Kevin awoke in the morning in a very unexpected way. Instead of regaining consciousness naturally when the sun touched his face, he heard a voice.

"You're not a chipmunk, are you?"

When Kevin opened his eyes and saw the silhouette of a figure outside, he felt a flash of adrenaline but forced himself to calm before acting. He couldn't sense any ill intent from whoever was talking. If he'd sensed any ill intent, he would have woken up in a flash, even while sleeping. This was a skill he’d developed in honed during his second life, after all.

He left the hole in the tree that he'd been sleeping in and easily scampered up to where he’d heard the voice. Then he stared.

Blue skin, wings, simple clothing, and only about six inches tall, a fairy man was staring right back at him. Although Kevin wasn't extensively educated about fairies yet in this world—they hadn't existed in his past world and he had other matters more pressing to study-–he was pretty sure that the size of fairies was a pretty good indicator of their rank. Oftentimes, rank could be determined by a dark fairy's horns, similar to demons in fact. Light fairies, like this one, were a little harder to categorize, but height was a good indication of their power or standing.

Kevin twitched his nose at the fairy. He couldn't speak well in his chipmunk form, and he didn't have the gift of telepathy either. Since he didn't know any magic yet, he couldn't speak magically either. There was a bit of a loophole though, and he employed it, using the dragon life skill to form a private conversation. Part of the trick of this ability was that it allowed whoever was conversing within to understand each other. As such, Kevin didn't even have to speak a real language, just do his best with his chipmunk mouth. And that's exactly what he did.

"My name's Kevin Paxdraconis.” He winced as he unthinkingly used his parents’ titles, what they used as last names if they ever had reason to. They’d referred to him as Kevin Paxdraconic before, since they were a family, but he suddenly realized that he needed a new family name if he wanted to fly under the radar. “You're right, I'm not a chipmunk. I just slept in the tree this way. Who are you?"

"I am called Branch," said the fairy proudly. “Branch Wirt. The last name was my choice.” He smacked his chest, and Kevin dimly remembered that in fairy society, one didn't actually get a name. A name had to be earned. As a result, the fairy’s pride was understandable.

The little blue man continued, "You must be a great wizard to be able to turn into an animal like this. Or maybe one of the beast kin from the animal continent. I am not sure. Being not sure is somewhat exciting. This is a fun game! Are you a beast kin?"

Kevin shook his head. Executing the gesture with the chipmunk body probably looked somewhat odd. "No, I'm actually a goblin.”

“It's not nice to try fooling Branch. Er, me. It’s not nice to try tricking me. Goblins can't change into animals."

"Well, this goblin can," said Kevin. He briefly scratched his back with a hind leg, which felt like heaven, especially after waking up. His polymorph was starting to take more energy to maintain, though. A lot more. "I probably need to get going soon, so I'll prove it to you." He ran down the tree to the ground and, with just a bit of concentration, polymorphed back into his goblin form. Then, he immediately found a handy tree to relieve himself behind before returning. He hadn’t expected Branch to follow. Fairies didn't excrete and didn't find the process of excreting among other creatures interesting at all.

As expected, Branch had waited patiently for Kevin to come back and talk. This was one peculiarity of fairy kind that Kevin had read about in books. They either found a person or thing interesting or they didn’t. And a fairie might patiently wait a very long time to get what they want, or have a conversation they wanted to have, but if something bored them they were likely to just vanish.

To make a minimum of noise in the unfamiliar forest, he established the private conversation field again. Asking Branch for some information couldn’t hurt. "I'm actually on a journey heading west. I brought rations, but I'd like be able to stretch them farther if I could. Right now that probably means fishing. If I can find a lake or a river while heading west, that would be ideal. Do you know of any on the way?"

"That depends," said Branch. "Do you have anything to barter?"

Kevin thought a bit. He was beginning to regret not studying fairies more. What do fairies like again? he asked himself. Shiny things, interesting things, new things. Oh, that's right. He fished in his pocket and said, "Wait a moment." Then he brought out a little lapel pin with the image of an apple on it—nothing like it existed in this world as far as he knew. The backing on the point of the pin had been the hardest part to figure out since he'd never actually learned how the thing worked in his past life. But he did know what they looked like, and from there, he'd been able to use a combination of dragon life skills and a magnifying glass to craft a grommet.

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"How about this?" he asked, holding the button out to Branch.

The little fairy's eyes flew open, and his face was practically overtaken by an expression of awe and greed. "Yes, yes, I want this. What is it?"

"This is a lapel pin," said Kevin. He tried giving the fairie a closer look, but Branch backed off. Kevin scratched the back of his neck awkwardly. "Do you want me to put it on you, or...?"

Branch eyed it sideways. "You know, you are a goblin. Goblins can be scary. Now that you are in your goblin form, I can tell it's a real one.”

“Can all fairies do that?" asked Kevin. “Tell which polymorph form is real?”

