Oh boy, has it been a while. Three years to be exact. I am back to writing fanfiction after finishing up the first draft of my book. College and life have been kicking the crap out of my, but we try to rise above that nonsense, and I am just happy to be creating. I am hoping to use fanfiction to get myself back into the habit of writing more often, to keep my skills sharp and the creative juices flowing. Hopefully I don't disappoint! This chapter is dedicated to SkyDancer10, who ever so kind asked me to keep writing this and has waited patiently for the past three years. Thank you guys so much for your incredible support. I hope you enjoy :)
To Artemis, as the fairy tipped backwards everything seemed to slow, the world crawling by at the speed of molasses until he could see every strand of glinting auburn hair, every fleck of blood rising up in a disturbed spray of ruby red. Head tilted, he caught a last glimpse of the creature's widened hazel eyes, those perfect cupid lips ajar in an expression of shock as gravity's inevitability brought her back and down. In the moment everything was silent; Butler's loud approach nothing but a dim whisper through a curtain of water. It was the two of them together, trapped in a bubble of halted time.
Little did he know how ironic this thought would later prove to be.
Then, as suddenly as it had began, the moment broke into shards of alarmed shouting and the bone chilling sound of a small body dropping away into space. Artemis stood there, panting for air as if he had just run a race, his arm still outstretched in a now futile gesture of entreatment. In the next breath, Butler was there at his side, his hulking bulk shadowing out the moon as his drawn Sig Sauer glinted before in his hand before him. Of the fairy, there was nothing left but a smear of wet blood on the white marble of his balcony rail.
"Artemis, are you hurt?" Butler asked anxiously in his low voice, gun following his eyes as he rapidly tracked the surrounding area, looking for more assailants. Artemis could not see them from their hidden space behind his filtered sunglasses' shiny coating, but the minute movements of Butler's head and the many years the two of them had spent together told him the story behind his actions. Artemis, for the life of him, could not even bring himself to respond in any way. He just kept staring at the empty space before him, his genius mind for once quieted as shock covered him in a thick, oppressive blanket.
"Artemis!" Butler barked, and that was enough to get the still gears spinning again. Artemis sprung into action, turning and dashing back through the open door as fast as his unathletic, thin frame could manage. Calculations flew through his mind like lightning as he tore through the house and down the ancient stairs, Butler fast on his heels. Velocity and bone density paired grimly with calculations of height and possible trauma, grim statistics that could determine the life or death of the creature now most likely crumpled on his front lawn like a piece of stray garbage. He knew to the decimal how much force the human skeletal structure could take before breaking, the amount of blood loss the average male and female could lose and still get up to walk another day. But fairies, fairies were a dangerously unknown factor, so all Artemis had to work with was shoddy guesswork and a swift prayer to gods he had not believed in since the age of three.
"Butler, get a medical kit!" Artemis wheezed out as he barreled down the entryway and slammed into the heavy double doors with the whole force of his body, hand already fumbling for the knob.
"Like hell," Butler growled, not a second behind him, and they blew through the giant wooden doors in tandem, turning the corner down the front steps and racing towards the stretch of bushes directly under Artemis's bedroom window. It was four stories up, thought Artemis with an inward grimace. With that small of a body, this had the potential to already be at a gruesome, fatal end.
In the darkness of the dense shrubbery, Artemis thought he saw a small shape sprawled inelegantly in the cradle of the bushy plant life. It was towards this he now stumbled, breath coming in jagged gasps and sweat pouring uncharacteristically from his forehead into his eyes. For what seemed like the millionth time he vowed to reconsider Butler's offer of physical training, but for now he would have to work with what meager strength and endurance his body possessed naturally. Almost stumbling into the short hedge, Artemis could see more clearly now in the warm light spilling from the windows and a chillingly still arm could be seen draped limply out of its shadowy cradle. Reaching forward blindly with both arms, Artemis found them plunging beneath a small, solid mass, and fell backwards with the fairy's still body cradled protectively against his chest.
Rolling the both of them on to their sides, the fairy still clasped tightly in his mocking parody of an embrace, Artemis caught a glimpse of Butler as he briefly faced the sky. He looked taller from this prone, slanted angle, gun drawn levelly with the safety off as he scanned the lawn with the air of a man who wished he had night vision. By then his bodyguard had again passed out of view, and Artemis pushed himself into a kneeling position, reaching out to roll the limp body beside him gently onto its back. The fairy's head lolled gently to the side, eyes shut while blood oozed sluggishly from a visible gash on her forehead. That's not good, thought Artemis darkly. A head wound of that depth should be bleeding far more profusely than that. She- it must have already lost a fair amount of blood.
