Finder's Keepers

A late morning sun beamed from its cloudless, azure sky. The little girl blinked a few times, questioning the sight upon returning her gaze to the spot where her mom’s progress of planting remained unfinished. At least for the moment.

How was it possible, that on a day such as this, her mom could have missed it? It was right there, nestled gently on the mound of freshly churned soil, twinkling, as if winking at her. At close inspection, she could see that the thing was actually a circular braid, delicately woven by the thinnest strands of silver.

The phone had rung and now her mom was in the house, deep in a faraway phone conversation, the gardening tools and gloves abandoned but barely an arm’s stretch from her. The girl watched her mother pace before the nearest window of the kitchen, rapt in conversation before pivoting her attention back to the strewn tools and leather gloves.

Those gloves were like magic; her mom would always say she should never touch the fertilized soil without them. Yet she feared losing the delicate ring that was much too small and light to feel with clumsy oversized digits, or to grab hold of through the dense, leather material. This wasn’t the previous house-owner’s rusty screw or discarded nail.

The plan was to quickly tuck it into the front pocket of her jean overalls, but having given the window a cursory glance and feeling assured she wouldn’t been seen, instead she quickly slipped the ring onto the digit it most likely could fit – her pinky.

It was immediate, but she must have imagined it: a weird tingle crawled up that smallest finger, cascaded up her arm and then rolled down her spine. Adjusting her shoulders, she blinked and shrugged it off, now captivated by the sight of the thing on her littlest finger. Then she frowned, however, because the thing did not help to make her pudgy little hand look more elegant at all, as she had hoped.

* * *

The girl awoke in the haze of twilight, to the unpleasant sensation of something sharp that had jabbed her in the nose. Not having slept long so far, her eyes effortlessly focused to assess the small-sized culprit right next to her pillow. Not believing her eyes, she blinked a few times, questioning her wakefulness due to the surreal sight.

A tiny (but very sharp) sword’s distance from her face was a male mini-person holding the weapon. He was dressed in fancily tailored light blue, his sleeves and pants hemmed with golden sparkle and he had what looked like wings, neatly tucked against his back. His hair was a pale blond that seemed white in the silvery moonlight; the crystal-turquoise of his eyes was icy, and his handsome face was incongruently set in contorted, angry determination.

“Hand over the crown!” The miniature creature demanded.

The situation might have been comedic if it wasn’t so absurd.

The girl lifted her head just a bit, in the process of her senses convincing her that this really was happening. There was a little person (a faerie? they existed?) a bit bigger than her thumb, standing by her pillow, whose sword’s tip shifted, ending up a little too close to one of her eyeballs. She pulled back out of instinct.

The little male seriously thought she had a crown.

“But I don’t have a crown.”

The girl assumed this really should have been clear enough to eliminate any further confusion. And if this was actually a dream, this would have been the perfect cue for her to wake up! But widening her eyes as far as they would go achieved nothing except a flinch and a slight retreat from the tiny male.

He recovered quickly, as did his haughtiness.

“Our Elders aren’t mistaken! They can tell that it was recently excavated!”

The girl’s irritation almost overshadowed her wonder. This was happening.

“I think I’d remember digging up a crown…” As she repeatedly mulled over his words, fragments of a movie from her memory of earlier surfaced to the forefront of her mind – in particular, that a sparkly ring ended up around her pinky.

“Wait, you mean my ring?” It seemed so ridiculous and she felt silly showing him her hand. The faerie became crestfallen – but not before a brief flash of recognition lit up his eyes. He lowered his sword. 

“Yes, that belongs to my people.”

The girl pulled her hand back, sheltering it with the other, “But it’s mine, because I found it,” she explained matter-of-factly, even though there was a mythical creature in her midst with the simplest of requests. After all, why would he assume he could just come along and claim something she had found?

The faerie sighed in annoyed defeat. It was then that they were made aware of a third occupant in the room, on the window’s ledge but halfway across the small bedroom.

“Not too many of her kind have a moral compass, you know.”

It was another faerie, a female version, leaning upon the windowsill’s vertical edge as she was using a small but dangerous-looking dagger to pick at her nails. This task appeared to have her full attention, her face unmarked by any emotion, her pale complexion a stark contrast to the ebony braid that fell over her shoulder. She was night to her counterpart’s day. Even her clothes were a darker shade of blue, instead accented with shimmering silver.

The male faerie sighed and then groaned. His reaction seemed to trigger returned recognition from the new arrival. When she looked up, she narrowed her violet gaze at her male counterpart.

In a mesmerizingly fluid motion, the female faerie tossed her small weapon into the air with one hand and caught it with the other, straightening the arm to point the tip at the male faerie. She then leapt off the ledge and flew to the opposite side of the pillow, landing ever so gracefully, despite her apparent fowl mood.

