(December 28th, 1991, Toumur Palace, the Irish Fae Wilds)

There once was a castle atop a hill, one that ruled all that it could see. Mighty bricks and forged steel made its walls and gates so great they stood for hundreds of years. The lords and ladies of the castle were protected and safe. Their protections were vast, not only physically, but magically as well. For their blood was that of the fairy folk who walked in the shadows of the land.

Then, near a thousand years ago, a conqueror became king of the land next-door. This meant little to them at first, but with the king his people soon followed. A few nobility at first, then more, and further many.

At some point, between ten eighty and eleven twenty CE, a single person— or mayhaps an existing small family unit, it's impossible for even I to tell— of middling nobility crossed the English Channel. This was a person of magic, and of greed. Their progeny went on to become the wizards of Britain we have today, but that is of lesser importance to the history of Toumur and its no-longer-castle.

They brought new types of magics to the isles. And when they met the fair folk and saw the moss covered keeps with their rusted gates, they tore them apart brick by brick.

With staves of wrought iron clad with blades of gems, the wizards sundered that which they felt threatened by. I've read up on the histories of war magic, and at the time it was mostly inefficient, slow, inaccurate, and better at intimidation than at actually killing shit. But if you had twenty of those buffoons, they could level a Fae castle to ruins in an afternoon. Which was what happened.

With all the castles gone the skinwalkers retreated back to their kin in the shadow between Earth and Dream. After a couple hundred years, they once more began their infiltration of the muggle world. The previous generations that had slaughtered and been slaughtered were gone by the time of the current reign. Previously they were the stewards of the in-between, but they had gotten fat and lazy in their unchallenged stability. They did not make such mistakes a second time.

Where before they flaunted their status, now they hid it with great care. Like a creeping mycelium, they worked their way back to power, hidden in that which is unseen.

Also they build a bunch of fancy manors, estates, and in one case a small palace, over the old castle ruins. That was where I was at right now! Toumur Palace, the centre of Faen power here on Earth. My reason for being here was complicated, but also uncomplicated.

Every year Toumur Palace hosted a ball of sorts. It was a semiformal event which acted as something of a family reunion for shapeshifters of Fae blood. I'm technically the bastard daughter of Æví hyn Láunth, who I've been told was ‘brash and unladylike’, which is court speak for ‘isn't pretending that the year is still 1837’. There weren't exactly noble ranks among changelings, as the terms of Fae ‘royalty’ usually referred to magical power more than blood ties. Though power often did follow blood.

But that's way off topic— even if it did make me First Princess— the point is that Mom kidnapped a marquise and blah blah blah, I'm invited to the event because wedlock means nothing to heritage. Olea also qualifies as being both of Fae blood, and capable of shifting her form in a noticeable way. Hypothetically, a metamorphmagus or animagus with even non-shapeshifter Faen ancestry would also qualify.

I transported Lea and I in a similar manner to what I used to get back home when break started. The palace was heavily warded with both Fae and goblin magic, which was actually enough to prevent me from using my usual Fae Wilds based phasing techniques.

Not that I would use them here given the circumstances, but it was something that I informed Olea of.

Speaking of her, she was wearing a somewhat more old fashioned and formal version of her red dress for the event, along with black boots and opera gloves. I was wearing a similar setup, but with a light blue dress and electrum gloves. Also my hair was in an overly complicated series of braids, which along with the glasses— and my 150cm stature being added to by the 8cm heels on my boots— helped make me look much more mature than my twelve-year-old appearance would normally do. I could've actually made my body older, but I preferred to keep it as close to my base as possible.

Presentation of the self was a lot more fluid between changelings. So the changes to my dress would be communicating that I was to be taken seriously as I introduced Olea, but the minimal body changes since last year would show that I am still mostly the same in my core directions.

The sun was setting as we approached the ball, my little Sugarplum walking slightly behind me. At the doors to the palace we were met by the host. He was a tall man with orange hair littered with strands of greys. His beard was well groomed, and so too was his three piece suit. His name was Hemrí rəgalíæ Toumur, and he was the current Earl of Toumur. In non-magical circles he was better known as Harold Nolan, but that didn't really mean anything here.

I greeted him first. “Hemrí, It is good to see you!” I called out. Changelings identified each other by smell. Not real smell, but magic bullshit that felt like smell. They also had an incredibly deep… chivalry system? If you could call it that. It basically meant that nobody pretended to be a changeling that they weren't, and also didn't mess with anyone's façade.

“Princess,” He bowed his head slightly. “I like your glasses,” he complimented. Changelings usually had two sets of names, there were ‘temporary’ names and ‘true’ names. I didn't exactly enjoy the casual disregard of my identity, but it would appear to them exceedingly childish of me if I were to use my non-Faen name as a true name. Thus I had chosen Aríth hyn Láunth, because I too would not act like it was still 1837. “And who is this little doppelganger of yours?” He asked leaning down somewhat to look at Olea, who's body looked exactly like mine but younger and with a different colour scheme.

