Art by Gabrielle Durán
The girl recalled the previous twilight’s lampyridae with a sleepy smile as she lay sprawled about her bed linen, feeling the sun’s dusty rays as they highlighted an uncovered leg here, an arm there, and a quarter of her lacteal tummy bordered by frilly sheets. She rolled out of the bedding to enjoy the cool dewy film around her body’s natural covering, bundling them into a faux pillow to lean against as she eyed the virgin day already ripening outside her window.
From a nearby room came her mother’s birdcall attempting to rouse her daughter with a succession of amiable tones. Through lines of conversational melody the girl was reminded that she needed to fetch the milk, so she climbed out of bed and dressed appropriately for the ardent summer day.
Light footsteps brought her swiftly to the comforting smell of freshly cooked bread. She savoured the slice of breakfast pineapple and pain aux noix served at the kitchen table by her mother before washing them down with spring water.
Once her stomach was contented by the morning meal, the girl stood on her tiptoes to peck her mother’s cheek farewell. With a final hug she sallied forth, the milk already hibernating in the back of her mind.
Caught in that especial and enlivening window of time halfway between morning and afternoon, the girl arched her back to the golden sun with arms akimbo. She basked her pale yellow frock so she could feel the warm cotton against her peachy chest, and her animated eyes proceeded to trace an imaginary dotted line pop-pop-pop down from the milk-stained sea to the phosphorescent field below, delightedly watching as a monarch swept across its aureate kingdom where a lone narcissus limbo was prince.
She was besotted by the flower’s honeyed petals and scarlet centre. With a playfully mischievous smile she pressed her most exceptional and sui generis muscle against the backs of her ivory keys, purring rhapsodic melodies while studying the flower’s lavish detail.
In ravishment the limbo confided sweetly polliniferous whispers to the naturally inquisitive and curious girl. All that the girl heard, however, was the toneless (though not atonal) ellipses carried in the forward breeze that swept the hem of her frock in an amorous display. Blades of grass scratched at the downy skin of her legs so she bent to protect them, finding herself face-to-bloom with the gregarious flower.
‘Hullo,’ she said to it, beaming. ‘My name is Judy.’
Alas, the queer narcissus failed to summon forth an introduction in response to gay Judy’s; with feminine consolation she leaned forward to plant soft creamy kisses on all of the flower’s supple lips, delighting as they visibly reddened.
Green shards fluttered from her silky skin when she erected herself, temporarily revealing her apricot thighs, so delicate and diaphanous.
Adieu, monsieur, she said to the efflorescence while beads of sweat arrived under her arms like fresh dew. She soon smelled of midsummer and warm embraces, a perfume that gained strength as the day marched on.
Contrariwise, a peculiar and altogether flavourful scent came adrift of Judy’s nostrils just then: Her favourite indehiscent fruit, those naturalist and recherché flauberries, were found growing in a vineyard nearby. With quiet hands she clipped the stems of three and plopped the berries into her mouth, smiling pleasurably as a burst of saccharine juices flooded her palate. A tingling sensation permeated throughout her entire body, causing the fine hairs of her gingerly sunned arms to stand on end.
As though pulling fireworks from the sky, she wiped the delectable fluids from her satiny lips, tested for any remains with her short, hopeful tongue, and then merrily continued on her airy chasse.
The golden rows of wheat beyond the garden were known to house those minor harmonies of winged nymphs and nymphets renowned for their dialectical entanglements, wherein they also engaged in both innocent and not-so-innocent corporeal delights. Judy strolled gingerly through the sacrosanct playground so as not to perturb the fey creatures in their innocuous comedy. However, she soon felt the most diminutive of tugs at the fringe of her frock: it was an acclamation for attention that Judy was often taught to ignore.
After a few more impatiently exiguous attempts, an epigrammatic abeyance stilted the stream of narrative as minute gears shifted direction in the nymph’s chronic apperception, like a cuckoo clock in the midst of being rewound.
A pocket-sized voice then rapped on Judy’s eardrums:
‘What’s your favourite book?’
Another beat was scarcely necessary for Judy to realise that she had alighted upon a bibliofairy. She recalled from her old nursery school lessons that but a scant few admissions were required of her in order to gain freedom from the nymph’s conversational imprisonment: Once the bibliofairy’s literary hunger was sated, it would proceed to carry on freely, searching for others of its ilk in order to collectively expound its most singular knowledge.
‘Um, I suppose my favourite would be the one about Liddell,’ Judy said while turning to espy the bibliofairy. She noted that the twee tones of the nymph’s voice uniquely complemented the surprisingly lascivious nature of its studious being: it wore the agrestal costume favoured by the more consciously ferine of the nymphs and especially by the preponderance of nymphets, and the binding of its blueprint was faintly revealed through its thin gossamer skin, as though horripilation.
