(Posted January 14, 2017)

The Blessed

Spring of the Shifted River

Sanderson, Hawkins, and I were awake and perched on the shrine steps before Hadrian and Miriel had even arrived for the morning, pink-robed and unsmiling yet again. "So," I said as he flew up, "about that baptism I tried to schedule yesterday."

"Yes, I was told you'd been cleared by a Dr. Ranen. You haven't changed your mind, I hope?"

"Not at all. We had nothing for dinner last night and nothing for breakfast yet either, except I had a cup of coffee because my caffeine withdrawal is horrible, and I'm not the one being baptized here. Is that fasting enough for you?"

He waved for us to stand using his feathered wingtip, but paused with his hand resting on the curtain at the top of the steps. "This is a place of quiet, of reflection, and aside from what we must take in to survive, the Big Wand's energy field is constricted beyond the shrine doors. All magic affecting your appearance or condition either physical or mental will be temporarily lifted inside, minus the magic that pumps through your veins due to the physical creation process of your bodies which grounds you to this world. Your starpieces will be ineffective, any magical clothing or adornments will either return to their previous state or vanish entirely, and without magic to lend itself to your wings, you will be unable to fly. Are there any concerns about this?"

Sanderson and Hawkins looked to me, but I couldn't think of any, so we proceeded through the veil on foot. The inside of the shrine appeared no larger than the outside, to my disappointment. It was a long, simple room bordered by the four curtains, and contained nothing but three polished boulders acting in place of chairs. Early light filtered in from the absent ceiling. Hadrian picked two bundles of clay tablets from the first rock, stacked them, and brought them to me.

"If you would please, fill those out. I'm just going to talk to them both one on one, ask them about themselves and their lives. When we're both finished, we'll proceed."

I nodded. Hadrian waited, and when I made the motion to sit down, he brushed my arm.

"Alone, please."

"Ah, of course. Hawkins, come with me."

"Wait." Sanderson touched his fingertips together. "You're leaving me?"

"We're going to step outside where the light is better while you have your private interview. Remember who you are and what I've taught you and you'll do fine. Your wings are fluttering. Don't be anxious. Hadrian is a kind refract." I turned my eyes on him. "At least, I would very much hope he's kind to you."

Hawkins and I ducked back through the curtain and sat down on the steps. "Okay," I said, placing the first tablet across my knees. It covered the basic information they wanted for the medallions. First name. Well. I supposed that was 'Sanderson'. Surname… Whimsifinado.

Yet, I paused. Rubbing out Sanderson's name, I instead pressed in Mister first and placed Sanderson second. That removed the concept that he belonged in the Whimsifinado tree entirely, and it was what I'd told him his name was when he was forty-five anyway.

The next line read 'Father', and I had to stop again. My pinky rubbed my left temple. Then I wrote, Sanders Chipixie.

"Uh, sir, I thought you were our…" Centuries of being snubbed prevented Hawkins from speaking the word, but it existed in the air between us nonetheless.

"How do you think Sanderson got his name?"

"I… don't know. He's just Sanderson. Oh. Um, shouldn't his surname be Cheepixie, then?"

"Shihpixie, and you're right. Good catch." I went back and adjusted it. My stylus hovered over the clay beside the word, Mother. A tiny part of me knew it was untrue, but I couldn't simply leave the space blank. I wrote in Kalysta's name.

Hawkins passed the time by sucking on his thumb, and I was almost finished marking up the rest of the tablet when he raised his head. "So… So… What about me? Where's my real… you know."

I switched Sanderson's tablet for his. "Yes, you're of Sanders too. He comes and goes as he pleases, occasionally getting with the damsels, and I deal with the consequences of his actions as best as I'm able to. He last came two mornings ago, while you and Ambrosine went off to work and Sanderson was sleeping. He does not want to put up with you, so I watch over you in his stead. We were close when we were younger."

"I need to find him," Hawkins said, running his free palm over his knee. "He's my real dad- He has to take me back when he meets me."

I took off my glasses. "Sanders is not a very pleasant person. No one likes him."

"But I should be with him!"

"No." Licking a dry finger, I returned my attention to the clay. "You won't find him. He shows up only when he wants to, and never for good reasons. He's always around when problems occur. I shouldn't have told you anything. Don't dwell on it."

Hawkins rested his head on my thigh, still sucking. "Next time he comes… Promise that you'll wake me up? I want to meet him."

"I won't promise you that." Along the blank requesting his name, I wrote Hawks' Kin Chipixie. "Ambrosine believes I shouldn't have accepted the last nymph. That's why he fired us."

"Is that my real name?" Hawkins asked, following my stylus.

I tilted the stone towards him. "What do you think of it?"

"It's a little ugly."

"In that case, I'll change it." I smudged it out. "'Hawkins' is what was decided upon, but 'Hawks' Kin' is what Sanders thought your name should be."

"Then don't change it, sir. It's what my dad wanted."

"It's too late. I've already erased it. Please don't say 'dad'."

The thumb came out. Hawkins glanced up at me. "What's he like?"

"Sanders likes you a lot," I said irritably. "He just doesn't enjoy your company at times. Maybe you talk too much. But you won't find him, Hawkins. Give up any hope of moving in with anyone but me. Legally, you are mine. An honorary member of the Whimsifinado line. You can't change that, and who would want to? You've been welcomed into a wealthy and relatively powerful family. Out there they'll call you brownie-born and grind your cheek into the vapor with the sharp heel of a shoe the same color as their pants. I don't want that type of life for you. I treat you well, don't I? I'm all you have."

"But I want to be a real Whimsifinado," he whined, sitting up. "Mr. Fergus, I was a fake elf for years, told fake stories and fakely pretending to like and do fake things, and I just want to-"

"Hawkins." I flicked my stylus below his chin and tilted his face upward so he had little choice but to look me in the eyes. "There's a bit more to belonging with someone than traditional blood and family connections would suggest. Look at Sanderson- he does well enough for himself. Throughout my many years of travels, I've found that loyalty is rooted in consistency. Persistent presence makes the core grow fonder. You belong to me, who has passed many an hour feeding and dressing you and nursing you when you were sick and bouncing you on my knee while I fumbled half-drunk and mostly asleep through games of fidchell and snapjik. Remember, I chose to take you back from Nephel and Keziah, and I chose to bring you with me when Ambrosine threw us out. I didn't have to do that; I could have abandoned you in the street and taken my limited funds to support myself. I deserve your devotion. In me, you have enough to be content. Do you understand?"

