A gentle bell rings from somewhere higher up on the mountain.

Vivid moonlight shines out over the forest beneath them all, covering the entire world in a wash of pale, haunting light that seems to illuminate not only every crack and crevice in the rock-face beneath their feet, but also every wrinkle, scar, fold, wound and crease in the faces of every single person present there. The night-glow gives credence to the fact that here, atop this mountain, thousands of moments happened every single day. Moments of violence and loss, moments of adventure and joy, moments of pride and glee. Hundreds of eyes stare out towards the forest below, rippling in the soft winds. Yet all of them, despite all of these moments that they have experienced, are filled with nothing but wonder, as the first baubles begin to rise out of the trees.

“Jubilee! Look!” says Fresh in an excited, but quiet voice, tugging on Jubilee’s arm.

“Yeah, yeah,” says Jubilee, pushing her hand off. “I see it.”

Lights, bright, shining orbs fly out of the woods, rising into the air as if a mass of departing spirits were releasing themselves from the ground. The many spirits float so lightly and so effortlessly into the air, that Fresh is sure that they will all be blown away by the next gust of wind. The first dozen rise, shimmering in all varieties of colors that are unnatural to the night. Bright, fiery reds. Luxurious, hallow tones of golds and yellows. Vivid, venomous greens and bright, summer-sky blues.

Bewildered murmurs and excited whispers run through the spellbound crowd, as they gaze down at the spectacle unfolding beneath them.

“They’re so pretty!” says an excited caster.

“Do you think this wave will like it here?”

“I hope so,” replies a man in leather. “The last bunch was a bit surly.”

After the first dozen glowing baubles, rise a dozen more into the air, followed by a further dozen more. Soon a hundred of the shining orbs fill the world above the woodland, then a hundred more after them. The forest is alight, illuminated as if a rainbow had been flattened out and laid out over the treetops, the multi-colored light drooping down into the darkness deeper below, like the sagging fabric of a burial cloth, draped over a dead body.

Fresh bobs on her feet excitedly, grabbing and yanking on Basil’s sleeve. She doesn’t really say anything, apart from letting out an excited, sort-of, but not quite, squeak as she points to a collection of fairy-lights that are circling around each other. The fairy-ring spins around itself as they fly into a tighter and tighter pattern and the tighter the ring grows, the higher they rise into the air. Below them, another ring forms, then another, then another, all of them layering beneath each other as they rise into the air one after another, constructing what appears to be a giant column that pushes itself up into the sky. The formation of the rings shifts, as each ring breaks in its middle segment, the fairies there flying lower as they reach into the ones below them, joining all of the rings together into one winding spiral that climbs upwards, like a serpent swimming to the surface from the bottom of a dark, endless ocean.

The sounds of delighted voices and excited gasps fill the air, as everyone watches the spectacle unfold. The lights draw closer and closer as they pick up speed, pushing through the mountain winds with little difficulty as they fly, as they rise higher and higher towards the onlookers who beset the mountain.

She hears a long, heavy breath exhaled from just next to her. For a second she thinks it's Shamrock breathing loudly in excitement, but she notices that the agitated sigh, which had come from next to her, stems from Jubilee. She watches in some confusion as Jubilee seems to be practicing their usual breathing exercise which they do when they want to calm themselves down. Usually because she herself had done something wrong.

“What’s the matter, Jubilee?” asks Fresh. “Are you tired?”

Jubilee finishes their breathing and looks up at her, their eyes steeled as if ready for a fight. “I’m just preparing myself mentally.”

“For what?” asks Fresh, scratching her cheek.

“Fairies,” is all that Jubilee says, as they turn back to watch the spiral of lights coming now to reach the outlook, having flown up the entire mountain in a matter of minutes. The string of small bodies comes into clear sight, as they not only move closer towards the curious crowd, but also as the colorful lights surrounding them slowly fade away. “I hate fairies.”

