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Epilogue
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On the wind beaten hilltop of Goldengrass the loud sound of crying could be heard by every passing doozer as they turned in for the night, some walking just a bit slower in their tiny insect size yellow boots, feeler topped heads bowed.
Harriet had to admit with a sting of regret that even his uncontrollable sobbing had a touch of heroism...
One that any storyteller...that she, would never tire of retelling.
"Oh Fredrick, Fredrick.." She whispered, reaching upward.
The knight had since returned to his true form, hanging in all his semi-transparent glory over the rock where they had first met.
"You knew, didn't you? You knew my feelings. I'm sorry, but I love Matt..You understand don't you? Oh don't cry, I know how it feels when..."
Fredrick sniffed with a metallic sound, blowing his nose on a tissue that popped into being and was gone just as quickly.
"I cry.... not for myself... but for youuu..." The ghost wailed in an almost banshee like howl, making the pink haired fraggle before him clap her hands to her ears.
"For... me?" She asked when the wind stopped ringing.
Fredrick rolled over in the air, drawing himself up in a fuzzy protective ball and leaving only his tail in view where it hung toward the ground without so much as a twitch.
"My heart has betrayed you, I..I too love another...her name in life was... Gwenalot."
"Gwenalot." The storyteller mouthed, her eyes lighting up with a a sudden flash of understanding.
"She is buried as a princess should be..." Fredrick continued in a flat voice, spinning a length of ceiling moss around his finger where he lay. "...Under the boughs of a golden apple tree."
The yellow fraggle was already shaking with laughter as she took off her glasses to rub her eyes. Fredrick turned sharply in shock.
"Oh, don't worry, you aren't betraying me. Good heavens, you helped me and I'm grateful as it is! Why don't you go visit..this princess then then?"
The ghost made a dipping motion in the air, one that she was sure, if he had still had any lungs, would have been a relieved sigh.
"I know where she is, but sadly my soul must have a suitable anchor to this world to rest within, and yet I have never found..."
Harriet cut him off with a crazy driven glint playing across her eyeglasses, talking at a mile a minute.
" Could you show me where this tree is? Does this 'anchor' have to be a rock?"
Fredrick nodded, slowly edging back into his white sphere shape as if a bit afraid.
"Yes, certainly but...No..I suppose with the proper magic nearly anything would..."
"Wait right there!" She ended, zipping off down the hill as fast as her new idea could run.
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It was a wonder to behold...or at least, it was something to be beheld.
The tall, scarecrow like dummy, with a muzzle made out of coconut shells, beady eyes made from the purest of white pebbles, and fur of cotton scraps grinned its' berry ink dyed tongue in the wind for the first time as it was raised upright by an odd looking fraggle and an equally odd large magical looking circle of light.
"There! I'm no seesaw repairer so its' really not that good, but there is an attachment so you can choose if you want to open the way down, how do you like...?"
The storyteller was stopped as the light reformed itself into a body once more, this time keeping its' bright overworld light beneath the surface.
"It is beautiful...as you always will be. I am forever in your service...and.."
The ghost drifted toward the scarecrow with a small smile.
"My true name...I remember now...it is..."
The storyteller stepped forward with a last curtsey, her voice small like a childs'.
"Arthuridan. The Princess Gwenalot's love Arthuridan. I read about those stores a long long time ago..." She smiled, looking up at him. "You... always were... my favorite."
As the glittering shape of the legendary first knight of the stone table melted into the body of the sloppy looking dummy to guard the entrance to the stairwell below for all time, Harriet was still smiling.
It might take nearly a lifetime, but now, now she had hope.
Until then, page fifty-seven would do...
Yes. Yes, it would.
The End