He took a moment to take her in more clearly. He noted the humanlike proportions of her torso, limbs, and head. He noted her five fingers to each hand the and the sallow paleness of her nutty brown cheeks. He noted the black jumpsuit, made from a material that he had never seen before, and the insignia embossed on the lapel in a language he could not even begin to understand. But that could wait. For now, it seemed that but for a few minor differences, the ears being the most notable, the fairy appeared to fall somewhere near human norms as far as structure went, albeit on a smaller scale. With this in mind, Artemis extended his right hand and placed two fingers on where the carotid artery should be located.
"Artemis, back away from her," he heard Butler say from above him, his tone broking no argument. He ignored it, tuning out everything else in an effort to feel for the thrum of life that should be surging through the creature's veins. For a few breathless moments the frantic beating of his heart drowned out any other sound or sensation, but then suddenly he felt it. The faint thrum of a pulse, thready and weak but still present. Artemis breathed a sigh of relief, sitting back a bit as his whole body relaxed a fraction. Alive. She was still alive. That meant they had a chance.
From above him Artemis heard Butler bite out a swear, then heard the click and screech of a walkie talkie. Butler must have taken one hand off his gun in order to reach it from its position at his belt. The older man began rapidly barking orders into the device, but security was the last thing on Artemis's mind right now. Unless a fully armed and armored team of fairies descended en masse upon their position (which Artemis conceded was a distinct possibility in actuality, so Butler had a right to be concerned) he couldn't care less about anything that wasn't currently in front of him. Assured the creature was still living, Artemis's main concern turned to keeping her that way.
Artemis was sure the head wound the fairy now sported hadn't been there when they had made initial contact. Every detail of that first fateful encounter felt seared into his memory, and even if he couldn't boast a near eidetic recall Artemis was sure he would remember that moment until last days of his life. Which left the question of the blood. Where had it all been initially coming from? Cursing himself for not being equipped with something stronger, Artemis pulled his phone from his pocket and shone the scant light over the fairy's still form. Dim though the light might be, the glow helped him identify a wet shimmer on the fabric of the fairy's black jumpsuit around the gash near her lower left ribcage. He touched his fingertips gently to the area, and they came back coated in red. There was the source of the wound. He would need to look at it properly, under bright light and hopefully in a cleaner environment than a patch of scrub next to a bunch of shrubbery, before he could do more. His next goal, then, would be to secure the fairy inside the house.
"Butler, I'm going to move her- it, inside. Seeing as my request for a medical kit was too strenuous, if you would watch for assailants while I'm occupied…?" asked Artemis, sarcasm flying out instinctively as he once more wedged his arms beneath the fairy's dead weight and lifted it to his chest.
"I don't like this," said Butler gruffly as he scanned the area ceaselessly. Tension vibrated through the man's whole body, on edge and ready to move at a moment's notice. "I don't even like you so close to her. This whole thing smells of a set up to me."
"If it is a set up," said Artemis as he began to move as swiftly as he could with his burden to the still ajar doors of the main entrance to the mansion, "I'm impressed with how far these fairies seem willing to go to pull it off." Given how the previously pristine white of his shirt was now stained bright red, the statement carried more gravitas than Artemis could otherwise have given it. It made the whole situation seem more real. Butler only grunted in assent, fully in protective mode as they moved slowly across the lawn.
"I sent Juliet for a medical kit," he said abruptly, just as they were about to pass the threshold.
"Thank you, old friend," said Artemis in a tone that was as close to an apology for his earlier behavior as anything he was ever likely to give. Butler, recognizing it for what it was, gave a small, fleeting smile before returning to guarding the rear from possible attacks.
As soon as Artemis had stepped over the threshold, however, the previously limp body in his arms suddenly began to jerk and convulse, spasms running violently through the fairy's small frame. Immediately he set her on the ground as gently as he could, partially so he could have a better look at her and partially because he did not have the strength to hold her while she was thrashing so violently. He placed a hand underneath her head to prevent her from injuring herself further by whacking her skull against the hard tile, bruising his knuckles in the process as the fairy repeatedly smashed them into the floor. "Butler!" he called urgently and the man rushed over and knelt by his side, trying to contain the small form on the ground."What's happening? Is she seizing?"