Hawkins maintained eye contact, until he didn't. His eyes rolled crossly away into the bottom corners. It's what I would have done in his position. I tapped the stylus against his jaw until I refocused his attention on me. Quietly, he poked out his submissive tongue. Keeping my gaze on him, I lowered my neck. In a too-practiced fashion that had always disturbed me, he licked twice around my throat with unnecessarily pretty swirls of saliva: I'm sorry.

I returned to my tabletwork with a shake of my head. But I couldn't focus on it for long. Hawkins wouldn't stop chirping his wings in that irritatingly irregular way he did when he was starved for entertainment. At last, I leaned over to set my tablets far to the side behind one of the pillars and out of the way of any feet that might tromp up or down the stairs, placed the stylus on top of them, and faced him again. "If I buy you an ice cream, will you forget this whole 'Sanders' discussion and agree to accept me as your real legal guardian?"

At first, Hawkins didn't answer, even as I stood up and adjusted my jacket. Then he stood too. "I guess you are my real legal guardian, Mr. Fergus. My really good guardian."

I scratched my left hand through the back of his curly hair. "There's a good boy."

"But what if Hadrian gets mad at me? You know, for eating when I'm supposed to be fasting."

"Hadrian's no god. The only way he'll notice that you ate is if he senses your attraction signals have gone yellow with delight, because he disapproves of the happiness of others. If he does care, we'll simply bring you back here tomorrow. Remember, he can't get mad unless he catches you. The trick is to not get caught. You are hungry, aren't you?"

Hawkins groaned. "Hungrier than ever in my life!"

"Ah, and that makes you cranky, doesn't it? Wrath is a sin, and we certainly can't allow sin inside a holy temple, now can we? Come on. Let's get you fixed up. If I remember correctly, they'll be in there for an hour more."

So we meandered through the town until we found a cute place to kick back for thirty minutes, and I even don't mind admitting it. After we'd finished up, Hawkins and I went over his mouth, hands, and clothes carefully to ensure no traces of vanilla would be visible to the sharp, birdy eyes of a Refract. With him declared clean, we returned to our posts atop the stone stairs.

"Curtain's still closed," I grunted as Hawkins settled himself more cheerfully at my side. "I suppose that's good news, though I do hope they'll finish in there soon. The day is wearing on and I would like to partake of a full meal before next decade."

"Well, I'm happier now. Is happiness a virtue?"

"Yep. It's called Humility." I pulled my tablets back into my lap. "And we'll have to hope that Sanderson demonstrates his as well and doesn't turn to whining at me. I'm not even going to try to make everything equal between the both of you, as I believe I made clear in your younger years. Fortunately, when this baptism thing is done, he won't be permitted to talk for a couple of days…"

My work was finished quickly. I lay back with my arms folded behind my neck and, against my better judgement, allowed Hawkins to relay to me a story about an excursion to the top of a cloudy hill he'd been on a few Thursdays ago with his friends while Sanderson and I had stayed inside to make sandwiches. When he paused to massage the thumb that his teeth had been bouncing against almost the entire time, I took the opportunity. I stood and nudged aside the curtain. On the far side of the shrine, Hadrian sat on one of his boulders, picking at the folds of his robes.

"Where is Sanderson?" I asked with no small amount of irritation, my forehead creasing.

Hadrian cocked his head. "I sent him out to you fifteen minutes ago."

I felt my wings drop. Otherwise, I managed to keep my face expressionless. "Right, then. Head on in and talk to Hadrian, Hawkins. I'll deal with this. Remember, don't be nervous, and you'll get by all right."

After the curtain fluttered shut behind my second little charge, I pushed my fingers through my hair and tried to focus on finding the first. Alright. It wasn't like Sanderson to go wandering off. Perhaps something had happened to him. Dust… what if he'd been kidnapped? What if Ambrosine had sent a mercenary after us to ensure we really did leave his home with merely the briefcase? Was this because of my nymph blanket, or perhaps my leaving Wilcox? What if Dr. Ranen had broken client confidentiality, and the Eroses had considered Sanderson an interesting anomaly and taken him hostage for studying? What if Emery had done it to spite me? What if Kalysta had returned to reclaim him? What if-

I shook my head and pulled my hands down my cheeks. This wasn't helping anything. I had to lay out my facts. How did Sanderson think? Obviously, Hadrian had released him outside while Hawkins and I had snuck off for ice cream. Where would he have gone?

I peered out at our surroundings. They didn't fill me with hope. The shrine sat plucky in a circle of cloudstones, and beyond that circle path it was surrounded by tall, crowding buildings vying for customers and bulging with souvenirs. I turned slowly, rubbing at the back of my neck. Then I picked a shop at random and pushed open the door.

"Have you seen a nymph come through here in the last half twenty minutes? Scrawny, black hair, a sharp jaw, odd orange-tinted wings, a squarish sort of head? Lavender eyes exactly like mine?"

I received a sharp glance, and remembered the fairy baby mandate too late. Still, I held my ground. Wasn't his business. But he didn't have an answer for me.

Every shop, it was the same. I ended up back on the shrine steps to check on my briefcase- it wouldn't do if that was stolen. Still no sign of Sanderson. I was growing more concerned now. Soon enough, Hadrian would finish with Hawkins, and it was kind of expected that Sanderson would be present for his own baptism ceremony. I rubbed behind my neck and turned my gaze upward. Stars glinted in the purple sky. Plane 4 shimmered with a blur.

"Dear Nuada, Sanderson. You can't just run off like this."

There was another building I hadn't tried yet, and they say that you'll always find what you're looking for in the last place you look. Snapping my fingers, I crossed the cloudstone path to the storehouse where we had been examining the medals. If I'd been walking instead of floating, I'd have tripped over him in the dark. He scrambled up to his feet, grabbing at my clothes and yanking at the buttons.

"Mr. Fergus, you left! You and Hawkins just left me!"

