The Star Whale of the Night Sea

Far above Landorya, higher than the tallest mountain and softer than the deepest cloud, there is a place called the Luminous Veil — a great dark sea made not of water but of night itself. And through that night-sea, slow and enormous and endlessly kind, there swims the Star Whale.

The Star Whale is bigger than a whole village and older than the moon. Her skin is a deep, deep blue-black, scattered all over from nose to tail with tiny points of light, so that when she swims through the dark she looks like a great piece of the starry sky that has quietly decided to move. And every single night, without ever once forgetting, she makes the same gentle journey across the sleeping world, gathering up the dreams of sleeping children and carrying them safely until morning.

One night, as she drifted low and slow over the rooftops of a little town, the Star Whale heard a small sound she was not used to hearing at that hour. She stopped, and looked down, and there — sitting at an open window with her chin in her hands — was a little girl named Ada, very much awake.

"I don't want to go to sleep," Ada told her, quite firmly, "because then the whole night will be over, and I'll miss everything, and it will just be morning before I even know the night was here."

The Star Whale slowed to a hover and turned one enormous, gentle eye toward the window. "Would you like to come and see the night, then?" she rumbled, in a voice like the sea heard from very, very far away. "Just for a little while. You have my word — I will bring you safely home before the morning comes."

Ada's eyes went round. She climbed carefully out onto the sill, and onto the broad, soft back of the Star Whale, and she settled down right between two of her warmly glowing lights, and held on tight. And the Star Whale rose, slowly, slowly, up and up into the night-sea.

Below them, all of Landorya lay sleeping. Ada saw the rivers winding far below, shining like silver ribbons someone had dropped across the dark land. She saw the great forests breathing softly in their sleep. She saw the mountains standing quiet with their heads in the clouds, and the little golden windows of houses winking out, one by one by one, as the very last children in the world closed their eyes.

"What are you carrying?" Ada asked, for the Star Whale's wide back seemed to shimmer and glow with soft, drifting colours, like mist lit from within.

"Dreams," said the whale gently. "Every sleeping child gives me one to look after through the night. See there — that little pink one belongs to a boy dreaming about his birthday. That silver one is a girl dreaming she can fly. That warm gold one is a baby dreaming of nothing at all but being held. I keep every one of them safe until dawn, and in the morning I give them all back, so that no good dream is ever, ever lost."

The Star Whale swam on, slow and steady, rocking ever so gently as she went, like a cradle as wide as the whole sky. The rocking was very soothing. The lights along her back glowed soft and warm beneath Ada's hands. And the longer Ada rode, and the more sleeping towns drifted by below, the heavier and heavier her eyes became.

"But if I fall asleep now," Ada said, around an enormous yawn, "then I really will miss the rest of the night."

"No," said the Star Whale softly. "Listen, and I will tell you the secret. If you fall asleep, you will simply give me a dream of your own to carry, and I will keep it as safe as all the others, and in the morning you will have both — the night, and the dream, and the whole bright morning waiting after it. You never have to choose between them. You do not lose the night when you sleep, little one. You only trade it for something every bit as wonderful."

Ada leaned back against the warm, glowing curve of the whale's back. The great creature turned in a slow, wide, patient arc and began the gentle journey home. And by the time Ada's own little window came drifting back into view below, her eyes had already fallen shut — and a soft new dream, the deep and lovely blue of a night-sea scattered all over with stars, floated up from her and settled down to rest among all the others.

The Star Whale lowered Ada ever so gently back onto her bed, and tucked the blanket up snug around her with the very tip of one enormous fin, and rumbled the quietest goodnight in all the world. "Sleep now, little one. I have your dream, and I will keep it until morning. I always do."

And then she rose once more into the Luminous Veil and swam on through the dark, slow and enormous and kind, carrying the dreams of all the sleeping children of Landorya safely, softly, home to the dawn.