Blessedly Cursed
Fairies are frivolous creatures. More inclined to play and sensuality then responsibility or aggression. They are magical but would not know how to use that magic to defend themselves even if they were sent to boot camp to learn the art of war. One could easily say that fairies as a whole were silly creatures more obsessed with their own self-importance then most things going on in the world. It did not help that they were very beautiful and that most other creatures that they come in contact with would fall under their spell. Their favorite pastimes were love, and mischief on mortal man, and, oh yes, looking at themselves in the mirror.
Little did they know (or even care) of the hatred being built against them by what they considered a very inferior race. The ogres were very ugly and known to be mean spirited. They worked hard and did not know the meaning of fun. In other words they were the exact opposite of fairies. Ogres were of the earth and fairies of the sky. Ogres actually looked like lumps of dirt and the only time fairies paid them any heed was when they tormented them about how they looked or played pranks on them. The ogre Queen, after suffering the indignities dealt out by the fairies for many years decided to end the fairy problem once and for all. She called her plan the Fairy Final Solution.
Suffice it to say that when the beauty challenged ogres decided to attack, the fairies had no idea what to do. They were being killed by the hundreds. The fairies then turned to what they considered their only defense: their looks. Every time an ogre would go for the killing blow the fairy in question would look at the ogre and ask a question something like, "Why would you want to kill me? I am perfection. What will you look at when I am gone?" This of course would just piss the ogres off more and the killings would become much more gory.
The fairies spent more time in the war trying to figure out why any one would want to kill them than actually doing anything to stop it from happening. The first day they were flying over bodies and most of them were still in complete denial about what was happening. "Oh this must be so and so's big joke hahaha" It did not really sink in until the second day when roughly half the fairy population was dead and the ogres were taking a break from creating carnage. The second thing they did to try and stop the genocide from continuing was to send a diplomat over to the ogre queen to try and make peace. But in the typical fairy vanity and arrogance all they did was talk about how much nicer it must be to have her here to look at. That diplomatic meeting did not end well for the fairies.
Their next line of defense was to get naked, hold hands and sing songs. This just made the ogres more creative in how to go about killing them. Another third of their number was exterminated.
The last line of defense was probably the wisest one they ever came up with, to run and hide, and is probably the only reason there was any of them left by the end of the second day when a man and his wife (who happened to be very pregnant) stumbled in to the battle zone. They did not see anything of course because of two things, the first being that fairies and ogres are very small only around a quarter of an inch in height, the other being that to see any of the fairy or magical folk one does have to believe in them or the be shown them. It is said that babies before they are taught to disbelieve they can see fairies. Have you ever notice seeing a baby looking at supposedly nothing and cooing with happiness...well that is the fairies.
Anyway back to our two unsuspecting mortals. The man's name was Quinton Pepper. He was 34 years old, of average height and strong build, his hair was red but faded after so many years spent under the sun, slaving away working the land of others. His features were craggy, his skin leathery. Overall he was your ordinary farming man. He had finally saved enough money to buy a very small lot of land to start his apple and cherry orchard. This happened to be the very land where the fairies were being slaughtered. Luckily for Quinton fairy blood is very, very fertile and the land after the war always produced many fruits every year as well as the fruits being what many considered the best apples and cherries in the land. His wife Tilly Pepper a brunet of the same age was a short and pleasantly plump women her cheeks were always rosy and her eyes flashed green when she got angry. Many believed she ran the house with an iron fist, a skill she had mastered when she was in charge of running the King's kitchens. Her pies and pastries were already the talk of the kingdom but with the fruit from the orchard they were going to become the talk of the world. But all of that was years in the making. First they had to build a house and plant the trees.
Now there is a little known fact about ogres; they are hive creatures kind of like bees. They all live in one burrow where there queen stays at all times. If the queen was ever killed all the other ogres would turn to stone. Unfortunately for this queen her hive was buried under ground exactly where Quinton had decided to build his cellar. Her death was quick at the end of a shovel. She unlikely felt a thing; lord knows she did not see it coming. So with that quick and unintentional blow the war was over and miraculously the fairies had won the day. Now the fairies were for the first time in their known history forced to take a good look at someone out side of there own race. These two humans were now the saviors of the fairy kingdom and the fairies owed them a great debt.