The Fool Who Followed Fairies (for Chriekel)

[Bye_bye_birdie45]

Pouting, Pallas shook her head no and crossed her arms over her chest. With her rather adorable expression, and how much shorter she was than Casimir, she looked very much like a child: a very bratty child, however. "No," she told him. "I came to visit you and to watch you, not to do magic. You can't make me."

[Chriekel]

There was no mistaking the tone or the expression, Pallas was sulking at him.

Casimir did not like children, they were troublesome at best and infuriating at worst, he still had nightmares about the months his young cousin Juliet had spent staying with him while her mother was ill. She had been adorable too, apparently being adorable led to a certain level of petulance by default.

"You want to watch me and pour ink on me, but not provide anything in exchange? That hardly seems fair" He said, still not quite angry but a lot closer now. Fairy or not he had never been fond of spoiled brats.

[Bye_bye_birdie45]

"I put the ink back into the bottle," Pallas sassed, still pouting greatly. "Isn't that enough?" After all, most fairies wouldn't have even bothered to put the ink back: or to stop pulling pranks after the first one! "And being a fairy doesn't mean being fair. That's a misconception!"

[Chriekel]

"Very well." Casimir walked back over to the window and pulled it open. "Then I'll consider myself lucky you only wasted a third of the bottle and ruined my clothes and bid you good evening. Feel free to leave the way you came in."

Casimir wasn't sure that he was doing the right thing, but the girl's attitude was putting him on edge. It wasn't an unreasonable request after all and it was no more difficult than for him to show her a normal human activity like....

Now there was an idea...

He closed the window again and turned back to the fairy.

"Pallas. If I show you something interesting that humans do, will you show me some fairy magic in return?"

[Bye_bye_birdie45]

Pouting, Pallas started towards the window, but she seemed curious (and a little relieved) when he shut it quickly.

"What kind of human thing?" Pallas asked, her curiosity taking over. The bratty tone of her voice was gone, and she sounded surprisingly... well, eager for whatever Casimir had in mind. After all, if it meant trading fairy magic for, wouldn't it be interesting?

[Chriekel]

Casimir sat back down in front of his desk and considered how best to phrase this. He didn't want to lie but the complete truth would probably not be a good idea either.

He rubbed his chin for a moment, pondering and finally said:

"It's a kind of ritual, a way to help our children remember things and teach them to respect their elders. If you were a human girl I'm sure you'd have been through it quite often growing up. Since you haven't, I can give you your first now and after I'm done you can tell me whether you got anything from the experience."

Well, all of that was certainly true enough.

"There's barely a single human being who hasn't been through the process at least once, though we don't tend to do it in public so you won't likely have seen it done."

[Bye_bye_birdie45]

Pallas waited patiently (which was surprising, since most fairies were not patient) as Casimir sat and rubbed at his face, and she mimicked him for a moment. When he started to speak, she stopped, and she listened carefully to what he had to say.

Well, she certainly didn't like the sound of the respect their elders part, because that was never fun (and fairies didn't tend to have respect for anyone), but having the knowledge that almost everyone had gone through it made her feel better. And, well, it was a human thing! And human things are quite interesting!

"Okay!" she chirped, bouncing on her heels again. "Show me!"

[Chriekel]

Casimir hesitated. He had seen her use magic, he had also seen her change size. The odds of keeping her on his lap if she was free to use her powers was fairly low.

But Casimir had not spent his early years lost in fairytales for nothing, he knew, or at least thought that he knew something of the nature of the pretty petulant being standing in front of him. Fairies were mischief makers by nature, they would prank one another as happily as any poor unsuspecting human. When they made truces to stop their games they swore by their forest to one another, making a promise they would never break to not prank or pester the other fairy until their truce was ended.

"Alright. But this is a very important human thing. Using fairy magic while I'm doing it would be disrespectful. " Casimir folded his arms and looked seriously at the fairy girl, who was still bouncing on the spot. "Swear by your forest you won't?"

[Bye_bye_birdie45]

Not at all aware of what actual danger she was putting herself in, Pallas nodded eagerly, looking very honored to be a part of an incredibly important, and apparently respected, human ritual. "Yes, yes! I swear by the forest!" And she made a little circle with her fingers in front of her forehead: the fairy symbol of signing a deal.

"Now, show me!"

[Chriekel]

"With pleasure."

Casimir had never actually tried dragging a reluctant adult woman over his knee before but he found that it was surprisingly simple, the diminutive fairy girl was no harder to control in his arms than a child.

With Pallas now in position he briefly paused to consider if he had just made a terrible mistake. He might be wrong about so many things and, if he were not, what about when she was free again?

But he discarded these thoughts, Pallas was a thing of fantasy, but real enough to pout at him like a little girl, if this was his own fairy story he would prefer to be the fool who chastened a spoiled fairy than the idiot who missed the chance.

He lifted his hand and then brought it down hard on the fairy girl's bottom.