The Cracks in the System

     How does a human with the abilities of a Midnight Nightmare go unnoticed?

    A Nighttime vendor tells me that he met a human from the human realm. They live in a paradise, so they are always powerless. A great deal of effort is expended by Nightmares from every realm to keep power from going their way. 

   I can find no evidence of a human from the Fairy realms that was unaccounted for, that night last week. I've checked with the Sorcerer and Monster realms. I don't want to go to the shadow realm yet, because I know James will be on my case for dismissing him. I'm beginning to think that he might have been right. 

    If this is a human from the human realm, then something's gone horribly wrong. I've been hearing grumblings, because they have a largely homeless population and not enough houses. Power isn't just used for Nightmares to torment them after all, it's used to keep Estellia real. They say they don't have enough. Most of us, myself included, think that it's just a ploy for more power. 

    Yet I'm now facing the real possibility that a Midnight Nightmare was born there, where one ought to have never seen one. 

The Humans of Fairyland

     I don't understand why James is insisting on putting wanted posters everywhere. I know, it hurts when your defeated by a human that's stronger then you were expecting, but that's part of life in Fairyland. I don't see why he thinks it's such a big deal. 

   Frankly, I'm surprised it's taken him until now to be defeated by a human. I'm a child of business people who spared no expense making sure I knew how to defend myself and I've been taken out by humans more than a few times. They don't have power on their own, but instinct can be much stronger then you'd expect it to be. Even humans that don't sleep a lot can be a threat. 

   But because of a Shadow's wounded pride, I have to fend off people demanding to know why wanted posters for a random human are everywhere. He keeps saying he has to get her for the greater good, but I don't think that he realizes the greater good doesn't trump economic needs, and Fairyland's economy relies on humans feeling safe enough to throw all their money away and then work themselves to death to get more. The wanted posters are doing a great job of reminding them that no matter what we tell them in public, in private we'll always despise them. So now they're fleeing back to human cities or to Monsterland. It's slow, but if this continues on, it'll get much worse.

   I'm grateful that I've never had to deal with a human. The closest I've come to it was meeting some of my mother's Midnight Nightmare friends. None of them have ever had to deal with humans, but they've all told me that they thought they might have to live among humans because of how much they hated the way power felt (not that power feels like anything, but that's beside the point). They've told me that humans think they have it all, because their immune from the effects of weakness, so it's up to us to remind them just how helpless they really are. My father always said the humans he saw in his arcades looked helpless and scared enough to him. My mother said what humans do is none of our business, since the ones who want to end us are smart enough to live in the Human Lands. James told me there's a human who Nightmares now fear, which I thought was complete nonsense, but now I'm hearing more and more about a human who attacks Nightmares on sight, with a form a lucidity that only the strongest of Midnight Nightmares normally use. 

   I wonder when the humans will hear that and decide to leave their place. I'm not sure what the world is coming to.

Midnight Nightmares

    Trying to be a God while also working to become a princess is, for lack of a better term, trying. I have to work hard, and there's never any rest. Not that I'm complaining, I come from a long line of hard workers and my parents always told me to wear my job with pride. My father always said he was an Arcade manager before he said he was a father, and my mother never mentioned me without also mentioning that I modeled for her magazine (something I hated doing because it got in the way of my homework). What separates us from humanity, they always said, is that we work.

    I genuine love both of my jobs, but my favorite part is getting to meet so many people. Lords and Ladies from all over the realms, dressed in their best, with Nightmare forms that shock and horrify if they're evil and calm and soothe if they aren't. Most of them don't wear their Nightmare forms around me of course, it would be crass and horrible to try and manipulate a lady into giving them power, but if you ask them they'd show it to you instantly. Nightmares, no matter what kind or how strong they are, are proud of our power and prestige.

   Most of us, anyway.

   There are, others, who aren't proud to be Nightmares. Children, from every class, who don't want power. They cry and run if it ever touches them. Among the human born, they even go so far as to call it "miasma" and say it'll kill you if you let it near you too often. Even if they become Nightmares, and despite our best efforts there are always a few who slip through our fingers, they almost never gain Nightmare forms. 

   They're the ones who become Midnight Nightmares, ones with the power to shape the world. 

    Avatars can't shape the world, not directly at least. I've never even gone lucid before, and I don't know anybody who has. But they do. All the time. The Infinite is full of the worlds they've made, and we have to warn everyone not to go outside the approved Dreamworlds without permits and a guide, because most of these rules don't follow our laws. It's against the law to make such a rule, but not even James would think of trying to enforce a law against a Midnight Nightmare. They don't even die, not like the rest of us do. They die of their volition, when they've decided they've done enough. 

