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)

29. The Facts of Life

(Posted December 5, 2017)

The Facts of Life

Autumn of the Red Petals

---

"You've had your vacations, but now it's time to get back to the real world. I'm glad that you all like your cabin, but unfortunately, I can't just be a charity forever. At the end of each winter, I am going to collect a payment from each of you that allows you to live in my village and use my firewood, buildings, food, and clean water. This next year is a gift I choose to give and that you don't need to worry about, but after that, this rule will be implemented. The money you give me will go towards the mortgage that I have to pay to keep the village running in the first place, and since you all live here, it's really only fair that you contribute. Do you all understand?"

"Yes, sir," chorused five dull voices. Six. I always forgot Madigan, quiet and tiny on the end.

My pixies (sans Caudwell, who would be getting a private lecture later, and Keefe and Springs, who Emery had put down for a nap) clustered around one end of a bench in the pavilion, checking their handouts as we went through our meeting and taking careful notes. Or trying to- the tables didn't lend themselves easily to writing on. I floated across from them, watching steadily as they straightened their papers and tried not to press their quills down hard enough to tear the paper and jab through one of the many holes in the surface's metal webbing. Terrible design.

"All right. That concludes our discussion on the buildings in the village you are allowed to use at which times and how I expect you to clean up after yourselves. Now we're going to discuss food. Every Sunday, Longwood and I will make a trip to the nearest grocery store and bring back a supply of food to the village."

"Why Longwood?" Sanderson asked instantly, glancing up. The nib of his quill poked a dent in his parchment.

"Because he's our forager." I pointed to the star on Longwood's hat. "That's the job I gave him. See?"

"Why am I not the forager?"

"Because you already have a job. Would you rather be the forager or the alpha retinue?"

Sanderson frowned. "Why didn't you give me a hat with a star?"

"Because only the forager gets the star hat."

"Why?"

I sighed. "Canterbury v. Oakwing is meant to prevent discrimination against the alpha retinue. By marking you, everyone would know that you're part of my retinue instead of just my friend, and they might not let you have certain rights. It's complicated. We'll talk about it more when you're older. For now, please accept the fact that Longwood wears a star hat, and you don't."

Sanderson drummed his fingers once, then let them lay flat. I nodded.

"Longwood and I will go to the grocery store every Sunday, when it isn't overly crowded. That means Saturday is the last day we will accept requests for the week. I want these requests written down and placed in the box on my office door that says Groceries. Since I am purchasing these items with my own money, they become mine. As part of your workplace benefits, I will provide you with three meals each day until you are 3,000. Then I will let you use my kitchen and show you how to cook for yourselves. You will need to buy the things that you want to eat from me using the money from your paychecks. I'll build a grocery store for this purpose, and Longwood is in charge of distributions. Really, several of you were on a similar system back when we lived with China, so this isn't much of a change, except that instead of visiting the public grocery store in Lau Rell, you'll be floating across the village."

Hawkins raised his hand. "What if we run out of money and can't buy food?"

"Then that's your problem, so you'd better work hard and budget carefully if you want to eat."

Their faces lost their practiced stillness. Jaws dropped. Skin paled. I paused.

"You will be paid enough so that you can afford food. However, if you don't have money, then come and talk to me. We can work out a plan of how you can pay me back. Still, you should always be tracking your spending, so I want to see a list detailing exactly where your paychecks have gone before we work out the interest rate you'll be paying back."

Wilcox tapped his finger against the table. "We've never had to pay to live with you and eat before. How much are we supposed to work?"

"Friday to Wednesday afternoons most weeks. You have Thursdays and Friday mornings off. Weeks which include holidays or meetings may require rescheduling. I'll bring my files out here at 9:00, and we will file and make copies until 17:00, with a few breaks in between. For now, these perforated metal tables will have to do. I'll invest in some clipboards. We'll make it work. Realize that you can choose not to work if you don't want to. You always have a choice. However, if you don't work, you don't get paid, and you won't be able to afford your food, housing, or other things that you want."

I clenched my fingers into a few of the holes in the table top. "Now that I've finished writing you all this handout about things I've been meaning to talk to you all about for ages, I'm going to begin looking for additional work, in case overseeing contracts and copying things can't sustain us. But it should. There are several libraries throughout the cloudlands full of ancient texts in desperate need of being recopied before their words fade. There are never enough copies of Da Rules in the libraries for all the Fairies who have to scour the pages and look up the reasons why their wands didn't allow them to grant a godchild's wish. As long as there are books getting old and worn, there will be work for us to do. As long as paper exists, so does our company. In theory, our jobs aren't at risk until someone invents something to write words on that doesn't wear away with time. It's crucial that all of you learn how to file in triplicate, draw together contracts of all shapes and sizes, and bind papers together magically so they don't become separated. Paperwork sustains us. Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good." I flipped to the next page of my copy of the handout. "In order to sell ourselves as the most worthwhile investments possible, I've decided that we should take our work beyond the Snobbish language. I'm going to search for tutors who can come to the village and teach you Elrulian, Elportch, Chif, and Mangermese over the next few decades."

"Nooo." Wilcox put his head on the table. "That's not what I want to learn. Languages are boring."

I brought my coffee mug to my lips and skimmed my eyes down the page. "I happen to like boring. It's how we're going to make our company successful. We want people to come to us instead of taking their business to other companies. We have to be the best. We have to be so good at what we do that no one wants to settle for anything less than the best."

"I think teaching us other languages sounds like a great idea, sir," Sanderson chirped.

"Don't be a suck-up."

"But I do!"

"Mmhm. Now. I expect you all to be honest with me and everyone else you work with. I do not believe in telling unnecessary lies. In fact, I don't much like telling lies at all. People should say what they mean so everyone is always on the same page. If you wouldn't write it on chesberry and sign your name, don't say it out loud. Especially with Rice present. And always ask before you take something that's not yours."

Longwood put up his hand. "What if it doesn't belong to anyone?"

"Everything belongs to someone. If it doesn't belong to one of your coworkers, then it's on my property, so you're stealing from the Head Pixie. Every cloudstone, every planted flower, every branch, is precisely where it is without setting me off. Do not pick things up and move them around wilcox-nilcox. When you're finished using something, put everything back where you found it."

"Oh."

"Furthermore, I expect you all in bed, candles snuffed out, by 22:00 at the latest. I mentally shut down at 19:00, so if you want my attention before bed, you need to ask for it early in the evening. Once it turns 21:00, I will be in my room paying attention to only Sanderson, and the rest of you won't see me again until morning. Whatever happens outside that door is not my problem, unless you make me very, very upset. When it comes to your cabin, I am allowed to both respect your privacy by knocking but assert my authority as Head Pixie by coming in anyway. However, anywhere on the upper floor of the manor, you should always knock and wait for a response before barging into a room. You're all very good about this, except for you, Longwood. You could afford to step it up a little."

"Yes, sir."

"And before you're 200,000, you need to inform me beforehand if you plan to consume large amounts of processed sugar. If you can't float in a straight line, your wand is mine." I lowered my papers and coffee. "This concludes the Village Rules and Structure section of our meeting. Any questions?"

There weren't any. I nodded.

"Okay. Abrupt change of topic. We're going to discuss the facts of life, starting with wing moulting."

"Can I be excused?" Wilcox asked, his eyes shut and his cheek on one hand. "I got this talk in school."

"No, you may not be. Instead, why don't you tell the others how wing moulting works?"

"Fairies share one third of their genetics with the generic Alien genome and one third with the Angel genome. Because of that, our bodies get bigger as we grow. However, our wings stem from the genetics we share with our insect patrons. The only way they get bigger is when the old casings shed and the new wings push out. It leaves you sore, itchy, and flightless for a week, but eventually your body adjusts. Only members of the Seelie Court shed their wings." He still hadn't opened his eyes. I nodded.

"Correct. You will all experience twelve wing moults as juveniles, and twelve as adults. Sometime between the ages of 140,000 and 180,000, you'll moult into your adult wings. Then you'll stop growing until you hit the senescent stage of your life cycle. We'll talk more about that when you're older. You've all moulted once before, when you shed your exoskeletons as nymphs. You may remember thinking those wings were too big for your bodies. Because none of you have moulted since, all your wings are exactly the same size, from Sanderson down to…" I stopped. "Uh. Down to Madigan."

"Who's going to moult first?" Sanderson asked. "I'm the oldest, so I'll be first, right?"

I picked up my coffee again and shrugged. "Well. There's really no way to tell for sure. It depends on your genes, how much you eat, if you have a calm personality or a stressed one, and how much magic you're exposed to. Fairies who live near the Big Wand, where magic is more available, tend to get their adult wings sooner than those who spend their juvenile years on Earth. I was just over 150,000 when I got mine. Only thirteen original lines to my core. You might not all moult in the order you were born." I swept my eyes up and down the row. "But yes. Sanderson, you're the firstborn, and the firstborn gets the most magic. You have those two extra layers around your core to prove it- the purple ones. Most probably, you'll always be first."

He looked down and straightened his handout, unable to press back his smirk.

Wilcox chuckled without opening his eyes. "If you stop growing after you moult, and you're the first one to get your adult wings, that means you're going to be the shortest forever."

"Wait, what?"

"Yeah, it's true."

"No! H.P. is taller than Emery!" Sanderson turned desperately to me. "I'm still going to be the tallest when we grow up, right, sir?"