Feeling caught between the two, armed faerie creatures, the human girl scrambled to the opposite end of her bed and watched them converge on top of her pillow, both leaving tiny footprints on the freshly washed linen. While the human girl idly wondered how she would be explaining those curious marks to her mom, the little winged-people suspiciously considered each other. The girl’s train of thought was interrupted when she realized one of the faerie people was addressing her.

“I’m Luna, Princess of Moonbeam, and this, here, is arrogant Aelius, Prince of Sunglow,” the slight female sneered the last word and gestured her companion with a lazy hand. She then bowed with a fake flourish.

The weirdness factor had now officially doubled. Before she could open her mouth to reply, or much less mentally string words together to form a coherent sentence, the two creatures returned to conversing as though she weren’t there again.

“Well if she won’t hand it over to me, why would she hand it over to you?” The one called Aelius grumbled.

“Because unlike you, Prince Pointy-Sword, I didn't start by threatening, but asked politely.” Luna sheathed the dagger at her hip and as she turned towards the girl again, who had been watching the little creatures as though the two were a part of some bizarre theatre production.

Luna cleared her throat, “My Elders told me the Great Feud Crown has been recovered. It rightfully belongs to Moonbeam. And as their leader, I have been sent to retrieve it. You may now give it to me.” The Faerie Princess finished her seemingly rehearsed lines by extending her hand expectantly.

But the girl didn’t reply right away, having been half-distracted by the audacity of both creatures while at the same time, by the peurile faces the Prince was making behind the Princess. Logic overruled her urge to giggle.

“But if you need it, why did you bury it?” There was a beat, as both faeries looked at the human girl because evidently they had not expected such a question.

Seemingly displeased with this inquiry, or perhaps that he had been relegated to a secondary role by the Faerie Princess, the Prince crossed his arms haughtily and looked even more impatient. Unaffected, the Princess creature continued with further obviously-rehearsed verbiage, “Sunglow and Moonbeam have been feuding for generation over which colony’s leader earns the right to rule over both lands. The group of Elders, made up of Wise Ones from both colonies had the Crown buried so the feud would cease. The two colonies have been separated since then.”

“Actually,” the male stepped forward, his arms still folded insolently, “they had it buried as a test,” he briefly glanced at his female counterpart self-importantly, “Whichever colony’s leader finds the Crown, will rule over both Sunglow and Moonbeam.”

The girl watched, as the female faerie, too, folded her arms in irritation and glanced at the male crossly. Either it was in reaction to being so rudely interrupted or that the male might ruin her chances of convincing the human to do as she wanted.

During the back and forth between the not-so-mythical creatures, the girl made herself more comfortable. She pulled her legs closer to sit cross-legged, balancing her head on a hand at her chin, an elbow on a thigh. The whole situation was now beginning to feel natural to her in an odd way. If she had to give the ring away…

“So then which one of you would I be giving it to?” It was supposed to be flippant. Cue another silent beat as the two creatures looked at the human girl in astonishment, stunned into momentary silence. They apparently did not expect her to chime in.

“Well…since I was here first--” The male faerie approached with a swagger, balancing his sword by his foot as though it were a walking stick. Maybe this was how mysterious holes tended to appear randomly in cloth.

The other faerie interrupted when she swiftly turned and poked him in the chest, “That is far from fair and you know it! If it weren’t for the Isolation Rule, I would have come much before any sign of sunset!”

“The Isolation Rule?” The girl beckoned for an explanation, again derailing their back and forth. The two kept glaring at each other.

“To stop the feud, our Elders separated our colonies…centuries ago. One wakes with the sun, the other with the moon.” The female faerie sounded a little bitter as she finished through gritted teeth.

The girl’s fascination was piqued, “So your two groups weren’t always named…Sunglow and…Moonbeam?”

The Faerie Princess turned to face the girl, opened her mouth to reply, but the Faerie Prince interceded, “You’re seriously giving this human a History lesson?” he asked in disbelief, his deadpan expression directed at the female faerie’s back.

Without turning, the female faerie replied with clear frustration, “Since, as you know, she’s protected by the crown’s magic so neither of us can coerce her by threat of harm to remove it. There might be a more civil way to take care of this…”

“Obviously…well…” Aelius suddenly poised his word, “what if we…made it easier for her to decide?” With no warning, he lunged at Luna, who probably caught sight of him from the corner of an eye, managed to withdraw her dagger in a swift motion to block and just narrowly escape Aelius’ sword-tip as she hopped backwards with the momentary help of her wings.

“Well if that’s how you want to do this, fine!” Was her reply.

The two faeries began to circle one another fighting stances, making use of their wings to avoid their opponent’s subsequent swing or swipe.