I deserved that. I took his elbow and guided him back outside where it was lighter. "There you are. I've been searching for you for half an hour. Wait a second. You were afraid of being alone, so you hid yourself in a room with no people?"

"I- I was looking for you. Your imprint is fainter, but it's still here. And I also was going to be useful and look at the medallions for Whimsifinados, and-" He stopped himself, stopped his wings, and then grabbed my leg and buried his face in the hem of my vest. I rubbed his hair with the flat of my hand.

"Sanderson, I appreciate that you tried to find me. But your mistake was in staying where you were. You shouldn't have given up. I may not have known to find you. The next time you get lost, you'll have to keep moving."

"No! I'm not getting lost again. I'm staying with you."

I shrugged.

We returned to the shrine to find Hawkins just coming out of it. I took up my tablets and, with Sanderson still clinging to my side, turned Hawkins around and headed in there myself. Fortunately, this time I found Hadrian actually ready to do his job. He removed his hands from his sleeves and took my tablets. After a quick glance over each one of them, he nodded and left to summon his friends.

"Do I have to get undressed for this?" Sanderson complained as I brought him and Hawkins over to the boulders.

I lifted him onto the rock. "It's the way it's done. Do you want to wear wet clothes for the rest of the day? We're four Planes above the Sun up here in Faeheim, so it will take you considerable time to dry."

Sanderson rubbed at his wet socks. "No, but… but Hawkins will look at me."

"I'll cover my eyes," Hawkins said, doing so and hunkering up in a ball on his boulder. "Like this. Like a bug."

I gave one of his wings a light twist. "Stop it. Sit up and try to act with some inkling of respect. This is supposed to be a sacred place or something."

Once a witness stood at each of the four shrine entrances, Hadrian stepped into the center, pink robes trailing in the water, and held out his upturned hands.

"Sanderson Chipixie, son of Sanders Chipixie and Kalysta Ivorie. Present yourself before the Tuatha Dé Danann to be baptized, may the Lost Ancients return from their underground prison."

Sanderson paused and gave me a sideways look as he heard the names 'Sanders' and 'Chipixie' for the first time. At my nod, he got up from his seat and wriggled out of his little wine-colored vest, his tie, his white shirt, then his pants. When he had finished, he splashed over to join Hadrian. Hadrian took his hands and lifted his arms, then held out each wing and examined them from apex to knob. He looked back to me.

"I thought you wrote that his mother was a will o' the wisp."

"Kalysta was. Is there a problem?"

Hadrian lifted Sanderson's wings again, then let them fall. "There may be. The evidence proves he has a fairy father, and the indirect muscle structure of his wings indeed indicates he's the offspring of a cross-species coupling. I hate to be the one to tell you this if you didn't know, but his mother isn't a will o' the wisp. The wings are the wrong shape."

I heard the thump of blood in my ears as Hadrian turned Sanderson around and nudged him back towards me.

"He is impure. Whatever's written on those tablets is incorrect, and it must be fixed before we proceed. If there were a cù sith in this room, they could have swapped souls for the Sin of lying."

Returning to the steps, I sat down and placed my hands to my temples. "It's Pip, then. Physical impossibility or not, it has to be. No other ever came close before you were born."

"Who's Pip?" Sanderson asked.

"Well." I took up his clay tablet again. "According to the evidence, she's your real mother. And unfortunately, I don't know her real name. We'll just have to hope Hadrian accepts 'Pip'. But you," I said to Hawkins, "should be fine, even if your costas are brown. Kalysta has to be your mother. There is little question about that. I never did pay much attention to reproduction in school, and clearly I should have. For some reason, I was under the impression that pregnancy occurred shortly after copulation. Obviously I am wrong. Centuries pass, apparently, before cross-species fertilization occurs."

Hawkins craned his neck. "My wings are shaped the same as Sanderson's."

"It's the only explanation. Sanders leaves me guessing."

When I finished, we returned inside to give the tablet to Hadrian. He studied it for a few quick seconds, then gave it back. "You wrote that the mother was an anti-cherub."

"She has to be."

"That's impossible."

"If Kalysta isn't his mother, then it must be Pip."

He sighed. "Please forgive my tongue. I don't know any other way to ask it. Did you go to school? Among the Seelie Court it's the drakes who give birth. Among the Unseelie, it's the damsels. Their reproductive systems are entirely different from ours, by their very nature of being our opposites. You were better off with the will o' the wisp story. Now you're only digging yourself deeper, friend."

I pushed my hair back with two hands and sighed hard through my nose. "Then I don't know what to tell you."

Hadrian beckoned for Sanderson to stand beside me and, when he did, he examined his wings again. "I hate to ask, but could she be a brownie? His wings bear a similar color to theirs, and the distorted, vaguely squarish shape is somewhat similar, though I've never seen it this pronounced."

"You're suggesting I'm a- No. No, no, no. Spit on me for my insensitivity and political incorrectness, but I'm from a traditional family. I would never stoop to mating with a brownie. I'm not so pathetic that I can't get a fairy damsel if I want one."

"All were equal in the eyes of the Tuatha Dé Danann," he said with the voice of a fairy who had said it so many times, it had lost all meaning.

I clenched my teeth. "Well, I'm not the Tuatha Dé Danann. Taking a brownie mate would be beneath me. Just look at their crowns if you don't believe it."

He admitted, "These two do have crowns. I must ask you to remember, though, that this is a sacred temple and I request you be honest."

"There have been multiple damsels sprinkled throughout my past, but never any brownie. I remember Pip the anti-cherub and Kalysta the will o' the wisp." Suddenly I snapped my fingers. "No, wait. There was a selkie. Her name was… Her name was… China Mayfleet."

Hadrian studied Sanderson and then Hawkins once more. "All right," he finally said. He flicked back a strand of golden hair. "I'll accept her as the mother. It would seem my only other choice is to get the Eroses involved, and, well…"

"Nobody wants that with their tendency to wave around the invincible Aphrodite Protocol."

"No, we do not. You two take your seats and I'll be with you in one moment." As they scurried off, his wary eyes flicked back to me.

"You aren't sure what to think of me," I guessed as I exchanged Pip's name for China's in the clay. "Most fairies take only one mate in their life. You don't see a lot who've had three and then can't sort out who mothered which one. Especially when they claimed an Anti-Fairy was involved."

