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Spring was Aesling’s favourite season. Everything was bright and new and growing, and there were flowers appearing everywhere every day. Flowers which Markus kept weaving into her hair at every opportunity he got. She only pretended to mind.
The pixies were out in full force. Their most important job was to nurture the flower buds until they bloomed, but that didn’t stop them from taking the chance to be mischievous when Markus and Aesling passed by on their rounds.
“Did you hear?”
“Did you hear?”
“Our Guardian has found a partner!”
“She has a mate!”
“They spent the winter huddled together.”
“But he is a snake. What odd children would they make?”
“Lord Xin would disapprove.”
“Mind your own business!” Aesling snapped, swatting at a pixie fluttering around her hair. “He’s a friend.”
“But Our Guardian does not allow anyone close. Not even her centaur friend, whom she speaks with most.”
“Our Guardian is so cold. She is not yet even all that old."
"She used to play with us.”
“She used to walk with the dryad every day. Then with no one would she play.”
“Hey! Lay off!” Markus hissed at the pixies, frightening them back to their blossoms.
“Thank you, Markus,” Aesling said, shoulders slumping as she played a few notes on her panflute and walked on.
Markus cocked his head curiously at the faun’s back. “You don’t have to listen to them, you know.”
“I know,” Aesling replied. “They’re not what I’m upset about right now.”
“What then?” Markus slithered to catch up with Aesling so he could see her face rather than her tail.
She let out a long-suffering sigh. “I just remembered I have to meet with Xin.”
The naga blinked. “Who?”
“Xin, the self-proclaimed ‘Lord of the Fairies’. He’s a self-absorbed butterfly, is what he is. His job is supposed to be maintaining the glamours around the forest, like the other fairies do, but since he’s so self-important, he decided he needs a bigger job, such as watching over the portals to the other mystic places.”
“Obviously he’s not doing such a great job of it, since I got here,” Markus pointed out, jokingly.
“I’d honestly decided to let that matter be, considering you had saved my life from those human fey-poachers, after all. He’d just try to send you back if I brought it up.”
“Is it going to be okay if I’m with you, then?” Markus sounded a bit panicked. “It doesn’t sound like he likes naga too much, if the pixies are correct.”
“You’ll be fine. I just have to make sure the portals are still intact. Their strength fluctuates in spring, with all the life energy that goes around, and I’ll have to either stabilize or close one if it becomes unsafe.”
They continued on in relative silence for some time. Birds sang, the dryads stretched as they woke from their winter slumber, and soon the pair could hear the sounds of Kyr playing with his human friend. It wasn’t long before they came across the pair.
“Aesling, Markus!” Kyr called out to them when he saw the two approach. “Happy Spring!”
“Happy Spring, Kyr. How’s the boundary?”
“Strong and stable, Ma’am!” Gregor said with a salute, nearly falling off Kyr’s back in his enthusiasm.
“Ooh, your Sylvan’s getting better, Gregor!” Markus praised the child as he helped to set him right again. “Is Kyr teaching you?”
The boy took a second, then nodded enthusiastically. “Kyr teach… learn forest speak. W-want talk to pretty tree lady.” He pointed at a dryad about fifteen meters off who had been watching the group mildly. She had short hair and lovely swirled markings over her cheeks, and smiled like the sun that shone on her leaves.
“Oh, you mean Firi?” Ashe asked, curiously. “I think she knows some human, living basically on the boundary. You can just talk to her, she’s really friendly.” At a curious look from Markus, she continued. “She was my companion for a brief while, before I was guardian over the whole forest. We don’t see each other very often anymore.”
Markus said nothing in response, instead watching the little human boy shyly walk up to the dryad named Firi and hastily blurt out that she was very pretty before running back to hide behind Kyr in embarrassment. Markus smiled, then went to follow Aesling again, waving goodbye to Kyr and Gregor as he passed.
It was still a while before they reached a part of the forest where everything seemed stiller, reality more tense. This was a liminal space, where perception was only an illusion and one misstep could land you in a different place entirely. He’d felt such feelings at the boundary between the fey forest and the ordinary forest the humans wandered. It made his scales crawl a bit, if he was honest.
Ashe walked up to a hollow log and rapped on it a few times with her panflute, ears flicking every which way. A few moments later, a tiny winged figure floated out of… somewhere before suddenly appearing as roughly Aesling’s size. There was no doubt he was a fairy; unlike pixies, with their clear wings resembling a bee’s or a dragonfly’s, fairies wings were like those of a butterfly, grand and colourful. They could also make themselves larger as they wished, while pixies had to stay the same tiny size, to everyone’s relief.
“Oh, Aesling, I didn’t see you there,” the fairy hummed, only looking half interested in what the forest’s guardian had to say. He was also posing.
“I need a report, Xin. How are the portals?”
“Oh, they’re the same as ever, boring. Nothing interesting ever comes through.” He finally spared a glance towards Aesling, and spotted Markus behind her. “And who is this?” he practically hissed, glaring at the naga.
“This is my friend, Markus. You let him slip through last summer, evidently.” It wasn’t often that Markus saw Aesling in a foul mood. She was certainly in one now. “If you’re going to take a task yourself, you had better see that it is done well, Xin. The last thing we need is another medusa incident.”
“I maintain that Inien was very pleasant to speak with as long as you didn’t look her in the eyes, but I can see your point. I’ll do my best to ensure no more of… his kind,” he looked pointedly at Markus, “or any other dangerous sorts make it through.”
“Good. The next time I find out something came out of there, it had better be in a report that states that it took you down first.”
“Oh please, Aesling, you know I’m hardly the type to bed with snakes.” Xin gave a wicked grin at Ashe as her face went bright red, but he quickly cut her off before she could respond to the insinuation. “Alas, I would speak with you longer but duty calls, as does yours, I’m sure. See you next spring, Aesling. I’ll send a fairy or a pixie if there’s any trouble.”
Ashe looked about ready to strangle Xin, or at the very least crack a tooth with how hard she had her jaw clenched. Markus decided the safest course of action would be to pull her away before there was an incident.
“Come on, Ashe, let’s go say hi to Firi. She seems really nice.”
“Yeah… good idea.”