Origin of the Pixies

by FountainPenguin

"I wasn't finished." Setting my glasses down on Cupid's stack of translations, I leaned back on my rusty stool. "The Wolbachia pipientis bacteria changes the entire reproductive system of the host insect. Those who've caught it don't just lose the ability to reproduce with other species. They gain the ability to reproduce parthenogenetically." (Written March 2016 - Ongoing)

23. Fruitful Fruition

A/N - This chapter parallels the Frayed Knots chapter "Loopy Loopy"

(Posted April 2, 2017)

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Fruitful Fruition

Summer of the Golden Goslings - Autumn of the Red Petals

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Graham's birth was the first time I ever had a large audience. During the last month of my pregnancy, Venus had me moved from the main enclosure in her menagerie to a separate, cramped chamber next door to the alpha surgery room. I had a blanket and shared access to a washbasin and sink with the other two rooms in my block. Triangle, rather- my whole space made up a third of a triangle.

I welcomed it; by that point, any change in scenery was acceptable. And the chamber, at least, sometimes didn't seem as small as it really was thanks to the transparent walls. It smelled of antiseptic and candy canes. I could respect that.

"Bring the Anti-Fergus too," Venus instructed Ludell the day they came to fetch me. "And the Dame Fergus as well. Continue monitoring everything. I don't want a single wingbeat of information lost."

"When are they coming back?" Sanderson asked, standing on a boulder while Madigan and Anti-Madigan splashed about in the stream below.

"I anticipate forty days. You can last without them forty days, can't you, Mister?"

His eyes moved between Venus and the two young drakes in the water. "Can… Ambrosine and the other pixies come to visit us sometimes?"

"I suppose we can work something out."

"Be strong," I told him when he turned to me, his throat visibly constricting. "I'll come back."

"Do you think something might go wrong, H.P.?"

Thoughts of purple and yellow flashed through my head. I tightened my jaw. "Sanderson, I said I'd come back."

Still, he hovered by the door, fingertips pressed to the glass, as Venus and Ludell walked us along the hall and out of sight.

Our next stop was to visit the Dame Head. It was the first time I ever glimpsed the Refracted enclosure, and when I saw it, I leaned back on my heels with a grimace.

"They have a swimming hole," I hissed to Anti-Fergus as Venus pushed the transmitter of her wand deep into the lock and twisted the shaft. "Why don't we have a swimming hole?"

"We have treehouses," he pointed out.

I blinked and realized he was right. The enclosure had been designed with the stereotypical wheat field in mind, and only two small decorative trees stood in the rear corner around a clump of boulders. A trampled grass path led around the side and presumably into a cave with its interior shielded from view. "No treehouses for the bird people. How ironic."

Dame Sanderson greeted us when the door opened. Hands folded in her sleeves and a scowl on her broad, squarish face, so 'greeted' may not be the most accurate word. Even taking Venus's height into account, she was of course far shorter than the cherub, so she made a bratty picture, standing there.

"I'm here for your mother," Venus said, obviously recognizing the drastic height difference too and ready to milk it far beyond what it was worth. She folded her own wings so the feathers bunched up behind her shoulders.

"I fear what you should do to her. I am not deaf. Refracts such as I may be the race with strong eyesight as opposed to ears of the Antis, but I've heard your cherubs speak of things my clean mouth shall not repeat."

Anti-Fergus and I checked one another's expressions (or in my case, lack thereof). "Stand aside," Venus said, "or I shall call her name, and she shan't like that, I think."

"The body is a sacred place- one's shell upon the Earth. Should you strip her of her robes - an act only meant to be performed at certain milestones which she has passed where growth underscores the need to upgra-"

"Your rules have no place here," Venus interrupted. "You try my patience. Keep your beliefs to yourself in public."

"The right to bear the thoughts of my soul is innate! I shall not be silenced!"

"I'm through with your game. Dame Fergus!"

As the name rang out, Dame Sanderson placed her palms together near her sharp nose and began to chant a rapid chain of words.

"You serve different gods," I said as Venus turned a bitter eye on her. "You're both stubborn, you both contribute positively to the universe. We get it. Agree to disagree, let's all be good people, and stop dwelling on this fight and move along."

Dame Sanderson focused her beady scarlet gaze on me. "But we're getting the short end of the wheat stalk."

Anti-Fergus shrugged. "Her house. Her rules."

With a bitten lip and bruised ego, Dame Sanderson backed off as her mother floated towards us across the violet grass, though it was obvious she wanted to stoke the fires of an argument about how even in the High Kingdom, Venus would pull the Aphrodite Protocol and force her way.

Before she joined us, Dame Head lay a hand beneath Dame Sanderson's chin and lifted her face. "Daughter," she warned, "I'm trusting you to stay in control of yourself in my absence."

Hearing this, Dame Sanderson stuck up her nose. "Mother, you insult me. My counterparts are a deranged puppeteer and a snivelling crockeroo. I shall manage."

The door shut between them. "She'll be on a power trip before afternoon," the Dame Head said.

"Nuada bless your youngest spawn."

"My apologies for what she said about your sons. I'm certain they're very nice people."

"Don't refer to them as my sons within their earshot," I said as I began to float after the two Eroses. "You'll only cause unnecessary confusion."

That was when we were moved to our triangular chambers, which made up a circle from the outside, their narrow points jostling together in the center, glass walls pockmarked with old smears of cleaner pushed about by dirty rags (I'm of the opinion that someone out there ought to develop a magical way to sterilize an environment, though I can of course see the many difficulties associated with the residual dust following that). Dame Head was let into hers first, and from there we moved right to my chamber, and lastly Anti-Fergus farthest from the surgery room door.

"Breakfast?" I asked Venus as she adjusted the strap of her quiver.

"One of the facility technicians will assist you. You can talk to him when he clocks in for work in half an hour."

Ludell went with her, and that left the three of us standing in our separate sections of the circle. Apart from a quilt and pillow, the spaces were bare except for at their narrow points where they all converged into a single washroom. Its walls were as clear as the rest of the block. This defeated the purpose of having walls, in my opinion, and for days I would wrestle over the question of the design using all the architectural knowledge I'd acquired through China.

No one spoke, as we all tried to think up a conversational topic that hadn't been exhausted over the years. I raised my pajama sleeve to the wall between me and the Dame Head, and scrubbed at a smudge that would continue to annoy me for a week. Eventually the automatic lanterns scattered through the surrounding area flickered out, and left us with a single humming one near enough to where the Dame Head and I stood that our motion could still trip its sensors. Dust motes drifted around it.

"Figure out a name for yer next one yet?" Anti-Fergus asked.

"I thought Graham."

"Huh. I'm thinkin'... Oliver now. Ollie fer short."

"That's fine. Less ridiculous than the other choices you were considering, anyway."

He shrugged. "Well… What d'ya want for breakfast?"

"If I'm lucky, oatmeal with cinnamon. Objectively the worst part of being pregnant is giving up coffee for three or four months. Caffeine withdrawal is driving me insane." Then I twisted around and stared at him. "'Oliver'. Ollie Graham. Hologram. Is that a pun?"

"And 'Ennet' is a play off 'This's some kind of a joke, ain't it'?" He grinned. "Get back to me when yew fig're out 'Alapin' and 'Markell'."

"… 'Mark along wood'. What is wrong with you?"

Dame Head didn't respond to us. She paced fanatically, round and round in circles, pausing only while she ate (standing up, of course). As the hours passed, she took to plucking feathers from her arms despite our protests. Only when I rattled incessantly against the divider between us with my bitten nails did she stop moving and approach.

"I can't sit," she whispered through a vertical slat as a few cherubs came out of the surgery room and the automatic lanterns blinked on. "I suspect Dame Venus did it deliberately- that's the reason behind the clear walls to the washroom. I can't do it. I can't do it. There are drakes here whom I am not related to. I can't sit in front of you- I've never broken my vow in my life."

I tilted my head. "Of anybody in the universe, we ought to be related. We're cut from the same cloth."

She laughed bitterly and stepped back. "Your words are kind, brother, but my mind is so irreversibly muddled with Rhoswen syndrome that I can't find it in my core to believe you."

"Y'all gross," Anti-Fergus said simply, sitting himself and wrapping his shoulders with the quilt.

I leaned my folded arms against the glass panel dividing us. "Tell you what, Sister. We are related, and I'm not attracted to you. There. Now you can sit down."

"Now you've hurt my feelings."

"Fair enough. We are related. Just sit down."

"Incest is wrong," Anti-Fergus called, staring at the ceiling.

I stuck my tongue out at him. "I use 'Sister' as an honorary title. I've always seen her as my cousin more than my literal sibling or even another aspect of myself. My - or our - grandsire Praxis married his cousin Nettle Gumswood, and I think my father turned out fine."

"Yers, maybe."

"Aunt Hera married Leto. And generations draw closer further back; even now, there aren't many Fairies in the known universe. I don't know of your lives, but we Whimsifinado Primes have amassed a lot of money over the millennia which we'd like to keep in a family who hold the same beliefs; we don't take kindly to nuances and gold diggers. It's tradition."

Dame Head made a shrugging sign that clearly meant Point taken.

"The three of us, of course, never had cousins," I went on, "since our respective aunts and uncles had their lives claimed by the War of the Sunset Divide. I had to comb through the courtship pool for us the long and painful way. But before this 'parthenogenetic reproduction' deal sprang up, Emery and I were talking seriously of marrying Sanderson to her future daughter. If our Faelumen counterpart here and myself physically can't reproduce, I don't see where the harm is in a little one-kiss fling now and again. She started it."

Dame Head gestured to her robes. "Oh, Brother Unseelie, are you jealous of all this? You are one to focus upon outward appearances. Perhaps you ought to take a memo from Brother Seelie. He likes me for my sharp wit and irrefutable charm."

I touched my fingers to the glass near her shoulder. "Easy, manticore. You're not that much of a catch."

"Ah don't jist focus on the physical," he said, his voice tilting upwards. He tightened his grip on the quilt's edges, pulling it tighter near his neck. "Yer type-castin' me now."

