The world shifted.

"Oh, no. Not again," Ara moaned as a dull throb started right behind her eyes. She knew that within minutes, the throb would become a piercing pain. She saved the page she was working on and grabbed the extra-strength aspirin that was now a permanent addition to her desk. "Remind me to take a vacation as soon as this issue is done," she mumbled to herself as she downed the pills and rubbed her temples.

She reached out for her notebook and a pencil. Doodling almost made the migraines bearable. But before her fingers wrapped around the pencil, she realized her desk was getting closer at an alarming rate.

She woke up to a small hand shaking her shoulder. "Aracelli!" Hearing her full name caught her attention. Even her mother didn't call her that. Curious, she looked toward the hand still on her shoulder.

The creature beside her, no taller than her desk, blinked its large brown eyes. "I was starting to think you would never wake up. Come on, we have work to do."

Ara closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose.

"Aracelli!" The sharp tenor forced her eyes to refocus on the creature that had now moved to her office door. "This is not the time to sleep. We must get going."

"Going where?" She looked at the half-colored page on her screen, and back at the creature. "Are you...a goblin?

The creature bowed. "I am Bauble, personal attendant to Princess Rose."

Ara carefully studied Bauble. His large head, with its batwing ears and large glassy eyes, was somehow supported by his tiny body. She looked back at the screen- the same disproportionate creature stared back at her, his well-worn Victorian waistcoat still waiting for her to finish coloring the details. "Princess Rose?"

"Clan leader of the Bhrogan and current ruler of the Leprechauns."

Ara thought on that for a moment. "The Bhrogan? Does that mean the leprechaun clans are real?"

"As real as you or I." Bauble stepped out into the hall, "Now hurry. Her Highness does not like to be kept waiting."

She grabbed her jacket and ran to catch up with the fast-moving goblin. "I'm dreaming. That's all there is to it. I'll wake up any moment." As she ran past the editing pool, she nearly tripped over a young man walking out. He caught her and helped her land on her feet before smiling, leaving Ara cold.

"Keep up, Aracelli!" Bauble called out over his shoulder.

She mumbled an apologetic thanks to the man and chased after the goblin. "You still haven't told me where we're going, Bauble."

"To see Princess Rose, of course." The goblin continued to the stairwell.

"Of course," Ara replied dryly. "Refresh my memory- why are we going to see her? Is she going to give me a brain? A heart, perhaps? Or how about some courage?"

"I don't know about any of that, but if you don't find some courage, then there will be no point in bringing you to the Princess. A coward will not last long against the Clurican."

"The Clurican? As in wild leprechauns?" Ara flinched. She recognized the clan name from her own work.

"Yes. They're normally harmless, but they recently got it into their head to close the veil between the Realm and the human world."

"And this is a problem?" Ara wondered where Bauble was leading her as he continued down the stairs and into the building's basement.

"If the Clurican close the veil, it will destroy imagination in the human world."

"Wait. Back up." Ara stopped. "What?"

"You humans have been writing and drawing about our world for centuries because we have allowed you to see us. In fact, there isn't a single idea that you humans have explored that didn't come from our world."

"And the Clurican want to put a stop to that?"

"Yes." Bauble reached the far corner of the basement. "Here we are. In you go." He lifted a metal plate in the floor.

Ara slowly approached the opening. "You expect me to jump in there?"

"Quickly," Bauble replied.

She looked into the darkness for a moment, "Oh, why not! Couldn't be any stranger than following a goblin talking about leprechauns." She closed her eyes and jumped, rolling when she hit the ground seconds later. The plate clanged as Bauble lowered himself into the corridor.

"All right, so what do the Clurican have against humans?"

"They feel humans aren't using their imaginations any more."

"And that gives them the right to do what they feel will put a stop to us imagining at all?"

"In their mind, yes." Bauble started moving along the torch-lit corridor as quickly as he'd run through the office building.

"That hardly seems reasonable." Ara followed the goblin.

"You know something about the Clurican. Do they seem like reasonable creatures?"

Ara thought about that for a moment. "No, not in any of the stories I've read about them."

"Exactly. Now follow me closely. Clurican bands are everywhere and would love nothing more than to jump one of Princess Rose's attendants."

Ara followed him through a stone archway and into a city that looked very similar to the underground city in her story. "Right."