(Posted December 17, 2019)

Tangled Threads

In which Anti-Cosmo, Jorgen, and the Head Pixie come together in the Summer of the Scratching Pines

When I was Ilisa, I once escaped the breeding cabin. The cherubs had taken my wand, stolen my wheelchair, and built doors too small for beating wings, but they hadn't counted on me squirming out through the loft window. I'd never made it far, but I'd made it far enough to laugh, and as long as I had my laughter, I knew I wasn't dead. So now, rocketing through the golden woods, clutching Lohai's lantern to my chest, veering sideways and flying loop de loops in open glades, brought those memories to the forefront of my mind. Every wingbeat snapped like a slicing blade. Farther, faster, outrunning everything, seeking more-

Then I stopped.

"… What?"

I hovered at the edge of the ipewood forest, staring down at the hive estate below. Winkleglint's estate. Buildings slumped between the trees, battered and bashed, windows broken. Thatch roofs burned. The stable had been reduced to ash and rubble. Smoke wafted through the air. No one screamed. Silence choked the world.

I fooped myself to the bottom of the hill (Well, halfway down given my spotty magic- I flew the rest). "Hello!" I shouted. "Is anyone still here?"

I strained my ears, but never heard an answer. Oh my gods, I remembered then, my stomach seizing. Smoke suppresses alarm pheromones. There's a reason when gynes invite gyne guests to their homes, they always host a barbecue…

I understood hive estates through my old architecture studies. In my youth, my visit to Winkleglint's had left my buttocks quivering in my trousers. It seemed so big, sprawling as far as the echo could reach (Oh, how I'd grown!) The large building in the centre of the estate - the caisleán - was where the resident gyne slept. Only gynes fell asleep amid smoke, so I chose to start my search there. The door stood like a stubborn donkey, clamped shut. I didn't have time to circle the place for a more legitimate opening or pick the lock, and a thin shield around the place prevented magic from breaking in. There were no rocks to throw, but I found an ice pick near the frozen pond and hurled it through a window instead. Krrrrsh! I delighted in the sound, actually. Though I'd spent the last few years swiping loose objects, knocking things over, and cracking locks out of boredom, I'd always hidden my presence from those I targeted. Shattering a window was much more fun. And the best part about it? It was justified!

Thicker plumes of smoke poured from the broken window and smothered the sky. I fooped myself into the entry hall and coughed into my fist. "Hello? Is anyone here?" I ran the basics of search and rescue through my head: Number 1: read the room for sides of hostility and aid those who felt the most distressed or discontent; 2, ascertain the stinky magic levels and the likelihood of spawning umbrae; 3, in a Fairy home, check for animpa and call for back-up if you find one abandoned in perfect condition…

Weakening wood crackled round about me. Sparks sizzled from every direction. Beams popped. The floor settled and squealed. I glanced left and right, twisting and untwisting the cap of my wand. No vases of star-tipped sticks decorated the window ledges or bookshelves. Empty spots here and there stood out like rain above clouds, and when I ran my finger over a shelf, the empty patches were bare of dust.

No animpa… That alone proved the residents had gotten out alive, didn't it? Very well. I could leave without any guilt on my shoulders. Ta-ta, pip pip, cheerio, and all that rot.

I wrinkled my nose. The stinky magic build-up in this place was frankly unbelievable. The goopy stuff lapped around my ankles even when I floated. But then, since Fairies couldn't see spiritual things with their mundane eyes, that was typical on their side of the border. Back in the older days, my ancestors had protected them from umbrae who spawned anywhere stinky magic began to pool. We killed them young and dissipated their evil into smaller, less harmful patches of bad luck, because if they fed long enough to take solid form, they grew up to become nasty demons who skewered prey on twisted horns. We Anti-Fairies kept trying to tell the Fairies that, but they didn't listen anymore. They'd forgotten we were their protectors just a dozen generations ago…

My low foot kicked something solid as I drifted down the corridor to the kitchen. A shard of pottery skidded ahead. I paused. Wispy pink soil and beautiful rainbow pebbles lay spilled in all directions. Three twigs embellished with pure gold and tipped with dormant stars had fallen out and scraped the ground. I identified this strange art piece at once thanks to my architectural studies, and laughed a bitter laugh as I floated past. Turns out one of the animpa (or "soul-carriages"), the crown of the crown of Fairy interior design, had been left behind and desecrated after all. Traditional or modern, Daoist or non-Daoist, cloudlands or Earthside, a Fairy home always kept animpa around to represent each individual connected to the family's kinship circle. Social convention insisted they take it with them if ever they fled. It figures those dishonourable brutes would rescue their personal shrines in a panic but leave the vases representing extended family members behind. They abandon their beliefs the moment they become inconvenient, Fairies.

… Unless the rest of the family had fled under the assumption the last member of the household would bring this remaining, now broken one when he left. And if the others hadn't come back for it yet…

They expect someone to join them. Someone's still here.

When I pushed myself into the air again, my wing brushed a lumpy part of the wall. I looked and found a portrait hanging there, depicting Winkleglint with his wife, two daughters, and Mr. Thimble at his side. I ran my fingers over the frame, exhaling through my nose. Right. I'd come here for a reason, and it wasn't to scorn the interior design.

I flew down the hall, batting smoke away and throwing open every door. In the rear, I discovered the roosting array. Well, not an array with a sturdy trunk and branches, but the chamber had a cushioned sleeping pallet. An explosion of Breath energy punched me in the face, and I stumbled back the moment I flew in. But, catching my balance, I studied the room once more. Fresh-cut roses lay heaped on a low dresser. Leaves. A circular mirror full of Sky energy hung above them. Pre-cracked, of course- I'd never known a Fairy to bring an uncracked mirror into their home (That was just asking for bad luck around the corner). Those three features stood out in my mind, but the surrounding Breath energy clawed me from every angle. The sleeping pallet was too dark in colour, the light level sickly, the walls dead… The place could really use a water feature, even a simple painting of a lake. A lamp in the corner to offer Soil energy wouldn't hurt either. If it were my house, I'd knock down the left wall there and replace the cloudstone with sootbrick.

Crumpled blankets, scattered in a rush. No one here. I searched a few drawers, but no emergency wands had been left behind. If the Fairies had fled rather than attempt to douse the flames, another external threat must have chased them off. I suspected arson. Perhaps in the wake of Winkleglint's death, another gyne had sought to claim the property. Perhaps the residents had been taken prisoner? Though they must have had time to leave willingly, if they took their animpa…

I pocketed a stack of lagelyn, a dagger with a bone handle, a jewellery box, and a beautiful silver dress with lace accents and a feathered hem, because if I didn't then some scavenger would eventually. The head of the household and his wife each had a book of hours on the dresser smaller than my hand. Custom-made, embellished beautifully with images of flowers and vines, the prayers and verses written in perfect pixie script. I tucked both inside the storage chamber in my skull. What else? A colourful painting on the wall that displayed a sleeping dragon was quite lovely, but I couldn't foop it past the Barrier, and I didn't know enough about Fairy World geography to trust myself to find it again if I tossed it through the energy field at random.

Nothing else struck me as valuable, so I lifted my wand to leave. Except… I stopped. I recalled the animpar left broken in the corridor and dropped myself there instead. It still lay dirty and disgraced on the floor. I repaired the pot with a wave of my wand, sweeping the soil and pebbles inside. The three starry sticks, I stood at what I thought were the correct angles. There. Now purified again (to the best of my knowledge), I carried the animpar outside the caisleán and set it down by the pond where the fire was unlikely to reach. I may not believe in the three parts of the soul the way they did, but the Fairies wouldn't like their symbolic decorations left in mockery, I think.

I considered leaving the estate, then stopped with a frown. I'm missing something. Something… my Anti-Fairy brain wasn't familiar with. Some latent Fairy instinct itched in the back of my head. Something my Ilisa memories absolutely knew about. A lot about, to be precise. I peered around my surroundings again, tapping my wand against my knee. Something…

I smacked my palm to my forehead. Spinning around, I flew to the rear of the house's upper floor again, threw open the sleeping chamber door, and floated before a second, smaller door on the other side. Fairies rarely mate in their sleeping rooms, you know- they're horrendously picky that way. Provided they have the territory, they lay claim to separate rooms or perhaps gardens, lake houses, or separate cabins beyond the main estate and do all their wooing there. I don't see the appeal, but knowing they breed in cycles, I suppose it works for them. They call these places where they mate "affection sites" (yidreamu, I think is the Gaideliac word).

