Harlan was sparring with Balor as Ava watched.

He had the memories from when Harlan trained with him on his finger, and he had some memories Lugh gave him.

Yet, the reality was very different.

His reach was longer, his sightline was higher, and his reaction times were both too slow and he was too twitchy due to a lacking fine motor control skill.

Even still, Harlan took another right hook.

It was horrifying when he suggested it, and Balor had originally refused to do it. But, whenever he had to actually hit Harlan, his body instinctively knew when to slow down to avoid seriously injuring him.

It just took a few broken jaws and ribs before he got there.

Harlan could feel Vita was very nervous, and likely didn’t much care for her job.

He laid on the ground, the air having been knocked from his lungs.

Harlan took a few short and painful breaths before Isha came along with his amulet in hand.

“We found two boys who fit, is now a good time?”

He couldn’t really answer back, but he nodded yes and Isha responded.

Harlan waited in his office, he would see the older of the boys, 17, only been there 3 months, only planned to stay for another 3.

“Were you told why you were sent here?”

“You want to teach me magic.”

“I want to know if you are worth teaching magic to. There is a difference. Pass my tests, and then we can begin.”

Harlan set a cleaver down on the desk.

“Cut off a finger, doesn’t matter which one.”

The boy hesitated, but he grabbed it and lifted, ready to take his pinky off.

Yet the steel never met flesh as Harlan telekinetically stopped him.

“What drives you? To so easily give up a piece of your body for the hope of learning.”

“I have a baby brother. I don’t know where he ended up, we got split up after the orphanage closed. I need to get money to travel around, find him, get us somewhere to stay.”

“Have you mentioned this desire to find your brother to anyone else?”

“I don’t have anything to give.”

“I’ll contact my people, try to help find your brother. If he hasn’t been adopted, then he is likely in Radin.”

“What if he has been?”

“We will cross that bridge when we get to it. How is your writing?”

“I’ve been told it is good.”

Harlan brought out the book of magic by Marigold, and then two blank books.

“Transcribe this book here into these here, then I will check the quality. If I think it is good enough, then one copy will be yours to train with and care for. Once you have read it another time, from the perspective of learning instead of copying, we will begin real training. Tell Isha, the young woman outside, that you require pens and ink to refill them. You will stay in a guest room here until I make my decision. I’ll learn your name once you are my student.”

“Thank you, Sir Fomoria.”

“Do well to remember that. I give my first name to my friends and family, and many people who I work with. But, until we are close, I am Sir Fomoria.”

“Of course, Sir Fomoria.”

“You are dismissed.”

The bow gave an awkward bow as he stepped out.

“You could’ve been nicer.”

“I can’t be close to them, I’m not dealing with family. I’m training mages to serve me.”

“Well, let’s see how long that lasts.”

“I know, I can’t stay distant forever. But, I can’t go into this as a friend.”

“I love that soft heart, and I wanted to just make sure you aren’t overcorrecting for it.”

“Always arguing from something that isn’t your view.”

“It is the best way I can think of to make you think through your answers.”

A knock at the door.

“Come in.”

The second boy, 12 years old.

Poor studies, bad attitude, hurt others when he was trying to win.

But, there was one anecdote, when a large bird bothered another child, he stepped in, lost an eye for it and didn’t even notice until it was over.

Whatever had happened to this child, he had nerves of steel and a single minded focus when he needed it.

Though he did faint once he was told what happened to him.

A fear of blood wasn’t a deal breaker though, who he really was, that was however.

“Who sent you here?”

“You did, you told Miss Sherah to send me here.”

“No, I mean why are you lying to me. My people have existed to hunt yours since before the empire fell.”

The boy suddenly took on the appearance of a girl no older than the boy, though she was quite short, barely two feet tall, and with sparkling wings on her back.

Her hair was a pale red, though he wasn’t sure he would say pink.

Harlan got a vaguely insect feeling from the way her large eyes were angled and looked like giant emeralds.

“My, I’ve never had someone see through my disguise before. Why didn’t you attack me when you knew what I was.”

“Honestly, you aren’t a very strong Fae And, because, I wanted to know, is peace an option?”

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

“Because every instinct I have tells me to kill you, you people being here caused the end of the world once, and, your status as false gods has killed millions.”

“I wasn’t part of that whole mess.”

“Then how have you lived your life?”

“I live with people, then I leave, and leave a changeling in my place. Nobody is hurt.”