‘Um.’
At quite the opportune moment, a girlish yet decidedly commanding shout resounded throughout the entire field. Both Judy and the bibliofairy pirouetted in the direction of the dictatorial outburst, finding an idiosyncratic girl of august yet kinky, december yet kooky mode of dress standing amongst a clearing of trampled grains. The girl’s aurulent diadem, through antithesis, matched her argentatus silvered frock, revealing that her lithe skin was temporarily chilled.
‘Aaugh!’ was a rather encapsulating crow. ‘You’re all awful subjects!’
At this the bibliofairy fluttered nimbly towards the impetuous stranger to welcome her.
‘Subjects?’ the nerdy nymph inquired expectantly. ‘Do you mean like in a book, subjects?’
‘No, no, of course not,’ said the girl, suddenly changing her disposition. ‘I mean as my people, like.’
‘Hum, well, we’re all of us our own people here, though we all excel at our own individual quirks. I like books, you see; that little nymphet there likes boys; and you – well, what do you like? And what’s your favourite book?’
‘Me? You don’t know me?’ the girl cried, aghast. ‘Why, I’m Nausicaa, and I’m the princess of fairyland, say I! And, um, I suppose my favourite book would be the one about Liddell.’
Completely bewildered by the loquacious proceedings, Judy stood rigidly watching the adolescent princess with something vaguely resembling awe, her eyes as wide as untamed helianthus: She marvelled at anyone who would purposefully confront the fairies without demur.
Nausicaa then reeled towards her, causing Judy to start.
‘You’re a rather large nymph!’ the princess cried in an accusing tone. ‘What’s your name, you little rebel?’
‘I’m Judy,’ answered Judy politely. ‘And I’m not a nymph, I’m a girl.’
At this the curious princess strode up to directly face the unperturbed Judy, leaving but a hair’s-breadth between them. When Nausicaa straightened, the natural bow of her foundation presented the warmth of her chassis to Judy’s, allowing mild protuberances to brush against the top of her frock. A hush befell the denizens of the field just then, the only sound being that of the minute blinking of bantam eyes: Nausicaa brought an immaculate hand to her forehead as though saluting, swallowed her breath, then levelled the air ahead of her, grazing Judy’s velvet hair.
‘Well, I’m taller than you,’ said the princess decidedly, ‘so I say you’re a nymph.’
Despite the formal decree, Judy was not going to be so conveniently persuaded. In measured tones she reasoned with confidence to Nausicaa that not only had she a dearth of wings, but she generally lacked the ability to fly; she arrayed herself in sewn garments, was educated in the old nursery school beyond the windmill, attended the elementary school near the nursery, and basically partook in all of the activities befitting a human child.
‘I must admit you present a good case,’ Nausicaa allayed. ‘But I’m still the princess, and you’re still a petite pixie.’
‘But . . . I can’t be your subject, anyway,’ explained Judy in a reasonable manner, as was her wont. ‘I’m on my way to get milk for my mother.’
‘Yum!’ Nausicaa exclaimed, touching her dampening lips. ‘I love milk. Would you like to share some with your darling princess?’
Despite her odd behaviour, the budding princess seemed friendly enough to Judy: and since she invariably delighted in acquiring new playmates, Judy decided to give the request open consideration.
‘Um, well, it’s already paid for, so there’ll only be the usual amount,’ Judy thought aloud, figuring out the math on her dainty calculators. ‘But I’m allowed a drink for the walk, so I suppose I could share some of it.’
In girlish delight Nausicaa enveloped her precious nymph with leukocytic limbs. With their exquisitely symmetrical spines – bowed crescents which ran from their slender shoulders to the arciform apexes of their delicate haunches – they silhouetted the form of a lambent spade between them.
The bibliofairy chimed in from time to time regarding a particular strand of bovidian extract and its related products, but most of its information was superfluous at best, largely concerning the grammar and syntax of its textual sources. As neither of the girls displayed a single grain of interest, the bibliofairy eventually curtailed its speech and fluttered off in a huff.
Judy smoothed her frock about her bonny legs and sat on the matted lane by Nausicaa. She inadvertently arranged a precise route to the dairy using the various grains and minerals blanketing the dirt around her, producing a makeshift blueprint of comically naïve proportion. Her sanguine strawberry nestled itself between the corner of her palatable lips as she concentrated intently on the finishing touches.
‘What’s that grain of wheat over there?’ inquired Nausicaa as she pointed a slender finger.