I don't know how common the practice is today, 525,000 years following my death (that is to say, my death as Ilisa), but when I was alive, the yidreamu doubled as a place to store precious things out of the public eye. Heirlooms from both families were kept there, beautifully displayed yet safely secured on private shelves. That's why they can't live in colonies. Such cruel, violent people, Fairies, even if they do have interesting culture and lovely architecture.

Floating before the yidreamu door, which had been decorated in square and half-circle patterns both with physical embellishments and sticky pheromones, my mouth ran drier than lifedust. Fire crackled round about, devouring the roof. The smoke irritated my eyes and throat. The thing was… I couldn't confirm I'd searched the whole estate for Fairies in need of rescue until I checked the yidreamu. Though it seemed so unlikely… First the couple's heat cycles would have to overlap this particular time of this particular year. Too, damsels could only mate once or twice a cycle and as far as I knew, the Winkleglint estate belonged to common fairies. Lifetime monogamous subspecies.

"Why would he have gone in here anyway?" I asked aloud. "Only if he went to mate, and only a gyne partner would have failed to alert him to danger. And gynes never mate with gynes. This is pointless, I need to go."

Really though, I should check. Smoke puts gynes to sleep and I hadn't yet checked this room. Therefore I ought to. I reached to put my hand on the knob… and hesitated. I mean… yidreamu are so private, you know.

Winkleglint's dead by now. He was old when I met him before and he can't have lived this long. Sindri and Xena were both damsels- there are no adult gynes in this family. Everyone got away. Spare yourself the embarrassment. Get your tush out the door and in the air.

… So why had that other animpar been left behind, broken in blasphemy? Despite my research, despite my Fairy background, I didn't know enough about their culture to answer that.

I stared at my hand, willing it to grasp the knob. My fingers trembled. No matter what my incarnation, I was cheery, fun-loving, rebellious, perhaps eccentric… and also a slave to social protocol in at least a few respects. Opening that door and peeking inside the yidreamu was the equivalent, in Fairy culture, to walking in and catching a couple right in the act of mating.

Slowly, I withdrew my hand and prayed to the spirits I wasn't leaving Winkleglint or any other gyne for dead. I'd douse the flames about the place before I left, but I could not shoulder my way in there and drag him out if that's where he lay. Yes.

… But then again…

… I'd never seen a "normal" yidreamu before. My cabin had one immediately apparent from the moment you stepped inside, with a sleeping pallet decorated in animal furs visible from the doorway. The cherubs helped me wash several times a day and carried me to my real bedroom if I asked for a nap, and that was a reversal of typical norms. As a child, Daddy firmly kept me out of his and Mother's "room of kisses," as my brother and I called it and scolded our questions, leaving me without the know-how to build my own. They hadn't taught me in school- inappropriate to talk about such things. Stamp and I had had our little dorm where there wasn't elbow room to express affection anywhere outside the sleeping bedroom…

"Cabin" as in, my breeding cabin from when I lived in Ilisa's body, of course (Gods, it's muddled; the memories blur and I struggle at times to separate that incarnation from my current one- still wake up every random day out of a thousand and jump in surprise to find myself dangling from a roosting array rather than lying on a pallet).

I rubbed my face with the heels of my hands. See, the roof wasn't all that much on fire and it wouldn't be caving in on me for a while. It wouldn't hurt anyone. And so long as no one noticed me, it wasn't all that embarrassing, hm? No one was present on the whole estate besides myself, as far as I could tell. With me being an Anti-Fairy now, an opportunity to peek inside a normal Fairy's yidreamu and not get caught was an enticingly rare opportunity. I conceded that if I took just one quick little peek, I would grow more educated about Fairy customs and it wouldn't hurt anyone. Embarrassing? Horrifying if anyone should find out, but if no one ever did… What was the harm? I wouldn't volunteer the information to a soul, and if asked directly, I could just lie.

Before I could change my mind, I grabbed the knob and twisted, flinging the yidreamu door wide open. A few seconds later, when no one snarled and blasted me to the opposite end of the cloudlands, I lowered the hand shielding my eyes. A minute after that, I opened them.

No one inside. Not unless they were tucked beneath that magnificently cushy sleeping pallet, anyway. Even more cushions coated the pallet in here than the one behind me, the blankets again a shade of brown you'd never decorate with in Anti-Fairy World. Candles stood in jars all dirtied and drowning in pools of wax. Shells (they were called seashells, I think) and a rainbow of bottles lined a high shelf. Herbs and flowers sprouted from each one. The floor was all stripes of wooden planks, accented with a rug the shape and colour of the moon. I tapped my wand against my lips. As I understood it, the head of the Fairy household decorated each of his "affection sites" such as this one using purple magic. Purple magic undoes itself with the death of the caster, leaving the yidreamu a blank canvas for the next head of the home to work with. Which meant exactly one important thing.

Whoever designed this room is still alive. Where is he?

"All right," I said, dropping my gaze. I brushed my coat and tried to avoid looking at, um… anything, really. "You've had your peek, Julius. Let's go."

There was nothing here for me anymore. I circled the property, but found no indication that any fae had been trapped or lost here. I crossed an X upon the road with my foot and skimmed in the direction of town without a backwards glance.

… Only to jerk to a halt several moments later. Another animpar lay in the road, bashed and dirtied. I drifted over to it in mounting concern, and when I crested the hill I saw another. And another, further down the path. And another. My eyes rotated up. A tattered carpet dangled from a limp black branch. The leaves had been scorched by fire.

"No," I whispered. I flew up and examined the threads with care. Sparkling silver threads of levitation magic had been woven side by side with darker wool. The pattern glowed and tassels danced, even in its damaged state. I gripped it in both fists. "Where are the passengers?"

I had my answer when I found a tiny, shiny book lying in the dust. A smooth, clean, perfect book that had no business being out here in the woods… unless it made up the physical shell of a Fairy's core. Cautiously, I floated down to pick it up. It burned my hand, not unpleasantly, but with distinct warmth. When I eased apart the pages, pale light glared back at me. I snapped it shut again and hugged it to my chest. Oh gods. Somewhere out there… an Anti-Fairy and Refract weren't coming home tonight. Small ones, given the size of the core. Perhaps a child. A juvenile at the very most.

I found other cores at the bottom of the hill. A satchel composed of material too unique to be accidentally forgotten. A key that fit in a nearby padlock. A massive clothespin. Every find trembled my wings, and I cried with the effort to stay airborne. I'd damaged my feet again during my years of living alone in cold Anti-Fairy World, and if I landed, they'd collapse beneath me. My wings whined. Magic jabbed and swirled inside my head.

But I had no time to mourn the lost Fairies. I gathered the cores together and flew on. The travellers had been going somewhere. The fiend who'd killed them had surely gone that way too. I had a sparking wand and a vengeance for the innocents that burned me blind. What was the bloke going to try if I confronted him? Killing me too? Ha.

I continued along the path until bare footprints crossed my way in the dust. Little anti-fairy footprints, the opposable toe distinct. Ennet…? I swivelled my route to follow the trail, and after ten minutes found it led over a river, through a broken gate, up a hill, and onto the property of another estate. A traditional estate this time, not a hive estate like Winkleglint's. One of the old kind… back when Fairy and Anti-Fairy counterparts lived beneath the same roof. Four buildings. One for damsels, one for drakes, one for children, and one building containing rooms for socializing as well as safeguarding the yidreamu. The first three were on fire.

I'd never seen a traditional estate in real life before (Daddy was a clockmaker and we rented our home from someone much more dominant; I don't remember who, but she accepted payment only in the form of his nights in her yidreamu, and may or may not have been my true mother- I always suspected the drugs she used caused the defect that gave me my wings). I'd thought places like this weren't built anymore. Even before war officially broke out one December 17th long ago, this type of property had been sliding out of style as more and more Fairies began preferring nights in their spouse's company to their own counterparts. You know, it's funny. Once, it was an insult to abandon your counterpart for colony life. Yet somehow, it wasn't an insult for a Fairy to lock an Anti-Fairy from their bedroom.

Tangent aside, there she was. A genuine estate from the old years, just like Anti-Penny had taught me. The architecture was… different than the hive estate design, with buildings aligned instead of in an awkward crescent, wild undergrowth in place of trimmed grass. How beautiful. Blazing with purple fire and falling apart in chunks, but beautiful. I lingered in the road, clutching the cores to my chest, just to drink it in.

Then I shook my head. I flew past the gate, shouting for attention. Ennet appeared from behind a bush immediately, sheer panic on his face. He streaked up and caught me around the middle in a hug. I nearly spilled the cores.

"Is anyone in there?" I demanded.

"I- I don't know! I don't think so- I think they left. I checked them all, really! The animpa are gone."