"Um." I glanced in Longwood's direction, then back at him. "We'll just have to wait and see. It's too early to know."

He slouched over, plopping his fists to his cheeks and shoving out his lower lip. "How do you know you're getting your adult wings and not just new juvenile wings?"

"Excellent question." I turned around so he could see mine. "Put simply, they're just bigger. The apexes of juvenile wings at rest only reach slightly past your waist. Adult wings reach the backs of the knees. Mine are somewhat longer because I've had eight of my twelve adult moults already, and because I'm taller than most Fairies as it is. Senescent wings reach the ankles. It takes both magic channeling and physical ability to fly. When you get bigger, you need bigger wings."

"They told me in school that senescent wings never moult again. Is that really true?"

"Unfortunately, yes. As with your other body parts, wounds to your wings will heal, though magical wounds heal naturally no matter where you are. To heal physical ones, you need to sleep when in contact with your wand." I turned around again. "However, wings do not bleed, nor do they have nerves, except for a few in the costas. Thus, the magic in your blood cannot reach them. And when you're older, the magical aura around you, also known as your imprint, won't be strong enough to reach them either. When you get your senescent wings, you want to be very careful with them. If they get crumpled, they'll rebound just fine. But if they get torn, they will never heal. A big enough tear will ground a Fairy for the rest of his life. Any questions?"

There still weren't any. Good. I adjusted my tie.

"Next order of business. Other Fairies, Anti-Fairies, Refracts, and most races in the universe reproduce sexually. That means that a dam and a sire both pass their magic to a baby. Pixies, anti-pixies, and pixie refracts are different. We reproduce asexually. Baby pixies only get their magic from a single adult pixie. Longwood, can you name another race that reproduces entirely asexually?"

"Um… the big striped bee people?"

"Come again?"

"Sorry. The Anish?"

"Please phrase your answer in a statement, not a question."

"The Anish."

"Thank you. You're wrong, but I appreciate the effort. The Anish are another of the races who, like the Boudacians and the Aos Sí, fall under the umbrella of Twyleth Teg on the phylogenetic tree. Their race is entirely haplodiploid, and switch off between asexual and sexual reproduction depending on the generation. The answer I was looking for was the Cnemida. Who can tell me about the Cnemida?"

Sanderson said, "They're one of the seven eelementals."

"Please raise your hand."

"But I'm right in front of you."

"Can you please use a more proper term than 'eelementals'?"

"They're one of the seven elemental snake people."

"Try again."

Sanderson folded his arms. "They're one of the seven Fomorian tribes. It goes Succubi, Genies, Merfolk, Pressyne, Milesians, Djanggawul, Cnemids. Princess Melusine of the Pressyne imprisoned her father King Elynas of the Milesians in an Earth mountain where he was trapped until before you were born, when he went totally trippy nuts and wiped out almost all the Fairies who were living on Earth, so only the ones in Fairy World survived. Anyway, Cnemids are the Leaves Tribe. People think they reproduce asexually because most plants do too."

"That's correct. Thank you." I leaned my hands against their table. "We are similar to the Cnemids. This means pixies do not have mothers. And because you have no mother, you have no father either. I am not your father. My official titles are 'Head Pixie' and 'company founder'. Do you understand?"

They nodded.

"Good. Now. Being asexual means that when you get as old as I am, you're all going to raise pixies of your own too."

The quill snapped in Longwood's hand. He looked up. "Wait. What? You mean… a nymph is going to come out of my forehead? Are you saying that he's going to crawl inside my pouch? He's going to put my things in his mouth and drink my magic?"

I lifted one brow. "There's going to be a lot more than one nymph, but yes."

Sanderson threw his arms in the air, turning his fingers into Rock on signs. "I get baby pixies."

"Ewww!" Longwood covered his ears. "I don't want nymphs. Nymphs are gross."

Oh dear. I crossed my arms. "Keefe and Springs are nymphs. That's rude. You were a nymph. I didn't think you were gross."

"Yeah, because you've had like fifty nymphs. You're used to it."

"Ten is not close to fifty. Tough luck. You're going to have nymphs. You'll change your mind about them when you get older. Speaking of which." I glanced down at Bayard's forefinger, hovering over the next subtitle on his handout. "Presumably, all mate-seeking behaviors and hormones will be bred out of the pixie gene pool further down the line when it becomes undeniably obvious to Mother Nature and her team that they are unnecessary for our race's survival. However, you are part of what I like to call the first generation of pureblood pixies. You are very closely related to fairies. So as you get older, you may find yourself liking damsels."

Sanderson, who still had one arm raised, put out his thumb and pointed it down at his head. Hawkins drummed the fingers of his right hand- presumably thinking of a particular eastern elf dame from his close-knit group of Lau Rell friends whom he'd always fancied when he thought I wasn't watching.

"You may find yourself randomly adjusting your clothes, puffing your chest, smirking, or picking at your wings in the presence of a damsel. Don't be surprised if, despite your hopeful confidence, you find yourself instantly backing away should she approach. In winged races like us, your knees will go weak, and your lower body will instantly go cold as your blood moves to your shoulders, ready to kick on your fight or flight response. Your wings will flare, and most likely you'll remove yourself from the ground for ten seconds at bare minimum. Drakes are the receptive sex and it's just typical Fairy courtship behavior. An intelligent, proper damsel will recognize these signs and stop encroaching on your personal bubble until you settle on the ground and fold in your wings. A drake tucking away his wings is an automatic green light in a damsel's brain for her to approach, so if you want her to deny her advances, just stay in the air. She'll know you're not interested. Easy."

Longwood had his face completely covered by his hands. When I paused, he lowered them and I could see a stripe of ink along his cheek from the end of his quill. I raised the other eyebrow.

"But if you should take a few steps while on the ground and unconsciously make that rolling hips gesture when you walk, then the Refracts help you. Damsels don't have quite the hips to walk that way, and they love it." Rolling my eyes to the ceiling, I finished with, "And if your body is really interested in a damsel, you might become aware of your lines fritzing out of contact with the energy field when you're around her. That's called tingle-fritziness. But you can get almost the same response by getting sugarloaded, and that's less of a commitment. So really there's no point in seeking damsels out for the thrill."

"It's cute," Hawkins protested. "Damsels are cute."

Sanderson dropped his hand to his lap. "I was thinking since I'm the oldest, I should be the first to court a damsel."

"Can I be excused?" Wilcox asked again. "I'm not attracted to Fairies."

I sighed. "Wilcox, for the last time, you can't marry a rabbit doe."

"Why? Rabbits are dazzling. Did you know desert hares have long ears that let them cool off when they're hot? Oh, and did you know that rabbits can't barf?"

"Oh, gross." Longwood nudged him with his shoulder. "That's your favorite animal?"

"Why would you want to marry someone who can barf? Are you attracted to barf?"

"Ew!"

I took off my glasses and rubbed my face. "Dear King Nuada, give me strength. Okay." I tapped the frames against my palm. "I think it's worth pointing out that there are certain organs kept within your forehead chamber. This is a necessary feature of our biology so that much of the space in our small bodies can be devoted to the pouch where we carry nymphs. Are you all following my logic so far?"

Most of them said, "Yes, sir," though Longwood shook his head. When I asked him where he'd gotten lost, he upturned his hands. "I know you have your egg nest up there, and eggs are baby pixies who are too small to play with until they become nymphs, but it doesn't make sense to me. Why is the egg nest in your head?"

"Because it is."

"Why?"

I held my arms out to either side. "Because it is. What else do you need to know?"

Longwood cocked his head. "But how did we evolve like that? Most creatures don't have egg nests in their heads."

"Don't say 'evolve'. That's a Zodii word. We're like that because our ancestors Split apart from the Aos Sí, and they had egg nests in their heads. The Aos Sí were hermaphrodite. Each Aos Sí was a drake and a damsel at the same time."

"Yeah," Longwood said, drawing the word out long like he didn't believe me. He folded his arms. "So whose eggs turned into nymphs?"

"Is that important?"

"Do you even know?"

I narrowed my eyes. "Of course I do. I went to school. I just didn't think it was relevant. But since you asked, any Aos Sí could become pregnant from any other Aos Sí, and get any other Aos Sí pregnant. When two Aos Sí came together to turn eggs into nymphs, as part of their courtship they would wrestle to determine who would be dominant and who would be submissive. The submissive Aos Sí was the one who became pregnant and had the baby. I don't know why you think it's important to know this, but I hope you're satisfied. If this grosses you out, that's your problem now."

Five hands instantly jolted into the air. I replaced my glasses and closed my eyes. "I've opened a can of four-leaf clovers, haven't I? Okay. Yes, yes, and yes. You are all naturally submissive pixies. You would all probably carry babies if you were Aos Sí. Their pregnancies were nine months long, which sounds miserable, but that's how it was. However, when they Split into three, the time it takes to have a baby Split into thirds too. As a more dominant figure myself, I would be less likely to lose the courtship scuffle and become pregnant. And yes, sometimes I wish this was still the way Fairies did things, because turning eggs into nymphs takes a lot of hard work and frankly I would like to give someone else a turn for awhile."

Four of the hands went down.

"But how did the Aos Sí get like that?" Longwood persisted, pointing at his head. "How did their bodies know to put the nest up there to make room for the pouch?"

