Cadmea walked through the village, the King of the Fairies overhead. She wasn’t sure what time it was without the system HUD to tell her, but she figured it was around ten in the morning. She’d lost track after she’d gone to sleep for the night.

Everything about this place made it clear that she was not welcome. The little fairies avoided her for the most part; she only caught glimpses of most. The few who didn’t flee her sight met her gaze with a venomous glare. Were it not for the presence of the king, she was certain they would be throwing barbs at her, both verbal and physical.

Even the architecture was clearly not meant for her kind. The structures were more than large enough, so that they could accommodate a Great Fairy, but they were built along the treetops. They seemed to be made with wood magic, the cores being grown into and from the massive trees themselves, but extensions were made with more conventional carpentry.

It was clearly meant for the use of a flying race, but even the angels would find it inconvenient navigating the myriad tight spaces across this place. Only the fairies could call such a place home.

Few structures reached down to the ground, but the greenery was among them, and soon they were upon it. Cadmea looked over her shoulder, and the great fairy gestured for her to continue. She took a quick, deep breath and knocked three times.

The door swung inside, revealing its dimly lit interior. “Come in!” Wolfsbane called from above, soon flitting into view. She crossed her arms, making no secret how little patience she had for the vulpine woman. Cadmea noticed two small lights come into view behind the woman, one violet and one white.

“Thank you,” Cadmea said courteously as she entered the building. “Are these they?”

Wolfsbane nodded. “Mm-hmm. Girls, introduce yourselves to the… vulpus. False names only, especially around this one.”

The white light swiftly flew up to her, the violet trailing behind her, before coming to a halt and revealing the fairies within.

The grey fairy wore a grey dress and held her chin between her extended index and thumb, head tilted in confused assessment. The violet one wore a pea green dress, and seemed to split the difference between her twin and the adult, as if she was assessing the danger the vixen posed, but neither twin showed the distrust Wolfsbane did.

Except for their colors, they really did look the same, like mirror images of each other.

The grey twin spoke first. “Hiya! I’m, uh, Phoenix,” she said, strikingly clear despite her miniscule stature. “Call me Nyx! This is my sister Mabel. She doesn’t talk. And you name, miss?”

“Cadmea,” she replied.

“Huh. Why does that sound familiar?”

“We’ve never met.”

“Obviously. Well, I’ll think of it eventually,” she says. “Pleased to meet you!”

“Likewise,” Cadmea replied as the king stepped into the room.

“As you were,” he says. “Cadmea may or may not be here a while longer. After she makes her delivery, she was ordered by her goddess to wait here for further instruction, and she has my leave to stay here under watch until then. Cadmea, if you would?”

Phoenix conflictedly looked back and forth between the king and Cadmea, who reached into her pocket and pulled out the orbs. “I was instructed to deliver these to the nightshade twins,” she said. She held them up for the twins to see. “I believe the grey one is for Phoenix, which means the green one is for Mabel.”

“What are those? Marbles?” Wolfsbane asked.

“I haven’t a clue,” Cadmea replied. “That might be all they are. The goddess Tetra pulled them out of her pocket, told me to deliver them to the ‘nightshade twins, and threw me through a portal to this land.”

“Yeah, that sounds like us,” Nyx agreed, flying up to inspect the grey orb. “Magic god marbles, huh? What are we supposed to do with these? They’re… bigger than I am.” She reached a tiny hand out and touched the surface.

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“Agh!” Her eyes shot wide and she darted away, hand flying to her chest. “Holy- what is this, a palantír?!”

“Are you alright? What happened?” the king demanded.

“I don’t know! I saw something. I felt my heart stop and… it’s gone already.”

“Gone?” Cadmea asked.

“Yeah, it’s just gone. It’s like trying to remember what I dreamed about last night. I know I saw something, but when I try to remember what, there’s just nothing there.”

“Okay,” Wolfsbane said. “Whatever those are, I think it’s best you don’t touch them anymore, Phoenix. That goes for you too, Ma- ah.”

All eyes turned toward the colorful little fairy, whose hand was pressed against the jade orb. She was in a trance, wearing a smile on her face as she stared through it like a windowpane.

“Sis!” Nyx snapped, jolting her twin to attention. “Quick: what did you see?”

“Sss?” Mabel hissed, confused. She tilted her head.

“You don’t remember, do you?”

A shake of the head.

