"Careful, don't fall behind now."
The little feet scurrying behind him were proof enough that the child hadn't vanished. Not that it would have been hard to track her down, but the uncountable passages and walkways weren't as obvious to others as to him and his kin. Which made at all the more strange to have found her in the middle of this maze, confused, scared and hopelessly lost.
"We're close." he assured. "Just a little more now."
"Okay…" she said, her voice barely audible, even with the generous echo the halls provided.
He glanced back and slowed his pace down, letting the fairy catch up to him. She was a peculiar sight to see, and not just because fairies rarely ended up on Teensie paths. Small, a little pale and with notably different features than the young fairies he had grown accustomed to seeing within Council walls.
"How did you end up here?" he asked, looking up at her. Small as she may have been for a fairy, she was still a little taller than he could reach, though his crown put him on roughly equal terms.
"Fell through a hole." she said, brushing a few unruly locks of blue hair from her face, before stifling a yawn. Her eyes were tired, but had a curious sharpness to them.
"A hole?" the Teensie asked back, tilting his head. "What hole?"
"Hole under my bed." she added. "Heard something so I looked. Then I was in the shiny room."
"The shiny room… of course…" he sighed.
The eponymous 'shiny room' was merely one of the many rooms within the Teensie hall, affectionately dubbed 'The Longest Shortcut'. All the immaculate floors, stained glass and such truly did give them a very regal and dignified look, but probably didn't help much for one who lacked the sense of direction his kind had been blessed with.
True enough, by the time he came across her, she was quite distraught, all huddled up in the darkest corner she could find in such a lustrous room.
All that knowledge couldn't save them from just outright forgetting about a passageway right under a fairy's bed. Not the first time, but he really wished they could expedite the emergency carpentry or worse yet, masonry, whenever this happened.
"Do you live here?" the fairy asked, pulling him right out of his thoughts.
"What? Oh, no, not really." he said. "Although, we do have options, if any of us get too tired."
The curious look on her face made the Teensie smile. Since they weren't exactly pressed for time, he figured a little demonstration wouldn't hurt.
He shushed her with a finger before his nose and stepped over to a painting, depicting several Teensies engaging in some kind of tribal dance. A couple soft knocks was all it took for the frame to click and slide up, revealing another Teensie inside, quietly snoozing upon a pile of pillows.
Tapping the frame again brought the painting down once more, just in time to stifle her giggle, making him smile even more. It was strange to see a fairy so morose, especially for creatures whom many admired for their lively natures.
"We use these to go all across the world." he began, once they were started moving again. "Teensies are-"
"Cartographers." she said, without missing a beat. "Second-born of Polokus, they live to find and document every passage in the world."
"Correct!" he looked up and was glad to see the smile on her face wasn't just temporary now.
"Betilla taught me." she said.
"Did she?" the Teensie asked. "Well, I'll let her know you're a good student, then."
Her pointy ears unexpectedly lowered from that, with a hint of red creeping in her face.
"Please, don't tell her I was here." she said, her voiced all hushed up, like when he found her.
"Why not? Will you get into trouble?"
"I was supposed to be with my sisters." she admitted, her gaze lowering to an unseen, but definitely very important spot on her feet.
"And you weren't?"
"I don't think they like me." she said. "They don't like that the princesses are teaching me."
It took him a moment to realize who she meant by that. True enough, young fairies sometimes equated 'nymphs' with 'princesses', though usually ones that were brought to the Council at a later age. To say nothing of the nymphs tutoring her. As these little details added up, they only made him even more curious.
"I won't tell her then." he promised, bringing the smile back to her face. "This'll be our secret."
They continued on for another few minutes, before coming across a glass-like, almost translucent ladder. She looked up and squinted, but couldn't see exactly where it lead. All she could see was it vanishing into fine mist.
"We're here." he announced, pointing up. "Climb up here and you'll be back in your room."
"I can't see…" she mumbled, a bit worried of going up into pure nothingness.
"It's magic." he said, immediately catching her interest. "You climb almost to the top. Then just before the last two steps, you close your eyes. You think hard about where you want to be, step one, step two and you'll be right where you wanted to be."
Of course, the procedure didn't actually require closed eyes at all, but a little bit of benevolent mystique always helped. Before she would take the first step though, the fairy looked back with a contemplative look on her face.
"Can I see the shiny room again, sometimes?"
It took a lot for the Teensie not to start chuckling.
"You can." he said, holding up a tiny, but very authoritative finger. "But only under supervision. Otherwise you'll get lost again."
"I can sleep until you find me. I know where the beds are." she mused, her tail wagging to the positively mischievous smile on her face.
"I don't want to catch you alone down here, little lady!" he said, doing his best to look and sound as stern as a Teensie could. It wasn't much, but he had to at least try.
"I won't. I promise." she nodded, climbing up, until she got near the top. Looking down again, she waved at the Teensie. "Thank you!"
He waved back, watching with a smile as she took a deep breath and climbed. She vanished from his eyes in just mere moments, leaving him to contemplate upon the little lost fairy. It has been a very long time since he had seen one such as her and even with his long life, the current, once, or future Minimus wasn't quite about that curious, oddly distant, yet familiar energy that seemed to dwell within her. If she truly was under the tutelage of the nymphs, it wouldn't hurt to keep an eye on her development.
Perhaps in due time, he and all the other Teensies could provide guidance on her path, wherever she may go.
Hope you like it and thank you for reading! This was another (and my final) attempt at a Fictober '19 fic, with the theme of "Just follow me, I know the area.". Visit my tumblr at woodsofblight for more!