Interview with Princesses Sebbille and Tatiana, #5
Since the end of the story, Sebby has recovered well, no longer having any 'darkness' troubling her. Along with Tats and Lilly, plus a load of help from Elida down in the Dark Archive, they have researching the history of what happened: the problem is that the Dark Archive is a big place, and there's a LOT of books to read to understand things, so whilst they know most of the story, there's still a few holes that need filling.
However, the young fairies felt VERY strongly that the story should be told to the wider fairy public, and what better way to do that than for two fairy princesses to appear on a primetime Saturday evening interview show, on the 'Fairy One' channel......
------
"Princess Tatiana and Princess Sebille, thank you both SO much for coming to talk with us - we know so little about you, Princess Sebille" started the interviewer.
As a result of Lilly's comments in her earlier interview, plus pressure from Lilly, Tats and Sebby (plus, I suspect, the Queen herself) TPTB had decided that Lilly was right, enough time had passed, and that maybe it WAS time to be honest about the hidden fairy history. The big question was of course, how to tell that history, without there being finger-pointing and accusations of a cover-up.
It was Sebby herself who suggested that maybe SHE should tell the story, especially as it was her desire to hopefully open up the Palace ruins as a place where fairies could learn more about what happened.
Sebby was a little nervous: I mean, when she was originally alive, TV hadn't even been invented. So Tats had offered to go with her for this rather important interview. Tats was in a useful position: everyone just assumed that she was a princess, and did princess things, when in reality, she worked alongside Lilly at FI5.
"Thank you for inviting me."
"The big question that everyone asks is 'who exactly ARE you'?"
"You know, that's a very good question" said Tats, "and one that Princess Sebille WILL explain in a moment. But first, I need to explain a bit of history to you, it's a story that was so shocking that it was actually erased from fairy history. And that's why we're both here, to help explain that story...."
"Ok, do go on..."
"We need to go back in history a long way, about a hundred human years ago, just after their 'Great War' had ended. Back then our National Fairy Palace was in the Runesvale Forest. The town that is there is now called Runesdale, but place names change: the forest was the Runesvale Forest, with a 'v' in the middle. The palace was massive, apparently comparable to, if not bigger than, some of the many Royal Palaces over in Europe. By comparison, the curent palace is quite small, but the old palace was also home to much of the fairy operations and government, which is now housed in different places."
"We used to have another, bigger, palace? I must admit, I've never heard of this"
"You won't have done, so do let me continue the story, and I hope things will start to make a bit more sense. So, from the human's perspective, the Runesvale Forest was 'owned' by two brothers, who decided that they needed to expand their farm. To do that, they hired some very big machines, which they used to destroy a part of the forest, which gave them more land to grow their crops, and expand the farm. What they didn't realise - because it was completely invisible to them - was that a clearing in the middle of the forest was the location of our old Fairy Palace. Whilst Princess Sebille was practicing her magic in the Palace cellars, those human brothers were, completely without knowing, about to destroy the Fairy Palace"
There were audible gasps from the audience.
"But surely the fairies in the palace could see what was happening, and could have done something about it?"
"I must explain that our current understanding of what actually happened is very limited, it comes from a very small number of books that have been hidden away for a LONG time. Yes, the fairies realised what was happening. And maybe with modern magic, they might have stopped the brothers. They tried using all sorts of magic, but the older style of magic simply wasn't a match for the huge machines that the humans were using. So, after trying for a while, the decision was taken to evacuate the Palace. Remember, we are talking about many HUNDREDS of fairies. Whilst many fairies managed to safely escape before the devastation - and managed to magic out a lot of important information - many fairies did NOT escape, and that included Princess Sebille, along with a small number of her friends, all of whom were trapped in the cellars."
"Oh my goodness" said the interviewer, "that sounds absolutely terrible. But.... how DID you survive?" she asked Sebby, who took up the story.
"There were six of us in the cellars. We heard the noise, and went into the - by now rather dusty - corridor to find out what was happening, only to discover we were trapped. The way upstairs was via some stairs further down the corridor, all of which had collapsed. There was a door that led outside, but that was also completely blocked. We assumed that we would be rescued, and rescued fairly quickly, but that wasn't to be: it seems that there was a LOT of collapsed palace on top of us." explained Sebby.
"The documents we found indicate that the fairies searched the site for days: they were able to retrieve a few useful things, plus found a couple of badly injured fairies. They finally accepted that Sebille and her sister Rose, along with a large number of other fairies, had died that day" added Tats.
"But you hadn't died, you were still trapped in that celler?" said the interviewer.