"I don't know," said Butler in a clipped tone, the gun never leaving his hand as he use one massive finger to lift the fairy's eyelid back. Her hazel eyes were rolling wildly in her skull, and her body convulsed further as if trying and failing to vomit. "I've never seen anything quite like this before." Making a choking noise, the fairy's eyes opened to slits, and she dragged a hand out towards the open doorway in a desperate gesture. She then pressed it down and forward, her whole body straining as it tried to move ineffectually to the exit.
"You can't escape," said Artemis with a tone of cold finality. He placed a firm, restraining hand on her shoulder, effectively pinning the smaller body in place. She continued to make feeble movements towards the door, seeming to grow weaker and weaker the more she struggled. A gurgling noise came from the fairy's throat, a wreaked sound that was pitiful to hear. In a flash of inspiration, Artemis realized the creature was trying to speak. Against his better judgment, he leaned in closer, trying to make out what the female was attempting so desperately to convey. At first he couldn't make it out, but as he leaned in further still, despite Butler's anxious noise, he could make out the words rasping between the fairy's lips.
"Need…permission…" the fairy croaked, eyes roving wildly about the room in fitful starts before locking with Artemis's in a kind of fearful desperation. While before on the balcony she had looked panicked, she looked flat out terrified now, the whites of her eyes rolling like a horse startled by the firing of a cap gun. Her breath came in harsh pants as her gaze continued to entrap Artemis, keeping him locked in her sights. "Can't…will…die…need…permission…" And with that, the faint words turning into a rasping choke that sent Artemis into a panic. It sounded too much like a dying breath for him to derive any comfort from it.
Artemis thought frantically, mind whirling as he tried to understand what the fairy was struggling to say. The vast tracts of information he had absorbed about fairy tales and legends passed by in a blur, and Artemis sorted frantically through multitude of it all, trying for something that might help. Permission… Permission… It was then that something unexpected caught in his mind's eye and stuck. Not a story, not a forgotten piece of scripture on fairy kind, but a painting. One he had been planning to steal on the eve of his thirteenth birthday. While he had never laid eyes on it, he knew the description so well he could almost picture it in his mind. It was an oil-based image of a fairy leaning over the edge of a window to steal a sleeping child, taking great care to leave its feet on the outside of the sill. The Fairy Thief by Pascal Hervé. It was this image that caused a multitude of pieces of trivial information to snap together with a solid click in his mind, giving him the answer that he hoped was the one the fairy so desperately needed.
Permission.
Leaning back with an inscrutable look on his face, Artemis said in measured, heavy tones, "Fairy, I give you permission to enter this domicile." Butler's face had taken on a comically confused cast, but no sooner than it had than the fairy gave a rattling sigh of relief and lay still, breathing shallow but easier as the tremors shaking its body stopped. Artemis breathed his own quick sigh of relief, hoping he had not just made a mistake that he would later regret. No, he told himself firmly. The potential benefits far outstrip the risks. I am sure of it. For now, his concern was still the same as it had been; to stop the fairy from bleeding out all over his mother's Ming dynasty antique rug. The value of that piece was ruined forever, Artemis was sure of it, but right now he couldn't bring himself to care. A rug could be replaced, but a live fairy in his possession? Now, that was an opportunity that might never come again.
"I'm going to bring her to the Sun Room," said Artemis shortly, picking her up once more in a process that was starting to feel familiar. The fairy was warm against his chest, a perfect curled body in the cradle of his arms. A clumped strand of sunset hair trailed down and over the crest of her cheekbone, and Artemis watched as the fairy's eyes rolled beneath their lids, wild roving over a plane only she could see. Without looking to see if Butler was listening, he said to the air, "Shut the door and lock down the mansion. Secure the grounds, make sure we have no more unexpected surprises planned for us tonight. Juliet will be perfectly capable of protecting me with the fairy in this weak state."
As if on cue, Juliet came running down the stairs, her long midnight tresses trailing loose down her back instead of in their usual long braid. She was a tall woman, shapely in the ways most men wantonly desired with a face that had a raw, almost sensual beauty. Even now clad only in a simple purple sleep top and black yoga pants the fabric clung to her alluringly, emphasizing the lean musculature of her curvy frame. Artemis had once felt the stirrings of teenage hormones rise and sniff the air in her presence at the tender age of thirteen. He had violently shut them down and had remained in his room for a week until he could be sure of perfect control over his own endocrine system. Later, as he watched her lure a man in with a flirty smile and a sway of her hips, only to then proceed to nearly brain him to death with that jade hair ornament of hers, the last embers of youthful lust had forever been silenced. Plus, he refused to be attracted to someone who had said the word "like" over one hundred fifty thousand times throughout the course of his youth. After all, he did have standards.
