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Author Topic: Story - The Dark Fairy  (Read 10912 times)

Offline Sparky

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Story - The Dark Fairy
« on: 07. February 2022, 00:45:16 AM »
Chapter 0

This lot happened in the days just before the story proper starts! The REAL story will clearly start with the NEXT chapter, Chapter 1!

Do read on...

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Runesdale is a quaint town in middle England. Located near a large forest, it has a Supermarket, a Butchers, a Bakery, 4 Roller-Skating Rinks (one outdoors), plus a Doctor's Surgery, a Dentist, and an Orthodontist.

When Brian woke up this morning, his mouth was feeling sore. He went into the bathroom, to get himself ready for work. That was when he looked in the mirror, and saw that his top and bottom front teeth were a bit crooked, twisted this way and that.

The strange thing is that, when Brian went to bed last night, his teeth were actually perfectly straight!

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Runesdale is a quaint town in middle England. Located near a large forest, it has a Supermarket, a Butchers, a Bakery, 3 Olympic Sized Swimming Pools (one outdoors), plus a Doctor's Surgery, a Dentist, and an Orthodontist.

When Julie woke up this morning, her mouth was feeling sore. She went into the bathroom, mainly to get herself ready for work, but also to have a look in the mirror to see why her mouth was sore. As she looked in the mirror, with her mouth wide open, she could see 2 large cavities in her lower left molars, where she felt sore.

The strange thing is that, when Julie went to bed last night, her teeth didn't actually HAVE any cavities!


Offline AlexwithBraces

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Re: Story - The Dark Fairy
« Reply #1 on: 07. February 2022, 07:53:40 AM »
Very interesting to have the inverse as well, to compliment the "wakes up one day" style. Very curious as to how this can go.

Offline TimeandBrace

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Re: Story - The Dark Fairy
« Reply #2 on: 07. February 2022, 23:35:24 PM »
This will be so fun.~

Offline Sparky

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Re: Story - The Dark Fairy
« Reply #3 on: 08. February 2022, 01:24:18 AM »
By the way, don't try and skip the "Runesdale is a quaint town" bits when you read the story, I'm gonna have a bit of fun with them. Ok, so I'm taking reality very much to the extreme.... for example, up in certain parts of London, especially East London, there are just SO MANY late-night gent's barbers.... to some they are probably as much a social hub for the younger locals, but how many do you really need? It's the same with the number of Coffee Shops in the city where I live.... ok, I appreciate that we are a historical tourist city, but how many coffee-shops does the place really need?

And if you want to know about the roller rinks, go ask "Core" :-)

Offline Sparky

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Re: Story - The Dark Fairy
« Reply #4 on: 08. February 2022, 17:16:44 PM »
Chapter 1

Runesdale is a quaint town in middle England. Located near a large forest, it has a Supermarket, a Butchers, a Bakery, 7 Gents Barbers, 16 Ladies Hairdressers, plus a Doctor's Surgery, a Dentist, and an Orthodontist. (and don't ask WHY it has so many barbers & Ladies Hairdressers, it's like many other places in England, the locals just seem to have a thing about getting their hair cut. But every week? Go figure!)

Victoria Ibisheart went to bed last night at about 10pm and woke up at her normal time this morning. She had actually slept VERY well, not realising that someone - or rather something - had been in her room in the middle of the night. She yawned, then got out of bed, and went into the bathroom to get herself ready for school. In the bathroom, she looked in the mirror, opened her mouth... and SCREAMED!

Then she took a deep breath, and she SCREAMED AGAIN.

Her scream was so loud that people who lived two streets away could hear it.

SHE HAD BRACES!

She looked again, after rubbing her eyes, but it made no difference, she definitely had braces on her teeth. Victoria didn't really know much about braces, but was able to work out that they were pretty normal, plain metal braces. The strange thing is that, when Victoria went to bed last night, she didn't actually HAVE any braces!

By now her mum had come upstairs to see what the screaming was about, and was equally surprised to find that her daughter had suddenly got braces overnight. She called Victoria's dad up to also take a look. At first they thought that Victoria was having a joke on them, but they soon realised that they were REAL braces. Glued to her teeth. With a metal archwire. And rubber ligatures.

So, when there's something strange in your neighbourhood, who you gonna call? If there's something weird, and it don't look good, who you gonna call? Nah, there's no such thing as Ghostbusters!! They clearly called the police, but apart from taking a note, they didn't seem too interested.

Victoria's sister used to have braces, so they called, then visited, her orthodontist. Needless to say, he was equally perplexed, but, with a bit of difficulty, WAS just able to remove the braces. "I don't know what glue they used, but it was quite strong, definitely stronger that what I'd normally use" he commented

Victoria was obviously late to school, and to be honest, she didn't know what to tell her friends. I mean, you don't normally just wake up, and find you got braces overnight - noone would ever believe THAT!


Offline Sparky

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Re: Story - The Dark Fairy
« Reply #5 on: 10. February 2022, 21:45:34 PM »
Chapter 2

As we now know, Runesdale is a quaint town in middle England. Located near a large forest, it has a Supermarket, a Butchers, a Bakery, 26 Coffee Shops, plus a Doctor's Surgery, a Dentist, and an Orthodontist. (I thought all those Barbers and Hairdressers were crazy, but TWENTY SIX coffee shops? I really don't understand some places....)


Zelda Elfenlocks was a bit late going to bed last night, and whilst she slept ok for the first part of the night, something kept disturbing her sleep for the second part. Plus she has some very strange dreams, something weird about teeth.

The sound of 'forest music' from the alarm on her phone woke Zelda, who stretched. Her mouth felt a bit odd, but she thought nothing of it. It was only when she was sitting at her dressing table, where she picked up her glasses to put them on, that she looked in the mirror - something looked a bit odd about her mouth, so she looked closer.

"AAAARRRRGGGHHHHHHHHH!" she screamed. She had BRACES on her teeth! WTF? She had nice teeth, which were all nice and straight, and so she'd never NEEDED braces, so why did she suddenly have braces? I mean, she definitely didn't have them last night!

There was nothing really special about the braces that Zelda had on her teeth: medium sized metal brackets, a medium sized archwire. She didn't even have any metal bands, just brackets on her molars. And fairly neutral-coloured ligatures.

"You ok?" said her dad, who had just heard the scream, and had come into her room. Zelda turned to her father, and without saying a thing just opened her lips a bit, and pointed at her mouth, her hand shaking a little.

"Braces? But you don't HAVE braces... do you?". Zelda shook her head. Her dad called her mum, who also came and looked. Mum and dad chatted, and dad called the police: to be brutally honest, they (still) weren't at all interested, and just suggested she go see the orthodontist.

So dad went off to work, and mum called the orthodontist: thus first thing that afternoon, she took Zelda to see the orthodontist. Of course, the orthodontist initially thought that maybe Zelda and her friends had somehow been messing about, but when he took a look at the braces, he could tell that this wasn't the work of any amateur.

It doesn't take a lot to imagine that poor Zelda was getting a bit upset by what was going on: noone seemed to believe that she had absolutely nothing to do with these braces, and they had just 'magically appeared'.

"Get them off me! I really do NOT want braces!" she screamed, tearfully. The orthodontist tried hard to remove them, but he was unable to.

"I had another girl in yesterday" explained the orthodontist, "who somehow got a set of braces, very similar to these, but at least yesterday I was able to remove them fairly easily. But I don't recognise this glue, it's so strong.... Look, let me ask around, but in the meantime, there's NOT a lot I can do, sorry. I'll be in touch...."

A very upset Zelda went home with her mum, who had decided that it was probably best that she stayed at home for the rest of the day, so Zelda went up to her room, and played a few games on her computer: this seemed to calm her quite a lot. After playing on her PC for a while, Zelda felt a bit drowsy, so went to lay on her bed: within moments, she was in a dreamless sleep.

A little while later, Zelda grunted and woke up. She could feel something strange in her mouth. She put her hand to her mouth, to find that 'her' braces seemed to have 'just fallen off her teeth, as if by magic'... She took the braces out of her mouth: two sets of 12 shiny steel brackets attached to a shiny wire archwire, held in place by tiny rubber band things. She ran her tongue over her teeth to find they were nice and smooth, like they should be. Zelda went to find her mum.

"Mum... where are you?"

"In the kitchen..".

Zelda went into the kitchen. "Umm, I'm not really sure what happened, but they fell off?"

"What did?"

"Those braces. Look!" She passed the two archwires with brackets attached to her mum.

"Oh.. so what exactly happened?"

"I'm not really sure. I was playing games, and felt a bit tired, so went to lie down for few moments. Next thing I know I'm asleep, and when I woke up, they were just loose, in my mouth....".

With the problem averted, everyone relaxed, including dad, when he got home later on.


Offline silver-moon-2000

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Re: Story - The Dark Fairy
« Reply #6 on: 12. February 2022, 09:21:55 AM »
I'm confused - in a good way  ???  Please DO continue on, I simply must see, where this leads.

Offline Sparky

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Re: Story - The Dark Fairy
« Reply #7 on: 12. February 2022, 19:20:58 PM »
And this is where the story REALLY starts:

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Chapter 3

So, this fairy story takes place a little after the earlier 'Dave, Andrea and "them"' story, and Lilly is now back at university, in her second year. For some reason which I don't know, both Wendy and Emily are away from the office while the story below happens. (Well, ok, yes, I DO know... it's simply because it saves me having to work out what THEY will be doing all the time!!!!)

It's been a bit quiet the last few days. Sparkle has already caught up with all of the interesting 'fairy news and gossip' that's online, and has been reading some stuff on the 'human internet'. She's currently looking at the 'Cloud News' website, specifically the 'Offbeat' section.

"Hey, Magic, come take a look at this...." says Sparkle, smiling (and showing off those lovely braces that she still has: braces that make all the other fairies so jealous - we all KNOW how much fairies love shiny things!)

"What you found now, then?" asks Magic

"It seems some poor human went to bed with normal teeth, and woke up with braces. I mean that has GOT to be someone having a prank!". Sparkle was giggling at the whole idea. Magic takes a few moments to read the story.

"Hey, it says that this is the SECOND time this has happened... so that must be one HECK of a prank... I mean, it's pretty easy for us fairies to put braces onto humans, but it's a LOT harder for a human to do it, they need special equipment and glues and stuff. And then to do it TWICE!" comments Magic

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" asks Sparkle

"I think I probably am... come on, let's go have a word with the boss... bring your tablet along"

They knocked on the door, and opened it: the boss was apparently chatting with one of the newer girls. "Sorry for intruding, but I think you should take a look at this...." said Sparkle, passing her tablet over. The boss read the story.