She and I both got a chuckle out of the pinched look on his face. Anti-Fergus shot us both a distasteful glare, then got up and wandered over to the wider section of his clear triangular cell. I stopped when I remembered Anti-Sanderson's reaction to running across Anti-Ambrosine in the ballroom five hundred years ago.

For a moment, Dame Head and I both watched him. Then I exhaled through my nose and turned my face away. With my cheek and palms still pressed to the wall, I said, "What would you suggest?"

She leaned her back against the divider. "Concerning what?"

"All of this. Romance, betrothals… Normally I would argue that I'm the Seelie counterpart and the choice ought to be mine. That's your fate; it's decided; c'est la vie." I closed one hand into a fist. "But I'm at a loss. As parthenogenetic beings, it would seem that mates are unnecessary, marriage is pointless. The two of you are here. I'm playing with your fates. What would you suggest?"

"M'rry Kalysta."

"I'm no longer taking suggestions from you."

Dame Head considered my words in silence. Not wanting the pause to last long enough for anyone to change the subject and leave me hanging, I faced her again. "This might sound ridiculous, but… What if I married my brood off to your daughters? What if I sold that land I purchased on Plane 3 and all the buildings I commissioned? What if I turned Wish Fixers over to Emery and retired early on Plane 19? I could live with you at the mill."

Her brows shot up. "Aren't you all allergic to honeywheat? I swear you mentioned that in a letter."

"Only if it's consumed. We'd learn to be careful." I felt behind my neck. "I need options, Sister. For 2,000 years before ending up here, I've been raising a gyne. No amount of reading will help you fully understand what that means. It's difficult, dame." Just the thought of Longwood's freckles sent a wave of nausea crashing down on my chest. "Dust, it isn't easy… I've come close to snapping on so many occasions." I inhaled air only to blow it out again. "And if I reproduce until the day I die, odds are high that there will be more gynes through the years."

She said nothing.

"The Deep Kingdom is an enclosed world. Pheromones gather, pressure rises. But I remember that trip I took in upper school, fifteen lines to my core… Your fields were sprawling. Open space, plenty of room for him to roam. I need that, Sister…" My eyelids slid shut. A burn welled in my lower throat. "Don't get too attached to any one of your offspring. Because I will kill Longwood. I'll kill any of them if it means I survive. I don't necessarily want to. But I've made my choice, and I will. I know your people scoff at us, dame, but if there's anything…"

"The Guilded Society would never allow it. Sinful Seelie as permanent residents in the High Kingdom. No."

"Ah."

Another dip of quiet. I slid down the wall and lay on my back. My wings rustled in the silence. The heaters flickered to life and began to push the scent of soap and pine trees through the air.

"The Deep Kingdomers are taught that we spit upon marriage," she said then. "That is untrue. There is no shame in wedding for the benefit of two parties. I married a selkie refract whom I presume you would know, because he and I were both looking for support in raising our respective children. Additionally, we were meeting frequently anyhow and it eliminated several complications. A good drake; I wonder if he should still want me upon my return even with the utter confirmation that he is father to none of my flock. My own father was a great chief; my mother owned the mill. Their union benefitted many. There is no shame in that."

The thought of Solara flashed through my head. I sat up again. "Sister, what race was your mother?"

"Faelumen fae," she said with some surprise.

"Continue."

Shrugging, she twisted a fold of her robes. "The Refracted do not find evil in marriage. The problem arises when one prizes mammon before their holy vows; the life of another is sacred and not to be either lusted after or prematurely ended. Acting upon carnal urges contaminates both mind and body, and in some cases" - here she gestured to her crimson eyes - "defiles one's children from birth."

"In accordance with Deep Kingdom politics, one may only have their rank on the social ladder decreased through marriage, never elevated. I suppose such things apply likewise to your people?"

Dame Head shrugged her wings. Her plumes fluttered. "Perhaps if your… progeny swore a vow of celibacy, brother, and renounced sugar, and donned the proper robes, and learned the proper ceremonies and traditions, then perhaps you might win the favor of the Guilded Society and be allowed entrance into our world."

I rubbed my chin as I climbed to my feet again. "Mm. I think that's cultural appropriation."

"Refracts have abandoned their sacred ways to join the carnal world before," she argued. "You allowed them to partake of your world. Your customs, your food, your education facilities, your holidays, your places of work- that wasn't appropriation. That was integrating into a life that suited them better (though I myself don't condone the pursuit of sin). What right do my people have to tell you not to learn our ways? Why should we turn you away if you should truly wish to start a new life? Well. It would require immense mounts of paperwork, but I've heard that's your thing. The Society still might reject you. But there's a chance."

I groaned. "Do I care more about delicious sugar, or do I care more about the drake who will probably end up killing me someday anyhow? Conundrum."

"If you are serious about this, brother - though I would suggest you sleep three nights on your decision - then I shall consider your offer of betrothing your firstborn to mine, provided he has not been promised to someone else in any way the Eroses would uphold."

I shouldn't have. Everything might have been different if I hadn't. But I hesitated. Her beady eyes narrowed.

"No," I said, still grasping at the possibility. "He'll never see Idona again anyway-"

"I'm sorry. If his soul has been promised to another, I have no right to overstep my boundaries. As has been made obvious, in a dispute between my people and the Eroses, their word is holy law."

"What about mah sons?" Anti-Fergus grunted.

Dame Head and I exchanged a guilty glance. He didn't turn around.

"Yer leavin' me out again, jist like ya leave me out a' yer letters. Judgin' me fer what I been through. How Ah look, what Ah talk like, what Ah can't do. Yer both me, but yew don't know me. Yer welcome t'ask me about mah firstborn an' his future any time."

"I'll sew you hats," Dame Head said after a long pause. "They'll be dark blue. That's a color you don't wear yet. One for each of your sons, just like those our Seelie brother's offspring wear. And a big one for you to mirror his. With yellow stars."

"… Ah'd like that."

She turned her attention my way again. "Pink goes well with my purple hair, doesn't it?"

I shook my head to tell her yes and moved away.

When Venus came to visit us again to oversee our dinner delivery, Dame Head requested fabric and thread and all sorts of things so she might begin that sewing project. "No," the cherub interrupted halfway through. Pushing aside Sherri with her platter of fruits and vegetables, she stepped forward until she and my Refracted counterpart were separated only by the thick glass and a full three thumbs of height difference. "You have what you've been given. I don't want any of you causing harm to your bodies or attempting to trick me in any way."

"If you keep me satisfied, I'll have no desire to leave," Dame Head pointed out, a long crease appearing on her forehead. "Forgive my tongue, Dame Venus, but I have been standing for near seventeen hours straight now. I have withheld my use of relief facilities due to the clear walls I am certain you provided deliberately. Might we reach a compromise?"

"No one is stopping you from sitting," was her disinterested reply. "I cannot be held responsible for your discomfort in that regard."

"I happen to be proud that my culture has raised me to value-"

"I have watched you lie with drakes," Venus said, interrupting again. "Among the three of you, you're the one most regular during my shift, and if I hadn't blamed your curious hair color on dye and your pale brown body and facial feathers on ethnic variation, I would have dragged you down here sooner. On my monitors, you have sat and you have slept and you have engaged in natural acts. Pictures of you from chickhood to now decorate your file. Do I need to tape them here to the walls to remind you who you are when you believe no one is there to call you out? I don't know what you think you are trying to prove."

"That she's a tough nut to crack," I said, my knuckles white from gripping the edge of the slat between our two chambers. "I worked hard, Eros, to make something of myself in my youth, and hard again to buy the family business off my father. Anti-Fergus suffered through labs and tests once before. He watched his son struggle through a cycle of regenerating and being split open down the middle and left to writhe there with his organs spilling out nineteen times, because the Unseelie can live through that kind of suffering. Still he's humble and lets you do with him what you will. You forget, perhaps, that the Fergusiuses are unbreakable. Perhaps that is our shared core trait."

Dame Head stuck up her chin. "I'm one of the Fairykind. You may belong to a different branch on the evolutionary tree, but irregardless, my beliefs and I deserve to be treated with respect."

Venus made a lifted hand sign in Sherri's direction. "Go back to the kitchens."

The young cherub stepped forward with the platter, but Venus slapped her with a jerk of her feathered wing. "Back to the kitchens. These three are not to be fed. I will see Dame Fergusius bow to me before she will see a morsel of food."

"But it ain't my fault!" Anti-Fergus begged, while I managed through locked-together teeth, "Venus, no court would uphold the Aphrodite Protocol in this situation."

"Name one lawyer who would dare sue me."

I couldn't. I had familiarized myself with all the big names, all the promising options, back when issues such as Wish Fixers and China were on my mind. There are lawyers who've interacted with creatures from cloudland sprites to the Beasts of Beast World. Several have wrestled with genies.

But you don't pick a fight with the bloodline who wield powers in universal corners and multiple dimensions, and have been blessed by the gods. Not unironically. I rested my chin on my knuckles, still leaning against the wall.

"Oh?" Venus asked when Dame Head stared longingly after the flustered Sherri and her platter. She leaned back on her heels. "Did you want that? Did your daughters want that?"

"Don't do this, dame," she whispered.

"Then. Sit. Down."

Both my counterparts looked to me. I looked back at them, my tongue heavy and dry. "Don't," was all I could really manage. "Don't reinforce her."

"Dm. Venus, why won't you consider a compromi-"

"Does your mother know you once copulated without having honey-locked?"

Dropping all hesitation, Dame Head hit the floor with her knees before I could even think to turn my back. Clasping her hands down by her waist, eyelids heavy and boredom scrawled across her face, Venus gestured with her chin.

"Roll over."

I watched in silence as my counterpart, slowly, leaned to her side and turned her stomach upward. Venus smiled.

"Good girl. Now, repeat after me. 'I renounce my incorrect beliefs in gods who will not reach out to save me'."

"I would sooner kiss a brownie's-"

"Venus," I said sharply, but the cherub unlocked the door to the chamber with her wand's cap and strode in. Fist to robes, yanking forward, bleary eyes-

"I would be your queen. I would be your goddess. I am Triplet of the Morning. I was there, two thousand four hundred years old, when you were conceived. I myself selected the arrow that pierced your sire's skin. My hand sewed your yoo-doo doll. Where were your gods? Unbelievable. I should leave you to wallow hungry. After all, so long as your Seelie counterpart lives, you can never die."

