"What are you doing here?" I ask him.

"Um, I was told to get my brother." he isn't making eye contact so I know he's lying.

"You're lying," I state.

His shoulders slump, "How'd you know?"

"The lack of eye contact, you sneakily climbing over the wall instead of using the front doors, and your brother left mere minutes ago, right before I came out here."

He stands slack-jawed, unable to speak.

I stare him down but am distracted by a sudden outburst of growling from where the gnomes should be.

We both swing our heads in that direction and sure enough, the two gnomes who were just stumbling around after the fall are now wrestling and beating each other on the head with their hats.

"One moment," I say, holding up a finger and standing up to go separate the gnomes.

I make sure to stomp my feet so they are startled by the sudden vibrations and they jump apart right as I seize them by their necks and hold them up in the air.

I set them on a rock covered in moss by the area where the fairies fly around who are currently nowhere to be seen, set my hands on my hips, and bend down to their height.

"Now. You two," I say, pointing at them, "are going to sort out your differences. Understand?"

They both nod and shake each other's hands and then jump off the rock and skip hand in hand over to their dirt hole.

When they disappear, I turn back to Atlas with a grim expression.

"What, was that?" he asks, bewildered.

"Classic gnome fight. Their arms are too short to punch each other, so they resort to beating each other with their hats. Pretty clever, actually."

"We don't have gnomes in our garden."

"What do you have? Fairies?"

"Yes, and they are brutal at times, too much fairy dust." he scoffs swiping a small sprinkle of the glittering dust off his clothed shoulder.

"We have the same problem." I groan in annoyance.

"I feel you," his face sympathetic.

Folding my arms, I change the subject, "Now tell me why you're really here."

His face turns red and he struggles to form a full sentence so I save him the humiliation, "Just needed an escape?"

"Basically." he scuffs his shoe-tip against the grass.

"Thats fair. I had a disagreement with my family so I was sent out here for a while."

"Ah. That's what I was going to ask you next, for the reason you're out here. Do you mind if I stay for a bit?"

"Not at all," I sweep my dress beneath my legs and sit back beneath the tree and he sits next to me.

We sit in silence for a few moments listening to the rustling leaves as a gentle breeze flies past.

"Are you happy with your life?" he asks me suddenly.

"Usually. Why do you ask?"

"Just wondering."

"Are you happy with yours?" I ask, scooting the tiniest bit closer.

He leans farther back against the tree, the long soft branches of the willow tree floating around in the breeze.

"No," he says.

"Why not?"

"Because I believe that true happiness is when we are happy with ourselves."

"Are you not happy with yourself?" I say, now turning to look at him, his almost bronze hair a slightly duller color from the shade of the tree.

His eyes slide over to mine, "Sometimes I am, and sometimes I'm not. It's complicated."

"That's understandable." I clasp my hands together in fear that I might reach out and take one of his hands into my own, which would be very forward.

The sound of twinkling laughter and shimmering wings fluttering makes me turn my head away from his.

"Fairies?" he asks.

There is no need for me to respond because just then, ten of the many palace fairies fly around the tree in front of us, slightly hidden by the willow branches.

They all hold tiny hallowed acorns that serve as their handbags and inside them is an assortment of tiny twigs and flower petals.

I whistle and it catches their attention, flying through the willow tree branches to meet me and Atlas.

These are the kind fairies. The ones who don't play with Blair's makeup, or deliberately spread their fairy dust across my room.

Their eager little eyes drink in how close I am to Atlas and they all giggle, as I feel Atlas immediately shift slightly farther from me, which I pout at. 

"What are you all going to do with the twigs and petals?" I ask them.

Their tiny squeaky voices overlap as they wildly move their hands in the air explaining their mission.

"Woah, woah, woah woah," I say waving my hands in front of my face, "one at a time." I point at the fairy in the middle who I'd assume to be the leader of the pack because her acorn is the largest, "Your turn."

She dips her head and flutters her wings excitedly as she squeals, "Thank you miss! We are going to make sunhats with the petals and use the twigs to hold them together!"

All the other fairies cheer and gush over their sunhat idea.

