What I Needed To Hear [2025 Book's Nook Writing Contest Entry]

PineNeedles

❆ What I Needed To Hear ❆

[2025 Book's Nook Writing Contest Entry]

            “Mmm, is it that time already?”

            Munching on a bag of frosty popcorn, Carrie observed a small crowd of winter fairies gathering a little out in the distance from her home abode. The longer she watched, the more fairies came to join the crowd. Not that Carrie was surprised or anything, she was fairly nearby a common winter fairy hangout area.

            She figured that this must be a celebration among a large group of fairies for their delivery of the winterseason on the Mainland a few days ago. With winter being successfully delivered to the Mainland, the winter fairies get the chance to relax for a while after their arduous preparation work and long night traveling.

            Making sure she wasn’t seen by other fairies, Carrie adjusted a little bit as she continued to watch the group of fairies slowly grow over time as they mingled and frolicked with each other, until finally the entire group began to follow one sparrow man – a designated leader, she supposed – out of Carrie’s sight.

            “Aw, too bad. There goes my entertainment,” Carrie said to herself playfully, revealing herself out in the open right outside her home. But her gaze still rested where she was previously looking.

            Must be nice… she thought to herself.

            Carrie caught herself and shook her head, as if she was shaking away the stray thought.

            “Silly Carrie, that doesn’t matter. I’m doing just fine by myself.”

            A few months have passed since Carrie had first arrived in Pixie Hollow. Despite this, she was still the newest frost-talent fairy among the winter fairies. Fairy arrivals were rarer these days, and the new fairies that have come after Carrie were all warm-seasoned talents. Even though cold-season talents can cross over to the warmer seasons and be completely fine, in contrast to the Never fairy history, Carrie was rather fond of the cold and preferred to stay in the colder seasons.

            The cold was familiar to her. It was comfortable.

            Within the time spent at Pixie Hollow, Carrie hasn’t really interacted with the other winter fairies too much.It wasn’t like she was too shy to approach them – she can easily approach anyone just fine with no problem. However, the last few fairies she tried to befriends with… It didn’t matter now, though. The last thing that Carrie wanted was to scare off some fairies with her habits. She would be a bother for sure.

            The only fairy that Carrie has remotely become acquainted with was a star-counting-talent sparrow man named Pine Stareye, who was only a year older than she was. Them meeting had only happened because Pine had gotten lost in the winter meadows while exploring and Carrie had helped him get back to familiar territory. Carrie was quite fond of Pine’s presence and stuck around him a lot whenever he was around, but she wasn’t sure if he felt the same in return.

            Probably not.

            Speaking of Pine, Carrie had made him promise her the other day to help him out with something today. The only problem with that, though, is that since Pine’s talent involves observing and documenting the stars, he tends to have a much different sleep schedule than Carrie’s. Meaning that when Carrie was awake in the morning, Pine wouldn’t dare to be awake until around noon.

            Carrie took note of the sun’s position in the sky when she was watching the group earlier. It was still dawn, and Pine wouldn’t be up for another good number of hours. That was a bummer for Carrie.

            Until then, Carrie had to find something else to do in the meantime…

••❆••

            Lingering shades of pink still glimmered on the snow from the rising sun when Carrie went outside to observe it. The beautiful glistening of the snow was one of Carrie’s favorite aspects of the winter seasons.

            It truly wasn’t appreciated as much as it should be.

            After juggling between multiple ideas on what to do until Pine was awake, Carrie had ultimately decided on exploring the winter meadows a bit since she hadn’t gotten the chance to do so as much until now. Carrie was familiar with Pixie Hollow’s layout by now and the general buildings within the meadows, but she still hadn’t explored every corner of winter yet. She had already seen so many wonderful places already… who knows what else is out there?

            Besides, not many winter fairies are confident enough to explore all the winter meadows. Carrie was astonished to find out that a lot of the Winter Woods was unexplored because many fairies were too scared to or just didn’t want to find out. Maybe it was Carrie’s young spirit, but she was willing to try to become the first fairy to have explored all the corners of winter.

            Now with winter being delivered on the Mainland and the winter fairies being given a break, Carrie finally had some free time to work on this goal of hers.

