Title: Blair Fearless

Author: SunBird

Email: Blairlistmom@hotmail.com

Archive: Yes

Date: June 18, 1998

Story Type: Gen

Series or Sequel: No

Pairing: Non-sexual

Web site: Hopefully it gets in the Archive.*dances about* I get to be first. :) http://www.geocities.com/TelevisionCity/Studio/8442/

Beta-reader(s): I thank Marag for jumping up and volunteering. She took my plea to be forgiving and ignored it completely, making this a better story. *passes her the coveted Golden Doughnut* I'd also like to thank coZmo, who didn't beta-read. She may not have looked over the story, but knowing my fellow English major would be reading made me work harder.

Warnings/Notes: This is a Sentinel fairytale, but not a reply to the fairytale challenge. It is a re-telling of the Grimm's fairytale 'The Boy Who Did Not Fear'. I also saw it retold with the title Billy Fearless. If this isn't your type of genre, then you will not like it. It's cute the way TeddyBlair Pirate was. There is NO sex in this story. There is NO slash implied. Comments and compliments can be sent to me at blairlistmom@hotmail.com Flames and really hard stares will be laughed at.

Summary: Blair learns what fear is.

Disclaimer: I do not own these characters. They belong to PetFly and Paramount. The story plot idea came from a Grimm's fairytale. I make no money on the writing and distribution of this story. However, if Paramount and PetFly are done with the characters, I have first dibs. ;)

Once there lived a woman named Naomi, who had a child. She named him Blair, and loved the child, as he deserved. Blair had lived not as a son, but as Naomi's friend. So the boy-child had grown without fear of authority. She was a good protector, and he had no fear of being harmed. Mother and son lived as nomads, moving when they felt the urge. There was no fear of stagnation or isolation. There was always a place to be and a place to go. Blair, so lucky, had the love and friendship of his only parent and a world in which he was free. He had no fear at all. No fear none at all. He didn't even know what it felt like. "I fear I have raised you wrong," Naomi said one day. But Blair merely laughed at the silly statement she made. What, after all, was fear?

As the child grew to a young man, he saw that friendships ended. He worried that he could lose his parent-who-wasn't-a-parent. She was, after all, a friend. Naomi had many admirers, who craved to be her companions. But it wasn't fear yet, just worry. Blair watched, as he left behind people who were important to him, and he fretted that they would miss him less then he missed them. It wasn't a fear. He worried. Worry. Not fear.

"I'm afraid you have none of the proper friends a boy should have," Naomi said one day. She frowned when Blair laughed gleefully.

"But you are my friend, Naomi." he replied.

They lived thus, traveling and living together, and were joyously happy. Once in awhile, Naomi would voice her fears for her son, but he would only reply with laughter.

"I am afraid you will not laugh so when I'm gone," she said.

"You will never leave me." Blair answered her.

She only smiled, and it made Blair worry. Thus they lived, travelling and exploring together, and they were joyous.

Before the fear could come, Blair struck out on his own. At a worldly wise sixteen, he felt quite sure he could survive in the unknown. He traveled to the university to study with great thinkers, and there he found great knowledge. Blair hungered for what he didn't know; and had not realized until then, how one's opinion and understanding were as valuable as the facts he learned. He was insatiable, and the thinkers loved him. There was no fear to be had at the university. None that Blair could feel. No fear.

Four years went so fast. Learning about what made people who they were was a sweet buffet, but too quickly over and not too filling. At a less naive twenty, Blair knew he would have to graduate soon. It worried him that he would have to leave the place he loved so much and had called home. The worry grew until it was almost fear, but not quite. In the end, he decided to continue his education, and become a great thinker himself. It would allow him to stay at the university. The worry slipped away from fear, and Blair was happier. He chose to research sentinels, village sentries with god-like powers. It was obscure enough that he could research it for years to come. He would be in the university for a long time. Now there was no fear. None.

Blair went through roommates and lovers. He liked them well enough, and they all seemed to like him. But they sensed something inside him that was different. He was brighter inside, and he stood taller in a way that can't be seen by eye. Yes, Blair was a strange one indeed. Roommates also couldn't place their fingers on it, but he was too different for them. At first this worried Blair. A nagging doubt wiggled about in the back of his mind. But as one who has no fear for him self or for others, he put it out of his mind. It was their problem, not his. Blair felt no fear.

At a delightfully enthusiastic twenty-four, Blair had met his first sentinel. A full sentinel. Jim Ellison wasn't one of those one-sense wonders. He was no flash-in-the-pan, here-and-then-gone wannabe. Jim Ellison was an honest-to-Skyfather sentinel with all the god-like trimmings. Blair was elated. Ecstatic. His research was now reaching its pinnacle. But in his elation, he worried. Halfway from start is halfway to end. To end is quest would be to end his life at the university. That would never do.

