Pure Blood

"My blood is pure, and so are my words."

The girl twisted her lips. "So you can't lie?"

The faerie shook his blonde head, the strands as golden as sunlight. "Not even a half-truth could slip my silver tongue," he replied, almost smug.

"How old are you?" the girl merely asked, sitting before him as if it were story time. She pulled her small backpack onto her lap and hugged it.

"The trees are younger than I, small Elain. My age is uncounted as the blades of grass beneath our feet." A wind stirred their hair, the loose robes of the faerie shifting with the breeze as well.

The girl - Elain - whose eyes were thick and soft like honeydew, and hair wispy as a koi's curling fins, fawned over the immortal faerie. "And your hair - it is truly made of the sunshine and your eyes of the leaves?"

He nodded, fingering those silken strands with a sense of pride and heavy ego. "My body is made of the earth and shall live as long as it-"

"And do you know elementary math?"

He frowned. "I do," he said hesitantly, and for good reason.

"Great! Can you help with my homework?"

The faerie startled, giving Elain a crestfallen glance. "I...can help with-"

"Ok, will you help with it? You don't have anything going on right?"

"No, but-"

"Great!" Elain clapped her hands and pulled paper from her bag. Several other kids scrambled from the bushes and joined her on the soft grass, similarly preparing to get the homework answers.

"And where did you children come from!?" the faerie cried, but he was overridden.

"Mr. Immortal Faerie? What is two plus five?" a random boy asked, a thatch of dark hair on his pale head.

He stumbled for words. "It's seven, but don't you think-"

"And how about the sides of a triangle? How many are there?" another kid asked, this one a girl with blonde hair and a love for pink. Several other kids around her age glanced up with interest, pencil trailing down to where they had the same question.

"It has three sides but-" he began, and was cut off once more.

"Mr. Faerie, what's four and five added together?" a tiny girl asked, everything around her bedecked in stars. Though she had a love for the night, she certainly stared at the faerie like the sun on a rainy day.

"It is nine, Laura, you could use your fingers-"

"How do you spell 'together,' Faerie man?" another boy asked, this time raising his hand though not waiting to be called on.

"It's t-o-g-e-t-h-e-r," he spelled out, "but you can also use the trick of 'to-get-her' to remember in-"

"Can you answer this? What is ten times ten?" a slightly older girl asked, a challenge in her voice.

He rolled his eyes that were the color of spring leaves. "I can answer, yes - and it is one hundred-"

"What's eleven times two?"

"That would be twenty-two, Collin-"

"And what about-"

"ENOUGH!" he roared suddenly. His mind swirled as the children quieted, a tad shame-faced. A few giggled. He scrubbed the sides of his forehead. "I do not have anywhere else to be, but I do not want to answer these questions and I do not want to be with you ungrateful children any longer," he said bitterly.

The children sagged, some still snickering slightly. The older ones, he noted.

One brave kid asked, voice rising from the crowd, "That was a bit rude wasn't it?"

"You are being rude," he snapped, and was surprised to hear it slip past his lips. "I can only speak truth, so you must know it is such. You are using the pure blood pumped by my pure heart for your own selfish reasons." He sat a little taller, emboldened by his words.

The children sagged further.

"Hm, way to scold the children, Medeus."

The faerie turned towards the female voice. "They were using my gift of truth to cheat on your homework, teacher Madaline," he replied sourly.

Madaline, as human as the children, huffed a laugh at the immortal power who stood on a knoll of hill, a gaggle of children at his feet. "They are kids - perhaps, instead of scolding them, you could lead them to use a better tool than yourself?"

Medeus frowned, the question in his eyes.

"Children," Madaline said with a clap, gathering their attention. She gave a playful smirk to the faerie before turning to them with honeyed words, and said, "Look to your right and left. Are you not surrounded by older and younger for you to be helped and to help?"

The kids did as she asked, and reluctantly nodded.

"Then maybe you should use each other to learn, than this poor, sensitive, and pure blood faerie?"

They laughed, and eagerly separated into groups to do as she said, the older kids mingling with young to answer questions.

"I believe that last part was unnecessary," Medeus said indignantly, though a small smile graced his lips.

Madaline chuckled and nudged him with an elbow. "Even you cranky immortals need a lesson sometimes. A little dousing of truth, if you will."

He snorted, taking in the woman's heavy tresses of dark hair and the simple clothes that typical human teachers wore. He glanced towards the children again with a huff.

"I have plenty of truth in my life as it is."

"Oh?" the teacher queried. "And if I asked you right now what the dirtiest thing you've ever done was, would you answer?"

"If I was forced, then yes. Otherwise I can stay quiet or reply with, 'I do not want to answer,' as it would also be a truthful response," Medeus said, though hesitantly.

"Why didn't you use that for the kids?"

The faerie sighed. "It's just simple math questions, and it would've been rude of me to deny right away, but after that, I was too bombarded to actually think."

Madaline laughed. "Poor immortal. You've had millenia to think and yet a few school kids stump you."

"The gift of truth is not always the best, all in all," he said, a dirty look on his face.

"Don't look at me like that! I didn't do anything!" Madaline laughed, swatting his shoulder playfully.

"Other than insult me four times, then you definitely didn't do anything!

"Ahah! And you can't even exaggerate to prove your point?" she challenged with a laugh.

"I can...not!" He cursed sourly as Madaline doubled over with great, heaving gasps of laughter.

"A faerie who can't even tell a lie or half-truth, and can't even EXAGGERATE!" she crowed.

Medeus pouted, fighting a smile.