Page 47 of Fairies Don't Fall

I stared at her while my stomach twisted. “We aren’t dating. I’m going back to Fairyland as soon as I finish terraforming the caves. I need to get started. It needs water and…” I started walking briskly, but the sound in the background wasn’t right. Instead of still silence, there was the cry of birds, rustling wind, and water flowing over rocks.

I left the owl cave and stepped into a magical forest with a waterfall coming out of the wall at just the right height to make the water foam and spark with energy as molecules crashed and ozone flickered. The trees towered above me, with vines and flowers covering everything that wasn’t filled in with underbrush of various herbals, all of them matched to werewolves. It was a haven for wolves, where everything would grow for their health and magic.

I walked through the woods, following the lively stream towards the sound of singing. Fairies don’t sing often, but when they do, it’s not musical like other species. I’ve never met a fairy that had a good ear. It sounded like chimes clashing in the wind, a hundred different voices singing a different song at different times, and all in different keys.

Berry was dancing on an enormous flower in the clearing surrounded by the memory trees, waving his arms and spinning in time to the rushing water. I blinked and could see the energy he was weaving, the forms that were echoed by the voices, the other dancers, everyone working the final seal on the spell that would bind the sky, the earth, and water together in one perfectly balanced whole.

“Woah,” Ruin breathed next to me. “Are they all on pixie dust? Doesn’t look very tempting to be honest. Probably to them it sounds good, though. Kind of wish I could get some ear plugs.” She squinched her eyes shut and whined in her throat.

I put a hand on her arm and smiled while my heart squeezed and felt empty and dry. “It’s just a spell they’re weaving to finish off the cave. I guess I didn’t need to come back after all.”

“Wait, you mean you’re going to Fairyland, like, now? But…” she sputtered and looked hurt and betrayed.

I squeezed her hand. “I’ll be back to visit.” Maybe in a hundred years, after I was sure the connection to Max had sufficiently faded. My chest throbbed at the thought of him, of not seeing him for a hundred years. I definitely needed a break.

She stared at me with big eyes. “Maybe I can come visit you in Fairyland?”

I smiled back at her, feeling a burgeoning of hope. Maybe I wouldn’t have to lose everything I’d found here in the undercity. “Yes. Of course you can. We can ride the water slides in the forbidden jungles and fly on dragonflies over the fields of fire flowers on the new moon. And we can journey to the forest of sweets and gorge ourselves until we’re sick. That was a terraform gone wrong, I have to admit. But fairies never admit to being wrong, so we just claim it as a cultural landmark.”

She beamed at me and then frowned. “But you did make out with Max.”

I hesitated, then grinned and leaned closer to her so I could whisper. “He’s really hot.”

She giggled and grabbed my arm. “What was it like? Did you guys French? And what about…”

The fairies shrieked their final notes, making Ruin wince and shiver while I turned to see the fairies in their final glorious poses.

I applauded and walked forward to congratulate them on a job well done, because that was my job, and Berry really had gone above and beyond. I floated over blooming vines, flowers budding and bursting as I passed, to show what they could do.

I turned around, taking in the glorious woods, the dappled sunlight, the birds fluttering, the smaller animals creeping while a deer or two frolicked, leaping over the stream. “It is a terraforific masterpiece, Berry. You are commended for your work here, as are all of you,” I said, smiling at the other fairies. The connection between us throbbed as they soaked in my energy, my magic, which was full up thanks to Max’s strength that I’d bled out of him.

They started glowing, floating, wrapped in the bindings of good feeling and accomplishment. Berry floated down from his flower platform and looked slightly out of place in his jeans and t-shirt.

“It is finished,” he said with a low bow. They’d usually say, ‘My Queen,’ but he wasn’t claiming my title any more than I was.

Although that would have to change. I needed a consort. Terraforming was a very useful skill. Would he make a good consort? I held out my hand to shake his. He took it gingerly, and with that, I was in his thoughts, sifting to see what kind of consort he’d make, but then he looked over my shoulder at someone coming up behind me, and the way he thought about Shotglass eclipsed everything else. He liked Shotglass even after she stabbed him and stole his pixie dust? He’d come here following her a hundred years ago? Poor Berry. No, he would not make a good consort for me.

I smiled and patted his hand. “You are a master terraformer. The world glows because you are in it.” I touched his face and he lit up, green specks reminding me of the emerald statue the owl had hacked up. Hopefully Max could find something to do with it before it corrupted him. No. I wasn’t allowed to worry about Max. But he was so sweet and soft. There were so many things that could corrupt him. Like a death fairy.

I released Berry and turned to beam at the other fairies. They beamed back at me, glowing brighter and brighter until theirtrue natures bloomed. This was a good ceremonial ending to a marvelous day.

Then Shotglass clapped her hand on my shoulder. “This is all very pretty, but do you have my funding?” Her voice was harsh, a jangling that disrupted the tinkling. Still, she was exactly who I needed to see.

I smiled at my people for another moment, then turned to her. Berry liked her? He’d cleaned up so nicely, but she still had that feral look beneath the pink sparkles. “We’ll discuss it away from the gathering. It is time to celebrate. Perhaps someone should invite the wolves,” I suggested, glancing over at Ruin.

She nodded and turned to dash into the underbrush. I walked to the other side of the clearing with Shotglass, until we were out of sight of the happy fairies.

I turned to face her. “I’ve got the deed to a place and an account, but I’ll need you to offer your healing services to the werewolves on retainer. You also have to strive to pay the alpha back.”

She showed her sharp smile as she looked me up and down in a way I was used to. “What are you doing to earn it? He’s dressing you well. You almost look like a queen. Do you have the deed?”

I handed it over and she took it greedily, reading over the lines and nodding to herself. She could read? Of course she could. Everyone else could read, but I’d been busy riding on moonbeams and dragonflies and dodging my tutors. “I bet Berry reads, too.”

She looked up at me, frowning, then glancing back towards the clearing, which was now blocked off by a thick hedge of white-flowered bushes. “Of course he does.”

“Why did you stab him and steal his pixie dust?”

She glanced at me and then away. “Because I’m a pixie dust addict. Obviously.”

---