I smiled and put my hand on her back supportively. “This is my daughter, Ólania vír læ Láunth. She isn't very flexible, but she's mine nonetheless.” I said.

Hemrí was a little surprised by this, but he pushed that aside and nodded. “Well, I'm glad you're giving the young lady an opportunity to meet the rest of her family.” That was a common tact that most of the court used.

They knew the importance of staying out of the ire of the wizarding world, and equally they knew that I could penetrate further than anyone had ever gone before. So they tried to use these subtle manipulations to endure me to their cause. I wasn't ‘some stranger who barged into their society and has a terrifying amount of power’. No, definitely not, I was clearly ‘family’ whom they were ‘overjoyed to be reunited with’.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

There were some who actually were glad to ‘have me back’, but that was mostly Æví's closer relatives. The rest of them were somewhat less delighted than they appeared, but still doing their best to not poke the dragon in their midst.

There were servants near the door. Normally they would be the ones checking the guest list, but Hemrí found it necessary to do so until I arrived, at which point he would escort me inside. Luckily for him I was usually quite early. Inside there was a short hallway that led to another large set of double doors, beyond those doors I knew was the ballroom. We stopped for a moment as the Earl informed the herald of our titles, and then the two Fae guards opened the great doors, ushering us into the enormous and opulent ballroom.

The herald spoke loudly and clearly to the hundred or so guests already here. “Presenting the Earl of Toumur, Hemrí rəgalíæ Toumur. First Princess and Heir of the Realm—” That was only technically true, as when the crown does eventually move, I certainly wouldn't be pushing my claim for it. “Aríth hyn Láunth. And the Princess's daughter, Ólania vír læ Láunth.” the herald finished.

There was a small wave of whispers about my age or something, but I didn't really care to listen in too hard. I looked down and spoke to Olea. “The ball is yet to start, so there's not many people here yet. In an hour or so most of everyone will be here. In the meantime, I think I can see your first cousin twice removed from here, so let's go say hi to her.” I said, holding her hand as I gently pulled her along, towards a particular head of long black can crystalline blue eyes.

“Is she nice?” Olea asked.

I nodded. “Yeah, she's pretty cool, you'll like her.”

The walk was longer than one would assume at a glance. The height and breadth of the room was beguiling of its size relative to us and our little legs. The ballroom of Toumur was designed to comfortably fit many hundreds of people flailing their arms about in dance, so it took about a minute to cross from one side to the other.

Like many of the people here, Katin lí— my cousin— wasn't wearing her casual face. She was instead wearing one which she had undoubtedly spent hundreds of hours over the course of years perfecting. In other cultures such a thing would be viewed as vain, but here nobody was limited to genetics, so it was purely seen as a sign of dedication and skill. Most faces in the room would be considered one in a million by muggles, and some few could even match veela half-breeds. Obviously those faces were for formal occasions only.

Except for me, because I was the formal occasion.

Katin lí looked up from the lemonade that she’d been sipping on from her far side corner away from the entrance, and spotted the two of us with some confusion. “Greetings, Your Highness.” she said with much formality as we approached, which I rolled my eyes to. “Aríth hyn, aren't you a little young for…” She then froze upon ‘smelling’ Olea. “Wait, she's actually yours. What the fuck? Aren't you, like, seven?” she asked.

“Six years, one month, and twenty-eight days. But yes. Allow me to introduce you. Ólania, my dear, this is your first cousin twice removed, Katin lí of Fervun's blood.” Changeling families were old enough that ‘of X's blood’ was an antiquated term, but it was still used in formal introductions. Really it just described who somebody was close to socially, and that often changed multiple times over the course of a changeling's near two hundred year lifespan. “And cousin, this is my daughter, Ólania vír læ of Láunth's. She was not made via reproduction, but instead construction. I am indeed much too young for copulation.” I explained.

Katin lí laughed to release her tension. “Oh, thank goodness, I was about to start planning a castration.” She held out her hand to Olea. “It's nice to meet you Ólania, I'm sure we'll get along just blithely.” she said as Olea shook the offered hand.

Olea smiled. “That'd be nice,”

We made small talk for several minutes, until Katin lí stumbled onto the question of “How old are you anyways?”

“Eighteen weeks. Mom wanted an owl for school, but owls are lame, so she made me instead!” Olea cheerfully explained.

Katin lí furrowed her brow, so I elaborated. “Ólania is my messenger phoenix.” I said, as if that was a normal thing to say.

“That sentence makes no sense and you know it.” she complained. “Besides, why don't you just use a phone like a regular person?” Katin lí asked.

