"That took just a ton of fairy dust!" Queen Andrea squeaked. "Do you have any at all left, Gabrena?"
Lady Gabrena Holtenrosa Raslan, the Queen's minute lady in waiting and actually half a hair shorter than her Queen, held up a tiny empty palm. "I've used all I had, Your Majesty."
"Well, we've put them out for the night, Gabrena. What now? The dust was your idea. I still say dead is better, but I'm open to suggestions." Queen Andrea fluttered down to sit on the tip of Lord Roxton's aristocratic nose. Delivering a punishing kick to the septum between Roxton's nostrils (he didn't even twitch his eyelids), the Queen continued, "This one gave the Pollytods quite a scare, falling on them like that. A fairy's crystal is her castle!"
When Roxton exhaled, Queen Andrea floated up a half inch. When he inhaled, she drifted back down.
Lady Gabrena winged over to sit on Marguerite's less pronounced but still perfectly respectable nose, only to have her proposed resting place move away and an enormous human hand swat past. "My goodness, it's not asleep yet!" the lady cried. On gossamer wings no larger than an after-thought, the blue fairy fluttered to Marguerite's right eye and tugged up on a black lash. Pulling out her wand Lady Gabrena tapped the moist eyeball and commanded, "Sleep and dream! Dream and sleep!"
The woman's breathing immediately became deeper and slower, but that didn't satisfy milady fairy. "It's resistant, this one! I'd better check." Zipping up six inches or so, Gabrena turned and accelerated into a high-speed swoop aimed at Marguerite's upper lip. A hard hit buried Gabrena's wand half its length, stinging about like a mosquito bite. Marguerite didn't move.
The Queen with her official wand of office -- a magnificent black baton carved from a stag beetle horn and the only one like it in all of fairyland -- imperiously gestured for milady to stop busy buzzing about and join her. "It's dead out, Gabs. Now get down here and talk to me."
Fairies are always hopping around or flying off, they don't like being still. Lady Gabrena fluttered down reluctantly like a drifting leaf. Landing on Marguerite's now completely numb nose, milady sat down. "Well, to answer your question, Your Majesty, I had such a wonderful inspiration. Remember the fairy dust talking in this one's head?" Gabrena patted the snout on which she sat.
Queen Andrea nodded her agreement and the lady-in-waiting went on. "It believes it has fairy protection."
"No fairy in my flutterdom had better be messing with humans! I haven't issued any permits, not this century anyway! Who was it? Who?"
A fairy Queen gets first pick of everything, including human lives to muddle, meddle and rearrange (the most popular fairy hobby after dancing, flower arranging and spell craft). Queen Andrea began cutting tight, fast circles in the air, buzzing with anger.
When fairy royalty buzzed, it often leads to de-wingings and Queen Andrea wouldn't care who caught a trim. Not only did de-wingings hurt a fairy (a lot!), it grounded them for at least six months so Lady Gabrena hastily hopped up to Marguerite's forehead and shouted, "No, no, Your Majesty, I think it must be the Avebury branch in England. You know how they are -- always sticking their wands in where they don't belong." The queen's buzzing stopped. Lady Gabrena continued more quietly. "The Avies wouldn't dare show a wingtip here on your Plateau, but they're always jamming up the ley lines sending spells and portents about. I can't get my own cantrips through half the time."
Like toadstools Avies popped up all over the world and they liked to brag that: "The far-fetched we do straight away, the impossible usually takes a wing beat." This didn't endear them to other fairies. Never before in ten million years of fairy history had a flutterdom made itself such a bore.
Queen Andrea hovered and gave Lady Gabrena an irritated look. "So, Gabs? This is all fascinating, but could you please get to your point? I'm on a schedule here. I have to finish saving fairyland by nine fifteen and get to the ball by nine thirty. I'm leading the first daisy chain, you know. A queen's got responsibilities."
Oh, right! Lady Gabrena thought. Since she'd been made queen, Andy had become such a total floater, and to think they'd once been best wing mates.
Milady Gabrena began to pace back and forth on Marguerite's smooth brow. "So, Andy, I mean Queen Andrea, here's my idea: What if we re-run the lives of these two humans but take away the fairy help? See where they'd be?"
Queen Andrea executed a last loop-de-loop and barrel roll to show off her flying technique -- which was even for a fairy outstanding, one had to give her credit for that -- then she floated down to stand next to Lady Gabrena. "I'm interested, but what's the point? And I assume you have a point, Gabs. You're my best counselor and I do trust your opinion … most of the time."
