Summary: Anti-Wanda is excited to have won a gold medal at the Fairy Games and wants approval; Anti-Cosmo isn't one to rest on laurels.
Characters: Anti-Cosmo, Anti-Wanda, H.P., assorted anti-fairies, assorted pixies, Timmy, Wanda, Poof, Scott Hamilton
Rating: K
Prerequisites: None
Posted: July 22, 2016
9. Make You Proud ("The Fairly Oddlympics")
Sunday April 13th, "2008"
Year of Breath; Spring of the Frozen Planet
It was no shocker when Anti-Wanda crossed the finish line first. Anti-Cosmo had made sure of it, and it wasn't hard. Sure, some ninny off the street might shake out his wings importantly and chirp that he, like any other being capable of channeling starpiece magic, was unfortunately incapable of using aforementioned magic to cheat at any form of sport or contest (at least, without an approved Immunity Badge and those things were tough to come by even for the von Strangles). And, sure. On paper, that was entirely true.
But not a word in Da Rules prevented him from tweaking the track and field course from his perch in the stands. Hey, this was a magical Olympics in a magical world, with hurdles one might assume were formed from the wood of magical trees. Sometimes, accidents happened. Including accidents that might lead to a scrawny fairy-elf crossbreed misjudging his jump and winning himself a complimentary trip backwards into the sky.
After she'd snapped the pale ribbon at the end of the track (fortunately with her torso and not her teeth this time), Anti-Wanda spun in a circle, arms raised. Anti-Cosmo stuck two fingers among his fangs and serenaded her with one of his better whistles. Of course she'd won. He'd sealed the deal by shaking Binky. The small pixie who'd been inches behind her maintained his even composure for a brave several seconds, and then flopped onto his side. The Head Pixie was already drifting over with a water bottle and a disappointed look. Running was, evidently, not among their few strengths. "Aw, y'did real good, little sport," Anti-Cosmo heard his wife call to him, and she received a grunt in response.
The self-proclaimed MC and supposedly impartial host of the Games (not to mention Fairy-Cosmo's human godchild) Timothy Turner used his microphone to summon the three racers to the podium. Anti-Wanda, apparently forgetting the use of her leathery wings in her excitement, scrambled past a sore and singed Binky and climbed up to the top. An official of sorts (Was that Fairy-Harold Honeyweaver?) poofed a golden medal on a blue ribbon around her neck. The weight knocked her half off balance. But she straightened, arms up, for the universe to see.
"I'd like ta thank my high classmaties a' Carl Pookypanties Low School fer teachin' me how t'always run."
Anti-Cosmo fooped away the black flag he'd been waving and made his leaping, flapping zig-zag from his seat down to the guard rail, and from there to the ground. He found Anti-Wanda still sitting in her place when he arrived. She beamed and kicked her feet.
"Didja see me beat 'em, Anti-Cossie? I beat 'em fastest. I e'en beat the elfy fairy."
"Yes, I was the one who took care of him. My doing." Flitting up beside his wife while the crowd milled away for ten-minute preparation break, he took hold of her medal and lifted it near his face. After a moment spent groping for his monocle, he adjusted it and inspected its every surface. He nibbled on the edge.
"No," he said quickly when Anti-Wanda made as if to follow his example from the other side. "I won't have you eating this, you chow-brained cow."
"But I just wanted a' know what it tasted like."
"Of course. Though I don't know how you have any surviving tastebuds in your mouth at all, given what all you eat. I was simply trrrying to determine whether or not this was crafted with real gold."
"Y'can tell that from the taste a' it?" she asked in her usual slow surprise. "Ah thought I was th'only one who could do that."
Anti-Cosmo shook his head and lifted the blue ribbon from her neck. Knowing his wife as he did, this was something better suited to a life in his pockets. "You can tell because it's soft, dear. Now, honestly, what are you holding your upturned hand out for?"
"Uh. I dunno. But…" Anti-Wanda strained her neck as she took it back. "Ah won."
