A/N: Blast those evil pirates, I had to turn out another chapter for them
when I could've been working on this! Well, they're satisfied for now, so
here I am again with a new installment of False Face. To respond to my
reviewers:
EvilSpirit: Glad you're enjoying, naturally. And I'll keep your Butler suggestion in mind; we'll see how things are going when Fowl & Company join the fun.
TazMoon: Keep reading and I'll try to meet your needs when the time comes, k? Glad you like so far.
alex: Like I said before, I don't know Trouble all that well, so he probably won't figure very largely in this fic, though I definitely agree on Artemis/Holly, that ain't happening here. Thanks a boatload on the pronunciation info, and keep reading!
READ!!! From now on, stuff in italics will have *these* around them. I'm sick of capital letters. And forget the pointy parentheses, for some reason they don't seem to be uploading.
* ( * ( * ( * ( * ( * ( * ( * ( * ( *
Chix Verbil wasn't sure, but he seriously doubted this was part of the job description of a sergeant. He'd pictured secret meetings, maybe first dibs on new weapons. So far in his new career, that hadn't been the case. In fact, he was starting to think nobody took him seriously in the LEP *at all*! It was a silly thought, he knew, but he just couldn't shake this entirely new insecurity he'd been feeling. He was careful not to show it, wouldn't want someone deciding he could use a psych evaluation, the paperwork alone could choke a dwarf, but that didn't stop him from wondering about it late at night...
He knew babysitting a changeling wasn't what sergeants were supposed to do. He shot a glance at his prone charge, fighting the wave of repulsion he felt upon sight of the former-girl. Whoever glamoured her up in the first place wasn't too much of an expert at it, he thought, letting his gaze lie on Aldonza for the first time. Unlike his skin, which was a smooth spring grass green, her skin was quite noticeably mottled a pale jade and viridian all over her body. In Chix's opinion, the effect made her look like a rather sickly burn victim. At least her eyes are closed. They'll be human eyes, not People, stake my life on it. Human eyes in a sprite's face. The thought made his lame wing tingle as the other shuddered, and he turned away from Aldonza. Please, he silently prayed, Don't let her wake up on my shift.
So enraptured was he by his fervent piety that Chix failed to notice said eyes flicker open, then wince at the bright light shining overhead. Aldonza tried not to move, not even breathe. She could sense another presence in the room, but that really was secondary to whatever was under her back. It felt like two rolled up kites. What they'd be doing beneath her she had no idea. Foolishly she tried to see what it was without turning her head, just peering as far as she could out of the corner of her eye. No luck, surprisingly enough. After trying the other corner, curiosity got the better of her, and she sat up and turned to see what she'd been lying on only to find clean white sheets. She frowned in confusion, and then took notice of Chix after hearing his sharp gasp.
"Um, hi," she said with a small, if perplexed, smile, "I'm Aldonza- uh, what's your name?" Aldonza had been taught not to be rude to anyone just because they were a different color than she was. The examples given had been dark brown or tan, but she surmised that green probably fell under that heading too.
The person(?) blinked rapidly, his mouth opening and closing like a fish. Eventually he forced out, "Er, uh- H-HOLLY!" then fled the room through a door that automatically opened and closed. Aldonza frowned, her confusion deepening, His name's Holly? she wondered, Kinda weird. But her conscience pointed out that he obviously wasn't local, and that maybe where he came from that was a perfectly suitable boy's name.
Left to her own devices, Aldonza climbed off of the gurney she'd been lying on and poked around the room. She decided whoever was the room's decorator probably didn't entertain much. She was reminded faintly of a backroom on one of those cop shows, where dogged boys in blue could come for a sit and a cup of coffee before hitting the mean streets once more. Although she didn't see much resembling a coffee machine on the counter that ran alongside the wall opposite the gurney until a door interrupted its path. The door had a symbol on it Aldonza couldn't translate, but her instincts said bathroom. The door Holly had took off through was to Aldonza's left if she sat on the gurney, and a squat table with Holly's vacated chair sat in the middle of the room like a toad just as weary as those who sat around it. Aldonza laid a hand on the table's pocked surface, only to freeze as her hand came into sight. She'd known her skin had changed, but she didn't know it was like *this*! Her hands were shaking as she held them before her eyes, taking in their new look. Her shock barely sank in when the door opened automatically and Holly reentered.
