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I only had a moment to open my eyes and smile reassurance to my worried servants before Lucy caused a maid panic by flying into my dressing room and announcing, “Amana call!”
After apologizing to the dressmaker, I told everyone to clear out, then directed Genette to fetch the spirit stone. Lucy’s mini-pixie projection can only talk for herself. She has to relay the voices of others through the stone.
My older sister had set up a connection between Lucy and her crystal ball before leaving, to give us a line of communication better than the somewhat flimsy one based on paper memos that I have with Arken.
I was just a bit underdressed at that moment, as I had been about to try on a formal gown when I stopped the session, but Lucy only does audio, so I was thinking for a moment that it was fine. When Genette brought a yukata for me along with the stone though, I realized that I probably wouldn’t want to chat with people half-naked, after all. Especially with some of the voices on the other end of the connection being male.
I’m glad that Genette sometimes has more sense than I do.
For the first parts of the conversation, I had to pretend to be hearing about it for the first time, of course, but the story was just as bewildering on the second telling.
When the mission arrived at their base camp, a spot on the rail spur a few miles outside the town, just outside the perimeter of the formation that Mother identified during her own inspection of Oseri, Serera and Feraen went scouting ahead while the mortals set up and rested overnight.
The presence of my older sister Amana, a princess of Faerie, really should have kept Lady Serera behind as her guard. Perhaps she considered either Ryuu and company or ‘Lt. Madrin’, a.k.a. the Hekatoncheir Kottos to be sufficient to ensure Amana’s safety. Or perhaps Serera felt Amana could take care of herself. I’m not sure which it was, and I don’t really have a good grasp of Amana’s combat skills, so I couldn’t really ask.
The two fairy knights stayed in town through the night, in stealth for most of it, in order to inspect the houses and their unexpected occupants one by one. As Serera mentioned, about one in ten houses were inhabited, and by what appeared to be ordinary mortals.
“Other than the sheer fact of their presence, can you think of anything unusual that stood out about them?” I wondered.
Feraen replied. “Your Grace, I used my disguise magic to enter a public house to speak to a few townspeople. I can’t give it a precise description, but I indeed encountered something unusual.”
Lady Serera interjected, “You didn’t say anything to me!”
“Well, naturally! I’m struggling to put it into words. If you had asked in as abstract a way as Her Grace, perhaps I would have told you, but…”
Uninterested in listening to bickering fairies, I pressed, “Unusual in what way?”
Feraen replied, “When I disguise myself and go among mortals, I naturally restrict my charm as much as possible. Any responsible fairy would, but it also keeps the more sensitive types from noticing I’m not human.”
That made sense. Other than facial features, a fairy who is dressed as a mortal really shows nothing physical to advertise herself as a fairy, and most will first assume someone with the facial features to be a mortal with fairy blood rather than an actual fairy.
“Of course,” I agreed.
“Well, I know many fairies don’t agree with me on this, but I believe there is only so much one can suppress at my strength. That’s why I limit my contact with them even with my charm constrained.”
“Aren’t you just not good at it?” Serera teased.
“I work very hard!” she retorted. “This is a matter of policy for me! I affect ordinary mortals quite easily!”
“My Lady, please don’t tease her,” Amana chided the royal knight. “This is a serious conversation.”
A light o-ho-ho-ho came across Lucy’s connection. “I apologize, Your Highness.”
Feraen continued, with a slightly disgruntled air. “Anyhow, I noticed an oddly standoffish tone. It reminded me of my visits to halfling or dwarven communities. It was quite unlike the attitude I’ve normally encountered among humans.”
“Standoffish?”
“As if they doubted a stranger in their midst could be anything trustworthy. They clearly saw me more as a potential threat, even though they had been speaking quite amiably among themselves before I arrived. I observed them from stealth before slipping out and coming back in normally, you see.”
I frowned, thinking of insular rural communities on Earth. I had no experience with them in life as Robert, but I imagine the stereotypical Amish or Appalachian communities in fiction, towns that are suspicious of all strangers, have some sort of basis in reality. Perhaps not in the real analog of those particular communities, but in some place somewhere.
But as she just said, that sort of behavior is associated on Huade with the communities of certain particularly clannish species. Dorian humans tend to be quite dedicated to hospitality for travelers.
I added up her logic and concluded, “You found it contrary to your fairy charm, My Lady?”
“I found it odd because I know that I can’t help but affect them a certain amount. I was disguised in the appearance of a mortal girl adventurer, not dressed that differently from Brigitte or Bruna. Such women should not be that strange to encounter, here on the perimeter of the Highlands. Nothing about my appearance or behavior should have elicited such a cold response. So I thought to let a bit more charm through, to test them. As gently as possible, of course. I had no interest in actually playing.”
I blushed and cleared my throat when I saw Genette grow a slight smirk. My lady’s maid, an ex-guttersnipe and formerly Mother’s chambermaid, knew exactly what a fairy means by ‘playing’, of course.
“And the effect was?”
“Nothing. Eventually I even pushed intentional charm at them without result.”