"It's not my place to judge the past. Only the present." He folded his arms in his gaping sleeves until I gave the tablet back. "What's this Chipixie nonsense, then? Aren't you Ambrosine's boy? Wouldn't that make you a Whimsifinado?"

I hesitated. "Chipixie was my mother's name, and it's on my own baptism medal. I chose to use it because yesterday, my father disowned us. That's why we come now of all times, seeking comfort and peace. We're leaving Faeheim this afternoon. I need solace before I go."

That made him sigh a little inside his mouth. "Your other child's wings are identical to the first, so he almost certainly has the same mother. Don't forget to change his tablet, too."

I did. Hadrian motioned for me to stay on that side of the small shrine, then called again for Sanderson to present himself in the center, this time supplying China's name for Kalysta's. Hawkins was summoned after him. Hadrian paused over the pale scars along his bare arms, but made no sign that he would forbid Hawkins from participating in the ceremony. He told them to sit on the pair of boulders opposite the lone one, and took the third for himself.

"All right. Earlier, I spoke one on one with each of you, about your thoughts and your personal lives. Now, I wish for you to tell me what you know about the Tuatha Dé Danann."

"Um…" Sanderson shuffled his wings against his bare back. "The Tuatha Dé Danann were a race who existed in the Great Dawn and sided with the Aos Sí, the Tylwyth Teg, the Yugopotamians, and the Snobulacs in the Sealing War against the Milesians, the Boudacians, the Rhymepyes, and the Molpa-Pel. They lived in the realm of Tír na nÓg, and I think controlled the great rosewater fountain, Kiiloëi, which was the source of all their magic. When the Molpa-Pel attacked them in their home, all the older drakes and damsels were killed, and the pure-hearted nymphs were carried off through the cosmos as far away from Kiiloëi as possible."

"What did the last survivors of the Molpa-Pel use their scientific knowledge to do at the end of the war?"

"They combined forces with the Father Angel and the seven zodiac nature spirits, created a huge prison of rock and dirt all the way around the Tuatha Dé Danann, shutting them and the Molpa-Pel up forever."

"'Cept for that one time when they escaped to the surface and the Milesians drove them back under, in the war where King Nuada lost his hand to Sreng." Hawkins held up his right hand, shivered, and popped his thumb in his mouth.

"Then that place was called 'Earth', since that's the ancient Angelican word for 'covered up'. Oh, and the Molpa-Pel called it 'Munde'." Sanderson tucked his hands between his legs. "And… there was tons of magic that came off their bodies when they died, and that fed the water and the plants, and the Tuatha Dé Danann became the life of all things. May the Lost Ancients return from their underground prison."

"Not quite all things."

Sanderson looked taken aback for a moment, then went to correct himself. Hawkins beat him to it with, "All things 'cept the Fairykind and the Unwinged."

"Right," Sanderson said. "All the Fairyki- Erm… I mean, members of the Seelie Court are descended from the Aos Sí. Um. I don't know where the Unwinged came from, though."

Hadrian leaned back in his seat. "'Unwinged', as you say, is a rather offensive term given to those beings called Angels, and I would advise you not to use it in front of them. However, we're not concerned with their origin story now. Can one of you tell me about the Coin Sith?"

Both sat, Hawkins with his mouth groping for an answer, Sanderson with wings fluttering. "Hmm," Hadrian said, and marked their hesitation on his piece of clay tablet. "You might call a cù sith, for lack of better words, a 'fairy dog'. They have a nasty habit of stealing the soul from anyone who commits one of the Three Deep Sins while they stand in the room, in order to swap places and become one of the Fairykind while the Fairy must seek out another soul to steal as a cù sith, and avoid the fate of dying as one and remaining trapped in that body for eternity. We don't want our souls to be stolen, do we, boys? I thought not. Coin sith are also exceptional at leading one to nursing milk, which is why we sometimes use them here in Tír Ildáthach- the cherubs especially."

"Oh, to find milkmothers for the orphaned nymphs," Hawkins said, clapping his hands.

Hadrian paused. I could see his wheels turning back to what he'd told me about Cosma's mutation and the forbidding of the fairy nymphs, but he said, "Yes. That's why. The coin sith were first created by the Sluagh, specifically the nixes, in an attempt to rescue the lost Tuatha Dé Danann, but their digging paws tore the ground and ripped the Earth and caused the deaths of billions of living things. All to reach the center of the Earth and find all but one of the Tuatha Dé Danann dead and the Molpa-Pel still thriving. The coin sith were returned to Tír Ildáthach, and eventually fled to eternally wander the unsettled skies. They are wild animals restless and destructive by nature. None of you would attempt to keep one as a pet, would you?"

They both shook their heads. I joined them. Hadrian nodded and stood. "I will have Miriel bring in your counterparts, then." Then he swept off, robes fluttering around his ankles just above the water.

"Why are Anti-Fairies coming here?" Hawkins whispered to me.

"Yes, I thought bad people like them weren't supposed to be inside the shrine."

"They aren't," I said patiently. "She's bringing your Refracted counterparts. The damsels, remember?"

"Why?"

"Why not?"

Sanderson fixed me with a deadpan stare. I leaned back against the pillar.

"There are three phases of your baptism. You've successfully passed the first, which is proving your knowledge of the Tuatha Dé Danann. Next comes the fertility ritual. Baptism is a juvenile ceremony- you can be baptized any time after you've shed your exoskeleton so long as you haven't hit your first period of menstruation."

"What's that mean?"

"Tell you later. The idea is to be able to raise good kids in the future by being a good kid yourself now. This little ceremony puts you in touch with the purest, holy part of you that was lost when your magic split apart before you were born. You'll act out a wedding dance and kiss between you and your Faelumen counterpart. Then you'll renew your 'vow' at your coming of age ceremony when you moult into your adult wings, and your 'study of childhood' period ends. Easy."

Sanderson squirmed. "I have to marry myself?"

"Don't be ridiculous. Have you ever seen a juvenile married to a Refract?"

"No. That's why I asked in surprise, duh."