This is what our fairies look like: There are only female fairies, no males. When a new fairy is born, it kind of just appears out of nowhere and is always the same age as the other fairies, (somewhere in their teens) and they live until their wings fall off in their thirties.

They all wear thin spaghetti-strap dresses that stop at their knees and are cut in ridges at the ends. Their shoes are tiny fuzzy slippers that match the color of their dress. Each dress is a different color (that is already on their body when they appear out of thin air, and they never take it, or the shoes off) of blue, purple, pink, white, yellow, or green. The dress is covered in sparkles which shimmer as they move around.

Their hair can be anything from loosely down, up in a bun, in braids, or in a ponytail. Not every fairy's hair matches the color of her dress and slippers, but their hair ranges from colors that are vibrant to pastel to regular brown and blonde. All fairies love flowers. If they didn't eat regular food like berries, mushrooms, vegetables, and bread rolls, they would surely drink the nectar from a flower. All the fairies wear flower chains in their hair and around their arms and legs. Wearing their favorite thing makes them feel beautiful.

As of now, as he has been since I was introduced to him when I was ten, Atlas has been my favorite thing in the whole world. If only I could wear my favorite thing as the fairies do.

The fairy's wings are of different shapes and sizes and colors. They are all some volume of transparent with the same sparkles as their dress. 

They are very delicate creatures and I now notice one of the fairies hovering at the back of the group is sniffling.

I tilt my head to the side and gesture to her when she catches my eye.

She flutters around the group and stops a few feet in front of my face. She has a pale blue dress, pale blue slippers, and dark blue hair in a twisted bun. Her wings are aqua blue. "Yes, miss?" she says meekly, tears glittering in her pretty eyes.

"You can call me Avalon," I tell her gently, "Why are you crying?" I hold out my palm for her to sit on and the rest of the fairies continue their excited chatter and fly off to the toadstools at the edge of the garden and sit down to assemble their sunhats.

The fairy on my palm watches after them longingly, "They got more petals than me," she sniffs.

Empathy washes over me, "Do you feel left out?"

She nods.

I sense Atlas standing next to me and I look at him questioningly.

"I should be getting back to my side of the wall," he says and holds out his hand to shake mine.

I refuse his hand as mother says princes should always kiss the princess's cheek or the back of her hand when they make an exit, so I hold out the hand not occupied by an emotional fairy.

It takes him a second to realize, "Oh," and he takes my hand in his and kisses the back of it.

"Goodbye, Atlas," I call as he starts towards the wall hoping the heat flushing my face isn't obvious.

He turns and I hide my face with my hair, "Goodbye, Avalon." and he makes his way clumsily over the wall.

The fairy on my palm giggles.

"You're happy all of a sudden," I say to her.

She covers her mouth with her tiny hand, "You like him! You like him!"

"Absolutely not."

She smiles, "I won't tell a soul, I swear it."

I smile in return, "Promise?"

"I promise!"

I stand up and she grabs onto my thumb so she doesn't fall off, holding on tightly to her acorn bag.

"Let's go pick some more petals for your sun hat, would you like that?"

"Yes! Yes, I would!" she squeals.

I stop at a clump of roses, "Do you want these?"

She inspects the red flowers, "No. They have daggers."

"Do you mean thorns?"

"No. We call them daggers." she crosses her arms.

"Okay, lets look over here," I say, crossing over to the left further along the cobblestone wall to a patch of pink flowers that I don't remember the name of.

"Pink Lilies!" the fairy shrieks, leaping off my hand and hugging the flowers to her chest.

"You like these?" I bend down to help her pluck petals off of a flower.

"They're my favorite!" she tugs the ends until one of the petals rips in half and she looks at the torn end in her hands in disbelief and starts sobbing.

"Oh no, no, no, don't cry! Please don't cry again!" I scoop her into my hands after discarding the petals I collected into her acorn bag left on a small rock.

"All the other fairies say I'm a baby!" she cries.

"You're not a baby. It's just called being sensitive, and that's okay."

She wipes her tears away and throws the ripped petal to the grass below her.

"Now it's ruined!" she wails.

"It's not ruined." I say, "We can still make your sunhat. And guess what?"