"I don't know, and it's none of my business. The Aos Sí Split and became the Sluagh, who divided themselves into different classes and called themselves Fairies, Anti-Fairies, and Fairy Refracts after that. How adult Aos Sí had baby Aos Sí isn't actually important. Even when you're Daoine and are very similar to the Aos Sí, you won't be able to have babies anyway, so there's no point in even finishing this conversation. I'm moving on."

Longwood brought his eyes back to his broken quill, fingers drumming. I slipped my thumb into my pouch and gave it a tug.

"You're all drakes, so you should know this, but I'll elaborate. Drakes have pouches on their stomachs, also called ventral marsupiums, that nymphs can crawl inside when they want to sleep. They might also crawl inside if they are thirsty for magic. There are two nipples that transfer the magic you take in through my lines and turn it into liquid. Nymphs drink this liquid until their bodies are old enough to produce magic on there own. Damsels have pouches too, but theirs don't have nipples for nursing. Instead, they have breasts for giving milk."

Bayard and Sanderson both broke into snickers, and Wilcox rolled his eyes at them. Longwood recoiled. I put my hands on my waist and waited until they had regained themselves.

"I fail to see what is so humorous about a normal topic. You've all been inside my pouch many times."

"Don't remind me," Longwood groaned. "It's so gross."

"It is not." I looked back and forth between them. "It's nature. It's biology. It's fact. Now, when you get your adult wings, the cells inside your pouch will begin secreting fluid every five hundred years or so to clean it out-"

Snickers turned into choked guffaws. I combed my fingers through my cowlicks.

"Trust me, you'll all be extremely grateful for this when you hear how some of the less fortunate marsupials keep their pouches sanitary… Never mind. That's all you need to know for now. Let's see. What's next on our agenda? Oh. When you've all returned to behaving professionally, please turn to Page 6 of your handout." I rubbed my forehead. "We're going to discuss a more serious topic now. And I don't want to give this talk either, so you can all suck it up and behave yourselves. But, I need to approach the subject of the, ah, mating flight."

"Gross," Sanderson whined, while Longwood continued to sit where he was, face cherry pink and mortified. "Can I be excused?" Wilcox asked again. "This is literally not something I need to know."

"Wilcox, I will absolutely not permit you to run off with a rabbit."

"Uggggh. Fine." He scooted his chair closer. "At least you're not making me write an essay on this."

"That would be an excellent idea if it didn't sound like a repulsive thing for me to read and grade." Then I stopped, and looked at Madigan. "Have you had that orange juice this entire time?"

He wrapped his arm defensively around the juice carton. "I was thirsty, so I went inside to get a snack from Emery. I was fast. Like a hawk."

"Apparently so. Clearly I need to keep better track of you. I didn't even notice you leave. Again. Hmm." I walked three times between two of the tables, hands behind my back as I tried to piece together exactly how I wanted this mating flight discussion to go.

"We also call it the fairy courtship dance," I said finally. "It originated from the fairy subspecies itself, but is now a more common practice throughout all of Fairy society. But it's a very special ritual to be performed only between two willing partners who decide they wish to bond. Once they complete their dance, then by tradition, they spend a year carefully striving to avoid physical contact with the opposite sex altogether, including such small matters as handshakes. In fact, traditionally, Fairies will cover all skin but their face, and always wear gloves and socks during this time, even when they sleep. That's called the Year of Promise. It lasts for precisely four seasons. When the year passes, then the couple may touch one another again. They either reinstate their commitment to one another, or decide that, now that the honeymoon period has waned and they can see one another clearly without short-lived flares of passion filling their eyes, that the relationship will not work for them. Thus, they either notch one another's costas, or move on."

I knew they were looking. I did not give them the time to ask about my notches, permanently fused in my wings, sliced deep in my costas (moults notwithstanding). Instead, I simply cleared my throat.

"I don't expect any of you to ever engage in the ritual, so I will not go into the more intimate details of the process, because it's gross. Simply put, love is an emotion, and not something we pixies, creatures of logic that we are, are capable of feeling. Whatever fluttering sensation you experience around damsels is only a physiological reaction of your bodies, which are still young and corrupted with traces of fairy genetics. Pixies do not actually love. Believe me, we're all identical. I know. There is nothing you could be feeling that I haven't felt myself."

"I have a question," Wilcox said. When I looked at him, he tapped his forefingers together. "Are a fairy couple always supposed to take a mating flight when they…" He tapped again. "Because I'm pretty sure not everyone… does."

Longwood moved his eyes between Wilcox's hands and my face, his eyebrows hovering.

"They didn't teach you this in school?" I asked.

"No, I was just wondering because of Ambrosine's damsel friend. It's upper school curriculum."

"For good reason. Your bodies are too small and young for the process, so why bother teaching you? It will only make all of us uncomfortable." I glanced up and down the row and nodded. "To answer your question, the mating flight is called the courtship dance for a reason. You only perform it with the damsel you are courting when in mutual agreement that you wish to attempt a permanent bond. It isn't something you would do with every damsel who turns your eye. But there's no point in explaining further until the batch of you have your adult wings. So."

I looked them over again. "I want to set clear ground rules about damsels. Damsels are nitpicky creatures, and I want you to remain on your best behavior around them. Maintain a professional attitude and make our race proud, just as you would behave when on any other outing beyond the village. Don't expect to marry any damsel who briefly catches your fancy. Seriously courting mates is unnecessary. Marriage is pointless. Do not pursue it. It's a distraction, a drain, and I will not endorse it. Otherwise? From here on out, it's not my business what you do off the clock as you get older, and I don't want to know. As long as you're pursuing Seelie Courters, and not rabbits, or any other creature, go nuts. Have flings. No supervision. No rules, except curfew is 22:00 and I expect you home and in bed by that time. If you're going to do these things behind my back anyway, I'd prefer not to think about you engaging in them. That's disgusting and I don't want to get involved. Except with you." I pointed at Longwood. "With you, I absolutely draw the line at kissing. So long as I'm alive, that's as far as you're allowed to go. Nothing further."

Longwood put up his hands defensively. "I don't really get it. What else is there?"

"Exactly. I'm glad we got that cleared up. Now." I cracked my knuckles. "Since the subject of what constitutes as courtship is now out of the way, we can really get down to business. Let's talk about something that is not courtship and is, in fact, strictly platonic. I need a volunteer."

My pixies glanced at one another, apparently unable to catch my hint of where this subject was going. Otherwise, Sanderson would have been fingering his quill: a sort of pixie equivalent of jumping up and down and waving his arms above his head, oohing and ahhing like a Hosek.

After a minute had passed, Longwood stood. "I'll do it. What do I do?"

I paused. My requirements for a volunteer were not strict, but they included "Everyone except Longwood".

"You know what? On second thought, I'll ask Emery. Stay out here. I'll be back in a moment."

Emery. The thought of breaching the subject with her made me gag, but my options were greatly limited. It was evening, she'd come back from her work at Amity, and Ambrosine was an entire scry bowl call away. She'd do.

Still… When I saw her sitting at my little kitchen table, poking with a spork at some exotic Boudacian delicacy that involved a fat white grub surrounded by mint leaves and shredded cheese, I paused in the doorway to smooth down my hair. Then I straightened my tie. "So, Emery…"

"No," she said without looking up.

"I didn't even ask yet."

Emery stabbed the upturned grub in the belly with her spork. When she pulled back, it tore with a squish and a small spurt of juices. "I heard you out there at the pavilion. The window is open. I know what you want, and I'm not going to help you demonstrate that preening foreplay thingie you do."

"I need a partner," I protested, sweeping up to her. She slid her chair further away. I pulled in my wings and landed so I could lean my hands against the table without slapping my wings in her face. "Maybe you could pay me a bit of rent for staying here?"

"Frankly?" She looked up at me, blue eyes flashing. "I don't really want to know how my big brother does his private preening. Barf, barf, barf. That means, I think something is really gross."

I rolled my eyes. "It's not my fault. I didn't invent insects. I didn't give them their behaviors. I didn't choose to be born a Fairy with an insect patron. Now, come help me."

"No. The whole ritual is demeaning. Not to mention suggestive." Emery folded her arms and leaned back in her seat. "Fergus, you gave birth to them. Are you still going to let them crawl all over you when they're older? That's disgusting."

I put my foot down there. "It is not suggestive. The media has just attacked your generation and led you to believe so with all that 'Be more than your base instincts' and 'We've evolved from the old traditions' stuff. Emery, even with the media glaring mockingly down at them, every gyne and drone pair do this. For real. It's not supposed to be weird. Don't make it weird. Our ancestors were probably doing this stuff long before they even started kissing mouths to show affection."

"So, what?" She stuck her spork in the grub again, but this time brought it to her mouth. "This is a ritual for gynes and drones. Not kabouters like me. Do you gynes really just wander around and cuddle up to random drones for the night? Is that what you did that whole time you were on Earth? Living the high life, I guess. A loyal fairy waiting in bed for you every night. No wonder you didn't want to come home. You know, for some reason I just assumed you weren't attracted to drakes."

I closed my eyes, pressing my thumbs into my palms. Okay. "First, the preening ritual ends long before a gyne and drone retire to separate beds. You can't preen while you sleep. That doesn't make sense. And second, this has nothing to do with attraction. The gyne and drone relationship is just a relationship of business."

"It's a make-out session."