I twisted one of his wings lightly for the sass, then crouched beside his rock and went patiently on with, "It's only ceremonial. It's a symbol of unity, of remembering what your ancestors were in the ancient days. The three genera combined, remember? Faedivus, Faeumbra, and Faelumen."

"But it's weird."

"I think it's cute," Hawkins chirped, swinging one of his legs. "I've never kissed a damsel before, but I kind of want to."

"Isn't this Rhoswen syndrome, sir? Kissing across class boundaries? She's Unseelie." Sanderson tightened his fists against his knees. "Isn't that illegal and gross?"

I shook my head. "Not in the shrine. Kisses mean little in Faelumen culture. Pecking is their way of greeting, instead of handshakes or dominance licks. So in a way, it's not a real kiss. At all. Imagine it like SHAMPAX. And you aren't really supposed to kiss back or react at all- simply stand there and let her do her thing. As previously mentioned, it's quick and easy. I told you, their culture is rigid when it comes to holiness. Giving good luck blessings is in her nature and she's been training for this her whole life. It's her job. Let her do it."

"Yes, sir," he said, a little sulkily.

From beyond the open walls of the shrine, a choked voice sprang above the silence: "But I want my mom! Take me back to my mom!"

"She should be here," argued a vaguely-older voice. "This is our special day. Why does she have to take care of the new chick?"

"Um," I said when Sanderson shot me an accusatory glance and Hawkins gave me a worried one, "that's part of the ceremony."

They appeared at the shrine steps in front of us, behind Hadrian's rock, gowned in the usual pale pink robes their genus seemed to be so fond of. Their faces were lined with feathers, their hands and bare feet scaly like the talons of a bird, their noses slightly hooked. In that sense, they resembled the typical fairy Refracts. But…

"My mutation gave them pale brown faces and darker wings instead of white and gold. Yep. Somehow I completely forgot their mother looked like that. It's been a long while."

Purple hair, too. The shorter damsel with the tangles in the backs of her curls clung to Miriel's waist and begged, "Please don't make me go. I'm only five hundred years. I'll mess up. My dance is bad. He'll laugh at me."

The taller, very short-haired, smooth-faced, vaguely-bitter damsel who stood with her arms straight by her sides had to be Dame Sanderson. She had the double cowlick mark. I studied her posture, more than a little fascinated with (and even envious of) her ability to remain so calm in the presence of a frantic peer. My Sanderson would have been inconsolable if I'd sent him to the High Kingdom while I stayed behind. Evidently, a thousand and six years wasn't too young to learn how to give off an air of maturity and act as an adult. I approved of her at once.

"Don't let them hear you say their refract-names," I murmured to the gawking juveniles at my side. "They don't like to be addressed as such down here in the lower planes. They think it contaminates them."

"Why?"

"Because they think we're sinful and they don't want their names on our lips."

"Why?"

"Because that's just what they think and it's polite to accept and respect that. Shh. Here comes Sanderson's."

"I have to be naked and she gets to keep her clothes?" he grumbled, but fell silent when Hawkins and I each nudged him with an elbow.

Dame Sanderson crossed towards her counterpart, kicking up as little water as possible, and motioned for him to stand to meet her. As he started to slide from the rock and reached to take her rough, working hand in his softer, pen-pushing one, I almost literally saw the flashback stabbing through my core. Square features, mutated wings, long razor talons, guarded eyes…

She drew him closer, both of her hands positioned against his back just beneath the knobs of his wings. Sanderson couldn't decide what to do with his own fingers, and settled for placing them loosely around her neck, thumbs resting near her collarbone; evidently, I'd forgotten to tell him to touch them to the corners of her lips. I had to place a wrist to my mouth and glance away as I fought back the snort. I finally understood where all of Sanderson's missing height had gone. The top of his head barely reached her shoulders, and the ends of his cowlicks brushed her nose.

Dame Sanderson pulled, never pushed, always choosing to be the one who walked backwards as they swirled in slow circles and completed a simple nine-petaled flower shape around the entire shrine. Her tail, long and feathered and blue, skimmed the surface of the water behind her. Sanderson's quick bare feet kept coming down on the very tip. As they ended where they had begun by the boulder, she leaned down and brushed their lips so quickly that even when scrutinizing my old memories, I'm not entirely sure they touched at all. Sanderson stared forward without expression. Then he nodded and thanked her as she stepped away. She glanced him over up and down before she nodded too and spun crisply on her heels. Droplets spattered his lap.

Miriel nudged Dame Hawkins down the steps and into the water. Hawkins popped out his thumb and sprang to his feet at once, the usual cheerful flutter beneath his wings. They repeated the dance, a bit more clumsily, and Dame Hawkins bestowed her uncertain kiss. My Hawkins giggled until I shot him a charged look.

"Is that it?" Sanderson asked as the two damsels splashed back to Miriel to claim a snack of pale yellow fruit slices and salty crackers.

"Today's unity blessing was a trial run since you're young. It will be a bigger affair when you have your moulting ceremony."

"Did I look cute?" Hawkins wanted to know.

I patted his head. "Very cute."

"I'm not sure they're the ones who have to worry about getting contaminated by the other Kingdom," Sanderson muttered, dabbing at his mouth.

With that, Hadrian blessed them both and led them out through the rear stairs towards a waterfall three times too large for the small garden it was fenced in. With a reminder that they weren't permitted to speak for the following hundred hours, they were released. Sanderson waded through the falls, with Hawkins behind. Droplets spattered pale skin and black hair. Pebbles clicked and shifted beneath bare feet. I met them on the other side of the waterfall with their clothes.

"How do you feel? Good?"

They nodded, shivering as they pulled on their shirts and suit coats. Hawkins struggled with his tie, so I slipped it off and did it for him.

"Then let's find something to eat. I'm thinking buttered, grilled sandwiches with a side of bright bananas and the freshest eggs we can manage. And yale milk."

As they devoured their brunch, I scratched at my plate with my fork and attempted to answer the unfortunate question: What now? I'd taken the pair to be baptized because I'd been buying time. I wouldn't crawl back to Ambrosine in the city of Novakiin. That much I knew. I certainly wasn't going to return to Earth and risk crossing paths with any more will o' the wisps. If I could help it, I'd prefer not to face Anti-Fergus and Anti-Kalysta again, and particularly not for a long-term stay. Did I know anyone else? Have any other connections?

