(A/N) Here's your rapid update! :D I hope, again, that the writing isn't too dry. Sometimes I get caught up in suppositions and ponderings. We'll get to the Guardians soon, but I thought I'd take a tour of the less prominent myths and legends, first. I wanted to tie in other spirits and things. The realm of human belief is as bountiful as the faith that fuels it, and it would be a crying shame to ignore the opportunities! I'll be everywhere! But I do have a plan *taps nose and winks* so don'chyoo worry, kids! If things seem juvenile or childish, it's because I'm only twenty, and by all regards, still a child! Enjoy! (Also, the characters of Green and Robin are both based off of my current manbaby {I think you'd call it boyfriend}. He's a comedian, which means he fancies himself a funny guy, and I guess I fancy him, too! Haha)

Watching: How To Train Your Dragon

"'I am that merry wanderer of the night'? I am that giggling-dangerous-totally-bloody-psychotic-menace-to-life-and-limb, more like it."
"Shh, Peaseblossom. The puck might hear you.

~Members of the audience, in Sandman #19: "A Midsummer Night's Dream"

The first week that Green was missing, Elan didn't panic. She spent her days on the couch, reading a book, or in the woods playing hide and seek with some of the lesser Sidhe. The small spritelings- barely sentient things themselves- were happy for the distraction. It seemed like their usual giggling manner had been tainted sour by something, and as the week went by the usually cheery pixies became mean and full of mischief. Elan stopped playing with them.

By the second week, Elan knew there was something terribly wrong. She knew because the Feeling was back. A niggling feeling that wriggled and squirmed in her heart. Strange imagery of her childhood would flash before her eyes whenever she blinked. A yelling man, an elder tree, and bright flames. Things she couldn't remember ever having seen. Her feet became restless, and she'd find herself packing and unpacking her little bag of trinkets. Every time it was full, she had to remind herself to wait until Green returned. After all; it was very much like him to come and go as he pleased, but another thing altogether to find his cowardly friend gone, with her books and toys all missing, upon his return. She brushed her hair for the first time in a year(which isn't saying much, since it had been hacked short into a messy rendition of the pixie cut. Brushing didn't help.), and went for a swim (but quickly got out because she hated the feeling of deep water mawing beneath her toes). The feeling remained- and grew!

This was bad. This was very, very bad. This was worse than that time when Green fed her Absinthe and took her to America! This was worse than... than... her date with the Leprechaun! And worse still! Finally, at the end of the second week, she went for a long walk- intending to return, of course! (but her pack was full, and swinging on her shoulders). The instant she left the glade, though, her insides shook, a twig snapped and off she went without a thought.

Elan ran and ran. She ran as only a spirit could run; never stopping for breath, never stopping to rest her sore feet. She never looked back, because she knew something was behind her. Sometimes the dread in her soul swelled so huge that she would have sworn she heard panting, or snarling, or the heavy tread of giants on her heels. The thunder was only her heart, though, as she fled to the Scottish Highlands.

Though panicked, Elan's flight was not without direction. In the Highlands dwelled another of Green's friends. He frightened her, as most things did, but he also might frighten the darkness at her heels away.

A girl could hope.

Later...

"Ah ha! What brings the Queen of Cowards, the Cowardly Lion herself to my doorstep! Did Green give you a spanking for being so shivery-shakey? Or were you frightened by a few Scottish slithery-snakies! Maybe it was both- I hear good-ol Green is quite slippery-sexy. Too much for a little waif like you, sure-as-shells!"

Elan rolled her eyes. She'd arrived on the hill that Robin called home a few hours before midday, and had been waiting there ever since. Robin preferred to conduct his business during the twilight hours, and wouldn't appear a moment sooner (though Elan had heard the bastard's giggles on the wind).

If the Faeries(or spirits, as some New-Worlders called them) had a 'Most Eligible Bachelors' list, Robin Goodfellow and Green would certainly share a tie for number two. They were a pair of cads, the both of them! While Green was bearable, though, Robin was a total prick. He took ceaseless amusement from Elan's flighty nature, and loved to poke fun at her. Elan knew it was all in good fun for him, and that he meant nothing (too) unkind by it, but it rankled. Puck was also infinitely more dangerous than Green. Many women liked this, along with his wild red hair (which in Elan's opinion looked like it was victimized by a weed whacker), 'twinkling blue eyes', and thick Scottish accent. The last bit gave some chicks wet panties, but all it did was give Elan an upset stomach. Robin Goodfellow, or Puck, as he was better known, was no threat to fellow sprites unless crossed, but with humans he'd just as quickly kill them than do them a favor, and rarely were his reasons for either sane, or constant. Elan happened to like humans, having been one herself, but the Spirit of Mischief seemed to have completely relinquished his hold on anything human a long time ago. He was completely alien.

Thankfully, the time on the hill gave Elan time to muster some courage to talk to Puck, so it was with barely noticeable hesitation that she snapped back.

"Don't be a prick, Puck, or I'll try to inspire a new playwright into portraying you as a hairy gnome named LeRoy Jenkins!" Inwardly, she giggled at the reference that she was sure Robin would never get, but her giggles quickly died when she was confronted with a face-full of angry Puck.

