At some point in the future…
The ducks complain and go in different directions as they're being followed desperately by their egg tender. The reassuring crunch of the village's gravel is gone, being so far out from the village, and the egg tender's shoes start to sink in the soft sandy mud that has replaced it. It slows her down, but not the ducks with their webbed feet. She grimaces and curses her luck to have to deal with ornery ducks on such a lovely, cool spring morning.
She uses her prodding stick to try and push away some of the shrubs the ducks are using to play games with her. The branches of the shrubs bounce back, slapping her painfully in the lower thighs. The ducks' half-quacking afterward sounds an awful lot like laughing.
"Now listen here, you damned bird, I don't know what's gotten into you this morning, but I swear to the Wilds I'll have you for dinner tonight if you don't come out of there right now."
As if believing she was getting annoyed enough to do it, the duck casually walks out and shakes its tail back and forth in passing. The egg tender shakes her head and shoos the fat bird forward, and in the direction she can see the other duck walking around in.
"Hey-llo."
The egg tender startles and screams as she's jump-scared by a child's innocent voice not three feet behind her. How she missed seeing the child is a true mystery to her. She whirls around, holding her hand up to her chest and breathing hard. When she turns around, there is indeed a child only a few feet from her. It's a young girl with deep vivid green eyes, only old enough to walk and babble-talk and dirty enough to have fallen in the mud and sand a few times.
"Oh, my goodness. What are you doing out here, little one? You'll catch a cold. Here."
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The kind pixie egg tender takes off her outside layer of clothing to protect her from the nippy springtime morning air and quickly wraps the naked girl in it to cover her and warm her up a bit.
"Where's your mother?"
"Hey-llo."
The freed wings on her back flutter as the egg tender looks back and forth. She jumps up momentarily into the air and hovers with those delicate wings, trying to gain visual distance and see if there are any signs of a parent or protector. When she lowers back down to the ground, having seen nothing, the girl bounces up and down.
"Fly! Fly-fly-fly!" She squeals in amusement while bouncing in place.
"Oh, little dear, aren't you adorable." The pixie looks to where her ducks have gone–they've actually wandered back towards the village on their own, strangely enough–before she looks down at the girl.
"Hey-llo. Eat?"
"Oh, you're hungry? Oh, to hell with the ducks. You poor little wean, let's get you fed and see what we can do to find you some clothes."
The egg tender carefully leads the little girl back onto the traveler's path and then on to the nearby village. In only a few nights and days, the pixie egg tender finds herself enjoying being a new protector of one of the lost children who sometimes appear in the Wilds. After it's clear that no one is coming to look for the girl, that night, while they're eating dinner, the pixie grins at the girl and asks her if she minds if she gives her a name that she always found pretty.
"Name! Name-name-name!"
"Oh, well, alright. Since you insist. I have always found the name Vivianne to be so elegant. You'll be Vivianne, you little ball of energy, you."
"Vivi-vivi-vivi!"
"That's right, Vivi. Vivianne."
The girl is more than happy to add another thing to repeat to her very limited vocabulary, and she's more than happy to eat, drink, and be safe under the roof of a Wilder pixie egg tender. The very same Wilder pixie feels nothing but affection and a protective instinct for her accidentally adopted little girl, almost like it was meant to be.