Second Contact
Series of four; second and third are drabble-and-a-halfs. Inspired by the line about humans almost being ready for The People to reintroduce themselves. Slight post-Artemis Holly/OFC.
Holly browsed her mark's books as she waited for her to wake. Roses of the Shoalhaven: The Life and Times of Beckett and Beatrice Fowl caught her eye, and she took it down to see how accurate it was. This was what apparently woke her, and she lunged, half-asleep, for the panic button. Good thing Holly had disabled it.
"I wouldn't, Madame President" she said aloud, the Modern English given by the Gift strange on her tongue when she actually spoke 21st Century English. "They won't believe you if you tell them there was a Fairy in your room."
"A Fairy?"
The little person put the book down. "I'm Commander Holly Short of the Lower Elements Police, the Fairy police force. I've been instructed to contact you as a preliminary to The People coming back into contact with Humanity. We think you're close to being ready for us again," she said in a clipped military manner. Diane turned on the light to see her better. A sharp, serious, pretty face, greying auburn hair, pointed ears, soldierly bearing, and a jumpsuit that looked like something out of an Early Video Era sci-fi.
"Why ..." she trailed off, too many questions for a middle-of-the-night head. "What were you doing with that book?"
Her bearing softened, a little. "I knew Beckett and Beatrice. I wanted to see what people say about them."
"That was ... Beatrice Fowl was my I'm-not-sure-how-many-greats grandmother."
"I am a Fairy."
Holly wasn't prepared for how much President Fowl looked like Artemis. The black hair couldn't be from the Fowl line, aside from the distance of the relation, she's Beckett's descendant, and he was blond, but it was still startling.
"However did you know them?" she asked, getting up.
"Beckett's older brother was my lover." Holly picked up the book and activated the search, looking for ... There. A family portrait Beckett had done at 40 or so, there she was, sandwiched between Artemis and Flora. She zoomed in. She was much, much younger, but she was unmistakably herself.
"That's me," she said, pointing.
President Fowl looked between the book and Holly's face, and Holly could see as clear as day in those shrewd blue eyes, that now she truly believed Holly's tale, and wasn't just playing along because Holly was armed and the panic button hadn't worked.
"You're really ... My goodness."
As if being President wasn't exciting enough, she was given the honour of being first official contact to a non-human intelligence. It might have been more interesting if they were aliens, or at least just claimed Fairy stories were based on them, since they obviously were neither pinkie-sized nor magical, just short and technologically advanced. How did that rule go? Something about advanced technology being indistinguishable from magic.
The Americans and the EU would be extremely jealous when this came out. She wasn't sure what she thought about Commander Short being her great-times-a-lot aunt, though.
She comes across as such a dork in that last one. Also, even if you ignore the fact their relation is only by 'marriage', they're only about as related as Aragorn and Arwen.