"It is not." I leaned all my weight against my hands, both of them pressed firmly into the table. That way, I wouldn't be tempted to smack her cheek. "The gyne only licks the drone's face. The drone only licks the gyne's neck. They don't kiss. I mean, I guess some gynes and drones might, if they're into that. But not me." I shook my head. "I've never been attracted to drakes. Especially pixie drakes for reasons I just assumed were obvious up until now."

Emery slipped another bite into her mouth, crunching on the mint leaf. "Didn't you kiss a brownie drake one time?"

"Hey." I pointed my finger at her. "That was on a dare. It doesn't count. And, he was in diapause. I made sure of that."

"Riiight. Dad says he walked in on you getting awfully smoochy with an elf drake over spring break back when you were in upper school."

"Dear dust, I can't believe that one night of poor choices is still haunting me all these hundreds of thousands of years later." I pinched my temples. "Two words: Western. Elf. We were under age of majority, which meant we couldn't just buy soda and sugar. It was a really lame party until I decided to get creative. Western elf effervescence always manifests into cookies and sweets if you kiss them long enough. He drew wands for it and I lost. I'm no urvogel, and I wasn't about to make a liar out of myself in front of the dazzled kids. That doesn't count either. Why was Ambrosine even telling you this without my approval? What about client confidentiality?"

"I dunno. We were making food one day and talking about cinnamon. And I just realized I will probably never get to enjoy one of the infamous pixie cinnamon kisses, so that's fine." This time, Emery took a sip from her cocoa mug. "When you're pregnant and have to go hands-off, aren't you always complaining that you'd even kiss an anti-fairy to get a coffee?"

"Anti-Fairy damsels exist. Where are you even going with this?" I drummed my nails against the table. "I'm not attracted to drakes, Emery. Even if I was, that doesn't change the fact that we're talking about my pixies. They're, you know…" I gestured with my hand. "Mine. I'm not molesting or abusing them. I'm literally only doing this whole licking thing to meet their biological needs. I'm not like Anti-Ambrosine. I'm not doing anything wrong. They need this. It's part of their culture and their biology."

Emery tapped her spork against the side of the table, staring at me as she chewed her giant mint grub cheese thing.

"Forget this." I flicked my hand at her and marched back to the kitchen doorway. "My pixies are doomed to all be either drones or gynes, and this is something I have to teach them. You'll just make it weird for them if you come out there, and that's exactly what I'm trying to avoid. It's their lifestyle. Don't shame them for it."

I point this out because times have begun to change in recent centuries. When I was growing up, everyone knew and accepted the simple, familiar relationship between a gyne and his drones. These days, suddenly it seems that not everyone is believing or supportive of the rituals that generations past had long engaged in. Sometimes, as drones who engage in preening behaviors with gynes, you may hear accusations that frustrate you. In such situations, it may be wiser to keep your mouth shut, and withhold the fact that we continue to practice our cultural traditions when away from the general public. Do not let yourself get drawn into a heated argument about this. That isn't the Pixie way. Maintain a level head and a cool disposition. Do not believe anyone who refers to you as a freak of nature.

By the time I made it out of the kitchen, Emery had sighed and poofed herself in front of me. "I'll do it," she grumbled. "The last thing I want you to do is go whining to Dad. His back and wings aren't what they used to be. Just show me what I have to do before I go out there."

I walked her through it, then led her outside to the pavilion. My pixies were still waiting. "Emery," I said, gesturing to her. "She's going to help me demonstrate my advanced preening ritual."

"Wait," said Sanderson, kneeling up in his seat. "You just wanted someone to give you licks? I could have volunteered for that."

There it was.

"You could have. But you didn't. Now, together Emery and I are going to-"

Hawkins' hand flew up. I raised my eyebrow. "Yes?"

"Okay. I don't know about grown-up preening, but I know how to do a waggle dance. The elves taught me."

Bayard snickered at the word 'waggle', and this time Madigan joined in. "You were… four," I said. "Why do you know how to do that?"

"We didn't have a lot of ways to entertain ourselves down on Earth. Especially when it snowed and we mostly had to stay in."

"All right. So you have a point of reference. Good. However, preening rituals are a different concept from the communication dance. We do not use the term 'waggle'. That's for bees. We're Fairies."

"Got it."

I stood at the head of the table, tapping one finger against my cheek. "Who can use their words to describe what preening is, and how it begins?"

Sanderson's hand shot into the air, but I asked Wilcox to answer instead. He folded his hands together on the table in front of him.

"Preening is the exchange of pheromones between two drakes, by using the tongue to work saliva into the pores. This nonverbal cue makes sure everyone always knows all the time who is dominant and who is subordinate. The dominant Fairy has the final say in everything, so people don't fight as much when working in teams. But if the dominant Fairy does subordinate licks to another Fairy, then that Fairy can sometimes become more dominant instead. This all depends on other things like age, species, and if a Fairy is married." Wilcox leaned back on the bench. "The smell of pheromones also let us find you all those times you used to let us loose in the office supply store and walk away."

"Okay, that's enough explaining."

"I didn't get to finish."

"Then stay on topic and finish."

Wilcox made a swirling gesture in the air with his finger. "Usually, when two Fairies meet and are going to preen, their faces are dry. That means their pores are sort of closed, and it's harder to absorb pheromones. You have to really dig your tongue in against the skin to get the pores wet enough to open. Those licks don't mean much, but then you do the gentle licks. That's when you do the patterns. There are twelve dominance signals and twelve submissive signals."

I nodded. "Which we will get to later. Thank you."

"I wasn't done." His finger stayed in the air. "If you don't want to do the rough licks with your tongue, you can also get a cloth wet. Then you can rub it on someone's face to open their pores, but that's rude. When you do subordinate licks, you're telling the dominant Fairy that you are loyal to them, that they can trust you, that you won't hurt them, and you would fight to defend them. When you do dominance licks, you're saying that you appreciate the subordinate Fairy, and you'll care for them when they're sick, and that you will make sure they have a place to sleep and food to eat before you eat or sleep. It's a ritual of respect. It would be sarcastic if you rubbed their face with a cloth first. You're supposed to do it the traditional way." Wilcox made claws with his hands. "Even if your partner has a really gross sweaty neck."

"Ew," Longwood muttered into his fingers.

"I kind of like the sweat though," Wilcox mused. "It adds a nice salty flavor."

I raised my eyebrow. "That will suffice. Thank you, Wilcox."

He upturned his hands. "I'm still talking. I wrote an extra credit essay about this once and I worked hard on it, so shh. Before the War of the Sunset Divide, preening rituals were big events. When you were going to meet someone special, and when you were expecting important company, you drew water to take a bath and washed up. It was a lot of work because it was a big deal. There were special soft preening clothes and everything. All the royal families, ambassadors, and other super-traditional, old-fashioned people still do deep preening rituals and have preening clothes like that. Preening would take a long time. Like, five whole minutes."

Oh, the poor creature.

"But, preening didn't work very well in close quarters during the war. Licks started getting more casual. Instead of washing up and then going to do long, deep licks, Fairies would be quick. Sometimes they wouldn't even ask about the gy- the, uh, dominant Fairy's preferred ritual. People who study history think that this was the main turning point where we started to move away from our nonverbal instincts, and dr- Er…"

He glanced over at Sanderson and Hawkins as he paused over the word. They both looked away. They were as quick and subtle as small children could be, but I let my gaze linger until Sanderson started tapping his fingers against the table.

Wilcox cleared his throat. "Submissive Fairies and dominant Fairies started acting like equals in public after this, instead of always obeying the rules about how subordinate Fairies couldn't talk in front of other people unless their- their dominant Fairy told them it was okay. And stuff. This is when we got Canterbury v. Oakwing to give subordinate Fairies more rights."

He looked at me. I looked back, my arms folded. Waiting. Apparently he hadn't finished. He went on.

"Then after that, since the war was over, the Anti-Fairies got ambassadors on the Council. They get two- the High Countess and the High Count. And when that happened, the Council ambassadors stopped licking each other in front of high-ranking Anti-Fairies. Probably because it would be insulting if they didn't lick a high-ranking Anti-Fairy too, but Anti-Fairies are fuzzy and I guess the old ambassadors were cowards. That's when they switched to doing quick licks and more hand-greetings at the Council meetings, and at other events like coronations. That started happening more and more. Soon, most Fairies started wearing higher collars to cover their necks. Especially less traditional Fairies. And I think the whole 'licks are getting kind of weird' thing started as time passed after that. Because then it started to be a thing where you didn't show your neck much except for licks, so it was kind of special and intimate when you did show your neck."

"Very nice. Are you done now?"

"Almost. My point was, preening is more casual now because lots of Fairies are breaking away from tradition. A long time ago, it would have been super offensive if you didn't do the whole ritual with someone you respected. But now, if people are in a special setting where they're expected to lick instead of shake left hands, they usually do it while standing normally and just marking out the patterns. It's symbolic instead of literal. Mostly, only the ambassadors and subordinate Fairies who live with one dominant Fairy for a long time do deep preening rituals these days. You really respect someone if you take your time to learn a Fairy's special ritual and do rough licks with them. The rougher licks at the start of a traditional preening ritual are called foreplay licks."

"I really don't like to use that word, but yes. That's right. That was a very effective and extensive explanation. Is there more?"

