Chapter Text
Dick was happy. He loved his family, and his life. He lived in Gotham’s Royal Fairy & Butterfly House. His entire family were performers! They put on at least one air show every single day, but usually more.
The butterfly house was one of, if not the, premiere fairy insectarium in the Western world. It was huge. Arching glass walls and ceilings like a greenhouse. Lush plants and flowers absolutely everywhere. Fountains to play and splash in. Plates of fairy/butterfly food everywhere-- fruit and honeycombs and milk and cream little pastry treats.
Cobblestone paths wove all through the insectarium. Wooden benches were placed along their edges in regular intervals. Trees dripped with little wooden “birdhouse” structures-- all of them either impossible to enter or made of glass on at least one wall, so that the humans could see inside.
The butterfly house was the shining jewel of Gotham’s zoo, and Dick’s family were the star attractions. He was very proud.
Dick was the best fairy aerialist in the world. He was like an acrobat!
He bowed with his parents at the end of their show, to raucous applause from the crowd. They didn’t perform in the butterfly house. Instead, they were carried out in cages to the zoo’s amphitheater, and then carried back in after.
The applause slowly died down as humans stood from their seats and began filtering out. Dick and his parents flew back behind the stage, the way they always did. The humans who had backstage passes would go back there too, for the performer meet-and-greet they had paid for. Certain VIPs were sometimes invited as well-- big-name donors to the zoo, board members, stuff like that.
“Hi!” Dick chirped. “My name is Chicory!”
Chicory was what the humans called him. Mom and Dad said they hadn’t liked name they had chosen for him. Dick didn’t know why, but it didn’t really matter.
Chicory was his stage name. That meant it was what he went by as a performer. Like how his dad’s name was John, but humans called him Indigo, and his mom’s name was Mary, but humans called her Petunia.
Dick’s real name was super secret. Humans were never supposed to hear it. Mom and Dad were very clear about how important keeping your name a secret was. Dick still didn’t really get why, but he was a good kid. He listened to them anyway.
He loved his parents.
“Oh, how adorable!” A human woman said. She had strawberry blonde hair and her hand resting on the arm of a man in a fancy suit. “Hello, Chicory. Do you mind if we ask you some questions?”
“Sure!” he chirped. He flew in a loop excitedly.
Humans always asked the same five or so questions, and Dick was so good at answering them. When did you learn to fly? How long have you been performing? Can you do magic? Can we see a trick?
And so on.
The woman took out a small black device and pressed a button on it, holding it outstretched towards Dick. “What’s it like living in the zoo?”
“Uh,” he said. “It’s good?”
“Have you ever lived anywhere else?”
“Nope! I was born here,” he said, back on more familiar ground. He smiled broadly.
“Ms. Vale—” one of the zoo employees said. The big boss. He sounded nervous, but why would he be nervous? He was in charge of everything and everyone. “I’m afraid I must ask you to put the recording device away. For the privacy of our other guests, you see.”
“Oh?” the man Ms. Vale was with asked. He looked aside to the other humans who had bought backstage passes. Another couple, and a family with a young daughter. “Do any of you have a problem with Vicki here recording?”
The other humans shook their heads.
“Am I gonna be on the news?!” the little girl asked, delighted.
“No,” Ms. Vale said, smiling. “I’m only recording audio of my interview with Chicory here. No one’s privacy will be violated.”
“Yes, well, I’m afraid the zoo has proprietary concerns,” Mr. Haly-- the boss man-- said. “Backstage access is a privilege offered at a premium. If everyone had access to an interview with our performers, they would have no incentive to pay for backstage tickets.”
“Please,” Ms. Vale’s man said, waving a hand dismissively. “This is free marketing. You should be paying Vicki for this, really.”
Vicki nodded. “I assure you, Mr. Haly, I won’t reveal any aspects of the show itself. And I’m certain this will only drive up more interest in exclusive interviews with your fairies.”
“...Right,” Mr. Haly said. “Nevertheless, recording is against our policy.”
