Elva was born from the laugh of a baby being licked by their pet dog for the first time. Humans lose the ability to talk to animals at an early age, but babies have a keen innate understanding of them. The dog was saying good morning with lots of love, and thus, Elva was born out of sunshine and happiness. Elva’s flower floated to Neverland by an early springtime breeze, slow and fragrant with the smell of mainland flowers. 

After a full day’s journey, Elva arrived at a small corner of Neverland called Pixie Hollow. When she awoke at her talent choosing ceremony, she had hair matching her dandelion fluff dress. It was as pure as her true heart, and as white as the fur of the dog whose joy helped create her. A glowing yellow fairy queen greeted her and instructed her to approach or hold the items placed on mushrooms by various fairies. The items, the queen said, would help decide her talent. After no luck with a water droplet and green leaf, she migrated to a nearby egg. Before even touching it, the egg shot out sparks of light and glowed as bright as the sun. Quickly after, a group of fairies and sparrowmen swooped her up by the arms, chattering away like loud songbirds about how she would fit right in based on how bright her egg glowed. “The brightest in years!” one had said. Immediately, she felt they misjudged her talent. All she had done was approach an egg, after all. She wanted to sink away from the attention they gave her. One sparrowman huffed proudly, “And there I was, looking at Frost, who immediately thought she had this one! Not today! A true animal talent, this little one is”. He wrapped an arm around her and ruffled the hair on top of her head. Elva wanted to crawl away. Were they always this…close? Outgoing? Outspoken? Surely this wouldn’t be her new family…  

Time passed, and slowly her hesitant heart grew more open to the animal talent family. She was never as loud as the others, no, but she would chuckle lightly at their jokes. She would smile brightly at new teachings from her mentor, Cricket, and eagerly take notes in a green leaf journal, writing all there was to learn about caring for animals. They invited her to anything and everything, and when she wasn’t whispering to the ladybugs or cooing to the baby birds, she’d make an appearance. She grew close with two other animal talents: Mahogany, an outspoken fairy who knew how to interpret Elva’s emotions, and Lark, a sparrowman who was much braver than Elva ever could be. on any one day, you could find him ruffing it with the most harrowing of beasts. She felt both made up where she lacked, and together the three were a formidable team. It was with them that her trait of loyalty blossomed. 

Beyond the animal talents, she felt she didn’t understand most of the other talents, or really want to. and unfortunately that often outcasted her. The Fast Flying fairies felt too blunt, the Light fairies too active, the Tinker fairies too scarily intelligent, Water too passive, Garden too picky, Frost too chilly, and Dust too bound by rules. Instead of learning from them, she would often venture into the wild to find more animal friends. The phrase “Where’s Elva?” became increasingly common. 

In her first visit to the mainland, the passing of spring to summer, this came to a head and Elva had to address a real problem. In the journey to the mainland, pixies must rely on each other. instead of knowing and helping the other talents like the other animal talents, she zipped off to find the closest guppy to guide it down a stream. This was her first chance to contribute to the changing season, and that meant she wanted to prove her worth and the expectation of her strong talent. She and a water talent soon argued heatedly about how the weak guppy needed help, and both quickly ended up swimming for dear life because of poor Elva, drenched and unable to fly. Grounded, drying while the other animal talents zipped and zoomed to change to help change to summer, she teared up. Mahogany stopped by and placed a warm hand on her back. “Months of work and teachings, and at the first opportunity I’ve failed. I’m not good enough of a talent to go to the mainland. I’m never coming back.” Mahogany sighed at her, “Elva, you’re wonderful. you’re the rarest animal talent we’ve seen! What matters now is not your understanding of all critters, it’s your understanding of us." Elva cocked her head. Mahogany continued, “We never judged you, maybe you should learn to let go of your judgments of them.” She gestured to the zooming fairies. 

After that event, Elva found ways to truly love the other talents. In all ways, they were connected to her animal friends. The bees and Garden talents, the guppies and Water, the fireflies and Light, the mice and Tinkers. She reconnected to that kindness she was born from. Any time the other talents struggled to “get” their animal counterparts, their first call immediately went to Elva. She now had a way with both animals and fairies. Romantic and observant, she often sang to everyone in a singsong tone. When she felt others didn’t understand her, she’d switch to speaking in poems about animals. Did that help? surely not, but it gave the others a good laugh. 

Elva became an animal talent beyond her years, able to tame beasts with help of Lark and their wild adventures together, and able to read and translate the relationship of all things in the world. She could tell you how many weeks tadpoles had to grow based on the temperature of the water, the fit of a tree to a squirrel's nest based on its foliage, the life and death of all things due to the season. She became a nurturer, a student of nature. 

Elva soon grew to the belief that fairies were made to support the higher-minded animals. She always preached the lessons to be learned from animal-kind. Sometimes, she would only comment on people by describing their “aura”. Some called her wise, some called her crazy. but one thing was for sure, when she entered a room, people looked. 

Elva was no longer alone. She had friends by the dozen, purpose, and peace. She enjoyed the pixie events (geese fly in a flock, after all!). She tested her knowledge with the storytelling talents, then took up plant-based baking with the baking talents. Things were looking up, and her next adventure awaited her.