To solve his on problems as he often did, Blair came up with impossible tests. He created tests within tests, and tests of tests. He made them unpleasant, and the made them pleasurable. He made tests that answered with more questions, and tests that gave answers to questions never asked. Data piled from his desk to the sky. His file-cabinet overflowed like a flooded riverbank. Blair would make sure there was so much information to sort, he would be able to study it forever. He would have a lifetime of study. He lost his worry at ending. He had no fears. No fears at all to be felt.

Blair began to like his sentinel, Jim Ellison. He was a likable person, and reminded Blair of his mother. No one had thought to cluck over him since her, and it felt nice. Blair liked to follow Jim about with his notebook on his knees. He enjoyed rubbing elbows at the man's personal desk, being called Chief, and riding along in the many trucks. Blair was a happy guide. A content man. He worried occasionally over the bullets whizzing past, but he didn't fear them. Blair knew that as long as Jim was around, he nothing to fear. So, he just remained the happy but reserved twenty-eight he had become.

One day the large and handsome sentinel, Jim Ellison, took his guide to a dark and dangerous place. More bullets than either had ever seen darted about their soft bodies. They ducked and twirled, both performing such dances that a hero and sidekick perform in such dangers. Blair became worried that he and his sentinel would be hurt. But he didn't fear it. He had absolute trust in his blessed protector. He never feared around Jim Ellison, his big strong sentinel. What was there to fear?

After they had left the dangerous place, Jim turned to his happy but reserved, and always bouncy guide. He had a look on his face that Blair had not often seen, and the guide was worried. "What's the matter? Did I do something wrong?" asked the suddenly timid but energetic young man. Blair hoped the look on his hero-of-hero's face was not over something he did.

"Chief," Jim began in a voice that was unused to the words about to be said. "Chief, I was afraid I was going to lose you in that dangerous place. I thought a bullet, with only the intentions of its creation, would pass me by and take your life. I've grown quite fond of you, and I would hate to see you go." He ended his speech with a brotherly pat to Blair's shoulder and a familial squeeze to his forearm.

This all worried Blair, who had no fear himself or knew what it felt like. The notion that someone so obviously great was afraid for him, was an alien thing indeed. Mothers, who are not quite that, are expected to some degree to fear for the chick they dropped. But heroes and big friendly sentinels were made of sterner stuff. So Blair voiced his concern. "Jim, I never fear and especially not around you. There is nothing so awful, when you're around, to make me afraid." Just to show how not afraid he was, Blair smiled his sweetest summer wind smile.

The dashing and noble sentinel, Jim Ellison, frowned at his guide. "But Blair, I won't always be around. Sometimes we just don't get the choice. One day you may lean over the notebook on your knees, and when you look up, I'll be gone. The present can quickly become the past." The young guide took to trembling at the thought, the worry becoming to big for his body. "You should fear a little, if only to make the present that much more important," Jim warned.

"But you will always be there," said the shaking and quaking, less bouncy guide. He grasped his god-like sentinel's hand and hung on, as if the man were leaving then. "Nothing can take you from me, or me from you. There is nothing to this fear you feel."

"Ah, but there is," replied the brawny but gentle Ellison. "I am only human, and all humans make mistakes. We falter, and tremble, cry out, and then die. Death is greater than everything, and even I cannot best him." Then as if to prove the point, a single shot rang out. Where it came from remains a mystery. Some say death himself fired it, while others say a passing drug lord was cleaning his gun. It does not matter.

The bullet, that Blair had never feared or knew how to fear, lodged quickly and quietly against his heart; and, he crumpled forward into his sentinel's waiting arms. As Ellison had predicted, Blair faltered to stand; he trembled like a leaf; he cried out against the unfairness; and he began to die. He was consumed inside with a shiver all over, and he could hear the rushing of wind in his ears. The taste of copper filled his mouth, and everything around him was so much clearer. He looked up into his sentinel's face, as Jim shed fat wet tears onto his forehead. "Is this fear?" he asked unusually somber and grave.

"Yes, my guide- my friend," Jim answered in choked sorrow. "This is fear you feel."

Blair, always very odd but in a pleasant way, smiled sweetly. "Well what do you know. I was afraid all along."

Death had meant the bullet as revenge for Blair's fearlessness. After all, when you work so hard at being scary, it's a bother when someone doesn't go along with the effort. But upon hearing Blair's words, he knew he had mistaken innocence for arrogance, and he couldn't take the sweet if sometimes annoying young man. So Death pushed back the pieces of Blair that fallen out during the faltering and trembling, and sent Jim and Blair on their way. Ever a grateful man, Blair promised to fear some thing's to make life more important.

As everyone knows, a fear goes a long way to making the light much brighter, and guides us all.

I hope you enjoyed this piece. If you have, let me know. Constructive and pleasent feedback is always appriciated. :)