Aldonza, tenaciously hanging on to her manners, said, "Oh, Holly, you're back!" with as close to a cheery smile as she could get. To the two officers entering the room, it more closely resembled a toothy, manic grimace.
Chix paused, and the real Holly raised an eyebrow, "Oh!" he said as comprehension dawned, "Uh, no, I'm not Holly, uh, little girl. I'm Chix! *That's* Holly," he thrust a thumb in the senior officer's direction.
"Yes," said Holly with an amused smile, "And we're all glad for that." She approached the thoroughly confused sprite, "My name is Captain Holly Short, of the LEPrecon team."
Aldonza giggled slightly, "Leprechaun team?"
"No," Holly replied, her voice stony, "Definitely *not* leprechaun. L meaning lower, e meaning elements, p meaning police. Recon being short for reconnaissance."
"Oh, you're a cop. Sorry, my mistake."
Holly gifted her with a forgiving smile, "A common one with Mud Pe-" She stopped, uncertain as to how to continue. It struck her that Aldonza wasn't a Mud Girl, never was. But she certainly wasn't People. What was she, then? Holly felt that that question would take years to answer. She didn't know how right she was.
Trying to fill Holly's abrupt silence, Aldonza spoke quickly, "So, where am I exactly? My parents know where I am, right? Don't want them freaking out when they find out I'm not at the party..." She drifted off as she noticed a joint stiffening of Holly and Chix. "Where am I?"
"You are in a holding station at LEP headquarters," Holly said, her voice thick with an emotion Aldonza couldn't fathom.
"Did I do something wrong?"
"No, someone else did."
"What'd they do?" Aldonza asked as Holly guided her back to the gurney, "How am I involved?"
The elf captain gathered her strength briefly before putting a hand on the sprite's arm and looking her in the eyes, "Aldonza, have you noticed anything strange happening lately? Like you don't look the same as you did before?"
"Well, there is the fact that I'm green now, and I wasn't yesterday," Aldonza said, "That's definitely different."
Holly smiled slightly, "Anything besides that?"
Aldonza thought back. She recalled the early changes of her face and the lumps on her shoulder blades, but something made her feel like that wasn't quite what Holly was looking for. Her mind ran through her memories, closer and closer to the present; the near-miss car accident, the tree, the party... Then her mind fogged, she couldn't remember coming to the headquarters. She had no idea where her parents were. She turned worried eyes on Holly.
"Think hard," was all Aldonza got from her.
She did as instructed, and slowly the fog cleared and Aldonza was shocked by what she saw. She remembered the pain, the mist, the shrinking, Sunbeam's terrified eyes... "What's happened to me?" she whispered, her eyes wide with fear.
"Aldonza, you're not human," Holly said with as much delicacy as she could, "You're one of the People, you always have been. You were exchanged at birth with a human child. A spell was put on you to make you look human, but it wore off. Now you're a sprite, like Chix." Behind her Chix shuffled uncomfortably. He'd been hoping she would leave him out of this, but now Aldonza was staring at him like he'd grown an extra ear on his forehead.
"My parents- or whoever they are- they kind of believed in fairies." Aldonza's voice was so wooden it felt like each word dropped from her lips and clattered on the floor, "Not really, but they believed in that Mother Nature stuff. I did- do- too. Lemme guess what these are." She reached backwards over her shoulders and lifted her wings with shaking hands. She ran her fingers over them, feeling the incredible smoothness of the wings themselves and their bone structure. Putting her hands in her lap, she gave her new appendages an experimental flap. The resulting wind ruffled the gurney's sheets and her mottled face paled at the oddity of moving muscles she'd never had before. Then she looked back up at Holly and Chix, and smiled only with the barest hint of mirth, "Ha, I should've known," she said, reaching up and lightly touching one of Holly's ears, "Elves. What else could you be?"
