Áine was, in fact, not asleep in the guest room. Which is to say, she heard the whole thing.

There's a human idiom, one that Áine was not particularly familiar with, that would fit this situation. Perhaps a 'wallflower' or 'fly on the wall'. Actually, 'fly on the wall' is a better choice, as that is quite literally the form Áine had chosen.

Perched between two picture frames, Áine could distinctly hear both of the humans. One collapsed on the coach with a sigh and a "What now?"

The other human stomped up the stairs. He paused for a fraction of a second outside a door, hesitant. Then the doorknob rattled, a loud slam where the heavy door met the wall.

Áine flew from her perch, hovering near the ground. She took the form of a black cat she had seen pawing on the guest room window.

The taller human- Madeline was her name- gaped at the change, but Áine ignored it. Her tail swished as she bounced up the steps.

She stopped outside the door to the boy's room.

"Meow"

Oh right, cats were incapable of human speech. She turned into a spider and crawled through the crack underneath the door.

The boy wasn't crying, his hands weren't even in fists. Instead, his eyes kept darting around the room, always returning to his bedroom door. He scowled, and spun around so he couldn't see it. It wasn't like anything Áine had expected.

She changed form again, this time to a peasant girl who had once found her way to the Faerie gardens.

She cleared her throat- Wait, what was his name? Oh well.

"Boy?"

The boy jumped up, spinning around. "Wha-" he narrowed his eyes. "Who are you?"

She plopped herself on the bed beside him, legs swinging off the side. "Áine." Ugh. She forgot how high pitched prepubescent voices were. "And you? I can hardly keep calling you 'boy', can I?" Áine could tell from his expression that more questions were coming. "And before you ask, no I am not human, yes magik exists, and I am not here to kill you. Kapeesh?"

The boy rubbed his elbow, eyes darting back to the door. "So, you're the Faery mom was talking about?"

Color me impressed, Áine thought, he figured that out himself. (Though the Faerie Queen had an innate ability to speak and understand all languages, she often confused common slang and idioms)

Áine held out her palm. "Not just any Faery, the Faery queen. At least, I was... long ago. I am the last of my kind."

At that, the boy lunged for his bedside table, scooping up a pad of sticky notes and clicking a pen. "Come again?"

Áine resisted the urge to groan. So he was one of those humans. "No. I did not come up here to be interrogated. I came because of that," she spread her arms in a vague gesture she's seen humans use for emphasis, "disaster downstairs."

"Mom sent you, didn't she?" He was staring at the door again.

"No-" His eyes were shifting around the room again, doing that strange thing where they kept returning to the unassuming door. "Okay, seriously. What is so interesting about a door?"

"What? I- it's nothing!" His voice cracked. The boy's ears were a vivid pink.

"Oh." As convoluted and foreign as human interactions tended to be, their expressions always gave them away. "You feel guilty, don't you?"

"Yeah." The boy rubbed his elbow. "I just- You know those dramatic arguments you have in you're head? The ones' where you're always confident and you always win?"

Áine nodded, pretending to understand.

"They're never as good in real life. I mean, I always wanted to tell her, I've tried. Dad's tried, but… I still don't…that could have gone a lot better, couldn't it?"

This time, Áine's nods were earnest. "Oh, definitely."

The boy glared at her. "You're real helpful, aren't you?"

Ooh, sarcasm. Áine liked this one.

"I wasn't even relevant though. It was just so random, but-" His hands fisted. "I was so angry. And half of me thinks she deserved it, and she did, but… I still feel guilty. And I know that she's the one in the wrong, but-"

"So go talk to her." The boy was surprised to be cut off like that. "Sit down, actually talk. No more arguing. You both need to lay everything out on the table and figure out what to do about do about your dad and this 'creepslaying' thing you do."

The boy smiled softly "Thanks."

"But actually communicate this time. From what I can see, your whole family has extreme communication issues."

"Gee, thanks." He glared at her, but hopped off the bed anyway.

As the door shut, Áine collapsed onto the bed. She jumped up, something was poking her back. A strange metal brick was laying there. A 'phone', Áine declared in her head. She'd seen Madeline handle one in the horseless chariot Madeline had called a 'car'. The technology was strange to Áine. It seemed that quite a bit had changed during her forced stay in the Darklands.

She touched it expirimentally, and the screen lit up. Huh. She swiped to the left, and the screen changed. Humans talked to people with these things, didn't they? From what Áine had seen, they acted much like a wizard's crystal ball.

The screen had opened to a form of written communication. It read 'Steve' on top of the screen, so Áine assumed that was who Madeline's son had been communicating with. She skimmed through the messages to the last one.

You're still coming at 6, right Eli?

"Hmm." Áine mused. "So the boy's name is Eli."

The text had come from an hour before, and Eli hadn't responded. So Eli had somewhere to be in… she checked the clock in the upper right corner of the phone screen… half an hour. That meant Eli didn't have time to speak with his mother. But no, family was more important than whatever Eli had planned. Áine would know, what she wouldn't give for an hour alone with her son…

This simply wouldn't do.

Áine shifted forms again, looking down at herself to make sure she got it right. I was a little uncomfortable. Faeries technically didn't have gender as they didn't have one true form, but rather took the forms of the people and animals they saw. Áine however, had always been more comfortable in female form. It was why she had changed her birthed named from Áillen to Áine millennia ago. But if a few minutes of uncomfortableness helped to fix a broken relationship between mother and son, Áine would do it.

She pressed the phone to her ear, and in Eli's voice she began. "Hey Steve..."