She notices something outside a neighboring window.

A small light quickly appears to float through the night air just outside the castle wall. It hovers in place for but a moment before zipping into the window next to Xalendra's own. This does not pass unnoticed, and she finds herself leaning a bit farther out to try and see where it might have gone.

A fruitless effort, ultimately, yet she knew where it went. Beside her bedroom was the rarely-used room of her cousin Coltus. Late cousin Coltus, she had to remind herself. He had passed the previous winter, on the way home from his last visit to the castle. But what could a small, glowing mote be doing floating into his window like that? She decided she had to investigate.

Xalendra left her windowsill to make her way to the hall outside her room. It was dark and silent, save for the low torch crackling at its end. She moved gingerly to the next door, finding it unlocked. She had never been inside this room before, and so she didn't know what to expect upon entering. Inside it was even darker, and she was wary of where she stepped once past the minimal light the open door brought in.

She could make out the general shape of furniture in the shadows, and there was enough light at the window across the room for her to see a wardrobe sitting half-open beside it. It was there that she noticed the glowing mote again, and so she hurried on over, silently approaching the wardrobe.

Peering into the open side, she saw a sparse row of coats hung up, and a single plain shift sitting on the bottom. The shift then suddenly... shifted, and the same glow returned from beneath its thin white fabric—an orb of pinkish light.

Xalendra slowly reached for the clothing, gripping one edge with two fingers, and then she swiftly brought the whole thing up, yanking it off the floor of the wardrobe. There was a brief, ringing voice, tiny to her ears, that came as she saw the mote momentarily dragged with the shift, only to fall to the floor once again with the slightest bump, before going dark.

Leaning in to investigate further, Xalendra discovered quite the sight: a small winged girl sprawled in a daze, with short ruffled hair as green as grass, and actual grass twined around her thin little body. With some amount of reverence, she reached in and scooped the creature up in her hands, gently bringing her closer.

It could only be something she had heard of in stories—a fairy. The tiny girl was only as tall as her hand, from wrist to fingertip, and looked to be so dizzy she couldn't focus her relatively large green eyes, or stop lolling her head. Xalendra felt sorry for the poor creature, yet had no idea what to do.

Just then, there was the sound of footsteps approaching from the hall. She quickly turned to see a light growing closer. She panicked at the thought of being discovered in such a strange predicament, in a room not her own with a fairy in her hands. She had to think quick.