It’s easy to get the idea, when you visit here once a year for the best shopping in more worlds than we small dwellers upon them can count, that all of the Fairelands are a bright, cheerful, or at least beautiful, place. This is not true.

Each year I’ve visited the Great Faire, I’ve become lost in the woods, felt nervous about this or that strange sensation of being followed or at least lurked (I’m sure you can use “lurked” that way. I’m sure you can. And if you’re not sure, ask yourself: “Do I have a PhD in English literature?” If the answer is, “No”, I’m far more likely to know how to use “lurked” correctly than you are. Just sayin’.)

I think every Faire, there is a Realm I feel more at home at than in any of the other Realms. So far this time around, it’s the beautiful, green, overcast Serenity. I love its monuments and candles. I love its harbour, its waterfalls.

But the fact is, for me, the Great Fantasy Faire is a shopping trip. It replenishes my dress wardrobe for the year to come, not to mention my jewellery stash. I learn how to do new hairstyles. I take cosmetic workshops. I buy shoes. Last year, I bought a replica of Rapunzel’s tower; I kid you not. It was too tall for the bower and not very practical at all: it had only the one room at the top, you see. I don’t know why I bought that. But it’s in inter-dimensional storage now, with more stuff than you probably want to know about. Anyway. Yes. The Great Faire. I was saying. It’s a shopping trip for me. And I’d shopped up every shop I wanted to shop in Serenity, though I’ll likely come back there for a peaceful stay once I’m done with all the shopping. One of the shopkeepers told me I could hail a boat from the Serenity Pier, and that my closest, best, shopping destination was Dangarnon. Which is what I did.

Journeys in the Fairelands always seem almost impossibly short, and this one was no exception. Still, I did have time to change into something a little more fun and a little less formal for a day of shopping. “Do I catch the boat to Dangarnon from here?” I asked the fellow who helped me off the boat.

He laughed. “Lady, this is Dangarnon,” he said.

I pointed. “This?”

“That’s right, Lady,” he said. Some of the other crewmen were laughing now, too.

I used my fae sight to get a good look at the place. “Fine, then,” I replied. “You can take me back now.”

Now the whole deck was laughing. “Lady, we ain’t going back,” the fellow said. “We have a couple hours’ business here, and then we’re off to…. Where are we off to, Corey?”

“Malfience, sir!” called the little fellow who started laughing first.

“You don’t want to go there.” He sounded sincere. “But I promise you, the place ain’t as scary as she looks, and there is good shopping here.” At my look, he glared at me. “What, you think I don’t have a wife? I know from shopping.”

I was still sceptical. I mean, look at the place. But sometimes I can’t solve everything with magic or a quick wit, so I shrugged.

“Fine”, I said, “but if anything happens to me, I wouldn’t want to be you.”

And I turned away from the sniggering, coarse, impolite lot of them, and I marched into the town as if it were the coolest place I’d ever set foot in.

And you know? It kinda was.

Style Cards:

Serenity Pier Gwyneth:
Body: Maitreya
Head: Catwa Jessica
Ears: BentBox, Sylvan Ears
Skin: Lumae Eirtae, Tone 1
Hair: No Match, No Sorry
Gown: Senzafine, Isilme (Available at the Fantasy Faire!)
Necklace: Empyrean Forge, Ymir’s Sigil, Gold
Circlet: Junbug, The Sabrina Circlet
Setting: Serenity

Dangarnon Pier Gwyneth:
Body: Maitreya
Head: Catwa Jessica
Ears: BentBox, Sylvan Ears
Skin: Lumae Eirtae, Tone 1
Hair: EMO-tions, Petra
Gown: The White Armory, Shadow of Celesta (Available at the Fantasy Faire!)
Necklace: Empyrean Forge, Talia’s Heart (Available at the Fantasy Faire!)
Circlet: Deviance, Erulisse, The Priestess
Setting: Dangarnon

Spiffy photos taken with the indispensible aid of my LumiPro. I never explore the Fairelands without it!