Lady Gabrena took a tiny fairy breath. She daren't tell the truth -- that she coveted this project for herself -- but lying to a queen was against fairy law, another violation punishable by de-winging. So, in time-honored fairy tradition, Lady Gabrena beat around the elderberry bush … crumbled her cookie to the raisins ... dropped her dragonfly in the duck down. In short, she equivocated. "My queen, as you've pointed out many times, fairy protection is vital to human affairs. They would all literally die without us. So if you want to kill these two humans to protect the secret of the fairy cave, this is one way to do it. And you'd prove your theory besides."
The queen looked doubtful, so milady added her next to the best argument. "If it's the Avies helping them, it'd tell them to say out of your flutterdom!"
Queen Andrea rubbed her tiny pointed chin with the tip of her wand. She looked thoughtful. Lady Gabrena offered her crowning enticement. "It'd make a great presentation for the next world-wide fairy convention in two thousand and five. King Maltor would be so envious! Just imagine the subheadings: 'Humans cannot recognize their soul mate without fairy guidance.' 'Without fairies human lives are brutally short.' There are a thousand possibilities."
Queen Andrea's face lit up. She'd been longing to one-up King Maltor of Monloa for centuries.
"Alright, make it so," the Queen said. "This will take years to complete and I haven't the time for another project right now. My platter is full. So you'll do it for me, Gabrena. You must personally magic up, observe and document the entire re-working! And to make sure this is a 'clean' case project, there must be no fairy help for any member of their little group, including My Lady Plateau Protector, her husband to-be and that idiotic non-believer Professor Challenger. Understood?"
Since this was all exactly as Lady Gabrena had planned, she barely choked back a triumphant chortle at Queen Andrea's orders. But in a fairy heartbeat (and that is pretty fast) she managed a solemn frown. After all, Her Majesty had said she wanted Lady Gabrena on this project full-time. Milady just been committed next hundred years of her life to this little case study. Although Lady Gabrena had turned five thousand and forty-two on her last birthday, a hundred years was still a lot, especially without a Mid-Winter and Mid-Summer holiday break. "Yes, Your Majesty. I'll watch them every minute and take lots and lots of wing notes."
Queen Andrea nodded. "A full report, Gabs. Every time they twitch their eyelids I want an entry. Leave nothing out! Now I will leave you to your work." Hopping off Marguerite's forehead, the queen fluttered just above the male human's dark, wavy hair. She cried, "Remember I'll be expecting your report A.S.A.P. and no later than two thousand and five!" She buzzed off, bound for the main crystal cluster and tonight's fairy dance.
Not until Queen Andrea had passed Lord Roxton's upturned toes did Lady Gabrena exclaim, "Whew! That was easier than I expected!" Twirling a triumphant pirouette, milady's feet didn't quite connect with Marguerite's forehead. A light-hearted fairy is really light.
Now what spell should she use? Golamnazo wahyus? Morroptosis galmjor? Banhy hayman usually got the puffball floating, even with strong-minded humans like these two. But no, it couldn't be a standard chant. They didn't have sufficient depth.
On the other wing, Queen Andrea had ordered her to observe, so Lady Gabrena must create an avatar with sufficient versatility. What should she use? Who or what could be there constantly but forgotten? Milady smiled at a sudden thought. No, no, a pair of dirty under things would never do.
After thinking some more, Lady Gabrena waved her wand and began to chant.
Flowing out of Lady Gabrena's miniscule mouth, swelling, shining, brightly colored WORDS and flitted through the fairy cave like flocks of fat butterflies. Swollen syllables kept time with Lady Gabrena's chant. Space, time and yesterday pulled together. Fairy WORDS roared.
From the tip of Lady Gabrena's wand crawling, shivering red rune lines of "Return, Rewind, Repeat" flowed to outline Lord Roxton's sleeping form. Creeping blue strings of "None and Undone This One" trimmed Marguerite. The two humans were soon coated with the spell's binding, powerful Words. The cave's crystals sparkled and flickered back the red and blue lights.
By the time milady reached the crucial rhyme -- "Hey Montis Eye Wallera, Cannos Vol Mal Tena" -- the WORDS were pinging off the cave walls and ponging off the floor and ceiling. Faster and faster and more and more WORDS flew until there was nothing left in the cave but the roaring, barking and flowing of the WORDS, the two humans and Lady Gabrena. The fairy crystals were gone, the floor and ceiling were gone.
Then it happened. Folding one limb at time like origami cranes, the humans and Lady Gabrena disappeared. In only a blink of your eye the fairy cave returned to normal. There was nothing left behind, not even a WORD.
At the fairy ball the first daisy chain had just ended. All the attendees and Queen Andrea zipped out into the cave looked about. "My, what a ruckus!" the Queen said to Lord Buml who was fluttering right beside her. "I'll say one thing for Gabby, she brews a mean spell. We'll see where she goes with it."
Everyone went back inside.