"Ok, talk to me...." says their boss after reading the story

"Well, whilst we fairies can fit braces on humans with pretty much the wave or two of a wand, it's a LOT harder for humans: they need special glues and other special equipment. I could believe it being a very elaborate prank once, but not twice" says Sparkle

"Ok, any ideas what it could be?"

"Well, it could be a few things. Santa's gone rogue and come south a bit early?" suggests Magic

"Nah, he would NEVER do that!" retorted Sparkle

"Ok, so maybe one of the elves has been trying out some magic? Or one of our younger fairies is playing with magic they shouldn't be? Plus I can think of a few other options too, but they all involve some sort of magic."

"Where is it happening?" asked the boss.

"I think it said 'Runesdale', wherever THAT is.... But I'm thinking we ought to be investigating"
 
"I agree with you 100% - you guys busy at the moment?"

"Not really..."

"Ok, well I'll leave this up to you two then - make sure to fill in the official reports, just in case there is magic being used, and so there's a good record for 'the powers that be'"

"Ok boss, we'll get on it straight away" said Magic as they left the boss' office. "Looks like we have something to do at last!"

"Yeah, I know it's always nice to have a quiet period, but it DOES get a bit boring after a while. So you got any idea where this 'Runesdale' actually is?"

"Nope, no idea. I'm sure the human's online map site will know....". Sparkle looked at the map. "Oooh, nice place. Nice woods right next to the village. Not too big, not too small. Nice houses, not all that old. Let's see what the place looks like....". She changed from Satellite view to street view, and went along the main street.

"For goodness sake, how many coffee shops do those humans actually NEED?" exclaimed Magic, "I've seen eight already, and we're not even a quarter the way down the High Street!"

"Ah, look, a Dentist's... oh, an orthodontist a couple of doors away too... I think we'll definitely want to take a look at them"

"Hey, can you bring up that article again.... does it say WHEN those two cases happened?"

"Umm... yes, last night, and the night before"

"Something tells me that we might see a third case tonight - we'd better take our 'go bags', just in case"

"Good idea, let's get going!"


Offline Sparky

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Re: Story - The Dark Fairy
« Reply #8 on: 14. February 2022, 19:18:19 PM »
Chapter 4

Well, once in Runesdale, they realised that maybe it wasn't going to be quite so easy to find the places the people with the braces lived, there were quite a few houses around, including the new estates on the edges of the town.

They flew around, doing 'detect the use of magic' spells as they went around, but it was now several hours since the magic was used, and they found nothing.

"Well, where would a human go if they woke up with braces - I'm guessing the Dentist or the Ortho" said Magic

"Yup, that makes sense" replied Sparkle.

They quickly flew back along the High Street, looking at what was there as they went.

"They really love their coffee shops, don't they?" commented Magic

"Yeah, I noticed that - hey, look, there's a 50's style American diner over there!". Finally, they found the dentist's place.

At the dentist there were two dentists, and two lots of patients waiting. One was a gentleman probably in his 50s, the other was a mum with two teenage children, but not a hint of braces. In the first surgery, a gentleman dentist seemed to be doing a filling for a middle-aged lady. Over in the second surgery was a mum and a teenage girl, but whilst she actually had some very nice shiny braces, and teeth that looked as if the braces had pretty much finished their job, it seemed that the dentist was just giving her a checkup.

"Let's go out to reception, see if there's been any emergency bookings yesterday or today". They took a look, but saw nothing special.

"Ok, nothing happening here, let's get to the orthodontist, see what we can find there." said Sparkle.

In the orthodontist, they checked at reception first.

"Look at her notepad...." said Magic. "Emergency - Mrs Jones....". They flew into the waiting room, where there seemed to be several patients waiting. "How long have YOU been waiting?" said one of the mums. "Must be about 45 minutes now" replied another.

Clearly something was happening, so they got themselves into the surgery: in the chair was a teenage girl, in tears. In between the tears they could hear things like "Get them off me!" and "I really do NOT want braces!". They could also hear the orthodontist explaining to her mum that he had tried everything he could, but he was simply unable to remove the braces, they were attached with some sort of glue he knew nothing about. Unlike the other strange case yesterday, where the glue had come off, although it hadn't been too easy.


"Oh, interesting info about yesterday: if yesterday's victim's no longer got the braces, then there's probably nothing much we can do there, much too late to try and do any containment. Which is actually helpful, we can concentrate on this young lady... whose name seems to be Zelda" said Magic, giggling as she read what was on the computer screen. "Zelda, poor kid! I bet she gets the p*ss taken out of her at school!"

Sparkle ran a 'detect magic' spell on the girl's braces, as she sat in the big chair. "Whoah, DEFINITELY magic braces, not human!" she said. "Tell you what, let me see if I can do something..." Sparkle tried a couple of simple 'remove braces' spells she knew, but absolutely nothing happened.

"In that case, there's only one thing to do..." said Magic, taking out her phone, and calling the office.

"Hi Nissa! Look, we're calling a Priority Two here, we need a Tooth Fairy here as soon as possible. Heck, no, make that TWO......... Yes, it IS urgent, speak to the boss if you need to ..... well, that's just going to have to wait, we need her HERE! As I said, this IS a Priority Two!" said Magic. "I dunno, the young fairies of today, they just don't appreciate the urgency of some things!" she added after she had ended the call.

"Ok, well there's not a lot we can do until our 'specialists' arrive, so let's go take a break, and 'fill in the paperwork', I'm sure those 'up the chain' will definitely want to know about this. We also need to find out who the victim was yesterday".

The fairies decided to fly around the small town, to get a feel of the place, and where everything was. Including the huge number of barbers, hairdressers and coffee shops! The strange thing was how quiet the place was. And they were the only two fairies there.

Magic's phone rang, and she answered.

"Magic?" asked a soft voice, with a rather nice Irish accent to it.

"Yes, that's me!" she replied, turning on the speakerphone, so Sparkle could hear

"Oh, hello Magic, it's Elida here, I understand you need a couple of us tooth fairies onsite for a Priority Two. What can you tell me?" Magic spent a couple of minutes explaining what they had discovered.

"Yes, I'd definitely agree with the Priority Two! I'm not over familiar with braces magic, so I'm going to need to grab a couple of books, then I'll be on my way to you. Faylinn is much more familiar with braces, but she's going to take a bit longer to get to you. Oh, any chance you can send me your exact location?"

"Well, we're taking a bit of a break at the moment, but I'll send you the location of the Orthodontist's place, we'll meet you up on the roof! Let us know when you get here. In the meantime, we'll keep an eye on the poor girl, so we know where she is, and I guess we're going to be working out some damage-limitation plans too. Hey, Elida, thanks for getting back to us so quickly, see you soon!" and she ended the call

"Elida, isn't she that small young fairy?"

"Yeah, I think that's her, she's pretty new, and I've heard some nice things said about her, just not all that experienced yet"

"But at least she's a tooth fairy, so might be able to do something. But Faylinn is a lot more experienced, and I know they have worked together before..."

Offline Sparky

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Re: Story - The Dark Fairy
« Reply #9 on: 16. February 2022, 11:59:23 AM »
Chapter 5

While they waited for Elida to arrive, they followed Zelda and her mum back to her home. The poor kid was pretty upset, so they started by running some simple 'calming' magic on her. They didn't want to do too much, lest they became even more suspicions about what was happening. Next, they needed to start some sort of containment process, so ran some 'there's no need to tell anyone else' sort of spells on the girl and her mum. Yes, the news was out there, but the news article had been relatively anonymous, so it was worth trying to stop things going further than they needed to. From looking around the house, there was clearly a dad, who would be at work, plus another girl, who they guessed would be at school, so they would need to deal with them a bit later, when they got home - there would be no doubt that they would have also seen what happened this morning. 

Now they knew where the girl lived, they went back to the orthodontist, and waited for Elida. "Almost there, under 5 mins" said a fairy text message on Magic's phone. True to her word, Elida arrived on the roof 4 minutes later.

"I'm knackered!" she said, "Just give me a couple of minutes will you!". While she recovered, she took out a drink from her bag. "So, I had a chat with Faylinn on the way - yes, I know you're not supposed to use your phone whilst flying, but this IS a Priority Two - anyway she says the difficult bit is working out what sort of 'magic glue' has been used. Apparently there's quite a few to choose from. So, can we go see the victim?"

"Sure we can - I think things are contained for the moment, but we'll need to do some more work later. Plus we also need to think about if we need to do anything about yesterday's victim...." said Sparkle.

They were soon at Zelda's house: she was in her room, playing a game on her laptop. Elida took a look at her mouth and the braces, and ran a couple of diagnostic spells, plus Sparkle was explaining about what they had heard earlier at the orthodontist's, and the fact that the orthodontist had been completely unable to remove the braces from the girl's teeth.

"My gut feeling is that the glue is definitely magical, but should be fairly easy to remove - for Faylinn that is. I mean, I'm sure I could find a spell, but that would take time, and I might screw up. I'd rather watch Faylinn, and learn from her. So, you say that the orthodontist managed to remove the braces from yesterday's case? Which says to me that whoever did this is learning, and learning fast" said Elida

"So, if we get another one tomorrow - and I strongly suspect we will - it may be a more difficult job still. Ok, assuming Faylinn can remove these braces, how do you suggest we go about it? I'm open to all ideas" asked Sparkle.

"Well" replied Magic, "I can see 2 obvious ways. First, we wait till she goes to sleep tonight, and do it then. Or we knock her out now, and get it done with. In either case, just leave the braces unglued on her teeth, and wake her up a couple of minutes after"

"I think we need to do it sooner rather than later... the longer we leave it, the more cleaning up we'll need to do"

Elida's phone beeped. "Ah, Faylinn is nearly here - why don't I go outside, and wait on the roof, so she can find us quicker?"

"Good idea" said Sparkle, and she flew off.

"Well, I would never have guessed this morning that we'd be having so much 'excitement' this afternoon" said Sparkle. The two of them chatted for a bit, there was't really a lot they could do until Faylinn arrived, which she did about 10 minutes later.

"Good afternoon, ladies, sorry it took so long to get here, I was in the middle of trying to calm a kid who was having a couple of rotten milk teeth taken out, but I quickly saw that this was far more important. Fill me in!"