"Yes, your victory was assured. Well, come along, Clarice. Come down from there. We must be moving on to our next event. An American dueling sport called boxing, if I'm not mistaken, though I do so ever loathe the verrry idea of physical combat." He turned, cocking his head when he glanced left and right and took in all the approaching Anti-Fairies. "And what are you lot all standing around this end of the stadium for for?"
"Uh…" Anti-Poof Anti-Everwish flicked his gaze over Anti-Cosmo's shoulder. With a second, sharper shake of his head, the High Count made shooing motions in their general direction.
"Get on with you. Tally-ho. We've got a boxing ring to be trrracking down. Get on, get on. Let us show those ruffians precisely why Anti-Fairies aren't the type to ever be messed with. Anti-Binky, you'll be rrrepresenting us for it. There are three rounds, and we don't play until the second. I trust you can hold against whichever idiot pixie gets thrown against you. Anti-Wanda?"
Anti-Wanda was off the podium, though she wasn't even floating. She stood there, staring at her feet. One hand pressed against her flat stomach. Anti-Cosmo couldn't imagine what thought had wriggled into her brain - or had even managed to find her brain - and really didn't have the time to investigate. He called her name again and offered his elbow for her to take. She did.
The domed, white building that housed the indoor ring was situated above the westward end of the stadium on a glittery pink cloud of its own. Two blue doors whooshed open upon their arrival, startling both anti-fairies. They exchanged uncomfortable glances as they realized they'd just been about to fly face-first into glass. It seemed as though it might be time to whip the echolocation out again.
Deliciously cold air washed over them upon their sweeping inside. Near the north corner of the ring, Anti-Cosmo spotted the Head Pixie apparently settling a spat between two of his larger pixies, one of his hands to a shoulder of each. A tiny pixie clung to the back of his leg.
"There is no soccer competition here, Mr. Snow," he said, looking down at it. "You will be acting on our behalf when it comes to gymnastics."
"With all due respect, sir, I think I would be more useful performing karate."
"You don't know the first thing about karate. Gymnastics it is."
"Here's an Anti-Fairy actually wishing good luck in that event, old chap," Anti-Cosmo called to him, and flashed the golden medal from the pocket of his jacket. The implication of his words earned him a fine array of frustrated sunglassed stares, and he chuckled about it the whole skim upward toward the reserved seating intended for High Count and Countess, far above the simpler and common folk.
"Well?" Anti-Cosmo dusted off Anti-Wanda's seat with his hand before offering it to her. "I think we should have a clear enough view of any underhanded foul-play that might occur down there in the ring, what?"
She rubbed her neck. "Mmhm. Anti-Cosmo, kin Ah see my medal again?"
"Of course. Here it is… Isn't it lovely?" he asked when she'd been staring at its shiny surface for quite some time. He kept one hand on the ribbon, ready to yank it away at her slightest attempt to devour it.
Anti-Wanda rubbed a circle on it with her fist. "D'you think I would a' still won if ya hadn't stopped the elf?"
"Really, that depends on a great deal of things. That Binky chap down there is obviously a crossbreed. You, however, are a full-blooded anti-fairy who has the honor of bearing the wings of a free-tailed bat."
"The fastest kind a' bat."
"It is indeed. Of course, the wind was against you, and you are not exactly the most balanced upon your feet. So, perhaps, but then again, perhaps not."
She touched his right wing with the tip of hers and cracked a buck-toothed smile. "But Ah don't almost fly sideways weird sometimes like you do."
Just as he went to brush her off, there was a genie-like Gong! as a boxing glove slammed into something that definitely should not have made a gonging noise. Anti-Cosmo whipped around half an instant before one of the unlucky boxers plowed through the ceiling. Plaster and bits of wood rained down with sheets of dust, for a moment obscuring the center of the ring. If he squinted, he could piece together the vague outlines of the Head Pixie, Timothy, and Fairy-Wanda near the corners.
"That poor pixie," Anti-Cosmo murmured. He'd lost his monocle when he spun around, but Anti-Wanda was quick to hand it to him.
"Aw, shoot. This next challenge's lookin' a mite tougher'n that race I won was."