“What?” I heard Amana and Serera respond in unison. No, actually, I think Kottos had been in that choir as well.
“What’s the problem?” Ryuu demanded.
Arken is the one who answered. “Mr. Kowa, if a fairy purposefully acts to charm a mortal, most would have no defense. One who can resist them is quite rare.”
I could imagine Ryuu’s scowl. “What do you mean by ‘charm’? Like that thing that Tiana always worried about doing to someone if she wasn’t careful?”
The author of the IseNai series had struggled to explain what it was that the original Tiana worried about, that explained why she was so cold and distant toward the other members. Uncle Arken always came to her defense, but it was a point of friction between her and the other players.
From my memories, I knew now that she was mostly just worried about recreating the circumstances that led to her putting distance between herself and Amelia by joining the knights. That was a characteristic of her vampire side rather than her fairy side. But it was a handy misunderstanding at the moment, so I replied, “That’s correct, Mr. Kowa.”
The uncomfortable silence that followed was a little disheartening, but it lasted only until Arken resumed the explanation.
“Mr. Kowa, you are probably resistant to most fairies, given how strong a spirit you possess. You probably are at about the level of a member of my species in that respect. A fairy is not going to accidentally charm you. It was unlikely she would do so to any of our party. Even then, her control was quite a bit better than what she believed. But she was too self-conscious about it and couldn’t help worry.”
“And I wasn’t talking about accidents!” Lady Feraen differed. “If acting purposefully, a fairy with proper control of her innate skills will have most mortals kissing her feet within a very short time, if she is stupid enough to go around doing so. Most of us don’t, because it causes us more trouble than it’s worth.”
“And of course, for we fairy knights, it’s against our vows,” Serera noted.
Feraen continued. “But I tried to use it to get these fellows to open up.”
“And you say that it didn’t work,” Arken suggested.
“Exactly,” she replied. “It was as if they were disguised High Elves or something.”
Kottos corrected, “The High Elves went extinct at the end of the Elven Golden Age, My Lady. Some elves like Sir Arken have traces of High Elven blood, but…”
“I know that!” Feraen snapped. “But at the strength I was using in the end, even Arken would have wagged his tail for me!”
The following conversation over the next few minutes made it clear that Bruna, Kottos and the fairies fully understood how strange it was, but the mortals didn’t really get it. Well, Arken at least somewhat understood.
Serera finally sighed and mused, “This is the problem with mortals who haven’t faced the actual power of fairies. After all, most mortals who interact with them don’t ordinarily encounter that power. Only those whom a fairy singles out for entertainment purposes ever experience it.”
Graham rumbled, “Entertainment purposes?”
“You know what I mean, Mr. Graham. There were surely stories in your home town of young women or young men bewitched by fairies? They are not fiction, I assure you.”
Amana joined the conversation. “You can divide us into two categories, dear mortals. In one category are those who dislike relying on our racial magic and approach our lovers in the same manner that mortals do, honestly and without tricks. Almost any fairy who goes out among humans needs to be of this bent, or she would cause chaos. In the other category are those who glory in the power they have over mortals and who enjoy how powerless mortals are in their hands. Any of you mortals, if such a fairy chose to toy with you, would be unable to resist. You are safe because we three and your duchess have principles and so, choose not to treat mortals as toys.”
I felt like I should apologize to Grandmother, but I immediately realized Amana was talking about the woman who is also her grandmother. Her description of the second category matched Lâra perfectly, after all.
However, the first group, the one that Amana clearly considered herself a member of, is certainly Mother’s side, even though Mother had every mortal eating out of her hand. The sheer respect she gave to all of them was nothing like the casual nature of Grandmother’s method. Mother and daughter clearly both cared for the mortals around them as a whole, but their approaches to mortals as individuals were completely opposite.
Feraen’s bright laugh suddenly pealed across Lucy’s connection. “She doesn’t seem to have convinced you, Mr. Kowa! Would you like one of us charm you to prove it?”
Serera’s amused tones added, “Mind you, the one who does it will dally with you for a night or so to keep your mind safe. It’s dangerous for your mental health if we stop half way.”
“Didn’t you just say it was against your vows as fairy knights?” Amana demanded. “It has to be me, right?”
“Oh, that’s right,” Feraen mused.
“It’s not against our vows if he agrees to it ahead of time,” Serera disagreed. “Of course, if Your Highness insists…”
“Hm. Well, I suppose I don’t oppose the idea…”
Kottos demanded, “Will you trollops behave yourselves already?”
Fairy laughter bubbled from Lucy’s stone. These women… I already had my face in my palm, trying to imagine Ryuu’s reaction to all of this.
“Uncle Arken,” I called out once their mirth subsided. “I’m sure you understand the gravity of Lady Feraen’s concern. Average townspeople should not be so formidable that someone like her couldn’t even make them warm up to her.”
“Yes, Your Grace,” he agreed. “I do understand. But I can’t offer an explanation for how it could happen.”
“I can,” I declared, in a grim tone.
