The Fairyhunter (again)

Part 21

Adrian awoke again to find the same sprite angel hovering over him. Behind her was a wall of face that he realized was the Highlander he'd met before. "What happened?" he asked, surprised that he felt no pain whatsoever. "Where's Neena?"

"My home, lad and her home as well, though she might do better to keep to it from now on," came Turlock's reply.

"Is she...?"

"What did you DO to her!" snapped the angel angrily.

"I didn't...I was...owww!" Adrian jumped as a little burst of magic leapt from her fingers and onto him, causing him a brief bout of pain. He looked to Turlock for help.

"Ye'd better answer me wife, lad," he said with a bemused look. "Ye can see she doesn't tolerate nonsense."

"Honestly, I didn't even know she was there, she…OWWW (this as Naomi zapped him again)…just came from outta nowhere talking about lights and magic and stuff and…Oww, JEE-zus…when I came out of it, she was LIKE that, I swearrrrrrrowwww!!" Adrian bellowed from her last zap, then ducked his head, worried she might not believe him.

"And that's it?" she said.

"Yes, I swea…promise you!" Adrian practically wailed. Had they healed him up just to kill him again? "Is she alright now…Neena, I mean?"

"She'll be fine..." began Turlock.

"No thanks to you!" added the little indignant woman, causing Adrian a moment of panic.

"...it'll just take a while. Naomi here is giving her magic as she can, but..."

"...but I can't give it all away at once. You should be ashamed of yourself, letting her magic drain all away for you!" Naomi zapped him again and Adrian howled in agony. Magic really hurt at this size! Turlock must have realized this, too, because his huge hand curved gently around the angry sprite, cupping her in his palm as if his fingers were some sort of fleshy chariot.

"Now, now, my little sprite, don't be wasting all your magic on the lad. Neena needs it more than he does," said Turlock, his voice soothing. Almost as if as a switch in her head had been pulled, Naomi looked mortified.

"Oh, that's right! I shouldn't be zapping him...she needs my help! Oh, I'm so sorry!" She bent down and touched Adrian with a finger and the disorienting buzz of residual magic that still plagued his body went away, apparently back to its owner. Naomi fluttered up and kissed her husband on the nose, then zipped out of the room, mind already on her new task.

"That's my girl...see you in a bit," Turlock smiled after her, then turned back to Adrian, his face stern again. "Now, I thought I'd seen the last of you," he said, pointing a finger at him. For the moment, all Adrian wanted to do was sit and gather his senses and bearings again, but at this size, he felt even more uncertain of his ground with this man. He didn't look interested in waiting.

"I did leave. I went into town and...got...drunk...VERY drunk, I think. I didn't want to think about my…career…or anything for a while. I just wanted to…well, I don't know what I wanted, but I wasn't getting it. I ended up back in the woods and she must've found me." Adrian explained. "I don't know how or why, but she did. I don't think I was in that good of shape when she found me, either, which is why she did that magic thing. But I didn't even understand what was going on, I just woke up and she was solid on me. I told the dryads and they went looking for you and you showed up just after the brownies did. I've never been so glad to see another man in my entire life. And your wife...I thought she was an angel!"

"She is," Turlock beamed. "At least to me. She's part sprite and part dark elf. That temper spat you got was her dark elven side. I'm certain if she'd remembered how small ye are now, she'd still held back on those zaps, those."

"I gathered." Adrian sighed, wincing with the memory. "Why didn't you stop her?"

"Oh, I think you deserve at least some of what you got, don't you?" Turlock raised a knowing eyebrow and Adrian blushed like a little girl. He'd earned ten times that with his behavior lately.

"Well...can I see her?"

"After I have my say. It won't take long...'tis only this. Neena has become a part of our family. Therefore, she's almost like another daughter to me. Should you hurt her or make her cry again, I will make YOU cry. Understood?"

"I give you my word I won't," Adrian said solemnly.

"So long as we have that understanding." Turlock rose (and kept rising, it seemed to Adrian), then with surprising gentleness picked Adrian and the small mattress he laid upon up.

