In the Beginning

     I can't remember the day Estellia was born, any more than I can remember the day I was born, but I've pictured it so many times that I feel as though I remember both. 

   Long ago, there was nothing. Just darkness and light, separate and mutually antagonistic. Then, out of the abyss, a soul was born in the place where light and dark come together. It was small, but overtime it grew, and eventually it became our homeland, where humans, monsters, fairies, shadows and sorcerers all live together. 

   I don't remember being told the details. Humans are only ever told the things they need to know in the moment. They aren't told anything that might be useful to them. 

   

      I was born in a human village on the edges of Estellia, close to the border no one goes to. I don't remember much about my time there, I was only there until my tenth birthday. I remember it as a large village, relative to the surrounding towns. It must have been, because how could there have ever been a fair large enough to have vendors selling necklaces? 

   I lived with my mother and father. Our house, from what I recall, only had a single room with a couch and a television. My parents, like ninety-nine percent of the human population, didn't need to sleep or eat. I remember the house being very sparse, my parents made very little money, and almost all of it went to taxes. We were humans, we didn't need food, water, or sleep the way high nightmares did, so why should we have any money? 

    If that were true, I would have been okay. See, I'm the only person I know, human or nightmare, who sleeps on a regular basis. I don't know if it's a weakness exactly, I've never read a book that describes it that way, I only know that if I go for more than three days without sleep I start hallucinating. After day four I collapse, and usually don't wake up again for at least a day. This has made living a normal human life impossible for me. If you sleep more than once a month in most jobs, you'll be fired. But I can't help it. I've tried, but I can't seem to overcome my weakness that's not actually a weakness. 

    I was ten when my parents sold me to Lady Greaves. She wanted someone to look after one of her offices and protect it from theft. My mother said that it was a simple job and if I needed to sleep, I could do so without disturbing anyone. I suspect that she was just glad to get rid of me. No human wants a child who can't protect themselves, and a child who goes unconscious for anywhere from three to eight hours a day is a disgrace. 

    I knew I was going to be found out. All night shifts are expected in human jobs, but staying is something I can't get the hang of. But what choice did I have? I couldn't become a nightmare, I'd already been tested and it was determined that I couldn't attract any power to me at all. I needed to be able to work as a human, and that meant that I had to learn to live without sleep. 

     But I didn't want to learn to live without sleep. Because only in sleep could I visit the Temple of Humanity, the only I had, or will ever have. The temple was where my true power lay, for using it I could see all that could harm humanity, and stop it before it would ever hurt any of us.