“What?”

“How is that possible?”

Spidena and Ben burst out at the same time in light of the news that there was only one bed left in the entire inn.

Daffy laughed delightedly.

“This place is empty!” Spidena pointed out incredulously. “You yourself said you just opened!”

“It’s fine,” Ben interrupted, shaking his head. “I’ll sleep outside, or somewhere else you don’t mind me being. I’m more used to the ground anyway.”

“Well that’s quite considerate of you, Man Chop! Spidena, are you really going to let a man who hasn’t even had a proper meal in many moons sleep on the floor?”

“I… I mean we… we could-” Spidena’s words were cut off as the kitchen door exploded open, and out stomped a tall blond man, with a long, angular face with edges that seemed impossibly sharp. He wore a tight, white sleeveless shirt, white trousers, and woven shoes.

Oh. And he had long glimmering nearly transparent wings sprouting from his back.

“Why the hells did the inn just move? And what’s this I hear about us being at full capacity? Daffy, you have to tell me when I have to suddenly cook for hundreds of people!” the man… Or, most likely fairy, grumbled loudly.

Ben stared, his mouth open as he stared at the being that was as tall as the nymph, though a third of her thickness as he rested his hands on his slim hips.

“We aren’t full,” Daffy whispered with a giggle, as though Spidena and Ben couldn’t hear what she said. “But I’ve read books where that happens and it’s so romantic-”

The fairy rounded on the guests, and Ben lost his ability to speak as he saw for the first time in his life, someone with violet eyes.

“We have enough beds that both of you could lie across six on opposite ends of the building. We have too many beds. Do you want to buy some?” The fairy’s index finger tapped his hip bone as he stared down at them, looking an off putting mix of unhinged and bored.

“Obbie! Please! I’ve always wanted to do this!” Daffy clasped her hands together pleadingly.

The fairy’s right eye twitched as he continued staring down at Spidena and Ben but he didn’t bother looking at the nymph. “No! We have been open for almost a full moon cycle, and have had a total of three groups stay here. The last one you had to get a human to poison them!”

Ben couldn’t tell if he should be afraid or not, so he stayed as still as a statue. When he’d gone back to the kitchen earlier to ask for the rhubarb leaves, the cook had been absent…

“It saved either of us sticking more magic on them!” Daffy reminded the fairy named Obbie, her clasped hands falling to her hips and her eyebrow arching defensively.

Obbie didn’t move his sculpted lips, and yet a demonic growl rumbled in the back of his throat all the same.

“You,” his eyes cut to Spidena. “I don’t care what this nymph with mulch for brains said, you’re paying us with magic or coin.”

“Do we at least get a discount?” Spidena folded her arms and stuck her chin up stubbornly.

“Daffy says you assaulted one of our guests; you’re lucky you’re still allowed here.”

“He touched me first,” Spidena spat out while rising to her feet and pressing her palms into the table. Even though she was easily more than two feet shorter than the fairy, she still glared up ferociously.

Obbie’s face scrunched up as he let out another grunt without daring to say anything as absurd as she should have let such an offense go.

“What is it you even want magicked?” Spidena asked, tilting her head.

Obbie gripped the sides of the table and leaned closer to her, his eyes wide and wild.

“I want… every… single… ant… on this planet… to combust.”

Spidena balked. “What?”

“ANTS!” Obbie boomed while straightening and pointing back at the kitchen. “THEY. WON’T. STOP. COMING. IN!”

“You just put out a repellant, or-”

“THEY WON’T WORK! AND THEY ARE TOO MERCIFUL FOR WHAT THOSE LITTLE CRETINS DESERVE!”

Ben leaned back in his seat at the roar while Spidena continued glaring, nonplussed.

“Did you try using cinna-”

“IF YOU SAY CINNAMON, I WILL SHOVE TWO STICKS OF IT UP YOUR SNOUT!”

There was a deathly silence following Obbie’s last words as Spidena’s hands flexed against the planks of the table.

Laughing nervously, Daffy shifted forward. “Now… Obbie, you really can’t talk to guests like that.”

The tables in the inn started to shake, and the dishes on the tray that still held some of Ben and Spidena’s lunch started to rattle.

There was a rumbling that didn’t quite sound like it was taking place in reality, but sounded like blood roaring in the ears—much like when you hold your breath and flexed every muscle in your body. Ben had had the same sense at one point in the forest with Spidena, so it was no mystery who was causing the scene.

