In the Court of the Pirate Fairies: A Retro Fantasy Feverdream and Timeless Love Story

It’s been a while, my good readers, and I apologize. My health has been in a death spiral this year and I’ve let a lot of things slip, but I shall try to remedy this where and when able. Anyway, to make it up to you all, I have a special treat from the foggy depths of my subconscious. See, most of my dreams are a nonsensical hodgepodge of ideas, concepts, and archetypes, with ever-changing POVs and mixed up characters wandering through tangled plots (if you could even generously call them that). But sometimes I have vivid, intricate dreams with more or less complete narrative arcs and impeccable costume and art design. Many moons ago I had one such dream and woke up immediately knowing I had to write it down. 

I shared it on my personal Facebook page and have since read it to a few friends, who demanded a copy, so I have decided to share it here, with all of you. So, my good internet denizens, without further ado, I give you an actual dream I had, from my mind’s eye to yours, as dictated by me the morning after. I have cleaned it up a bit for clarity, tense agreement, and to avoid having quite so many run-on sentences, but otherwise it remains unchanged and unflourished. So buckle up, kids. Put on your best 80s Pandora station, imagine your best ye old actually-filmed-on-film movie filter, pop your butteriest movie style popcorn, pour some M&Ms in that shit for good measure, savor the sweet and salty mélange on your mortal lips that the fey covet but can never themselves taste, and enjoy.

In the Court of the Pirate Fairies
A feverdream, faithfully dictated by Shannon Barnsley

Had a really weird, detailed dream last night that I was in some 80s-ish cult fantasy movie story. I was this normal teenage girl who worked at a mall and this guy I had a crush on, played by Kit Harrington but vaguely more ethnically ambiguous, found out his mom, played by Robin Wright in full Wonder Woman General Antiope costume, was the King of the Pirates. These were not actually pirates but marauding highwayman fairies, sort of like a Tam Lin style fairy court meets the Gyptians from The Golden Compass but on land.

My dream was quite clear that Robin Wright was king, not queen, Hatshepsut style, though her late husband had also been King of the Pirates and they had ruled as equals, not as king and queen consort or queen and king consort, so I’m not 100% sure if they were both kings or if she took on the title when she became sole ruler or what. But that is for the lawkeepers of the ancient ways of the Pirate Fairies to worry about, not the mortal minds of the likes of us, dear readers.

Anyway, Pirate Fairy King Robin Wright had reached the age at which she needed an immediate successor or some weird law of succession bullshit would let her evil brother-in-law take the throne. And so the Kit Harrington character discovers his true origins Stardust style and is going to become King of the Pirates but only if he has a queen (I feel like this might be some Sovereignty Goddess symbolism and not just heteronormativity, but the whole dream had a real 80s old school fantasy vibe and that doesn’t bode particularly well for gender politics, so idk).

Kit, the devil-may-care cool outsider guy at my high school, had recently chatted me up about music in the cafeteria and had been vaguely flirty with me at the mall, despite my thinking he didn’t know I existed. Apparently this was enough of a courtship that word got back to the fairy court that we were destined for one another. And so the scheming evil uncle in his sinister trenchcoated/black-cloaked B fantasy Bad Guy getup just comes down to the Aerie store where I work and straight up tries to murder me (And, yes, I recognize that the 80s is about 20 years too early for there to be an Aerie store in this mall, but this was, in fact, a dream, so you’ll forgive my slumbering mind not doing its due diligence when it comes to historical accuracy. Also, I was alive for a whole 6 months of the 80s, so my memories are hazy at best.). Just as Uncle Trenchcoat is about to KO my human, minimum wage ass, this crotchety, wise-cracking wizard and older-woman-but-not-as-old-as-the-wizard, no-nonsense witch who coded somewhat Jersey show up to help me.

There is a huge magical battle in the middle of the Aerie store, spilling out into the mall. People screaming, shoppers fleeing the changing rooms in partially dressed stolen merch, graphic tees and panties flying about, a carousel getting blown apart, and debris falling all around us (It’s scenes like this that make me envy more visual media. How does one convey in words alone sassy-sloganed undies soaring above a wizard battle while some unicorn ass-tatted musician pours their soul and slowly dying dreams of rockstardom into a synthed-up soundtrack deserving of a place amongst Ladyhawke, Legend, The Princess Bride, and the like? How does one truly capture the full display of humanity’s frailty and strength as parents desperately try to save their children and false lovers leave their betrayed betrotheds in the dust as they clamber to safety alone, all while one hero among men shields his Sbarro pizza like the loyalest of trench-bonded brothers? How, I ask you?).

We manage to get the drop on Uncle Nepiticide (Regicide?) and he becomes possessed by some Power of Orden style magic gone wrong, to the point where no one can look him in the eye without turning to stone. And for some reason now he can shapeshift and change his voice. This leads to a full-on Tam Lin style ceremony/rite/ordeal, where I’m supposed to be released into this haunted forest, hall of mirrors, echoey, misty plane of existence that is definitely filmed on an old school soundstage.

