I woke the next morning feeling refreshed and ready to get back to my studies. My two days off had both, in their own ways, been restful…but both had ended in unsettling ways that had served to reinforce - in ways that Ken and Sparkle's warnings hadn't - the importance of learning to protect myself.

And, of course, I hadn't had a bad night's sleep since arriving at the Hall…between Ken's lessons and Sparkle's ability to keep away nightmares, I'd slept better over the last five months than I ever had before.

After stretching and yawning - while Sparkle mirrored both actions in her nightlight above me - I rolled out of bed and padded towards the closet. The sun was, as always, shining warmly outside my windows, and that helped make up my mind. "Sparkle, I'm going to exercise in the field outside this morning. I'm sure the soda bottles need to be replaced by now, too…be a dear and bring three new ones from the kitchen."

Sparkle was out of her nightlight and across the room in a shot, moving so quickly that her happy "Okay, Caley!" seemed to trail behind her as she opened the door and disappeared into the hallway.

I smiled. She was always so thrilled when I asked her to do something for me. On some level, I felt like it should bother me…but she was what she was, and I could accept that. I just had to be careful not to take advantage of her eager willingness.

Something to keep in the back of my mind.

I dressed in leggings, black with purple stripes down the side (there seemed to be more purple in my closet suddenly) and a matching sport t-shirt. Then I grabbed my rolled-up yoga mat, and climbed out the window into the pleasantly cool summer morning.

(In March. That still made my head ache a bit when I thought about it, regardless of how I was beginning to understand - at least vaguely - the nature of the Otherworld.)

The grass in the clearing outside my window was soft enough to safely go barefoot, so I did, wriggling my toes in the grass a bit as I walked a few steps from the window. As I finished unrolling my yoga mat, Sparkle zoomed through the window with three bottles of cola trailing in the air behind her.

"Cheater," I said cheerfully. "You know Ken wants you to practice being big whenever the opportunity presents itself."

"It's too early!" Sparkle protested just as cheerfully, carefully setting the bottles down near me.

"Yeah, I know that feeling," I said, collecting the first bottle and moving over to the feeder poles. It hadn't been hard to reproduce the work Mom had done to make the first one, and Ken had used the opportunity to teach me some basic enchanting techniques. Surprisingly, that hadn't been hard either…the most complicated part had been the preservation enchantment to keep the soda fresh. Engraving the tiny runes on the feeder had been hard, but they hadn't needed to be as precise as the ones I'd carved on my staff, so even that had gone pretty quickly.

All told, it had taken me about two weeks to make two more of the soda-feeders. Time well-spent, in my opinion, as it both improved my standing with the local fairy community and had seemingly drawn more of the charming little creatures to my clearing.

"Good morning," Ken's voice said from behind me as I finished putting the third fresh bottle into the feeder. When I turned, I saw him leaning against the open window frame and smiling. But, as usual, his eyes didn't stay on me for long, instead roaming to the edge of the woods that were visible from the window.

I didn't let that bother me, just scooped up the empty bottles and walked back to the window. "Good morning, Ken. Could you put these in the recycling for me?" I offered him the three bottles.

It was something of an in-joke, since there was no trash pickup at the Hall. 'Recycling' was the Brownies, who - as Ken explained it - composted everything that could be for use in Dora's garden, re-purposed some of what couldn't be for their own uses, and eliminated the rest with magic. Talk about a clean environment.

He smiled and took them, nodding. "Certainly. Exercising out here today?"

"Yeah," I said. "Fresh air, fairies - " a streak of blue whipped past between us even as I said it, on its way to the feeders, and I smiled. "What more do I need?"

"Just be aware of your surroundings," Ken said seriously. "That's all I ask."

I frowned a little and nodded gravely. "I think my brush with von Einhardt the other day finally hammered home why you were harping on that."

"Good," he tucked the bottles under his arm and his smile returned. "In that case, I'll be back in a few minutes."