"Yes, yes, but I don't doubt that we'll pull through in the end. We are Anti-Fairies, after all, and the April Fool may be large in stature, but Anti-Binky really ought to be able to… Wait a moment. That isn't…?"
His wings dropped like barbells.
The pixie was the one still standing when the plaster dust cleared. The pixie! Fairies shuffled about in mild chaos among the stands. Wings buzzed. Wands gleamed. The faintest smile had pressed itself across the Head Pixie's lips. He may as well have been setting off fireworks, hanging up a rainbow disco ball, and throwing a rave capable of turning even the huldufólk green as anti-pixies with envy (or sickness). Anti-Cosmo didn't doubt that, cozy reserved seating or not, there was some foul play going on that he himself had failed to catch. H.P. was simply too confident for there not to be.
Now Anti-Cosmo found himself pinned with a difficult choice to make. He couldn't afford to lose Anti-Binky. Not with another two dozen events left to go.
Timothy took up his microphone. "And to Round 2-"
"The Anti-Fairies forfeit the match!"
Silence, dry and dead. Then voices began popping up around the stadium. Heads turned, all of them focusing on the dark, well-dressed blot in the top of the stands in his box of honor. Anti-Cosmo ground his fangs.
"We forfeit the match," he said again, leaning against the rail. "Bravo to the pixies, I say. Pip pip, or something to that effect."
Monotone chicken clucking echoed among the pavilion, starting with the cocky Head Pixie himself and spreading with the fury of starving tigers. Even a few of the goodly fairies joined in, and Anti-Cosmo stewed in it. Plucking off his monocle, he rubbed it fiercely against his cravat. He was not so foolish that he knew not when to swallow his pride. Oh, let the little pixies have their win. The orderly twits had a ratio of only one fleck of brawn to every pound of brain, and smarts certainly wouldn't be helping them out here. Out on the agility course, the Anti-Fairies would annihilate them.
Back above the stadium grass, beating his own free-tailed bat wings, Anti-Cosmo paced in the air and stewed over his ragged bottom lip. Something was afoot. Dirty, two-bit cheating. Although impressive, the fact that the Pixies were stooping to it was not welcome news in the least. He'd thought that mostly, they considered themselves too good for it. There was an imaginary scale in the universe. The Fairies balanced on one plate. His people on the opposite. The Pixies functioned as the branching handle between.
If a Fairy baby was wise or strong, its counterpart was, well, not. You didn't get either Fairies or Anti-Fairies of merely average intelligence. Only polar ends, highs or lows. Averages were for Pixies. There were heralds of good luck who played war with harbingers of bad luck, and they were calmly watched over by creatures of plain and simple logic. The impartial vote. And always the impartial vote.
No, no. This couldn't be happening. It was the duty of the few Pixies there were in existence to oversee market exchanges, shipments, and business deals so that two far more populated species biologically wired to avoid or mock or injure or bring misery to or even outright attempt to destroy the other on sight (so forget sitting down in a civil meeting with one another) didn't have to. Pixies were supposed to pretend they would cast the deciding stone- not actually go and do it! They were beings of order, and arguably the other two classes were both chaos over there on the ends.
There was a program. It wasn't to be messed with. If a Fairy held 7/10 of the magic between a cross-Court pair, then the Anti-Fairy could only ever channel the remaining 3/10 of it. They matched. They fit like puzzle pieces. It wasn't right to change the familiar pattern, to alter the flow of things. With Pixies elbowing their way across the Anti-Fairy playground, karma would be boiling just on the horizon; if fortune was shifting in favor of the overarching level of "badness" in the universe, then that would only be "bad" news for said "beings of badness" in a short amount of time.
These underhanded, cheating things had to be done with deliberate care. Inch by inch to allow the world to readjust and then avoid the stinging rebound. Here his people were, surrounded by oblivious Pixies just playing with toys that didn't belong to them.
What they didn't realize was that when it came to tipping the scales of Luck to the left of the homeostasis point, there had to be deliberate calculations involved. Because if such blatant cheating continued to go on, touching the lives of more and more people, there would be a price to pay for it. A price steadily growing steeper and steeper like some sort of avalanche in reverse now that the stupid pixies were stupidly interfering with stupid universal rules and conditions that their species had always supposedly been immune to and therefore they could never understand.