I paused, threading my claws through his hair. "Then they knew."

"Yeah, think so. I checked, I swear!"

"That's two," I murmured, stepping back. "Two families who ran instead of dousing the flames. What caused this? Pillagers?"

Ennet tugged on the chest of my coat. "Do we put it out?"

"Good heavens, no. You and I are children of Sunnie and Saturn is the elder brother. It's not our place to interfere unless it's Friday the 13th or Sunnie sends a sign. Look." I licked the pad of my finger and held it up against the energy field. "It may frighten those who lived here, but a bit of fire now and again is healthy for the land bears. The Sky energy in this place was layered too thick, so it was only a matter of time. It's balanced now. Tír Ildáthach can be at peace."

"Okay, good. I thought so, but… good. Uh, there's a temple in the back, but it's broken."

"Show me."

He bobbed his head and brought me down to a second, wider walking path running along the other side of the hill, next to a pond filled with bobbing chunks of ice. A small structure, mostly stacks of stones, sat guard in a ring of snow white mushrooms. I set the cores in a soft patch of grass. He flitted back and forth behind me, fingers clenched in the back of his neck. "Whose temple?" I asked.

"I don't know. I just come here when I'm scared because Artemis does and Anti-Robin said the forest was burning and Anti-Emery says prayers are supposed to help-" Ennet cut himself off, tugging on his blond cowlicks with a tough fist. "I've got this. It's one of Ellie's grandkids. She, um, she had a glass spirit with Beira. It's the glass kid's frost kid. That's it."

I counted the family members on my fingers. "Yes, I know the one: Sunlight Dancing on the Ice Top… You know, I hate to nag, darling, but you should really call Helena by her proper Zodii name. It shows respect."

He clenched the collar of his hideous yellow and red polka dot shirt, eyes stretched wide. A soft crash of rubble behind us suggested the fire had spread to another section of building. Ennet flinched. His long lashes fluttered when he blinked the tears away. "You can fix the temple, right, Anti-Cosmo?"

I rolled my eyes. "Of course I can fix it. I did train as an acolyte for a fair portion of my life, I'll have you know, and I never go anywhere without my working coat these days. Show me a little elbow room. Come along."

Ennet nodded, bouncing on his toes. "We have to fix it. See, if you're nice to the passing temple spirits, they might choose you for a medium even if you aren't nobility, like how August chose Anti-Robin. You have to be good to them."

"I understand."

"The seal was broken. Anti-Robin says if a temple isn't sealed, it needs noble blood."

I itched my forehead, biting my tongue so as not to spit that I was the one who had taught my brother that in the first place. Soft flames crackled again.

The temple wasn't large, certainly. It was just an ancient Zodii passing temple built along a well-travelled walking path, back before the war forced my kind out of Tír Ildáthach. The tiny temple had been kicked over, trampled in someone's haste. Perhaps a long time ago. I dropped to my hands and knees beside it, squinting at the battered stones. Nothing shifted out of the ordinary. No odd bend of grass, no strange ripple of the pool. Did the spirit who ruled this pond even live here anymore?

I inhaled, pressing my belly to the soil and bowing my head lower. "My name is Julius Anti-Cosmo Anti-Lunifly, dear spirit. I am of the Zodii and I recognize your need. I am water-born and focused. I bear a soulmark in my eyes. With my noble blood, I shall build you a temple that may be my honour and your safety until the end of days."

No reply. Not the faintest rustle of wind or quicker splish of running water. I blinked uncertainly, wings weighed down by Ennet's desperation at my shoulder. My hands stung with cold. The type that seizes you by the wrists and trickles up your arms, catching you around the throat. I licked my lips with a very dry tongue.

I performed the motions with mechanic stiffness, too numb to offer so much as an apology on behalf of those who'd destroyed the place. I stacked the rocks in even columns. I positioned each tower a perfect distance apart. I brought small canisters from the pockets of my coat and sprinkled crushed iceberry and dry kitnut shells within the circle, then spent twenty minutes searching for a good twig with leaves to brush over them. Ennet tailed me back and forth. A small cut along the tip of my finger with a natural knife would be enough to seal a temple this small. When I finished with the preparations and my chant of welcome, I broke the makeshift twig wand and lay its two halves parallel.

"Um. The temple is yours again, spirit. May you have your honour, and may I have my safety."

Ennet's throat bobbed in silence. Even the smoldering building held a breathless tongue. I stayed on my knees, studying the tiny temple for any indication of movement. Nothing notable happened. I pretended that didn't bother me. My claws tightened in my knees, and I turned my head away in the hopes he wouldn't notice the soft stinging in my eyes. Nor the fidgets of ice tingling on the back of my neck.

… It had been a long time since I'd sat beside a passing temple. I'd buried Foop beside a place like this years ago. I would prefer not to delve into the details of what happened, of why I thought picking him up without my gloves would be all right. I wasn't thinking. I simply wasn't, as though my brain simply slipped away from me. Me of all Anti-Fairies. I'm not proud.

Lohai took it too well, and that was the worst part… Another baby candle dead, and for her, that was "normal." Genies are creatures of fire, and perhaps they can't cry. Either way, I never saw her shed a tear. Only curl up in her lamp, silent and unmoving.

Gods, let's face it. I haven't exactly been the most attentive father. I suppose I… wanted Lohai to bear candles for the sake of having them, and perhaps I lost a spot of compassion along the way. I didn't even know the child. I'd left him in Lohai's lap and hadn't spoken more than twenty words to him his last few weeks of life. So… it didn't hurt. Like bidding good-bye to one of the demons I called on for events around the new year. Hardly worth acknowledging.

I laughed silently, not laughing, and tilted back my head. I blinked at the smoke drifting between the treetops wherever the thin breeze blew. I hadn't changed since childhood. Not really. Had I? All right, so it had been years since I last painted, but I still tried to make reading a priority when my wandering brought my near a library. I'd had my core broken a time or two or three, but I still called myself a romantic.

Where did I go wrong?

When Anti-Wanda played me for a fool almost two years ago. Or Anti-Apollo asking if I moved the way Ilisa did. Or maybe it was farther back, the split with Anti-Kanin the week I became an adult. If I had to pick any day that hardened me, that seemed a likely one.

Kneeling in front of the tiny temple with Ennet standing at my shoulder, I couldn't help but imagine the tiny purple-tailed genie I'd once watched fumble from Lohai's nest of blankets, blind eyes pressed shut and long body rolling in the dirt. I'd buried Foop in the volcanic soil near the temple to Embers After Forest Fire, up the lava river path my mum was fond of taking when they needed to walk off their aches and pains. I hadn't dared to fly home while I could be easily identified, so I'd done it during the Seven Festivals.

Hadn't I? I must have. I think I did. It all seemed shaky now, like an abstract painting. Say what you like about infallible Anti-Fairy memories… even they turn to blurry fuzz and leave you wondering if your body's even yours, if anything around you is real at all.

I took my darling's baby. I pushed her to mate with a buck she didn't love and forced her to watch her children die. Then I didn't even grieve for them alongside her. Why didn't she hate me? I hadn't the foggiest, honestly.

Her mother had run out on me. If Lohai obtained her freedom… would she leave me too? Flit back in a few centuries and dump a child in my lap, promising to return another day? How old was Lohai anyway?

Do I even know who Lohai is? Who she really is… I'm certain she has a personality in there. She probably has a few dreams. Not that I've spent time musing on them.

Does she even like me? I seemed to recall quite the surge of anger when I left her in the Eros Nest a few thousand years too long for her impatient mind.

I pulled one of my feet forward, bending my head to half conceal it. My dark toes looked swollen, twisted… Ha. How horribly ironic that I'd let the infamous indicator of my subspecies fall to ruin. Laughable, really. I traced my thumb across the tough black welts and scars, threading my fingers between those chunky toes. Someone said my name, I think, though I only realised he was calling for me on perhaps the fourth or fifth try.

"Gangrene," I said aloud. Ennet put his hands to his hips, ready to ask a question, but I released my foot and shook my head. The world blurred back into focus, every pebble, every tree slowly grounding me again, and I was real in the body and not an empty floating thing. "I have… gangrene again. Yes, I think this is mine. It started as frostbite, and I should have stopped it then. Incredibly painful and impossible to walk on, you know. A single regeneration would cure me, and yet I've never bothered to get around to that. It's so hard to find the time."

Ennet said something snippy, maybe, or maybe not… I wasn't listening. I closed my eyes and thought about genies and temples and frozen, blackened feet. I thought about the thrill of leaving home for freedom. I thought about Anti-Buster and all he'd taught me of the world through books, all Anti-Penny had taught me of architecture, the pieces of Fairy culture I'd learned from my week of study with Winkleglint and Mr. Thimble. I thought of all my brother, more than my mother, had taught me of loving little children. I thought of the love I hoped my father had for me.

