One fine afternoon, the Queen of the Fairies had a scheme.
“We shall visit the clouds,” she announced.
Wonderful airships appeared — so fine and white they might almost have been clouds themselves. The fairies sailed up into the sky, light as birds, until they reached the great silver clouds above.
The cloud fairies, who live up there all the time minding their own business, were delighted to receive visitors. They showed the wood fairies their palaces, their courtyards, their tall mountains where they held their parties. Everything was done in pale silver, grey, and blue.
Then the wood fairies suggested the cloud fairies should return the visit and come down to earth.
“We’d love to,” said the cloud fairies. And they set off downward.
But here is the thing about cloud fairies: when they move, the rain they are holding in place stops being held. It falls.
The moment the cloud fairies began to descend, a tremendous rainstorm broke over the earth below. The wood fairies were safe under the great trees, of course, and the cloud fairies were careful to send the rain only where there were no branches overhead. So both sets of fairies had a perfectly lovely afternoon.
Down below, people looked out their windows and said: well, there goes the weather again.