"NEVEREVERNEVER MENTION THE PLAYWRIGHT! Curse his bones and gonads!"

Puck hissed, spat, and stomped his bare feet about the top of the hill and Elan couldn't help but snort at him, though he was a frightful image. Her fear was mostly leaving with the beginnings of a revelation; Robin Goodfellow was just an insane, supernatural, and possibly homicidal teenager. He didn't like girls making fun of him. At the sound of another chuckle, he whirled on her in an instant. "AND YOU! CEASE YOUR INFERNAL MOUTHGIGGLING!" But Elan couldn't stop- the tension of the last week had caught up to her and all she could respond with was "Sure thing, 'knavish sprite'!" before gasping her way into a true fit of laughter. She'd skipped hysteria and went straight to 'suicidal glee', do not skip 'Go', do not collect 200 dollars. Even her own trepidation at what the furious spirit before her would do couldn't stop her cackling.

He glared fiercely, looking ready to throttle her until unexpectedly, a boyish grin swamped his face and Puck clapped his hands like a kid at Christmas. He went from ready to kill to ready to play with such speed that his capriciousness probably amazed even the other Fey Folk.

"You smiled? You laugh! She laughs, I say, and smiles!"

He crowed in his strange and hurried way of speaking, bouncing around excitedly on his toes. Suddenly Elan found herself grabbed by both hands and whirling about. "You chitter-chatter and laugh and it does please Puck so! The little waif, always a-trembling finds humor in the frightful Robin's rage-rants! She smiles, she smiles!" Elan found herself sharing shocked laughter with the mad faerie until Puck's wild twirling made her dizzy, and even then she wheezed and grinned, made drunk by the mischievous boy's special brand of magic. Eventually, with a gentleness she did not expect, Puck sat her down and danced by himself for a bit, stomping his feet and shouting gleeful, wordless things at the moon. Finally, he settled down (though the not-quite sane mania did not leave his face) and perched before Elan, who in the meantime had partially sobered up from her brief bout of panicked laughter. He was the first to speak, and when he did, his voice was as light as spider silk.

"It is a boon to see the maiden smile, and it doth please even more to hear her threaten! For so long, I thought you to be as small and boring as a pebble- how good to be elucidated by your fire! Old Puck, though, thinks that something is amiss! Mischief that art not mine is afoot, and such a stinky foot it is!"

Robin smiled warmly (displaying a lengthened incisor- a reminder)when this elicited a giggle from Elan, then continued. "Do tell what, beyond the norm, has frightened thee so- and why dear-brother Green is not accompanying thee as a gentle-gent should! Ah! But while this dale be a beauteous place, it is not so comfortable, so I bid thee; accept this old sprite's hospitality and enter my Hall!"

The ginger rake that had rapidly become a friend (of sorts) swept one gangly arm to the side, and there was the Hall- as though it had always been there and Elan had simply elected not to see it.

The Hall was another object that warranted a capital all to itself- Elan was beginning to suspect all spirits had such an Object(save for her, of course)! It was made of standing stones, more ancient and pitted than even those at Stonehenge (where she had attended a raucous gathering last century- which ended in a lot more puking than usual when Pestilence decided to get into the punch), and they were coated with a thick verdant moss(you couldn't even tell they were once stone). The standing stones were arranged in huge concentric circles, so many that Elan couldn't see the inside, though she was sure there were no walls or ceiling to speak of, just the stones. Amazed, she followed Puck as he wove and danced between the stones (giggling like a maniac all the way). His hair grew more red, the moss more green, and the air more sharp as they approached the center- and then they were in the Hall. It was about the size of a church, and the sky that had previously been grey was as clear as it is on the North Pole- the proportions of the interior were much more than the exterior, which only covered the top of a hill. This was a cliche Elan had noticed the Fey using often, and suspiciously more often since the advent of Doctor Who.

"Welcome, lass! To the Hall on the Hill!" Chortled Puck(oh, he knew how cool it was), and snapped his fingers. At once, Elan found herself swamped in the attentions of three minor pucks (a race of pixies so mischievous that Puck had granted them his name- vain git). They must have been triplets, because all three of them had button noses, freckles, Pucks own wild hair, and eyes for only mischief. They poked and prodded Elan with sharp fingers, until she found herself shepherded rather rudely to a stone tea-table. She sat in a huff on the proffered log, yet couldn't help cracking a smile when one of the childish faeries blew a raspberry at his bigger counterpart while flitting back into some unseen place among the surrounding stones. Robin Goodfellow just chuckled and alit in front of Elan on the table, cross-legged. She found herself fixed with an intent mossy stare. When her own eyes made eye contact with his own (they were the same color, she noted), he reached over and tugged a lock of messy hair- hard. When faced with an indignant glare, he smiled as quickly and as sharp as a knife in the dark.

"Speak lass; though now we be friends, there is mischief to be had on this eve, and it is my duty to ensure it be done!"

Trying to restrain her temper, and recalling why she was there, the flabbergasted spirit collected herself. She could come and wonder at the Hall later (and nag some sense in to Robin, if he'd let her) now that she had the mischief spirit's favor- but right now, Green was in danger and so was she.

Elan took a breath and started at the beginning.