"No. Now I'm done." Wilcox smoothed a wrinkle in his handout. "But when do we get the talk about the other context we use the 'f' word in?"

I stared down at him as he batted his eyelashes at me. "I thought you were attracted to rabbits."

"I am attracted to rabbits." The batting eyelashes were joined by clasped hands beside his cheek. "Why do you think I'm so interested in becoming a master shapeshifter?"

"Um…" I looked at Emery, who had stood silently nearby the whole time. She held up her arms in surrender and backed away. Wilcox waited until he could sense a bead of sweat trickling behind my neck before he answered his own question.

"So that I can study abroad for a semester with the rabbits, of course. I have to be small and rabbit-like to fit in their burrows and be accepted as one of their own."

I snapped my fingers. "Yes. That is totally where I thought you were going with that."

Wilcox smirked. He pressed the heels of his hands against his cheeks. "Oh, my precious lagomorphs. Their big ears, their fur, their fluffy little tails. Rabbits are soft and nice to snuggle. People should be more like rabbits. Maybe then, I would actually be attracted to people."

Longwood covered his face with his papers, his ears and neck turning pink beneath his freckles while the others looked semi-curiously on at his reaction. I resisted the urge to roll my eyes again.

"As long as you are interested in rabbits, then the word 'foreplay' in a reproductive context does not concern you. We will talk about this later. Maybe. If ever." I motioned for Emery to stand beside me at the head of the table. "Okay. Up 'til now, I've either given you all dominance licks by crouching down your level, or by setting you on my lap. But, because we're having a meeting, I thought I ought to demonstrate the proper way I want it done when you're older. Then we can start working our way up to that point." I held up my finger. "Submissive licks come first. Dominance licks last. Different authority figures, like other ambassadors or future Head Pixies, might have different ways of doing things, but I have a set system I prefer so we can keep things efficient and organized. Emery will now demonstrate what I expect all of you to do when you're grown. Watch her."

Emery folded her right arm behind her back and extended her left hand, palm facing up. I took it with my right, palm facing down. She bowed her head.

"For the record," she muttered, "I still hate this."

"That's not my problem."

Emery straightened again. With a light tug, she pulled me against her. I placed my hand behind her shoulder, and she slipped her arms behind me until she found the knobs of my wings. "You always move towards me," I explained as my pixies watched with unblinking eyes. "And I respond to you. Not the other way around. That's standard subordinate practice throughout our culture. It's a ritual about you presenting yourselves before me, and me accepting you, but never forcing you. See?"

Emery leaned forward, dipping me down with her, fingers tight around my wings. She held me that way with my feet in the air at a slant. Her wings buzzed to keep us slightly airborne (and my thrown-back head from smacking the hard ground). She brought her face near my neck, though she didn't poke out her tongue. Her glinting eyes dared me to question her choice.

"I can't do that," Longwood protested. "You're too heavy."

"I am not," I said, still upside-down. My hat had fallen off in the process, and my glasses were slipping too. The apexes of my wings fluttered against the floor. "It might take practice, but I hardly weigh more than any of you. Flower petals as a weight unit is simply a measure of determining how much sugar and medicine we can safely consume. But as far as statistical significance is concerned, we're all weightless. I just have more mass."

"I can do it." Sanderson hopped to his feet. "Can I try?"

"You're too small to try it on me, but why don't you try it on Bayard? Or Madigan? I forgot he was here. He's smaller. Try it on Madigan."

I tugged Emery's arm, urging her to pull me up. She did so, and when she let me go, she withdrew her hands from my wings and spun me around. When I had settled back on my feet and rubbed the faint dizziness from my eyes, I surveyed the pavilion. Then I released my sister's hand. "Thank you, Emery. You're done."

She shook out her wings before skimming back to the manor. I walked up and down the length of the table as my pixies made their clumsy attempts at dipping each other down. Some managed better than others did. Sanderson did fine so long as he was practicing on smaller pixies, but when the time came for him to try it on Hawkins or Wilcox, they proved too heavy for him. Even with his wings spinning, he would overbalance and crash in a heap on the vapor.

I kept one eye on Longwood the whole time. I didn't miss the fact that, like some kind of instinct, he always fell naturally into the more dominant role.

"Well," I said as my pixies began to lose their focus on the task, "that basically concludes our meeting. Thank you all for being on such good behavior. Are there any last questions before we go get snacks? Anyone?"

"I have a question," said Wilcox, back in his seat with his arms folded.

"Yes?"

"Can I go back to school? You pulled me out after I was baptized so I could work and because the other kids were picking on me, but I'm 2,500 now. I want to go back."

"Oh. Well…" I adjusted my glasses. "That wasn't really in my plan. I can teach you everything you need to get by in the workplace. That's all you need to know."

Wilcox shook his head. "I don't want to learn only about the workplace. I want to learn about animals, people, cultures, stars, books, and a lot of stuff. I want to do stuff besides math and all the same copying and filing work all the time. I don't want to spend my life writing nutrition labels and textbooks with words that only adults can understand. I don't want to live through instruction manuals. I want to live through the stuff the instruction manuals actually talk about. I want to read textbooks meant for my age." All of a sudden, he slammed both palms on the table. "Stifling is trifling! Stifling is trifling! Stifling is trifling!"

Sanderson threw out his usual pointing finger. "Why does Wilcox get to go to school if I don't?"

Hawkins raised his hand. "If these two are going to school, I want to go to school too. All my friends get to go to school."

"I want to go with them," said Longwood. "Otherwise, you'll just give me all their chores."

Wilcox raised his voice. "Stifling is trifling! Stifling is trifling!"

"You don't need to go to school. Calm down." I switched my attention from him to Sanderson. "Sanderson, don't be ridiculous. You want to go to school now too? What about retinue duties?"

"Those are in the morning and the evening, sir."

"Last time you went to school, you didn't like it."

He shrugged his wings. "Yeah, but that was before Wilcox got to go, and I was only forty-five. I'm the oldest. I should get to go if he does."

"No." I picked up my copy of the handout and my empty coffee mug. "I'm not sending you to school. I'm not going to deal with you when you decide to have a meltdown and need me to pick you up."

"I won't need to be picked up," he protested. "I can ping home any time I want."

"No, you can't. The school has barriers up so people can't just poof in and out whenever they want. That's why we have school buses."

Sanderson sprang to his feet. "Stop trying to control me! You can't tell me what to do."

"Youthful rebellion?" I wrinkled my nose. "Sanderson, I don't follow this logic. You were perfectly behaved in the Eros Nest for five hundred years. We've only been out a few days, and you've had two outbursts about my requests already. What happened?"

"I don't know!" Sanderson covered his ears. "You're just being unreasonable."

"I'm being unreasonable? You're being unreasonable. You were fine until right now. Your behaviors are erratic and don't make any sense."

"You don't make any sense."

Longwood, Hawkins, and Bayard leaned away. My fingers clenched around the handle of the mug until I thought for certain it would split right off the rest of the cup. "Dear Nuada, you are so frustrating sometimes."

"You're so frustrating sometimes!"

"Okay, that's it. Stop copying me."

"I can't." Sanderson's hands moved from his ears to his hair. "I'm just like you. I just want to go to school like you, sir. I just want to have all the same experiences you did. I want to be lab partners with Idona like you were lab partners with Magalee. I look like you, but I want to be smart and have real friends I can see all the time and that we won't move away from to go to the Eros Nest or go live in the middle of the forest with no people! Like you! I didn't ask Mother Nature to make me your clone. I hate this. I wish you knew what life would be like if I wasn't in it working hard and being good. Then you'd wish you were nicer to me!"

I smacked my hand against the table. "Stop it. You're here, and your existence can't be unwritten from the timeline. There's no point in acting otherwise. Suck it up. You live with me, and so you have to follow my rules. That's always been the deal."

"Stifling is trifling," Wilcox began again, and this time Sanderson joined him.

"Stop." I dropped the mug and papers back on the table and put my hands over their mouths. "Both of you, calm down."

"Stifling is trifling!"

"Education suffocation leads to limitation!"

"Poor learning, poor performance!"

"Bad boss! Bad boss! Bad boss!"

I threw my hands into the air. "Fine! You can go to school next summer! Are you happy now?"

Sanderson continued to huff, his fingers wrapped around the mesh of metal holes in the pavilion table. But Wilcox smiled up at me with tired eyes. "Much happier than I was before, H.P. Thank you."

I dismissed them with a wave of my hand. "The snack bowl is in the cupboard on top of the icebox. I trust at least one of you is competent enough with your magic to get it down. If it's really that difficult, ask Emery for help. I'll be there in just a few minutes."

Not that I spent the few minutes doing much of anything, really. I scratched my head and rotated my mug around on the table.

When Wilcox spoke of school, he spoke of it with praise and passion underlying his voice, giving away his true thoughts and feelings on the matter. He sounded confident that he could take care of himself in the face of any bullies. The memory of him coming home from school, singed and salty after the other kids had first teased him about his pointy gray hat, wafted through my mind. He'd already tried hard and had to face scathing words before. Why was he expecting this time to be any different?

And Sanderson? First he argued with me about eating corn on the cob. Now he wanted to go back to school? He wanted to leave me and go back to school?

"Is this normal?" I muttered, staring at the dirty ring of brown in the bottom of my mug. "Is this just what it's like to have nymphs grow up?"

