. With age, their lives get smaller and smaller. They judge with their fears instead of their hearts. In your world, not everyone can have a happy ending. The Pen won’t allow it. But in my world, everyone thinks they deserve one. They turn on each other when things go wrong. They try to beat back the hand of fate. And when they can’t... that’s when Evil is born. Real Evil.”

“You have to understand. I am no one special. I am just a single girl. I am five feet two inches tall and I am in-between in every way. But I have a secret. You can build walls all the way to the sky and I will find a way to fly above them. You can try to pin me down with a hundred thousand arms, but I will find a way to resist. And there are many of us out there, more than you think. People who refuse to stop believing. People who refuse to come to earth. People who love in a world without walls, people who love into hate, into refusal, against hope, and without fear. I love you. Remember. They cannot take it.”

“Save us,” I whisper. Save me from him. From Papa S. All around me, the voices get louder. “Save us,” I say. Because I want to be saved. “Please, save us.” I am shouting now too. Our cries fly up above our heads, crash around the walls. “Nature, save us.”