Prologue: A Homestead With Visitors

While the sun was shining and the elders were discussing important things a certain group of children played on the holy rock. It was a large, green rock with black veins in it that looked very different from the usual red sandstone. Nobody knew why it was different, but it had been around for as long as anyone could remember and the children were convinced that it was a holy place.

Still, they were children. As long as none fell off everything was fine as far as their parents were concerned. The rock was only as high as a table and rather flat, but it was as wide and long as a barn. It truly was a very strange stone.

This kind of rock, in a place as far away from any markets and towns as the homestead was, stimulated people's imagination. Children thought up rhymes and the elderly told magic stories about such places.

The fact that everybody suddenly had strange paper screens in their heads was not a thing these children thought about. That was why the elders were discussing important matters, after all.

As the thirteen children held hands and walked in a circle on top of the stone they sang the song so many had before them, their slightly squeaky voices turning the song into a spoken rhyme. Had it been the older girls, so used to songs for harvest, for milking, for cooking and for weather lore it would have sounded different, but these children were too young. The smallest might have been four years old, the eldest looked like he could be seven. Still, their little dance and rhyme made people smile as they passed.

"Fairy come, fairy go, fairies all around." Their little voices echoed a bit, the youngest kids just a bit behind the older ones.

"Fairy come, fairy go, fairies on the ground.

Fairy come, fairy go, fairies flying high.

Fairy come, fairy go, fairies in the sky.

Fairy come, fairy go, fairies in a sock.

Fairy come, fairy go, fairies on the rock!"

The giggling children let go of each other's hands then and spun around each other wildly for a moment, before the eldest gasped and shouted "A fairy! There's a fairy!"

Confused children's eyes turned towards the seven year old first before the followed his gaze and stared at the small figure in the middle of the rock full of curiosity.

Being young, they had no idea what to do. A few ran off to tell their mothers, but most approached the small shape in their middle. It was a man dressed in colorful cloth the likes of which none of them had ever seen. It looked shiny and smooth and the color was more vivid than the rich tax collector that came every five years had worn.

"Hello Mr. Fairy." One of the kids, a girl of maybe 5 years, greeted in a sweet voice.

"Do you have a name? Granny says a fairy name is important." Another child asked immediately after and then ther was a flood of inquiries lasting for a few moments while a shocked 'Mr. Fairy' stared at the children.

That was also the time when several adults came running, concerned about the sudden appearance of a mythical fairy. They were rather superstitious folk, so the existence of the fairy was not an unusual thing to them. After all, fairies brought bad weather when they were enraged and hid their tools as pranks. They painted ice flowers in winter and stole the water from the barrels in summer if they weren't closed properly. The Homestead always placed part of their meals on a tree trunk in the berry bushes as a gift to the fairies, hoping that their local fairies could sweet talk the higher ones into giving them good harvests.

The appearance of a fairy now that these strange screens appeared was significant, of course. No fairy had ever showed itself to anyone except the young children when nobody else was around.

The fairy did something puzzling before the adults could say anything. It spoke in a strange language, probably the fairy language. Next there was a pause and then more words. Finally, his right hand started glowing, startling the people who had never seen fairy magic. Before they could make a decision whether it would be better to run away, the fairy knelt on one knee and pushed his hand on the ground, causing the green stone to glow softly.

Worried adults dragged the children off the rock in a hurry, but they needn't have bothered. Nothing bad happened. A group of fairies arrived, two of them dressed in colorful clothing, one in simple leather garments and the remaining four in tiny armors that looked like they were made by great craftsmen. They looked around for a moment, at the shocked villagers, the truss houses and wooden barns, the sturdy fence on the dirt wall around the homestead and the children wriggling in the adults' arms trying to get a closer look.

Finally, one of the fairies stepped forward while placing an amulet over her head. She was one of the colorful ones, dressed in royal purple robes. Her tiny voice just barely reached the people's ears. "Hi. I hope we didn't surprise you. You can call me Rope."

"We...you..." One of the people started, but they obviously weren't certain what to do, faced with eight fairies at once.

The kids had their own ideas, of course. The cheekiest asked the question he hadn't gotten an answer for before. "Are you here because of the weird paper in our heads?"

The fairy looked slightly startled, then said a few words in that strange fairy language. Then, they all studied the boy, exchanging words the people from the lonely Homestead couldn't understand in quick succession. A woman, clearly worried, bowed towards the group.

"Please forgive him. He didn't mean anything bad." She begged.

To her relief the fairy shook her head with a smile. "Don't worry. We were just surprised."

"Maybe it would be better if the elders talked to them?" One of the men, with a half finished leather shoe in his hand, suggested. Several others nodded in agreement. They were obviously not getting anywhere and if they enraged the fairies they might let their crops whither.