            Carrie looked around at her surroundings and compared it to a map of the Winter Woods she had acquired from the Hall of Winter. She could have used the map she received from her Arrival Day, but this one was much more detailed and only focused on the winter meadows instead of the entirety of Pixie Hollow. Looking up and down, Carrie noted that she was a north of Frosted Forest like she was hoping.

            There was a supposedly rumored lake that had been frozen over somewhere north of the Frosted Forest meadow that had gorgeous frozen bubbles encased in the ice. There were a few of these on the Mainland, but this was the only one rumored to be in Pixie Hollow. Based on the detailed map she has, Carrie was sure that this lake was probably up here. She was determined to find it.

            Not a single footprint can be spotted in Carrie’s field of vision, the snow was as smooth as still water. Carrie had a feeling that no fairy had ever stepped here before, or at least not for a very long time. Putting on a rebellious grin, Carrie leaped onto the snow and walked around a bit until she made a “C” shape with her footsteps.

            Carrie flew up a bit to view her work.

            “Ha, maybe I made history by being the first fairy to step here!” she said aloud.

            Carrie looked around at the empty area around her. Perhaps this would be more fun if someone else was here too…

            It hadn’t occurred to Carrie how quiet this part of the Winter Woods was. Aside from the occasional owl and birdcalls, there wasn’t any other noise that Carrie could pick up. It was kind of eerie, and for some reason it wasn’t soothing her at all.

            Carrie shook her head again, “Ugh, I’m overthinking things again. Time to keep going!”

            Before Carrie was able to continue her pursuit of the frozen bubbled lake, a soft wind brushed by her. It’s not unordinary for the wind to pick up in the Winter Woods, but there was something different about this one.

            There was a whisper hidden inside.

            Carrie looked up and around the meadow. Just like before, she didn’t see anything she hadn’t seen before. She for sure heard something, though… right?

            “Is… anyone around?” Carrie asked out loud, still looking around for a sign of another fairy nearby. The trees weren’t too thick around here, and from what she could tell, there weren’t any other fairies.

            Silence was the only thing that answered Carrie.

            Maybe I just heard things. Why would there be someone all the way out here? Then again, I’m all the way out here…

            Shrugging off the sound but still staying wary, Carrie refocused on her quest to find the lake and began to fly deeper in the woods. Not after a minute of flying, however, she heard it again.

            “Okay, seriously, who is there?” Carrie asked again, a bit louder this time.

            She still couldn’t make any words out from the voice, but this time it seemed louder… In fact, this time it also sounded a bit different too. But why?

            Another gust of wind blew past Carrie’s ear.

            “…”

            Carrie turned towards the direction the wind came from. Maybe whatever she was hearing was coming from the source of the wind.

            Ah, I could follow the wind and see what it is… but that’s off the course for my exploration destination…

            Contemplating whether she should abandon her quest for the newfound mysterious discovery, another gust of wind came by.

            “… come…”

            “Hmm… well, the mysterious wind has spoken to me and is requesting for me to follow it. If this isn’t a sign to check it out, then the sign simply doesn’t exist. You win, mysterious wind. I’ll follow you to my potential doom,” Carrie said.

            Diverting from the course she wa soriginally taking, Carrie followed the wind.

••❆••

            “Huh… So, the mysterious wind took me to a cave…”

            After following the direction the wind came from, Carrie found herself standing in front of an entrance to a cave that was hidden inside a hollowed-out tree stump.

            If it wasn’t for the soft wind emanating from the inside whispering to Carrie, she probably would have never found it. To her surprise, Carrie noticed that the wind was warm rather than cold, despite the inside of the cave appearing to be made from deep blue ice.

            Whispers seemed to overlap each other to the point where Carrie couldn’t distinguish what was being said, butwhat interested Carrie the most was the fact that the volume of these whispers did not increase as she got closer to the cave. Hypothetically that should be the case, but it was clearly defying all fairy logic.

            That just made Carrie more interested.

            “Maybe I should leave a note here in case something happens, and I don’t ever leave this cave… or I could go in recklessly and never have my body be discovered for centuries…” Carrie contemplated a bit before shaking her head again.

            “Ah, who cares. Who’s going to miss me if I disappear anyways? Into the cave I go!”

            With one deep inhale, Carrie strode into the cave.

            A strange warmth immediately encased Carrie as soon as she descended deeper into the cave, as if she had walked into the summer meadows instead. Icy walls were speckled with a soft, pink glow emanating from deeper within the cave. Curious, Carrie caressed the wall and was equally surprised when the icy walls were warm to the touch.