I returned to my mat and paused to look at the multi-colored blur of motion surrounding the feeders. As I watched, fairies darted in for a quick drink - reminding me of videos I'd seen of hummingbirds - then zoom away (sometimes with faint, high-pitched cries ranging from wordless joy to gleeful "WHEE!"s) to join their fellows, doing whatever it was fairies did. Some of them were taking a dip in the birdbath, splashing happily with one another, while others seemed to be playing some sort of mid-air game that involved passing an acorn around, and still more were settling on the windowsill or in the grass nearby to watch me exercise.

Who was I to disappoint them? I smiled and set to it, beginning with yoga, and eventually moving on to muscle-toning exercises that Ken had taught me, which were based on forms he was teaching me in my Jeet Kune Do lessons.

As I understood it, I was actually learning bits and pieces from several different martial arts styles, based on what Ken felt would be most useful to me in the short term - for building strength and endurance - and in the long term, for learning to defend myself effectively. That was, after all, the essence of Jeet Kune Do: as Bruce Lee had said, "Absorb what is useful, discard what is useless, and add what is specifically your own."

I looked forward to discovering what was specifically my own. Perhaps something integrating magic? That was an interesting thought. I didn't think I would ever be a terribly strong fighter, but I could be a fast one, and perhaps I could use magic to make up the difference in some way?

These thoughts slowly faded to a meditative emptiness as I exercised, concentrating on my body and movements. I made a correction here, adjusted a stance there, and only slowly became aware that the constant, cheerful chatter of the fairies - which I had grown accustomed to - had tapered off to silence.

I stopped and looked down at Sparkle, who usually exercised beside me, doing her best to mimic what I was doing. Instead, she was hovering a few feet away, between me and the forest, staring outward. A number of other fairies were doing the same.

Before I could ask what was wrong, two of the larger fairies - the red and silver ones who seemed particularly friendly with Sparkle - suddenly shot off towards the woods with several of their compatriots trailing in their wake.

I blinked. "Sparkle?"

"Something's coming," she said. "They went to look."

I turned to face the forest and stepped off my mat into the soft grass. "Should I be worried?"

"Possibly," Ken said from behind me. "You might want to come back inside."

"Do we know it's hostile?" I asked uneasily.

"Not yet," Ken admitted. "And if it's friendly, hiding from it wouldn't make the best first impression."

I planted my feet and watched the tree line. "Then I'm going to stay right here for now."

Behind me, Ken sighed, but didn't protest.

I took stock. I was dressed in a thin layer of spandex. I did not have my staff. I hadn't put on Mom's shield ring yet that morning. In fact, the only other thing I had on - underwear aside - was my choker with the Master Key on it.

For the first time, I really understood why Ken had gone on about the importance of learning to work without foci before learning to make and work with them.

Fortunately, I'd been doing precisely that.

Something crashed in the woods.

"That doesn't sound terribly friendly," I said uneasily.

"Nothing that means to harm you can enter the clearing," Sparkle said with absolute certainty.

For the first time, the wording of that statement stood out to me. "What about something that doesn't mean me harm?"

Out of the corner of my eyes, I saw Sparkle turn to look at me. "Oh! Um…"

"Caley," Ken said, "perhaps you should - "

He was interrupted by another crash, and something big, greenish-brown, and weirdly lumpy tumbled out of the woods, surrounded by a blurred cloud of fairies. The red one detached herself from the scrum to utter a shrill, alarmed cry of "Ogre!" before diving back in.

The large greenish-brown lumpy thing clambered to its feet ponderously and resolved into a roughly humanoid form that had to be at least eight feet tall and was built like a flabby wall. It was dressed in loose, brown homespun garments - a shirt and trousers - and had a face that looked like a rotten pumpkin. It immediately began flailing at the fairies, taking awkward steps this way and that, which I guessed was how it had ended up tumbling into the clearing.

