Twilight was almost glad to get back to the normality of University the next day. Detective Ley and her ‘deal’ left a bad taste in her mouth. Getting back to the most mundane part of her life offered her a chance to get away from the deals and dangers and just focus on what she wanted for a change.
She made one detour on the way out to her university. Her bike complained as she drove it up the old dirt track through the forest, hating every moment of it as the dirt and leaves and sticks got caught in its wheel guards. Still it made the journey admirably and she dismounted near the old, abandoned farmhouse. It had been thoroughly poured over yesterday, but had revealed none of its secrets.
“Clara!?” Twilight called as she walked around the building, “Nadia?! I need to talk to both of you!”
No one appeared worrying Twilight as she continued her journey, looking for a certain mound. The farmer who had lived here when her grandmother had been alive, had known about the fae folk living right on his back yard and amongst his orchard. He had not been as stupid as his successor, who had been fool enough to take over an apple orchard, dismiss the predecessor’s warning about the ‘help’ and rip down the orchard in order to raise animals.
Every dryad linked to one of those apple trees had died with their tree and Twilight’s grandmother had seen no reason to step in when the Fae folk had retaliated for the demise of over a hundred of their people. The librarian was not sure she could be quite as callus about it, but then she had been six and friends with Clara and seeing how upset the tiny Queen had been had made her unsympathetic to the plight of the farmer.
“Clara? Nadia?” Twilight called as she found it and knocked on the nearest wooden post, one with had a small celtic knot carved into it. “It’s only me, Twilight. Come out, please?”
There was nothing for a few moments longer. Then a bright golden blur flew towards her, latching onto the young woman’s jacket and refusing to let go, babbling something at such high speeds that it sounded like a high pitched humming.
“Whoa, Clara please, I don’t understand when you talk that fast.” Twilight tried to get her to slow down as a willowy looking humanoid with dark brown, bark like skin and bushy, foliage like hair, of a colour not unlike the local trees warily emerged from the tree line and headed in her direction.
The tiny golden blur backed off and dusted herself off, taking a deep breath. The aura around her died down as she calmed, revealing a tiny, deeply tanned woman with golden blonde hair and sharp amber eyes of no more than three inches tall. She wore a long golden robe and had tiny, dragonfly like wings which shimmered, leaving a trail of what looked like gold dust as she flapped them at a speed unseeable to the human eye.
“Sorry.” She apologised to Twilight as she settled on the librarian’s shoulder, her voice ringing like a tiny, but almost unheard bell.
“It’s okay.” Twilight reassured the leader of the only fairies that were accurately portrayed in modern media. Tinkerbell, with her jealousy and temperamental nature was a surprisingly close portrayal of Clara’s people. “What’s wrong?”
“There’s something moving in the woods. Something that shouldn’t be there.” Nadia informed her, the oldest of the dryads looking pensive. “A huge swath of the forest has been rendered uninhabitable because of it. A lot of us,” She indicated herself, “Have been resting within the trees of others for the time being.”
“It chased us out of our home.” Clara complained, her tone shrill in her anger, causing Twilight to wince, “It’s a huge, boney creature, mostly humanoid in nature with ashy grey, almost dead, but bloodstained skin. It has burning red eyes, sharp, sharklike teeth and it brings fear and a trail of blood with it whenever it’s near. My warriors tried to fight it, of course, but it swept them aside with a sweep of its massive hand.”
Twilight frowned. There was nothing she knew of by that description that was local to the forest. In fact she had not read of anything of that kind in general, but then she was only halfway through her grandmother’s journals. Not to mention her own collection of books on ghouls and goblins was limited due to the limited income she made as a part time librarian having to mostly go on bills each month.
“Can’t you ask for assistance from the Fae Realms?” Twilight asked them, unable to help but wonder if it was this new entity that had stolen Mikey away and if the child was okay.
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