"Hi Faylinn, there's definitely something magical going on, we're not sure yet who the culprit is, but so far there's been 2 cases of people who went to bed without braces, but who woke up the next morning with braces. This is Zelda. We met her at the local orthodontist: whilst it seems her ortho had successfully removed the braces from yesterday's victim, he wasn't able to remove Zelda's. I tried a couple of simple spells too, and I had no luck either. I've confirmed the braces contain magic, and Elida thinks you shouldn't have too much of an issue removing them"

"Ok, let me go take a look...." and she flew over to see Zelda. Luckily, because she was concentrating on the game, her face wasn't really moving, making Faylinn's job a lot easier. "Ok, yes, I think this should be pretty straightforward. Elida, don't suppose you brought your books with you, did you? I'd just like to double check something"

"Yes, here they are" said Elida, passing them over. Faylinn took a look at a couple of pages.

"Ok, with luck, this should be relatively straight forward. How and when do you want to do this?"

"Well, given we've declared a Priority Two, I'm thinking we have every right to take whatever steps we need to, and sooner rather than later. How about she starts to get tired playing the games, so lies down. We can then put her into a light sleep for maybe 10 minutes - will that be long enough? - you loosen the braces, then we wake her up almost immediately, and she finds the braces seem to have 'magically' dropped off - which is exactly what will have happened, of course! We'll need to somehow 'protect' the room while we do it"

"That works for me, I'm hoping I'll need just a minute or two. But first, I'll just explain what I'm about to do to Elida, partly to help her learn, but also so she'll be ready if I need any help. I'll leave you to make her go to sleep, and wake her up, if that's ok?". This was quite normal for fairies: split up the work between you, and let the specialists do what they are good at.

"Sounds like a plan!". While Faylinn explained what she was going to do to Elida, Magic and Sparkle worked out what THEY needed to do. Magic locked the door then went and waited outside the door: if her mum came up to check on Zelda, there were plenty of things she could do to delay her.

Sparkle waved her wand to cast a spell that made Zelda feel a little bit drowsy from concentrating on the game for so long, and suggested she go lie down for a moment: with her on the bed, she put her into a short dreamless sleep.

"Ok, over to you guys!" said Sparkle. Faylinn and Elida went over to Zelda, and Faylin cast a couple of spells. "Damn, it's not working. I have a feeling this is using some older magic... let's take a look at that book again, Elida". She spent a minute or two flicking around the book, looking for something. "Ahhh, right, maybe THIS is what it is..... never used this one before!". Elida held the book, while Faylinn uttered the words of the spell, and waved her wand again.

"Now THAT is better!" she said, as the braces loosened. She turned to Magic and Sparkle. "The basis of the magic here is fairly old, which is why I had a problem, but I think my job here is done! Let me remove all traces of magic from the braces, and change the glue into something a bit more normal, then it will be time to gently rouse young Zelda". Faylinn waved her wand again, making the changes.

Zelda grunted and woke. She could feel something strange in her mouth. She put her hand to her mouth, to find that her braces seemed to have 'just fallen off her teeth, as if by magic'... which, of course, they had, but she didn't know that.

Sparkle called to Magic that they were done, and to unlock the door. Zelda went to find her mum. All four of the fairies followed, to see what happened.

"Mum... where are you?"

"In the kitchen..".

Zelda went into the kitchen. "Umm, I'm not really sure what happened, but they fell off?"

"What did?"

"Those braces. Look!" She passed the two archwires with brackets attached to her mum.

"Oh.. so what exactly happened?"

"I'm not really sure. I was playing games on the computer, and felt a bit tired, so went to lie down for few moments. Next thing I know I'm asleep, and when I woke off, they were just loose, in my mouth....". The four fairies left them talking, and went back upstairs, where they collected their stuff.

"Well, guys, it was fun working with you - I've heard that you guys seem to get involved with braces cases" said Faylinn

"Yeah, but not like this. It's usually people wanting braces, or even NOT wanting them. Surely, as a tooth fairy, you must see a few braces too?" said Sparkle

"Yes, I do, but it tends to be more on the technical, tooth-related, level, than the people level. By the way, how the heck did YOU manage to get braces: I mean, they really are lovely!"

"Christmas pressie from Santa, a sort of thank you for helping him!"

"You've done a Christmas run with Santa? I bet THAT was fun?"

"Very tiring, but yes, loads of fun. He's so nice, and so are his elves. Oh, and not forgetting the reindeer"

"Tiring? It's just one night"

"It may be one night, but it's about three weeks of solid work in that one night!". They chatted a bit more whilst keeping an eye on Zelda.

"Everything looks settled here, so I guess we're pretty much done for now? In terms of the braces, I mean" said Faylinn.

"Yes, I think so" replied Sparkle, "Why don't you two go home, but be on call for early tomorrow? We'll stay here, and we'll let you know either way"

"That's fine with us, just call if you need us... it is still a Priority Two, and I don't think you can downgrade it just yet. You two ok to clear up the fallout from this when the rest of the family come home?"

"I think we'll be fine. Thanks for your help, guys, hopefully we won't need you again tomorrow... but I fear we might". Faylinn and Elida flew off, leaving Magic and Sparkle alone again.

"Hey, Magic, we need somewhere to stay tonight, plus we'll need some dinner. Can you call the office and see what we've got near here, and while you do that, I'll update the report, then we can keep an eye on things when the rest of the family get home."

"Yeah, so I'm thinking that we just need to cast some more 'don't tell anyone, it's old news now' sort of spells on the dad and sister"

"What if her sister told anyone at school?"

"Do you really think she would...'hey my sister magically got braces overnight'? Even if she did, would anyone believe it? I guess they might have seen something on the news?"

"To be honest, I think we're really too late to do much, it's out in the world - it would take a LOT of spells to erase everything, and is it ACTUALLY needed? Hopefully the humans will file it under 'strange unexplainable stuff sometimes happens', and not dig much further. But if it happens again, I think we need to be on top of things a LOT quicker"

"True... and I guess if it's felt that we DO need to do extensive damage limitation, that decision needs to be taken at a level higher than us, and would need a LOT of resources. Well, I guess we need to get to bed early tonight, and up well before dawn, so we can be ready for tomorrow, just in case. Ideally nothing will happen, but I get a feeling that we're going to be busy over the next couple of days!"

Offline Sparky

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Re: Story - The Dark Fairy
« Reply #10 on: 17. February 2022, 18:42:09 PM »
Chapter 6


As we all well know by now, Runesdale is a quaint town in middle England, located near a large forest. Despite the many Barbers, Hair Dressers, Skating Rinks, Swimming pools, and not forgetting all of those Coffee Shops, it actually only has a single Supermarket (which does NOT even have it's own cafe).

Violet Icelane works at that single supermarket: most of the time she works on the tills, but if it's quiet, and a delivery has come in, she'll also help with the shelf-stacking, or anything else that needs to be done. This week she's working the late shift, so she doesn't start till lunchtime, and finishes soon after 10pm. So she has her lunch before she goes, then grabs something for dinner in her 'lunch' break at work.

Violet is 19 (and a half) years old, and has left home: she now lives alone in a small one-bedroom bed-sitting room - it's at the back of the upstairs in an old house. But she's lucky in that she has some friends, and (if she's not doing the late shift) will often meet up with them in the evenings. Plus she gets on pretty well with the couple who live in the upstairs front flat.

So last night, she got home, ate a small snack whilst she watched a bit of TV, then went and had a quick wash, before going to bed. Whilst she expected that she'd wake up in plenty of time for work, she still set her alarm for 9:45am, just in case.

Sometime in the middle of the night her sleep was briefly disturbed, but she managed to ignore whatever it was, and just turned over and fell asleep again pretty quickly. Around 9am, she woke up. Something didn't feel right to her. It was a feeling that she felt she knew from the past, but she couldn't quite place it. She could also feel that she needed to go to the loo to have a pee, so, still half asleep, she got out of bed, and walked to her bathroom. As she went through the door, with the light coming in the window, she was able to clearly see herself in the mirror on the front of the bathroom cabinet.

At first, she simply didn't believe what she saw, and it reminded her of about 3 years ago: a high-pull headgear and a shiny metal facebow. Which could only mean one thing. She smiled at herself in the mirror, and saw metal on her teeth....

"Aaaargh!!! What's happened?" she screamed at no one and everyone. It was then that she noticed that her lovely straight teeth, which had taken most of two years to get straightened when she was a little younger, were no longer lovely and straight.

"My teeth! MY TEETH!!!" she screamed. Having had headgear as a teenager, she knew how to remove the high-pull and the facebow, and then took a closer look: her middle top incisors were rotated outwards, and had a bit of a gap between them, and her lower teeth were crooked too. And she had METAL brackets on all of her teeth!

As she continued to look at herself, she suddenly felt a lot calmer. She also remembered why she had come to the bathroom in the first place, and sat down on the loo, and started to do what you would expect her to do. As she sat there, she put her fingers up to her mouth, to feel the braces. Many memories started to come back to her, of when she had braces before - and some of those memories weren't all that great. Having finished what she was doing, she flushed the loo, then went to the kitchen, where she got a glass of water. To be honest, the sight of those braces had made her a little giddy, so she went and sat on her small settee. Having had a sip of the water, she put the glass down, and leaned back on the settee, closing her eyes.

The next thing she knew was that she was waking up again. Violet looked around: what on earth was she doing sleeping on her settee? She had definitely gone to sleep in her bedroom last night. She noticed the glass of water next to the settee. Whilst she had NEVER sleep-walked before in her life, she could only guess that she HAD been sleep-walking, to get a glass of water, sat down to drink it, and had simply fallen asleep.

Without thinking, she put her hand up to her mouth... had she just had a strange dream? Dreaming that her teeth were crooked, and that she had braces again? Violet could hear a strange noise coming from her bedroom - it took her a moment to realise that her alarm was going, meaning it was about 9:45 am.....

Offline Braceface2015

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Re: Story - The Dark Fairy
« Reply #11 on: 17. February 2022, 19:07:10 PM »
Even though I have seen an advanced copy of this story, it is still very interesting to see how the story develops from chapter to chapter.

It gets even better as it goes on.

Offline Sparky

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Re: Story - The Dark Fairy
« Reply #12 on: 19. February 2022, 20:04:37 PM »
Chapter 7

The office had found them a pleasant fairy guest house for them to stay in, it was only about 10 minutes away (as the fairy flies). The old fairy who ran the place was very nice, and loved having some guests. She had made them some nice dinner.

"That food was amazing, thanks. We may need to stay a bit longer, but we won't know till later on tomorrow, is that going to be a problem?" explained Sparkle.

"That's fine with me, I'm empty for the next few days, just let me know. I've also got several other spare rooms, if you need them. And feel free to leave your stuff here, if you decide to go, you can just collect it when you're done". She understood that the sort of work they were doing could take a day, or it could take a week.

They went to bed early, and got up fairly early: they knew that they needed to be back at Runesdale before any of the humans woke up, in case something happened. They weren't that sure if they would know when something had happened, after all Runesdale wasn't tiny.

