Mirabelle, the truly malevolent fairy, stares up toward the stars that fill the night sky, wondering if they’re looking down at her in much the same way as she is. However, she has her doubts about it.

The celestial bodies are all important in their own way, although the human-people might not attribute them with such status more often than not. However, her people knew of such secrets that have long since been forgotten by the people of this age.

The mother-moon is the celestial body that comes to chase away the boisterous, loud sun so that the living things of the world can find rest and coolness from her brash presence. The moon is a calm and gentle being, however this does not mean that she is kind. The mother-moon is a strict, harsh presence far above the world. She acts as a judge and arbiter of righteousness, making sure that all things, which she washes into evenness with the balancing coldness of her light, find equilibrium in their dealings. If one steals, if one cheats, lies, or otherwise causes an unbalance, her light will reveal this in the hue of whoever she touches, bringing great calamity to these souls.

The sister-sun is far more easy going and playful. She fills the air with a warm, deeply radiant fever that carries on and infects all things living and not so. She’s like a mischievous, older friend or sibling who means well, but somehow always manages to cause trouble one way or another. She carries a great love for all things of the world, which is far more personal and true than the cold nurturing of the moon, who looks down at them like a distant mother.

These two entities are, in and of themselves, benevolent at the end of the day. It’s not really clear why, at least not for anyone she had ever known. However, this is how it is, and they simply ought to be happy about it.

Mirabelle’s wings buzz cautiously as she looks up towards the night sky, towards the thousands of glowing pinpricks that fill the black canvas, glowing in varying luminescence as if they were the countless tens of thousands of eyes belonging to a kingly spider, hovering impossibly far up above the world — so far that only the glow of its gaze was visible, but its body was cloaked in endless shadow.

The stars are not benevolent.

Nor are they singular in the same sense as the moon or the sun.

Rather, the stars are a single entity, but they are this in the same way that an ant colony is a singular entity. Each star is its own individual cosmic being. Dozens of these might come together to make up an alignment of stars, worshiped by astrologers and mystics. These small clusters carry power of their own nature. However, the true nature of the stars lies in the totality of their boundlessness. They are endless in number, yet they are one — as a swarm, as a hive, the stars come together to make one single, strange minded presence that even her people had never been able to understand.

Sometimes they act, engaging in strange bargains or bestowing boons and gifts that make little sense to those who receive such things, or those around them. But that is because the stars play a long game. The game is so long that the result they desire may be hundreds or thousands of years in the future for the acts they undergo right now.

This gift of hers, for whatever reason she was given it, the stars’ reasoning for it might not ever even become apparent in her lifetime. It might be in the far, far distant future.

— Or it could be tomorrow.

It’s impossible to say.

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For the stars, in the same sense that they are a swarm like an anthill, they are also just as mindless, cold, and indifferent to the sensations of life. They act for the sake of their actions. They will tear a creature apart limb from limb with mindless efficiency simply because it is what they do in the pursuit of their uncertain goal.

The moon is a mother, the sun is a sister, however the stars… they are the witch in the dark night, the clawing hand with long, curled, sharp fingers that reach down from the sky to grab tightly the bodies of sleeping children in their cribs to snatch them into the endless darkness of the above.

Mirabelle looks at the city one last time before pulling the curtain shut and retreating to her bedding of fluff, where she never sleeps but lays in quiet contemplation for hours.

The stars are frightening, as is all of this.

But there’s something she can do to make the world less frightening.

Even if it is silly.

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— Something cracks.

Mirabelle winces, laying on the branch of her tree and nibbling on a piece of an old cake she found in the trash, as she stares across the park at Grace, who has a fresh, red, stinging slap mark over his face. The dark-elven woman who had been sitting with him rises to her feet, sharply lifting her nose into the air in a huff as she walks away, tightly clutching her bag.

“Sad, but beautiful,” mutters Mirabelle to herself, watching as the man sighs, leaning back against the bench with both of his elbows back over it. A duck quacks nearby, intensifying the tragedy of the moment with its majestic, mournful morning cry. The wicked fairy giggles.

However, because of this, the sister-sun startles her with a blinding ray of light, and she drops a piece of her cake, watching in distress as it falls to the ground, where a duck promptly steals it.

“…Ah…” mutters the fairy, before sitting back upright and sighing. She supposes she deserved that for laughing at Grace’s misfortune. But it’s so hard not to. He really does seem to be bringing it on himself.

She’s going to have to ask him what the whole thing is that he has going on here. But in a way, she almost doesn’t want to know.

Shrugging, Mirabelle flies into the air. It’s about time for her to get to work.

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It’s hard to know what she’s doing wrong without the kind shoemaker to mark her mistakes with thread like he had always done.

However, she’s found a way to sort of assess this on her own by simply taking one of the finished boots off of his shelves, which looks like what she’s trying to make, and holding them together. The mistakes she’s made become readily apparent then through comparison, although she doesn’t always quite understand them. Her small size is a useful tool in this, however, as she is simply able to climb right inside of the human-sized boots to inspect them from the inside.

— This works well until she tries out the method with a well-worn boot that is clearly here to be repaired.

Mirabelle climbs out of the leather shaft, her head spinning as she holds her nose shut.

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“Hold still,” says Mirabelle, clinging onto Grace’s boot.

It is the middle of the night again. The man is lying on the bench, staring up at the sky. One of his legs is up on the bench, and his other leg is folded over it, his foot and boot dangling in the air, bobbing up and down idly. This would be fine, if she wasn’t trying to hold onto it.

“You know, you seem kind of clingy, Mirabelle,” says the man, lifting his head to look at her.

The wicked fairy slowly turns her head around as his foot stops moving, to stare at him in disbelief — mostly for that terrible joke and secondly for that horrific, disgusting, smug smirk on his face. How can he smirk? Why is he always smirking? It’s infuriating, and she doesn’t even know why it is.

The cruel fairy points at him with a small brush, threatening him. “Grace.”

“Yes, Mirabelle?” asks the man, laying his head back down.

“I will seal your mouth shut,” she warns, pointing at the brush daubed with glue she’s holding. His boot’s sole is disconnecting from the rest of the shoe, which isn’t surprising given that he’s outside all day every day on his feet and then even at night he sleeps in them. Boots, especially leather boots, need to breathe. It’s very important for their long term durability.

He raises an eyebrow, smirking and looking at her.

“What?” asks Mirabelle.

“Nothing,” replies Grace, shaking his head.

“What?!” barks the cruel fairy, knowing exactly what sort of horrible joke he was planning out in his head but then never said. She’s watched him hang out with women here long enough to know.

“Nothing,” replies the smirking man.

This infuriates her for reasons beyond her fairy comprehension. So she turns back to the toe-box of his boot and holds it firm, as she applies glue to the loose sole and clamps the two pieces together with her body. She’s going to have to hold it for a minute, for the glue to set. Mirabelle isn’t sure what makes her angrier, the fact that he thought of a joke like that or the fact that he didn’t even say it — and especially the fact that she cares about this for some reason. What?

Mirabelle blinks, looking at the boot and then back behind herself.

Grace is looking her way, making that expression. “— With a ki -“

“SHUT UP!” yells Mirabelle, throwing the tiny brush at his face. It doesn’t fly far enough, as her arm is much too weak for that, instead falling onto his shirt.

The toe-cap of the boot pops back open.

His filthy, human laughter fills the night like the howl of a jackal.