Stolen story; please report.

"Friendly?" I asked Sparkle and Ken.

"No," they said together. Then Ken added, "Caley, come ins - "

"No," I interrupted him. "I'm not letting that…thing…hurt my fairies! Sparkle, tell them to get clear."

For the first time in my life, I wanted to lash out at a living creature. This ugly, lumpy, disgusting ogre (seriously, I could already catch whiffs of the rotten stink coming off of it) dared to try to hurt the charming little creatures that had been so friendly toward me. I was not going to allow that to happen.

Then, even as Sparkle shot towards the pitched battle, one of the fairies - I thought it was the silver one - was swatted out of the air and thudded to the earth.

"No!" I realized that cry had come from my lips, and that I was already gathering power for a spell.

"Get out of the way!" Sparkle shouted. "Get clear!"

I reduced the amount of power I was gathering…I didn't actually want to kill the ogre, I just wanted to drive it away. It might not be friendly, but…I just…no. I wasn't going to kill if I could help it.

The ogre swung an open hand at another fairy - the red one, busily trying to get the others to move away - and I acted without thought. I thrust my right hand forward, pointed, and cried "Tego!"

The spell did exactly what I had imaged it doing. A circular plane of glowing blue-white force formed between the ogre's hand and the red fairy, intercepting the blow. I actually felt the impact, distantly, and grunted a little as I had to pour more energy into the spell…but the shield held, deflecting the ogre's hand.

The red fairy stared up at the intercepted blow in shock, then zoomed away, followed by most of her fellows. Heading roughly in my direction.

The ogre's eyes tracked their retreat, and it saw me for the first time. Its eyes widened, and a hungry expression settled onto its face. It licked its lips and growled, "Human…"

Then it started towards me with lumbering steps.

"Ogres consider humans food!" Ken shouted.

Oh. Well, that explained it. A snippet of the old fairy-story Jack the Giant-killer popped into my head. Blood of an Englishman, hm?

And of course, it was already in the clearing, so obviously that protection really was as specific as its wording. That was something to consider.

Later, I sternly reprimanded my brain. Then I gathered more power to cast another spell. Shields were not going to cut it here…it was time to actively defend myself.

Fee-fi-fo-fum this.

I thrust my right hand forward again, balled up into a fist, and cried, "Impulsus!"

A blast of mostly invisible force left my fist, making the air appear to ripple for a moment. It struck the ogre squarely on its chin, halting its advance and rocking its head back for a moment. Then it gave its head a little shake and refocused on me. "Magic human." It grinned, displaying yellow, rotted-looking teeth. "Yum."

It started towards me again.

Okay, reassess the threat response. Clearly, my comparatively small force spell wasn't going to dissuade this thing. I gathered power again and - quashing my unease - envisioned lightning.

Fortunately, as large and strong as it obviously must be, the ogre was slow. Mass apparently mattered, even in the Otherworld. I thrust two fingers towards the ogre and said - trying to moderate the amount of energy I was using - "Fulparum."

I didn't want to kill it. Just hurt it enough to make it think twice about what it was doing.

The small bolt of lightning, not much more powerful than a police taser, leaped from my fingers to the ogre's chest. It stopped in its tracks, looked down at itself awkwardly, and rubbed the scorched spot on its shirt. Then it laughed and rumbled, "Tingly!"

Duh, Caley, as Sheila would've said. This thing was easily four or five times the mass of an adult male human, if not more. That spell wasn't going to do much of anything to it.

But it had distracted the ogre, which gave me enough time to try again. I quickly gathered more power - I realized it was easier here in the Otherworld than it had been when I'd tried it outside the Hall - and thrust two fingers toward it again. This time, I called out, "Fulmen!" and didn't hold back.

A genuine bolt of lightning, bright enough to make me squint and close in intensity to the one I'd blown up Ken's first Tesla Coil with, arced from my fingertips to the ogre. It forked a couple of times, leaving scorch marks in the grass, and struck the monster squarely in the middle of its chest.

