LAUGH

[...] The Noween is a prehistoric monster that wants everything happen immediately.  Every time a child says "in a minute" or "later" or "I'm just going to ..." the Noween bellows with furious force: "Nooo! IT HAS TO BE DONE NOOOOW!"

The Noween brought the fears to the Land-of-Almost-Awake to catch children, because when a Noween gets hold of a child it engulfs the child's future, leaving the vitim helpless where it is, facing an entire life of eating now and sleeping now, and tidying up right away.

When dawn came, all the bravest fighters from Mibatalos tried to climb the mountain and defeat the Noween, but no one managed it.  Because the Noween was breeding fears int the caves.  Fears need to be handled carefully, because threats just make them grow bigger.  So every time a parent somewhere threatened a child, it worked as fertilizer. "Soon," a child said somewhere, and then a parent yelled, "No, nooow! Or I'll - " And, bang, another fear was hatched in one of the Noween's cave

When the warriors from Mibatalos came up the mountain, the Noween released the fears, and they immediately transformed themselves into each individual soldier's worst nightmare.  For all beings have a mortal fear, even the warriors from Mibatalos, and the air in the Land0of Almost-Awake slowly grew thinner.  Storytellers found it increasingly difficult to breath.

That's when the two golden knights showed up.  Everyone tried to warn them about riding up the mountain and all the fears welled out of the caves but they didn't listen, of course. Knights can be so damned obstinate.  But when they came up the mountain and all the fears welled out of the caves, the golden knights didn't fight. They didn't yell and swear as other warriors would have done.  Instead the knights did the only thing you can do with fears: they laughed at them.  Loud, defiant laughter. And then all the fears were turned to stone, one by one.

[...]

"My Grandmother asked me to tell you she's sorry" by Fredrik Backman