I have to find my way through the enchanted forest/labyrinth to the real Kit in order for him to be king, his uncle to be defeated, and for me to marry my fey-blooded high school crush (Which, even in our world, getting married and spirited away to a fairy realm at sixteen isn’t illegal, at least in most of the US, but Real Me has reservations about the whole prospect that Dream Me apparently did not. Because, hey, she’s a redblooded American teenage girl and Kit Harrington goes to her high school AND turns out to be Dauphin of a pirate fairy court. You gotta lock that shit down before upwardly mobile relations try to undermine the legitimacy of your heirs’ claim.).

But if I follow the shapeshifted Kit off the path, I’ll fail and probably turn to stone and Kit’s evil uncle will become king (Is this a sensible government system? No. No, it is not. But fantasy is full of this kind of thing. Besides, I don’t think we’re in a position to judge just now, America. It is THE WAY of the Pirate Fairies. Also, this was a dream.). Anyway, I’m freaking out wondering how I’m going to make it through this weird labyrinth shapeshifter masquerade and not be led astray. I’m blindfolded to avoid turning to stone but trying to figure out how I’ll follow the right voice and avoid tripping on some great gnarly tree root and breaking my neck.

And Kit is just like, “It is THE WAY. Only true love prevails in The Labyrinth. It must be True Love. Only then will your heart Know the true voice from the fake.”

And I’m like, “Look, I respect your mom and the Pirate Fairies and theirs is an ancient law, but that is some bullshit. I don’t want to turn to stone and we met like last week at the record store.” So he’s lamenting and I’m freaking out and we do that dramatic fairy tale kiss thing and I just whisper, “Give me directions in song lyrics.”

Because Kit was raised among humans and knows the sweet 80s soundtrack this movie deserves, while his nefarious uncle doesn’t. So Kit executes Operation Follow the White Rabbit, but then his outfoxy uncle catches wise and tries to throw me off. But Uncle Pleatherpants, being the basic Bad Guy he is, accidentally picks lyrics from some topical album that just came out and is so hot right now, but that Kit, at the record store, repeatedly said he hated and would never listen to. So I trick shapeshifted Uncle Baddie MacToo-Many-Buckles into looking at his own reflection and he turns to stone.

Then I get out of the labyrinth and marry Kit, now King of the Pirate Fairies, and good wins the day. Not through the Power of Love but through the power of my being clever and Kit being a snarky hipster purist. And if that isn’t the most American fantasy movie moral possible, I don’t even know what. So, yeah. It was a weird dream, but it had great aesthetics and I’m glad 16-year-old retail girl Dream Me is that quick thinking and now I really want to use that twist in something.

And you know the witch and the wizard are the supernatural aid/comic relief snarking at each other all movie but then def get together at the end. Like one of them catches the bouquet when I marry Kit and then they settle down and run the record store or something. And for some reason the Pirate Fairies were like 95% female. Not sure if there was a reason for this. I feel like it was some sort of plot point that got lost along the way.

Also, the whole succession snafu premise was a little unclear, because Robin Wright had inherited the throne from her father, the previous king of the fey pirate clan, but the brother-in-law also had a claim to it, so maybe it was one of those warring-kingdoms-marry-to-make-peace-and-become-one situations and, since her line had died out (other than baby Kit secreted away amongst the mortals), I guess he could claim kingship. Which was a bit weird because they were about the same age and he had no kids, so not sure why her line was considered ended and his wasn’t but heeeyyyy sexist double standards for female leaders, am I right?

Anyway, and they all lived happily ever after. Cue the inspirational orchestral swell of the finale score in all its cheesy glory. Roll the mid-credits shot of some other generically relatable everyman turned special, special chosen boy in the record store blowing off the dusty album of some forgotten great and getting sucked into the fey portal the wizard definitely left there (Okay, so that teaser scene setting up the inevitably low-budget and disappointing direct-to-video sequel where most of the actors get downgraded into slightly less attractive and much less famous approximations wasn’t in the dream. But you know it happened. You know it in your bones. It is THE WAY of my people.)

The End

Hope y’all enjoyed my old school fantasy does Tam Lin but with hipsters and product placement feverdream. Let me know in the comments if you enjoyed this nonsense my pop-culture-drunk dreams wove for you by the light of their misfiring brain cell hearth. And if you want more like this in the future. And, because Septimus from Stardust is a good generic distillation of the Bad Guy aesthetic Uncle Powergrab Von Badtouch was channeling, and this scene, while not from the correct era, has a similar offbeat manic energy, I leave you with this glorious gem in the crown of cinematic fantasy. And, if you have never heard the Ladyhawke soundtrack, seriously, go check that shit out. So much synth. Just so much synth. Anyway, ’til we meet again, my friends. Have fun stormin’ the castle.

Image from Unsplash, words by Shannon Barnsley.