“Yeah, me neither. Well, Miss Cadmea, thank you for the… amnesia balls. So what do we do with them?” she asked.

“Whatever they are, I can’t imagine refusing to accept them would sit well with Tetra,” the king said. He groused, “And without the system we have no easy way of telling what these are, let alone how to keep them.”

“I’ll figure out what they are somehow, monkey around with them a bit, figure out how to handle them” Nyx said, “but storage is another question.”

Just then a flash of light and a loud CRACK startled the assembled fae and fox. They whirled around to see a wooden box sitting on the smoking ground. A small note was plastered on its front reading OPEN ME. The king stormed over to the box, gruffly flinging it open to reveal its contents: two semispherical velvet holders, and a note on a single sheet of paper.

He snatched the note from the box and read it quickly. He then held the paper out for Cadmea. “Tch, you Vulpus and your cheeky gods,” he remarked as she took it. It read

Hiya king F! Mind handing this note over to the vixen? I promise not to write your true name in lights across the night skies of 50,000 worlds if you do! Got it? Great!

Cadmea! Sorry I couldn’t make an appearance in person, Tri’s being a butt as usual. Apparently, we made a contract about that and that’s how I got the n-spheres. How scandalous of him!

Anyhoo, those things aren’t something you can put in a pocket dimension willy nilly, so instead I enchanted the hell out of this box. You’d be surprised how much it weighed! Put it wherever and put the n-spheres inside. It’ll anchor itself to that spot relative to the Earth. I’ve made it so it only opens for the twins. It’s not indestructible like the n-spheres, but it should be tough enough to survive anything that won’t vaporize Albion.

Your next assignment is to tutor the twins, especially about magic, and help them with whatever they’re up to. I’ll consider your part of the bargain is complete in 7382 days. If you’re good about it I might see about talking to a certain someone to get you some extra time added to your lifespan. Mortals, am I right?

~Tetra

PS: Tri put some old star stuff in the box. If you try to open it with a strong antimagic field it’ll go BOOM! Trust me, not as fun as it sounds.

PPS: The purple twin’s name is Belladonna and the grey one is Liandan. Spirits really don’t like it when mortals summon them, so don’t tell anyone that isn’t a fairy. Or a pixie. Or else! Fairy king, I know you’re still reading, this one gets a pass about this. Or else!

PPPS: Feel free to use loopholes! I prefer to break rules, but I'm fond of bending them too. Take it too far and you’ll regret it though! ♥

Cadmea stared at the paper.

Had she just been given a career change as some sort of foreign teacher? To nature spirits, of all things? By the goddess of magic? “Am I actually going to be staying here for… twenty years?” she asked. This was absurd, she was only twenty herself!

“It looks that way,” the king replied.

“What’s the note say?” Nyx, no, Liandan asked. “Was it from ‘Tetra’?”

“It tells us to move the chest where we want and then put these ‘n-spheres’ inside them. It also gives Cadmea here orders to become your tutor.”

“Well, that’s odd. Wait, did you just say ‘n-spheres?’”

“And it gave your true names.”

“Oh, well that’s lovely!” Wolfsbane remarked. She reached for her bow, but her king stopped her before the vixen could react.

“No,” he said. “She ‘gets a pass,’ we can’t kill her for it.”

Cadmea was confused for a moment, but then realized: she was a proud expert on ritual magic, and she'd just learned the true names of not one, but two spirits. They would not want to take chances of her spreading that information. They were unaging, even someone finding a note with their name on it in a dusty ruin five hundred years from now could be a potential threat to them, let alone giving it directly to someone who knew how to perform a summoning rite.

That goddess was going to be the death of her! Chaos indeed. “The note told me not to reveal your names, ‘or else.’ I’d rather remove my ability to say the names around mortals than figure out what ‘or else’ means, so I’ll draw up a binding ritual later.”

“My aren’t you resourceful?” he commented. “I’ll see H.H. about renovating Wolfsbane’s house to be more mortal-friendly. The three of you are moving in. Wolfsbane, I'm putting our new resident with you so you can keep an eye on her. I doubt she'll try anything funny since she'd doom her country if she does, but deal with it however you see fit.”

“Yes, my king,” she said as he turned to leave.

The archer gave Cadmea a cold glare. She could feel her fur stand on end. “Do I get a say in this?” The king turned around, looked her in the eye, and replied.

“No.”