Chapter Four Hundred and Ninety-One - Let Them Eat Fruitcake

"Marco!" I shouted.

"Polo!" Came the reply from my left, and then a moment later, another "Polo!" from my right.

It was a system I'd come up with to make sure we weren't lost. When I heard a distant 'Polo' I added my own shout of 'Marco' to the call.

It would have been a lot more fun to stay together in a tighter group where we could chat and laugh, but the cave we were looking for was in an area that - although it looked like a blip on Amaryllis' map - covered over fifty acres, according to Calamity. That was enough room to hold two whole villages with room to spare.

So, if we didn't want it to take several days, we had to split apart and search a wider area. That meant forming a slow-moving line. I could see Desiree to my left and Amaryllis to my right. She was in the middle, with Awen on her right and then Calamity capping it off.

The shouts were just to keep track of each other as we moved through the brush. It was actually super hard to walk in a straight line through a thickly grown, untamed forest. There were bushes and fallen branches all over, and the occasional muddy patch or steep hillside to navigate.

Without calling out, it would be way too easy to lose track of each other, and that would be terrible. I could imagine being lost in these woods, all alone. It made me want to shudder and hug my friends close.

"Marco?" Desiree called out.

"Polo!" I shouted back. I expect to hear another 'Polo' from my right, but instead there was a bit of quiet.

"Hey! We didn't agree on what to say if there was trouble, did we?" Amaryllis asked.

"Uh, I guess we didn't?" I shouted back. "Is there trouble?"

"You might want to come over," she said.

I turned the other way and cupped my hands over my mouth. "Desiree! Come over! There's something going on!"

It took a minute or two to reach Amaryllis with Desiree by my side. We trudged through the forest towards Amaryllis who immediately gestured to her right. We carried on that way until we made it to where Awen was waiting. She was crouched behind a fallen tree on the edge of a slight hill. Calamity was next to her, in the shadows. He was pretty sneaky when he wanted to be.

"Hey, wh--" I started.

Awen placed her finger over her mouth in a 'be quiet' gesture. Her eyes were a little wide as she gestured us closer. I came over and knelt down next to her, staying low. "Sorry," she said.

"It's fine," I replied with a smile to soften it. "What's up? Why are we being sneaky? Is it bandits? An evil monster? Ghosts? An evil monster ghost bandit?"

She shook her head, then gestured further down the slight hill. "I saw something further out. I don't know if I was seen. It looked like it was a pixie?"

"Urgh," Amaryllis said.

"Yeah, they can be a pain," Calamity agreed.

I looked to Desiree to see if she had commentary about pixies too, but she just shrugged. "I'm afraid that I lack knowledge here. What is a pixie?" she asked.

"They're itty-bitty people," I explained, moving my hands to show how big they were. "They're all glowy and pretty, with little butterfly-like wings."

"They're pests," Calamity said. "Dangerous if you're not a fighter of some sort. Otherwise, pretty harmless. On their own they're not so strong. But they swarm."

"I can cast a flamethrower spell," Desiree said. "And I'm certain that Lady Amaryllis can have her exquisitely powerful magic chain from one of these little ruffians to another."

"No!" I gasped. "We don't want to kill them. Look, does anyone have anything sweet on them? Candy?"

"We don't have Caprica with us," Amaryllis said. "So no, I didn't bring anything to rot our teeth out when I packed our food."

"Darn," I said. I'd been carrying a jar of honey around with me for months but just the other day I'd taken it out of my pack and put it away on the Beaver because I didn't think I'd need it. That was really biting me in the butt now. "Okay, we do have some bread, right? Fruit?"

Amaryllis' eyes widened. "I'm a fool," she said.

"No, I'm certain that your intellect is at least average," Desiree consoled her.

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"What? No, I was being rhetorical. We do have fruit, and nuts as well." Amaryllis spun her bag off of her back and rifled through it for a moment. She came out with a small cloth baggie that she uncinched at the top to reveal little trailmix disks.

They were a sort of syrupy-sticky stuff, with bits of dried fruit and an assortment of nuts mixed in. Each was about the size of a loonie, but a bit thicker, like a sweet little wafer. "Perfect!" I said. "Give me a third," I said.

"A third?" Amaryllis asked. "These are a snack more than anything, we can afford to part with the whole bag, I'm sure."

I shook my head. "Pixies are shrewd negotiators," I said. "It's best if we make a gift, then make an offer, then sweeten the offer after. That's at least three portions."

Awen at least seemed to catch on to my logic. "Ah, will we be negotiating with them, then?"

"Yeah," I said. "Otherwise they might decide that we're in their territory, which we might be. That could be a bunch of trouble, you know?"

"We're walking separated. They could easily drop a rock on one of our heads and take us out one at a time," Calamity said.

I wasn't thinking about anything so violent, but it was probably a valid concern. We could be attacked, even if pixies were small and cute. Just being small and cute didn't mean that something was harmless.

"Alright, I'll go see the pixies. Stay here and don't come out unless things go bad, okay?" I asked as I took the pouch from Amaryllis. My friends didn't seem super happy about me walking out into danger, but they stayed behind the trunk as I hopped over it. As a Riftwalker, I was the only one in our group that could talk to the pixies in their own language and hope to be understood.

The last time... actually, the last time, the pixies I'd met had been somewhat non-verbal. They didn't talk with words so much as they danced and moved and expressed themselves in other ways. Oh, they did chirp a lot, so I suppose they weren't quite non-verbal.

Creeping along the hill's edge, I made my way toward the place where Awen had pointed. The forest was quiet, save for the occasional chirp of a distant bird or the rustle of leaves. My heart pounded in all four of my ears.

I held the pouch of trail mix tightly, hoping it would work as a peace offering.

There was a bit of a clearing just past the bottom of the hill, with a small still pond and a large patch of wildflowers warmed by the sun. I saw them--dozens of tiny, glowing figures flitting about the flowers and ferns. Their wings shimmered with a spectrum of colours as they moved around, darting and playing.

Clearing my throat gently, I held up the pouch and spoke softly. "Hello? Hi! My name is Broccoli Bunch. I brought gifts. I just wanted to meet you all, and maybe become friends?"

The pixies paused in their darting, a few hovering in place with a curious tilt of their tiny heads. One of the bolder pixies, a big guy with blue wings, fluttered over and hovered a few feet ahead of me. It blinked, then its eyes narrowed suspiciously.

"Here," I said as I emptied the entire pouch (the other two-thirds were back with my friends, of course) into my hand and presented it to the little guy. "A gift! It's dried fruits and nuts. It's very sweet!"

That was enough to tempt him. He turned and squeaked a few times at the others, warning them to stay back for now. Then he landed on the tip of my middle finger and scooped up one of the disks. It was bigger than his head, but he munched on it all the same.

I smiled without showing any teeth. I was making friends!

His face lit up--quite literally--with a bright glow, and it zoomed back to its friends, chattering in a rapid, high-pitched squeal that seemed like approval.

Encouraged, more pixies swarmed around the snacks, their tiny hands grabbing pieces and tasting them. Their delighted giggles filled the air, a sound like the tinkling of a wind chime in a gentle breeze.

Seeing their positive response, I continued, "We're actually looking for a cave in this area. It's important to us, but we don't want to disturb your home without your permission. Could you help us?"

Now the suspicions returned, but not for very long.

"I have more snacks if you agree," I said.

Gosh, I was a great negotiator!

***