"Where'd you get this little bed?" Adrian wondered aloud.

"I have a little family," Turlock replied with a chuckle, crossing the room and going down the hall.

"And why did Neena make me small? Can you change me back, 'cause this is...uh..."

"Awkward? No, you're very light at this size lad, you don't weight a bit." He eyed Adrian up for a moment, seeing the embarrassment on his face and laughed again. "I know a man doesn't like to be tinier than he ought to be, but she put you like this and only she can change you back. She probably wanted to make sure her magic was at its most potent when she healed ye, which meant being sprite sized for both of you. Dinna worry about it…I had to be this size once myself to hold me firstborn."

Somehow, Adrian doubted that even at sprite size, Turlock looked tiny, but they entered another room before he could say so. This one looked like it was made for younger children. In fact, in one corner of the room sat a crib with a very small toddler. To Adrian, the boy was enormous, but it was obvious that he was smaller than a regular human child would be. "My son, Brennan," Turlock explained. "Neena tried to deliver him to the dark elves a while back, which is how we found her again."

"Again? Dark elves?"

Turlock looked around the room, then thinking the conversation was better suited to just himself and Adrian, left the room again. "Aye. The Drow seem to have quite an interest in my wife and her children. Naomi is part dark elf herself, so they see that natural melding of light and dark magic and want to harness it for themselves. I spent most of our single and married lives trying to protect my wife from her father's evil schemes. My children are even more tantalizing to 'em because they think they can wipe out the human part of 'em and just experiment with turning their magic to dark, maybe even start a whole race of dark elven fae that can use both sides of magic for their own gain." Turlock shook his head and continued. "They sent Neena to do their dirty work for them, to catch them so they didn't have to deal with me again." Adrian heard the cloth on Turlock's upper body strain a little and was glad he wasn't the one crossing this Highlander right now. "The first time, it was me daughter, Alia Rose. Neena got her out of the house, but left her behind on the road to escape me. When she came back for Brennan, she must've already been hurt because I caught up with her quite easily. But then, Brennan seemed to adore her and if a wee child sees good in ya, you can't be all bad."

"She told me she was a fairyhunter, too," said Adrian. "Now I understand. Boy, I never thought she'd do something like THAT. Even I let the little ones go."

"I don't think ye do, lad," Turlock frowned, and Adrian flushed as if his own father had chastised him. "Neena began fairyhunting in retaliation for what they fairies did to her father. She never touched a sprite in her life until my children."

"Then why...?"

"Dark elves have ways of pressing a smaller magic being into service," Turlock said darkly. "My son was the only reason I decided to let her live instead of finishing the job they'd done on her, but I'm glad I did now. She helped lead us right to an underdark I never knew existed not a mile from here. My father and I destroyed it and the elves that controlled her forever. I owe this little minx a debt of gratitude that I might never be able to repay, but she still seems to think staying here and minding our children is what she ought to do. I let her…'tis good to keep her grounded a bit with a family that cares for her."

Adrian pondered all this for a moment. Suddenly, Neena had become very complicated, a puzzle to unravel. "What...what did the fairies do to her father?"

"I don't think that's my place to tell ye, lad," Turlock replied. "The information I give ye is common enough knowledge in this house that I felt comfortable in telling it to ye. Neena's father is her history alone. P'rhaps she'll tell it to ye herself, but I won't be one to do it for her."

Turlock opened the door again and they walked into the room. They approached a normal sized adult bed in the corner and found four tiny figures resting on it. Two were little ones, a girl sprite that looked about 8 in human years and was the very picture of Turlock's wife and a towheaded boy that seemed as much a leaf sprite as he'd ever seen. The other two were older women he recognized immediately. Naomi, whose hands were place on right on Neena's forehead, looked up as she saw them coming and fluttered to the hand Turlock held Adrian in. Force of habit made him stand and cringe a bit in the presence of this magical lady.