After massaging my temples for awhile, I left the pavilion and crossed back to the manor myself. As I climbed the front steps, my senses picked up Sanderson and Longwood scuffling in the hall between my office and the kitchen. A lot. I yanked open the front door, snapping my fingers. "Hey, hey, break it up. Why are you two fighting?"

Sanderson slammed Longwood to the solid floor, sat on his stomach, and pinned him there with his hands beside his ears. Then he looked up. Maybe he'd just needed some space away from me for a moment; he already looked a lot calmer now than he had out at the table when Wilcox was riling him up. He said, "We're playing to see which one of us would be the dominant Aos Sí and which one of us would get pregnant with the nymph. He lost. Now he has to pretend to be sick like you, and Wilcox is going to be our baby and live inside his pouch for the rest of the day. I'm going to fill out the paperwork about it."

Longwood kicked his legs, which sent the star on his hat jingling back and forth. "I'll win when we grow up! Wilcox said you'll be the smallest after we moult. When I get my adult wings, I'll beat you at wrestling."

"Nuh-uh! Prove it!"

"I will. I'll wrestle you every day for the rest of our lives, and I'll always win."

"Not if I practice. I'll start practicing right now so I'm good at fighting. You can't beat me if I'm just plain better than you."

"Um." I rubbed my mouth and sized them up, tangled together on the floor. "No wrestling anybody after you get your adult wings."

Sanderson frowned. "Why? It's fun."

"'Fun' is unbecoming of a pixie. Wrestling is very unprofessional behavior. If this is what you think is fun, then fun isn't allowed on my property. When you get your adult wings, I expect you to behave like an adult who's earned them. Adult pixies don't wrestle."

Sanderson sat back on his heels. "You used to wrestle China."

Longwood pushed himself up. "Wait, I thought you said Fairies don't wrestle anymore."

"Yeah, no." I turned on my heels and walked back outside with my hands up. "Not involved."

As you can see, by avoiding the topic of sleeping with damsels, I effectively prevented my pixies from becoming curious about the subject and wishing to experiment with it themselves. Thus, I raised a company who learned nothing about the concept without my telling them explicitly, and who have all as a result remained very good and clean little drakes through to the present day. I'm a great Head Pixie.

Sanderson and Longwood separated at some point. I know this because Longwood approached my office half an hour later, gingerly cracking open my sliding door. "Yes?" I asked, still scrawling words in the journal of pixie gyne and drone behavior I was working on.

"So, um…" Longwood stepped inside, wringing his hands. The taste of sweat permeated the energy field around him, warm and stinging on my tongue. "I wanted to talk to you, sir."

"I figured you would." I blew on the page of damp ink. "I assume this is about you feeling like you're meant to be a dominant Fairy, and now you want the talk about the nests and the honeycomb."

Longwood blinked. "No. I don't have questions about dominance. Um. Should I?"

"No." After sparing him a quick glance, I licked the end of my quill. "What did you want?"

"It's about the cù sith you're keeping up in your bedroom, sir."

"Our resident Rice? Go on."

Longwood shook his head. "I just wanted to ask something I've been thinking about for a few days."

"Mmhm. Mark it, Marquess Markell."

He inhaled. "So, are you not Daoist, sir? I always thought you were."

"Oh, I am."

"But you don't act like it. You never read King Nuada's scripture, or say any kind of prayers, or fast without food, or sing special songs, and you still use magic on Thursday. And now you have a cù sith."

I stopped. Then I lowered my quill. "I don't need to read the scripture. I learned all about the Tuatha Dé Danann during my history classes, back when they still taught those things in public school. I still remember the stories. It wouldn't be a productive use of my time to read them again. I don't sing. I never sing for anyone. Ever. And as for not using magic on Thursday, I had so many pixies to take care of that it would have been impractical to try going without. But I assure you, I believe the Daoist teachings. Nothing I've done will cause me to die a dustless death. I'm always very careful about that. Did I ever tell you how the Dame Head and I saved a unicorn's life when we were collecting its blood during our coming-of-age trial? That was a close one; I'm too good a shot. Apparently Anti-Fergus and I have something in common after all."

"So you still consider yourself Daoist."

"I do," I said, wondering when he'd learned the word 'consider'. I suppose he picked it up from Ambrosine, or something. I certainly didn't go around telling people I 'consider myself' anything when a simpler word like 'think' would do just fine. I took off my glasses and rubbed my eyes. "Above all, Daoism is a religion of self-actualization, charity, and collaboration. No one can achieve their true abilities if they're struggling for basic needs. I want to help people by lifting some of the weights from their shoulders until they can help themselves."

Longwood looked at me in silence. I frowned.

"Okay… I'll give an example. I'm good at paperwork. I help people with their paperwork so they don't have to worry about it, and they can worry about the stuff they're good at. That's what I give to the universe. Sanderson is good at being brave and loyal under pressure. Oh, and cleaning. Dear dust, does that little neat freak clean. His anti-self is good at paying attention to others. Hawkins is good at creating budgets and gathering materials. His anti-self is good at sacrificing his own wants for the greater good. Wilcox is good at both learning and teaching others. Caudwell is honest to a fault (or would be if there was such a thing) and in tune with body language cues. Bayard can identify the weaknesses of others so they can learn to overcome them. Madigan is attentive to the environment and good at mediating during fights. Even Keefe is already excellent at finding things and joining in when other people are working on a task. And Springs is persistent in achieving his goals, like walking and flying. That's what they give. See? Everyone can benefit other people somehow. That's what Daoism means to me. It's more than just reciting basic Fairykind history."

"What am I good at, sir?"

"Um. Yes. You are… You're very… Well, see, you're…" I scratched behind my ear, then reached out and patted his shoulder. "Let's not worry about that until you're older. You have plenty of time to figure that out."

Longwood folded his wings. "Oh. Okay." He started for my office door, then stopped and turned around. "H.P.?"

"Yes?"

He swallowed and dropped his gaze. "Did it start raining at the Lia Fáil because Sunnie was mad that I'm the pixie marquess instead of Sanderson?"

"What?" I squinted. "No, of course not. Why would you think that?"

"Well, I'm a Leaves Year, and Sanderson's a Water. When I was little, Mom used to tell me about the nature spirits, and when we were building the village, she said Sunnie-"

I slammed my hand on the edge of my desk. I'd been gone for the last five hundred years, but Longwood had still been trained too well to spring back in alarm. Though, he did glance up with his eyebrows hovering high as usual. I stared down at him, then pressed the fingertips of one hand to my forehead and found my inner calm again. The light shifted outside as clouds below moved between us and the Sun.

"The rain is rain. It doesn't mean anything. Only a Zodii would convince himself that it does. In Pixie Village, we error on the side of Daoist beliefs."

Longwood shifted his weight between his feet. "H.P.? Can I tell you a secret?"

Now? During a talk on spirituality? A thin coil of dread snaked around my core and squeezed. My fingers curled around the edge of my desk. "Go ahead."

He itched behind his neck and glanced over his shoulder. Then he looked up at me again. After steeling himself, he folded his arms. "Okay. I'll tell you, but please don't hate me."

"I'm not going to hate you. You know you can always talk to me about anything, don't you, Longwood?"

"Yeah, but… Please don't hate me. I've been thinking a lot. And… I want you to take me back to the shrine. I want you to cancel my baptism and my promise kiss to Dame Longwood. Being Daoist…" He shook his head, scrunching up his nose. "H.P., I'm happy you believe in stuff like the Daoine. But I don't know if I do. I've met my anti-self. He's kinda dopey and drools a lot, and nods along with what everyone else says. And Dame Longwood is so jittery that she faints like every five minutes. I don't…" Longwood looked down at his hands and shook his head again. "I don't get it. They're nothing like me. Why are they like that?"

"They're your opposites."

"That's why it's weird. We're so different. I think I'm smart and brave. I don't understand how we could possibly get along. Do I just get stupid when I die? Do I turn into a scaredy sprite? And I really have to be inside the same body with them one day?" He squirmed. "What if I don't want to? It sounds kind of gross. I don't want to lose what makes me me."

I pinched the upper portion of my nose. "I obviously haven't been clear. When you become Daoine, you don't lose yourself. You become something greater. You become the way you would have been if you had been born Aos Sí. Unified and strong."

"Then how can the other Longwoods and I come together equally? How can we not be afraid of anything and still be so scared that we faint all the time? How can I, who you think is smart enough to be the next Head Pixie, combine myself equally with the drooling, staring guy who takes a whole minute to answer a simple question, and then when he finally does answer he- he slurs his words and just says yes? H.P., I want to believe, but I don't get it. Daoism doesn't make sense to me."

I pushed my thumb along the edge of my desk.

Sometimes we taught that three counterparts came together 'equally' after death because equal was a simple concept and a friendly word. But in truth, there was such a thing called a magic pool. A pool was the metaphysical storage of magic that a set of counterparts could draw their powers from, all of them holding shares in it of slightly different amounts. Purebloods like the von Strangles had larger pools, which left them large in both stature and power.