And who was going to end up suffering the backlash? The Anti-Fairies. Always the Anti-Fairies. Because Pixies were inherently balanced. The universe let them walk either in the sunny summer mountains or the deep murky trenches and paid them little mind. He hated them. In a neutral sort of way.
But there had to be justice. There had to be balance. That was how it was meant to be.
"Anti-Cossie?"
He swiped his wings down in a rough snap as he spun to face her. "Yes, Anti-Wanda?"
His wife rubbed her shoulder. "Aw, it's just, I was wonderin' if…if'n… About racin'…"
She either chose not to finish organizing her thoughts, or actually hadn't. Before Anti-Cosmo could prompt her to go on, the Head Pixie himself drifted over with three of his underlings trailing after him. For the two whose hair didn't flip up in a double cowlick at the front, their typical emotionless facade had begun to slip. At the moment, the pixie who must have knocked the April Fool clear out of the ring was flaunting his golden medal on its blue ribbon. The other, with a faint bruise above his eye in about the same place where the track and field runner had slammed his head into the ground, was steaming horribly, wings ablur. He had one hand inside his jacket and seemed to be just waiting for the prime moment to whip out his cell phone and ping salt all over his own coworker's head right in front of the two anti-fairies. Ooh, now that would be fun.
"Well, A.C.," H.P. said, "at the rate you're plodding along at, it won't be long before you can kiss Turner's shortless behind good-bye forever."
Anti-Cosmo bristled. "You have one medal, old chap. That would make your people and mine even. So I wouldn't get too big for my size extra-extra-large brrritches in your position. After all, it was we Anti-Fairies who snatched first place in the races."
The pixie with the ribbon stuck his tongue out at his companion. That was the breaking point. The second lunged for the first, and in an instant the two were squabbling together in the grass. H.P. shut his eyes and held them that way, even when they tumbled beneath his feet and between him and the anti-fairies. A dark vein appeared across his forehead. The cowlicked pixie, Sanderson, tightened his fingers into his folded arms.
"Ya betcha silly square wings we won!" Anti-Wanda said, suddenly brightening. "Anti-Cossie, were ya watchin' when Ah went and took first place back there?"
He ignored her. Flustered pixies were a rare catch, and H.P. was clearly pretending that if he couldn't see them, then no one else could either. Anti-Cosmo wasn't about to let the opportunity slip through his fingers, and especially if they were doubling the amount of cheating going on in this corner of the cloudlands. He leaned back in the air, arms folded behind his head and the left leg crossed over the right. "Oh, dearie me. Looks like somebody's pride took a nasty spill on the track. They're not used to one of them getting something the others don't, hm? Better prepare yourself for dealing with the little rrrascals when they work themselves up to this state, H.P., because you'll have at least thirty more of them acting this way by noon."
H.P.'s gray cell phone was out and unflipped in under a second. Before Anti-Cosmo had the chance to react, a butterfly net had pinged into his hands (Wasn't that against competition rules?) He drew it behind his shoulder like a golf club and swung. Anti-Cosmo yelped and threw out one hand, but Anti-Wanda grabbed his arm and yanked him away. The net enveloped the two fighting pixies. They broke apart and flopped on their stomachs, limp and silent. Anti-Cosmo shared a wicked glance with his wife, and they both floated down to plant their feet on top of them. H.P. let the handle of the net drop to the ground.
"That would be because you have a desk job, Cinna. A sharkvark could pursue you through Cherish Jungle and you'd still find a way to avoid exercise."
"I have a desk job? I have a desk job? Kaufman, you lie on your back on the mail room table tapping at your starpiece but otherwise not moving for hours on end."
"Sometimes I carry packages by hand, and that's why I have such strong hands for boxing with. I run messages. I walk where I need to get. You ping down the hallway to the restroom."
H.P. kicked the wooden rim of the net's head. "So help me, I will dock both your paychecks. This is not an argument worth having."