Eyes sealed, I traced my hand down one stack of stones marking Sunlight Dancing on the Ice Top's temple. I'll get better, I swore without conviction. Without emotion. I'm sorry, Lohai. I'm so sorry, Foop… Forgive my horrid attention span. Forgive the feelings I can't find. I haven't been the father you needed. I was a child, then a juvenile with lustful crushes on his mind.

A row of needles caught me in the throat. The universe gave me children in genie form… and I looked the other way. Lohai had been more friend than daughter, her rapid aging upending that dynamic long before I could embrace it. The universe gave me Foop as a second chance, and I passed him off to Lohai as her responsibility. Didn't shed a tear when his little fire flickered out. I'm sure he had a personality too. He'd been, what, 10,000 when he died? 3? I seemed to recall he liked colouring books and paint.

I picked at a crack on one of my claws and thought, I still want to be a father.

Yes, I want this. One more chance, Tarrow. Please… give me another chance.

… Although, what was the point? With my track record, I was sure to screw up that one too. 'Third time's the charm' doesn't exactly work for Anti-Fairies.

Do I even want a child anyway? Or do I only love the idea of one? Smoke, I can't remember where it all began… Spite? Even that can only motivate you so long.

The world glittered around me, white with maybe snow. Smoke burned inside my mouth and deeper in my eyes. Fire crackled hot. Ennet said my name, and his touch on my arm broke me from my spiral. "I need to visit the Breath Temple," I told him, pushing up to my feet. My legs trembled underneath me, light though I was. "I need regeneration." Sterile, clean, supervised regeneration. If I was left with the dirty knife enclosed in my wand, I knew I'd lose my nerve again. "And… then I wish to visit the Water Temple. I want to speak with Sunnie. No, wait. Sunnie first. I need to see him. The Breath Temple will still be waiting for me when I'm ready."

"Huh. What a waste."

"Beg pardon?"

Ennet linked his hands behind his neck, wrinkling his nose. "We're over the border, aren't we? Of all the places we can visit, why see the temples? We have permission to go there any time."

I laughed. It was a high laugh, a sort of cackle, that made the hairs tingle down my arms. I glanced at him over my wing. "I was much like you as a child, lad. I thought the temples boring too and never wished to attend my studies, believe me. But they're the only piece of our culture left untouched in Fairy World, and that's where we're better off."

"Hm," he said. In a puff of smoke, he fooped into a yellow bird and flew away. "Ennet," I shouted after him. The bird caught a bare tree branch and threw an irritated stare back at me. I removed my monocle and rubbed my forehead with one knuckle.

"Ennet, the Anti-Whimsifinado family honours His Glory Twryth. I'm not sure I can express in words alone how highly inappropriate it is to shift shape into anything besides a hog- scandalous, even. The people will drag your name in the mud if ever they find out."

He ignored me and lit from the branch. "Ennet," I yelled again. "Smoke it all, Ennet! The fact I witnessed this could ruin your life! I could kill your one shot at anything for the rest of your existence!"

No reply. I watched him disappear into the woods, then turned back to the purple flames crawling up the walls of the nearest little building. Soot had settled in my hair. I stroked it sideways with a grimace and gave my head a shake. With the thicker undergrowth here compared to Winkleglint's estate, the fire had rapidly spread and consumed most the buildings. I didn't bother searching for valuables to save. I gathered the Fairy cores by my feet and tucked them away inside my head. Inappropriate I'm sure, but I wanted my hands free. With a flick of my wand, I fooped to Faeheim.

… and reformed exactly where I'd been. In the grass, by the pond, one awkward hand slowly drooping. Feet stinging.

"Hm?"

My magic always had been finicky and sometimes didn't work at all, but no sparks shocked me when I waved it. In a city that busy, non-natives were redirected to the teleport pads. Even if every pad was full with fae poofing in, my wand ought to have gotten me as close as it could reach. The nearby town Novakiin at its farthest, and I could hop a tram the rest of the way. I'd only swiped this new wand a few months ago, and I hadn't had any notable problems with it before now. Was it because I was crossing planes?

I tried again, picturing eastern Faeheim more clearly in my mind. My skin dissolved in crackling bubbles. My mind stretched in two directions, fingers and toes as long as railroads and blending together.

And I blinked myself awake by the pond again.

"… Something's very wrong."

My wand couldn't find a clear path through the energy field. It was obviously working if it had gotten me that far. Which meant something in the city was distorting not only my magic, but all magic in the area. But what had the aura to-?

I whipped around, eyes snapping wide to drink the gaping flames slicing the roof apart. "Oh my gods- DRAGON!"

This time, I didn't aim for a place inside Faeheim. I fooped myself west of city limits, mouth dropping the instant it reformed. Like the estates I'd seen before, the city was on fire. Purple flames and rainbows of smoke soaked into the air. I flew higher and hovered near the tall points of the Big Wand, curling in my legs. Fairy World's beautiful capital, snuggled in cloud, was coming apart at the seams. I'd never seen streets as empty as this. Rubble barred the sidewalks. Signposts had been toppled and twisted. Flying carpets brought down and singed. Glass broken. Sirens wailed. It was upwards of thirty seconds before I spotted another living soul, huddled on the steps of a large building and nursing an injured wing. Gaping holes had been boiled through the roads, piercing straight through the ground until sinkholes split and threatened to dump half the population into the acid pools a plane below. The energy field screamed from ten directions at once and I twisted in a spiral, trying to drink Tír Ildáthach's panic in. She groaned in fright, belly swaying.

"I'm sorry!" I cried, peeling my claws down my cheeks. "Oh gods, you're burning up. This city is your core. What do I do?"

A roar behind me bushed every tuft of fur I had. I whirled, fumbling my wand, and dropped it to the street below. I dove to catch it and swooped up in an arc, coasting below the dragon's claws. With wings pumping to their limits, I planned to outmaneuvre the beast by streaking past its tail before it had the chance to turn around.

BeastS, plural. I stuttered.

One dragon was red, with every white talon longer than I was from head to foot. Three heads leered, spewing fire that toasted my face from ten wingstrokes away. The second dragon, this one pink and yellow, plunged towards us with jaws agape. A stream of blue poured from its mouth and engulfed the red dragon's wing.

I hesitated too long. The red lurched around to face the oncoming threat, and its tail lashed me across the chest. My shirt lit instantly from contact with lava-hot scales. I smacked backwards, screeching as I burned, and crashed against the roof of some building. A decorative spike skewered me through the windpipe from behind, and I went up in smoke.

I stirred awake in the midst of an argument between shrieking voices I didn't know. My hands had turned to waxy turquoise. I lay in a nest of straw.

When I sat up, I saw I was back in the same cage I'd seen the last two instances I'd regenerated, hanging from the ceiling like a silent bird. I crawled to the lip of the floor and peered down at the chamber below. Like the other times, the room I saw had been decorated as private quarters, with a sleeping pallet and personal knick-knacks scattered all about. One figure rummaged through a row of a hundred drawers against the wall. The other had been bound to a chair with a golden rope, thrashing and shouting. I squinted. The prisoner - a four-armed being with skin of white crystal and a necklace of teeth and bone - must be a nature spirit. If the other had tied them up, they had to be mortal.

That was all I saw. My vision blurred with bubbles, and I awoke in my body again. Spike-free, thank smoke. I pushed myself up to my knees, groaning and clutching behind my neck (Gods, regeneration never gets easier). From the looks of it, I balanced at the very edge of the building I'd hit, a gargoyle gripping a spear perched directly below me. The front of my shirt had been scorched, as had the edges of my favourite blue coat. But the gangrene had left my feet, so that was small comfort to my pain.

"Oof," I grunted.

"Hello, you," said a familiar dry voice. I looked up to find the Head Pixie floating nearby, up over a glass dome that rounded out the center of the otherwise flat roof. I scowled.

"Bloody Darkness; of course you'd be up here. Smashing, that. Why aren't you helping?"

Then a blast of pheromones slammed against my mental walls. My mouth swelled with water before I could think to stop it. Oh gods… I hadn't brought my prescription vial when I'd cut ties with Anti-Kanin and Anti-Shimmer. And yes, I'd had a few emotional plunges these last two years, but just recently I'd felt myself sliding up the pole again.