"Well, she's doing better, but there's still more to do. I've at least got her body relaxed out of that hold she had around you," Naomi said to Adrian, talking to him as if the zapfest she'd had earlier had never happened. "But it's still going to take more magic to get her back to normal. It'll be a few days more."

Adrian peered down at her Neena and noticed that even though she was starting to look her normal colors again, she still looked a little glassy in spots. "She's...still crystal, kinda? How...how is she even alive?"

"Sprites turning to crystal is like us getting frozen, but less permanent. The sprite has to get some magic from outside to "start her back up" so to speak. As she gets magic back into her, Neena will start to come alive again more and her own magic will return to her. It'll feel a bit like she's warming up after frost bite, so it does tend to hurt a bit."

"Where's all her magic at now?" Adrian asked, but even as he said it, he knew. She gave it to me. It's in me somehow and I don't know how to give it back.

"You're holding it, lad," Turlock said, gently, then just as gently as he spoke, he lowered his hand to the bed. Adrian stepped off and knelt by Neena's side. The two children looked up at him curiously.

"Who're you?" the girl demanded.

"I'm, uh, Adrian...Neena's friend," he said, a little surprised.

"I'm Widgeon and I'm Neena's friend, too!" beamed the boy.

"Widge, don't tell him your name!" snapped the girl. "You don't KNOW him, so he's a STRANGER!"

"But Papa Turlock brought him in, Alia, so it's okay!"

"Widge!" Alia whined, hitting the boy on the shoulder. "Now you told him MY name!"

"But I..."

Mercifully, Naomi intervened. "Alright, I think it's time ALL little children left for a while and let Neena's friend have some time alone with her." Widgeon sighed and dutifully came to Naomi's side, while Alia hesitated.

"But Mommy, can't we give her just one more fairy kiss, please?" she wailed. Widgeon looked up at her with the same pleading and Naomi relented.

"One more and that's all," she said.

Alia bent down and gave Neena a kiss on the nose, followed by Widgeon, then Alia did one more and scampered over to her mother as she snapped "Alia ROSE…right now!" As Naomi scolded her for not listening, Adrian asked Turlock, "Hey, if they do that, doesn't it make her a little loopy?"

"Oh, no, sprites do that to comfort one another. The magic has no other effect on them than that, since they're made of it. Makes them feel safe and content. With humans, it's too much magic let into us at once...can knock you right out."

"Tell me about," Adrian replied, looking at Neena and stroking her hair gently. There was so much he wanted to tell her, so much on his mind and heart...

He looked back at wall of face and little winged folk watching him and winced a little. "Uh…?"

Turlock leaned back and cleared his throat, a little embarrassed for the first time. "Yes...well, let's, erm...walk around for a bit...outside or something?"

Naomi looked surprised. "But Turlock, what about..."

"I'm sure Adrian can take care of Neena and vice versa...they've done quite well up to now," Turlock replied, then, to his whole family's protest, he swept them all up in one hand and carried them out, shutting and locking the door behind him.

With a smile, Adrian turned to look back at the woman he'd come to love and hate all at once. He stroked her hair again gently, thinking how nice she was with her mouth not going, but how desperately he wanted to hear from her.

"Neena?" he whispered, but got no answer. "I wish I knew what to do, mothwing. It kills me to see you lying here like this and I have the ability to help but don't know how. I…I hope you can hear all this 'cause…I think I love you, really, and, well…" Blushing and looking around furtively, he leaned over and kissed her nose, hoping for a miracle.

Nothing happened that he could see and he suddenly realized how tired he was getting again. He lay down on his back next to her, staring up at the ceiling for a moment, then slowly, ever so tentatively, put his arms around her and pulled her body in closer, then closer still.

Tomboy though she was, she smelled like a girl close up. A little clean, yet almost faint woodsy scent, like he was passing a Christmas tree. He smiled suddenly, having wondered why it had taken him this long to identify the kind of sprite she was. "Pine. As this time, I’ve been pining away for a pine sprite." He chuckled a little, slowly drifting off with the thought that she had smiled ever so slightly at his words…

 Previous       Next

Back to The Sprite & the Fairyhunter page

Home