Light gleamed off Sanderson's medallion, and I dropped my fork with a clatter. Duh. Maybe there was a place we could go after all. Setting my briefcase on the table beside our plates, I popped it open and pulled out a furry gray coat, dabbed with flecks of black. In response to Hawkins and Sanderson's curious eyes, I said, "I'm going to call in a favor."

They watched as I wriggled my arms through the sleeves and tied the ribbons down the front. "Knowing her, it'll be awhile before she gets here," I said, "so let's start walking as soon as you finish up. She ought to be living in Lau Rell. That's northwest. This way."

"Who?" Hawkins started to ask, before he caught himself. A look of frustrated horror crossed his features like a lightning bolt. A smile tugged at the corner of my lips. I might just enjoy this a little too much.

We gathered together our things, and after I had straightened Sanderson's shirt collar and switched Hawkins's shoes to the correct feet, we were off. It was said that fairies couldn't fly when their wings were wet, but my two charges seemed to manage themselves just fine, which meant our brunch had likely gone on far longer than I thought. I found myself glancing regularly over my shoulder in search of Ambrosine or any pursuer he could have hired, and typically kept a hand to the back of Hawkins's and Sanderson's necks at all times. I didn't want to lose them. What little I had left, I intended to keep.

Two entire hours of their hundred were spent pacing back and forth far below the metal platform where the trams made berth, high up there above the busy capital city. I kept myself occupied by fighting my obsessive desire to remove all the rushing civilians from the streets and push them back into their houses. When I had been young, back at my first saucerbee game with Ambrosine so long ago, there had been hardly 7,000 Fairies in existence in all the known universe. Now, that population and more easily made up Faeheim. It made me uncharacteristically unsure of myself. Their bodies were sweaty. They rushed about, always in a hurry. Sometimes they bumped up against my shoulder, or nearly tripped over the two small juveniles with me, and then shot them dirty looks as they straightened themselves up and whirred away.

"Hey, we're standing here," I called after the first two who made such mistakes, but soon enough gave up. The city's streets were simply too narrow to support its population.

If you only knew, I wanted to snarl back so many times. If these pathetic Fairies bulldozing over my companions only knew that I had been alive and alert back in those days, when the cloudlands were simpler. If they only knew the things I had seen, the work I had done, the people I'd met, the struggles I'd faced.

"Where is she?" I griped to Hawkins and Sanderson, who of course couldn't answer me. I tugged at the top ribbon of the selkie coat. Then I stopped and began to untie it. Perhaps this was a mistake. It had been more than seven hundred years since the last time I'd summoned her, on a halfcored whim one day just to see if I could. I'd taken her out to eat and waved her off again within the hour. There was, I reluctantly supposed, the possibility that she was dead now. Either way, waiting around a dirty and unorganized city wasn't the best use of my time, and I really should have hopped a tram, even with my worry that we might pass-

"Fergus Whimsifinado!" whooped an ever-delighted Lau Rellian drawl. "I have heeded my summons!"

She had materialized upon the suspended platform above our heads, leaning over the railing so that her carefully messy bun popped out from her silhouette like a cherry on a sundae. "China," I shouted up to her, waving a greeting with my wings. Then, "I don't suppose you remember China, Sanderson."

He opened his mouth to reply before remembering he wasn't to speak and simply shook his head.

"I remember him," China said when she had clanged her way down the spiral steps to cloud level. She reached down to pry a bit of frozen vapor from her sandal. A frown dimmed her light crimson eyes as she studied the two fairies with me. "The shorter one is new, though. I don't really like the part that involves you cheating on me, but I'll restrain myself since we're in public. Fergus, hey! What have you been up to for the last six and a half and a quarter centuries?"

"Um, so…" I averted my gaze and scratched behind my ear, trying not to dwell over the way I'd left her hanging for a millennium and come to kiss up to her on bended knee now. "I've been working in the family business with my father, but yesterday he tired of spending his resources on us and threw us out. I'd prefer not to get into the specifics right now. That's Hawkins you're looking at, by the way. These two only just got baptized, and as such, they won't be talking for another several days still. And please, for my sake, if anyone asks, you're the mother of both of them. Really. I'll give you the full details later." I pointed at the paper cup in China's hand. "Did you keep us waiting here so you could grab a milkshake?"

She made an up and down sweep of her arm to indicate her entire body. "Selkie. Out of water. Prancing around a floating cloud world immediately next to the Sun. I got dehydrated. Sorry I'm late; the line for these was awful at this time of year. Warm spring for the cloudlands, isn't it? Here, I actually brought this for you; I drank mine on the way up. Vanilla's still your favorite, I hope?"

"Hmm. I do have to hand it to you, you do your job right. I can accept this." I brought the straw to my mouth. "Not too cold but not too warm. Well done."

"I like to pretend my good memory and charity make up for the rest of my sins." China rocked on her heels. "So, what's the big occasion, boss? It's not every century I feel you pull on my coat."

"Yes, well." Angling the straw away, I turned to look down at Sanderson and Hawkins. The former had inched closer to me, one hand on his wand, and Hawkins was turning slightly red in the face as though he were about to burst with questions. "China, I… I know it's sudden, and I know I haven't, er… been anywhere… near as kind and welcoming to you as I perhaps could have been. It's very difficult for me to even say this, but my father disowned us yesterday." As I spoke, I shrugged to indicate the ridiculousness of someone not wanting me around. "We slept on a cold and dirty stone floor in a storehouse, and we don't have anywhere else to go. I would be beyond delighted if we could stay on with you until we rebound from this."

"Sure."

"Honestly?"

She pointed. "You have my coat. That rather limits my possible responses, doesn't it?"

Hawkins was still watching the shake with eyes like his namesake. Sanderson slipped his hand through the arm that rested against my hip. "Sorry, handsomes," China said then, placing her own hands in the pockets of a fresh but familiar checked green and white apron. "If I'd known you were going to be here, I'd have picked something up for you two too. But then again, I'm a starving single. Hey, I'll make it up to you. We'll have cake when we get back to my place. How does that sound?"

They exchanged puzzled glances. Hawkins stuck his thumb in his mouth.

"I'm not sure they've ever had cake before, or at least not more than once or twice."