"I'm not sure if I actually want today to be boring - because nothing happens, or whether I want something to happen again" said Sparkle as they flew over to Runesdale.

"Something tells me it's not going to be boring!" replied Sparkle.

Magic's phone pinged. "Message from Faylinn: she's awake and getting ready, so will be able to come here pretty much at a moments notice, and she's just about to check that Elida is awake"

"So, what's our plan?"

"I'm not really sure. It's like a needle in a haystack. Ideally, it would be good to get to the next victim - assuming there is one - before it gets as far as a visit to the orthodontist. Especially as we now pretty much know he won't be actually able to do anything about any braces"

"Ok, so it sounds like we need to kinda 'go out on patrol'. I'm sure the deed will have already been done, it's more a matter of finding it. What's the best distance we can do a 'detect magic'?" asked Sparkle.

"Hmm, not THAT far.... but is there a way to somehow amplify it... you know, this is the sort of thing Lilly would be good at, shame she's not here. Let me go and look online"

"Ok, while you do that, I'm gonna call Faylinn, she might have a bright idea"..... Faylinn picked up on the second ring.

"You have something?" asked Faylinn

"No, not yet, so no need to panic. I just wanted to pick your brain. We need to somehow detect that something has happened. 'Detect magic' is a starting point, but you need to be pretty close... ideally we want something we can do in a fly-over - any bright ideas? Maybe you can think of it from a tooth perspective, rather than just a more general magic perspective?" asked Sparkle

"Yeah, I see what you're getting at..... hmmm....... let me think.....". Sparkle could hear noises in the background, pages turning, a tablet being used. "Sorry, not finding anything immediately, but leave it with me, and I'll call you if I find anything. "

"Ok, thanks, it was worth asking, just in case. Bye!", and she ended the call. "Any luck?" she asked Magic

"No, I'm afraid not. How about looking it from a different angle: someone is gonna wake up with braces, that they are NOT expecting to have. That's gonna have an effect on the victim - maybe we can detect THAT instead?"

"Nice angle.....". They both searched online. "Hey, I have something that may slightly help us" said Magic, ten minutes later. "It's a sort of 'detect angst and worry from a slight distance' discussion going on in a forum, take a look....".

"Hmm, interesting idea... keep repeating these same double spells as you move around. That's gonna get pretty tiring..."

"Yeah, but it's the best I've found so far"

"Ok, look, we can't waste any more time, people are starting to wake up. You go over to that housing estate to the west, I'll do this one to the South, maybe we'll get lucky....".

Sparkle and Magic flew off, and starting flying patterns over the houses, throwing a combined 'detect angst and magic' spell at each house as they passed over. The main problem was that they needed to be pretty close for the spell to work, so they were only inches above the rooftops as they flw over. On some of the larger houses, they had to 'do a circuit' of the roof, to be sure they checked all the bedrooms. Suddenly Magic had something. She flew back around the roof again, and re-cast the spell, but there was nothing... so not there, but maybe nearby... so she started flying around.

Suddenly, something came through VERY loud and VERY clear.

To be honest, she didn't need any magic to detect it, she could hear the scream!

Magic flew to where the noise was coming from, and into the house.... the fairy version of adrenaline was flowing fast.

"Aaaaargghhh!!!!!!" said a girl / young lady, late teens / early twenties. "There's a MOUSE!!! It just went behind that cupboard!!" she screamed at her boyfriend (or whoever he was). Magic relaxed, and just started laughing.

She flew down to the mouse, and had a quick word: "I suggest you just stay here, quietly, for a while. Hide in that corner. I'll run a quick spell to calm her down - they will go off to work soon, and you'll be ok"

"Oh, hi, and thanks!" replied the mouse, who was shaking. Magic threw a gentle 'be calm and bold' spell at the mouse, then went up and calmed the lady.

Magic called Sparkle: "Any luck yet? I just had a fun false alarm..." and she quickly explained.

"Nothing here yet... I wish there was a quicker and easier way to do this, you have to be so close for the 'detect' spell to work, so it's just one house at a time....". At least we don't have to actually go inside every house....

"Yeah, true.... I really hope we don't miss it today: the sooner we can detect things, the better we can contain things, and be in control" said Magic. She looked at the time: it was by now about 7:30. The two of them kept flying around, over the roof of every house in every street and cul-de-sac, but nothing. It was boring, but it needed to be done.

They checked in with each other every 15 minutes-ish, if only to take a bit of a break, and relieve the boredom. It was just after 9am when they were having a quick chat.

"I'm guessing still nothing for you then?" asked Magic

"No nothing ye.... hang on...." Magic heard Sparkle recast the 'detect angst or magic' spell a couple of times. "I think I may have something, stay with me." Sparkle flew down into a house, where she found a young female young twenty-something screaming. She was looking at herself in a mirror.

"My teeth! MY TEETH!!!" she was screaming. Sparkle looked at her, specifically her mouth: the first giveaway was that she was wearing a facebow with a high-pull headgear. Looking inside her mouth, Sparkle could see a beautiful sparkly mouthful of metal brackets, and some slightly twisted teeth.

The girl somehow managed to undo the high-pull headgear, and removed the facebow, and looked at her teeth once more: several of her teeth were crooked again, and all of her teeth had metal (yes, METAL!!!) brackets on them.

Without thinking too long about it, Sparkle threw a gentle calming spell at her.

"You'd better get here quick, we have another one..... I'll call Faylinn!". She dropped the call to Magic, and called Faylinn, who again answered on the second ring.

"Hiya - yes or no?"

"A big yes! I'm in that housing estate to the south of the town. Don't forget your 'go bag'"

"Already in my hand.... I'll call Elida on the way".

"Thanks - see you guys soon..."


Magic was there a couple of minutes later, and they both spend a moment assessing the situation. "I think we need to run 'FairyTime' for a few minutes - we're at Priority Two, so we are allowed to"

"Good idea!" replied Sparkle. (I guess I need to explain the 'FairyTime' spell. It's pretty similar to the one that Santa uses: it slows human time right down, but doesn't affect the fairies. Whilst Santa has a load of cool tech to help make it happen, the fairy version was 100% magic, and didn't last anywhere near as long, and sometimes had adverse side-effects - which is why it's use was limited to only Priority One and Two cases.) Sparkle waved her wand, and the humans almost froze. They knew they had maybe 10 minutes, but could recast the spell if they really needed to.

First of all, both of them took a look at the victim's mouth: conveniently by now, she was sat down on the loo, doing what humans do when on the loo, whilst at the same time she had her mouth open, and was feeling her braces with her fingers. Magic took some pictures. "I wonder if her teeth were like that before?" asked Sparkle. "Let me go see what I can find...." replied Magic, and she started looking around for clues. "I think her name is Violet" she called out a couple of minutes later. "Ah, here we are: Violet Icelane, she's nineteen... and a half..., and it looks like she works at that supermarket in town."

"Ok... I just found her phone, lets see if she has any selfies". Sparkle used a simple spell to unlock her phone (remember that, everyone: a fairy can unlock your phone, and can then see ALL of the pictures on your phone or PC - so beware!!), and started looking at her pictures. What she found worried her.

"It looks like she used to have white ceramic braces top & bottom, about 3 years ago, but the more recent pictures show her with absolutely perfect teeth" said Sparkle

"Well, ignoring the braces, her teeth ain't perfect any more! Is there anyone else in the house?".

Sparkle continued looking around. "I think she shares the place with someone else, but there's no one else here right now, I'm guessing they already left for work."

"Ok, good! So, we have a couple more minutes before the spell wears off... how about you start by locking down the house, so noone can get in or out. And I'll throw a load of calming spells at Violet. Then I'll throw up a 'fairybeacon', so Faylinn and Elida can find us easily and quickly"

Faylinn and Elida arrived about 10 minutes later, by which time the FairyTime spell had ended.

"Hi guys. So what do we have today then?" asked Faylinn

"Well, victim number 3 is Violet. Looks like she shares the house, but whoever that is isn't here right now - probably already at work. We've done a lockdown of the house, and Magic has thrown a calming spell at Violet. It seems that Violet had quite an orthodontic issue about 3 years ago, and had braces...". Sparkle showed her some of Violet's pics that she'd copied to her own phone, plus the pictures of Violet that Magic had taken earlier.

"Oooh, nasty" commented Elida.

"That's when she had REAL braces!"

"Oh, right! Still nasty though!"

"Here, this is what she's like today - not just braces, but whoever did it, made a mess of her teeth too. Plus she had a high-pull headgear"

"Ouch, not nice!" commented Elida

"Let’s go take a look" replied Faylinn. Faylinn and Elida went over and took a good look at Violet, more specifically her teeth and braces.

"Well, from a tooth-fairy's perspective, she has really nice teeth - they looked really good in the pictures when they were straight. If they were straight last night, then there is no question that it would have needed magic to twist them like this, not to mention putting on the braces" said Faylinn. "It's not something I really want to say, but... I'm thinking we most likely have a rogue tooth fairy on the loose!"

"Yes, I do have to agree with you, Faylinn" said Elida.

"How do you want to do this? We already ran one 'FairyTime'..." said Magic

"In that case, how about like yesterday? Get Violet lying down and asleep, and we'll get to work. Although we're gonna take a few minutes longer, what with her teeth being messed up as well"

"I think we're ok for time, so let's do it!". They found a rather dazed and confused Violet sitting on the settee in the lounge, her fingers running over her crooked teeth and shiny metal braces - clearly Magic's calming spells had been a bit too calming! Sparkle waved her wand, and Violet conveniently fell asleep on the settee.

"So, when I first arrived, she was in the bathroom, and she was wearing the headgear, but she managed to take that off quite easily"

"Ok, Sparkle, can you bring us the headgear, might be helpful, although I doubt it. Elida, let's try the same spells we used yesterday. Got your book, Elida?". Elida got her book out, and they worked together, but nothing happened to the braces. "Hmm, he or she stuck these brackets on differently today."

"Shall I try a diagnostic spell, see if it tells us what's holding those brackets on?"

"Yes, why not, that will be good practice for you!". Elida got her tablet out, and checked her notes, then waved her wand, and touched Violet's braces.

"What you getting?" asked Faylinn.

"Something VERY mixed. Modern human tech, plus some very strong old magic I don't recognise at all... why don't YOU give it a try?".

Faylinn tried a similar spell. "Yes, as you say, a strange mixture of new and old, and I'm not recognising the old stuff either. Ok, let's try a couple of other things". They tried another six (different) spells, but the braces remained firmly on Violet's teeth.

