>>5784561“What have you brought us, little half-an-elf?” the fairies tittered, peering at the cages and prodding at the cowed contents within.
“Quit it!” you complained. “don’t tease them! It’s been a long trip.”
“For you as well,” the Spirit of the Old Maple said, the craggly spriggan detached from the branches and trunk which formed its home and heart and striding towards you and your charges. “You look tuckered, child-of-the-children. Worn-down and weary. And I think… I see your missing energy.”
You moved his branch-like hand over both cages, before resting it above Whatshisname’s container, and settling it gently there. The hybrid being flattened low, fearful, before gradually seeming to <calm>, and lifting his head to nipple upon the leaves. The spriggan took no obvious offence.
“What HAVE you done?” he asked in low whisper, not sounding upset so much as curious.
“I… made it, I suppose. Or modified it?”
“So young to be having young ones of your own,” the spriggan noted, to titetrs from his court.
Your face reddened, and you glared.
“It’s not like that,” you said.
“I think it is,” the spriggan repleid. “But fear thee not, little child-with-child-again, we’ll look after your spawn…”
“For a price,” you and he both said at once, for you knew what was coming.
“But you have to look after the natural jackalope, too,” you haggled.
“Bah!”
You produced the box of muffins which you had purchased on your way through Hawksong, though it had stretched your thin budget—mostly dominated by capital-M Muffins—to the very breaking point.
“…Fair and fine,” said the spriggan, and he eyed the baked goods greedily and swatted the other fey away from them to claim first pick of the assortment. “Both the child and its other parent will be safely in our care, you have my word.”
You spent an evening with them, but tired as you were, you found yourself mostly resting against the great old maple tree, Whatshisname in your lap resting with you. Eventually, even with fairy pipes and drums and bells all around you and their musicians cavorting while they played, you nevertheless found yourself drifting to sleep. When you woke, it was dawn, and the fairies were gone… And so were both jackalopes, true and false.
“Thank you,” you sad to the tree, resting your hand on its bark, and then you left.
When you returned to your room, though, you found something most unexpected waiting for you: a letter! The first you’d received since Izirina Henzler’s own, in fact. Your mother still did not write you, if she even understood Man’s courier services… But then, why would she bother, when she never had when you still lived among Elvenkind? You turns it over, regarding tehs eal and the scrawled name before opening it.
It was from…
>Archmage Theresa Henzler>Your father>Write-in (???) 