* ( * ( *
Informing Aldonza of her true nature was actually the easiest thing Holly did that day. It turned out that while the rescue team had been topside, news of the changeling had somehow been leaked. The team hadn't gotten so much as ten feet below the surface before the media swarmed, and then all bets were off. Holly had never seen so much paparazzi. It was astounding; they'd overrun the hotshot station and were clamoring outside LEP HQ, a roiling sea of People with one goal: Get to the changeling girl. Once they got Aldonza inside, officers in riot gear had been forced to break up the mob. Rumor had it this was the largest media congregation for a single event since Artemis Fowl paid a visit. Sixteen arrests of news bloodhounds were made.
Holly had secretly hoped Aldonza would stay unconscious until they could get her somewhere safer than an LEP break room. No such luck, apparently. The former-girl was fragile enough at the moment, Holly was *not* looking forward to exposing her to those bloodthirsty sharks, even if their numbers were lower than before. But the time seemed to have come. The sooner the better, really, Holly told herself as she and the rest of the team led a blanket-wrapped Aldonza out of the LEP building. Immediately camera flashes dazzled their eyes, shouts assaulted their ears. Aldonza seemed to shrink even more into the blanket, her terror vividly evident, even worse than Holly had feared. The team tightened, Neutrinos drawn, in a protective circle around the horrified sprite as they moved to the waiting LEP van.
Once inside, the team heaved a communal sigh of relief, and Aldonza burst into tears.
* ( * ( * ( * ( * ( * ( * ( * ( * ( *
A/N: Man, I just realized how long it's really been since I read the AF books. I can barely remember a thing! I seriously doubt the People have cameras, but what DO they have?? NOTE TO ANY SERIOUS CANON FOLLOWERS: I'm gonna be taking quite a bit of liberty with People culture, mostly twisting it to fit my needs, that sort of thing. Stuff like that piss you off? Don't read, for both our sakes.
EvilSpirit: Glad you're enjoying, naturally. And I'll keep your Butler suggestion in mind; we'll see how things are going when Fowl & Company join the fun.
TazMoon: Keep reading and I'll try to meet your needs when the time comes, k? Glad you like so far.
alex: Like I said before, I don't know Trouble all that well, so he probably won't figure very largely in this fic, though I definitely agree on Artemis/Holly, that ain't happening here. Thanks a boatload on the pronunciation info, and keep reading!
READ!!! From now on, stuff in italics will have *these* around them. I'm sick of capital letters. And forget the pointy parentheses, for some reason they don't seem to be uploading.
* ( * ( * ( * ( * ( * ( * ( * ( * ( *
Chix Verbil wasn't sure, but he seriously doubted this was part of the job description of a sergeant. He'd pictured secret meetings, maybe first dibs on new weapons. So far in his new career, that hadn't been the case. In fact, he was starting to think nobody took him seriously in the LEP *at all*! It was a silly thought, he knew, but he just couldn't shake this entirely new insecurity he'd been feeling. He was careful not to show it, wouldn't want someone deciding he could use a psych evaluation, the paperwork alone could choke a dwarf, but that didn't stop him from wondering about it late at night...
He knew babysitting a changeling wasn't what sergeants were supposed to do. He shot a glance at his prone charge, fighting the wave of repulsion he felt upon sight of the former-girl. Whoever glamoured her up in the first place wasn't too much of an expert at it, he thought, letting his gaze lie on Aldonza for the first time. Unlike his skin, which was a smooth spring grass green, her skin was quite noticeably mottled a pale jade and viridian all over her body. In Chix's opinion, the effect made her look like a rather sickly burn victim. At least her eyes are closed. They'll be human eyes, not People, stake my life on it. Human eyes in a sprite's face. The thought made his lame wing tingle as the other shuddered, and he turned away from Aldonza. Please, he silently prayed, Don't let her wake up on my shift.