"Well, I'm afraid I'm stumped!" said Faylinn.

"In that case, I'm gonna take things up to a Priority One! You two ok with that?" asked Sparkle

"Absolutely, and while you do that, I'm gonna get Flora here...." replied Faylinn. "Hey, have you ever met Flora?" Faylinn asked Elida.

"No, I haven't, but I've heard about her, isn't she supposed to be the most experienced tooth fairy in all Great Britain?"

"That's her. She's one of the older generation of fairies, but has loads of experience and is really, really nice too. And with the old magic we're seeing here, she's gotta be our best bet! Oh, no mobile number... I'll have to call her landline then!"

Flora answered after six or seven rings: "Hello" said an older voice

"Good morning, am I speaking to Flora?" said Faylinn, being as polite as possible.

"You are, who is this?"

"Um, I'm Faylinn. I'm very sorry for calling you so early, but I'm onsite with Magic, Sparkle and Elida. We have a case that we're just raising to a Priority One. We have a human here with twisted teeth and braces - her teeth were perfect last night - and our initial diagnostics are indicating the use of rather older magic - we're starting to believe we may have a rogue tooth fairy on the loose!"

"Priority One you say? In that case you have my complete attention! Tell me what you know...". Faylinn explained the 'story so far'. "Hmm, interesting. Yes, I think you may be right, but I can reassure you it wasn't me! So I'm guessing that you'd like me to join you then?... ok then, give me time to get ready, and remember I don't fly as fast as I used to. Where exactly are you?". Faylinn told her.

"Runesdale? I don't know why, but that sounds very vaguely familiar. Must be from a long time ago though.. Ok, I'll get to you as soon as I can. What's your containment strategy?"

"Tell you what, why don't I pass you over to Sparkle...". Faylinn passed her phone over to Sparkle, who chatted with Flora for a couple of minutes.

"Thanks, Sparkle" said Faylinn when Sparkle had got off the phone with Flora. "I'm assuming HQ was ok with you raising it to a Priority One?"

"Yeah, although I don't know who they have answering the phones there these days, I pretty much had to walk her through what to do. But by now, everyone who needs to know should know! The fan will be rotating fast, with brown stuff flying off it!"

Offline braces37

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Re: Story - The Dark Fairy
« Reply #13 on: 20. February 2022, 07:57:15 AM »
Your fairy series is one of the most interesting concepts I've seen. Looking forward to more.

Offline Sparky

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Re: Story - The Dark Fairy
« Reply #14 on: 21. February 2022, 20:09:04 PM »
Chapter 8


Today, when she got up, Lilly was in a bit of a flippant mood, so had decided to dress all in pink, with a pink bow in her hair, as well as pink roller boots. Why? Well, she's a fairy for a start! Plus she liked the roller boots, and she liked pink. The roller boots particularly was something she had picked up on last term at uni, and as she still actually LIVES at the uni, it was actually good cover for her real job. I mean, if you see a fairy in pink, and roller boots, your first instinct is to think 'university student', and not 'senior operative for FI5'(*note), which is what she was now.

(*Note: FI5 = Fairy Intelligence, #5... very similar in concept to the human's MI5)

So, Lilly was in her office, all in pink. No one was actually worried about the way she dressed, it was almost normal for her. They knew she was very good at her job, and that sometimes having a bit of a 'disguise' was actually helpful. She was also at a level where she 'just got on with things' most of the time, without anyone else telling her what to do.

The morning had already been rather busy, but she had finally managed to make a coffee, then sit down... and had just managed to take her first sip, when her phone rang.

"Good morning, is that Lilly?"

"Yes, it is..." she replied.

"Um, ma'am, this is Celeste, down in operations. Sorry to intrude, but the Priority Two call you've been tracking - it's just been raised to a Priority One!"

"Oh Sh*t" said Lilly under her breath. "Ok, thanks for that - anything else I need to know?"

"Yes, they've just asked Flora - she's a very experienced tooth fairy - to join them on site. I'm just updating the report now, you should be able to see the latest in two or three minutes"

"Thanks Celeste!"

Lilly wasn't too worried, because she knew that if braces were involved then Magic and Sparkle were maybe the best fairies to be running things, and she could trust them to run a good operation. They also had Faylinn with them, who was a pretty capable Tooth Fairy. But if they have had to call in Flora, then they clearly had a BIG problem, which probably also explained why it had just been pushed up to a Priority One.

Her laptop beeped to tell her of an update: she read the report, which included a couple of pictures. Oh, OUCH! Not just braces, but look what had been done to her teeth! Yeah, she did have to agree, it did feel like it was the work of a Tooth Fairy turned bad. But a mixture of modern stuff and old magic? And who? As far as she knew, there was no tooth fairy based anywhere near Runesdale.

The first thing Lilly did was to call back Celest, in operations.

"Celeste, I need you, and whoever else you need to involve, to track down the current whereabouts of ALL known Tooth Fairies, and if possible, what they were doing overnight. I need to know if any of them have been within, say, 25 miles of Runesdale.... I assume you know where it is?"

"Yes, ma'am! You realise that Faylinn and Elida are on site right now..."

"Yes, and Flora's on her way too - I think we can ignore them. This takes priority over pretty much anything else you guys are doing, understood?"

"Yes ma'am, absolutely!"

"Thank you, Celeste. No need to call me, just update the case details as soon as you know."


Next, she needed to go and have a word with her boss, Donald, just to be sure he was aware.

"Excuse me, sir, are you aware of the Priority One?" asked Lilly

"Yes, I've just seen it thank you. Do whatever you need, and use whatever resources you need to."

"Thank you, sir!"

Lilly decided to leave Magic & Sparkle to manage things onsite for the moment, they knew what they were doing. However, she also needed to see John - he was someone she could rely on to run the security side of things. And Ella too, her tech team have been working on a few things that could maybe help them.

Lilly started with John. He wasn't actually aware, so spent a couple of minutes reading the background. "So, what do you want me to do?" he asked.

"For the moment, probably not all that much, but I think this is only going to get worse, so I could do with you and a very small security team being ready to move, and on call at short notice. I'll make sure the online reports are updated regularly, so keep a close eye on them. And expect a call from me!"

"Sure, Lilly, not a problem!"

Next, she went to see Ella, who was working with a couple of others in the labs. Ella was another fairy from their flat at uni, who like Lilly and Tats, had 'left university for more important things'. Unlike Lilly, she didn't live at the Uni any more.

"Hey, Lilly, nice to see you - it's been a while!"

"And you too, Ella. Look, I'm gonna need your help, we have a Priority One....". She sat at the laptop, and brought up the reports. "Read this first...". Ella read the reports that Magic, Sparkle, and now Faylinn had written.

"Interesting! Nasty, but still interesting! How can we help?"

"Well, the first problem they have been having is detecting that something has actually happened, and more importantly where: the quicker the team can get to the victim, the easier it's going to be to contain the issue. Plus, we need to work out where whoever it is, is hiding"

"So, I guess you're maybe looking for anything that can, say, detect the use of magic at a distance?"

"Yes, something along those lines"

"Ok, I know Puck has been working on something that might help, let's go and have a word". Ella led the way, and introduced them, as they had never actually met before.

"Yes, I do have something I've been working on" explained Puck. "It's not that fast, and it's not particularly accurate, and it's not all that portable - it needs a load of power, but I'm guessing it will be better than nothing. But if I can continue working on it out in the field, then, with luck, it might get a bit more useful."

"Ok, power... would an FPU work for you?"

"Oh, yeah, that would be plenty - I'll be able to bring a kettle too!"

"Big army truck to move it?"

"It's a bit delicate, but with a load of padding, and delicate handling spells, I think it would be ok"

"Ok, Puck, I'll organise a lorry for you, call on whatever help you need, use Ella too. This is a Priority One, which means that we can pretty much ask anyone to drop what they are doing!"

Lilly called John. "Hey John, need you to organise some transport for some rather large but very delicate equipment: I'll leave Ella to work out the details with you"

"How soon?"

"Well, Puck, he's one of Ella's team, should be working on packing the stuff up right now, so pretty soon. And where can I get an FPU from?"

"Well, most main centres should have one in the stores.... let me check...." said John. Lilly could hear rapid typing in the background. "Ah, there's one at your mum's place"

"Oh, that makes it a bit simpler then.... thanks John!"


A quarter an hour or so later Lilly was back at her desk, catching her breath, and was having a second sip of her now rather cold coffee.

"Lilly, my office, please..." said Donald (her boss) who had just walked up to her desk. Donald was a fairly old male fairy (yes, they DO exist!), one of the 'old school' of fairies. But unlike many others of his age, he realised that the old methods that he and his fairy friends had grown up with were getting rather outdated, and that's why FI5 had made a point of recruiting very high calibre young fairies, with a wide variety of skills relevant to modern fairydom.

Lilly was a bit nervous as she went into his office. I mean, she didn't THINK she'd done anything wrong recently. Yes, a few things that she and the others she worked with often pushed the boundaries in the way they did them, but she was sure they hadn't ACTUALLY overstepped the mark. Lilly was still the newest recruit, but had rapidly earned the respect of everyone in the department, as a result of the many great ideas and implementations she had come up with.

Her boss closed the door behind her. "How's it going, Lilly?" he asked. "Still think you made the right decision in joining the department?"

"Oh, absolutely! Everyone has encouraged my ideas so much, and to be honest, I'm actually having so much fun here! Even today..."

"That's really good: you have been responsible for some major changes around here... you seem to have quite a different way of looking at things... and I hasten to add that that is actually a GOOD thing. I know I come from a bygone era, when things were very gentle, and very different, but I'm not stupid enough to realise things have changed a lot, and are still changing, which means we need to change as well, and we need to encourage fairies like you. So, take this as a 'well done'! And it's not just me that has noticed you...."

"Oh, what do you mean?"

"The Queen has requested your presence"

"Me? Specifically me?"

"Yes, you... don't be too surprised"

"Well, yes, I have met her a couple of times, she's a lovely lady! So, when do I need to go visit her? I mean, I'm trying to coordinate this Priority One at the moment .."

"I know, but I suggest you get there as soon as you can make it. She says that she's been reading about the case (from the reports in her 'Royal Box'), and thinks she has something that could be VERY relevant. And she did ask for you by name!"

"In that case, I'd better get there!"


Offline Sparky

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Re: Story - The Dark Fairy
« Reply #15 on: 24. February 2022, 00:56:12 AM »
Chapter 9

"Your majesty, there is a young fairy outside, name of 'Lilly': I believe you requested her presence?"

"Oh, yes, thank you Blossom, show her in will you - and Blossom, can you please organise some tea for my guest and myself?"

