The Fool Who Followed Fairies (for Chriekel)

[Bye_bye_birdie45]

For fairies, the most entertaining type of fun was when someone else was the brunt of your jokes, or pranks, and you were allowed to revel in what mischief you had done - before, of course, causing even more problems. But there were times, of course, when a fairy would take a break, or call for a truce with another, so they would not need to worry about their own skin.

And, on occasion, a fairy would become so fascinated with something, or someone, that they would not leave them alone.

For the tiny fairy Pallas, she found humans a little too fascinating.

[Chriekel]

Casimir wasn't a man prone to fascination, he had very little time for it. It was perhaps an odd trait for someone who made their living from stories to be so narrowly focused on reality. He had not always been so, but the wonderful fantasies and fairytales that had filled his mind growing up were not the stories he made a meager living creating now.

The public liked books, now that the printing press was common enough for them to afford to buy them they bought thousands, what they did not like was literature, so instead Casimir produced reams of the worst pulp entertainment, mostly about highwaymen for some reason and every day his grander imaginations faded a little further from reach.

He would have been quite surprised to learn that he was being observed as he sat, glaring down at a blank page on his desk as if expecting it to leap up and try to bite him.

[Bye_bye_birdie45]

Thankfully, for fairies, their natural size (a "fairy size", for lack of better terms) was something that made them very difficult to see: they were bigger than thimbles and pennies, but smaller than the large rats that lived inside of the chapels. They could fit in the palm of the hand, or in a shirt pocket, unless they decided they wanted to be taller. After all, when fairies reached their adult age, they could grow to "human size", where they would be proportionate to a human's height and size.

Obviously, for taller fairies, they would have taller human heights. For Pallas, she was a tinier fairy, so whenever she decided to be human-size, she was only about five feet and an inch. The main thing that revealed fairies, when they were in their human form (other than that they could still use their magic), was how the tips of their ears were much longer.

However, right now, as Pallas peered at Casimir through the window, she was curious as to why he wasn't writing anything on his parchment. Perhaps he needed help! So, with a little flick of her arm, the ink bottle in from of him tipped forward, spilling its contents over the entirety of his parchment and parts of his desk.

[Chriekel]

Casimir cursed and quickly stood up although a decent portion of the spilled ink ended up in his lap anyway. A tall man in a small room his head did not quite touch the ceiling but if he were to, say suddenly jump up to avoid being drenched in ink he was in serious danger of hitting his head on the chandelier.

Casimir cursed again except substantially louder, clutching his head with one hand and using the other to halt the swinging of the chandelier. Today was already going badly, burning down his house would be a poor way to end it.

In the sudden chaos it did not immediately occur to Casimir that he hadn't actually been touching the inkwell when it fell over and by the time he was settled again at his desk he had forgotten the oddity. The parchment was ruined, his ink was slowly soaking into the desk and his trousers and he was sick to death of staring at the accusingly blank page anyway.

Casimir sighed and brushed the ruined parchment onto the floor then crossed his arms on the desk and rested his head on them in the traditional manner of people who are going to fall asleep somewhere uncomfortable because bed is too far away.

[Bye_bye_birdie45]

Pallas let out a squeal at the sight of the tall man jumping into his chandelier. (But a small squeal, because she was indeed quite small.) That certainly wasn't supposed to happen, and he looked very unhappy with what had occurred. Normally, that wouldn't bother her too much, since causing mischief was sometimes very, very fun, but she hadn't meant to be so naughty! She had wanted to help!

So, in an effort to help, Pallas waved her hand again, forcing the ink to seep from the floor and the desk and stream easily back into the inkwell, which - she supposed - was giving herself away a little, but surely he would understand that she was only trying to help! Then she gave a little 'rat-a-tat' on the window with her tiny hand, and gave him a wave once he looked over.

[Chriekel]

Casimir took in the sight of the mobile ink without any surprise at all initially. He had fallen asleep on his desk and he was dreaming, it showed how wasted his mind was becoming that THIS was what he was dreaming of but still. Maybe if all ink had a mind of its own he could get the books to write themselves.

Why was he dreaming that his head still hurt? In fact this did not feel a lot like a dream aside from the strange motion of the ink, the last few drops of which were sliding across his now perfectly clean desk and up the side of the inkwell without any apparent regard for gravity.

Casimir screwed his eyes shut then opened them again. When he looked again the ink was no longer moving but it was undeniably still there.

Had he only dreamed that he had spilled it? But then how had he hurt his head?

Casimir would probably have come up with a plausible explanation eventually but before he got the chance a quiet but insistent tapping made him turn towards the window.

He saw the fairy.

It waved at him.

Plausible explanations fled back into the corners of his mind like startled cats and for the second time in less than ten minutes Casimir jumped up and hit his head on the Chandelier, this time however he paid it no attention, instead rushing over to the window and staring at the tiny girl waving happily to him from the other side of the glass.

[Bye_bye_birdie45]

Pallas was very pleased when Casimir opened the window - although she flinched when he smacked his head once more against the chandelier - and she quickly flew in, standing on her own tiny feet before realizing... well, just how big everything was inside of his house. That couldn't do! She would need to be big if she wanted to explore!

So, without further trouble, she grew into her human size, so she now was much taller at five-one, but she was still much smaller than Casimir. At least she wouldn't need to worry about touching the chandelier, unless she decided to fly.

"Hello!" she chirped to him, grinning widely, practically bouncing up and down where she stood. She knew very well that she looked very odd, especially compared to him: he was dressed more like a civilized human, and fairies (unless they decided to dress out of leaves) usually made their clothes out of scrap pieces of fabric they stole from humans, so her own dress and boots were multiple shades of purple, blues and greens, hastily stitched together. "My name's Pallas!"

[Chriekel]

"Hello...." Casimir said, weakly. "This is probably going to seem a foolish thing to ask, but are you a fairy? It's just that I think I may be going mad and I feel I should check."

It was a foolish question but Casimir was mostly just letting his mouth operate by itself at the moment. He circled Pallas as he spoke, examining her from every angle and then finally reaching out a tentative hand and lightly tapping her shoulder with one finger.

She was solid. which was reassuring, she was also extraordinarily pretty and apparently overflowing with excitement. At least if he was hallucinating his addled brain had been kind enough to give him something pleasant.

[Bye_bye_birdie45]

"I am!" Pallas said, still grinning wildly, but she gave a little pout when he poked her shoulder. She didn't recall seeing humans greet each other that way! So, to give him a greeting as well, she poked his shoulder back (although she had to stand on her tip-toes to do so).

"What were you doing staring at your parchment? It seems silly, just sitting there and looking at it." She commented, still bouncing a bit on her toes.

[Chriekel]

"I....." Casimir began and then stopped. "Wait, how long have you been out there?"

He was talking to a fairy, this was a perfectly reasonable thing for him to be doing. He was a reasonable man. He wasn't shouting and throwing things around or scrawling on the walls and cackling, he was simply talking to a fairy.

When he phrased it like that, it didn't sound so bad.