"Not birthdays?"

"I've found cheese and crackers to be cheaper and reinforcing enough."

China paused there in a half-crouch, obviously crunching rapid numbers in her head. "I think we're going to get along very well. You, Sanderson, we will definitely get plumped up before next holiday season."

"He doesn't carry weight," I answered for him, ruffling his cowlicks. "But perhaps he needs some filling meals cooked up by a nurturing damsel who knows her stuff. My sister is a dreadful cook, and not only because I'm biased to hate everything she attempts to do just because it's her."

"Then we're going to have a problem, because I'm only skilled at baking desserts. I've been living off pasta and cereal for centuries. But" - here she straightened - "we'll learn things together. I'll bet your daddy has plenty of things he can teach me about how to maintain a home on a budget."

Hawkins's hand shot up to volunteer.

"If it's all the same to you, China, I prefer not to use the word 'daddy'. Calling me their caretaker or 'Fergus' will suffice."

"Roger that. Where are your things? Is that one sorry briefcase all of it? That can't be all of it. That's all of it? Well, run me up a flagpole and click your heels thrice." The selkie clucked her tongue as she shook her head. "We had better get moving if we want to get you all firmly settled before dark. We selkies can't poof."

I grimaced. "Neither can I, if I don't know where we're going. A pity that only Anti-Fairies can read minds."

"Dazzled." China linked her arm through mine, making me fumble my milkshake and Sanderson tighten his grip on my other side. "We can catch each other up over a nice, long tram ride."

"I'm beginning to see why you're always late."

China took the briefcase in her other hand, and Hawkins brought up the end of our train as we wound our way up the rattling metal steps to the loading dock. I kept watching China as we went, wondering if she had an unmagicked weapon concealed in the gaping pocket of her apron, and if she would make any grab for the coat I wore. She gave no sign she even acknowledged its existence. Too late did I think to wonder if the milkshake she'd brought me was poisoned. Hm. Figuring that I had already done myself in if it was, I didn't see a problem with finishing off the rest. And some of you say I've never willingly placed myself in harm's way to protect my offspring! Honestly.

"Tram for four, and two of them under two thousand," I told the far darrig behind the counter, and slowly handed over almost all of my remaining lagelyn. That was the most painful part of the day. Emery and I were in a race to claim Wish Fixers from our father, and although her Academy debts and my business transactions had given me a slight leg up once upon a time, I had two people besides myself to provide for. Maybe three now. Dust, I hoped I was making the right choice.

"The red tram," I murmured, propping myself against the window. Sanderson climbed onto the bench beside me and leaned his head against my elbow. Hawkins snuggled up beside him. That left China sitting on her own on the opposite side of the tram, her legs crossed at her ankles. She glanced at the window.

I cracked one of my eyelids open, which is why I saw her sitting there like that. My gaze shifted down to my gray and black coat, then to Sanderson as he sat silently at my side, and back again. Swallowing my groan, I heaved myself up (making his wings jump) and moved to the other side of the tram car. I preferred the window seat, but the side nearest the door would serve me well enough.

"What?" I asked when China turned her attention on me. She made a, 'Who, me?' gesture by touching her chest and flipping up her palms, and focused on the scenery again. But when her hand came down, her webbed fingers spread, she lay it atop my knuckles. We both pretended not to notice.

Sanderson slipped off his bench to follow me. The tram jolted into the air just as he took his first step. I snapped two fingers and sent him back to his seat. And thus we went.

It was three hours' ride to Claystrif, and we spent it skimming high above Plane 4. The barren wasteland of that world may not have been most people's aesthetic, but I kept my eyes out for any sign of Anti-Fergus or his offspring out roaming. I'd have accepted any Unseelie Courter with green fur. At one point, I did honestly think I spotted a flash of clashing clothes and yellow hair slinking down a slope of black rock, and another circling a pool of steaming acid, but the tram moved on too quickly for me to confirm their identities, and the windows were partially blurred with the passing vapor anyway.

One joy about riding in a full car, at least, was that we had no obligation to stop and let on other passengers. It got us to our destination that much quicker. We eventually descended a plane and, in Patio World, switched from our red tram to a yellow one. That journey was shorter, though Hawkins fell asleep before we'd made it twenty cloudlengths. We disembarked at the Lau Rell station an hour later.

"Do you think sleep-talking counts as breaking the hundred hours of reflective silence?" I grunted to China as I shook Hawkins awake.

"Nah, boss. He's too cute."

As we skimmed through the small town, I literally stopped flying mid-wingbeat and found myself wondering what exactly she'd meant by that. Apart from the freckles and his hair being curlier than my scruffiness, Hawkins looked like a miniature me. It was an interesting comment to make.

Halfway down a friendly little lane of pointed houses, China withdrew a green key from her pocket and wedged it into a lock on the cheerful white door of her cheerful pink house. "This place is one hundred percent all mine," she informed us, "not just owned but also thought up by me. If I'm allowed one request while you're staying here, it's that you always lock the door when you leave. I've got a couple of valuables, but it's mainly my ideas that I don't want stolen. I'll get a new copy of the key made tomorrow. In we go."

Glass glistened across the floor beyond the doorway, revealing water trickling underneath as though it all were winter ice. A living room! She had a living room, and the kitchen separate to the right and in the back! The walls were overlapping emerald and forest greens. A grand staircase of more glass steps swept upwards like a waterfall to a second floor, where the green walls faded through turquoise and into blue. Ambrosine's house didn't have a second floor, and of course Kalysta's burrow hadn't either. Wish Fixers did, though my duties had rarely taken me up there. The entire place glowed with floating, star-shaped balls of light that clung near the walls and only shifted into 'On' when China held her hands far out in front of her like a seal and clapped twice. I closed my mouth.

"I'm sorry. What do you have student loans for, again?"

"Architecture and interior design. Do you want to see the guest room I can fit these two in? It's a red and gold autumn forest, just upstairs and to the left, and the right again. And there's one for you near mine that's wintery white and soft blue. I just finished it two years ago."