“How long have you been doing that?”

“I don’t know, a few eons, give or take.”

She began playing with a toy train on his desk, a prototype maglev.

“You know, I once visited a place with these. I liked watching their trees, bright pink petals would fall every year from them. It is very hard to be a child here, your population is just too small. Your world treats them poorly, but not you.”

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“Where do you come from?”

“It had a few names, but it doesn’t matter much. I miss the little things that they had, knowing that they found a way to fly without magic at all was wondrous. I don’t like magic much, it is so boring compared to what humans can do without it.”

“If I let you go, are you going to hurt anyone?”

“I don’t have that drive for mean tricks like the others. Those are Fairies, Fae is a catch all. I’m a pixie, fond of dancing and merriment.”

She flouted in the air and gave a curtsy.

A harp suddenly appeared in her hands and she strummed it a few times before it vanished again.

“Oh, and I didn’t mean to come here. I just got carried into the game of those pesky Faires.

Then there were no games, no dancing, no flutes of gold. I wish I could go back.”

“What if you wanted to stay here?”

Harlan’s eyes went black and he stopped talking, so she just began floating around the room and looking at his things.

“What game are you playing here?”

“Is peace an option?”

“Well, I would be lying if I said that I didn’t have allies among them, they are, in a sense, now just part of this world. Too much effort to slaughter them down to the last, most of the really dangerous ones are gone anyway.”

“What about this one?”

“Pixies are fine.”

“Alright, now, what are Fae?”

“Foreign Adversarial Entities. I admit, we made the acronym afterwards. We thought that they were all the same thing originally. Then we just kept using Fae as a catch all anyway, Xol is the one who made the term have meaning more than just their name. He said Fae is an old word from his world but if one dug into their mythology you could separate them into any number of species.”

Harlan shook his head in shock.

“His world?”

“Oh, yes, his soul happened to be nearby when the gate to it opened, so he was pulled here as a wandering soul. Eventually he was given his first body, which died, and then we realized that his soul is immortal here because he was not made by Life. Lich is a word from his world as well, and once he learned magic he found out how to bring a monster of legend from his world here.”

“No, no. I can’t get wrapped up in this right now. I am just asking, if I let her stay, what would I need to do to make things safe?”

“Give her clothes, warm honeyed milk, pies and cookies. Let her put on parties when she asks so she can sing and dance and make merry. Pixies are not demanding creatures, their simplicity is much like a child’s.”

“Is that really all?”

“ am actually a little excited to see how this is going to unfold.”

“Can’t you already tell somewhat by just looking? Or, sighting, as you call it.”

“I read how mana flows across time, Fae do not have mana like things here do, so, they are cut out of my sight. Yes, I can sometimes find them by noticing what is missing, a scene that simply doesn’t make sense without at least one more person in it. But I can’t read her threads. I see few that end with bloodshed, and all of them involve you killing her, not the other way around.”

“I want to observe her.”

“Then do so, it is your choice, I am just giving you the context to decide your actions.”

“Do you want to stay? Just for a month?”

She was currently wearing the pelt of an Antler Hare and had sticks in her mouth to look like teeth.

She tried to answer, and then she spit them out and tried again.

“Why would I?”

“I can have my tailor make you new clothes, you can eat candies and pies.”

She turned upside down, her wings did not flap to generate lift, they just made her fly without causality.

Then she moved her head in rhythm with the clock.

“And you can have honeyed milk every night. But, you have to follow all of the rules I set.”

She tried to kiss him on the lips, but he quickly blocked his mouth.

“I meant nothing by it, simply an affection to make us partners. Now, if you break our deal without my breaking it first, you will turn into a cherry blossom. They don’t have them in this world, and that is just too droll for me.”

“We didn’t even set up the rules yet.”

“Oh? Then I guess you have the power to make a rule against me breathing and get out of the deal whenever you want.”

“You are testing me, aren’t you?”

“You humans are so untrusting, I am just letting you decide all the terms of our deal yourself. I want what I want, and you can give me that. The rest is just set dressing. I’m not even putting a time limit on this, you can keep adding rules whenever you want.“

“Alright, how about we start with your name.”

She recoiled as if he asked her to take off her clothes.

He thought back to what he read about Fae.

“Sorry, what can I call you? Your name is not needed.”

“Periwinkle, but you can call me Peri, or Winkle.”

“Nice to meet you, now, we can hammer out the details of our deal.”