"Eros," I snapped, snapping my fingers twice. "Your data will be distorted if you compromise her health. All your research for naught. Another five hundred years before you can publish your theories for all to read."

Venus considered this. Then she eased up on her grip and allowed my counterpart to slither, drained, to the floor again. "All right. I will allow Sherri to feed you. And you would do well, Whimsifinado, not to address me by my family's name in disgust. I wish you three a lovely night."

Even before she made it to the hallway, the Dame Head covered her face with her long talons and began to sob. Shaking shoulders, fattened tears. Even after the time I'd spent with Emery, I did not know how to deal with the ways of emotion. I massaged the knuckles on one hand and pretended not to notice.

"Ah think yew forgot," Anti-Fergus said softly, "that Ah've been long gone fer a long time now. Ah ne'er tried fixin' myself. Ah din't try ta fight it. Yer damefriend just cracked. We ain't unbreakable at all."

The final month of my pregnancy passed with some agony. When the day itself arrived, I was showered with attention and Venus was upon me at once. I'd grown more accustomed to the usual birthing process, so I wasn't in their room for long before the process was finished. Though, it took longer than was necessary, because so many voices were shouting and calling out notes (as though I could pause and answer all their questions). No wonder Graham trembled against my bare chest as I tried to tune out the world.

"Mm, no," Venus said when I slipped my eyes into field-sight. She actually touched my shoulder with her gloved fingertips. "I'll do this one."

I didn't move at first. But finally, I did hand Graham over. Another murmur rippled around the crowded room as she pushed back her own forehead and reached up.

I couldn't watch.

"There," Venus said when she had finished. "I elected to give my own lines to my sons. Otherwise, I've never planted any. I like this one." She tapped a pink nail to her chin. "We must remain in regular contact with you following your release from our facility. We can't afford to have you pluck out all your lines for your offspring and drain your lifeforce dry."

I supposed not. With that, she took Graham and her cherubs and left me in the room with her middle son and a skittish nurse.

They brought me in for testing a few hours later. I sat on the examination table, my hands resting on Graham's head and my legs dangling over the edge. "This is so dazzled," one of the interns chattered on to his neighbor as they hooked up tubes and cords. "Can you believe we've discovered a new Fairy subspecies in our lifetimes, and while we're this young?"

I glared at him until he ducked his head and moved along. Venus and Ludell approached me with a clipboard and ran yet another physical examination on both of us. Strapping down, weighing, poking, taking temperatures… "A single drop," Venus breathed, hovering over a sliver of bread. The bead of purple liquid fell, and the bread bite was inserted in Graham's mouth. Within a few minutes, he went limp in my arms with sleep.

Then he was whisked away for more tests while he was unconscious, and Venus pored over results with me in the lab. Or rather, Venus stuck me in the corner on a hard stool with a rickety leg while she and her cherubs pored over results in the lab. I twiddled my thumbs and listened in, until finally I tired of that game and came up behind her to get a better look at a screen that had made her comb fingers through the loose spiral tangles of her bangs.

"Cytoplasm?" I guessed, drawing a circle on the screen with my fingertip in an area that remained black and empty. "And… nucleus." That was a green bulge. Then, "Wait… Are these my scans we're looking at, or Graham's?"

Venus rattled a string of letters and numbers off on her keypad and plugged it into the monitor again. "These are the scans we took of your eggs last year, before your pregnancy. And these over here are the scans we took two months ago."

For several seconds, I studied the sets of images, and then removed my glasses and began to polish a lens against my pajama shirt. "I'm good with details, and apart from the movement of a few small dots, these look the same to me."

"They're near identical. That's the problem." After unplugging the keypad and inserting new data again, she pulled up another page. Then she swiveled her chair around to face me. "These are the scans of Graham's cells just over a week and a half ago, and as they still stand today."

Both eyebrows shot up against my will. The earlier pictures had been comprised of a lot of black. This new collection were mostly green. "Those are… completely different. What are we looking at here? What's caused the culmination of all these large dots and lines, especially on the right-hand side of this sixth image here?"

Venus folded her hands together in front of her nose. "Mm… I don't know. I've never seen this before in my life, until we managed to get our hands on you. Because your cells are full of so much green" - here she demonstrated by pulling up my images - "and we haven't been able to figure out why. No other creature in our files shares this pattern. Our system doesn't recognize it."

"Hmm." I scratched my cheek. "It seems clear to me that at a certain point of development, the cells are undergoing some sort of change. I would presume this is common among fetuses, though the results of development differ from what we're seeing here. Other than that, I'm not sure what I can tell you."

She stayed there, resting her chin in her hands and staring at the monitor as image after image scrolled horizontally by. "That will be all for now, Fergus," she said at last. "I'll walk you back to your counterparts. You'll see Graham again in a few days' time. Oh." As I opened the door for her, instead of thanking me, she said, "And we're curious to see if you can carry an embryo to term, so we're going to take one of your strange, half-fertilized eggs from up in your dome, move it down to your uterus, and see what happens."

I stared down at her. "I just gave birth to Graham yesterday. Does it have to be now?"

"We think it will have to be during your fertile period, yes. If we miss this window, we'll need to keep you here another five or so centuries. If we can finish our research now, then I believe we can send you away within two years. Provided, of course, that nothing else comes up."

"Fine," I sighed. "Do you think it will… live? If you move it down there?"

"We're going to find out."

That irritated me awfully, for some reason. I suppose because I was given very little say in the matter. My body was sore. My head still reeled from pregnancy sickness. I wanted a break. Venus didn't care. She'd give me a few more days of rest, but then planned to drag me into the lab and stir up my insides to suit her fancy.

"One more thing," she said, stopping me outside the door to the clear chambers. "We're also going to implant one of your curious eggs into a surrogate father, and we're also going to take a sample to experiment with in our lab, and - Aengus willing - decipher its genetic code and produce a viable spawn of sperm and egg. You can have them when we're through studying, if you should want them."

"Wait. No, don't do that. That's… ten pixies. I can't look over ten pixies. I could barely handle seven."

Venus cocked her head. "Well. I suppose, if you don't want them, once we're through with studying them, we could dispose of them, or-"

"No!" I'd heard all the stories of the Eros bloodline killing all offspring of theirs that weren't born triplets, so I knew she would do it without hesitation. The thought made my stomach tense and my hands shake. "You can't do that either. That's not right. It's not their fault for being born. That wouldn't be fair." I ran my fingers through my hair and swore behind my teeth. "I'll take them. I want them."

"I was going to say, or we could adopt them out-"

"I want them. I'm taking all of them. No one else can have them. As far as I'm concerned, they'll be stared at as oddities out there in the world. At least with me they'll know they're not the only ones of their kind, and I won't have to wonder if someone out there is dissecting them, and they won't be tempted to bind together and rise up against me whining that I abandoned them. I'll keep them. I can handle it." How, I wasn't sure. But I found that the concept of giving them away bothered me almost as much as killing them off. Imagining someone squeezing the life out of their tiny cores behind my back sickened me deep inside.

They brought me into the surgery room, gowned me up, and put me under as they did what they wanted concerning the gathering of eggs from my dome. They did this multiple times over the next week, because the fairies and cherubs and selkies and most everyone they tried all rejected the foreign implant and flushed every trace of pixie from their systems. It was disconcerting to sit in the examination room, listening to the swirling of water in the basin up the hall and knowing those were my identical genetics disappearing into the drain.

Ludell clicked the point of his quill against his teeth. "Perhaps his father - Ambrosine, wasn't it? - could host it. After all, the eggs are supposed to be identical to the one of the nymph he birthed."

"No," I insisted, skin prickling. They ignored me, but fortunately it didn't come to that. When the egg was placed in a kobold surrogate, it took. Why, we didn't yet know.

"So you're both pregnant now," I remarked on the last day I was to spend in the clear chambers with my counterparts; the cherubs had determined they had studied the basic pregnancy process thoroughly enough that they could allow Anti-Fergus and I back in our old enclosure with Sanderson and the two Madigans. "With two more Grahams, we ought to break out the marshmallows and chocolate. Three parthenogenetic beings who gave rise to a brood of identical genetics. You'd think one of us would have figured it out."

"Hm." Dame Head, sitting in the corner with her palms resting on her knees, leaned her head back against the wall. "The three of us are brilliant idiots. Perhaps that's our core trait in truth."

Nourishing nymphs in the womb, I discovered, turned out to be drastically different from nourishing nymphs in my forehead. Apart from the usual bout of sickness starting a week in, the feeling was warm; there was more awareness. Specifically, I could feel the nymph inside me. Sure, by the time Caudwell came around I had begun to be aware of my body and identify the moments where the nymph growing in my head seemed to roll over, or swung a tiny arm, but this was different. With the nymph in my lower half, I was acutely aware of every squirm. Sudden loud noises, like Sanderson breaking into song or the high-pitched chirps Graham let out whenever Madigan crept up behind him and covered his eyes, would send the baby wriggling. Still inside me, but apparently aware, processing, and sentient already.

It was a curious phenomenon for the first few weeks, but it grew annoying rather quickly, because he enjoyed kicking the walls of my uterus in the middle of the night and dragging me from sleep. I was grateful to get him out, although Charite had to explain the process in tight details, and I found the regular Fairy birthing process to be mortifying, to say the least.

Keefe survived it, hexagonal as the rest of them, and demanded attention from the moment he realized he could open his mouth. Adorable, in a way; such loud noises from such a small creature. Shortly thereafter, I was introduced to Springs, the pixie who had been birthed by the kobold. "Well," Venus said in the examination room, studying them both, "it would seem the in-vitro fertilization process was a success."

I held up Springs, who'd been groping at Anti-Fergus's hideous cloak. "Success? He hasn't stopped wheezing and grunting since he was given to me. I'm not sure his tie-spots developed properly."

