Artemis and Nopal broke off for the night. Due to Artemis's admittedly lacking teamwork skills, he had no duties to delegate to the pixie at the moment.
Thus, the pixie was released to do whatever she pleased.
Butler was doing regular check-ins on the fairy of course, but otherwise she was on her own. It was certainly a novel experience. Making choices for herself. When had she ever done that? Well, now was as good a time as any. Since Artemis seemed to have expressed a desire to be alone, that left only one option: Holly.
The pixie wandered through the halls of Fowl Manor, walking along much the same path that a certain elfin LEPrecon captain had many years ago. She didn't really have an idea of where Holly was, so Nopal just let her feet take her through the empty mansion. It wasn't quite as cold as it was back then, as little bits of color had come and snuck into the decor. A gaudy scarf draped over a stylish hat-rack belonging to the senior Fowls, a carelessly thrown orange sock which belonged to Beckett, or a crawling mouse-drone built by Myles. The machine squeaked and skittered away from the pixie as she approached it. It looked like it was built quite well, and it was, managing to escape even from its owner.
Nopal came across a long hallway, hung with the portraits of a long, unbroken line of Fowls. They all had the same piercing blue eyes that Artemis and Holly shared. Did that mean they were both half-Fowls? A question for the elf then.
Eventually, the pixie's meandering paid off, and she spotted Holly standing by an open window. She was strapping something to her back, glancing longingly outside the window. A breeze fluttered in, disturbing the curtains enough that Nopal was able to make out a curious wing design that the elf was wearing. Holly glanced over, noticing she was being watched, and gave the pixie a warm smile.
"Hey, Nopal. I was just about to go take one of Arty's prototype wing sets for a spin. Interested?" Holly gave Nopal a little turn, showing off the folded-up wing-rig. It appeared to be two bat wings collapsed atop the other with a small glowing orange core where it appears a petrol engine used to sit. Retrofitted possibly?
"What is it?" Nopal asked, bending over so she could examine it more closely. Then the wings unfurled as Holly tapped something into her helmet, the full glory of its wingspan unveiling with a loud fwumph. Nopal squeaked and jumped backwards, much to Holly's amusement.
"It's something that Arty whipped up from the old Dragonflies that him and the big man confiscated during the siege. He's unoriginal, so he calls them Dragons."
Nopal could see that now. No, they certainly weren't bat wings, they were dragon wings. Even the membranes between "fingers" had that same soft orange glow. Artemis certainly didn't cheap out on style. Holly refolded her wings, the rig somehow collapsing the massive wingspan into an innocuous brown casing, reminiscent of a beetle or an egg. She looked at Nopal as if deciding something before she came to a decision.
"Arty's got two of these laying around. So, wanna join me and take them for a spin?"
Holly hefted a second pack, dangling it in front of Nopal. The pixies eyes went wide, glancing between the wings and Holly disbelieivingly.
"Can I really?"
"Sure you can." Holly narrowed her eyes at Nopal. She was reluctant to say no to the clearly elated pixie, but safety first. "Do you know how to fly?"
Nobody ever accused Holly of being the most attentive student while at the academy, but her hours spent flying and flying scores spoke for themselves. She wasn't about to let just any civilian grab a pair of wings and crash and burn horribly. Nopal's had a strange far-off look for a second, looking at the set of wings in her hands. Then they sharpened and she gave Holly a self-assured look.
"Of course I do. I've built better."
Then, before Holly could say so much as a word, Nopal ran past her and left from the window. At the apex of her jump, just as she began to fall, her wings snapped open and a throttle blasted open, spewing an orange flow. The engine roared in a sound that was suspiciously reminiscent of a dragon, and the pixie blasted towards the ground at a dangerous speed. At the last second, the pixie pulled up and soared into the night sky. After doing some more dizzying acrobatics, she returned to the window, hovering. Nopal looked exhilarated, her eyes wide and a big, silly grin plastered across her face.
Holly decided to file away the "I've built better" comment for later. It could mean a lot of things, but that imperiousness surfacing did not bode well. However, right now, she had a pixie she needed to show up. She returned Nopal's cocky grin with an unimpressed one of her own.
"Alright, pixie you've got some moves," she admitted. "But have you ever heard of 'core diving,' Nopal?"
The pixie shook her head in response.
"I've got the current LEP record. Let me show you how I got it."