She wipes her nose on a part of her arm that isn't covered by flower chains, "What?"

"We're gonna make your sunhat even better than theirs!"

"Really!?"

"Yup!"

Her eyes widen, "How!?"

I grin, "You have different colored petals than theirs! They have orange petals and you have pink and orange! Yours will be much more colorful and they might want to make a new one like yours so they can be just like you!"

"Just like me?"

"Exactly like you, because you're so special. Do you want to try pulling off the petals again?"

She nods and flutters off of my palms and pulls a petal much more gently than before off of a lily.

When it pops off, she spins around, with the biggest smile on her face, and flies around excitedly exclaiming, "I did it! I did it!"

"Yes, you did!" I praise, "Can you put it in your bag for me?"

"Mhm!" she grips the petal and flies down to the acorn bag and stuffs it in with the other petals.

"Thank you, Avalon!"

"You're so welcome! What's your name?"

"Waterlily!"

"That's a beautiful name, you should be proud of it."

"I am now. I feel it's too long for a tiny fairy like me, but you are teaching me to love it!"

She sits on the rock her bag is on and crosses her legs looking through her petals, "When will we make my sunhat?"

"Right now, if you want. Should we make it right here?"

"Yeah!" she starts digging through the petals and then picks up the acorn bag and dumps everything on the grass, sifting through the twigs.

I realize now that I am much too big to handle the twigs with my hands so I resort to placing the petals in the right spots and Waterlily weaves the tiny bendy twigs through them.

When we finish, she holds up her sunhat and admires it in the fading light, as it's now past my bedtime, and I've been out here for a long time.

"Its perfect!" she squeals.

I smile, watching her place it on her head and bounce up and down in excitement on the grass.

"Do you want to go show the other fairies?" I ask her as a small trail of glitter follows wherever she bounces around.

"Yes! Yes! Yes!" she grabs her empty acorn bag and scurries over to the willow tree, and then takes flight to join the rest of the fairies on the toadstools who have also finished their sunhats.

I see her land on a small toadstool in the middle of the group of fairies and show off her sunhat to them, and they all gasp and crowd around her to take a better look.

Smiling, I stand up and walk over to them and see the fairies start flying off to their corner of the garden with their pretty flowers and their little moss houses that they built.

Waterlily sees me and stops to turn around and fly back over to me, "Thank you, Avalon! I love you, my princess!"

My heart melts at those words and I let her hug my pointer finger, "You're welcome Waterlily. I love you too, my fairy."

She shrieks in happiness and waves bye as she flies off to her moss house, her sunhat slightly lopsided on her dark blue bun. 

Smiling to myself, I make my way back to the garden door, ready to get to sleep and ignore Blair tomorrow.

I make sure to shut the door tightly so no dumb gnomes fight my mother again. 

-

My mother is waiting for me in my bedroom.

"You were outside for a while. What were you doing?"

"Separating violent gnomes and making a fairy friend."

"I expect that from the gnomes, but a fairy spent time with you?"

"Yes. She was feeling left out. Her name is Waterlily."

She runs a hand over her face, "I've heard of that fairy. She's one of the younger ones, the other fairies don't spend much time with her because she's very small, much smaller than the rest of them, and they make fun of her for it."

"She didn't mention that. Only that she didn't get as many petals as the rest of her little scavenger group when they were making sunhats. But I helped her."

She nods, "That was a good thing to do. You helped her to feel like she belongs."

I nod, and yawn, "I'm tired, I think I'm going to get to bed now."

She nods again, walking towards my bedroom door to leave, but she turns around to say, "Go easy on your sister. As I said, she's adjusting. You'll feel the same way when you're her age. But for now, focus on being a sixteen-year-old princess, okay?"

"Okay. Goodnight."

"Goodnight." and she closes my door.

I change into a nightgown, brush my teeth, use the bathroom, wash my hands and face, and get into bed.

I'm glad I didn't mention hanging out with Atlas. Neither my mother, Blair, Phillip, nor Atlas himself knows of my feelings for him.

And it's gonna stay that way until I'm eighteen...

Maybe. 

A/N: Dedicated to Rosie :)

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