So enraptured was he by his fervent piety that Chix failed to notice said eyes flicker open, then wince at the bright light shining overhead. Aldonza tried not to move, not even breathe. She could sense another presence in the room, but that really was secondary to whatever was under her back. It felt like two rolled up kites. What they'd be doing beneath her she had no idea. Foolishly she tried to see what it was without turning her head, just peering as far as she could out of the corner of her eye. No luck, surprisingly enough. After trying the other corner, curiosity got the better of her, and she sat up and turned to see what she'd been lying on only to find clean white sheets. She frowned in confusion, and then took notice of Chix after hearing his sharp gasp.
"Um, hi," she said with a small, if perplexed, smile, "I'm Aldonza- uh, what's your name?" Aldonza had been taught not to be rude to anyone just because they were a different color than she was. The examples given had been dark brown or tan, but she surmised that green probably fell under that heading too.
The person(?) blinked rapidly, his mouth opening and closing like a fish. Eventually he forced out, "Er, uh- H-HOLLY!" then fled the room through a door that automatically opened and closed. Aldonza frowned, her confusion deepening, His name's Holly? she wondered, Kinda weird. But her conscience pointed out that he obviously wasn't local, and that maybe where he came from that was a perfectly suitable boy's name.
Left to her own devices, Aldonza climbed off of the gurney she'd been lying on and poked around the room. She decided whoever was the room's decorator probably didn't entertain much. She was reminded faintly of a backroom on one of those cop shows, where dogged boys in blue could come for a sit and a cup of coffee before hitting the mean streets once more. Although she didn't see much resembling a coffee machine on the counter that ran alongside the wall opposite the gurney until a door interrupted its path. The door had a symbol on it Aldonza couldn't translate, but her instincts said bathroom. The door Holly had took off through was to Aldonza's left if she sat on the gurney, and a squat table with Holly's vacated chair sat in the middle of the room like a toad just as weary as those who sat around it. Aldonza laid a hand on the table's pocked surface, only to freeze as her hand came into sight. She'd known her skin had changed, but she didn't know it was like *this*! Her hands were shaking as she held them before her eyes, taking in their new look. Her shock barely sank in when the door opened automatically and Holly reentered.
Aldonza, tenaciously hanging on to her manners, said, "Oh, Holly, you're back!" with as close to a cheery smile as she could get. To the two officers entering the room, it more closely resembled a toothy, manic grimace.
Chix paused, and the real Holly raised an eyebrow, "Oh!" he said as comprehension dawned, "Uh, no, I'm not Holly, uh, little girl. I'm Chix! *That's* Holly," he thrust a thumb in the senior officer's direction.
"Yes," said Holly with an amused smile, "And we're all glad for that." She approached the thoroughly confused sprite, "My name is Captain Holly Short, of the LEPrecon team."
Aldonza giggled slightly, "Leprechaun team?"
"No," Holly replied, her voice stony, "Definitely *not* leprechaun. L meaning lower, e meaning elements, p meaning police. Recon being short for reconnaissance."
"Oh, you're a cop. Sorry, my mistake."
Holly gifted her with a forgiving smile, "A common one with Mud Pe-" She stopped, uncertain as to how to continue. It struck her that Aldonza wasn't a Mud Girl, never was. But she certainly wasn't People. What was she, then? Holly felt that that question would take years to answer. She didn't know how right she was.
Trying to fill Holly's abrupt silence, Aldonza spoke quickly, "So, where am I exactly? My parents know where I am, right? Don't want them freaking out when they find out I'm not at the party..." She drifted off as she noticed a joint stiffening of Holly and Chix. "Where am I?"
"You are in a holding station at LEP headquarters," Holly said, her voice thick with an emotion Aldonza couldn't fathom.
"Did I do something wrong?"
"No, someone else did."
"What'd they do?" Aldonza asked as Holly guided her back to the gurney, "How am I involved?"
