The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland In a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente

Wyverary drew his huge foot back and settled down on his haunches just exactly like a cat, so that his face was on a level with September’s. She saw now that his eyes were kindly, not fearsome at all--and a beautiful shade of orange.
    “I am going to the City myself, human girl. After my mother was widowed, my siblings and I went each our separate ways: M-Through-S to be a governess, T-Through-Z to be a soldier, and I to seek our old grandfather--the Municipal Library of Fairyland, which owns all the books in all the world. I hope that he will accept me and love me as a grandson, and teach me to be a librarian, for every creature must know a trade. I know I have bad qualities which stand against me--a fiery breath being chief among these--but I am a good beast and I enjoy alphabetizing, and perhaps I may get some credit for following in the family business.” The Wyverary pursed his great lips. “Perhaps we might travel together, for a little while? Those beasts with unreliable fathers must stick together, after all. And I may be a good deal of help in the arena of Locating Suppers.”
    “Oh, I would like that, Ell,” said September happily. She did not like to travel alone, and she missed the Leopard and her Green Wind fiercely. “Let us go now, before the sun gets low again. It is cold in Fairyland at night.”
    The two of them began to walk west, and the chains around the Wyverary’s red wings jangled and clanked. September was not even so tall as his knee, so after awhile he let her climb the chains and ride upon his back, sliding her sceptre through the links. September could not know that humans riding Marvelous Creatures of a Certain Size was also not allowed. A-Through-L knew, but for once he did not care.
    “I shall amuse you along the way,” he boomed, “by reciting all of the things I know. Aardvark, Abattoir, Abdication, Adiago, Alligator, Araby…”
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Local Thunder

Chapter V: The House Without Warning
     
    In Which September Measures the Distance to Pandemonium, Receives a Brief Lecture in History, Meets a Soap Golem, and Is Thoroughly Scrubbed.
     
    September bit into a fat, juicy persimmon. Well, something like a persimmon. Rather larger, greener, and tasting of blueberry cream, but it looked terribly like a persimmon, and so September had resolved to call them that. A-Through-L still worried a poor tree, which was so tall and stubbornly thick that no small girl could ever have hoped to climb it, even if she had known that there was fruit up there in its yellowy-silver branches. Still, if a dragon--a wyvern--brings it to me , September thought, it’s dragon food and not Fairy food at all, and no one should blame me for breakfast . September insisted she was full between peals of laughter, but the Wyverary seemed to delight in charging the tree with a cheerful snarl and smacking into it full force until the helpless fruit gave up and came tumbling down. After each blow, A-Through-L sat back on his enormous haunches and shook his head, sending his whiskers a-flying. The sight of it kept September laughing helplessly, her skirt tumbling-full of oozing, green-orange, blueberryish persimmons.
    The sun hitched up her trousers and soldiered on up into the sky. September squinted at it and wondered if the sun here was different than the sun in Nebraska. It seemed gentler, more golden, deeper. The shadows it cast seemed more profound. But September could not be sure. When one is traveling, everything looks brighter and lovelier. That does not mean it is brighter and lovelier, it just means that sweet, kindly home suffers in comparison to tarted-up foreign places with all their jewels on.
    “How far is it to Pandemonium, Ell?” yawned September. She stretched her legs, flexing the bare toes of her left foot.
    “Can’t say, small one.” The beast thwacked into the tree again. “Pandemonium begins with P, and therefore I don’t know very much about it.”
    September thought for a