Laughhood, part 2

TheCuriousSeed

Part 2 has entered the building!

~"Oh, for the love of Neverland, Daylily!" exclaimed Holly after Daylily answered, face tear-stained. "Did you have the Arrival dream again?"

~"But this time everyone taunted me!" wailed Daylily.

~"Daylily, you can't keep this up; sooner or later you'll have to visit the Fairy Circle to receive your Second Year cupcake and for the love of Neverland, please don't cry this year."

~"Does this look like the face that can keep such a promise?!" Daylily sobbed, pointing to her tear-stained face, once again welling with tears. "Besides, that's not even for four more days!"

~"Yoo-hoo!" called Jessie as she flew towards Holly and Daylily. "C'mon, the -jewel sisters and Lenora are about to perform a show for us!"

~"Here's hoping that'll take your mind off you-know-what," said Holly.

~I will not cry at the show, Daylily willed herself once at the production. Not today. Not again.

~Pearl began by grabbing some water. Pearl had quite the imagination, but since Lenora often preferred that at least one Wintry Storyteller help her in story time and a Water Talent for the watery scenes to add to the realism, what better pair than the -jewel sisters?

~"I wonder what today's tale will be?" asked Jessie.

~The tale was of the finest ever Scout named Winda Quickwing, known for her deeds from saving Pixie Hollow from wasps to protecting Pixie Hollow from ants. Alas, Winda perished and to honour her, a constellation of her formed in the Neverland sky. Although most Scouts weren't faced with such large battles nor did most perish in said battles, it was agreed that Winda was the finest, most diligent Scout ever to live, ever to sacrifice her life to save the Hollow.

~Daylily knew the tale well, but it wasn't done, for the tale segued into when Pixie Hollow lost all manner of Pixie Dust to a raging fire, even the backup plans. Kyto was responsible for leading to the use of Fairy Dust instead because if not for him, Mother Dove would still be an ordinary dove with no more sentience than such. Mother Dove's feathers indeed were not fireproof, but they didn't hurt at all… in fact, the fire gave Mother Dove sentience and magic in her feathers. She had become the new Head Matriarch of Pixie Hollow with Queen Clarion as Queen and co-mother. Since then, Fairy Dust had been used until a way to make new Pixie Dust arose and now Neverfairies could make dust from almost any dove feathers after  fresh moult.

~Finally came the tale of the Winter Woods and how it formed.

~Long ago, the Winter Woods didn't exist because Neverland was in a perpetual late spring, no  summer heat, no autumn colours, no winter snow, just a comfortably warm spring. Fairies did exist in Neverland, but everyone belonged to the warm talents until a great snow came. Many fairies felt cold and hid in their homes for warmth, but almost none survived. Fortunately, there was still belief in the air, so the fairies that remained were glad to see a new Laugh, but this Laugh wasn't landing in the warm areas, it landed where no one in Neverland knew before, then the Laugh formed into a few trillion bits, all becoming the first Wintry Fairies. After some time Pixie Hollow needed different seasons, ergo Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter came, along with the Lord of Winter and a Minister per season, in that order.

~All was well until Pixie Hollow warmed from Kyto's presence. The Winter Woods was in danger of dying away, and with it the Winter Fairies. Thankfully even with dragons still in Neverland, the land was able to readjust and regain Pixie Hollow's four seasons and Winter Fairies. Since then, new fairies were born often of all seasons.

~When the show was over, Daylily managed to keep her promise not to cry. She did, however, wonder about the dream she had the night before. What did it mean? Why now, just days from her Second Arrival Anniversary? Was she going batty? She just had to know more, so she flew to the Book Nook in hopes for new answers.

~At the Book Nook, Daylily found a new book about Laughs and looked inside. She saw a Laugh leaving an infant, colliding with a dandelion and floating off to Neverland, forming into a fairy with only one side glowing. Another fairy was blind, another deaf and still another mute. One had only her upper pair of wings, one only her lower and one had broken wings, so she couldn't fly safely. The further Daylily perused, the more she realised this was a book of Incomplete Laughs. Every single page had an Incomplete fairy until she reached the last page, which was about Prilla, the only Complete fairy in the book.

~But Prilla is Overcomplete, Daylily thought. Wait, the Keeper didn't write this.

~Of course the Keeper didn't write the book about Incompletion… at least, not the one featuring the Incomplete (except Prilla) when they were still Laughs. It was actually written by…

~"You wrote this?" Daylily asked the taller Silver as she entered the Book Nook.

~"I had a dream last night of all the fairies deemed Incomplete that came to Neverland," admitted the taller Silver. "So I figured, why not write about them?"

~"And here I was thinking I'd find answers to why the last time I had the Arrival dream it ended badly."

~Silver then handed Daylily a small book that described Daylily's Arrival Day. Daylily looked through and found a disturbing part: everything Daylily dreamt was true, even the bad parts… but it had a happy ending: both Silvers and Pearl as well as Elva, Jessie, Heidi, Xenops and Gloriosa befriended her. Even Phoebe and her sisters were there. Lenora, Primrose and Gardenia were there too. Hickory was still a Laugh. Daylily began to cry, then hugged Silver to thank her for the answers she wanted.

~Daylily's Arrival Anniversary was now here and she was excited! She put on one of her favourite orange outfits and went about doing her Scouting duties when...

~Why today? Daylily thought as she saw not one, not two, not even three, four, five, six or seven, but eight hawks in the sky! Daylily flew to alert the other Scouts for backup, then sounded the hawk alarm eight times.

~"I can't even remember when Neverland had more than three hawks at once!" exclaimed Phoebe.

~"All non-Scouts take cover!" called Holly.

~While the non-Scouts took cover, one hawk saw a New Arrival on his way to the hawk sighting.

~He and his tour guide better be Scouts, thought Daylily as she flew towards the hawks.

~As the non-Animal Scouts threw stuff at the hawks to try driving them away, Daylily took Holly hand in hand and each rode a hawk, driving the hawks back to hawk territory. Daylily and Holly did this two by two until all eight hawks were away... but Daylily knew those hawks were just the first danger as she heard a rhumba of rattlesnakes nearing Pixie Hollow! Was this predator day?! Finally, Daylily and Holly returned the rhumba back to rattlesnake territory.

~"Here's hoping we don't have any other predators coming this way," said Holly.

~But there was one last predator on his way here...

~"A scorpion!" cried Holly as she flew away.

~This was no ordinary scorpion, though; this particular scorpion was large even for an emperor scorpion, but this was an Asian forest scorpion, a little less docile. Daylily knew this scorpion had to go.

~"What're you doing here in Pixie Hollow?" Daylily asked the scorpion in his native language.

~But the scorpion shot his stinger towards Daylily, just missing by three millimetres.

~Daylily let the huge scorpion chase her until he was back among his kind, then she warned him and his nest not to return to Pixie Hollow because there were Scouts that would hurt predators if they had to, including scorpions.

~That takes care of the predators, Daylily thought before hearing a swarm of huge wasps. Except the giant wasps!

~There was no way Pixie Hollow would be safe even with Daylily trying to steer these huge hornets away.

Where did these huge hornets come from? Stay tuned for Part 3.