            Continuing further into the cave, Carrie noticed an opening farther down. Dying to know what was past it, she quickened her pace.

            And burst through the opening.

            What met Carrie’s eyes was a spectacle she had never imagined to be possible.

            Lining the icy walls were large crystals, as if Carrie had walked inside an enchanted geode. Fragments were glowing with colorful hues of playful pinks, serene purples, mysterious blues, glittering golds, and probably a thousand more colors that a light- or mining-talent would be able to identify over a frost-talent like Carrie.

            However, the most dazzling part of this place was what was on the crystals.

            Each crystal face had images of fairies on them. No… images wasn’t the right word… they were more like memories encased in crystals, similar to how fortune tellers would see visions in crystal balls.

            “What is this place…” Carrie mumbled aloud as she examined the memories.

            Visions of fairies having tea parties, practicing their talent-work, decorating their houses, attending plays, playing talent games… Carrie could easily lose count of how many memories there are in this place.

            Her hand instinctively reached up to touch one of the crystals before she realized she was doing so and immediately discovered something else absolutely bizarre about this cave.

            “Where are we going to go next, Karina?” a fairy wearing a sparkly sunflower dress asked as she followed another fairy ahead of her, sporting a pink tulip-inspired gown with blue accent pieces.

            “To the Ballroom, of course! Did you hear? They redecorated it for Animal Mother’s Day!” the other fairy responded, turning around to face the other fairy.

            The other fairy smiled, revealing a set of dimples. “Wow! Do you think they will have animals there? I’ve always wanted to meet a real baby owl!”

            “If we don’t, then let’s go find a baby owl together!” Karina responded, and the two of them giggled.

            Carrie removed her hand from the crystal, and the sounds of the fairies’ laughter disappeared.

            Interesting, Carrie thought amazed, as long as I am touching the crystal, I can hear the memory as if I’m really there!

            I wonder… what other memories do these crystals possess?

            Looking around, Carrie decided on her next victim and touched the crystal face.

            “Hey there, do you want to play Pass the Popcorn with us? We’re looking for some fairies so we can make a really big group!” A sparrow man asked after walking up to a duo of fairies. They all seemed to be in one of the spring meadows, perhaps Treetop Bend.

            “Wow, that sounds like fun! But… I’ve never actually played that game before. Is it easy?” One of the fairies asked, looking over at her friend who was finishing braiding her long red hair.

            The redheaded fairy nodded. “Easy and super fun! I’ll sit next to you so I can help you out. Let’s go!”

            Relieved to have found more players for his ultimate Pass the Popcorn championship game, the sparrow man led the two recruits over to another group out of sight.

            Carrie’s smiled faltered as she watched the group of the fairies disappear. These fairies felt very similar to the group of winter fairies she was watching earlier that day. Friendly, chatty, playful, welcoming…

            Happy…

            “Get your mind out of that zone, Carrie,” she said, shaking her head once again as she caught herself, “There are plenty of fairies who are destined to not have friends like me…”

            There’s got to be.

            With a newfound mission to find a memory that Carrie could relate to, she began looking through the crystals. Just one… There has to be at least just one…

            More and more memories flooded Carrie’s ears as she listened to the adventures of the fairies of the past, yearning to find someone who doesn’t have a friend. More and more memories were showing Carrie that all of the fairies in Pixie Hollow were friends with each other and were having good memories with each other. More and more memories were proving her wrong… More and more… More… and… more…

            No matter how many memories Carrie listened to, they were all happy, fun memories with friends.

            This can’t be… Please…

            Carrie fell down onto her knees in disbelief.

            Isn’t there anyone else out there alone like me?

            She collapsed onto the floor, cradling herself into a ball, resisting from having tears flow down on her face, feeling the warmth from the cave’s walls radiate onto her skin.

            The warmth was unfamiliar to her… But she wanted it.

            Maybe those fairies were right after all… I’m just too weird…

            “Excuse me… I hope I’m not bothering you…”

            Carrie opened her eyes, wondering who else could have possibly come down in the cave. Glancing around, she noted that she was still the only one in the cave. Maybe she had imagined it…

            “…No, no, that’s okay…”

            A second voice? In response to the first voice…? What if…

            Carrie looked down onto the ground and noticed a large memory of two fairies across the ground that she was kneeling on. Her hands were placed firmly on the ground.