"Someone who uses magic to move everywhere may not have been the smartest choice for a track and field course," Anti-Cosmo pointed out. He'd never witnessed an argument in utter monotone before, and he had to admit that despite his irritation with whatever it was the Pixies were up to, he found it amusing.
"I eat well every day, meat and vegetables and all, while you sit beside me and gorge yourself on pizza and hamburgers during lunch break."
"It doesn't count as unhealthy if it's vegetarian pizza."
"You drink soda."
"You drink soda?" the Head Pixie repeated. "During work hours?"
"I drink carbonated water, sir."
The pixie called Cinna drew in a breath of air he didn't actually need before delivering his final smashing blow. "Well, you don't even like paperwork."
"Who likes paperworks?" wondered Anti-Wanda aloud.
H.P. gathered what little hair he had into two fistfuls of white. "You are genetically identical. The results would have come out the same way had your positions been reversed. The only way one could possibly have an advantage over the other is if one of you actually did exercise on a reasonable basis like Hamilton, Newman, and Faust. I am regretting telling those three to save their strength for swimming and the mountain scaling."
"Bitter shame what went on at the trrrack and field course," Anti-Cosmo said innocently. "Could've happened to anyone, really."
Dull lavender eyes turned in his direction. "I saw you cheat the fairy, you realize."
Suddenly aware of how far he was leaning to his right side, Anti-Cosmo lifted several inches in the air and recentered his balance. "Cheating? Do you actually wish to discuss cheating with an Anti-Fairy, H.P. old chap?"
"As it happens, I do not. I have been informed that it is only in your nature, and if you are too weak to overcome your basic instincts, that is none of my business. I shouldn't desire to be one of your kind if I were paid with the Fairy Elder's amulet of invulnerability."
"Ah, but at least I'm not so undesirrrable that I've ever had the need to mate with myself."
He got a finger jabbed at his nose for that one. "That is incorrect information and you have no right to say such things."
"I will say whatever I like."
"If these are the sort of fingers you wish to begin pointing, A.C., I must tell you how grateful I am every day to recall that I at least wasn't forced to take the most dimwitted damsel in existence as my mate purely because the laws of the universe left me no choice. I pity you each morning and evening for how hard you were screwed over, dude. It can't be fun to be a member of the Unseelie Court."
Now it was Anti-Cosmo who flushed white. "Anti-Wanda has no place in this conversation! If you're going to challenge me, challenge me directly like a drake!" He fooped up a white glove and, with another swirl of his wand, smacked H.P. across the cheek with it. The glove disappeared again. It took the pixie a few seconds to react. Then, gingerly, he touched one hand to his face.
"Black cat got your tongue?" Anti-Cosmo hissed, drawing a few wingbeats away. In answer, H.P. flicked out the antenna of his cell phone and lunged with it. Anti-Cosmo ducked, drawing his own wand, and when he came up from his somersault he was just able to deflect the next hit. H.P., wings whipping, bore down on him, antenna scraping up and down the length of black wand as the pair wrestled to twist each other's weapon from their rival's grip, the way each of them had been taught in the War of the Angels, if on opposite sides. H.P. got a foot in the anti-fairy's stomach, and Anti-Cosmo hooked the clawed tips of his wings in the pixie's shirt.
"Ooh, if you knock me out of commission on what is supposed to be a day of neutrrrality, I can and will sue you millions, you boob!"
"Bad luck, punk."
As that very same bad luck would have it, Timothy came skipping towards them across the field. Fairy-Wanda, the baby, Scott Hamilton fully decked out in a pirate costume, and… one of the pixies? weren't far behind. The brat's eyebrows were up and slightly pinched, like he remained reluctant to trust either one of his enemies, and yet he still greeted them both with a buck-toothed smile.
Anti-Cosmo had grown fond of that smile. Though he loathed every injustice Timothy had forced him through or caused even indirectly, a deep part of him couldn't help but feel a slight affection towards the little chap even now. Something about the confident way he carried his head, perhaps, or how when the baby snuggled up to his cheek, he lifted one hand to hug it back. Must have been the stupid fagiggly gland transplant.