With that, Holly stepped onto the ledge and unfurled her wings. They beat several times before she was gently lifted into the air, floating to the same level as Nopal. The clone, a little confused, cocked her head. Then Holly threw open her throttles and shot into the sky. After a moment of consternation, Nopal hastily followed. The two fairies flew high enough where it became quite chilly. Luckily for Nopal, who was not wearing an LEP jumpsuit, Artemis seemed to have accounted for that, the wings and the rig offering quite a bit of warmth for her.
Holly was flying at a devilishly fast pace, the Irish countryside whipping by beneath them.
"Whooo!" she whooped. Arty really did have her tastes pinned down. This was absurdly fast. Completely against regulations of course, but who read those? Certainly not this elf.
She heard Nopal just behind her, the Dragon's wings flapping and the engines roaring to catch up. That was fine, they had just about reached the coast. Now for some real tricks.
Surprising Nopal, Holly suddenly snapped her wings shut, angling herself downwards towards the ocean like an elfin missile. Nopal confusedly, chased after her, not quite trusting herself to freefall like Holly. The pixie could see the look on the captain's face. A daredevil's rictus of a smile. Holly caught her look and winked over her shoulder at Nopal.
Nopal kept following Holly until the pixie was a mere five yards from the churning waves below. She pulled up hard, launching herself back into the relative safety of the sky. Holly didn't. She waited until she could nearly feel the spray on her face before she twisted, angling her throttle towards the dark blue tide, snapping out her wings. The tips of them sliced parallel lines through the whitecaps before the throttle blasted her away from the ocean, leaving a path of steam in her wake. The elf rejoined the plainly amazed pixie in the sky, trailing droplets of water off of her slick helmet surface. She pulled the helmet off, shaking loose her short cropped hair and gave Nopal a smug grin.
"I think I won that one, didn't I?" she laughed.
Holly was a little flushed from the adrenaline, but Nopal was shivering slightly, not quite as warm.
"Wow," the pixie managed around chattering teeth. Nopal was impressed, she really was, but nobody had told her the ocean was going to be this cold at night. She hugged herself, the gesture being mimicked by her Dragon wings. It made her look like some volcano-dwelling insect in the midst of pupating. Of course, without the wings stabilizing her flight, the whole thing shuddered and fell and Nopal yelped, arms pinwheeling.
Thankfully, Holly was a wingbeat away from the falling pixie and caught her before she fell too far. The elf whistled, impressed. The Dragon had barely even needed to adjust for the pixie and her rig. Funnily enough, Nopal weighed about as much as Artemis did. Frond, how many times had she ended up princess-carrying Artemis during the aftermath of his schemes that she had his weight figured out? What a hopeless damsel in distress.
As for Nopal, once she was safely in Holly's arms, she hadn't stopped quite shivering. It was still pretty cold, after all. She began fiddling with her wings, which were still tightly wrapped around her. But the wing's "fingers" weren't quite solid struts. They actually seemed like they were some kind of flexible material. She ran her fingers across the leathery wings, searching for something. If only she could find the wire keeping them taut… and there!
The wings collapsed into a flowing blanket of orange and black. Triumphant, Nopal wriggled into the blanket and gave a winning smile to Holly, who returned a similarly amused grin. They peeled off from over the ocean back towards the manor, the salty sea breeze giving them a gentle tailwind. Holly absentmindedly shifted Nopal against her chest so she could free a hand. She then ran said hand through the pixie's hair, melting the fairy into a drooling mess.
"Holly," Nopal murmured through her blissful head-patting, "why does Arty look at me like he's scared sometimes?"
If Holly were walking, she would have stumbled, missing a step. Instead, the elf simply continued flying in silence. It was almost companionable if not for the spectre of Opal Koboi hanging over the two fairies' heads. Holly glanced down at Nopal, snugly wrapped in her blanket and looking at the rushing green hills beneath them with glassy eyes.
"Arty is just a little worried," Holly reassured the pixie. She spoke slowly, searching for the right words. "He's not afraid of you per se. It's just that… he sees you for somebody that you're not?"
"Should I be that person?"
"No. No, I don't think so."
Nopal gave a neutral hum of acknowledgement. A gust of wind rustled the endless fields of grass beneath them. They flew the rest of the way back in silence, the only sound the low drone of wings.