Points to note: This is just a silly, odd little fic. Not meant to be taken seriously. Its sole purpose is to give the authoress some writing practice, to ponder a question that's been bugging the authoress, and to perhaps amuse some who possess the same odd sense of humor as the aforementioned authoress.

Disclaimer: It takes ten seconds to type I don't own Artemis Fowl, but only five seconds to type I do. Man, those lawyers really want us AF fanfic writers to exercise, don't they?

The Very Important Question

Artemis Fowl glanced briefly at the fairy who was absentmindedly flipping through a book that she had pulled from his bookshelf before turning back to his laptop with a mental scowl. Holly was here for help on a case, but she seemed more interested in searching through his personal library than in making sure he was working on the case. This suited him just fine as he had a dilemma of his own to sort through.

Artemis really wanted to just turn back time and stop his past self from agreeing to play that idiotic dare game with Juliet. He had only agreed in order to shut her up. He should have realized that the blond girl had something devious planned the second he saw her triumphant grin when he gave in for the sake of peace and quiet.

He wished Butler hadn't promised his sister that he wouldn't interfere with the game. He also wished Juliet had dared him to do something less humiliating. And while he was at it, he wished for siblings who were old enough to hold intelligent conversation and some new shoes.

Artemis sighed and reached a decision. It was probably best to get this over with now.

"…Holly?" he said, closing his laptop with a sharp tick.

"Yeah?" she replied absently, still shuffling through the files.

Artemis took a deep breath. He could do this. He would do this. He had better do this before his traitorous body took over and forced him to run far, far away.

"I have a question…" he said, nervously tapping his fingers on his desk for realizing exactly what he was doing and stilling his hand.

"What?" Holly asked, not bothering to look up from the book, under the impression that Artemis wanted to ask a question about the case.

Artemis took a deep breath. "Are you…do you…"

It was no use. His treacherous voice kept fading out before his question was asked. His scowl deepened.

Holly looked up from the book she had been studying in surprise.

"What is it, Artemis?" She asked again.

The young former criminal mastermind, for some odd reason, was avoiding her gaze. "…I just wanted to ask you if you…"

To his intense annoyance, his voice faded off again. It was just a question! He told himself exasperatedly. Why couldn't he just ask her? Was this another blasted side effect of puberty? He hoped so, it was better than admitting that he was nervous which he definitely wasn't.

Now Holly was intrigued. What was it that Artemis wanted to ask her that had put him in such a edgy state? And did she even want to know?

"Artemis, hurry up and ask the question." Holly said, closing the book and putting it in a random place in the bookshelf.

Artemis gave her an annoyed look which she in turn ignored. He had the entire bookshelf categorized in a specific order which she had just ruined. Holly smirked, and pulled out another book, flipped thought it, and replaced it in the wrong place.

Artemis's frown darkened. Just for that, he was going to ask. He steeled his mind and blurted out his question.

"Holly, do you dye your hair?"

…

…

…

Holly stared at him too stunned to respond. Artemis smirked. Pretending that perhaps she hadn't understood the question, he decided to elaborate. Big mistake.

"Well, you are pretty old" He pointed out, not seeing Holly twitch violently when he said that. "And your job is quite stressful is it not? And yet, your hair's a perfect shade of red. Surely you should have some grey hairs by now."

Holly twitched again and raised her head slowly, an almost maniacal glint in her eye.

That day, Artemis learned a very important lesson. There are two things that you should never, ever ask a female, whether they are human, fairy, or some other yet to be discovered species. One was something that everyone in the entire world knows, so mentioning it here would be a complete waste of space. And the second was that you should never, not even under the threat of torture or not being true to a Double Dare, ask a female what her age is or even make any comments referring to her age.

Poor Artemis. He shall be forever remembered as the adorable criminal mastermind who discovered the fairies, saved the world, and traveled though time several times, but had the misfortune of being totally unaware of the one question that you do not ask a girl.

҉ The End ҉

Inspired by when I went to my sister's teacher-parent conference and her friend thought I was my sister's mom. My sister chocked, I stared, the girl freaked trying to figure out what she'd said wrong. But seriously, do fairies get gray hair? Did Root have gray hair? I don't know why, but I've been wondering about that all day.

Please tell me what you think. If you don't like it, please say so in a polite manner, thanks!