"Hey, guys," Timothy said, stopping a little out of arm's reach. "It's five minutes 'til cloud-diving starts. H.P., I drew Mr. Carmichael's name from my bowl, and I wanted to see that part in the contract where the judges are supposed to be impartial again before I gave him the official A-OK."
"That's a swell idea," chirped Anti-Wanda, offering a wave of hello to her counterpart (Fairy-Wanda reluctantly waved back). "We Anti-Fairies tend ta lie and cheat and prob'ly shoul'n't be trusted with any important contest-judgin', and neither ought them pointy-hatted gray peoples either, I s'pect."
"Avast, ye scruvy dogs!" Scott Hamilton drew a gleaming sword from his scabbard and swished it through the air. He clipped off the tip of Wanda's curl, and she set her teeth in alarm and dove for her baby. The sword was then aimed at Anti-Cosmo's chest. "If any of ye think yer cheating ways are more cheatsie than my pirate cheating, then I demand ye draw yer cheating weapons and stand forth so I may plunder your cheating floaty crowns."
"Did you guys want something?" Cupid hollered from across the field.
Anti-Cosmo used his wand to angle the sword away. "Oh, perish the thought, old boy. You'd need to challenge someone even less adept at waving that thing around than you are, and he's busy talking to Timothy."
"Dude," Timothy said, cutting off whatever sharp retort was about to leave H.P.'s lips. He pointed to the two shivering pixies in the grass. "What's with the butterfly net?"
The Head Pixie spared them a glance, then turned to look the boy squarely in the face. "They had an accident," he deadpanned.
"Didn't we have Jorgen make it part of Da Rules that butterfly nets were forbidden today, no exceptions?"
"If you read the fine print, they're forbidden only during the events themselves. Now, if you want to see the specifics, is there a place we could ping to discuss that contract again?"
Wanda materialized above Timothy's shoulder, her purple son tucked under one arm. Her wand was drawn. "He's with me."
"We's all here with him," Anti-Wanda pointed out. H.P. raised one brow and lifted his arms to show her he would not resist her magic. They, the baby, Sanderson, and Scott Hamilton all vanished in a poof of hot pink.
Hot was right. As the aftershock of fairy magic swept over his regularly-cold skin, sizzling and steaming as it came in contact with his dark fur, Anti-Cosmo slipped a handkerchief from a pocket of his vest and covered his nose with it.
"She did that on purpose," he grumbled, waiting impatiently for his body temperature to stabilize.
No answer from his wife. He turned his head. "Anti-Wanda, what is all this sulking nonsense? What's gotten into you? You look as though you were just forced to swallow a four-leaf clover."
She sniffled. "Didya see me while I was runnin', sweetie? Out on the field?"
Anti-Cosmo sighed. After tucking the handkerchief away, he took up her gnarled hands, clawed fingers folded around hers. "Yes, my tea crumpet. I saw you."
She brightened. "Even the part where I did the winnin' bit?"
"Heavens below, woman- Are you dafter than I thought? Of course I saw you! I'm the one who set you up so I could watch you claim victory. Is this what's been bothering you? You thought you hadn't made me proud somehow, despite the fact that you won the very first Fairy Games medal any Anti-Fairy in history has ever laid claim to? Dear, you have to tell me these things. I'm only Unseelie; you can't expect me to be capable of rrreading your mind. Come on." He put his finger below her chin and lifted it. "Tell me now, what might your doting husband pull together in order to bring that beautiful grin back to your pretty lips? Tick tock."
Anti-Wanda struggled to spark her brain cells together. "Well… I was really hopin' that maybe I could do the jumpy thing inta the pool when the time for that swings 'round us. D'ya think I could?"
This was a conundrum. He had already made arrangements to have Anti-Cupid perform the high-dive event. Elegance was not precisely one of Anti-Wanda's limited strengths.
But it remained a problem for all of one wingflap. Allowing himself to smile again, Anti-Cosmo kissed her nose.
"Little spider, I think you'll be perfect for it."