“First, I don’t want you bringing people to look at me, I know how you humans are. Second, you can’t tell anyone what I am. Third, at least one pie or cake a day, and I want honeyed milk before bed every night.”

“That is fine, but I want to know, if you break a rule, what happens to you? Is the deal simply void?”

“Oh, I will instantly die if I break a rule with intent and I am not forgiven by you.”

“What?”

“I’ve died a few times, but it is never a pleasant experience. So don’t make any rules that are unreasonable, or when I come back to life my new self will be vaguely upset with you.”

“Huh, alright.”

It took most of the day to get the deal finished, and while she had no actual power to change the rules or make demands of him, he thought it best to make compromises to keep her happy.

It was fascinating to be around her, she really was like a child, and then suddenly she was 6 feet tall and spoke in a mature tone.

He could never tell which was her real self and she didn’t even seem to know other than she knew she was a she, she said at least.

“Why disguise yourself as a young boy though? Why not a young girl?”

“Humans are vile disgusting things sometimes.”

She returned to her adult form

“Everything is simply driven by wants, they want something more than they care about what the other wants. Fairies are like that. If you could, please kill every last Fairy for me. Just if you have time.”

“I will need to talk to them, just like I talked to you. But, I don’t think it is a bad idea.”

“Oh, I need to make you something.”

She took him by the hand outside and they returned three hours later with a pile of four leaf clovers.

Everyone was already sleeping by the time they were back, so at least he didn’t need to explain where the boy went.

She grabbed his wrist and started to weave the clovers into a bracelet, though it was a time consuming process.

“I could do that faster with telekinesis.”

“Stupid man, don’t you understand sentimentality? This is a gift, from me to you. I said before, I don’t like magic. Not unless it is fun. Weaving without your hands is no fun.”

“Then what does this do?”

“I would slap you, but we both agreed not to harm the other. I said, this is a gift, it doesn’t need to be magic, or do anything. Luck isn’t real, but where I am from, four leaf clovers are a sign of luck.”

“I’m sorry, you can slap me if you want.”

It actually managed to sting him and make his eyes water.

“I forgive you, Periwinkle of the Pixies.”

“Please, take good care of this bracelet, I put my feelings into it. And, since you refused my kiss, it is a symbol of our friendship.”

“Thank you for this bracelet then.”

“Thank you for not murdering me and sundering my soul.”

“Luckily, I don’t know how to sunder a soul.”

“And luckily for me, I don’t need to teach you anything, ever. Look, the bracelet is already working.”

It was insane to him that he was sitting with a Fae, though she is offended by the term and he isn’t allowed to call her one another.

More insane to him, was how normal she seemed. Well, his definition of normal was skewed, but relatively normal.

“I’ve been up too long today, I want to sleep in and have cake in bed when I wake up.”

She let out a long and loud yawn to accent her point.

“Then you will have cake.”

She turned back to her childish form and climbed on his shoulders.

“Why are you even taking me in, you aren’t getting anything from me.”

“I want to kill a lot of people, you are my natural enemy, one who I must actively fight the urge to kill.

I don’t like killing, and the more I do it, the more wrong it feels that it doesn’t feel wrong.

If I can be friends with my mortal enemy, why can’t I at least try to make peace with other people?”

She was nodding off to sleep.

“People are… stupid…”

“I know, but I hope that I can get them to understand me through peace, because once I am strong enough, I’m not sure I can resist using force to make them understand me.”

“Your hair is nice.”

She twirled and pulled it as they went inside.

He laid her down in a guest room and tucked her in. It scared him how much she looked like a child, but he wanted to wrap his hands around her neck and not let go until she stopped struggling.

Not that he thought that would actually kill her anyway.

He couldn’t read her emotions, he didn’t understand her culture, he just had to hope that things would be ok, that it wasn’t some grand trick.

He reached his hands forward, redirecting them from her neck, and brushed the hair out of her eyes.

“Goodnight, Peri.”

“Goo…nigh…”

In the morning he awoke and found that he hadn’t had a crazy dream, and when she awoke, well past noon, she found cake and sweet milk.

Everyone was very confused, and even if they could figure it out from her shapeshifting and choice of food and drink, he wasn’t allowed to tell them anything.

Gunther was happy to work with her anyway, though she demanded that all the fabrics for her clothes needed to be real, which was odd to him, as he didn’t understand what fake clothes were.