            “Oh… I should have figured the ground would have a memory as well…” Carrie wondered aloud. She must have activated it when she touched it.

            With a sigh, she motioned to get up from the ground.

            “I… don’t want to be alone…”

            Carrie froze, only her eyes moving towards the memory placed in front of her, her focus instantly on the vision before her.

            A fairy with long, dark hair was sitting on the ground inside a hollowed-out tree stump, appearing to be deep within the Autumn Forest. A sparrow man was standing outside the tree stump, looking at her from outside.

            “You don’t?” The sparrow man questioned, looking around the meadow before returning his gaze on her, “I hate to be the bringer of bad news, but this isn’t really the best place to not be alone…”

            The fairy didn’t respond and continued staring at the forest floor. With a worried expression on his face, the sparrow man sat outside the tree stump.

            “My name is Sage. Sage Nickelwish. I’m a leaf-talent. I paint a lot of the leaves on the Mainland… I saw your bright orange shoes peeking out here while collecting berries for paint,” he paused, giving the fairy time to process his words. “Can I ask you… why are you here if you don’t want to be alone?”

            The fairy shuffled her position a little bit.

            “Because… I don’t have any friends. Not anymore… I had a fight with my only friend, and now I don’t know what to do. She told me she didn’t want to be my friend anymore… I’m alone now.”

            “Hm... so, why don’t you go make some new friends?” Sage asked.

            “I don’t deserve friends. Besides, no one seems interested. I don’t blame them.”

            Thinking about how to answer, Sage then turned to look up at the trees above them.

            “It does seem like that, doesn’t it? The fairies of Pixie Hollow… there’s so many different kinds of personalities here, it’s impossible to get along with everyone. But even so, there is one fairy that everyone absolutely needs to get along with…”

            “Huh?” The fairy asked.

            “Are you friends with yourself?” Sage asked.

            “My… myself? What does that mean?”

            The fairy inched a little bit closer out of the hollowed-out tree stump, not sure where the stranger was going with this question.

            “If you aren’t friends with yourself, then you aren’t ever going to allow others to see the best side of you. Right now, you’re selling me this idea – an absurd idea, by the way – that you deserve to be alone, but you truly don’t want to be. So, give yourself the proper chance to show others that you don’t want to be alone. You will find the fairies that are your true friends eventually. Don’t give up on yourself just because one fairy didn’t like you.”

            The fairy, now looking at Sage straight in the eyes, was listening intently.

            “…Is… is that going to work?”

            “Only if you truly believe it will.”

            With a soft smile now on her face, the fairy exited from the hollowed-out tree stump. Facing the sparrow man, she gave him a determined nod before flying away.

            The memory became blurred, and Carrie realized that it was because a couple of tears had fallen right on top of the memory. Hastily she wiped away the tears to see what happened next, but the memory had faded away already.

            “Be my own friend…” Carrie repeated faintly.

            Thinking back on it, her breakup with her first friends was probably when she stopped being her own friend after the group felt like she was too weird to hang out with. Carrie didn’t quite understand what they meant by “weird” in that context, but she figured her hobbies of fairy-watching others, her tendency to tease others, and ambitious personality to seek out danger might have been the issue, so she tried to suppress those to just herself whenever she was with the other frost-talents.

            “Maybe I did shut down too quickly after that, huh…” Carrie said to herself, looking at her own reflection where the memory used to be.

            Becoming friends with people is going to take time, and that’s probably why Pine hasn’t warmed up to me yet… But if I keep looking and share my true personality, I have a good feeling I will be able to find lifelong friends one day.

            Hoisting herself up off of the ground, Carrie shook the blood circulation back into her legs after kneeling for so long and then took a deep sigh.

            “Right then, time to put it into practice! Perhaps I’ll ask Pine about that weekly fashion event he mentioned the other day…” Carrie said with a smile as she departed from the cave.

••❆••

AFTERWORD: Hope everyone enjoyed the story! I wanted to put the spotlight on Carrie, so I created a little lore for her. I'm happy to say that after the events in this story, I imagine that Carrie is success with her quest to find friends, including pestering Pine some more. Anyways, thanks for reading!