The Head Pixie's pheromones, dripping with that creamy scent of bananas and buttered caviar, not to mention the cinnamon-orange tang that was all his species' own… I tugged my singed shirt over my stomach pouch, hoping he wouldn't pay much attention to the claws I hurriedly brushed through my hair. Pushing myself to my feet, I folded my wings away and straightened my back like a post. It was a long shot, but hey… Perhaps if I presented myself nicely, he'd smear a bit of that scent over me.

"I am helping." The pixie pointed at the dome beneath his feet. "We're on top of the Faeheim tram station, the highest building in the city. My estate is that way." His finger shifted towards the purple half of the sky. "I'm keeping lookout and getting ready to jump in if I have to. Not yet. Eastkal seems to be doing just fine on his own."

"Prince Eastkal?" That explained the second dragon. King Northiae held the title Ambassador of the Common Fairy Subspecies, and their family ruled the Pink Castle here in Faeheim much as the Anti-Coppertalons ruled the Blue. "Yes, um… Well, ah…" I glanced back at the two beasts, locked together in the air. Prince Eastkal had only one head, and though his lifted wings defended him from the hydra's angry blows, they wouldn't shield him long. "He could certainly use an extra wand behind him. That monster's already burned half the city; what if it should devour all the people here?"

"Then it won't be hungry and I can return home in content."

I spun around, but the Head Pixie stared stoically back at me, still clenching the binoculars. "Wha-? I beg your pardon, old sport?"

"Look, Anti-Cosmo. That is you, right? You've got the eye thing. I like Faeheim, but my priority is protecting my pixies. If that dragon veers towards my estate, I need all my power to block it. Its scales make it impervious to direct magical blows just like yours. I can't attack it directly, but I can throw out barriers to deflect it. That's it." He paused. "Also, if it turns out to be a natural-born dragon, I can harvest its fallen scales and sell them at incredible prices. They're too heavy for clothes or shields, but they make dazzling building materials, you know. I collect them."

I flicked my gaze helplessly in the air. The two dragons had twisted apart. One of the hydra's heads blew fire over the city. Another munched a building and the third had caught a screaming fairy in its teeth. Prince Eastkal kept up with the brute wingbeat for wingbeat, but every slash of its tail across his face sent his body flickering with bursts of dust. He may be strong-willed, but his powers could only carry that will so far.

Abruptly, I rounded on the pixie. He was closer than I remembered, and I wondered with a sudden flush of ice whether he'd moved towards me or whether I'd edged closer to him (Most likely the latter). "You're a Soil, sir. The magic in your blood is blessed with the devotion of Twis, powerful and enduring. May I embrace your karmic blessing? I think I can help; devotion will increase the length of time I can spend in a massive dragon form, you know what I mean?"

The Head Pixie glanced at me sideways. "I thought shifting into flashy shapes was against your people's customs."

"Yes, yes, as is drinking karma out of turn, so this stays between us or I'm forever dead in Anti-Fairy society." I gripped my hair in a fist, dragging down. "I'm not joking; what I'm about to do cannot get back to my people. But I don't really have a choice if I wish to save us all, now do I?"

His fingers tightened in the binoculars. "In my experience, a karmic blessing is that thing Anti-Bryndin drinks when he bites my neck in the front dining room. I don't love doing that even for him. Why should I let you?"

I sighed. Over the sounds of the rampaging hydra, I said, "There's a little gland under the jugular vein on the left side of your neck. If I bite it, I can ingest your karma - literally all the 'fortune,' good or bad, you'll experience throughout your life condensed into a single explosive point in time - and combine yours with my own. Karmic blessings are special and a bit different than usual fae magic, but it's terribly complicated and now isn't the best time to explain in detail. Later, I promise. For smoke's sake, I'll spend hour after hour combing through the library with you if you just go with it right now without requiring a plan!"

"I'm not exactly thrilled about the idea. I don't really know you that well."

"Oh, just give it to me," I snapped. "Those Fairies don't know the first thing about demons, and I was raised to do this! For the sake of Faeheim, and maybe your pixies too, Drk. Head, give me the blessing!"

The Head Pixie's expression never changed, and instant guilt flooded my blood. I ducked my eyes. He watched me for a minute, still bobbing up and down at the same rate as before. I tried to stare back at him, scowling hard. Neither of us averted our stares more than me a little bit, or twice.

"No," he said. "I only share my karma with the High Count, unless it's an emergency. This is not an emergency."

I groaned. "So Faeheim dies tonight. Brilliant, really. I say, that's brilliant, mate."

"I'd have expected you to be excited. I mean, Anti-Fairy and all. Aren't your people always trying to destroy this city?"

Were we?

"Er…" I stared across our fellow rooftops, twisting the cap of my wand. "Well… Sometimes. Quite often, really, I suppose. Faeheim possesses the Water Temple, the only Zodiac Temple we Anti-Fairies lost control of after the war. And it's Fairy World's capital city, so we entertain thoughts of ruining its residents' day quite often, especially around Friday the 13th. Yes. I'll admit there are times we'd like to knock this city to its knees."

"So why are you trying to save it?"

"I'm… not… sure."

The Head Pixie and I floated there atop the tram station, painting our senses with the warm caress of his pheromones. I mean… watching the hydra sweep back and forth over buildings some distance away. Its thumping tail toppled the clocktower. Yes, that's what it did.

He drifted a little farther to the left.

"This benefits me," I realized aloud. "Why, if I could seize control of the Water Temple for the Anti-Fairies, I'd be a hero among my people. Perhaps reclaiming Beria's, Helena's, and Manannán's temples would be easier after that, hm? Not to mention the temple honouring the twelve seasonal divide spirits. I really ought to visit there next July… August took my brother as medium, you know."

"Everything in that office supply store is probably going on sale tomorrow," he murmured, staring hungrily at a square building below us. I think he was drooling.

So, um… the Head Pixie pinged in a newspaper, and I summoned some tea for myself. We settled in to witness the chaos unfold, dragons clashing and spewing flames. After a time, we got to bickering over nothing important and broke out the playing cards to settle it. I was scowling at a full hand of stars, pining for just one rainbow to complete my set, when a thunderous POOF! erupted beside us. A thin shower of scent rained over our heads, lost among the sky.

"WHAT are you morons DOING?" bellowed a massive fairy with bright purple hair. He towered at four times my height, all muscle, and thunked his tree trunk of a staff on the roof beside my leg.

"Sulking over my long-suffering pride," the pixie deadpanned. He lifted one card from his hand, frowning deeper than usual. "How many points are clouds worth again?"

Jorgen shot the card from his hand, instantly evaporating it into dust. "YOU BUFFOONS! Fairy World is under attack, and all that lives inside your empty heads is the want to play your silly card games?"

The Head Pixie and I glanced across the city again. "It looks okay to me," he said.

On cue, a building with a pointy weather vane crashed to the ground.

"I hated that business anyway," he decided. "My stock in its competitors is going to hit the ceiling."

"You know, I never quite understood the purpose of weather vanes up here. It isn't as though we get high winds in Faeheim, especially with Munn as dormant as he is."

Jorgen grunted. "Yes, I also should have considered such a thing before I invested in a lifetime supply of wind chimes. Don't judge me for this."

"Oh no, sir, I didn't mean to imply-"

"I like my wind chimes!"

"We've been up here for a while now," the Head Pixie said, watching me check my facial features to ensure they hadn't been blasted out of place. "Anti-Cosmo is pretty loud. What took you so long to notice us?"

Jorgen's expression flashed to sudden guilt. "There's an el-click down there I believed to be the exact same shade of pink as my socks. I had to be sure."

"A procrastinator's work is never done," the pixie agreed.

"Hold the crystal ball," I said, wrinkling my nose. "An el-click? Like… the seat with the steering handles, and the big wheel in front and little one in the back?"

"It was the same colour," Jorgen defended himself. "This is not a ridiculous observation to be waved off just like that. My socks were spot-on. It was perfection at its finest. Rarely have I experienced greater emotion in my life."

"Who rides el-clicks?" the Head Pixie asked, the slightest note of offense creeping into his flat tone. His pheromones rippled. "My father never let me get one as a child because they were going out of fashion. 500,000 years later, it would seem they've made a comeback. I'm seething."

"I don't know why it exists, only that it was THERE."

My eyes rotated down to Jorgen's feet. I sputtered, "You found an el-click the colour of those monstrosities? I've seen better socks on a troll!"

"I've seen better trolls," the Head Pixie put in. Jorgen flung his arms into the air.

"THEY WERE A GIFT FROM MY NANA!"

"Was she a troll?"

"Seriously Jorgen, the only way that colour could be worse is if you wore it on your head!"

"I'm happy to buy them from you and drop them off somewhere they're better suited for. Like the surface of the sun."