My own pool was not impressive. Crossbreeding among nix, imp, and leprechaun races on Ambrosine's side and who knows what on Solara's, and inbreeding among Whimsifinados too closely related to each other, had cut it down to size by the time it reached me. The Fergusi pool was not a large one. My magic had been shaky ever since my youth, and since pool size was influenced by genetics, all the pixies after me would share the same fate. The firstborn always received the most magic; Sanderson's pool wasn't much smaller than mine. But steadily down the line, every successive pixie would receive smaller and smaller pools of magic, until there was simply no more to go around, and the last of my offspring most likely ended up flightless and tomte. Stripped of their promised magical heritage. That's partly why Fairies took godkids. Granting actual wishes made our natural, everyday magic a hundred times stronger- far above what we could channel purely from our pools and shares.

As the hosting counterpart between the three of us, the only one of us who had magic lines connecting me to the energy field, I drew from the pool directly. Whenever I dropped my lines and began to asphyxiate, so did they, regardless of where they might be in the universe. SHAMPAX could not save them. When Anti-Fergus and the Dame Head both gasped or coughed or bled too much at the same time and indirectly competed with one another to draw their energy from me in a desperate mental scuffle, sometimes I could feel that in my third of our shared core.

There were magic pools, which were the maximum amount of magic three counterparts could draw from at once before "capping off" and managing to poof up only half the table, animal, or building they'd been attempting to. There was a reason I had sought out an architect instead of pinging up buildings for Pixie Village myself.

There were magic pools, and then there were magic shares. Each counterpart held a share in their own magic pool which they could draw from individually. The reason Cherry had died was because his pool had been split in half three months after his birth. Not into thirds. He'd had no refract counterpart to take her share. Because of this, he had drowned in his own magic pool, as though he sat in a sinking canoe in a lake, fruitlessly tossing out buckets of water with Anti-Cherry beside him, but no third member to help. With Cherry's death, the Anti-Cherry had not had any lines through Cherry Prime to connect to the energy field, and had gone down after him.

Share size manifested in the height one's crown or hat floated above their head. Daoism teachings told me that share size, too, determined how much influence each counterpart had on their Daoine form after death. The Dame Head had the highest crown between the three of us. And because pool and share size were mainly inherited, down the line, all pixie refracts generally had the highest crowns between all of us.

I knew what that meant and as a juvenile it had frustrated me. But I had come to terms with my fate and accepted it. Because it was biology. Because it was fact. Because it was something. I had to believe some aspect of my consciousness survived after death, even if the Daoine form I took on drew the majority of its personality from the Dame Head instead of from me. We were magical creatures who survived for hundreds of thousands or even over a million years. I refused to believe everything that made me me could be wiped so permanently from the planes of existence in an instant. I refused to believe I didn't matter to the universe.

I did not tell this to Longwood. My pixies had been taught that becoming Daoine was an ascension into fullness. Into more. When he was struggling with his beliefs, he would not want to hear he would be receiving less than I may have inadvertently implied, that his fate was to trade his fearlessness for jittery nerves, his uncertainties for religious passion. Instead, I only looked at him, raising my eyebrows. I adjusted the arm of my glasses, and kept one finger over my lips. When Longwood listened to me talk, he usually did so without interruptions or noises of any kind, just gazing and being still and attentive. For now, I could do the same.

"I don't think I want to be just like you, H.P.," Longwood went on. He raked his fingers across the spikes in the back of his hair. Then he drew the Zodii wedding band from the inside pocket of his coat and rolled it between his fingers. "I don't know if I want to explore something else because I believe in something else, or… or if I'm only doing this because I want to clash with you? That doesn't make sense when I say it, but it's kind of how I feel. I don't want to follow you blindly. Something just tells me I should do what you're not already doing. And right now, I like learning about the zodiac. I want to make a pilgrimage to the Leaves Temple in the High North Region. And then I'll choose what I want to believe after that."

"You're 2,016," I said, folding my hands over my mouth. "You're too young to decide these things."

"But you baptized me to be Daoist when I was even younger. Like a lot younger."

China's final revenge. A stubbornly Zodii pixie. The same pixie I had just named as my successor. I probably deserved this. I kept my hands where they were, tonguing my cheek, when Longwood set the ring on my desk. It almost looked broken, with the way its band didn't form a complete circle. It had been custom made to fit around webbed selkie fingers.

"This was Mom's," he said. He stared at it, and made a small move towards it again, like he wasn't sure he wanted to let it go. But, kleptomaniac as he was, he hesitated and then withdrew his hand without it. "She said I could have it to remember her by. While I appreciate her offer, it has a citrine on it. That's the Soil gem and she was married to a Soil. I'm a Leaves. I can't go around wearing that if I'm not married or even betrothed. You can have it, if you want it. I'll take it back if you don't."

I eyeballed the ring, but didn't touch it. "Do any of the others feel the same way about Zodiism that you do?"

Longwood took a step back. "H.P., I don't squeal."

My folded hands moved to cover my face. I kept them there for a moment, then brought them down on my desk. All right. I would not be careless with him as I had been with China the other day, arguing and shouting. I had lost control of myself. Not again. Never again. Especially not with a gyne. I would maintain my composure even when challenged by a young gyne. I was a well-adjusted member of my society and more than my base instincts.

"Okay," I said. "Okay. I'm your employer. Not your dad. Unless your personal life interferes with your working one, or may endanger the pixie race, what you choose to do when off the clock is none of my business. I will expose you all to Daoism, because this is my home and I will not stifle my beliefs. I won't make an effort to expose you to Zodii teachings, but I won't force any of you to follow beliefs that you don't want to. I will schedule an appointment at the Faeheim shrine so you can return Dame Longwood's promise kiss to her, and be released from your vow. Since you'll be the one making the move on her, I assume you'll have to practice some aspect of the ceremonial dance. You'll need to find the time to do so after hours."

Watchful silence. I held his gaze, and he held mine.

"Realize I will not endorse this. It's not my business, nor my place, to get involved on either side of the coin. You have a scry bowl. I will schedule the thing because I am your adult guardian, but you will need to find your own escort to Faeheim. And to the Leaves Temple in the High North. You can use me, Ambrosine, or Emery as resources to get advice, but if you want to contact someone outside of the village, I expect you to do that on your own."

"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir."

"Good… Now let's talk." I lowered my gaze to my hands. "I don't know everything about Zodiism. Maybe I'm telling things wrong. China knows this stuff better. But I'll tell you what I understand. The elemental nature spirits on our zodiac are the seven sons of Tarrow- the spirit of luck, of reality, and the firstborn of Mother Nature and Father Time. Our days of the week take their names from these seven sons. There are many nature spirits in the universe, though even the Zodii acknowledge most of them to be wild rogues. Spirits of gravity, harvest, patience, light, shadow, travel, and so on. Tarrow's seven sons are the best known and most powerful. They are portrayed in Zodii folklore as benevolent demigods who listen to and answer prayers if your plea is in align with what the Zodii call your destiny, or fate. But the actual reality is-"

Longwood cleared his throat and gave me a pointed look. I looked back at him.

"But some of us believe," I rephrased myself carefully, "that they are beings who are chaotic and unrestrained. Long ago, their raw powers were used for creation. They helped shape the Earth. But when rivalry flared and jealousy took hold, they became creatures of destruction. At the end of the Sealing War, they were magically bound to the echo chambers of their respective temples. Longwood. Longwood, listen to me. The seven nature spirits are brothers who are constantly clashing and always struggling to push each other down. There's a story that during the War of the Sunset Divide, Zodii captains prayed for support before their battles, only for that spirit to wipe out all members of the captain's own army who did not share their zodiac."

"You don't know if that's true."

"Hmm." I traced the shape of a mountain on my desk with my finger. "I'm only telling you what I've been able to gather from a distance. Tarrow's sons do not gain their powers from the Big Wand's energy field like we Fairykind do, Longwood. Their powers grow with conversion and worship. Temple visits. They have potential to use their powers for good. But as I understand it, the brothers are more interested in striking out at each other, and hurting each other's followers any way they can, than in helping Fairykind with matters they deem trivial. Like crabs in a bucket, they would all rather pull each other down than let one of them gather enough power to break their bonds."

Longwood shifted his shoulders. "Mom says when you pray in their temples, sometimes they'll come out of their echo chambers and talk to you. They can, if they want."

"That's not true. They were imprisoned, and the chambers are soundproof on both sides. They can't hear anything in there. Prayers or otherwise. Nothing but their own wails and clinking chains echoing around them. Frankly, they're all bonkers by now. Also, please don't call China 'Mom'." I leaned back in my chair, hands resting on my stomach. "That's what I understand. Every so often the nature spirits rage against their bindings, hoping that finally, today is the day they've managed to accumulate enough magic to free themselves and escape into the world. But they don't. They never seem able to. Instead, their powers manifest on Earth in storms, volcanoes, landslides, the leaves changing color and falling off, or… by shattering a committed relationship and turning passion to bitter thoughts and divorce." I shifted my fingers. "My point is, Sunnie cannot see beyond the walls of his echo chamber. He is upset with his chains, not with you. That's what I believe. The storm today means nothing. Put it out of your mind."

"Thank you for talking to me, H.P.," Longwood murmured. He moved off, rubbing his cheek. I watched him go without blinking. Then I took China's ring from my desk, put it in my drawer, and locked it away for good.

"There might be a problem with my cù sith plan," I told Rice when I floated into my bedroom. He lay at the end of my bed, curled up nose to tail until I came in and he raised his head. I pushed my hands through my hair. "So. Longwood has just informed me that he's Zodii. I don't know if you know this, but the Zodii don't believe that coin sith can die. The fear that your soul won't make it to Plane 23 if you die when in the body of a fairy dog is a Daoist tradition."