Juliet had been living in the manor for years now, extra security for himself and the rest of his team as they grappled with the technological war of the century. After all, in any sort of crisis one could never have too many Butlers around. Right now she used the length of her legs to better race down the stairs, a comprehensive medical kit clutched in her arms. Butler had closed the door and locked it for good measure, and was now headed up to the main security room to check the live feed before sweeping the house on foot. He made eye contact with Artemis for a moment, his stern look telling him to not get into any sort of trouble while he was gone, before swiftly moving past him towards the stairs and his baby sister.
"I got the med kit, bro. What the hell is going on?" asked Juliet, barely winded from her full out sprint down two wings and four flights of stairs. She skidded to a halt, feet bare, near the base of the staircase just as Butler blew past her, eating up the steps three at a time in his haste.
"Watch Artemis while I'm gone!" he called out to her as he moved swiftly out of view. Juliet's face looked puzzled at the sudden departure, but her jaw dropped as her eyes moved back to Artemis and the still figure clasped tightly to his chest.
"What the hell?" she asked, shocked, as Artemis moved as fast as he was able to the side of the hallway, nudging open a door with his hip and walking through to the room adjacent. The Sun Room was a tea room used for casual visitors, all white tabletops and ornate chairs. Artemis made a beeline for the center table, the largest by far, and eased his burden onto the edge of it. Seeing an ornate vase filled with flowers blocking his access to the entirety of the table, Artemis swept an arm out and casually sent it crashing to the floor. He heard Juliet's startled swear by the open doorway, but he paid it as little mind as he did the vase. His focus was absolute right now. Laying the fairy out more properly, now that he had the room, he turned to Juliet and made a quick gesture to motion her over. The fairy's color stood out in sharp relief against the white of the ceramic tiled mosaic of the tabletop. Juliet approached, covering the distance in a few long strides, and he snatched the kit from her arms and laid it out beside the fairy on the table.
Leaning in, he checked her pulse once more, relieved at the confirmation of her continued will to live. Fumbling with the clasps of the kit, he finally managed to snap the clips apart completely and toss the lid open. He stared at the various pieces of medical detritus and felt a sinking sensation of total and utter panic. While Artemis held several theoretical decrees in various medical fields, he had never before worked to heal a living human being, much less an entirely new species. He had vast tracts of theoretical knowledge with zero practical application. He just stood there, staring blankly at the open medical kit, stuck in a frozen limbo he did not know how to break himself from. He, the greatest mind of this century, was paralyzed with indecision.
He jumped as he felt a hand touch his shoulder, breaking him out of his stunned reverie, and he turned to see Juliet giving him a knowing, reassuring smile. "Start with what you know, Arty. You can do this. I know you can, and I'll help," she said, her voice low and soothing. And just like that, he found himself with the will to move once more, picking quickly through the various medical supplies and lining them up on the table in front of him.
"Don't call me Arty," he said automatically, but there was little bite in his words. He moved to the side a bit, nearer to the fairy's head, a clear invitation for Juliet to join him at the table. She moved forward, taking the large, shiny metal scissors that Artemis handed to her without skipping a beat. As he organized the rest of his supplies, Artemis spoke to her. "There is a large wound on her left side, up near the ribcage. I need to take a look at it if she's going to have any chance of survival. There's no time for a doctor, and anyways, the species gap might make treatment difficult even if we could find one willing to take a payoff for silence at such short notice. I need you to cut away her jumpsuit in order to get to the wound. Quickly." Artemis tried to keep his voice level and professional, but there was a small reedy uptick that gave him away. This was by no means going to be a comfortable situation to endure, but he must do his best to keep a clinical mindset in order to best help his new acquisition survive.
"Gotcha," said Juliet easily, reaching down with the scissors to the point just below the fairy's chin, cutting the fabric swiftly down her torso with little fuss. Beneath the black fabric of the jumpsuit, the skin was dyed red with sticky blood, a blotch across the plane of her skin that stretched from her left breast down to the swell of her hip. She was clothed in a black band that protected her modesty, probably a garment worn for support Artemis surmised. Just below the edge of this fabric, a deep tear in the skin began, at its widest the width of Artemis's pinky. It was about a foot in length, meaning it reached on her body all the way down to the hollow of her hip, traveling over the jut of her hip bone like a valley in a mountain range. The blood was still sluggishly oozing from the wound, welling up and trailing in slick rivulets down to where her skin met the table. Artemis was amazed this tiny creature was even still breathing.