Fresh blinks, looking back towards the approaching cloud of buzzing, small bodies that heads their way. Each of them is roughly the size of the span between the tip of her longest finger and her palm.

She hears a chirping in the air, it’s almost like a swarm of singing crickets. It’s shrill and out of sync with the rest of the noises. Just a jumble of squeaks and peeps. As they fly closer and the sound grows louder, she realizes that it isn’t anything like that at all. They’re voices. Dozens, hundreds of tiny voices all talking at the same time over each other. The adventurers around them wave excitedly, calling out and greeting the arriving fairies. The swarm reaches them, hundreds of fairies flying off in all directions into the crowd, with ecstatic, wildly curious looks on their faces that are adorned with equally bright and wide eyes.

“Hey! Look!” calls a fairy next to Shamrock. “Hey!” it says, poking him. “Why are you so big?!”

“Food,” says Shamrock to the fairy that seems to lose its mind over this revelation, clutching its face in excitement, as it proceeds to start to want to pester him. Though it flies off a few seconds later, before even finishing asking its own second question, as it sees something else that has caught its attention.

“Wooooooah!” A fairy darts past Jubilee. “What’s with this mask? Are you ugly?” It zips around left and right. Another five fairies fly down around them. “Hey! Why are you so small?!”

“Hey?! Are you a fairy too?!”

Jubilee lets out a long, tired sigh, simply ignoring them and staring into the distant darkness.

Fresh watches in awe as the fairies dart like energetic children all around the market, looking at literally everything there is to see with incredible bewilderment to their faces and voices. Every rock, face and piece of cloth is an instant object of fascination. At least for a few seconds, before their focus shifts to something or someone else.

“Hey!” asks a fairy, stopping in front of Fresh. “What’s your name?” it asks excitedly, its fingers clutching its hair as if about to tear it out.

Fresh smiles at it. “My name is -”

It flies off, darting straight towards someone else. Fresh stares at it, before looking down at the squeaky voices next to her. A large ring of fairies has built itself around Jubilee, all of them hold their hands and seem to be dancing in a tight circle around them. “Fairy queen! Fairy queen! Fairy queen!” chant the fairies, as they spin around Jubilee. Fresh can see that Jubilee is doing their best to stay calm, though she can’t help but laugh as she sees their fists clench in agitation, the leather of their gloves creaking with an audible groan. She looks back at Basil whose hair is being lifted up into the air by a few of them. “Hey! What’s with your hair?!”

“It’s so soft!” says another one, crawling out from inside of it. Basil doesn’t really seem to know what to do, simply laughing nervously at the creatures and not moving.

“Hey! Hey! Why do you smell like the forest?!”

“Hey -!”

The next hour is spent like this. The fairies, containing a seemingly inexhaustible contingent of energy, bolt in all directions. Pestering anyone and anything that they can manage to encounter. Apparently, a lot of them aren’t even aware that they can’t talk to objects and they spend a while trying to speak to the rocks on the ground and the wares adorning the stalls, before eventually noticing that only the people ever respond to their questions and nagging. Fresh is particularly happy, in contrast to Jubilee, when a group of the fairies start playing around in the fluff of her robe.

By the time the morning sun rises and the festival comes to an end for the day, the fairies still haven’t managed to exhaust themselves, unlike most of the people who now begin to drag their drunken selves and companions back into darkened rooms, so that they can sleep off the liquor.

The four of them decide to keep the shop closed for today. There isn’t going to be any foot-traffic after this night, plus all four of them are exhausted too.

The fairies seem to spread themselves out around town simply by the nature of their exploration. Soon, there are fairies perched on every other roof and several of them are inside of the tunnels as well, having taken a particular liking to the space.

They fly around the groups trying to retreat into their beds, pelting them with giddy questions. Fairies press their faces against darkened windows, staring inside at the inhabitants on the other ends.

By the time Fresh gets upstairs, throwing her boots and robe off and falling into bed, she can still hear the tiny voices squeaking in her ears, even if the doors and windows are all tightly shut.