The human girl sighed, needled by the concern that it wouldn’t just be those strange prints she would have to explain to her mom. Now they would be accompanied by splatters of faerie blood.

She came to the sickening realisation that one of the little creatures would eventually lose. To death. And strange little footprints and bloodstains on her sheets aside, (which were trivial now) these magical creatures were both willing to kill, and all for a measly piece of metal. It seemed extreme and altogether pointless.

“Stop!” Luna and Aelius froze to the girl’s outcry. They turned to her with expressions of confusion, and what could possible be construed as hope. “You guys are seriously trying to kill each other over this stupid thing?” She waved her hand rapidly as though fanning herself. The two faeries lowered their weapons in puzzlement.

The dark faerie looked as though she wanted to object, while the light faerie’s expression seemed more serene now. All three shared expectant glances.

“The human is right,” Luna looked abruptly at Aelius who had made this announcement, probably astounded by his all-too-quick resignation. A longer beat ensued, this one heavier from something electric forming in the air, and emanating from the creatures. The girl continued to watch them, her unease increasing when she caught something silent and meaningful pass between her faerie visitors. It almost appeared as though they were communicating telepathically…but was that even possible?

The girl recalled the creatures mentioning her being protected by the ring, but she knew so little about faeries and what they were capable of, beyond children’s books. It was clear they were planning something; the tempation to surrender the ring swept over her when she saw the creatures exchange nods. But she didn’t have the opportunity to offer, because it all happened so quickly: the Prince sprung into the air and flew towards her face, wildly swinging his sword. In a panic to avoid lethal contact, the girl retreated with the intention of leaving her bed. Instead of finding solid ground with both feet, her second step was hindered by a tangle of duvet and she tumbled to the floor. Her heavy covers immediately followed, but at an unnaturally wider range than physics by itself should have allowed.

The large covers enveloped her, and two small forces seemed to be working to ensure she would not be able to come easily out from beneath it. Every limb was somehow restricted, except for the hand with the ring, which was coincidentally exposed to the outside world, which she was struggling to find with her head.

She could feel the creatures’ little hands trying to take hold of the ring when it painfully pinched her skin as it refused to yield to their efforts. She froze when something odd occurred. What she felt then, was like a repeat of what had happened in the garden earlier that day. Except this time, that weird tingle from the morning rushed up her back like frigid water, and she shivered as it cascaded down her arm and prickled down to her pinky, where it completely dissipated.

Unable to withstand the pinching pain any longer, the girl gave her hand a strong shake, until she could no longer feel the creatures’ little hands. Instantly and not so miraculously, the heavy duvet gave way as well, so she was able to push it aside.

The sight that met her eyes was both unexpected and awkward. Her mattress was perfectly at eye level, and it felt like a stage now more than before, on which two faerie characters were laying in what seemed like compromising positions. With a quick flutter of her wings, Luna flutter-hopped backwards from how she had landed – on top of him. Her hand was on her forehead, the creature seeming bashful and embarrassed. Aelius seemed the same, now sitting up and rubbing his head.

“I’m sorry Aelius…did I hurt you?”

Perhaps they were acting like this because they had knocked heads? Or, the girl thought, she was hallucinating and had hit hers? Had she passed out at some point? She used her palm to check her own head for tender spots, but found none.

“No, not at all. How is your head?” Both faerie creature were entirely different in personality now. It was the strangest thing. That tingling…the girl looked at her hand, flexed her fingers and returned to watching the two faeries with interest.

The two actors continued to converse about their heads, and about bumping them, each claiming more responsibility.This Faerie Prince would never have wanted to use his sword on her face, the girl thought.

“I apologize. I have been rather rude this evening.” Aelius bowed graciously. The girl watched them in confused fascination, finding herself nodding in agreement. Luna insisted she had been ruder. Again, the human girl nodded. However, neither paid any attention to her, much too entranced by the other. The tiny male and female stood on that mattress-stage, hands joined, staring into each other’s eyes. It was weird and somewhat gross, the girl thought.

Suddenly she had a thought and rushed to pull the ring from her finger. At least now, they wouldn’t fight over the ring…or the crown. She extended it to where the two faeries were standing. Neither cared to give her or it a glance.

“Oh, we don’t need it anymore…do we?” Aelius said, unwilling to remove his eyes from Luna, awaiting her reply, who in turn just shook her head, hypnotised by the sight of him. The girl looked between them and the ring, incredulous. This was when she noticed that the trinket no longer held the same delicate sparkle. It looked dead in the moon’s glow.

The girl watched the two faeries fly away, hand-in-hand, and make their way through the crack in the same open window through which they both had probably come. But the two faeries who had come, were not the same faeries who left now. And the human girl was left alone, with a ring that for some inexplicable reason, no longer held appeal to her.