   There's a story told about Midnight Nightmares among human kind, a story that goes that once, long ago, all of Estellia was brought to life by a Dreamer. A human. One of immense power. Some say that Dreamer is still alive, and if you find them they will grant you anything your heart desires.

   They also talk about Dreamlings, those who sleep every night to give the Nightmares power.

    I wish they knew they were talking about the same thing. Then the children born to human parents would come to us, asking for power as is tradition, and be bound by our laws. Then we wouldn't have to worry about them destroying the world before they realize they were meant to save it. 

    I've heard it said that even children who aren't potential Midnight Nightmares don't want to become Nightmares. That's just ridiculous. Why would you turn down power just so that you don't have to work? It's pure laziness, nothing else. 

   Look at the Midnight Nightmares. None of them are lazy, but some of them don't know what they are.  

The Center of Estellia

     "Why didn't you run the law by me before you made that stupid declaration?" I scream at James.

     He looks a little peeved. "I didn't know that you were interested in law. Isn't it outside your domain?"

     "Not when it could impact the economy." I yell back, "Don't you know the entire economy of Fairyland is built off of humans coming in search of opportunity and then wiling it away on games, shows, and drugs. If they had to be inside at night, we'd lose everything. Not to mention just how crowded the city would get."

   "The law doesn't apply to Fairyland, or any of the Nightmare Realms. It only applies to the human city, and they don't worry about opportunity. They just lay around all day and hope that they authorities don't notice them."

     "Do you honestly expect me to believe that? I know how you Shadows work. First you say something only applies to humans in the human realm, then it applies to humans in general, then it applies to Nightmares who don't have a Nightmare form, and finally it applies to Nightmares who are unwilling to vote to have the Shadow god killed. I refuse to let anything happen that could danger my countries economy, and if I have to put you in the center of a clown show, I'll do so in an instant."

    "Emily, the humans are getting more aggressive. Just last night a human entered the Shadow Dreamworld."

      I can't hide my disbelief, "Are you serious? No human, no matter how desperate, would ever enter the Shadow Dreamworld. I don't know any who sleep, personally, and the ones I see in Dreamworlds are too terrified out of their minds to be a threat. If this is the best attempt you have at propaganda, it's a poor effort."

     "This human was different. She sought me out and then obliterated me. I don't know how else to describe it. One minute I was channeling all of my ancestors arts at her, the next I was awake in a cold sweat and I couldn't get my body to relax enough to go back to sleep.

    "I've been hearing about other humans attacking Nightmares as well, within and without the Dreamworlds. The worst thing is that I've heard there's an unregistered Dreamworld somewhere. Nobody on my team can find it, and we haven't heard about anyone going there, but people keep reporting it. I don't put much stock into these reports, but people are talking about the possibility that a human without a bloodline may have mastered lucidity, and maybe even awakened. The most extreme thing I've heard is that a human has become a Dreamer, and is planning on destroying Estellia if the gods don't give her what they want. I don't want anyone to be scared. The humans have to remember what's at stake if they decide to cross us."

    I laugh, "That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. I haven't heard anything about a human fighting other Nightmares, and my parents work with Midnight Nightmares. And why would a human have anything to do with an unregistered Dreamworld? That old myth about humans being able to build Dreamworlds on their own is just that, a myth. No human has ever been able to do that, and no human ever will."

    "Are you saying that I'm a liar?"

     "I'm saying that people are misleading you. Think about it, what do they have to gain from telling you about a human with lucidity, when they could just find them and take them on as an apprentice without telling anyone? Doesn't it seem a bit more likely that they're tricking you into clamping down on humanity so hard that the other Nightmare's turn against you and replace you with someone who's more likely to do what they want? My advice is to ignore them, unless they have some amazing evidence that proves that a human is truly a threat to us. Repeal this law. Let us go back to a state of peace. The humans know by now that trying to hurt us will only hurt them ten times more in the long run." 

The Fairy Princess

      Ever since I was a little girl, I dreamed I'd be a princess. Now I have it, and it's everything I could ever want, but nothing like what I hoped it would be. 

 

    I was walking through the fairy's Dreamworld with my parents. Aside from humans begging for money and drugs, it's a wonderful place. Being a fairy myself, I didn't buy anything. I didn't have to. All the owners knew my parents, so I could ride as many rides and eat as much food as I wanted to. My parents warned me to be careful. Dreamworld food tastes just like the real thing, but it does nothing for the symptoms of weakness. If I wanted to keep functioning, I'd have to keep eating real food. 