The elf captain gathered her strength briefly before putting a hand on the sprite's arm and looking her in the eyes, "Aldonza, have you noticed anything strange happening lately? Like you don't look the same as you did before?"
"Well, there is the fact that I'm green now, and I wasn't yesterday," Aldonza said, "That's definitely different."
Holly smiled slightly, "Anything besides that?"
Aldonza thought back. She recalled the early changes of her face and the lumps on her shoulder blades, but something made her feel like that wasn't quite what Holly was looking for. Her mind ran through her memories, closer and closer to the present; the near-miss car accident, the tree, the party... Then her mind fogged, she couldn't remember coming to the headquarters. She had no idea where her parents were. She turned worried eyes on Holly.
"Think hard," was all Aldonza got from her.
She did as instructed, and slowly the fog cleared and Aldonza was shocked by what she saw. She remembered the pain, the mist, the shrinking, Sunbeam's terrified eyes... "What's happened to me?" she whispered, her eyes wide with fear.
"Aldonza, you're not human," Holly said with as much delicacy as she could, "You're one of the People, you always have been. You were exchanged at birth with a human child. A spell was put on you to make you look human, but it wore off. Now you're a sprite, like Chix." Behind her Chix shuffled uncomfortably. He'd been hoping she would leave him out of this, but now Aldonza was staring at him like he'd grown an extra ear on his forehead.
"My parents- or whoever they are- they kind of believed in fairies." Aldonza's voice was so wooden it felt like each word dropped from her lips and clattered on the floor, "Not really, but they believed in that Mother Nature stuff. I did- do- too. Lemme guess what these are." She reached backwards over her shoulders and lifted her wings with shaking hands. She ran her fingers over them, feeling the incredible smoothness of the wings themselves and their bone structure. Putting her hands in her lap, she gave her new appendages an experimental flap. The resulting wind ruffled the gurney's sheets and her mottled face paled at the oddity of moving muscles she'd never had before. Then she looked back up at Holly and Chix, and smiled only with the barest hint of mirth, "Ha, I should've known," she said, reaching up and lightly touching one of Holly's ears, "Elves. What else could you be?"
* ( * ( *
Informing Aldonza of her true nature was actually the easiest thing Holly did that day. It turned out that while the rescue team had been topside, news of the changeling had somehow been leaked. The team hadn't gotten so much as ten feet below the surface before the media swarmed, and then all bets were off. Holly had never seen so much paparazzi. It was astounding; they'd overrun the hotshot station and were clamoring outside LEP HQ, a roiling sea of People with one goal: Get to the changeling girl. Once they got Aldonza inside, officers in riot gear had been forced to break up the mob. Rumor had it this was the largest media congregation for a single event since Artemis Fowl paid a visit. Sixteen arrests of news bloodhounds were made.
Holly had secretly hoped Aldonza would stay unconscious until they could get her somewhere safer than an LEP break room. No such luck, apparently. The former-girl was fragile enough at the moment, Holly was *not* looking forward to exposing her to those bloodthirsty sharks, even if their numbers were lower than before. But the time seemed to have come. The sooner the better, really, Holly told herself as she and the rest of the team led a blanket-wrapped Aldonza out of the LEP building. Immediately camera flashes dazzled their eyes, shouts assaulted their ears. Aldonza seemed to shrink even more into the blanket, her terror vividly evident, even worse than Holly had feared. The team tightened, Neutrinos drawn, in a protective circle around the horrified sprite as they moved to the waiting LEP van.
Once inside, the team heaved a communal sigh of relief, and Aldonza burst into tears.
* ( * ( * ( * ( * ( * ( * ( * ( * ( *
A/N: Man, I just realized how long it's really been since I read the AF books. I can barely remember a thing! I seriously doubt the People have cameras, but what DO they have?? NOTE TO ANY SERIOUS CANON FOLLOWERS: I'm gonna be taking quite a bit of liberty with People culture, mostly twisting it to fit my needs, that sort of thing. Stuff like that piss you off? Don't read, for both our sakes.