Lilly was shown into the Queen's drawing room. As soon as Lilly had heard that she was to see the Queen, she had conjured up a very smart pink dress and matching shoes: smart and simple but not too flashy, erring towards the business side of things. Definitely a bit more 'business attire' than the roller boots and clothes she had on before. The Queen stood up as Lilly entered the room, and Lilly went over to her, and curtsied.

"Your Royal Highness, you asked me to come....". Unlike when she had come to tea with Princess Tatiana - or Tats as she prefers to be known - when things were much more informal, today Lilly was visiting on official business.

"Yes, Lilly, it's so nice to see you again! I hear you and your friends are rather busy right now!". Lilly was suitably impressed that she remembered their previous couple of visits. "Come and sit with me..." The queen sat down in a comfy lounge chair, motioning to Lilly to sit in an identical one next to her.

"So, how can I be of help, your majesty?"

"Well, it's more that I think I might be of help to you. I've been reading the official reports about the strange happenings at Runesdale" said the Queen.

"Yes, it's all VERY odd. I mean, it's a relatively small town, yet there has been so much strange stuff going on, all related to human teeth. I mean, if it was close to a fairy outpost, then I could believe that maybe we have a rogue fairy, most likely a rogue tooth fairy, out there, but we have nothing anywhere near there." explained Lilly

"Actually, I think you might be wrong about that...." said the Queen

"Wrong about which bit?"

"The lack of a fairy outpost. Hear me out.....". As the Queen said that, Blossom arrived with a tray with 2 cups, a teapot, milk, sugar, and a plate of rather nice biscuits.

"Thank you, Blossom, we'll manage it ourselves" she said, dismissing Blossom. The queen lifted the lid of the teapot, and gave it a stir, and replaced the lid. She picked up the teapot, and poured the tea into the 2 cups (and don't tell me that it needs to brew for 3 minutes before pouring: the palace is BIG, and the Queen knows that it takes at least 3 minutes for the tea to get to her from the kitchens!). "Milk? Sugar?" the Queen asked Lilly. Whilst Lilly had been with Tats for tea with the queen a couple times, Lilly was still quite excited: not only was having tea alone with the queen a very special thing, having your tea POURED by the Queen, well, just WOW!

"Milk, no sugar, thank you your majesty" she replied. The Queen added the milk, gave it a stir, and passed it to Lilly.

"Help yourself to biscuits...."

"Thank you. So, you were saying, your majesty?...."

"Ah yes, Runesdale. As a child I read a story, it was all about the workings of a big fairy palace, where the fairy King and Queen lived with their four daughters. As a young child, I thought it was a delightful piece of fiction... until I read your report". The Queen leaned to her left, and picked up a very old book from the table next to her. "I found it, amongst my other childhood books, and looked at it again, but this time as an adult, and realised that it wasn't a story book at all, it was a book that detailed the running of a *real* royal palace. And you get one guess where it was located"

"Runesdale?"

"Almost, but not quite. It's in a place called 'Runesvale Forest' - with a 'V'... but as we all know, place names often change over time, and I'm thinking it's the same place. I have often wondered why England is the only country where the Palace, and the 'centre of operations' and other things are not all in the same place. European countries have HUGE fairy palaces."

"But we've got fairies there right now, and I'm sure they would have looked around: they'd recognise a Royal Palace, I mean, you can't really MISS a huge great Palace!"

"You wouldn't miss it, if it were still there. But what if it got destroyed?"

"Destroyed? How would a palace get destroyed?"

"By two human brothers who also knocked down half the forest without permission?" suggested the Queen. "Just as described in the background report about Runesdale".

"My goodness, that sounds.... horrible! But half a moment, if something like THAT happened, surely we'd know about it?"

"Would we? Sometimes history gets changed. Think of the long-term effects of such a terrible event: fairies and humans potentially at war? I mean, as far as most fairies would know, their palace was just destroyed by humans. Maybe the King and Queen from back then worked out that it WAS just a big mistake: a fairy palace isn't going to be at all visible to humans, they would never know what they just did. And risking a war with humans would be stupid, we could never hope to win."

"Ok, so let's say there WAS a palace there.... how does that tie up with what's happening now?"

"You said it yourself: 'if it was close to a fairy outpost, then you could believe that maybe there's a rogue fairy out there'."

"Ok, so I'm supposed to take on this idea based on... a child's book?"

"No, I think you need to go look at the Dark Archive"

"The Dark Archive, what's that?"

"How's your mother doing?" asked the Queen, appearing to suddenly change the subject.

"My mother? To be honest, I'm not really sure. I guess she's ok, I've not seen her for a while"

"You need to go see her...". Lilly was getting confused. "Your mother's office was built on top of the Dark Archive, and she is it's 'keeper'".

"She's never said anything about a 'Dark Archive'".

"She won't have. Its mere existence is on a 'need-to-know' basis, and you now need to know about it."

"So, she knows about all the stuff in the Dark Archive?"

"No, not in the least. Whilst she's its keeper, her security level lets her see but a tiny part of the archive. Of course, you have a rather higher clearance, so you should be able to see everything. I suggest you might want to elevate your mother's security a bit, I think she might be able to help you. And speak to Sir Donald when you get back to your office...."

Lilly took another sip of her tea. What the Queen had just told her was a huge step to take, but it was something to investigate. If it WERE true, it would explain things perfectly.

"Here, borrow my book, read it - but I would like it back at some point, if only for sentimental reasons" said the Queen


Offline Sparky

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Re: Story - The Dark Fairy
« Reply #16 on: 25. February 2022, 18:09:35 PM »
Chapter 10

Lilly knocked at her boss' (that's Donald's!) open door. "Yes, Lilly, come in. How was your meeting with the Queen?"

"Very interesting! And possibly *very* relevant"

"What do you mean"

"I need you to tell me more about the Dark Archive"

"The Dark Archive? What's that?"

"Oh, come on, I KNOW you know about it. The Queen just told me about it: apparently, it's under mum's office, and she's it's Keeper. And her majesty thinks I need to visit it."

"Ah, sounds like it's time that you 'need-to-know' about it then! Well, the Dark Archive contains a large library of very old books. Some contain old magic. Some of the books contain some very nasty magic that was banned, but we still keep the details, you never know when you might need it. There's also books that detail fairy history, some that we maybe wouldn't want to be public knowledge".

"Maybe something like this then?" said Lilly, putting the Queen's book on the desk. Donald picked it up and took a look.

"Where did you find this?"

"The Queen lent it to me: it's why she wanted to see me. She has a VERY interesting theory, and suggested I might be able to confirm it - or otherwise - by seeing what's in the Dark Archive". She explained more about what the Queen had told her.

"I have a feeling you will find what you're looking for in the Dark Archive"

"You know more than you're letting on, aren't you?"

"I'm very aware that historical details are sometime changed, often for good political reasons. You're probably going to need some help, so take along whoever you need."

"Actually, I'm not sure anyone from here can help, but I can think of a couple of fairies who can"

"You're thinking about your friends, Magic and Sparkle, aren't you?"

"Yes"

"Can you trust them?"

"Yes, I'd trust them both with my own life!"

"In that case, do what you need to, to let them see what they need from the Dark Archive. And whatever backup you need, just ask. If what you say is true, the implications are far-reaching"

Offline Sparky

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Re: Story - The Dark Fairy
« Reply #17 on: 25. February 2022, 18:13:09 PM »
So, Chapter 10 was a bit short, wasn't it? Chapter 11 isn't THAT much bigger, so today you get a second chapter, at no extra cost!
-----------------------------------------

Chapter 11

"Hi mum" said Lilly, as she walked into the boss' office... the boss, of course, being Lilly's mum. Lilly, being apparently just a normal teen fairy, was of course dressed in pink. With matching pink roller boots. And bows in her hair. (She had changed back out of the rather boring dress she had worn to see the Queen)

"Lilly! Nice to see you, you haven't been home for AGES... And what are THOSE things" she asked, pointing at Lilly's feet. They hugged.

"Sorry, I've been a bit busy. And those are roller boots, all the rage at university at the moment"

"Busy? But you're a second-year university student! Second year students are never busy..."

"Yeah, about that...."

"What about it?"

"Erm, I'm not actually at university any more..."

"What??!! You DROPPED OUT OF UNIVERSITY?" shouted an angry mum.

"Calm down mum, it's not like that at all! They actually let me graduate several months ago. I'm doing something else right now"

"You graduated, and you never told me? Hey, how does a SECOND-year student graduate? And what ARE you doing right now that's so important?"

"Yeah, we all agreed I was wasting my time at university, so they offered me an instant graduation, and an interesting job with FI5. And as for now.... well, right now, I need access to the 'Dark Archives'"

"'Dark Archives'? What are you on about? There's no such thing as 'The Dark Archives'"

"Oh, come on mum, I know that you're the "Keeper", and that they are under your office! The Queen told me herself. Ok, maybe I need to show you this....". Lilly got out her security pass, and gave it to her mum, who looked at it.

"The Queen? And you've got a level 96 security? What?!". Clearly Lilly's mum was rather surprised at her rather high security level. "I mean, the queen's only got a security level of 80!"

"Actually, she's was pushed up to 85, as of a few weeks ago. What are you then? Office Manager... I guess that makes you about a level 50?"

"I'm level 55, actually"

Lilly waved her hand - it seems that she no longer actually needed to use her wand to do magic. "Can you read this, and sign it, so I can increase your security clearance" she said, passing her the paper that had appeared in her hand. "Make sure you read point number 4..."

"So, why do I need this then?" asked her mum

"Well, as a 55, you have access to the entrance of 'the Dark Archive', but most of it is off-limits to you. I'm going to need to discuss some other bits with you, and Magic and Sparkle too... ah yes, when you've signed it, can you get them to come over as soon as they can, tell them to wait here, in your office". Her mum passed the paper back to Lilly, who checked it, and waved it away. "Check your security pass...."

Lilly's mum pulled out her pass: it was now showing 71.

"Ok, we need to go look in the Dark Archive... how do we get in?... and I'll tell you what I've been up to on the way...."

Offline Sparky

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Re: Story - The Dark Fairy
« Reply #18 on: 27. February 2022, 21:52:11 PM »
Chapter 12

Meanwhile, back at Runesdale.....

"Phew, me wings ain't what they used to be" says Flora, sitting on the edge of the bed to catch her breath. So, who is everyone?"