"He lived," she pointed out. "Interesting that none of the others ever took root. Those species have never had issues with in-vitro before. There must be something about kobold genetics that allows them to respond more positively to the diploid conditions of your eggs than the others. I will have to research this."

"Am I done now?" I asked impatiently, leaning Springs's head against my neck. "You've watched me give birth the natural way. You've watched me give birth your way. You've planted one of my eggs in a surrogate father. You have your data now. Aphrodite Protocol can't possibly allow you to do any more than this."

"Oh, yes it can," Charite said. "Next on our list, we're going to see if your body will respond to a damsel's sperm, or if your system rejects it. We'll artificially inseminate you with one of your own eggs again, but this time we'll use one that we picked most of the diploid out of."

I turned my eyes back to Venus. "Are we going to do this with a damsel from every race?"

"Perhaps one day, but just one should be sufficient for now."

I rubbed my eyes. "Fine. Have you already selected the species, or do I get to choose what type of crown it will wear?" Or what it wouldn't wear, more likely. Cherubs didn't have gravitational fields above their heads.

"Actually," interrupted Charite, "we were going to let Anti-Fergus decide who the mother should be."

"… Beg pardon?"

Venus neither nodded nor blinked. "He's the one who'll be honey-locking with the donor's counterpart, after all, and when Ludell spoke to her, Dame Fergus stated simply that preferring anyone above another would be a sin as far as she is concerned."

Anti-Fergus scratched his stomach and chuckled. "Well, since you asked, there's one damsel I'd really like to have a pup with."

"Oh, no," I said. Folding my wings over my head, I scooted further back on the examination table. "I'm not doing this. I don't care if there is no technical mating involved and if I don't have to see her face or speak to her or anything- I am not, under any circumstances, no matter how much you pay me, going to carry Kalysta Ivorie's child."

"Aphrodite Protocol," Charite said cheerfully when she left with Venus. "We'll see you at the lab in three days' time for the procedure, like before."

They had to drag me there. I put up the biggest fit I could muster, but it's difficult to fight back when you've been pinned to a table by way of a yoo-doo doll, and more difficult when you've been knocked unconscious with anesthetics. Just a tad.

Postpartum deals a cruel hand. I was still reeling from the birth of Keefe, on top of my recovery from birthing Graham, and they shot me full of Kalysta's sperm before sliding me back into my cute little cage of grass and fake trees on my rear, dizzy with drugs, and slammed the door shut behind me.

… I'm not proud of the way I acted during those three months of pregnancy. Springs learned to fear me. I chose him to lash out at, I think, because he wasn't mine. Anti-Fergus, Sanderson, and even Madigan learned to interfere when I turned snappish. More and more I drew myself into a hidden corner, away from the cherubs and school groups who babbled at us from the windows; the showers gave me privacy and I didn't have to pay for any of the water. I would sit there on the tiny tiles, sometimes clothed and sometimes not and sometimes midway between, holding either Graham or Keefe to my chest and just staring and staring at hot liquid swirling down the drain around me.

While Springs clung to patient, simple Madigan as his closest friend and Graham gravitated towards Anti-Fergus, Sanderson never wavered from my side, never broke into startled noises, never flinched no matter how many times I snarled at him. It was impossible to hurt him. So I turned my attention away from attacking Springs to attacking him, and he took it all in stride.

Dear King Nuada, Sanderson was so patient, so good to me, even though he shouldn't have been, even though it wasn't healthy for either of us and looking back on it I wish he wouldn't have put himself through that, wish he would have taken my hands and told me gently but firmly, "No, sir, this isn't fair to me and you can't do that if you want me to stay".

Because I didn't learn to stop, with him acting in that passive way, with all the apologies that bubbled out of his mouth when I exploded that this was all his fault and invented all the reasons why. I didn't stop, because he let me keep it up. Venus finally had to pull me aside for a week and shake some sense into me, and only in solitary confinement did I begin to understand how wrong it was to beg him to stay and treat me with his kind devotion only so I could turn around and hurt him an hour later, and how it wasn't helping me, had never helped me, had only hurt him on the outside and the inside, injuring, crushing, killing… Dear Nuada, what did this make me? Scum? Unrecoverable, unchangeable, undesirable scum?

"You can get better," Madigan told me sincerely when the Triplets allowed me out of solitary confinement again. "Remember when I was sick? Anti-Fergus says all people can change."

He'd said that because he'd been backstabbed by Anti-Ambrosine, whom he'd once trusted with his entire soul. Turned over to curious Anti-Fairy scientists for thirty els when they found out that he, an anti-fairy drake, had given birth to both body and smoke of Anti-Sanderson. An anomaly. A mistake. You can't kill an Anti-Fairy, so there's nothing to stop you from tearing them apart, over and over, in search of answers.

Anti-Ambrosine had been kind in his youth until then. At least he'd raised the kid, and in Anti-Fairy culture that was considered kind-hearted because their drakes didn't give birth or necessarily choose to father pups and were under no obligation to care for a child who couldn't die. He always came sniveling back to my counterpart, begging forgiveness, which Anti-Fergus stupidly always offered. Only for Anti-Ambrosine to steal any possession he could get his hands on and sell them off, including Anti-Wilcox and Anti-Caudwell to traffickers who wanted to exploit them for their naturally sugar-laced kisses. Anti-Fergus had told me the stories several times over the last five hundred years of all the places he'd been to track down and reclaim his kids.

Yes, people can change. People can tip over the edge. It's never too late to crash and burn, no matter how strong you used to think you are.

Madigan was insistent anyway. In his mind, change meant novel stimuli by way of new toys. Change meant birthdays. Change meant sugary cake. Change meant new nymphs and pups to play with. He thought change was good, so he parroted that expression over and over until I plugged my ears and fought to keep my lip buttoned up: "People can change. It's never too late".

Cruel, perfect Sanderson never left me. He curled up beside me in my bed at night, every night when I needed him. He'd lay his small hand against my cheek and recite mathematical equations or phrases from old contracts until I fell asleep. I didn't have much, but I had him. He meant everything to me then, so I tried to turn my attacks away from him and on myself instead, until Venus reminded me that in doing so I still wasn't helping anything, and if this kept up and I tried to damage the nymph, they'd bring the yoo-doo doll out again. After that I tore books that had been brought to us, and ripped apart pillows, and chewed pieces of every treehouse, and I tried so very hard to stop.

The universe's first crossbred pixie was born in the Spring of the Red Petals. He was hexagonal still, and presumably would be square-faced when he was older. A single curl of red hair graced the back of his head like Ambrosine's spiral cowlick.

"Of course he couldn't have been a damsel, either. I finally had the chance to have a damsel, and do I get a damsel? No. I get another stupid drake. A useless will o' the wisp drake. The Eroses did this just to spite me. Somehow. I'm sure they have some powers and influence."

"He's beautiful," Anti-Fergus whispered, holding the nymph at arms' length.

"Get used to him," I snapped. "As far as I'm concerned, he's yours. When this is all over and we're finally allowed to leave this prison, I'm not taking him with me. I'd sooner kill him. You can keep him in Anti-Fairy World."

"Can I? What's his name?"

"Why don't you pick? I wasn't joking. I refuse to have anything to do with him. He's not my son. He means nothing to me. If I ever see him again when you're not around to defend him, I'll drink his lines."

Anti-Fergus thought about that. Then he pulled the nymph against his body and tickled a finger beneath its chin. "Well, he's gotta get a real special name. I ain't never named much of anything before in my whole life. Not first names, at least." He kissed the nymph once and said, "Maybe I'll get talkin wit' Anti-Kalysta tonight when we pair up."

"Speaking of which," Venus said from the door, massaging the bags under her eyes with two fingers, "Anti-Fergus, we brought her in. If you'll follow me, we'll have your Refracted counterpart join us, and then I'll take you to your damsel. You can stay on until the honey-lock is complete."

He shoved the baby back at me and tripped over his own feet as he scrambled to her side. Before they left, I insisted that Venus take the red-haired nymph with her if she didn't want me to mutilate it. Because I would have. It took all my strength not to snap his chubby little neck in the few wingbeats it took for her to reach me.

I was too exhausted to sleep. Sanderson lasted until just after midnight before slipping under, but I stayed partially sitting up in my bed, Keefe and Springs snoring softly on my chest and Graham snuggled around my leg, for yet another two hours until Ludell led my counterpart back into our exhibit.

"You're back," I observed dryly as he shook out his leathery wings and flapped up to the treehouse.

He giggled like an idiot. "Oh, now Ah remember. Ah r'member without any doubt why they call it the honey-lock." Before I could protest, he grabbed my shoulders in a rough hug, squishing the sleeping Graham between us. "Thank yew, Pixie-Fergus. Ah know that weren't at all easy for ya ta do, growin' Wisp-Kalysta's kid and not throwin' yourself out a' the tree tryin' a' have a miscarriage like you kept sayin' you would, but it were the best moment of my life, walking into that room and seein' that purty damsel waiting there for me. We talked fer 'bout five hours 'fore the honey-lock actually kicked in. She told me 'bout her other pups, and she missed me so much, and Dear King Nuada she's so perfect. And Ah'll get ta see her again in two weeks when I give her the baby. Ah'm gonna have a real baby, with a mum of his own!"

I left my cheek against his, speechless, until he at last pushed me away. His scarlet eyes glimmered like stormclouds. "Thank yew. Comin' here t' the Eros Nest has been about the best thing that's e'er happened a' me. Ah just wish Ah din't have ta get separated from the kids. Ah hope Anti-Robin Junior's takin' good care of 'em like he promised."

"I never once asked you who was watching your anti-pixies," I realized.

He shrugged. "Ah din't think yew'd be interested in my business anyway. Ah'm okay with fadin' into obscurity, so Ah jist never brought it up. Now, where's all th'others?"

"Sleeping. Or at least, that's what I told them to do- I thought I heard some of your brood jumping on their beds about fifteen minutes ago in one of the other houses. Did you settle on a name for that other nymph?"

"Ah'm thinkin' Ah'll jist call him Cherry. With that cowlick on his bald head, he looks like a scoop of ice cream with a cherry on top."

I grimaced. "That's adorable. Remind me never to let you name another pixie again."