Rice tilted his head. "And how does that make you feel?"

"I'm still working on that."

He narrowed his eyes. His claws tightened in my sheets. Foiled again. I raised my eyebrow, leaning back on my bed with my arms folded beneath my head. My wings shifted.

"Rice, were you married back before you became a cù sith?"

"Strudel, I'm married now."

I gazed up at the brown beams running across my bedroom ceiling. "Do you have any nymphs? From before?"

Rice picked himself up, turned his back, and flopped down again without saying anything. I reached behind me and scratched his fur with roaming fingers, until he finally spoke again.

"Nymphs were never really an option for me."

"I thought the fairy baby mandate didn't include ishigaq. It's 'fairy baby mandate' with a lowercase 'f', after all. Ishigaq don't have a history of breeding mutations like the fairies do."

Rice rolled over so I could rub his stomach. "Have you noticed one of your pixies is attracted to Anti-Fairies?"

I considered my response to his abrupt change of subject carefully, then said, "What are you talking about?"

"The pixie that likes the rabbits." Rice glanced up at me. "He's clearly attracted to Anti-Fairies. Their big ears, their soft fur, their tufted tails- Come on, popsicle. That was obvious, and I've only been here two days. You can see it in his eyes. He just hasn't figured it out yet."

Wilcox's innocent face appeared in my mind's eye, all paper-pale skin, tired eyes, and sunken cheeks, with his hair tufted and scruffy below the ears instead of smooth and cowlicked in the back like the rest of us. I pinched my nose with the knuckles of my free hand and suppressed a sigh. Okay, well… blitz. Did I prefer him being attracted to Anti-Fairies, or to lagomorphs?

Sanderson essentially revealing himself to be a wisp-kisser, Longwood coming out as Zodii, and now Wilcox being attracted to Anti-Fairies, all in a matter of two days. At least Hawkins was an obedient child. Sometimes I forgot about Hawkins because I didn't have to worry about him. All of a sudden, he was my new favorite pixie.

"You said you could see Wilcox was attracted to Anti-Fairies by his eyes?" I asked, turning my attention to rubbing his stomach again. Rice pulled a face, which couldn't have been easy to do as a cù sith, but he managed.

"I didn't mean you could look at someone's eyes and check to see if they're attracted across Court boundaries or whatever. That's dumb as sprinkles. I just meant, sometimes you can tell. Eyes are the windows to the soul, after all. Don't you think so?"

"I can see why you would think that."

He kicked my elbow for avoiding any risk of telling lies again.

"Are you attracted to Anti-Fairies too?" I asked. Phrasing it like a question instead of an accusation was painful, but I managed it anyway. I didn't take my hand off his belly, and I didn't clench it either, even though I wanted to do both. Rice shifted beneath me, then rolled over so my hand traced across his back.

"Yeah. Does that bother you, milkshake?"

I didn't answer. Not while he was a cù sith.

"I fell for a beautiful damsel," Rice went on. He paused to lick his forepaw. "Pecan pie perfect in every way, except for being blue. It seemed like marrying her counterpart would fix things. It didn't work. Just wasn't attracted to the woman. Kind of a nag. So I went cù sith. I thought it would be easy to swap souls with an Anti-Fairy after that, but it's a lot apple crisping harder than I thought it would be. I'm getting kind of sick of it. I don't even know if she'd still want me. And, all the Anti-Fairies I've caught engaging in one of the Three Deep Sins so far are damsels. I'm not into that tart. I just really want to sugar cookie with her drake and damsel, y'know?" He held his paws together. "This is me all the time. You know when you get that feeling like, 'Man, I really need to dumpling with that damsel'."

"Nope." I got off the bed and stepped into my float-in closet to change my clothes. The conversation topic had strayed into romance, and I didn't find it relative to me at all.

Rice started growling and yapping as I was taking off my shirt. The snapping sound of bubbles suggested my personal scry bowl had just been contacted, so I yanked my shirt back down and stepped out to take the call. To my alarm, and dread, the Purple Robe was on the other end.

"Hello?" I greeted, tracing my hand along my hat. He did not look happy. No, not at all. The Purple Robe stood, leaning over his desk and his crystal ball, his sleeves covering his shaking arms so the only bits poking out were his clamped fingers clutching the table's edge.

"Head Pixie," he said, his voice steely calm. "I have a concern about one of your pixies."

I shifted my gaze between his searing golden eyes. "Did something come up that I should know about?"

He bent his head. "The Pink Castle library was broken into earlier today. Four scrolls have disappeared."

"Oh."

"Indeed. Most notably, our copy of Core Recovery is missing. I don't think I can emphasize the importance of this text enough, as it describes the process of transferring a soul from a dying Fairy to the body of another, allowing the fusion and continued existence of thought patterns in some manipulated form. This is very dangerous black surgical magic to be utilized by trained professionals only, in desperate situations between consenting individuals. It is not intended to fall into common hands who may play with the ancient spells thinking all is fun and games. Also missing are The Purest Form of Magic, The Three Months Before Counterparts, and-" He paused over the last title. Then, reluctantly, he massaged his jaw. "Hosting Counterparts: A History. Which is an especially dull text and not anything you should be interested in reading."

"You don't think one of my pixies took those scrolls, do you?"

"Actually, I do." The Purple Robe leaned even further over his crystal ball, and I leaned away from my scry bowl. With a flick of the wrist, a thin wand appeared in his hand. "This was found at the scene of the crime."

He held it up so I could see. The two pieces were broken in half, possibly dropped and accidentally stepped on. Seared along the shaft was the name, Fergus Whimsifinado. The name etched on all my pixies' wands thanks to our identical DNA.

"Is that ipewood?" I asked, dreading the answer.

"It is."

Longwood. Caudwell. Madigan. It didn't make sense.

I balanced the scry bowl on my knees as I massaged my head with both hands, and Rice looked on in silence. "It would seem that your thief did not use their wand to avoid detection by turning invisible, or to escape the room, then. The thief must have had another way out, such as another wand. The wand in your hand could simply be a diversion left behind to make you think it was one of my pixies. But still…" I pushed my hand through my hair. "Your library is supposed to be warded. The amount of magic required to override your defenses… It doesn't make sense. My pixies are juveniles. They can't channel that kind of energy. And, my pixies were here in Pixie Village today."

"All day?" the Purple Robe pressed. "Under your supervision? Are you sure?"

I did not respond. Which of my three ipewood-wielding pixies would do such a thing? Could it be true? Longwood was a kleptomaniac. Caudwell had been excused from our meeting due to the amount of rustling paper causing him anxiety. I always lost track of small and quiet Madigan.

Wilcox especially was a bookworm. Sanderson had been frustrated with me today too. Hawkins craved excitement and adventure. Bayard was a jokester who sought out trouble just for the thrill of it. Even Emery and Ambrosine had access to ipewood wands registered for pixies and could have done something with them- I had no idea how many had been bought during my time in the Eros Nest. Even Keefe and Springs might have accidentally ended up in Fairy World while no one was watching them during their supposed nap. Maybe the Pink Castle's library system didn't keep out babies, and they'd randomly knocked things down and pushed them under shelves or chairs before scuttling away, tiny and unseen.

The Purple Robe sighed, lowering his head and the hand that held the wand. He didn't relax his arms.

"Head Pixie, I implore you to speak with your pixies about this. This- this disrespectful, thieving behavior will not be tolerated. Keep a closer eye on them in the future."

"Yes, sir. I will ask my pixies to return your texts, and try to glean information about how any of them could have broken into your library in the first place. If the scrolls don't turn up when I ask for them, I'll search this place myself. We don't usually keep scrolls in Pixie Village, so there aren't many places for them to hide in plain sight. If I find them, I'll return them to you as soon as possible."

"Thank you," was his short reply, and he ended the call.

"So your shortcakes are turning on you already," Rice observed, kneading my covers with his paws. He curled up beside me as I flopped back on my bed. "Didn't see that one coming, cheeseball. And you only just got coronated this week, too. That's rough."

"I really should talk to them." I rubbed my temples, then let my hand drop to Rice's fur. As I yawned, I pulled his fluffy body closer to my chest and shut my eyes. "But I'm sure it can wait until morning."

---

A/N: Text to Life - All gynes personalize their preening rituals, and what we saw H.P. and Emery do is H.P.'s. It's a very simple dip. Basically, what's going on here is the anthropomorphized version of a queen insect's retinue. Although in actual insects, the retinue is a constant cycle of workers bumping into her and trying to feed her as they lick her to get her pheromones. The ones who spend the most time with her are able to distribute her pheromones throughout the colony to other workers. Thus, as the alpha retinue drone, Sanderson is the only one in the company permitted to engage in the dominant role with the other drones and pass H.P.'s pheromones along to them, if H.P. doesn't want to do it himself. They're a team.

Also, this is officially the last Origin of the Pixies update until Frayed Knots catches up. Origin updates are scheduled to resume in mid-2018. If you have enjoyed the story so far, I'd love to hear your reviews! Views don't tell me if people are actually reading this story, or if people just click, see the chapter length, and decide it's not worth the effort and back out. Some reviews would be lovely if you would spare the time. Tell me what you liked, what you skimmed over, and/or what you found confusing. Anything and everything helps me hone my skills so I can be a better author.

See ya in 2018, folks!