“I don’t care if you are a fairy, you don’t get to talk to me like that you lanky twit!” Spidena seethed, her dark green eyes suddenly filled with glowing bright green flecks.

“Oh I’m the twit?! I’M THE TWIT!”

“Yes! You are!”

Obbie bit the air, and turned away from her as though scoffing violently.

“So you want us to pay to be here or leave… Is that the issue…?” Ben ventured carefully from his seat while also holding back a tidal wave of questions that flooded his mind.

“What I desperately want this place to be less of a disappointment!” The villainous rasp that snarled out from the fairy rang out ethereally.

Spidena stared at the fairy levelly, her ferocious expression turning somber.

“This is an establishment that even seebs can enter is run by a nymph! Just because you look down on humanity–” she started to say heartfully.

“I don’t give a shit about who the customers are, but I expected better marketing support from the franchise owner! Particularly for our early opening months! Yet three bookings is all we’ve got to show for our efforts and exceptions!”

Spidena’s voice caught in her throat and she sputtered a few times before dropping all tension from her body and leaning away from the table.

“Franchise? How could an inn run by a nymph and a fairy be franchised?”

“Ah. We have a dodder spearheading this… venture,” Obbie explained, still with a growl in his throat. “Pesch Goldbry. The slime. Though one can’t dispute his successes in business when—what?”

Spidena’s eyes bulged, and her jaw screwed itself shut.

She stared at Obbie, and then, as though on rusted hinges, turned toward Daffy. “How did he convince you to partner up and run a franchise?”

“With Pesch you mean?” Daffy clarified with a tilt of her head. “Oh goodness, I just happened to love the idea of meeting all kinds of people and magicking my way around the woods! You make it sound as though Pesch Goldbry bullied me into it! Besides, the other nymphs are just as excited to take part! For a while at least.”

“How?” Spidena redirected the question to Obbie.

The fairy rolled his eyes and folded his arms over his chest. “He figured out Daffy’s obsession.”

Spidena let out an angry bull-like snort before she pinched the bridge of her nose.

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“I’ll kill that bottom sucking leech!” Spidena banged the table for good measure and turned around angrily.

Ben, completely at a loss as to what in the hells was transpiring, cleared his throat. “So can we stay here, or…?”

“Not unless your little witch over there kills all the ants in the world.”

Ben held up his hands with a shrug before Spidena could continue adding to the angry atmosphere. “You said coin was also an option before.”

“I changed my mind– and don’t,” Obbie held up his finger right as Ben opened his mouth with his gaze sidling over to Daffy. “Try to get her to persuade me.”

“I’m not killing all the ants in the world! That’d rack up an entire universe of magic debt.” Spidena argued, albeit a little distractedly.

Evidently something about Pesch Goldbry—whoever that was—was unsettling her a great deal.

“Then I guess you’ll have no problem showing yourselves out!” Obbie turned and started to stalk back to the kitchen.

Ben sighed, shrugged, and proceeded to grab the food on the lunch tray and fill his pockets with the leftovers before standing, unaware of Daffy’s look of disturbance and concern.

“Did you really just shove food into your dirty pockets?” Spidena asked with blatant disgust.

Obbie halted in his tracks, his back still turned to the group.

Ben arched an eyebrow at her judgmental reaction. “Really? This from the woman who had a half eaten ham sandwich hidden in her shop?”

Flushing pink, Spidena’s hands found her hips. “That’s different! I didn’t purposefully–”

Obbie’s wings fluttered and he was suddenly standing in front of Ben.

He looked at the empty tray, then at Ben’s hands that had crumbs and butter residue.

The fairy continued to stare in silence, and Ben gazed back wondering just what kind of reaction the unhinged otherworldly being would exhibit next.

It also occurred to Ben to briefly wonder if he’d be able to bolt out the front door in time if the fairy suddenly started attacking him with some kind of magic. He was quick, but then again he’d never raced against someone with wings…

“Are you homeless?”

Ben blinked at Obbie’s abrupt question, then answered bluntly. “I thought that was obvious.”

“No. Truly homeless. Some people don’t have a place to sleep because they refuse to go back to friends or family and ask for help. Pride and the like,” Obbie waved his hand dismissively, his mood oddly calm. “But are you actually homeless with nowhere to go?”

Ben opened his mouth while his brows drew together as though about to say that wasn’t the case at all, but then he closed it, and cleared his throat. “What does it matter?”