We met up with our Refracted counterpart a week and a half later, back in the usual clear chambers. She was already there when Charite ushered us in, standing in the far corner with a scrap of fabric in her hand. "S-so many sock puppets," she managed when I asked.

I was about to move past her so I might use the facilities before Anti-Fergus reached them, but then I paused and turned back. "Sister? Are you… okay?"

Her gaze dumped to her feet. "I did what was necessary."

"You're very strong."

She snorted. "I honey-locked. There was nothing I could do to fight it."

I tilted my head. "No. But I know you didn't want to. And you did it anyway, with a good attitude. I respect that."

As per the norm, I was expected to be present on hand as reference material as my counterparts were poked and studied. The three of us had been speaking often as of late, and we were all on our toes when Anti-Fergus, twiddling his thumb claws, spoke up at last.

"So, um. Ah ain't grown the Anti-Cherry yet."

Quizzical silence fell over the examination room. "Nothing?" Venus asked.

"There's nothin' in there."

Dame Head raised her hand to signal the same.

"There can't not be Unseelie Cherrys." She squeezed her eyes shut as a vein appeared on her forehead. "That goes against every natural law in the universe."

"But there ain't one," Anti-Fergus said, a desperate tinge leaking into his voice. I wondered if he'd sounded the same way back in the Anti-Fairy labs, not long after Anti-Sanderson had been born.

"Give me those." Venus snatched a roll of parchment from her brother as he'd begun to rifle through the stack. After studying the data for several minutes, she smacked it with the back of her hand and then tossed it over her shoulder to Sherri. "Apparently not. Why was I not informed directly?"

"Your annual migration kept you distracted," I suggested helpfully.

Ludell sat next on the table next to Anti-Fergus and looked at him for a moment, while my counterpart studied him in return. "Let's have you take your gown off again. I want to see your pouch."

Anti-Fergus complied, and a moment later, Ludell turned to his sister again. "I know. His fallopian tube doesn't connect to his uterus, remember? The egg is up there in his head, but when he honey-locked with Anti-Kalysta, they mated as came naturally. Her sperm never came in contact with it."

"Interesting," Venus murmured. "What do you think will happen if we just leave the egg where it is?"

"My thought? The universe will fix it somehow. That's what it does."

She paced across the floor three times, then stopped and stared at him. "This is a complete guess, mind, but I believe Cherry Prime might overload from having a core that never split with his anti- and refracted-selves, and would subsequently suffer magical back-up and die. After all, that's what happens when you tie up the tubes of an anti-fairy, so it would only make sense."

"Let's fix it, then," Anti-Fergus and Dame Head said at the same time.

Ludell scratched his ear. "Well, now I'm curious. Maybe the sperm will tear apart the insides of the Unseelie parents until it crawls up their backs and into their heads."

"Please just mix it," Anti-Fergus begged again. He was holding his cheeks now. "Ah don't wanna lose Cherry."

Venus drummed her fingernails against her thigh in a familiar way. The way that said, I need the answer to this question, and I need it as soon as possible.

"If you're going to risk anyone," Dame Head said, "risk me. Mix his. Leave mine. We're both Unseelie, and close genetic cousins, and should limit your variables and yield accurate data."

Anti-Fergus slid his fingers from his eyes. For a long time, Venus stared across the room at her too. Then, smirking, she spun her chair and began typing on her keypad.

"No arguments, and not a single peep out of you about the sacred value of life. I knew you could be broken."

I had to grab my counterpart by the ulnas of her wings to restrain her.

Anti-Cherry survived, and Cherry Prime with him. True to his name, both were flushed in the faces and delightful. I'd watch from the furthest corner of the enclosure with Sanderson as the two of them tumbled about with Anti-Fergus and the Grahams, drunk off a full magic pool split between two of them as opposed to three. Dame Head's offspring had not taken root.

I learned this the morning Sanderson came to wake me, a finger to his lips, and led me down to the flakes of lifedust swirling in the stream pool. We looked at each other and used the switch on the wall to contact Charite, in case the Tripets didn't know.

"Disappointing," said Venus mildly; she'd come to see us immediately after her shift had ended. "Mixing their genetics was not easy for me. But, magical backup makes fools of us all. Drowned in magic. Swelled until they popped. Does Anti-Fergus know?"

"Still asleep."

"Tell him when he wakes, then. I'll have my cherubs drain the water and see that the dust is properly disposed."

"His core was still a ball," Sanderson murmured as she left. He sat on a boulder, one hand resting on his knee. The other he pressed to his throat. "Shouldn't something else be left behind? Something more than just a little white glob of magic."

I said nothing. After a moment, he looked up at me.

"H.P., if… if I go dusty someday, a-and you're still here, I want something left behind in my memory."

"More than your core?"

"Yes! Because all of this…" His fingertips went to his temple, and here his gaze dropped. "This bothers me. All of it- the games, the food, you being pregnant- None of it matters anymore. I want to matter. Usefulness is the most important thing in the world."

I rubbed my chin. "Your core is a stylus sharpener. I'll see about arranging a memorial for you. A beautiful stylus sharpener of silver, mounted on a pillow. Although a bit far from the point, that's both functional and has class."

"I'd like that, sir," he said as he rubbed his nose.

Six months later… we prepared to move out of our enclosure for good. The studies were complete. Or at least, Venus was running out of games to play with the Aphrodite Protocol. The eleven of us drakes were led down the hall with only a single escort this time, and all of us were brimming with "last day" jitters. Still, I did my utmost to keep cool as our escort slowed in front of Venus's office. She was waiting in the doorway. Her hair was out of its braid, just floating behind her in a tangled mass.

"I want to see you," she said to me primly. "And bring Graham."

"Should Ah come with?" Anti-Fergus asked.

"You can stay in the hall. Hmm. Asher, fetch the Refracted, please. I notice you seem to have forgotten them."

With a mumbled apology to her and a, "Please behave," to Anti-Fergus and the others, Asher skimmed back down the hall. Anti-Fergus looked at me and shrugged. I shrugged in return, patted Sanderson's shoulder, and took Graham alone into Venus's office. The door shut behind me without any sound but the faintest click.

"So," Venus said as I approached her desk. She made no move to sit in her tall chair, so I made no move towards the rumpled bean bags on the floor either. In my grip, Graham squirmed. I put him down.

"So."

She rested her fingertips on the lip of the bowl that had become a regular feature on the corner of her desk these days. "Peppermallow?"

"Ah… No, thank you. Small talk?"

"Not my style."

For a beat, we locked eyes and stared hard. Then Venus shook her head and pushed the loose frizzes of her hair behind her ears.

"You're expecting news, I'm sure, as to what caused your parthenogenetic reproduction. I'm afraid that time has run out on us. The strings I can pull with the Aphrodite Protocol have frantically become frayed knots. My cherubs haven't figured out the details, but we're studying every mutation in the cosmos that we can find. So far, there have been no matches."

I held my lower lip between my teeth, then released it. "Although your methods were often out of sync with my own personal wishes… You truly worked hard for us, Venus. I know you did. For five hundred years, you frequently went without sleep or meals, just to work at unraveling the mystery that I live every day. For that, I am very appreciative."

"I'm flattered you're finally realizing that I'm the good guy here," she said, arching one eyebrow. "It can be a struggle at times maintaining myself as such a saint, I will confess. Which is why I want to give you something." Stretching past her desk, she groped about in the seat of her chair. "We worked long and hard with some of the most brilliant minds known to our hemisphere of the universe, from Beast World to Delki. And so, we have this. Ah, here." Bracing her other arm against the desk, she held out a bulging, transparent bag of what looked like long white strips of chewy candy, except it was labeled DANGER- FOR USE BY HEAD PIXIE ONLY and marked with the Eros double-heart stamp. I took it uncertainly.

"Is this licorice?"

"It's something like magic-booster medicine. Each strip is the equivalent of receiving about three entire days' worth of SHAMPAX. From our calculations as we slipped these into your food over the previous month, we believe you're ready to handle consuming one full strip every day with food and drink. Two the morning after you've given birth. I'd suggest you have one now. There is bread and water on that table behind you."

I split open the top of the bag without taking my eyes from hers. "You managed to compress the capabilities of magic-sharing into an edible drug? That's incredible."

She shrugged and sat on the edge of her desk. "I have the influence to afford being incredible. However, I would prefer you didn't spread the word around, as they are very expensive, the ingredients are quite difficult to come by, overdosing could be disastrous, and dealing with broken hearts isn't precisely my thing. I intend to keep in contact with you after you return to your home, and ensure that you always have a strong supply remaining. It will take time, but as we manufacture more, you will receive them."

"They're certainly bitter," I said, making a face as I chewed through the white strip. No sugar to be had.

"Good. That might keep you from getting addicted to them, which was a problem earlier in testing." Venus tapped a nail to her cheek. "Now, these aren't going to 'cure' you of the magic drainage issue. They are merely delaying the problem. It would still be for the best if you attempted to limit your magic usage. Not by an outrageous amount, but with some basic restraint; I might suggest you attempt to stick to a system of waving your wand only once a day, and perhaps if it helps then you could skip a day and use two waves the next, for example. So long as you're keeping an eye on your usage, we hope that you will survive to see Sanderson sire a yellow-born nymph."

I was already feeling energized, but in more of a magical sense- not quite in the physical way of coffee. "Thank you. Deeply."

Venus folded her arms. "Is there anything else that you would like to discuss with me before I release you? Anything at all?"

"Not that I can think of, really."

"Very well. You're free to leave."

I tucked the bag into my pouch, picked up Graham, and turned around. Venus got up from her desk and floated with me to the door as a sign of hospitality. Or so I thought. When she reached it, she put her hand against it to hold it shut.

"You misunderstand. The nymph stays with us. Or, any of your other full-blooded, natural-born pixies may stay; I shouldn't assume. I'm not particularly picky."

"Stay?" I raised one eyebrow. "For how long?"

