My Little Faerie Girl

Make It Stop Daddy

Anabella woke up with a start, her heart racing too fast to be normal and a sob escaping her lips as her dream catches up to her. It was so real, she felt like she could still smell the smoke and she could hear the screams of people that have been haunting her day and night for the past fortnight. Fourteen days of recurring nightmares where fire surrounds her and people die and scream for help, for her to stop but all she does is watch, she doesn't even try.

These nightmares were too much for an eleven year old to bear, no matter how strong that little eleven-year old is. So, like every other time she has woken up from a nightmare like this one she wanders towards her parents' bedroom and slowly opens the door, not noticing the small creek sound it makes as she opens it. Although she may not notice the small sound, one of the fae in the room does and sits up in their bed, looking towards the little faerie standing in the doorway, hugging her mermaid stuffy to her chest in her fire red pyjamas, with a sad looking expression on her face.

Zedrich automatically smiled at her and moved out of the bed towards his daughter.

Once he reached Anabella, he crouched down a bit to be at eye level with her and whispered, "Did you have a nightmare again?" to which she silently nodded her head, her red eyes puffy from crying, accentuating her dark blue eyes and the vivid paleness of her skin.

After receiving a silent answer from his daughter he takes her small hand into his own large one - sun-kissed bronze against milk white – and leads her out of the room into the kitchen. When they get to the kitchen, he picks her up into his arms and sets her on a wooden counter next yo the cooling box. He then proceeds to pour milk into two clay cups and reaches up to a shelf to bring down a jar with cookies stored in it. He takes out two cookies and grabs the cups of milk, which he places on a table next to a chair in a separate room. Once Zedrich places down the drinks and sweets he goes back towards where Anabella sat watching her father with droopy, sleepy and sad eyes, and picked her up in his arms, carried her towards the other room and sat in the chair; never once letting her out of his arms.

Finally settled, he turns his face towards where she was curled up in his arms and hands her a cookie while saying, "My little faerie, did you have the same dream again? Was there more fire and new people?"

Little Anabella, who had so far been able to push those thoughts out of her head for a short while began to sob and stutter out details of the dream, "I w-was... th-there w-w-were ... Daddy, I kil... I k-killed them. I did... I hurt... I didn't stop. Daddy I hurt people, I don't wanna hurt them." Then ,with tears streaming down her face like a rushing waterfall, she said - in a voice so broken, so hopeless, "Daddy make it stop. Make it stop Daddy."

Zedrich began to comfort and console his daughter, rubbing her back gently, combing back her black hair and wiping tears from her cheeks while whispering things like, "It was just a dream, you didn't hurt anyone" and "You, my little faerie girl, my sweet little faerie, would never harm someone else. You are too good, too pure."

Slowly Anabella began to calm down and was soothed by her father's motions and eventually she was lulled to sleep by the older fae's voice and the steady beating of his heart by her ear.

Looking down Zedrich noticed that his child had fallen asleep, so he stood up with a secure grip around her and walked towards her room. He laid her down in bed and tucked her in, wrapping her dark leaf green blanket around her small form and placing a kiss on her forehead. As Zedrich was leaving the little faerie's room, he stopped in the doorway and looked at the slumbering faerie who had a peaceful look on her face as she slept. To the quiet room and to the slumbering girl he whispered softly, "You can do no evil, my angel, you are only what is good and right. You will not hurt anyone you will help them, I know this with everything in my being." With the final words of, "sleep well, my little faerie girl," Zedrich leaves the room with the slumbering child and wanders back to his own room, where he lays down in his bed next to his beautiful wife and falls asleep.