“No friends? No family…? You’re… in your early thirties, but–”

“He’s twenty-four,” Spidena cut in as she too was staring at Ben with a head tilt.

Obbie stared at Ben with open wonder. “No friends? None? In over two decades of life? What about that one?” He pointed at Spidena.

Ben blinked. He was at an utter loss as to what was happening. “Spidena and I are just in debt together and I have to take her to Kintel to get rid of it.”

Obbie’s jaw moved open, and his violet eyes started glittering… Literally, glittering. As though his eyes were turning to jewels.

Ben gaped, and then was startled when Obbie gave a weak laugh, followed by another one, and another, and another, until he was roaring, buckled at his knees, his hand slapping the table as he howled.

Turning carefully to look at Daffy, Ben was sincerely wondering if he should alert someone that a mentally unsound, magical being was tormenting Daffy. However the nymph appeared more interested in him, and Ben discovered that the bark patches on her skin were growing again as she lost herself in her evaluation of him…

“Haa,” Obbie sighed while straightening and wiping away a tear from his left eye with his index knuckle. “I wondered how there could be such a stink of magic on you, but now I know. Alright. You can stay. One night. But the next time we cross paths you have to tell me everything that happens to you.”

“I’m confused.” Ben subtly slid the heel of his right boot back away from the fairy.

“When aren’t you confused?” Spidena muttered.

Ben persisted in asking while ignoring Spidena’s barb. “Why did you change your mind?”

Obbie looked at Daffy wearing a roguish smile that revealed when he wasn’t acting like a maniac he was actually quite handsome… In an eerie otherworldly way.

“Well, you see, I’ve been alive two hundred some odd years. I know, I seem a lot more worldly than that, but I must say… I’ve never met a human so primed for magic to meddle with. And to see you tied down in it so deeply…? It’s like seeing someone get struck by lightning five times in a row and still being alive. It also means you’re going to find yourself in extraordinary situations,” Obbie explained a little too gleefully. “And I do love a good story.”

“Typical,” Spidena grumbled.

Obbie’s gaze swiveled back to her, and he didn’t bother hiding his disdain. “And you? You worked some magic that earned you big debt? Did you not bother asking his background? Even a seeb would know that a whiff of magic cast in his direction is like a spark landing on bone dry kindling!”

Spidena tossed her hands in the air defensively“I’ve worked bigger spells than what I did with less information and nothing happened! Seebs are magic kickback blockers! Everyone knows that!”

Obbie’s lips curled into a shit eating smile that had Spidena narrowing her eyes. “You didn’t even bother asking if he was a seeb or a dodder, did you?”

“Well of course he’s a seeb! He would know more about magic if he was a dodder!”

Obbie didn’t say anything as he glanced triumphantly back at Ben who leaned back away, sensing where this was going.

“You want to tell her, Man Chop? Or can I?” Obbie sung a little too smugly at Ben.

Spidena’s eyes widened, and Ben could feel the build of an emotional and possibly magical explosion working its way up from where he stood.

“Are you… A Godsdamn dodder?” Spidena demanded faintly.

Ben swallowed with difficulty and didn’t answer.

“Why… Don’t you know… anything? How could you have survived this long as a dodder without knowing anything?!” the witch spluttered.

Ben’s fingers on his right hand curled into a loose fist.

Obbie swaggered closer to Ben once more, already relishing in the chaos that his words were bringing. “Oho, not only is he a dodder with no familial ties, he has secrets! Oh this is honestly delightful!”

The fairy chortled derisively and then turned back toward his kitchen. “I think you two are going to be my favorite customers.”

“Gods you are an ass,” Spidena practically gasped around her wrath toward the fairy.

“You know the saying; better a smartass than a dumb ass like yourself, darling!” Obbie cackled and disappeared back into the kitchen.

Spidena looked at the ceiling and then closed her eyes while sucking on her molar.

Daffy continued staring back and forth between Ben and Spidena.

Ben still wondered if he would need to start running given the way Spidena seemed to be barely containing her violent whims…

“I know I wanted a little drama, but truly… I don’t even care about making you share a bed anymore.” Daffy smiled as she floated back toward the kitchen, though she did pause by Ben and added. “If it’s any consolation, I haven’t seen Obbie this happy… Ever.”

Ben didn’t bother answering and telling the innkeeper nymph that it did not, in any capacity, make him feel better. He was well aware that if he were to move a hair Spidena would find some way to turn him into an ant that she would then send Obbie’s way to be crushed.