Santa and the Whispering Dust (March 1512)
It was late in frostfall, and Santa had just settled in with a steaming mug of spruce tea when there came a knock at the side door—not the grand one, but the smaller, well-worn door near the pantry, where elves usually came calling.
In stepped Skit—a wiry, sharp-eyed Shoe Elf with boots still crusted in frost and the usual smell of peppermint and chimney soot clinging to his coat. Skit rarely left Cobblerton except for urgent matters, and he never bothered with pleasantries.
“I found something odd,” he said, pulling a small leather pouch from his pocket. “Out past the Reindeer fields. Looked like crushed cranberries in the moss. I scooped some up.”
Santa untied the pouch and peered inside. A fine, glowing powder caught the firelight—deep red, shifting slightly as if stirred by a silent breeze.
“It sparkled in the air before I gathered it,” Skit said. “Didn’t seem harmful. Just... peculiar.”
Santa held the pouch thoughtfully. “Peculiar,” he said. “That’s often the beginning of something important.”
Into the Woods
The next morning, Santa bundled up, slung his satchel over one shoulder, and followed Skit’s directions: through the tinker trails of Cobblerton, past the half-frozen stream, and into a quiet hollow just beyond the edge of the Reindeer fields.
There, nestled among the frost-covered moss, a faint red shimmer clung to the ground like a memory left behind. Santa crouched low, watching the motes dance lazily in the morning light.
Then—a flicker of movement.
A figure hovered in front of him, no taller than four inches and glowing faintly, wings like beetle glass gently beating against the still air. He wore a tunic of stitched leaves, tiny boots of bark, and had eyes that sparkled like stars caught in snow.
“Looking for more of that, are you?” the tiny being asked, voice musical and sharp with mischief.
Santa raised a brow. “I might be. And you are?”
The creature gave a midair bow, wings keeping him effortlessly afloat. “Forlot, of the Fairies. I believe you’ve found something I left behind.”
A Talk Beneath the Trees
Santa and Forlot sat together—Santa on a fallen log, Forlot on the curled rim of a toadstool. The forest around them was quiet but alive, every branch and snowflake humming with the promise of the unknown.
“You’re one of the Fairies?” Santa asked. “From the... other dimension?”
“Fourth, yes,” said Forlot, flicking a wing. “What you see here is a projection—easier to talk to you this way. The true me wouldn’t fit in your workshop, and might twist your wallpaper inside out.”
Santa chuckled. “And the dust? That’s from you?”
“Not just me,” Forlot said. “Any Fairy crossing into your dimension sheds fairy dust. Think of it like shimmer from a firefly, but left behind during interdimensional travel.”
“This kind,” Santa said, holding up the pouch, “is red. Does that mean something?”
“Oh yes,” said Forlot. “There are four common colors: Red, Yellow, Blue, and Green. Each reacts differently with your world—your matter, your rules. The red is the liveliest. Shows up when there’s joy, movement, excitement. But as for what it does in your realm? That’s your mystery to solve.”
“No instructions?” Santa asked.
Forlot laughed. “Where’s the fun in that? You’re the keeper of wonders, aren’t you? Make it a story. Discover its truth.”
The Beginning of Discovery
That evening, Santa returned to his cottage, the red dust still secure in his satchel. He didn’t yet know that this glimmering powder would one day lift reindeer into the skies. Or that it would become one of the rarest, most closely guarded substances in all of Evela.
But he labeled the pouch carefully—"Red Fairy Dust – Found near Reindeer Village. Origin: Unknown. Effects: Undetermined."
And in the back of his mind, a thousand questions began to swirl.
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