"Yes, that's right. For the next four days we tried all sorts of things to get out, but Palaces have a lot of protection spells built into the mere fabric of the building - we couldn't do any magic at all outside of our practice room, and the magic we were able to do inside the practice room was very limited. We had no food or water, and were unable to magic up any either. After several days, we were getting weak, and my 5 friends sacrificed themselves in the hope that I could live and be found. We found a spell that we would be able to use, to put me into a deep sleep: the hope was that I would survive long enough to be rescued."
"Of course, over the following years, a new Palace, and fairy offices, were built: the decision was taken to build on several different locations, so that such a catastrophy could never happen again" explained Tats
"It turns out that I would never be rescued: it seems that I slept for about one hundred years: I'm not quite sure why I did finally wake up, but when I did, I had a terrible headache, and I felt angry. VERY angry. It seems that when magical things get destroyed, the good magic just evaporates, leaving a great darkness. And the Palace was FULL of HUGE amounts of magic. I had slept in a very dark and angry palace for a hundred years, a palace angry that the humans had destroyed it. It felt that they should be punished for what they did. And I woke up feeling exactly the same!"
"But weren't you still trapped inside the Palace cellars?"
"That's the strange thing: by the time I woke up, the palace had somehow built an 'escape route' for me, so I was able to get outside. I was able to drink from a tiny nearby stream, plus forrage for some food to eat. My strength slowly returned , and I realised that I needed to go and exact revenge on the humans, for what they had done to me, to my palace, in fact to all of fairy-kind. And I think you all know by now what I did over the next week or so!"
"Yes, there have been a few stories circulating, about you fitting braces to people..."
"And I will admit to have done everything those stories describe, and a bit more they didn't know to include! In fact my first few victims didn't get braces, I just did some nasty things to their teeth... cavities and stuff"
"But surely there weren't braces when you were... well, when you were alive?"
"True! As I ventured further, I discovered the humans had built a new town, and once there, my tooth fairy insticts led me to the dentist, and then to the orthodontist.... and I'm a fast learner! And those metal braces, and the facebows and facemasks that go with the braces... they are so shiny and sparkly... and the young humans didn't seem to like them too much either. It was like a red rag to a bull! At the time, it was such fun to give those humans a mouth full of shiny metal that they would be unable to remove!"
There was a bit of a pause while the interviewer worked out how to pose her next question.
"The story you tell of the fairy Palace being destroyed is a very sad one, but I am very confused, as I susppect everyone in the audience here is: why do we know absolutely NOTHING about this? How can such a major part of fairy history... how do I put this... seem to have never happened? Princess Tatianna, I believe that you might be able to help explain this to us?"
"Yes, I'll try.". Tat's waved a wand, and a very large and old book appeared in her hands: this was the same handwritten book that Lilly had found down in the Dark Archive, that first time she had visited it with her mum. "Almost everything we know comes from this book, it's hand-written, and it was hidden away long ago. Clearly, after the initial shock of what happened, fairykind was, shall we say 'not too happy with the humans', and there was a growing feeling that something should be done to somehow 'punish the evil humans'. Princess Sebille's parents - the then King and Queen - were however very astute: they understood that this had not been an attack by human-kind, but that it was a massive mistake by two brothers. So what could they do? If they did nothing, there was no doubt that there would have been a massive and bloody war with the humans... and to be honest, a war which fairykind could never hope to win. So they hatched a plan for the biggest 'cover-up' ever known by fairy-kind: a small team of elite fairies designed what I can only describe as 'audacious magic': they planned to simply wipe the memory of what had happened from all the fairys' memories".
Tats paused, to let the enormity of what she had just explained sink in.
"So, the plan was carried out, and it worked: according to this book, a tiny handful of fairies were left, who knew what had actually happened. They were highly trusted, and never said a word about what had happened. But a bloody war was indeed averted... and we still live happily alongside the humans."
"That is a shocking story..."
"Isn't it just? But I can understand why they did it - we probably wouldn't be here if they hadn't. But a LONG time has passed since then. Those that carried it out died a long time ago. There has been a LOT of discussion about whether we should even tell the story now, but once Princess Sebille found out the whole story, she was quite insistent that it MUST be told. And with several of us younger fairies who were involved, hinting that we might just leak the story anyway - in spite of what could happen if we did so - the 'powers that be' finally agreed with us." explained Tats.
"So, I guess we'll all be finding out more of the details of what happened, will we?"
"Indeed you will" replied Sebby. "I have decided that it will be my job to find out everything I can about my history - OUR history - and share it. We are in discussion with the Old Palace to let us open the ruined cellars up, and make it a place of memories. We also need to see if there are any more books like this one, that might tell more of the story. It was a very sad day for us fairies, but one that we now need to remember."