“It is?” the man asked. “Really? I took so many pictures! Everyone in the crowd was doing it, so I thought it would be okay.”
“Oh, well, that’s… different. You see, Mr. Wayne, a photograph is nothing at all like—”
“How about I write you a check?” Mr. Wayne cut him off. “How much will it cost for you to turn a blind eye just this once? Please? It’s important to my girlfriend’s career.”
“Mr. Wayne, I couldn’t possibly accept—”
“Oh, nonsense! I donate to the zoo all the time, you know. There’s no reason for me to stop now, is there?”
“...I suppose. Just this once.”
Ms. Vale smiled, sharp-edged and cruel-looking. “Thank you so much, Mr. Haly.”
“It’s nothing.”
“So, Chicory,” she said, turning her attention back to him. “Do you go to school?”
“I don’t know what that is.”
“School is where children go to learn things. Like reading and math.”
“Huh.” Dick flew in a loop again. “I don’t know that stuff. I’m a performer! All I need to know is my set.”
“Yeah? Is this what you wanna do for the rest of your life?”
He frowned. “It’s what’s going to happen no matter what.”
“How old are you?”
“I’m nine!”
“Do you have any friends?”
“Yeah! I’m friends with my mom and my dad and all the butterflies and the robin family that lives in the cherry tree!”
“Do you know any other fairies? Ones that aren’t your mom and dad?”
“No?” he said. “Of course not? I’ve never left the zoo. And we’re the only fairies in the zoo. Though I said to my parents that they should have another kid so that I can have someone to play with and be friends.”
“Is that the only way you could ever have a friend?”
“Well, yeah?” he said. “Unless the zoo bought me a new friend? Mr. Haly! Mr. Haly, can I have a friend?”
Mr. Haly smiled thinly. “We’ll see.”
“Do you ever get any time off?” Ms. Vale asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Do you ever get to have time where no humans are looking at you, and you don’t have to perform?”
He nodded. “The zoo closes at 10:00 PM and reopens at 6:00 AM. But they have to start getting everything ready every morning at 5:00.”
“Do you have a private space?”
“Uhh. No?”
“I see,” she said. “Do you get paid for your work here?”
“No, of course not,” he said. “What would I do with human money anyway? And I live here, so it’s not really work. This is my life.”
“You don’t see a difference between performing in air shows and being on display in the butterfly house?”
“No?”
“What happens if you’re sick one day and can’t perform? Or if you just want a day off?”
He shook his head. “That doesn’t happen. We always perform,” he said. “One time, Dad got really sick, for a long time. He kept performing straight through, but one day he couldn’t stay awake at all. So the zoo doctors injected him with something to give him energy. Then he did the show, but he passed out right after, and they had to refund all the backstage passes and apologize and stuff.”
“How did you feel about that?”
“It was really scary,” he said. “Dad was still sick for a long time after. But he kept performing!”
“Okay. One last question, Chicory. What do you think of humans?”
He shrugged. “Not much in particular?” he said. “You’re just people, the same as me and my parents. The only difference is that you guys are really big and could swat us like flies.”
Ms. Vale’s eyes gleamed.
Things started changing after that.
Humans started asking different questions. Weird ones, like Ms. Vale had. Attendance at the air shows trickled downward; backstage pass purchases skyrocketed. Then they stopped holding shows daily, instead scheduling them for every other day, then a week later, it became once every three days.
The butterfly house closed at 8:00 PM every night now, and reopened at 8:00 AM, even though the main zoo hours hadn’t changed at all.
One day, they canceled the air show completely, on account of a mob of people gathered outside the zoo to protest. Whatever that meant.
Everything was confusing and scary right now.
Dick just wanted it all to go back to normal. He didn’t know what had happened, or why things changed, but everything was so much simpler before all this.
He was a fairy. Wasn’t his life supposed to be easy? Flying around and sitting on toadstool mushrooms and talking to the birds and doing magic tricks for human kids. That had been the sum of his life, before. And it had been easy.