‘That’s the forest,’ Judy explained.
A brimstone moth with titian tiger stripes then fluttered nimbly between the girls, their luminous eyes pursuing the colossal alabaster moth as it trailed a linear path towards the forest’s umbrageous bank. A forum of lepidoptera immediately accosted the brimstone upon breaching their rainbowed skylarking.
Judy was dazzled as her brilliant, choreographed orbs alighted upon each mercurial wing caught in the symposium’s cadence: from the variegated cinnamon of a skipper butterfly to the shimmering indigo of a male argus, the finely knit wings of each were miraculous and gorgeous.
With aeroplane arms Judy maneuvered through the bisque field and entered into a dell of chartreuse, accidentally disbanding the butterfly moths with her acrobatic arrival. Butterfly kisses tickled the ridges and lobes of her dainty ears as corals and amethysts sprinkled the air behind her, then teased Nausicaa’s argent frock with spiraled fingers before vanishing into the collective imagination of a hundred haut monde nymphs and nymphets.
Nausicaa extemporaneously kicked up flaxen grains as she sprinted to rejoin Judy, and together they penetrated the lush forest as newly formed companions. They bantered:
‘How long does it take to reach the dairy?’ the curious princess asked.
After a thoughtful pause Judy submitted her answer:
‘I always stop counting after eight steps.’
Translucent leaves passed overhead in emerald arcs while clandestine juices trickled down the scaled bark of thick wooden bodies. Yet even while surrounded by the abundance of nectar – in addition to plump wild mushrooms and ample berries – Judy and Nausicaa thought solely and deliberately about milk, that substance of liquid purity, a monument to everything the girls found beautiful.
They ventured through paths of resplendently au naturel mosaics: burgeoning bracts and husks of henna, as well as golden sunlight that pierced the serrated leaves above, casting mottled shadows on the pair as they strolled; and blushing flowers decorating strings of ripe red apples, each one more roseate than the last.
At a radiant spring betwixt lines of mossy trees, Nausicaa opted for a spirited diversion in her ameliorated costume, cooling down the summer’s breath with a revitalising wade.
Judy sat atop the carapace of a mountainous turtle, the reptile fast asleep. From a low-hanging branch she plucked an apple of succulent size and colour, penetrating the taut skin with her mouth as her eyes chased Nausicaa in the comfortably kelpie kingdom. Trailing water with her fingertips, the princess cautiously snuck up on a rainbowed cocktail party of remarkably fluorescent fish, but then accidentally dispersed them with an overconfident call to Judy:
‘Think I can catch one? No, wait, never mind.’
The brief respite concluded and the girls sashayed, one warmed by the sun’s becoming rays and the other temporarily protected by a thin shield of water.
Exotic birds heralded their arrival in multilingual tongues as the companions soon came upon the path leading up to the dairy. Nausicaa giggled delightedly, a purring kitten prone to random frolicking as they drew closer and closer to their cherished destination.
They exited the forest and their eyes widened at the elegant simplicity revealed before them.
The dairy was an isolated building in an expansive clearing haloed by the plumage of peacock trees and pulchritudinous flowers. Nausicaa raced towards the colourful boutique that served as the dairy’s front, littered with countless signs and arrows proclaiming the absolute smoothness of texture and creaminess of quality inherent to all of its products. Judy followed after at a quickening gait and soon rejoined the princess in the boutique’s cool interior, where the summer heat was immediately forgotten.
‘So many cheeses!’ gasped Nausicaa.
‘I’m here to pick up an order for my mother,’ Judy said politely to the tall man at the cash register. He breathed heavily through his nostrils as he passed a clinking package towards her. ‘Merci beaucoup.’
They then sat in the shade beside the boutique, sharing a small bottle of milk that Nausicaa gulped at first and then savoured after. Judy pressed her fingers into the algid soil on either side of her soft seat and pendulously tapped her toes together.
‘You know, you can be a princess, too,’ Nausicaa quietly confided. ‘All you have to do is find out what you like the most and then become the princess of it.’ She took a tiny sip of milk, leaving a trace film of white between her lips, and then continued:
‘I like fairies the most, since they can do anything they want. What about you?’
Judy pondered long and hard about the question, almost becoming lost in her own thoughts before finally stumbling upon an answer:
‘I, um,’ Judy began uncertainly, rolling the soft grass and softer soil between her gentle fingers. Gazing down at all of the folds, wrinkles and dirty patches of her fading yellow frock, Judy found herself feeling strangely comfortable, and soon all of the memories of the sun-kissed day rushed to her delicate mind like the freed juices of a ripened apple.
‘I’m the princess of everything,’ she said.