At first, the demented winged creatures focused their rabid attention solely on Filif. Which was most likely what saved Ben, Paulav, and Spidena from being overwhelmed right away.

“Holy warts! Pixies!” Spidena hollered her expression turning to horror. “A whole swarm of them!”

Ben jumped down from the driver’s bench of the carriage. “How do we deal with pixies?”

“Pepper! Throw pepper at them!” Spidena managed to say despite not taking her eyes off of the pixies.

“I have some in the caravan!” Paulav contributed, as the pixies continued diving and biting at poor Filif who let out a shrill high pitched scream that was difficult to hear over the buzz of wings.

“Godsdamn—Is Filif edible? Like an actual mushroom?” Ben asked, suddenly distracted.

Spidena rounded on him, her eyes wide and wild. “Is that seriously what you are asking right now? If I take a bite out of your arm, are you edible? Or am I just out of my mind?”

“Here’s the pepper!” Paulav panted, appearing at Ben’s side with a small woven sack in hand.

Seizing the bag, Spidena glanced inside, her hand rising in the air, until her brows crashed down. “This is unground pepper!”

A more notable shriek from Filif drew Spidena’s gaze upward. “Damn it all to scum.”

Grasping a fistful, Spidena darted over to the swarm and chucked the pepper balls at the pixies. She was already going to retrieve another fistful, but found it wasn’t necessary, as the entire swarm turned in unison to stare at her. They didn’t look deterred so much as invested in finding the source of the missiles

Ben slowly made his way over to her side—Surprisingly Paulav did as well at her other side.

“Why…?” Was all Ben was able to say.

A faint whimper came out of Spidena that was supposed to be a response.

“What?”

“Magic. Big. Bloody. Magic!”

Ben blinked several times, until what she was saying sunk in. “Because of the fate tie?”

“Oh you two are fate tied? How lovely!” Paulav burst out excitedly while leaning forward to stare at his two new friends, completely forgetting about the cloud of tiny angry magical creatures. Ben only just noticed that the tiny creatures had not one, but two rows of very pointy little teeth, with their upper eye tooth fangs a little longer than the rest.

Which made the fact that the body f the pixies were a dazzling white, with silvery wings, and beady black eyes less pretty, and significantly more like a living nightmare.

“Ssh!” Spidena hissed desperately. “Don’t. Move. Their eyes and ears aren’t very good, but their noses are impeccable.”

“If we can’t move, how can we get rid of them?” Ben asked while lowering his voice.

“I don’t know! Let me think!

“You keep saying you can toss around big magic, can’t you do something to them? Make them forget about the smell? Or even better, how to smell?”

“Have you learned nothing?”

Ben barley resisted throwing his hands in the air. “Is it because they are made of pure magic as well, and therefore it’s tricky to make magic work on them?”

“I’d clap for you if we weren’t in danger right now.”

“Alright. Theoretically… There is… twenty? Twenty or so of those? Can’t we just beat them off?”

A beads of sweat swelled along Spidena’s hairline. “They’ll call for more until we are bitten and scratched to death.”

“Are they completely deaf?” Paulav jumped into the conversation.

Gods bless the man—he had taken everything in stride, so Spidena saw no reason to be unkind to him.

“Somewhat. They can hear music from leagues away. If they don’t like the music they attack it. If they do like it, they get sort of… stunned. Aside from music, they are better at hearing higher pitches than the human ear, but our voices sound more like a rumble.”

“Why is it that music is different?” Paulav looked back at the swarm that bobbed over Filif.

“Music is pure magic. It transcends everything. Plain as that.”

Ben’s head snapped round. “Oh that’s a load of shi—”

Twenty pixie heads all twitched in unison to stare at Ben at his loud outburst.

No one spoke, or breathed for that matter, for at least a minute.

Letting out a thin breath Ben started to speak again. “Alright. Right now, they are attracted to you and I because we reek of big magic, and I’m guessing that they followed Filif because he was around us?”

“Don’t spend all that brain power in one place, now,” Spidena retorted scathingly.

“Quit being such a wench. How do we get rid of them?”

“If this entire bag was ground pepper we’d stand a chance of losing them. Our only saving grace right now—I think— to use the first fistful of pepper to confuse them.”

“So do it!” Ben’s voice strained in its efforts not to shout.

“I don’t know for certain if that’ll help, or if they’ll just have an easier time finding us!”

“I think I have just the thing!” Paulav announced abruptly.

Both Spidena and Ben turned carefully toward the merchant; in the span of a minute, they’d more or less forgotten he was there.

“I have a music box in my caravan! If I wind it up and throw it in the trees, will that help?”

Spidena paused, her eyes intent and thoughtful. “If Ben and I rub pepper all over ourselves, and then you toss it into the woods, it might!”

“Oh, they won’t simply,” Paulav fluttered his hands to suggest the pixies scattering, making Ben and Spidena tense, but the pixies didn’t seem to be as interested in the merchant. “Disperse?”

“No. They will try attacking the music box over and over until it eventually breaks. There is a better chance of them liking live music. A music box…? It isn’t the same magic, but they will be very interested in it.”

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

“Why do they try to break it if they like it?” Ben asked next.

“Can we talk about this when we don’t have a swarm of them hovering in front of us wanting to eat us?”

The shrill notes Spidena’s voice hit had the incredibly off-putting result of all the pixies surging forward, making Spidena and Ben lean back as far as possible. Ben gently grasped Spidena’s elbow as the breeze of the pixie wings made two wispy strands of her black hair flutter in the wind.