It didn't seem right to leave my briefcase on the pretty, mossy couch, so I placed it on the floor just inside the door and looked around a second time. An office with a glass-paneled door stood glistening to my right. A second mirrored it on my left, although that one was clearly the more often used. Blueprints spilling from the desk all but guaranteed it to be China's place of business. Stuffing my hands in the pockets of her marbled coat, I followed her up the stairs.

"Here is your washroom," she was telling Hawkins and Sanderson. "While you're all settling in, I'll run out and pick you both up some toothbrushes and toiletry things, and cute bath towels, and some more clothes, and maybe some drawing paper. I tend to sob on a lot of mine when I'm reading my novels while I try to work."

Sanderson shot me a wide-eyed look over his shoulder that I easily interpreted as, This place is really big.

"You live here alone?" I asked China as she pulled down extra blankets from the top of her hallway closet, her pale wings fluttering.

"Not anymore, it looks like. But I never know, being a selkie, where exactly my coat is going to end up. I like to be prepared for anything. Big families, or bums on the street- they both enjoy it. I did go to school and build it on my own click, so maybe I'm just that despicably nice of a person. Anyway, I think I'll like hearing other people moving about in this drafty old place. Unless I forget I invited you and lie awake for hours thinking you've all come to rob me."

I fingered the top ribbon of her coat. Perhaps I was an easier fairy to guilt-trip than I would like to be, but wearing the thing in her presence when she was being so welcoming felt rather offensive even to me. I didn't dare take it off even so. Not quite yet. "China, it's… it's very kind of you, to take us in on such extremely short notice. You keep a clean home."

"It's actually not that hard. One person alone doesn't make a great deal of mess. Do you want to start unpacking while I tidy up the kitchen, which actually is chaotic, and then I'll get to work on dinner?"

She wasn't even asked. That thought kept niggling at me beneath my armpit as I retrieved our briefcase and toted it up the stairs: She hadn't even been asked.

As promised, my room was painted with a stunning winter forest, all blues and grays and whites, with needled green trees poking out beneath a blanket of snow. I had to pause and stare curiously at the sight. I had looked often at the trees that surrounded me while I had made my home on Earth. China hadn't done a poor job. In fact, she'd done a very nice job. I traced my thumb along one branch on the wall and wondered if the various flora of Earth were fascinating to her because she had grown up in the Specific Sea.

I unpacked our things and knelt a moment longer on the floor, surrounded by what little we had, before I began placing what belonged to me in the dresser that came with my room. An interesting design, brown beneath and whiteness dripping down its sides like snow. If China had painted it too, she certainly had an eye for it. I took Sanderson's and Hawkins's clothes to their room and found them focused with rapture on the carpet. Heh. All those red and gold leaves filtering out the setting sun on the walls, and that was the part they found most interesting. In their defense, I couldn't resist either, and ran my fingers through its marbled forest browns and greens, until Sanderson reminded me with a nudge why I had come.

"Here are your clothes," I said, dividing my stack between two drawers. "For now, what we have is limited. You'll have to wear everything for two or three days in a row, but I still expect you both to bathe daily. The curse of being Faedivus is that it leaves our skin so oily. Now, make yourselves comfortable and keep out of trouble. China is working on dinner downstairs. I presume she wouldn't mind if you wanted to read some of her books, but I need you both to treat them with care and respect. Remember, we are still guests in her home."

They both nodded.

Downstairs I found China working hard as promised. A flick of a kitchen wand had taken care of most of the dishes, though she was going over one of them again with a cloth to scrub away a tougher stain than simple domestic magic could polish off. I lingered in the arched doorway until she sensed my attraction signals and jumped at the shoulders.

"I told you I'd finish the work in here, Fergus. It's embarrassing. This is where I eat when I'm sad and I didn't want you to see the crumbs."

"It seemed right to help you. I've unpacked and I've been fired from my job. I have no possessions to entertain myself with, and my two companions upstairs can't talk." I gathered up the scattered papers around the dining table, the counters, and floor. "Anyway, I don't like messes. Once I know they've been conquered, I'll sleep much better tonight."

China, who still hadn't turned around, set aside her dish and picked up a mug with a chip in its lip. "How long can I expect you to be brightening my door?"

"Preferably a short while. Tomorrow is Thursday. Come Friday, I'll begin looking for work. Once I can provide for a small home for these two and myself, I suppose we'll make the transition and be out of your hair."

"And leave me alone in this big place again for another seven centuries?"

I watched the back of her neck as I straightened her papers, unsure how much of her question was to be taken as sarcastic or a warning. "I don't like to impose."

"It's not so imposing when you're my big strong man and I'm a selkie, now is it?"

I glanced down at my ruffled white shirt. I had removed her coat and left it in my closet. Could she sense that, although she still hadn't looked at me?

"I believe in choices," I said finally, moving the stack of papers to the small corner table that held a grayfish tank. "Argue if you want, but taking us in this way wasn't much of your own choice. I don't think it's fair that you should struggle to care for us while we laze about. Sanderson and Hawkins are my responsibility. I will do my part to provide for them without complaint. Thank you for offering us a place to stay, and giving us food tonight. You've really done enough. I can take over from here."

"That's nonsense. We're a family now. Of course I'll take do my part to look after the little drakes. Now, what should I make for dinner?"

A/N: Text to Life - Since the canon(ish) anti-pixies have green fur while other Anti-Fairies have blue, I glanced at the color wheel and tipped the pixie refracts the other direction: purple. Their patron is the purple-crowned fairywren because it's perfect. These gals zing instead of pop like Fairy Refracts. Their gynes are called plumes and appropriately have king of saxony bird of paradise plumes sprouting from behind their ears and flowing down their backs.

Text to Show - The headcanon I'm going with is that in "The Boy Who Would Be Queen", Cosmo and Wanda took on the forms of their Refracted counterparts, albeit in their own colors and while retaining their insect biology. As a result of that wish, their Anti-Fairy counterparts mirrored these new body structures but with bat biology and in black and blue, and their Refracts mirrored Cosmo and Wanda's body structures as bird people in white and gold. As a bonus fun fact, Poof and Foop's Faelumen counterpart, Dame Poof, has been dubbed Poppy.

Bonus: Additionally, Origin of the Pixies now has a TV Tropes page (under Western Animation "Fairly OddParents" fanfics), so if you catch tropes that you'd like to add to it, you may do that now, yes.