"Well. Forever." Venus gestured down the hallway. "This is the Eros Nest, Whimsifinado, and it has existed since the Great Dawn. Each and every species in existence throughout our universe is represented here, from the Angels to the Yugopotamians. Creatures considered extinct elsewhere continue to breed and thrive beneath our gaze. Normally I keep a pair or even two, but as your kind have proven their ability to asexually reproduce, I ask for only one Seelie and of course two Unseelie to grace the halls. We can't not have a true pixie."

"Then it seems we've arrived at an impasse," I said. "I'm not leaving my offspring in your zoo. Not any of them."

"That's not your choice to make."

"Why do you need them? You've studied everything out of us that you can."

Venus sighed. "I'll state it again. Because your situation is an unusual one, I am willing to allow you free to care for your pixies and thrive as a species. However, I still require a neotype for posterity. Reference material. This is how it works."

Sucking at my cheeks, I said, "I need to discuss this with my counterparts."

Venus considered, then nodded and allowed me to pull open the door. "I'll give you a few minutes. Make your selection, and once I have him, you may leave."

As I'd hoped, Asher had not yet returned with the refracts. Anti-Fergus and Sanderson were the two oldest in the hall, and trying to wrangle the others into some sort of order. I walked straight past them, which made them look up. "Don't run," I muttered out of the corner of my mouth as they tailed me. "Just walk straight to the exit and out."

"Huh. Where's the exit at?"

"I don't remember, but we'll find it. Just don't run. We don't want to attract their attention."

In a whisper, I filled Anti-Fergus in along the way. My plan was simple: Walk towards the Refracted chamber, so that Venus and anyone else who might be observing us on the facility cameras would presume we were searching for the Dame Head. On the way, I would search for an exit. Worst case if we actually did run into Asher? Including the nymphs, we outnumbered him seventeen to one. I was a gyne. Constantly aware of my surroundings and ready to fall into a fighting stance at any given moment. Just a close look at my freckles should warn him not to trifle with me.

Within three minutes, we found the proper Employee Access Only door and wandered behind-the-scenes past the floor-to-ceiling rows of creature enclosures, much the way we had long ago when Venus had first brought us back here. Sanderson and I floated, but Anti-Fergus and several others walked on the clunking metal walkway, the younger ones enraptured by the strange sounds.

As they teased and babbled, I peered over the railing's edge to the sheer drop far below. Yawning, empty space plunging at least ten stories down into the thickest swirls of gray cloud that made up its floor. After overhearing the conversations between multiple cherubs over the centuries, Anti-Fergus and I had speculated about its thinness. Shortly thereafter, it gave birth into the vast openness of the pure… empty… sky…

I spun about midflap, swiping Sanderson across the nose (though he did his best to keep his face straight and not touch the stinging spot). "Turn around."

Huh?" Anti-Fergus leaned to the side and peered past me. "We're hardly a fourth a' the way across. Ah don't see a problem."

"Go back." I sucked air in between my front teeth and ducked into a crouch. This way, I was able to scoop up Keefe and swing him into my free arm just before he could plunge beneath the railing and completely topple down into deep, deep darkness. "We'll take the long route."

"Ah… D'we know the long route?" But even as he spoke, my counterpart herded his brood together. He led the way towards the door again. I brought up the rear, with Sanderson just beside me, sleepy Springs clutched in his arms.

Into the main hall again. No more crazy high walkways- just the public side of the Eros Nest. The area where Venus's office lay. I hovered for a moment to watch Anti-Fergus's long ears twitch forward and then back.

"Tourist crowds?" I asked.

"Most likely."

"Which way?" There was a chance…

He pointed to the right, so that was the way we went. However, at the sound of approaching feathered wings - cherubs by the encroaching lips of their attraction signals, and too likely guards who would demand to escort us - we veered left at the first crossroads instead of right, in the direction of the crowds. I let Anti-Fergus take the lead. Another right, a left, a…

"Oh. My. Dust."

"Smoke," he said at the same time.

Anti-Fergus and I both stared at the plaque above the gilded door at the end of the hallway for a moment, and then at each other. "It can't be. It's unguarded."

"Yew don't think the tour's keepin' 'em busy, do ya?"

"What kind of tour distracts guards from the most important storage room in the most important facility in the multiverse?"

Sanderson, behind me, licked his lips. "I don't have an answer, H.P., but I taste anti-fairy. I recognize this one. It reminds me of… chocolate."

"Never mind," I said. Ever since the word "unguarded", I'd been dragging on the door. My brood and anti-nephews gathered in a cluster together, several with thumbs in their mouths as they watched. It took several long seconds, but I managed to churn my wings quickly enough, and yank hard enough, to heave the door open. "Inside, everybody! We can't waste this chance!"

Black. Black. Everything inside the colossal library burned in blackness, and dark. The moment we strode in, my wings gave out. I continued to flap them just as hard anyway, but without magic running along my veins, I couldn't get a lift. The worn heels of my shoes clicked against tile.

"Brownie spit?" Anti-Fergus guessed.

"Possibly." I gazed up at the tall door, now behind me, and at the dim glow that spilled in from the halls just before it swung shut (and startled my pixies with the lack of light). "Are the bricks in this room formed from inrita mud, do you think?"

"Wouldn't put it past 'em."

I massaged my mouth with my thumb. "Then we'll be dead in twenty minutes. The babies less than half that. We have to be fast. If these walls are inrita brick, then scrying magic can't reach us so long as we're in here. Not that that really helps us- I'm sure someone was monitoring us on our way over."

Anti-Fergus flicked his ears up again. "Pixie-Fergus?"

Even when I waved my hand in the air, or clapped, no lights flickered on. Not the most secure defense by any means, but a brilliant one to prevent us from wrapping our fingers around anything important. I snapped my fingers twice, yanking my offspring (and a couple of Anti-Fergus's) to attention. "Come here, all of you. That's it, follow my voice."

"H.P., my wings don't work."

"Fly?"

"Dark hole."

"… Pixie-Fergus?"

I crouched to bring myself more to their level, and they touched my arms and face with their small hands. "I'll open the door again, and I want you all to go outside. The grown-ups are going to talk now. Madigan, you're in charge. Be good. You stay, Sanderson."

"Pixie-Fergus, there's a…"

For the first time, I heard the snuffle, snuffle and turned around. Behind me stood Anti-Fergus, of course- copper-tasting and buttery in my mouth. He stared into the depths of the room. "Room" being a word attributed by necessity, though "enclosed city" may have worked just as well. From my school days, I knew it to be massive; even with the blackness, I recognized how spacious it was. Wide, deep, and high. While I lacked the sharp ears of an anti-entity, I had another sense in my repertoire that my counterpart did not. I could feel the vague energy of the approaching creature. A tall creature. Taller than I was, by far. Four-legged, fast, and fuzzy. Although I couldn't catch a perfect read, I could taste its general presence and magic. This was not, in fact, an angel, but rather a…

"Puppy!" Graham squealed, summing the situation up before I had managed to myself.

"Why do you know that word?" I griped as Madigan tried to scoop him up, and stumbled. With the help of Sanderson, Anti-Madigan, and Anti-Keefe (and Springs, who thought he was helping), I managed to push the great door open enough to allow light to flood the area. With another snap of my fingers, they scurried through.

"Where's the cú sith?" I asked my counterpart in surprise. Despite the sudden brightness, I couldn't make out any trace of it.

We had our answer a wingbeat later. Anti-Fergus flew backwards and crashed into the solid wall. By what light made it through the door as it swung shut again, I was able to see our slobbering assailant. Or rather, not see it.

"It's invisible? Why?"

"'es it matter?" Grunting, Anti-Fergus braced himself against the wall. I sensed the shift of his hand against his chest, the beat of his blood.

"You're hurt."

"Ah'll hold 'im off. Ah'm the only one a' the three a' us who ain't at real risk. Yew get what we came here for."

"What did we come here for, sir?" Sanderson asked.

I took a moment to answer, because I was still attempting to trace the path of the hulking dog as he prowled back and forth in front of us. There was definitely inrita in those walls; if the amount had been thinner, I could have flipped into field-sight. The beast before me was invisible to my physical vision, yes, but it was magic, and its shape should register.

But those were solid inrita bricks facing me from every angle. I'd only been in here a moment, and I was already wheezing. As incredible as it was, my cohuleen druith could only feed me so much. With my lines having dropped, my body ran solely on stored energy. And there was little of that in me to begin with. I knew the creature was there, but couldn't pin it down. My magical vision had become as blurry as a tunnel full of smog.

Sanderson tugged on the folds of sleeve bunched about my elbow. "Sir?"

"Now, Fergus!"

My counterpart took off to the right, swinging wide and hollering all the while. The enormous mutt jolted after him. In this library city of a room, they were quickly lost among the rows. I ran forward, snapping my fingers for Sanderson to follow me.

"Yoo-doo dolls, Sanderson," I called over my shoulder. I skidded left at the first break between daunting towers of shelves. "Right now, we're in the storage facility that houses all of them. Their organizational system is ridiculous - they use the outdated Accles model for security purposes; fascinating stuff, and I'll tell you later - but fortunately, organization is my thing. I did an upper school project on this place once."

"I don't follow, sir."

Some idiot had left a stray drawer pulled out from the wall. I tripped over it and sorely bruised my ribs. Sanderson touched my chest to dust me off, but I waved him away and limped onward as quickly as I could manage. "There's something I want. This place is divided into family trees. Each family - watch your footing - can be located in here alphabetically in Milesian, according to the inscription on their paternal line's family crest. That makes it a mite tougher to locate things. Especially when on a time crunch, but the cherubs manage themselves all right." Swinging around a bend by grabbing the edge of a shelf with my fingertips, I added, "I'm looking for the Whimsifinado one, because…"

"Well, it's your family tree, right?"

"… because if I remember correctly, the Eros motto is very similar in nature to mine. I should be able to track them from there."

Sanderson sniffed a bit like he didn't fully believe me. His wings were open as he ran, rather than pressed flat to his back like mine, and they rustled with every movement. "The inrita will strangle us before we can-"

"Believe me, Venus won't let us die. I'm sure she's on her way. Ah!" I ducked as some sort of feathered mass dive-bombed my head. Another magical creature, though talking had prevented me from picking up on even a slight taste in the energy field.