"CAN WE NOT APPRECIATE THE FACT I FOUND THEIR MATCH? WHAT WERE THE ODDS OF DOING SO CONSIDERING THE SIZE AND CHAOS OF THIS CITY ALONG WITH THE PRE-ESTABLISHED RARITY OF EL-CLICKS IN GENERAL?"

"Darling, I adore you and your family - Tarrow knows I do - but perhaps your nana's vision is going. Or perhaps you are stupid. You might consider, with all due respect, upgrading your intelligence to the basic level expected of a brownie. Or maybe not flunking out of school, as I humbly presume you did."

Jorgen grabbed me around the waist, crushing my tiny body in his enormous hand. I yelped and squirmed, and he brought the glowing point of his star staff a hand's breadth from my nose. "Say one more thing about my nana," he growled.

"S-sir, please!"

The Head Pixie knocked on Jorgen's knee. "Break it up, you two. This fight is between us and a textile company, not each other. Let's deal you in, Strangle. We've got time for another round."

An enormous roar broke us out of our debate- the hydra dove for us with teeth flashing wide. I screamed and threw my arms in front of my face. The Head Pixie pinged himself out of the way in time, though Jorgen and I didn't. In an instant, my fur lit with knives of purple fire. My vision blazed black. When the world swam into focus again, the hydra was banking away with Prince Eastkal racing at its tail. Jorgen and I stood there, singed like chimney cats. "Ooh," he said, sizing me up. He licked his fingertips and pinched out a simmering flame at the end of my hair. That was more than my body could handle, and I collapsed in a charred heap on the spot.

"Thank you," I mumbled.

Jorgen held his staff across his body, gripping it dangerously near the glowing star. He squinted hard at a cluster of Fairies crouched in the street below, hiding behind the post office. "I must return to my Keepers. You two, get to work. Or GET OUT of my city!"

He blasted away in a hot poof of dust.

When I pulled my essence into a corporeal form again and shook off the ash, I found the Head Pixie hovering a few wingspans away in empty air. It seemed to strain him enormously, wings buzzing louder than ever, but he managed. Patting his brow with the hem of his sleeve, he asked, "So what's the game plan here? I'll have you know, I've got sixty-six pixies waiting on me back home and I still have to get groceries for lunch."

I fingered my ring. "I… do have an idea. If you cover me, I can reach Sunnie's Temple and pray for aid."

"Which one's Sunnie again?"

"The master of water, focus, education, tranquillity…" Taking a careful step closer to the edge of the roof, balancing my foot on a gargoyle with chimera horns, I searched the blackened streets below for the colourful garden and familiar white columns. "The nature spirits don't like to meddle without our permission. I'm a child of Sunnie and he'll help us if we ask; I know he will."

"We're not doing that," the Head Pixie said, landing beside me. He glanced over his shoulder when the red dragon blew a stream of fire a dozen streets away. "The spirits are incredibly dangerous and our ancestors built the Zodiac Temples to bind them for a reason. What stops Sunnie from flooding the city if you ask him to put out the fire? This could go wrong in every way, and we're not strong enough to reverse their damage. One monster on the loose is bad enough. So no."

Oof. I grasped the hilt of my wand, tucked in its silver sheath, and pressed my fangs into a smile. "Yes, yes, certainly, of course. I acknowledge your concerns, sir, but I do have a counterargument, if you'll allow me?" He didn't protest, so I went on. "You fear Sunnie's power, which you absolutely should. He is the embodiment of powerful forces such as water and knowledge in all the universe, and I can see why you might hold such concerns. You're afraid that if I call on him in prayer, he may ignore me in favour of using his powers to protect himself. However, as I see it, the city is saved either way, whether it's for his benefit or ours. Even if Sunnie chose not to protect the people, he would protect his Temple. My only request would be that he extend the range of his protective bubble to shield us all, not his Temple alone."

"No."

Gods, you're insufferable, I thought, making no effort to disguise the look of disgust flitting across my face. I leaned to one side to get a better look beyond him. The pink dragon sunk its teeth in one of the hydra's necks, but the other two went for his wings. I winced, clutching my ring finger tight.

"Well… I do have another suggestion if you care to hear it, sir. Praying in Sunnie's Temple would only protect the city, leaving the dragon to flee if it wishes and wreak its havoc elsewhere. But with a quick draw of your karma, I can confront it on its own ground and perhaps defeat it… or if not defeat, provide Prince Eastkal with the aid he so highly needs."

Dragons shrieked, scrabbling with claws and trying to aim their fire. The Head Pixie stared at me dully, resting his hands on his waist again. "The prince can take care of himself. He's from one of the pure bloodlines. He has more magic than you and I do combined."

"But not more karma," I pressed. "Karma is energy across a lifetime, and the longer you live, the more there exists to draw from. Magic pools refill with an energy field connection whereas karma crystals dim and never light again, but… They're powerful for precisely that reason, you see. Each is limited use and packs a horrific punch." I inhaled and brought my hands together in a light clasp. "Look here- a little consent, that's all I'm asking, sir. You won't suffer. You'll hardly notice anything different. I can handle the difficult part of confronting the dragon; I'm trained in demon summoning and demon combat. It may seem foreign to you, but I know what I'm doing. All I need is your support."

"Why not drink Jorgen's karma?" The Head Pixie gestured to the street below with an upturned hand. "He's Keeper of Da Rules. He's bound to have at least as much power in his neck as I do."

It took a significant cut of my strength not to roll my eyes. "Yes, yes. However, he's more use to me in a functioning body than you are. He'll back me up if I engage the dragon. You won't."

The pixie slowly blinked. "Why do you care? It's just Faeheim. There are other cities."

I laughed. "Why? Well, for one thing, I can't boast to my people I destroyed this place someday if it's wiped out now by a third party! If ever Fairy World's capital goes down, I want my name in the history books for it. I want to be the one who reclaims our stolen temples, and no dragon will steal my show!"

His head went to one side, mulling it over, while I shot glances between him and the writhing hydra. Finally, he lifted his shoulders in a lazy shrug. "That's some mega procrastination there, dude. What the fritz… deal me in. There's a really good Snobbish restaurant down there and I have a reservation for next Thursday anyway. I hate to cancel plans. Take whatever karma you need."

I exhaled. "Thank you, darling."

I stepped closer, lifting on my toes. Without my asking, the Head Pixie crossed his fingers and slid them behind his back. Hm. He really had done this before, hadn't he? I made a mental note to ask him about that, but now was far from the time. When he moved his hand, the energy field lifted to one side around him, allowing me that little peek into the purely magical flipside of the waking world…

… and my jaw flung itself open like a drawbridge falling from the sky. "Not you too," he said, watching me.

I… I wrapped an arm around my stomach, squeezing the other fist to my mouth in a desperate, horribly failed attempt muffle my scream. A swoosh of air swiped from my spine to my knees, knocking them like rocks down a river. Stronger than his pheromones. Instantly, I decided I didn't care whether his movements were even halfway decent in the mindspace. I'd throw myself in his lap in a wingbeat, with physical pleasure an afterthought.

"Anti-Cosmo?"

My claws slid higher, clenching in my hair. The others tightened in my side. I'm needy. I rush things. I lose patience at the slightest excitement. I know what I am. Oh, don't rush this, Julius. You'll never have what he's offering again. A purring fantasy began playing in my mind… the excruciatingly slow draw of my tongue along soft pixie skin, bubbles of karma filling my whining mouth until rainbows dribbled to the ground…

"Knock-knock, one-eye. Are you still there?"

I couldn't speak. I couldn't move more than a shifted foot. All I could do was gawk at him. He was just… just… magnificent, floating there with spinning, buzzing wings. The translucent weave flowed like a silken river down his shoulders, resplendent and multicoloured with gaping sleeves that completely engulfed his hands. Um… coronation robes, I think they're often called? I'd attended to my studies, I assure you, but I'd never seen a weave so thick before. Thousands of threads - hundreds of thousands - thousands of thousands curled behind his neck in heavy layers and ran past his feet in a ribbon of a tail. Every thread knew its place with perfect synergy. No gaps. No tangles. No knots. No frays. Not one single fray. Those were the smooth, clean threads of someone who didn't tell lies lightly. I knew perfectly well that I was staring, and he didn't seem to like it.

"Anti-Cosmo…? That is your name, right? I really thought I had it."

Mate, I'd tackle you to the ground if I weren't a gentledrake, I thought. Actually, scratch that. If you're offering a sip from a weave like that, I'll let you tease me to your core's content. I need that karma on my tongue.

