Der Dachboden der Träume

The Dwarf Called Doubt

There once was a dwarf named doubt. He was a very dark and unpleasant fellow, grey of skin and soul. He lived deep down in the darkness of the earth. No one ever came across this cold and cheerless place, for on the surface there were dreadful stories told about this dwarf. He was whispered to be a monster, with claws and blood-red eyes that gleamed in the dark like hot coals. Many of the elves and other mystical creatures were frightened away by these stories and all the other dwarfs mocked him for his grey colour.
Slowly, he lost faith in everyone and whenever he gave it a try and trusted someone, he was betrayed sooner or later. When he stopped coming to the dwarf festivities, the whispers and rumours only got worse and spread further, till he was only known
as a monster and doubter.
One night, it had been a rough one, the fairies danced on the moonlit meadows after the storm had passed. They played with the raindrops the clouds had left behind, like a perfect, sparkling apology, and laughed with the stars that fell from the sky to join the magical round dance for this one night. Nothing could have disturbed the peaceful atmosphere the scenery had, and it were those nights the dwarf made his way to the surface to admire the fairies and the landscape he hadn't seen in a while.
When he inhaled the first sigh of fresh night air, almost as perfect as the dewdrops, and his lungs were filled with the satin blue breath of the rainy night, a rare smile appeared on his wrinkled face that had been sad for so long.
Laying down his head on his crossed arms he watched the ghostlike dancers and felt more and more whole with every of their gentle moves.
The darkness turned to dawn and when he was about to leave as quiet as he had come, a branch cracked and the rustling of leaves below his feet made the fairies aware of his presence.
Some of the colourful shimmering creatures fled the place in haste, hurrying to get away from this dark creature. Others only escaped his reach but stayed, looking at him, way too fascinated to turn away. And the third part of fairies were his doom, though our dwarf couldn't know that yet.
They turned away and whispered into each other's ears and when they turned back to him, oh how he wished he could have moved. Their eyes gleamed golden, burning on his sensitive skin like the sunlight. A furry in them that broke his numbness, leaving him trembling with fear.
“I am so, so sorry.” was all his shaking voice could get out. He knew how he had to look, compared to those beautiful creatures. A dark, hunchbacked monster with dead-grey skin and blank eyes.
“Don't speak,” a fairy hushed him, “your words desecrate this place. You need to be punished.”
The dwarf cringed and lowered his head when the fairy spoke again,
“For breaking the rules we will cast a spell on you, making you become what everyone's already seeing in you.”
A second fairy came up behind the first and whispered into her ear before a devilish smile crossed her face.
“You are called the monster of doubt.”
A dazzling light burned his eyes, till they felt like heated coals and the earth opened to take him back to where he belonged – his cold cave.
“You will travel the realms and sow doubt wherever you see it blinking in the creature's eyes, you will destroy hopes and dreams. And you'll have to live with the blame – forever.”
A wicked laugh followed those words, and the dwarf, called doubt now, blacked out.

When he woke up again he found himself on hard but even stone roads, coldness and the grey of his surroundings made him think he was back in his cave, but a loud and painful noise shattered his thoughts and cut deep into his senses.
He covered his ears and tried to get onto his feet, feeling the road beneath him. Cold, ice-white little crystals fell from the sky, and grey clouds came out of odd looking houses.
The dwarf looked around, trying to understand his misery, when he remembered the fairy's words. He felt a burning anger inside him as he looked around and all he could see in the faces around him, was happiness. None of them were alone, except for him. Anger filled his heart and boiled in his blood, and he reached out his hand to one of the people passing him by.
Around the body shimmered an aura, colourful and bright, and when the dwarf's claws scratched it, black dots and lines began to darken the colour like black ink. Until, suddenly, the man turned to the girl next to him and screamed at her. A shattered expression flickered over her face, their tied hands fell apart and she ran away with salty tears in her eyes.
Startled by her reaction the dwarf let go of the man's aura. The angry expression disappeared and his face turned into a sickening grey, looking as if he had just woken from a dream he hoped to be a nightmare and couldn't understand what had gotten into him, when he ran after the woman.
Whilst the black slowly vanished from the man's aura, the dwarf looked at his hands, looked at all the people around him that didn't deserve happiness if he wasn't given it, looked back at his hands and reached out his black-poisoned claws for he next person.

And that is how doubt entered our world.
The more often a dwarf visited a person, the more black darkened their aura till, eventually, it was too much to ever get out again and the aura didn't have any colour left. Those people didn't need the dwarf any more to feed their doubt and became his minions instead. Spreading the black poison with their own hands and words 'cause the dwarfs anger burned in them and his claws clasped their hearts.
Only a person with a heart full of belief and golden sunlight could pull out the poison and heal the minion of the dwarf.