I giggled. “Oh, I wish, but I can exactly lay a landline out in the middle of nowhere. I might be able to set up a cell tower outside the castle’s range, or maybe I could do something with satellites? But it would be a lot easier to just send a drone to relay my signal and interface with the local network, and at that point I might as well just travel home and talk to Mom myself. So I think I'll stick to letters.” I rambled.

Olea then spoke up with a question. “Wouldn't the usage of muggle networks put you at risk of discovery?” she inquired.

Katin lí waved off her concerns. “Maybe back when we used standard encryption, but nowadays we have end to end magical encryption hexed onto our transmissions.” she said.

“How do you hex a continuous electromagnetic signal?” Lea asked.

Katin lí looked towards me to explain it, because for as much as she was a talented professional in her own field, she was not an engineer. “Well, you know about conduit effects, slash transmission visuals, right?” She nodded. “So, the encryption is applied as a magical spell, specifically a confusion variant of a privacy ward that makes anyone not intended to hear something think that whatever was said was just rubbish. And the ‘lightning’—” I made quote gestures with my hands. “—Of the electric signal acts as the conduit effect, so if it's intercepted then that would count as a collision of the effect, which would muddle the signal. Also it's not actually end to end, because it never gets ‘decoded’ at the other end. It just triggers no matter where it ends up, and if the listener is intended to hear it then it'll sound normal. End to end inscription is a different thing, which is used on the non-magical signal before it gets bewitched. It works fine by itself, but magical encryption is impossible for muggles to break, so most non-wizards at least have plans to upgrade in the next decade or two.”

Olea just blinked up at me vacantly. “I think you lost her somewhere around ‘collision of the effect’.” our cousin hypothesised.

I reached over and patted Olea's head. “That's fine,” I said happily, as she blushed with embarrassment.

We continued talking for some time, discussing several topics that ranged from the moisture level of the biscuits to how difficult forms of taxation affected the economy. At some point in there, we ended up making plans for Olea to spend a couple weeks with her basically-an-aunt, so that she could learn sewing. Eventually, the herald called out a specific name, and I sent a dove flying across the room to direct my uncle to our location.

He had almost the exact same series of reactions that Katin lí had when I introduced him to Olea. “And allow me to introduce Æví hyn’s brother, and thus your great uncle, or grunkle, Conell ró læn hír Láunth. He's a wee bit more traditional than Katin lí, but he's better than most.”

“It is reassuring to know that I am held in such high esteem,” the young blond said with a dash of sarcasm.

Only a scant half dozen minutes later, the ball officially commenced. The hired orchestra started playing, and the event swiftly accelerated from there. I took Olea out onto the ballroom’s centre for her first dance, and not long after we were both receiving offers to waltz from what felt like every third lad in the room. I encouraged her to accept a few, as I bragged about her to the other recent mothers— in this case meaning within the past ~20-ish years— and corralled a bigger chunk of the Láunth family together.

She looked to have fun with it. Lea wasn't nearly as powerful as I was, but I figured that was for the best. I hoped that she could make friends here, and have a little bit of a childhood instead of just being my tool.

‘She'll ask to stop shadowing me one of these days. Maybe in a year, maybe in three… who knows? I think I'll just make a regular owl next time.’ I thought somewhat sombrely, as I watched her twirl around with a boy four months my senior, yet every bit young as a six-year-old should be.

Feeling old was less than enjoyable, so I grew a few pigeons from one of my drones that I had sprinkled all over, and sent them off to deliver chocolate and a prank— to a nerd and dork respectively— in an attempt to banish my melancholy. Eventually I settled for going a few rounds on the dance floor with Hemrí. He had plenty of experience from his age and position, which meant he could actually keep up with me as I distracted myself. He, as always, was glad to have me, but after a few songs I left to go help Olea when she started getting overwhelmed by everyone.

A similar such thing happened to me during my debut ball, but I ended up growing a bunch of blades and scythes to scare everyone away from crowding me. Though, I didn't want her to reach that breaking point, even if violence was a lot more acceptable among Fae. So I just slipped my way through the gaggle until I was by her side, and then glared at the would-be dancers to remind them that I was too scary to trifle with.

“If you're ever feeling uncomfortable and I'm not there, feel free to use yer fire to scare 'em off.” I told her, just in case she hadn't noticed that two duels and a brawl had broken out since we arrived.

“Okay… and thank you.” I then swept her up in a princess carry in order to transport her to where our relatives were grouped up at. “Never mind! I take it back, you are the worst.” she protested, but I just kissed her forehead as she glared half-heartedly.

It was a fun night, and I was glad that I brought Olea along. She seemed to get along well with everyone, even if she was still a tad shy. She'd undoubtedly get more confident as she aged.