And he really was offering, wasn't he? In just a minute my teeth would push through his neck… What, and all this my first real time in the field? Was this truly happening? Smoke and soot, the beautiful thought left me sick with caterpillars, ahaha…

The Head Pixie brought his crossed fingers forward again. His weave snapped away. I shook my head, clutching my chest, and inhaled sweet magic deeply from Cosmo's core.

"O-oh my gods," I managed when I found my voice again. "Your karmic weave is… it's… You're gorgeous."

Share. Here. Now. I forgot the delight of his pheromones instantly. I nearly forgot the dragons. The Head Pixie made a fist, and I almost forgot that too.

"Thanks."

The uncertain note in his voice made me re-evaluate what I had said. I lifted my hands. "I- I didn't mean anything of the, u-um, courting nature. See, I'm an Anti-Fairy. Under the right circumstances, I can see the influences of luck, balance, and harmony upon living plants and creatures- All of it, whole lifetimes of liquid fate presented in solid form. I've glimpsed weaves before, but I say, you have one of the most intricate and beautiful I've ever seen. Good smoke!" I fanned my hand at my face, unable to meet his eyes. "So influential, yet you've stooped to speak with a filthy reject of Tarrow's first attempt to create your race, ahaha… I'm flattered, really. I'll never again deny I have a second stomach to fill, to use the poetic term. U-um… remind me which zodiac you were born under again?"

"Soil…"

"Ta, of course. You see, that explains it! Were you like this all this time? I say, you were holding out on me. Smoof, this is so sudden." I mopped my brow with my sleeve and gave my collar another flap. "Anyhow, Twis is the spirit of Devotion. His cornerstone aspects are Perseverance and Obsession. At some point or another, it would seem you fell into a lifestyle where you balanced them both with incredible precision, like stacking cards on an upright needle. A soul with a foot on either side of the divide. A-and here you are now. Smoke, your energy's at perfect equilibrium. Um… May I see it again, sir?"

The Head Pixie nodded very slowly and returned his crossed fingers behind his back. And there it was, petals blooming in the starlight. Yarn sweeping like a flame. I threw my arms around his neck and squeezed, not caring if he snapped at me, not caring if he slaughtered me for my insolence, for he pulsed a methodical magnetic radiance I'd only ever dreamed of, and my sacred duty was to answer. My hands sank into coloured threads up to my wrists. I placed a clawed foot on his knee. Lifting loops of glowing yarn to my mouth, I inhaled the scent of cinnamon and made plans to remain forever.

"What are you doing," he asked flatly, no question mark. He didn't force me off, only stayed there with the fingers crossed and one eyebrow raised. My wings swept forward, catching him around the wide shoulders. I brought my second foot up to grip the fabric of his suit and pressed my forehead in the fluffy collar of his glowing robe. A single hand released the threads flowing around him and caressed his cheek… perfectly sharp cheek, rough stubble along the chin.

"Gods, you'll be delicious in a moment, darling…"

He stared down at me dully, because he didn't know. He didn't know or understand and didn't believe, and I wanted to weep for that poor oblivious soul. Not lifting my head, I traced a claw down the Head Pixie's jugular vein. The scent of citrus wafted through the air. I paid it little mind.

"All right… I'd best get on with it before that dragon circles back for us. Or Jorgen, smoke forbid. You've done this before with Anti-Bryndin, haven't you, old chap?"

"Of course," he said, bored. Then his gaze suddenly sharpened. "Wait a sec. You're a child. This isn't your first time, right?"

I plunged my teeth in his warm neck without answering. His hands shot to my chest instantly, shoving back.

"Tell me this is not your first time."

"Don't be frightened," I muttered, pressing tighter. "I've read a thousand books about it."

"Anti-Cosmo-"

For smoke's sake, we'd be done by now if you would just HOLD STILL!

He left me no choice. I drove my teeth through the coils of his karmic weave, wrenching loose a rainbow river of tangled threads. Every cord whirled about my head, flaring when the Head Pixie struggled and then freezing in place when I severed the tie with a bite. Bright, glittering cords hung like cobwebs in the corners of my eyes. The pixie went still, slumping in my arms.

With him thus numbed, my muscles relaxed. An unmoving drake in my arms was familiar territory. The Head Pixie may be large, but with my legs braced I had no trouble distributing his weight. Not much, anyway… certainly not once I had my first taste of stubborn strength. A thin trickle of dust began leaking from the gash in his neck. I pressed my tongue in place and breathed him wholly in.

Soft. Like the press of leather under sore cheek.

And it was better than fresh bread. Better than my herbal teas or soothing soups. Better than white chocolate. Warm magic melted like butter on my tongue. Sour pink at first contact, though the promise of cool, salty blue danced just out of reach. Warm, peppered yellow skirted around the edge…

On my eighth stroke of tongue, when still nothing changed, a cloud of dread slid across my mind. Karma burned the back of my mouth. I'd hit the right spot, hadn't I? Anti-Buster made it sound so easy, and Anti-Bryndin had synced with my mother after only three in demonstration…

But I must have hit the spigot. Sparkling Fairy dust dried my tongue and liquid magic washed it clean again. I mean, what else could I have bitten?

On stroke nineteen, the world flickered with a sharp pulse of white. I quickened my licks, straining my legs just a hint to keep the Head Pixie balanced. Distantly, I made out the rumble of the dragons. Still there. Still engaged.

The pulse flashed through the sky again. This time the other world stayed solid a few seconds longer, revealing a circular room decorated in grey. Then the waking world. The energy world. The waking one, both of them tugging on my conscious mind until my head went spinning.

The other world won in the end, snapping into place. The city, the dragon, the noise… it all faded out to black. Now I stood in that dim grey room, holding the Head Pixie no more. A purple figure floated a pace in front of me. No ears. No hair. No face. No wings. No crown. Just a blobby sort of thing, smoother than candle wax, with folded arms and tucked-under feet. He gazed at me with suns instead of eyes. Softly hovering.

… I couldn't pick up his pheromones anymore. And I wondered, perhaps… if that was why the Fairies found the core chamber such an intimate place. Here I faced the Head Pixie on neutral ground, uninfluenced by automatic signals in my brain that told me he was someone to respect and fear; the word sir was the farthest thought from our shared mind. He had only his own presence to prove his reputation now. Come to think of it, I don't think I fear him, really… Though respect his dominance I certainly do in spades. He could knock me on my back and drive his heel between my legs, leering down with yellowed teeth, and you wouldn't hear one squeak of protests from my lips, I daresay. I'd purr if he asked me too, or mewl like a newborn kitten, flaring my beaten wings with as much submission as I could possibly signal. Ha. You won't catch his drones doing that.

I studied my surroundings in a careful left-to-right sweep, drinking in the stacks of bookshelves, the cushioned chairs, the empty soda cans across the floor. A shiny… sculpture of some sort in the centre of the room, like a smooth mountain towering high with a crooked point jabbing from the lip. When the implication finally dawned on me, I clapped my hand to the place my mouth should be.

"Good smoke! We're actually- Oh gods, I didn't mean to…"

"I wasn't expecting company," the Head Pixie's soul drawled. "Ignore the mess."

I'd never… I mean, well, yes, of course I knew it would work, but…

I pressed my hands to my mouth. "Are we inside your core chamber? I thought… I- I didn't realise…"

His fingers tightened around his elbows. "Unfortunately, yes. I didn't replace my mental shields before you took advantage, so we materialised in my personal space instead of the neutral crossroads outside. Welcome to my core. Don't. Touch. Anything."

"I didn't take advantage!" I argued, flushing bright. My skin glowed a snapping blue. "You agreed!"

"I withdrew the offer."

"You can't call take-backs after saying yes!"

"I can, I did, and you forced me." The purple figure floated back, kicking his feet forward. One leg crossed the other at the knee. "But now that you're here, drink whatever you came for. I can take it. Just don't mess with the black door."

One did not need to gesture with a physical hand in a world of magic such as this; he gestured with a thin cord of brain power and I turned my thoughts to follow. The door lay tucked to the chamber's left in a patch of space devoid of books, chairs, or any sort of comfort. It was indeed black, the material strong and shiny like fine lavastone.

Though I'd never actually visited another's private core chamber before, Anti-Buster had taught me well. Everything was symbolic this deep in the unconscious mind, and doors suggested suppressed beliefs- especially ones kept behind a door that strong. Suppressed beliefs led to unstable magic, and I'd thought Fairies were against that sort of thing. "What's back there?" I asked. "The core of your core?"

"Open it and find out."

I shook my head. I'd entered the Head Pixie's core chamber for one reason only, and that was to obtain his karmic blessing. Drawing it out with physical fangs was only half the battle. It meant nothing if his soul didn't offer it likewise in the energy world. I held my hand to my chest over the place the Soil symbol would appear printed on my shirt, and bowed.