   I was having a blast when I was walking into the house of mirrors. It's one of the lamer attractions, it only has mirrors that make you look large or small. I was getting bored and asked my reflection, "Can't any of these mirrors show me as a princess?" And I swear to my fellow gods, my reflection answered back.

    "You can't be a princess. You're too ugly."

     I know now that it was probably just a trap set by a weaker nightmare trying to gain enough power to become a fairy. It was meant to horrify me so much that I would wake up in a sweat. Instead I turned and screamed, "What do you mean I'm too ugly to be a princess?! My parents say I'm the prettiest little girl in all of Faytree! Someday, I'm going to be the prettiest princess in all of the Fairylands."

   When I met up with my parents to go home, I told them, "Mother, Father, I've decided that I want to be a princess when I grow up."

   "Darling," Mother said, "Princess aren't like the rest of us. They have very strong magic and can hold a crowd with just their voice."

    "I can learn magic. And someday I'll have the strongest voice in all of Estellia."

  

     The very next day I checked out every book on magic I could find at our local library and read them cover to cover. I begged my parents to send me to the best school in Estellia. It was in the sorcerer lands, but I was determined to have the best magic education that one could get in Estellia. In my spare time I practiced singing, dancing, and public speaking. All things the princesses specialized in, or so I was told. 

   I attended every event a princess was a part of.  I read every book a princess was a character in. I became friends with people who worked for or were friends of friends of the princesses. I did everything I could to get close to them.  

    Except for meeting them. I was smart enough to know how that would likely turn out. 

    When I was fifteen, my parents took me in for the exam. The one they said would determine what kind of fairy I was likely to be. They were very careful to warn me that the likelihood of me being set on the path to being a princess was slim. You needed to be truly exceptional. I didn't let that stop me. I studied hard. I practiced every day. And I passed the exam with flying colors. I received word that I would start training to be a princess within a week.

 

    When you hear that you're training to be a princess, what do you expect? Do you think of living in glamour, with dresses covered in diamonds and glittering tiaras? Or do you imagine vicious women trying to tear you down to give themselves the best chance at the life they dream of? I imagined both. I knew that the dresses were boring, my parents had friends in the academy after all. I also knew that there were scandals caused by people doing heinous things in an effort to rise in the academy. As lawless as the Fairylands are, we do care about murder. In spite of this, the academy seemed quite drab to me. 

   I fully expected to find myself on someone's bad side within the first week. I'd been studious my entire life, and I always answered every question the professors asked of me. Strangely, nobody noticed me much. I realize I should be grateful for that, and I was, but I was also really bored. I was learning a lot, making a lot of friends, and while a lot of my classmates seemed to be jealous of me, nobody seemed to have much of a grudge against me. At one point, I even told my mother, "I thought training to be a princess would be much more interesting than this."

    "Aren't you enjoying your studies?" She asked.

     "Oh, I'm learning a lot. But aren't you supposed to be despised by everybody if you're going to become a princess? At this rate, I'm certain I'll get to meet with the council and they'll tell me I never had a chance. How can I tell them it's not my fault I couldn't make any enemies in school?"

   "Where did you hear that people make enemies in the academy?" My mother asked.

    "In books, mostly." I admitted sheepishly. 

    "Darling, most of those stories are written for the benefit of humans. Humans don't need to know the truth about what goes on at the top. If they found out, they might stop believing in those they were meant to serve."

  

   I was at the academy for five years. I graduated at the top of my class. I got a job as an assistant. 

   Then, on my twenty-first birthday, the God of Shadows showed up at my apartment. 

    "Is this the home of Emily Elaine Maris?" He asked,

    "Yes it is, your Godliness." I said. I made sure to curtsy.

    "You're aware that on this day, twenty-one years ago, the Fairylands High princess died?"

    "I don't think there's anyone in the Fairylands who doesn’t know that." I said.

    "We've been keeping tabs on all the children born on that day, to see who has the potential to become the next God of the Fairylands. Some show potential, but only you, Emily Elaine Maris, show true promise."

   I suppose I should have been shocked, or at least a little bit surprised, but at the time I only had one thought.

  "If I become god of the Fairylands, how can I become a princess? It's been my goal all this time. I don't want to throw it all away."

   Fortunately, he laughed. He said, "I know this comes as a shock, but I assure you that you would be an excellent goddess. If you wish to help your people out as a princess, as your predecessor did, you can do that."

    "I suppose it's alright then." I said. "When should I start?"

    "As soon as you are ready." He told me.