"Well, I'm Sparkle, and this is Magic, we're sort-of in charge of things. This is Faylinn, who called you, and this is Elida"

"Nice to meet you all" said Flora, "I think we HAVE met before, haven't we?" she asked Faylinn, who nodded. She turned to Elida: "So, I'm betting this is probably your first Priority One, isn't it, Elida"

"Yes, it is, and I'm learning so much"

"Good. Tell you what, I'm guessing I'll be hanging around for a bit, so when we get a quiet bit, maybe I can show you a few things that might come in handy"

"Oh, yes, please, I'd like that!"

"So, I'm guessing this is our poor customer?"

"Yes, this is Violet. She's 19, and if you look at THIS picture, taken last week, you can see she had nice teeth"

"Oh, yes, they really are nice..... and now?"

"And now..." replied Sparkle, swiping the screen of her phone, "They look like that!"

"Well, I've watched humans putting braces on other humans like that, but there's no way they can twist teeth like that so quickly! Let's go take a proper look at her"

Violet was still dozing on the settee, so Flora was able to have a good look at her. "I guess we need to get the braces off first: so, what sort of things have you tried so far, Elida?" she asked. Elida explained what they had done so far.

"Sounds like the two of you are pretty clued up! Ok, I know a few older magic spells that might help.... let me try another 'diagnostic' one first.....". She waved her wand. "Hmm, yes, old, but not TOO old....". She waved her wand again, and a big old spell book appeared.

Flora opened the book about a quarter the way through, then turned a few pages. "You both might be interested in what’s in here" she said. They all spent several minutes reading through a few spells.

"Ok, Elida, why don't you help me with these two then?" suggested Flora.

"Really?"

"Of course. How else you going to keep learning?". With a big smile, Elida summoned her wand, and tried the first spell, then she checked if there was any change - there wasn't. Then they tried the second spell, which made the brackets glow slightly for a few seconds.

"Oooh, that's interesting" said Elida.

As Flora and Elida started to work on Violet, Sparkle turned to Magic: "I'm thinking that we should continue our flyovers, just in case there's a second surprise waiting for us somewhere"

"That sounds like a good idea. Hey, Faylinn, it looks like those two have things under control for the moment, would you like to join us to check if there's any more 'surprises' waiting for us?"

"Yeah, sure: Flora, you going to be ok without me?"

"Yes, go on... if we need you, Elida can always call you...."

The three fairies spent some time flying around, but found nothing else, so returned back to Violet, Elida and Flora.

"Any luck yet?" asked Magic

"Well, yes and no" said Elida. "I think we're a bit closer to understanding what they used to attach the metal brackets, we're just having problems actually detaching them"

"Ok, well we couldn't find any other 'disturbances', so we can concentrate on Violet".

Just then, Magic's phone beeped - she had a text. "It's the boss. You and I need to go back to the office, asap. All related to what we're doing, plus Lilly is there" said Magic to Sparkle.

"Oh, ok! To be honest, there's not a lot more we two can do here for the moment. Faylinn, can we leave you in charge of things here, I think you know what's going on the best."

"That's fine with me - I can always call if there's any problems" replied Faylinn

"Flora - great to meet you! Keep on doing what you can, and get Faylinn to update us on how things go. I'd like all three of you to stay overnight - get operations to put you in the same place as us: it's really nice, and I know she has plenty of space for you." said Sparkle

"I'll never complain about a break from being home, especially if the firm is paying!" said Flora with a smile.

"And Elida, don't worry if you think you're not contributing all that much: that doesn't really matter, having another person around is always very useful, plus I suspect you're learning a lot from Faylinn and Flora!"

"Thank you" said Elida, "and yes, I am!"

"I'm assuming we'll be back later on, no doubt with a few others too, now it's a Priority One!"

"Ok, see you both later on" said Faylinn

Magic & Sparkle left the three tooth fairies to get on with things.

"So, yes, that glowing, it was interesting....." said Flora, "I wonder.....". Flora flipped forward a few more pages in the book. Flora, Faylinn and Elida had a bit of a chat about what they thought they needed to do.

"Whoever did this is a pretty capable fairy" commented Elida.

"I'd say definitely competent, I think the big problem is that she's using some old spells that have gone out of use.... you know how things change: when I was a kid, we had record players and big black round records. Then it was CDs, now I believe you just have it all inside your phones.... so people tend to forget about the old records, ignore them. And I think it's the same with the magic she's using, it's old, it's stuff we don't use these days because there are better, and often simpler, spells we can use."

"Ok, yeah, I understand" said Elida. "But WHY is she using old magic?"

"THAT is actually a very good question. But we can worry more about that later, let's see what we can do to get these braces off poor Violet."

"Maybe we need to actually use more than one spell at a time?" suggested Elida

"Nice idea.... any suggestions WHICH spells?" said Flora, smiling.

They spent quite a bit of time looking through Flora's spell books, plus looked online at some of the more modern spells, and tried a few combinations, but still had no luck, although the last pair they tried simply 'felt' good,

"Hey, I have an idea" said Elida. "let's try combining those last 2 spells with that one that made the braces glow?"

"Yes, why not, there's nothing to lose. Ok, Elida, you do the earlier spell, Faylinn and I can do these two...." Flora waved her wand, casting her spell, then Faylinn cast hers. Finally, Elida cast the earlier spell... the braces glowed brightly for a second, sort of like they had before, but differently. Elida touched the braces, which were now no longer glued to Violet's teeth, so she took the braces from Violet's mouth.

"Oh, nicely done, everyone!" said Faylinn, "Now we just need to straighten her teeth. Shall we let Elida do that?"

"Absolutely!" replied Flora. Elida didn't need to refer to any of her notes, as this was basic tooth-fairy magic. She waved her magic wand, and one by one Violet's teeth straightened up again.

"Lovely work there, Elida" said Flora. "I guess we're done here for the moment then"

"Well, we'd better wake Violet up, and one of us needs to get her to forget what happened" said Faylinn

"Can I do that, please? I could do with the experience" asked Elida

"Sure, why not" replied Faylinn. Faylinn and Flora watched as Elida magicked Violet back to her bed, then ran a couple of spells on her, to wipe her memories.

"Good magicking there, Elida! Ok, I think we're all done" said Faylinn.

"Oh, the headgear, mustn't leave that...." said Elida, "Sparkle brought it through from the bathroom, now where DID she put it?". Elida looked around, and quickly found it.

"Ok, I'll call control to update them, and get them to book us into the same place as Magic and Sparkle" suggested Faylinn. "How about after that, we go drop our stuff off, then take a look around the town: Magic said there was a dentist's and an orthodontist's. You want to join us, Flora?"

"Yes, that could be fun. Then maybe later on we can go somewhere nice & quiet, and I can show you both some of the old magic I sometimes still use".

Offline Sparky

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Re: Story - The Dark Fairy
« Reply #19 on: 02. March 2022, 00:42:30 AM »
Chapter 13


Lilly and her mum went down the steps and into the archive, specifically in to a sort of 'reception' area. There were 4 doors, each with a very old plaque on them. 'History - Authorised access only!'. 'Dangerous and Dark Magic - Authorised access only!'. 'Older Magic'. And finally, 'Toilet'. In the 'reception' area there were some notes, plus a book that contained details of what was where, and spells to use to search the books.

"I've only ever been able to get into the 'Older Magic' room." explained Lilly's mum.

"That makes sense: you should be able to get into them all now." replied Lilly.

"So, you've not actually said what you've been up to...."

"Well, remember me and Tats got involved with a few others, to sort out the 'excessive magic use' problems we had?"

"Yes, but that was just a 'holiday thing' wasn't it?"

"Initially, yes, but then Tats and I were sent up to the North East: there was a specific group of young fairies up there causing a lot of problems, and 'the powers that be' were all for giving them the boot, but we suggested that maybe it just needed to be sorted in a different way. We were up there for over a week, we had a LOT of late nights. And drank a LOT of alcohol with the girls up there. But finally they accepted us, and were willing to listen. The end result is that we now have a really great team up there, who fully appreciate what they need to do, and more importantly, how to do it properly. We ought to go and visit them again sometime!"

"So how did that lead to you leaving university?"

"Well, Sir Donald - he's my boss - realised that things needed to change rather a lot more than they thought, and asked me, Tats, and a small number of others to go work at FI5. He said we were wasting our time at University, we clearly knew everything we needed, and organised instant degrees for us all."

Lilly's mum gave Lilly a big hug. "You know, I always did feel you were bright... I guess I didn't realise quite HOW bright! I'm very proud of you, Lilly! And something tells me you're quite enjoying what you are doing? And hey, where are you living now, then?"

"I'm still living at the university: I like it there, it's fun, plus I'm able to get to know a few of the students that we may want to recruit in the future. And yes, the job is fun. A bit stressful at times, like at the moment, but I'm really enjoying it."

"And clearly your bosses are pleased with what you're doing - they don't give out high security clearances to just anyone."

"In a way, that's one of the toughest bits, not being able to tell most people what I'm doing."

"So, back to the Archive" said Lilly's mum. "What are we looking for?"

"To be honest, I'm not 100% sure what I'm looking for down here. I guess partly I need to just understand what's here, but I also want to look for some very specific historical stuff...."

"Specific stuff?"

"Yes, going back to just after the human's Great War, so many generations ago." Lilly explained the Queen's theory to her mum. "So I'm looking for anything that might confirm what actually happened".

The two of them spent some time using various spells to help them search for what they wanted, but whilst they found some more general history stuff, the search spells weren't giving them what they needed.

"Have you noticed that all the stuff we've been looking at is in THIS part of the room. I'm starting to think that what I need is in THAT part of the room, and it's specifically NOT been indexed." For the next half hour, they randomly pulled books from the shelves, looking at them. They learnt a LOT of interesting historical things about certain humans and certain fairies that were hidden for very good reasons, but was not what they wanted.

"Hey, Lilly, come and see this one..". Lilly's mum was looking through a thick book, hand written (so probably the only copy ever made). In it they found the story of the destruction of the Palace, and then all about the mass magic used to cause all of fairy-kind - including those who actually CAST the magic - to forget about what happened. There was another book next to it, with more details of the magic used.

"Mum, you can't say anything about this to anyone...."

"Yes, I know.... although maybe 'the powers that be' might like to consider that it's time that everyone SHOULD know about it: it was a long time ago."

"I hear what you're saying, and maybe you're right, but that's really a discussion for another day. But at least this stuff confirms our initial thoughts. Ok, let's take a look at the two other rooms: if we have a fairy that has, somehow, come from the old palace, we need to understand the sort of magic she's familiar with... if not for me, for the tooth fairies who are trying to sort things out for us". They spent a bit longer in the two rooms full of magic books, and found that there was indeed some useful stuff there.

"You going to take any of that lot with you?"