Up close, Ben could see their pointed faces, and faintly bulging mouths, their pale skin hard to look at directly as it seemed the sunlight gathered within their bodies, making the light even brighter.

They would be absolutely wondrous to behold—If their beady black eyes weren’t attempting to stare into his soul and their teeth primed for biting.

Ben and Spidena both gave shuddering breaths.

“I don’t know why they aren’t attacking. They can definitely see us,” Ben risked saying aloud, as sweat rolled down the tip of his nose, his heart pounding.

“They are trying to discern which of us has big magic… I think.” Spidena gulped.

The pixie heads turned slowly toward Spidena, making her eyes grow wide. “Uh oh.”

All twenty pixies bared their terrifying fangs.

“That isn’t good,” Ben agreed, then watched in terror as half of the swarm looked at him next; their mouths spreading into dreadful smiles.

A manic part of Spidena’s mind made her wonder how exactly they kept their teeth in such excellent condition when they were known to rip all manner of things to shreds. Then again, it wasn’t unheard of for pure magic folk. Some were simply lucky enough to make themselves clean and presentable in short order regardless of whatever violent acts they had just committed.

Spidena’s nonsensical thoughts ended abruptly, however, when the pixies surged at them.

Ben and Spidena threw their elbows over their faces.

Spidena felt two pixies yanking ruthlessly on her hair, her scalp stinging as they most likely ripped out a sizable chunk of hair.

A sharp bite was taken at the top of Ben’s left ear, making him yelp.

Spidena started lowering herself to a crouch on the ground, her mind racing with what spell or incantation she knew that could possibly work on the pixies.

And then Ben’s suggestion from earlier came to her.

Making them forget how to smell… That wasn’t possible entirely… But—

She felt two pixies take bites out of her left hand, instantly making the entire limb pulse and ache in pain.

Spidena tried to push it from her mind as adrenaline filled her, urging her to figure out how to lose these wretched things.

She couldn’t do magic that big on short notice, but there was one spell that could maybe help…

Squeezing her eyes shut, Spidena did her best to remember the incantation she hadn’t thought she would need to use for a very long time.

“From the air to the earth,

Creatures here, hear my declare,”

Intense power rolled off of Spidena.

She lifted her face, her dark green eyes filled with speckles of the brightest, glowing green imaginable. As though a light had been unblocked from behind her eyes, revealing the true exquisite color underneath.

Spidena felt a weight over her back, but couldn’t take a moment to figure out what it was. She had to continue the spell while staring at the swarm as it reassembled itself in front of her.

“Who, what, when, where.

Win. Lose. Here. There.

Which is which?

This, not that.

Magic now. Magic not.”

A guttural groan rumbled from Ben who, Spidena then realized, had thrown himself over her at some point during the chaos. He must feel sick because of the power in the incantation. Her fingers curled into a fist.

It didn’t matter if Ben threw up everywhere. This was the only way they could get away quickly.

“Trees for you.

Not our power, for an hour.

I grant and I give for that hour…

The ability to glower.”

The pulse that beat throughout the air cast the pixies back by several feet, and unlike before where they were able to maintain some unity in their movements, they allowed themselves to drift apart like leaves on top of waving water.

Spidena turned her head toward Ben, she had to talk before the cost of the incantation came for her.

“Ben, I changed what the pixies want, but it will only last an hour. Whatever you say to me after, you have to say happily, and make it sound like fun. Or I will be a bugger to herd. You need… to get us… away… Quicklyyyy-Ah! What a beautiful day!”

*

Panting, Ben slowly lifted himself off of Spidena to see that she was sprawled on the ground staring dazedly up at the sky as though she had taken another large dose of katava.

He then heard the frantic whir of wings resume its former fervor.

Tensing, Ben braced himself for the next onslaught of attacks as he turned to stare at the pixies that had snapped back together into their swarm.

Only they didn’t attack again.

Not at them anyway.

This time they shot into the trees, with great force.

“You know… clouds should learn how to shape into letters… It’d be a great way to send messages…” Spidena mused airily.

Ben looked at the witch splayed out on the ground with the bag of pepper spilled just beside her. She was bleeding heavily from her left hand, and her hair looked like it had been yanked in ten different directions, making it look ten times wilder. Which, he supposed, is exactly what happened.

“I got the music box!”

Paulav’s helpful voice reminded Ben yet again that he was there. Or rather… He had been there. Then he had disappeared during the fray to his caravan.

“Oh! It looks like those little beings took off! Goodness! Are you aware you are bleeding a lot from the back of the neck?”

Ben’s gut churned in the wake of the powerful magic Spidena had just used, and his head was spinning from all the various bite marks on his body bleeding profusely.

He knew the worst of said injuries did happen to be on the back of his neck.

“We need… To get moving. Or…. They will come find us.” Gritting his teeth, Ben pushed himself up from his knees, and almost staggered.

“Steady there, lad. That was incredible! Never in my life have I ever seen anything like it! Of course I had mentioned to you that there were all kind of magical occurrences happening in the south. All because of a wiiitchhh…” Paulav trailed off and dropped his eyes to Spidena on the ground, who was humming an unfamiliar tune while tapping her toes together.

Ben winced, expecting the bottomless well of kindness Paulav offered to miraculously dry up.

But instead the merchant said, “Well now. This is a proper bit of adventure! I can’t wait to tell everyone at the wedding!”