The Browny’s House, and The Changelings Mother

The flooring is tapped with an incessant scratch, a wandering rustle made discordant with whatever sound he’d expected to hear.

There are many sounds worthy of investigation in a young sorcerer's house. A tree sawed in two by lightning, a floor board in need of correction, an especially loud fart, but today, Jerry was certain, whatever scrambled into his home couldn’t be familiar.

It had only been a few months since little Nadua was found, and while the little creature should be a bit more ambulatory, even Jerry could recognize the difference between the foundling’s steps and the gross padding on his floors and walls.

While he didn’t know where Nayden was, he didn’t trust the foreign scraping. Not one bit.

And so like any apparent collector of Fairies, he’d gone back to his roots, with an Iron lidded mason jar, and a butterfly net.

The entire exercise was a silly expression of his own hubris, as he found Nayden wrestling the glorified bug to the ground.

“Go Cinnamon!”, he couldn’t help saying, despite knowing his manners. He collected himself, his thoughts, the Jar.

Nayden’s movements made some of the few noises Jerry trusted in his house, and he was glad he’d heard the differences. Jerry was almost sorry as he watched the smaller fairy’s flailing.

There was something of a truth, as clear as anything in saying that there were two real paths for people like Jerry. Sorcery and Sainthood.

Though a librarian with scientific appetites would be fitting for him personally.

He wasn’t sure what else he was, or could be, he didn’t know where recent events put him.

Still he was ready support his Friend, so it probably didn't matter what else he was

...

Nayden had been having a normal day with her baby, when she decided to crawl down from the attic. She’d gone the usual way, as the door was always left open. 

She’d been hoping to have a little walk, while Nadua clinged, maybe bothering Jerry for something other than blood.

But then she saw her, a small flitting thing of a fairy, much too pale for her liking. Nayden couldn’t help seeing intent in her low hover, she wasn’t sure that the female was alone.

Nayden didn’t bother showing fear, so long as she remained unseen on the steps she could watch and wait.

Like any other fairy, her vision had limited utility at a distance. So she couldn’t be sure of the interloper’s curiosity, or what form it really took. Nayden knew by the smell of her home though, that she hadn’t been here long. 

So she waited and shifted, and saw that the female was rather frantic. She stopped to question why, before she heard her own buzzing. She’d fallen into a threat display without thinking, her wings twitching as Nadua thrusted their chirps to back up her sound.

The female made a move towards her, softly scratching the flooring. Swiftly stopping her wings, before waving them slightly, she was trying to mesmerize, as she looked around.

There were either others present, or she was trying to serve that appearance. Nayden let go of Nadua, who shifted unto the steps.

Nayden heard a heavier sound, and realized that Jerry was rounding the corner for whatever reason, he wasn’t in distress so Nayden made her move.

She screeched in an opposing direction before dropping from the steps, leading the female to back away. Fluttering her wings to the apex of flight before being roughly pulled down into a brawl.

Nayden was faster on foot than most smaller fairies were in the air. Spreading her wings as a decoy, falsifying her speed under flight, while the Smaller Fairy scrambled, assuming too much and knowing too little.

She was less than thoughtless in incapacitating the other fairy, as Jerry found them.

Nayden could feel the smaller’s attempts at her wing, slashing at the scales. Luckily numb to it, she simply held the other down until she stopped struggling, and Jerry could present the jar.

Having finally collected the fairy, Nayden could breathe and collect Nadua from the steps.

Finally seeing her baby again, she was happy to say that Nadua’s shades weren’t anywhere near as muted, but they had more than that in common. She could see the shape of their accessory eyes and curve in their jaws in common.

She’d known Nadua’s type when they were found, this didn’t surprise her, it wouldn’t have shocked her to learn this small ignorance of humans. The notion of truly fooled hosts, but Jerry had still found her and knew at least a little of her plight. 

She still didn’t know if the house was empty of intruders, but she had at least caught this one.

...

She looked up from her marbled prison, cool glass beneath her padded claws. She’d been seen by the Damn Browny, and caught by her master.

It was only the ignorance of her captors that made her prison dim rather than dark. She could see around her, the dull outline of color, the wood of a desk beneath the glass, and paper wishing for a spark.

She could get out of this, there is a deep rumble in the air, and she freezes.

“You’re right, she’s awake.” the browny says with a rustling of her wings, moving toward the glass. “Hello there. You seem to have made a mistake, we made no invitation.”

A lamp that could be turned on by a feather's touch, she watches the light flud her Jar, “This is a house, not a realm.” she responds, stronger than she felt.

She could see only an outline of the large overbearing form that was the browny, her voice calm, “The point still applies, we didn’t invite you. And you weren’t good enough to ask. Why are you here?”

She knew how the last fight went down, but words still spilled forth, “Like hell it does browny, you are not the arbiter of-”

Her words cut calmly, “But I am, you don’t seem to understand. This is hospitality, and you’ve broken that. This is my house and you’ve broken in. Why are you here?”

“This child isn’t yours-” she said, seeing the dull shine of her spring acquiescence beyond the glass, this was her child. But she couldn’t say it.

“You mean the child of this house, try again.” the browny corrected, and though it was true it felt like nothing but a lie.

“This child isn’t of your type,” she wanted to walk back, but then she tells the truth as she wants, “it shouldn’t be raised here.”

“The child’s lineage could change nothing. It shouldn’t have for their mother either, if she intends to have an opinion”, the browny says, having seen the Changelings face.

“this is my child, you’ve taken them-”

“Was it yours beneath the maple leaf? Or in a stranger’s house?” the browny says, it’s nothing for her to dismiss the mother, “Was it yours when you left it in some poor host’s bed?” 

“Was it yours when it wasn’t perfect?”, she heard her baby chirping, trying to calm the browny. They're purring, and mewling and she knows how real mothers are to their children. She can’t say anything, and be heard by the browny mother.

“You are a fool to think it is yours,” she says finally calm, buzzing with warmth to her baby in her arms, “this child is mine, they will be fed in this house, they will know neither hunger nor cold.”

“He will be crooked.” she says spitefully, this wasn’t her child anymore. She was too late. “He’ll fly wrongly.”

“Why? Because he lived at all, or because his birth mother wouldn’t raise him in the first place?” the browny said, she could feel her eyes through the glass, “He’ll fly better than I ever did, and if he can’t it won’t be because he was half loved.”