"Lovebirds," said Sanderson. By the movement of his head in the dark, he seemed to be following the lovebird as it squawked in annoyance and banked around for another pass. "Wilcox told me about these."

I touched the scrapes on my forehead where the bird had sunk in its claws. "I'd like to request an audience with the bright mind who thought it would be brilliant to put opposable toes and two rows of fangs on an overgrown parakeet."

"There's another one, sir!"

I flailed my hands above my head, trying to shoo the birds off, while Sanderson set his back to mine and tried to do the same. "Too many of them," I grunted after a desperate thirty seconds had passed. I spit out a small feather that had spun into my mouth somehow. "We'll just have to make a break for it."

"Mark it."

Patterns. I had always been good with patterns. I studied the swoops of the lovebirds over our heads, then made a signal to Sanderson when I thought I spotted an opening. Arms and wings wrapped above our skulls, we rushed from one massive corridor to another. Another two minutes ticked away.

"I'll take the Whimsifinado drawer," I said as we finally neared the proper collection of wooden filing cabinets. "You search for the Eros one."

"Right."

After slamming my fist into the beak of yet another bird, I licked a dab of blood from my otherwise dry lips. Gravity dragged upon my limbs. My wings dangled like tattered pennants. A burn throbbed in my lower throat, and up and down my ear canals. If I was having this much trouble drinking magic, I didn't want to know how Sanderson was faring. "Now, where would Venus put the Eros drawer?"

"The top," he and I realized together. We stared upwards, fending off the shrieking goony lovebirds. "You know," Sanderson said, "it'll be really dumb if we actually find it there. You'd think it would be in a less-obvious place."

"Ah, but perhaps that's what she wants you to think. If you assume, as you did, that it won't be there, then the location becomes the perfect place to hide it. It's all a matter of logic and probability. Simply, after you perform the Dinkle test for this situation, you can multiply that score by the first thirty digits of pi and then square root it to determine the likelihood of her doing so."

He groaned and rocked back on his heels. "I'll start climbing."

"And I'll see if I can't find our doll. Be safe with those birds after you."

"Has to be done."

Light flickered along the edge of the chamber before he made it halfway up the brown cabinet, and before I'd rifled through much of the information the lowest Whimsifinado drawer contained. "Huh," I said, sparing a glance towards the big door. "We're nearly out of time."

"Fergus Whimsifinado!" Venus howled. Her voice echoed throughout the entire chamber like the bounce of a ball.

"Trouble," muttered Sanderson.

"Just… a few… more… minutes…" I wrenched drawer out of drawer out of place, allowing their contents to spill across the floor. Thanks to the dark, I had to feel my way through each magical item. Old arrow shafts, withering parchments in need of being recopied, worn tablets, confiscated family heirlooms, what I believe was a moth-eaten wedding gown that had belonged to Windshine once… Nothing belonging to Solara, I'm sure, since she would have been filed under "Wurpixiz".

The lovebirds threw themselves into a frenzy as Venus neared, the soft soles of her shoes scuffing over the tiles. My fingers closed on empty air just before she wrenched me around by the shoulder. Oh, sure- I could see her eyes. They glowed with sapphire acid.

"Why. Are. You. Here?"

"What's your unguarded treasure trove is another drake's bounty?" I tried, pressing my hands to my cheeks.

She threw me to the ground again, and I felt her set her left hand to her hip and push the fingers of her right through her bangs. The largest curl slithered. "I lack words. You're a disappointment."

She might have said something else, but Sanderson began swinging his way down from the tower of drawers he'd climbed then. In his hand, alight with power, he held Cupid's yoo-doo doll.

Venus's face blazed with heat when she turned her head and found him with it. "You put him down. There must be unblemished triplet heirs who hold the Eros blood. With one dead, the two remaining can't take up their sacred duties. I mated for fourteen millennia before I produced them, and I would prefer they stayed alive."

While she was distracted spitting commands to her lovebirds, I dipped my hand into the Whimsifinado drawer and touched the doll I was looking for. Immediately, a hum shot through my body. All that power, in the palm of my hand.

I reveled in it.

"Sanderson," I shouted, "brace yourself!" Then I hurled the pixie doll further down the row, away from Venus. He and I flew after it, he over her head. As I tumbled, I snatched the doll up again and kept running.

"Huh, imagine that. These things can outmatch the inrita deadzone."

"Fergusius Whimsifinado!"

Wrenching Sanderson after me by his elbow, I zigzagged my way back towards where I remembered the door being, bumping into filing cabinets and walls along my way. "Pixie-Fergus," my counterpart hollered, and I heard a large body hit the wall. Only, it wasn't the wall. It was the door. The giant invisible dog had slammed into the decorated door. Veering our paths in that direction, Sanderson and I sprinted towards the burst of light before it could fade away.

"S-s-sir-"

"Hang in there! We're so close!"

He stopped and leaned forward, drawing in cold gasps. When he found no magic to drink, his knees dropped to the floor and he began to jitter. I wrapped an arm around his waist and threw him against my shoulder.

"Sanderson, please hang in there! Just give me one more minute!"

My pixies were still in the hall, a few of them quite upset about the throwing ordeal. Charite herself guarded them with her bow drawn, but she blanched when she caught sight of the yoo-doo doll in Sanderson's hand. As she released her arrow, she jerked her bow higher so it missed it us by a lot. Instead, it wedged itself into the great dog's skin and stuck there. He bayed.

Anti-Fergus swung down from the mutt's neck and hurried out of the storage room after me. As I snapped my fingers, he put himself in my line of sight and said, "We can't leave without mah son."

My vision was still bleary from the dark. I squinted at him. "Anti-Sanderson? You have other sons."

"That don't make him less important. He's young and mischievous, but wouldn't ya go back if he were one of yers?"

As Charite and Venus maintained a shouting conversation and the former worked to hold off the monster dog, I turned around and studied Madigan, Graham, Keefe, and Springs. When I glanced at Sanderson, leaning against the wall, he said nothing, but simply hugged Cupid's yoo-doo doll and stared up at me.

"No," I said. "They'll catch us if we double back. We have to move while we have the chance."

Anti-Fergus closed his eyes. "Then Ah wish yew good luck. Ah'm not leavin' him."

"They'll catch you both."

"Maybe with yew gone, they'll let us stay together."

I rubbed my hand across my face. "Don't do this. Don't be a smoof. We need you."

He ignored me and broke into a trot down the hall. As he rounded the corner, I ran my fingers over my scalp and cursed behind my teeth. How well did I remember the Eros hallways? It wasn't like I had the chance to wander them that often, but it seemed like the Fairykind areas were on the main level, near the front doors.

"I think I remember a shortcut. Follow me, all of you. With you in front, Sanderson. Keep the doll in plain sight."

As my pixies stumbled after him on their young legs, I began sweeping the smaller ones into my arms. Charite met my eyes as I glanced back. But between the dog and Venus, she didn't have time to direct an arrow after me.

Through the hallways. Twists, turns- we passed a tour group of some sort that included the anti-fairy with the monocle that Sanderson had tasted in the field earlier. Twist after turn, Sanderson waving Cupid's doll over his head.

"Do you see Anti-Fergus?" I asked as we skidded into another hallway. I recognized it instantly; I'd been moved here for a time while I was pregnant with Cherry. Nothing had changed.

A soft, high-pitched voice came to answer me. "H-Pix? That you?"

Right. The solitary confinement hall. I let my pixies hop to the ground and made my way towards the green hand that had appeared at one barred window. "Solitary confinement" indeed; Venus hadn't even pretended it wasn't a prison. The walls were gray and bare rock, with a bed in the corner that seemed to be made of burlap sack and straw. Automatically, I flicked my eyes to the ceiling. No bar had been provided for an anti-fairy to roost upside-down.

Sanderson pulled back. "This is where they're making you stay?"

"Shoddy place," I agreed, attempting to turn the handle on the door. It was locked, as I'd expected it to be.

Anti-Sanderson's lips curled into a half-smile. "Hey, Sandy Prime. I missed you' singing."

"I missed watching you dance, even if you're irritating," he replied as he brought his face near the bars. I was a hair too late to warn him when his counterpart lunged forward, but he avoided the snapping fangs anyway. Anti-Sanderson licked his lips and withdrew, looking neither pleased nor disappointed with himself.

"Sorry, jingle bell. I get so awfully lonely. This place stole my manne's right out from unde' my crown. Aw, don't take it to core; I was just messin' with ya."

Sanderson rubbed the tip of his nose and did not respond. I gave the handle another rattle.

"It has a lock, sir," Madigan said. "It won't open without a starpiece."

As I pondered that, scratching my head, I remembered what I was wearing and looked up. The cherubs had never taken it from me, and when I stuffed the tip in the star-shaped hole and twisted, it fit perfectly. The door simply clicked open. Anti-Sanderson walked straight out. I stared at the cohuleen druith in my hand. "Is there nothing this hat can't do?"

An alarm, at last, began drilling throughout the entire hall. Within wingbeats, a pair of cherubs shot around the corner with black arrows notched. After glancing at my hat a second time, I shrugged and pointed its star tip at our attackers. With one squeeze, their eyes were blasted with ink. They crashed together, feathers and shafts flying. Missed. I shoved the cap over my head again and took off in the opposite direction with wings abuzz.

"I want a hat like that," Anti-Sanderson said, flying after me.

"It is the best hat," I agreed.

"Who's that nymph there?"

"His name is Graham."

He grinned. "Like the cracke's. That's precious. And who are they?"

I snatched the Cupid yoo-doo doll from Sanderson and used it as a shield for myself, and myself as a shield for the rest of them as we barreled past more conflicted cherubs with raised bows. "The leaner one is Springs; Keefe is the pudgy one who always looks like he waited in line for free bagels at work and the person in front of him took the last three."

"How'd ya get three? I was just expectin' one."

"Unfunny story about that-"

We came around the next corner to find Anti-Fergus at the end of the hall, both hands clenched into fists near his waist.

"Hit the dirt, gents. Ah gotta talk to some purty damsels."