After my two failed attempts to send it packing, it was incredibly satisfying to see the ogre knocked clean off its feet and sent sprawling almost all the way back to the edge of the woods.

I felt a bit light-headed for a moment, but it passed quickly enough for me to be a bit disturbed by feeling satisfied at having actually harmed the thing. Apparently, part of me had decided to give my conscience a pass regarding the ogre, and was now willing to genuinely do it harm.

It groaned and slowly sat up. A substantial hole had been burned through its shirt - the edges were still smoking a little - and the skin beneath was blackened and ugly. Well…uglier.

"Ow," it said, struggling to its feet and wincing as it tried to rub its chest. "Ow!" it said again, then it gave me a sullen look and started to back towards the woods. Apparently, it had had enough.

Thank goodness.

"Caley, you can't let it go!" Ken called from the open window into my bedroom.

I turned to look at him, bewildered. "What? Why not? You can't want me to kill that thing. Do you?"

"You don't have any choice!" he said urgently. "If it gets away, it could tell someone you're here! That the Hall is inhabited again!"

I heard a rustle of leaves and swung back around, trying to think of something I could do other than blast the creature again. It might have wanted to hurt the fairies and eat me, but still…it was a living creature. Right?

And while it clearly wasn't terribly bright, it also wasn't stupid. It seemed to realize that it was in danger, because it suddenly turned where it was trying to back into the woods and took off into them at a surprising clip, out of sight almost instantly.

"Want me to try to follow it?" Sparkle offered.

"No," I said firmly. "I obviously shouldn't leave this clearing, and neither should you." I turned back to Ken. "Right?"

He sighed and nodded. "You're right. Well…it was going to happen sooner or later, and that's assuming the fairies haven't been gossiping anyway. It doesn't matter in the long run." He gave me a long, searching look, "But we're going to have to have a talk about not leaving dangerous, hostile creatures alive when they attack you."

"We're also going to have to have a talk," I shot back, "about what 'anything that means me harm can't enter the clearing' actually means."

Ken smiled lopsidedly. "Which makes it time to start teaching you about the Sidhe in earnest, I suppose." He sighed again and leaned against the windowsill.

I nodded, turned and started toward the edge of the woods. "Sparkle, come on! Do you know anything about fairy first aid?"

Sparkle zoomed up beside me. "Sure! Lots!"

It wasn't hard to find the spot where the silver fairy had gone down. Several other fairies were already clustered around her, including the red one, and they made a space for me as I knelt down with them. The silver fairy was already sitting up, one hand to her head.

Sparkle landed beside her and did something with her hands, speaking so softly with the silver fairy that I couldn't hear what she said. Then she turned to look up at me and smile. "She's all right, Caley. Just a bit of a bump. We're tougher than we look."

The last of my tension melted out of me and I relaxed with a sigh. "I'm glad." I smiled down at the silver fairy, then took in the others as well. "Thank you very much for helping to protect me. Without you, I might not have known that thing was here until it was too late."

Every last one of them glowed brighter and beamed up at me. And I swear I saw the silver and red ones grow a hair taller. They still weren't as tall as Sparkle, but they were definitely taller than most of their fellows.

Remembering what Sparkle had said about the importance of Names, I very carefully asked her, "Sparkle, may I know what these two are called?"

Sparkle glanced at them and they both nodded, then she looked up at me and proudly announced, "This is Spice," she gestured to the red one, "and that's Shine," she gestured to the silver one.

"Thank you." I smiled at them. "Spice, Shine, thank you both very much for your help today. Shine, I'm sorry you were hurt trying to protect me."

Spice daringly stepped forward to stand beside Sparkle and curtsied to me. "It is our honor to aid you, Guardian!" Her voice was a bit lower and huskier than Sparkle's. "I speak for Shine as well."