Just then, as Artemis was caught staring at the hideous gash and wondering how the bloody hell he was supposed to proceed, something amazing happened. At first he thought it was a trick of the light, a blue glint of reflected shine playing across the edges of her wound. But then it happened again, and Juliet's shocked intake of breath confirmed to him that this was no visual illusion. An electric blue spark of light had flickered along the edge of the wound, zipping down its length until it plunged beneath the skin and into territory unknown. "What on earth?" Artemis breathed, and heard a more colorful sentiment echoed from his side.
As slow as the steady ebb and flow of the tide, Artemis and Juliet watched as the blue sparks occasionally flickered to life along the edge of the wound. Artemis raised a gentle hand in wonder, reaching out a finger as if to touch one and watched the blue light reflect onto his pale skin. After a minute it stopped completely and where before there had been simply open wound the tear seemed to be diminished, new, pink skin showing at the very edges of the gash. The bleeding, which had before been a trickle, had slowed to the equivalent of a faucet drip. Artemis breathed in, out, deeply and slowly, and felt the cogs of the world shift beneath his feet.
Magic. Or something akin to it. Whatever it was, it was real, and Artemis was far too intelligent to deny the evidence that had appeared before his very eyes.
"Artemis?" he heard Juliet ask in a shaky, reedy voice. "What the f-ing hell was that?"
"I don't know," he admitted reluctantly before beginning to thread a surgical needle he had ripped out of a sterile packet with a thin plastic thread. "It seems to have stopped, however, and I don't think the creature has enough left to heal itself further. For now, nothing has changed. Go get a bottle of spring water from the fridge. We need to clean this wound out before I attempt to sew it up." Wearing latex gloves now, he succeeded in his task before tearing open a small, sterile alcohol wipe. Gently he turned the fairy's hand so her wrist was facing him, and he swiped the cloth over the delicate flesh before tossing it aside. Further up, he pressed his gloved fingers to the meaty part of her arm before removing his hand and hanging it at his side. Under his breath, he counted to sixty, watching the golden flesh for any hint of a rash. Most severe allergic reactions happen seconds after contact, and if he was going to be sterilizing the wound with alcohol wearing latex gloves he needed to know what he was planning to do wouldn't be more harm than help. Who knew how these creatures reacted to everyday chemical solutions? In fact, who knew how they reacted to anything at all?
When nothing appeared, Artemis unscrewed the cap to the rubbing alcohol bottle. Juliet reappeared at his side, offering him an opened bottle of water. He took it and gently poured it over the wound, watching the water swirl away, leaving clean skin behind it and exposing the full atrocity of the gash to the naked eye. He heard Juliet suck in a breath from between her teeth. It was gruesome to behold. A lesser man would have lost his stomach, but Artemis Fowl the Second was no lesser man. The bloodied water washed across the edge of the table, pouring to the floor in a macabre waterfall of rusty liquid.
He visualized everything in his mind. First, alcohol to cleanse. Then, the stitches, being careful to space them out as evenly as possible in order to avoid the wound healing unevenly. Finally, sterile gauze taped over the stitches, hopefully sealing the wound away from the infectious dangers of the open air. She would have a scar, that would be certain. Artemis was no surgeon. But, with a little luck, it just might save her life.
There was no pain medication, and Artemis wouldn't have felt safe giving her any even if he had some, so the next part would hurt. It would hurt her terribly. But he had to harden himself to it and do what must be done. He hoped fervently that she passed out completely and would remain unaware through as much of the proceedings as possible. "Juliet," he said quietly, picking up the bottle of rubbing alcohol and holding it aloft in hands that thankfully only trembled slightly. "I need you to hold her down. This is going to hurt." Nodding grimly, Juliet took her shoulders and pressed them to the table. Artemis moved around her to get the best angle of attack. Bottle poised above the ruined flesh, he breathed in once.
Twice.
Then poured.
The fairy's eyes snapped open, and she arched her back, opened her mouth, and screamed.
Artemis, face as cold as carved stone, ears ringing with the sound of her cries, gritted his teeth, set his shoulders, and went to work.
Feedback is always appreciated, so please review and tell me what you think. This story is also posted on my account at AO3, which there is a link to on my updated profile page. Thanks for the read!