… No response. I didn't need to glance up to watch him in this world, and my imaginary stomach pinched at the way he studied me, relentless and silent. He did not move. A frozen spark beaded on my brow like a sweat droplet. I licked my ice-smooth lips.

"Ah… Drk. Head? Sir?"

The Head Pixie drifted closer, letting his crossed arms drop, and took my glowing hands in his. Stabbing ripples of power, like whips of thorns beating across my skin, tingled through my bones and plunged into my stomach. His palms pressed back, scorching deep. My eyelids fluttered. I tried to clear my throat, though there wasn't one. The purple soul scrunched with displeasure, shoulders lifting near the place its ears would be.

"Don't make this weirder than it has to be."

"I'll try, luv. I'll try."

I drew his energy through his stinging hands. His touch was warm and unfamiliar, sliding up my arms like sleeves over skin. Or like a teasing fingertip. If it was a teasing fingertip, I wouldn't really mind. In fact, I rather liked the idea that he might pull me aside and we could have a little fun, you know… Seelie and Unseelie. The dominant bloke certainly had to know a lot of pleasuring techniques, and he'd give me what I needed. The highest rooftop in a city in crisis was the last place we'd ever be caught. Preferably, we'd play here in the energy world. The core chamber magnified every sensation tenfold, shivering my very centre… Oh, if this was what pressing bare palms did to me, I imagined further contact could bring me weeping to my knees…

My vision burned black a moment in full throbbing ecstasy. Yes, I daresay we could call it that: my wandering mind played out a few fantasies, a few longings for the chance to share karma with Anti-Saffron someday, if she was into it… She would with me, I'm sure of it. I'd grasp her body close at roost, murmuring as I sank my teeth in, her hands grasping the bare fur of my chest, every gasp shaking so… I suppose that's one benefit to a monogamous wife. If she refused a practice as simple as mating with somebody else, then she likely wasn't sharing those karma crystals with anyone but me. Sweet Anti-Saffron, twisting under my tongue…

Then I jolted. I nearly broke our hands apart, but the Head Pixie's soul didn't flinch, as far as I could tell. He only watched our hands, the fingers gently linked. I could sense his reluctance bleeding clearly, and wondered whether he could sense the flushing chill I imagined in my real-world cheeks. I wondered if he'd try to withhold.

One sip… Please. Just one taste of total equilibrium and I shan't ask for anything again.

With the Head Pixie's nodded permission, I scooted closer. We were the same height in the energy world, the same plump doughy shape, the same slippery skin. Bringing our clasped hands near our chests, I leaned in and fastened tiny teeth in his glowing violet neck.

…

Oh.

The… the Head Pixie's karmic weave tasted just as stunning on the inside as it had looked before. Instead of melting, it lashed like falling stars. Every flip of tongue I made across bare energy scalded the tip with flame… the purest, most delicious icy flame to ever cross my mouth. And I'd kissed Anti-Kanin with sugar sprinkles on his lips. Tingles whirled up through my feet.

I pressed deeper on the second stroke, sorting the delight of the Head Pixie's first Midsummer holiday as a child from the frantic panic of the Eros Nest nearly 30,000 years ago. I lapped again like I would sauce from the end of my claw, or nectar from a flower. There… the splash of cold water as I poured drinks for myself and a damsel in a black dress. The crunch of teeth cracking the shell of an egg. Fingertips brushing an ivy curl. The laughter of a baby rubbing its tiny face in mine. Why, I could fly for cloudlengths on that sensation alone, performing loops and dives all the while.

"Hrmm," said the soul, slightly strained. My lips twisted at the touch of knives. Hot, rainbow liquid spilling down my chin informed me I'd taken enough. I wiped the boiling karma with my hand, only for it to cling like molasses to my palm. I slapped it on the thickness of my leg and went a little deeper. When the Head Pixie tried to lean away, I surged forward for another taste. Another swipe of my tongue, fiercer this time, sent me hurtling through a winter sky and crashing on the ice below. My teeth grazed a visit to an Earthside beach, waves dragging at my ankles. The flinging of a stone to watch it skip a perfect six times before that satisfying plunk. The hop of a frog, the feel of crouching to hop just like it along a pine needle path.

The purple soul wriggled weakly under my fangs. Only it wasn't purple anymore, having solidified to the appropriate shape and colour for the Head Pixie's outer incarnation. My hand was much the same; it had been blue once, I think, though soaked with liquid rainbow now and impossible to tell. As if the thumping in my brain could have named the colour anyway, so wheeling it was with memory flashing after memory… Gods, the balanced energy in his touch. The taste spattered more gloriously than salt, but ingesting too much would scald my core from the inside out, so I had to let it dribble down. Such a waste. I intended to slurp it later from my sleeve.

Those tingles that had started in my feet raced over my entire body, zinging inside like a thousand balls bouncing off a thousand iron bars. I lurched forward, clinging to the Head Pixie even as he tried to drag himself away again.

Oh ho, I thought when my tongue slipped across a particularly passionate night with the erotic queen Ivorie herself. I'd no idea you had memories like THESE, old sport! Wings aflutter, bodies shaking, nails denting skin with a hundred crescent moons, the sweet softness of it all… My my, someone's been a naughty boy… I lingered on that image longest, staining Ivorie's features in my mind. The sweet honey-brown of tender skin. The shocking flash of flaming hair. Those gasps she made pinned beneath me, the wild fear in her eyes when I pressed her windpipe with my hand, beautiful writhing creature…

The Head Pixie's fingers whispered across my shoulders, struggling with words I couldn't decipher. Very well. I wrapped my mouth around a Winter Turn morning softer than a fresh-baked cookie, mint green pyjamas and a baby in my arms. He'd spoiled me now, I realised in amusement. Throughout our training, Anti-Buster had warned us all that drinking karma felt like dancing upon a frozen lake until a massive serpent slams the ice from below and sends you crashing in a heap. But at equilibrium, the Head Pixie's threads wove together in expert song, and no frayed knot caught the lazy movements of my mouth off guard. Every stroke flowed with perfect ease. No stutter. No choke. No slip. Not one drop of poison tainted our karmic rivers tonight.

"Anti-Cosmo…" he tried, though I ignored him. My name came out strangled on a peg. I slid down another neural pathway, zigzagging a little now. Whipping snow stung my arms pale pink. Ambrosine sang a bedtime song over two pixies in a crib. Sister screeching. A damsel with a lovely tail of purple hair. I could have explored for hours, and perhaps I would have, had my tongue not scraped a shirtless grappling match and recoiled with a zing out of pure disgust. At least, I hoped it was just a grappling match.

Mother?

My eyes snapped open- my waking world eyes. I hadn't even started on the Head's future memories yet, but I broke my teeth from his freckled neck anyhow, stomach fluttering and all my limbs flushed to infinity. A single plop of drool fell from my upper lip, shimmering every colour and hardly hinting at the greedy sip I'd drunk. At first, all I could do was cough and retch a few bright butterflies against the crook of my arm. Oh gods, I wouldn't be clearing that last thought any time soon. Mother? Like… my mother? Shirtless and smeared with soot and playing about like a… like a…

When did you FORM that memory?

Had he formed it yet? Perhaps I'd glimpsed his future after all… and perhaps this is why we're better off not knowing what's to come.

"Anti…"

When my stomach ceased to churn, my focus stabled out into the waking world again. Right… Yes, right. I had a dragon to face. The city needed me. Mechanically, I released the Head Pixie - now with his karmic weave stuffed back where it was meant to go - and rose to my wings. He tipped over with a low grunt, eyes open but not blinking. His forehead dome fell shut with a soft snap. I swiped my tongue around my lips, catching stray droplets that hadn't leaked across my clothes. The pixie coughed. And again. I think he said my name, sort of whimpering it and certainly swore, though I paid him no mind. I didn't need him any longer. Ha! With this much karma flowing through my skin, I wouldn't even need Eastkal.

"Now, Faeheim," I rumbled to myself, pushing up each sleeve in turn, "let me show you how an Anti-Fairy fights a dragon! Ahahahaha!"

Silver scales exploded from my skin. My coat dissolved. I arched my neck as it extended higher, higher in the sky. My face extended in a muzzle of snapping teeth. Scooping horns crowned my head. Clapping wings unfurled. I stretched my hands, the weight of heavy arms bringing me crashing down on all fours. My tail licked the roof, spikes clashing against the station's glass dome.

In a single fluid movement, I crouched like a cat sith and launched myself into the sky.