Shine touched her throat, then spread her hands. Evidently, she couldn't speak. I nodded acknowledgment.

"You came to our aid in turn," Spice continued, "nothing is owed." She hesitated a moment, then added, "If I may ask, Guardian…you called us your fairies when you came to our aid. Did you mean it?"

I blinked in surprise and thought back. I hadn't realized what I'd said at the time, but I had indeed used those words.

Before I could say anything, Sparkle caught my eye by moving a bit and nodding just a little, an eager expression on her face.

I certainly didn't want to claim ownership of them…that wasn't right. But then I remembered what Sparkle had said about fairies being called to service by a Sidhe lord. Did I have enough status as Guardian of the Hall to do that too? It seemed absurd somehow.

And yet, all of the fairies - standing in a ring that started on either side of me and went around Sparkle, Spice and Shine, I realized, as well as those hovering in the air around us - were watching and waiting with hopeful expressions.

I thought frantically. Otherworld was clearly not a terrifically safe place, even for its own denizens. Sparkle had told me as much without me realizing it when she'd talked about how much she preferred living with me in the Hall to being out here with her kin. I had grown very fond of the fairies who gathered in my clearing…I hated the idea of them being hurt out there in the woods beyond where I'd ever know or be able to help them.

This felt like a big responsibility. But at the same time, it felt like the right thing to do.

"Am I correct in believing," I asked carefully, "that you would all like to live here in my clearing?"

The mass of fairies all nodding eagerly together made a sound like sighing wind. Sparkle's expression was both eager and agitated. I suspected she wanted to offer me advice, but felt restrained from doing so.

This was, I suddenly realized, a big moment for me. Otherworld's opinion of me would probably begin to form right here, right now, depending on what I did and how I did it.

I took a deep breath. "If my fairies you wish to be, then my fairies you shall be," I said, a bit surprised to hear myself using such poetic phrasing. But again, it felt right. "Guard this entrance to Oakwood Hall for me, warn me of danger and help protect my clearing, and you may live here, under my protection and the protection of Oakwood Hall."

Another susurration of sound - full of anticipation and eagerness - rippled through the fairies.

Sparkle looked like she was going to explode with pride and glee.

Spice stepped up again. "And the Bubbly Sweet-waters? They will only be for the Fairies of the Hall?"

The 'bubbly sweet-waters'? Oh, that was precious. I kept my expression serious through sheer willpower. "Yes, they will be."

Happy chatter burst around me, quickly cut off by a gesture from Spice. She held out a hand to Shine, who took it and rose. Together they walked to stand in front of me where I knelt in the grass and looked up at me gravely. "In exchange for your protection and the right to make our homes here in the Clearing of the Hall, and access to the Bubbly Sweet-waters, we will be the Fairies of the Hall and will guard this entrance. Are we in agreement?"

Spice and Shine held out their clasped hands to me. Behind them, Sparkle nodded a little, trying very hard to reign in her obvious excitement.

I laid the tip of my right index finger on Spice and Shine's conjoined hands. "So mote it be," I said. Then wondered where I'd gotten that expression from.

A tiny fairy cheer went up around us, and there was much zooming of colored lights and happy chatter.

I held up my free hand, and silence fell. "Spice and Shine will be the captains of the Fairies of the Hall, and Sparkle will be your general. Sparkle will be with me at all times…if something out here must be brought to my attention, Spice and Shine may enter the Hall to find us and tell us. Anything you learn that you think I should know, they can report to Sparkle. If there are other fairies who wish to join the clan of the Hall, they must be approved of first by Spice and Shine, and then by Sparkle."

All three fairies glowed with important pride, and - again, I was quite certain it actually happened - appeared to grow slightly. Another cheer went up from the gathered fairies around us, and I removed my fingertip from Spice and Shine's hands. They beamed up at me as Sparkle fluttered up to my shoulder and whispered in my ear, "That was perfectly done. I'm so proud of you!"