The Yellow Fairy Dust Saga
The Vanishing Teacup Where Dust Takes Us Crossing Worlds The Eve Begins Scaling Up
Where Fairy Dust Takes Us
Part 2 of the Yellow Fairy Dust Saga
(May, 1821)
The wind tugged at Santa’s beard as he leaned over the sleigh’s dashboard, goggles snug, fingers tight on the reins. Overhead, the stars shimmered with unusual clarity—perhaps aware, as he was, that tonight’s experiment might change everything.
Fenrick Redgleam stood below in the Sleigh Yard, arms crossed, brows furrowed beneath his silver-trimmed cap. Beside him, Rudy Winters gave the reindeer team a last look-over, his breath puffing in the cool air.
“Just a hop-and-glide test,” Santa called down. “Same as last time—just a bit more Yellow this time.”
“A bit more?” Fenrick echoed, clearly unconvinced. “Chris, last time you skipped half the island and nearly landed in the Tindon Inlet!”
Santa only grinned. “All part of the learning curve.”
The reindeer pawed the snow. Glimmer and Nettle led the younger team, their harnesses faintly glowing. The
sleigh was nearly empty—a stripped-down frame with only a sack of mixed fairy dust and a brass compass nestled on the seat beside Santa. A glimmer of Yellow Fairy Dust clung to the runners like sunlight trapped in sugar.
With a nod to Rudy, Santa gave the command. The reindeer surged forward, lifted—and the sleigh vanished with a crack of displaced air.
The sky warped.
For a heartbeat, everything bent—sky, stars, sleigh—all tugged toward an unseen center. Then the world snapped back into place.
The sleigh hovered above an unfamiliar sea. The clouds drifted backward. And below…an island of improbable color spiraled upward like a dream: forests of pink and gold, and a pirate ship bobbed off the shore of the island
Santa blinked. “Well,” he muttered, checking the compass, which spun uselessly. “That’s new.”
The sleigh spiraled once before he guided it toward land. As he neared the shore, a flash of movement caught his eye—something flying, but not reindeer. Smaller. Faster. Glittering.
He squinted. A fairy, perhaps, but not like the ones in Dondavar. She left a bright white trail and wore a sharp expression of warning. Then, in an instant, she vanished behind a tree that shimmered into something else entirely.
Santa landed gently on a hilltop. The grass was unusually soft, like walking on freshly-baked cake. He crouched and ran his hand through it, then stood, peering into the distance. On another hill, a tree leaned at an impossible angle. A second ship floated in another bay. Laughter echoed faintly through the air, high and childlike, but there were no children to be seen.
“Not Evela,” he said to himself. “But maybe a different continent on Dondavar.”
He reached for the yellow pouch. Just a pinch. The dust caught the wind, and the sleigh lifted once more.
This time, he aimed for altitude.
The world fell away beneath him until even the strange island was a dot below. Then—snap—the sleigh shifted again. The sky turned a pale green. Mountains rose below, cragged and cold. Great peaks, some glowing with soft inner light, others wrapped in mists that moved unnaturally.
“Back to Evela,” he guessed. “The Grey Mountains?”
The compass returned to its senses. Behind him, Glimmer gave a contented huff. Nettle flicked her ears. The sleigh’s runners sparked as they coasted toward a wide plateau where no reindeer had ever touched hoof. He marked it with a small red flag.
When he returned to the Village, Rudy was pacing and Fenrick was livid.
“You were gone three hours!”
“Technically only twenty minutes,” Santa replied, holding up his watch and a bizarre flower
he’d plucked from the island’s shore. “Time’s slippery out there.”
Fenrick snatched the flower and stared at it. “Where did you go?”
Santa paused. “I don’t think it has a name. Not yet.”
He walked toward the stables, brushing snow from his coat. “But I saw something. A place with ships, strange laughter, and fairies that didn’t quite belong. I think that it’s another part of Dondavar… and there are people there. We may need to expand our toy delivery operation to include any new lands we can find.”
Fenrick stared at him, speechless. Rudy raised an eyebrow.
“And,” Santa added with a wink, “we’ll need a bigger map.”
He looked skyward, where the stars still shimmered—familiar, and yet full of secrets. Yellow Dust had taken him farther than he’d ever dreamed. But in the back of his mind, one question lingered, bright and persistent:
If this world holds such wonders… what lies just one layer beyond?
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