The Sandersons and I dove forward on our stomachs as Anti-Fergus spun two black wands between his fingers and fired a combined blast of pink down the hallway. Behind us, one of the cherubs on our tail shrieked and collapsed. Anti-Sanderson lit up. "That's my daddy!"

"Here, Pixie-Fergus." Anti-Fergus tossed me one of the wands, which still steamed at its point. I glanced up, my hands still pressed to my cheeks, when he said, "Glad to see yew came back for my boy."

"I didn't make the trip for him. We were searching for the way out and happened to stumble across his cell."

Anti-Sanderson wrapped his arms around his sire's stomach, and as Anti-Fergus mussed his cowlicked yellow hair, he winked at me. "Sure, that's how he got out."

"It is indeed," I said, whirling the black wand through my own fingers. It was made of polished stone. The scent of raw magic stained the roof of my mouth for the first time in five hundred years. The cherubs were shaking themselves off behind us. Anti-Fergus and I fired two more blasts, mine purple and his again pink. It tasted beautiful, and I couldn't help letting out a moan. A black arrow tipped with the red feathers that marked it as containing inrita poison lodged itself in the tip of my shoe. Yanking it out, I kept it clutched in my hand as we flew onward.

"Do we know which way is out?"

"No, but them tour group folk were headin' the other way, so Ah thought we'd be best movin' in this one."

"Good plan," I said as another arrow skimmed above my beating wing. A third hit me in the shoulder. I rubbed my cheek. "Hold on, is that-?"

The Eros Triplets appeared at the next crossroads in the flesh, bows drawn. Not Venus, Charite, and Ludell, but the next generation: Cupid, Lucius, and Apuleius.

"Okay, you have to stop, guys! Under Aphrodite Protocol!"

"Teachin' ya ta kick puppies young," Anti-Sanderson jeered.

As we kept racing towards them, I studied the Cupid doll in my right hand, the inrita arrow in my left. "I wonder," I said, and stabbed the black arrow into his throat. He went down with a scream. "Catch you later, punk," I called over my shoulder as his brothers dropped their weapons and we flew past them.

Our wands drooped only a moment later. Anti-Fergus cocked his and gave it a wave, but it only made clicking noises.

"What happened?" I asked, trying mine and meeting the same results.

"I dunno! S'not overheated- the mark ain't even halfway."

We skimmed through two more hallways, and then abruptly Graham plowed face-first into the floor. He looked up, wings beating uselessly, and gave an aimless vocalization.

"They diverted most of the energy field," I realized, scooping him into the crook of my arm. "We don't have much flight power left."

"Speak for yourself, gum wrapper," grunted Anti-Sanderson. Sanderson himself could still float, even if he was jerking, but Anti-Sanderson was left to run alongside us flapping his wings and arms to no avail.

"I'm not carrying you." Stuffing the now-useless wand in one pocket of my jacket, I grabbed Keefe in my other arm. Sanderson had shouldered Springs some time ago, and his counterpart and Madigan snatched the last two babies.

"Almost there, Ah think?" Anti-Fergus pointed. "Ah see windows! Daylight!"

Around the next corner, though, we all had to pulled up sharply, wings snapping. We'd stumbled into a pink and yellow room that appeared to function as some sort of reception area, complete with a receptionist and startled clients. Six doors of different sizes lined the place, and two cherub guards stood by the largest one. A board on the wall named the prices for a tour. A fly-in entrance beamed down from the ceiling like a skylight, but though it appeared to be an automatic, as I stumbled and glanced around, I realized there was no way out.

"On your knees." "Wings down." "Hands behind your neck." "Drop your stars."

"Welp," Anti-Sanderson said, and snatched the pixie doll out of Sanderson's arms. He crouched, then sprang up and hurled the doll as high in the air as he could manage. It was too small to trigger the doors, but we weren't. A shower of purple sparkles raced across my limbs. All four of us were dragged after it. Arrows whizzed in our wake, grazing skin and filling my eyes with tiredness. The doors clipped shut as Anti-Fergus left them behind.

"Smoof," I hollered, "it's going to fall back down!"

Anti-Sanderson backflipped in mid-air and connected his shoe with the doll. It - we - went sailing across the roof, hit, rolled, and slid down hot sheets of tin until we cascaded off the far side and into the violet hedges. I jolted up, spewing leaves. Cupid's doll was no longer in my hand.

Anti-Fergus ruffled his offspring's electric yellow hair. "Nice thinkin', Ennie. There's that ruffian blood beatin' in yer veins."

Anti-Sanderson turned to me, arms outspread. "And?"

I patted his shoulder. "I underestimated you. I'm not nearly as fast at thinking on my feet. Now, let's go. We don't have time to wait around."

My pixies were exhausted and whining, but I lifted each one from the bushes and passed them to Anti-Fergus, who then placed them on the cloudstones. "The gate doesn't open," Anti-Madigan called, studying it with the Sandersons.

"And we can't fly this soon after we left the deadzone, H.P."

I shook my head. "I- I don't know."

"Jist throw the doll, Ennet!"

"Pops, have you lost you' marbles? The fence is too high!"

"Do it!"

Pinching his eyelids shut with his claws, Anti-Sanderson did. The doll whirled me into the air after it, my feet over my head. As I flipped in somewhat slow-motion and ended up with my stomach parallel with the ground, I had a perfect view of Venus materializing beneath us with a poof. As we fell, she simply stretched out her hand and caught the doll. She didn't even try to slow our fall. My jaw slammed into a fence pillar. Sanderson ended up with an arm twisted beneath him at a bizarre angle. The younger pixies had had enough, and began to tremble and whine.

Venus waved towards the gate as I slowly drew myself up. "As I told you inside, you are completely free to leave once I get my collateral."

"What does she want?" Anti-Sanderson asked. "We don't really got much, do we? Whatever it is, we can get a new one."

I dropped my gaze. "She wants a pixie and an anti-pixie for her collection."

"Menagerie," she corrected.

Anti-Sanderson gaped around the grim circle as I drummed my fingers against my left shoulder. "No. You can't do it, H-Pix. You won't. You'e smart- you've got anothe' plan!"

There wasn't much of a point. Even if we did manage to pull off another escape attempt, if Venus didn't get her pixie now, she'd pursue. I couldn't evade her forever.

"Full-blooded, natural-born," Venus had said. That removed Keefe and Springs from the list and left me with limited options. With my entire body stinging (and I think partially paralyzed from one of those arrows I'd been struck with), I knelt down and motioned to Graham with my hand.

"Come here to the Head Pixie. That's it, good boy. You're a good boy."

Better to lose him before he developed much of an individual personality. In only five hundred years, he could be replaced.

I stepped towards Venus and set the child in her arms. Anti-Sanderson grabbed Anti-Fergus around the waist and pulled backwards as he began to come forward with the corresponding anti-pixie, evidently along the same line of thinking as me. Let the two counterparts stay together. It would seem more natural to them after their memories of us had long since faded away.

"Don't do it, Dad! Stop it! We can fight her!"

Anti-Fergus spread his wings as he handed Anti-Graham over. He kept his eyes on me as he did, even when Anti-Sanderson took to pounding on his back with his fists.

"You're weak! Slave to society! Conformist! Coward! You disgust me!"

He whirled on his heels, stabbing a finger against Anti-Sanderson's pointed nose. "I'd shut my flappin' li'l mouth if yer tongue was mine, Ennet. I can still choose to leave yew instead."

Anti-Sanderson bared his fangs. "I blitzing dare you, snatter."

Cocking up one eyebrow, Anti-Fergus stepped aside and gestured towards Venus, who still stood with the nymph and the pup balanced in her arms against her breasts. She held out her hand for Anti-Sanderson to take, if he so desired. He took a brave step, chin high, but hesitated over the second one. When his foot came down, it fell behind the first. For a minute, he stayed that way. Poised and balanced.

Then he whipped back around, jacket swirling in a disastrous blur, wings bristling. Shoving his crown up with his middle claw, he stormed past me and Madigan, heading for the gate. "Fo'get about it. I got a bette' plan. I'll just break 'em out one day. The'e'll be more anti-pixies. I'll rally us all up to wa'. I can do it. One day I will, you'll see. Just see if I don't."

"You all have safe passage," Venus reminded us as, one by one, we turned away from her poisonous facility. "You'll regain your powers of flight beyond the gate within a few minutes, and you are welcome to pay them both a visit anytime you should like to schedule one."

She said that like I wanted to see this place again. I placed a hand to Sanderson's back, and one to Madigan's. They looked up at me, and nothing needed to be said. When the gate squealed open, the nymphs and pups had to be coaxed through. Just as we broke through the gate, a trio of doves flew overhead. Madigan let out a gasp.

"What are they?"

"They're birds," I said, realizing with a twang that I'd never told him very many stories about the world beyond the cherubs' zoo.

"Birds… I want them. I want all of them."

"You can't have all the birds."

"Why?"

"Because there are millions of them, all sorts of different species and types. Millions and billions, more than all the blades of grass you've ever seen."

This was apparently too much for his little mind to handle, because Madigan fell back on his rear and pressed his palms to his temples, gazing off into the sky. And then that was all of us, with the Eros Nest at our rear, just gazing at the actual sky.

END ACT 2

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Text-to-Show: The lovebirds appeared in the episode "Stupid Cupid". The giant invisible dog is a reference to Bunsen's pet dog in "Bunsen Is a Beast". I needed a giant guard and he fit the bill pretty well! What better creature to guard an important room than one mostly invisible to both physical and magical senses?

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A/N- Well, folks, we're halfway there! Whoa-oh, pixie in a snare! Thanks for keeping up with this story for so long!

Origin of the Pixies will be going on hiatus for a few months now. I need to finish planning out Acts 3 and 4. To do that, I'm going to have to work some more on Frayed Knots, because yes, Anti-Cosmo gets a backstory 'fic too! Keep your eyes out for that if you're interested. It runs parallel to Origin, and I'm pretty excited. These two will converge especially in Act 3. Spoiler alert: The war over the human godchildren as seen in the Season 7 episode "Balance of Flour" is on its way!

Thank you all very much for enjoying my work. If you want updates on my progress, keep an eye on my Tumblr FountainPenguin as well. Otherwise, I'll see y'all around!