"Almost all of them." The little flying man shrugged nonchalantly. "That, among other things, is one reason why sometimes we are employed by nobles and traders. We can see through a lot of illusions, too. Fairies can do lots of things that others can't do. We are kind of amazing."

"That's what I read before as well," said Kevin. He gave Branch a good-natured smile. Of course, doing so showed his sharp teeth, and the fairy backed away again.

The era of relative peace had fairies working and actually earning money or trinkets that they wanted from employers. But in the past, several races had actually eaten fairies. Superstitions and legends suggested that there was a chance to acquire skills or magic power from them.

"If you're afraid I'm going to eat you, don’t worry," said Kevin. "I would swear on my mana, but I don't know any magic yet."

The fairy cocked his head. "Even if you don't know magic yet, you have mana, so much I can't even see the end of it. That's one reason I thought you were a great wizard."

"Really?" asked Kevin. He vaguely remembered his parents saying something like that, especially his mother. He hadn’t taken it too seriously since Agara could go a bit overboard with encouragement sometimes.

"Of course," said Branch. "If you swear on your mana, it will be binding."

"Okay," said Kevin. "I swear on my mana that I, Kevin, have no intention of eating you."

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he felt something inside him tremble, and for the first time, he became physically aware of his mana.

Interesting, he thought.

Suddenly, the fairy was all smiles again and landed on Kevin's hand without further delay. "Show me, show me!" he demanded.

"Alright, lift out your tunic." The little fairy did so. Then Kevin showed Branch how the grommet could attach and be removed from the pin portion. At first, he was afraid that since Branch was so small, the grommet would be uncomfortable against his skin. But instead of putting it to the side like Kevin would have, the fairy put it right in the middle of his chest. Kevin had to stifle a chuckle because given the size of the fairy and the position of the pin, now he sort of looked like the Superman of apples.

"There you go," said Kevin.

"I love this," said the fairy, softly, and with a deep sincerity.

"Well, it wasn't actually a gift," said Kevin. "I was paying you to show me where I could fish, remember?"

"This is true," said the little fairy in a distracted way. Then he suddenly turned in the air, his wings buzzing a bit quicker, and asked, "Who made this?"

"I did," said Kevin.

Both of Branch’s hands went to his mouth, and he comically leaned back in mid-air. His hair, worn in a short ponytail, stood up on its own, and his long green pointed shoes were extended, making his longer-than-human legs seem even longer.

"You made this!? You are truly a great craftsman! A legendary craftsman! I never thought I'd meet a goblin who was also my favorite legendary craftsman in the whole wide world!"

"What?" said Kevin. His voice deadpan, he was getting a strange feeling about this entire exchange. I really wish I’d read more about fairies. Damn.

"I must learn from you. Will you let me call you Master?"

"No. Absolutely not," said Kevin. All of this was far too sudden and random. Are fairies always like this? He shook his head and rolled his eyes. Some of the books he'd read had actually mentioned how random and emotional fairies could be. From what he understood, most fairies, if ignored for long enough, would move on to the next thing if whatever they were doing was annoying to somebody. They had very short attention spans.

But this situation seemed over the top even by fairie standards.

"You must let me call you master," said Branch. He held his hands together and pleaded, moving directly in front of Kevin's face. "I will never make fun of the fact that you are a goblin, and I will always treat you like you are–" he paused, visually searching for an example to give, "--one of the high elves. You are a high elf-goblin now. And I will not even make fun of the fact that you used the same surname as the guardian dragons of this continent. The Great Ones."

Then the fairie made a shocked face. He mumbled to himself, "That must be why the goblin master was here. He wanted to meet the dragons, but nobody meets the dragons. Oh yes, it was very lucky to meet the master."

Kevin rolled his eyes again and began walking west. "Are you going to show me where the fishing place is when we start getting close, or direct me there?"

"I will if you let me call you master," said Wirt primly.

Kevin remembered again what he'd read in books that fairies had short attention spans. And after a sigh, he finally gave in.

"Fine," he said.

"Excellent, Master Goblin."

"Don’t call– You know what?... I changed my mind. Don't call me Master. Isn't there a different name you could use?”

“Lord? Your Majesty? Sir? Boss?"

"Boss is fine," said Kevin. That one made him feel slightly less cringy. He felt like the entire situation has quickly moved out of his expectations of control. He’d just wanted directions! "Which way am I supposed to be heading again?"

"Directly opposite of the sun's right now," Branch replied.

Kevin nodded. On this world, the suns rose in the east and set in the west, just like on Earth, but there were two of them. He didn't understand how two stars could be in such close proximity to each other, but also admitted that he'd never really seriously studied astronomy in his life.

"Sounds good," he said, and he picked up the pace, trying to get a decent amount of walking done for the day. He could easily travel for a while without food. Being a goblin actually made it easier, and he was already daydreaming about some freshly cooked, flaky fish that he'd be able to catch with the line he had stowed in his pack.

Unfortunately, before ever reaching the lake that Branch was guiding him to, he finally ran into a monster that didn't immediately run away and didn’t seem very friendly, either.