"Just a couple that might help me deal with our Dark Fairy, but the rest... I know it's here, we can come back later when we better know what's needed. But I do need to read these books further, and show a couple of people. Come on, let's go. With luck, Magic and Sparkle will be waiting for us...."


"Oh, Magic, Sparkle, thanks for getting here so quickly, it's so good to see you both!". Lilly and her mum had just walked out of the door at the back of the office, that lead to a storage cupboard.... well, it was also the portal to the Dark Archive! Lilly put down four large old dusty books.

"Lilly! Great to see you! Nice roller boots, they suit you! You're gonna have to give me some later on! So, what's those four books then?" asked Magic, pointing at the books. "And where DID you just come from?"

"Oh, they're books from...." then she stopped herself. "I'll tell you in a moment...". Lilly waved her hand, and 2 bits of paper appeared. "I need you both to read these and sign them. Make sure you read point number 4 carefully.... Then I'll increase your security levels a bit... actually, I think I'll be almost tripling them!"

Sparkle read the document... "So, number 4: 'you may not say anything about the contents of the Dark Archive, or indeed that the Dark Archive even exists, without specific permission from someone with a security grade 90 or above'. Who's that then, the queen? And hey, if I don't actually sign this, I already know about the 'Dark Archive'... that's stupid!"

"Yeah, I know it is - but that's stupid official paperwork for you! And no, the Queen has only got a clearance of 85. There's me and about 15 others that are over 90"

"What?" asked Magic, confused.

"Just sign it, and I'll explain.....". Magic & Sparkle signed the documents, and passed them back to Lilly, who waved them away. "Ok, show me your security passes will you?". They both pulled out their passes, to discover that their security level had shot up from 26 to 70.

"Seventy?" exclaimed Lilly's mum"

"Yeah... I felt I ought to make you a 71, if only coz you're their boss!" explained Lilly.

"Lilly, what on earth is going on?" asked Sparkle

"Ok, so I'm no longer at university.... after everything I was doing, they decided that it was stupid for me to waste any more time there, so they graduated me. Tats too. And a couple of others. Since then, I've been working with a small team of other young graduates, acting as a sort of 'strike team', sorting out problems - and you would be surprised what's going on that you don't hear about. So, I now have a pretty high security clearance, there's probably only 4 or 5 others higher than me, plus I'm guessing my colleagues all at the same level as me. My boss is definitely old-school, but he realises that old-school methods aren't good enough any more. My team are trusted absolutely, to do whatever is needed, in pretty much any way we feel fit. We are trusted to 'never cross that line', although I will admit we've been pretty close to it a couple of times. Basically, what that means is that whatever any of us says, happens. And usually happens quickly! Especially when dealing with a Priority One - good call by the way!"

"Wow.. you HAVE done well! So how IS Tats? Is she working with you on this?" asked Magic

"Tats is doing just fine, but she's busy doing something else right now, so we probably won't see her... which is a shame, as I do like working with her."

"So why you still dressed like a university student then?" asked Magic

"Well, I do still have my room at the uni, and I like the look, plus it does make a pretty good disguise! Anyway, the reason that I'm here..."

"Yeah, those old books on the desk?....." asked Sparkle.

"Yeah, come on to those in a second. First of all, girls, thank you both for your amazing work out in the field, your recent reports have been well detailed, and have been incredibly helpful to us. So, a bit of history: the town of Runesdale, where all of these strange braces happenings have been going on, has a very interesting history, not just for humans, but also for fairies. Whilst the human history is well documented, the fairy history has been well hidden... down in the Dark Archive. Ok, so before I tell you this, you need to know that you can NOT say any of this to anyone else, not even make tiny hints. Are you guys clear about that?". Lilly felt a bit bad at the way she was actually treating Magic and Sparkle, but this was actually important, it had major security implications.

"Yes, we understand" replied Magic, and Sparkle nodded too.

"So, about 10 or 15 generations of fairies ago - so after the first great human war - two brothers returned from the war, and without any permission, decided to use something similar to modern bulldozers to knock down half the forest, partly to grow more crops, to earn more money, but also to develop the few houses into what has now become the town of Runesdale."

"Ok" said Sparkle, "so how does this affect us fairies?"

"Because of what was, it seems, the saddest day in English Fairy history. The Queen lent me a book today that hinted that a fairy palace existed in a place called Runesvale Forest - that's Runesvale with a 'V'...  it sounds conveniently similar to Runesdale, doesn't it? Initially she thought it was just a bit of children's fiction, but when she read about what's going on there, she called for me to visit... and THIS book we just found down in the archive confirms my worst fears: the forest that those two brothers knocked down was Runesvale Forest, the location of our nation's fairy castle. A large castle that was home to the country's fairy King and Queen, and their 4 daughters, and hundreds and hundreds of other fairies.  Not to mention the elves that lived next door. It was the central HQ and operations centre for fairies in the country - so rather like the European fairy palaces! Without realising what they had done, the two brothers completely destroyed the fairy castle. About 70% of the fairies managed to get away - they had almost no notice of what was going on, and besides, their rather old-fashioned magic simply wasn't up to stopping the more modern human machines."

"70% escaped? So what happened to the other 30%?" asked Magic.

"Apparently it was a massacre!" explained Lilly, with a lot of sadness in her voice.

"So why don't we all know about this?"

"The whole concept of fairies being 'defeated' by humans was.... well, not a good one, and it was decided to erase all memories of what happened, and to lock away all mention into 'The Dark Archive'. The then fairy King and Queen realised that, for fairy-kind to continue to exist in peace, there must be no hint that the humans had knowingly destroyed the palace.... they realised it was an accident, but to avoid any questions, the whole event had to be hidden. Seems that there was a lot of old and dark magic involved. Anyway, mum has been the 'keeper' of the archive since she become the boss here, but even she didn't realise quite how much stuff was there until I was able to show her. This book here details what happened. For example, only two of the King and Queen's daughter princesses survived, the other two were assumed to be dead: well, that's what they thought...."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, while you were on your way here, mum and I were using some pretty strong magic to find the information we needed, and failed: these two books were so secret that they simply weren't indexed. Anyway, this book confirms that one of the 'lost' princesses was a 'hair fairy', and the other was a 'tooth fairy'" 

"So you're telling us that what's been going on in Runesdale is because of an old tooth fairy, who has somehow survived - how many years was it? But we fairies are all good, and don't do nasty things!" asked Sparkle

"I really wish that was the case. Have you ever noticed what happens to old magic things when they go wrong? They go nasty, they go bad. Now, imagine: the biggest magic fairy castle, so full of magic, and bigger than anything we have now - they diversified the real-estate position after that big disaster, so nothing as catastrophic could ever happen again - just imagine what could happen if THAT castle got destroyed. If there happened to be ANY of it left, it would be so dark, so angry, so wanting revenge on the humans for what was done to it. Now imagine someone stuck in there, for about a hundred years. That's 10 to 15 generations of fairies.... That's a LOT of dark and anger for a tooth fairy to deal with!"

"So, you really think we're dealing with a dark tooth fairy?" asked Magic.

"Well, it's the best explanation that I can come up with. These books confirm the location, confirm the history... I can't really see any OTHER explanation - unless you believe in aliens?"

"So I'm guessing we have to take her down?" said Sparkle

"Maybe. Or maybe there's something we can do to turn her back from the dark side. That's why I got these other books out. They contain a lot of ancient magic spells, and there's many other books like this down in the Archive, locked away for very good reason..."

"And you're gonna let us read them?"

"Yes, stupidly, I am. And any of the other books down in the Archive you feel you may need to read too. I need a couple of people with me that not only understand what this is all about, but that I can trust, and apart from Tats, there's no one I'd trust more than you two - and that's why I needed to up your security levels. By the way, 'safeties will be off' for this operation: forget nudges, just do whatever is needed to sort things out, as long as you don't actually 'cross that line'. And I don't just mean about dealing with our dark fairy princess, I'm talking about containing what's going on, and sorting out the victims.".

"What about the people you work with? Surely you have some fairy FAS (*) or similar guys available to you?"

"The FAS guys are completely trustworthy, but have a rather limited skill-set, much of which involves just aiming then pulling a trigger. And the guys I work with just don't have your knowledge. You guys have a lot of experience, you understand humans, and teeth and braces, and that's what this is all about."

"So, what's the plan then, Lilly?" asked her mum.

"Well, I need you to get an FPU out to site as soon as possible..."

"An FPU?"

"A Fairy Power Unit, there's supposed to be one down in the stores. I've got a couple of our advanced tech team going out to site: I know one of them from uni, one of her guys is working on some advanced magic detection stuff, so we can hopefully find any new victims fairly quickly, and contain them.... but it currently needs a lot of power to run it."

"Then what?" asked Magic

"Ultimately, we need to find that Dark Fairy, but goodness knows where she's hiding out. I'm sort of guessing at the old Palace, but where that is, who knows? In the meantime, we need to keep on top of what's happening, containing any new cases as best we can. I want to keep the on-site team as small as possible, so our Dark Fairy doesn't get tipped off, otherwise me might completely lose her. I have a tactical team lined up for when we need them, but I'm not planning on letting them anywhere near the place for the moment!"

"But they'll go and 'neutralise' the dark fairy when we know where she is?"

"I guess it depends on what we find out. As I said, 'neutralising' her should be the last resort. I'm thinking that WE may be the ones to go in and face her: as I said, I'd like to actually rescue her, if we can. So I need you two prepared to back me up, and that's going to mean some strong protection spells, to protect us from whatever the castle leftovers want to throw at us. And that's what these books are for. And as I said, there's plenty more books downstairs if we need them. I'm also thinking that one of your tooth fairies may need to come and look at them too, to find some spells they can use."

"Ok, so anyone else joining us?"

"Well, I'm hoping that mum will remain here, ready to go into the archives again, in case we need anything else from there. But other than that, not really. I want us to keep a really low profile. I don't want to alert the humans, and I don't want to scare this dark fairy in any way. As I said, I'd like to actually rescue her, if we can do that...."


(* Author's Note: Fairy Air Service, similar to the UK's SAS, an elite group of fairy soldiers)


Offline Sparky

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Re: Story - The Dark Fairy
« Reply #20 on: 03. March 2022, 19:21:38 PM »
Chapter 14

Later on, Lilly, Magic and Sparkle met up with Elida, Faylinn and Flora at the guest house. It was only afternoon, so they had plenty of time to chat and plan things.

"Flora, it's so nice to meet you again!" said Lilly. Flora looked puzzled. "Oh, you came and talked to us at university last year!"

"Ah, yes, I remember now, that was a fun day!" replied Flora

"And hello again Faylinn... so I'm guessing you must be Elida, nice to meet you too!"

"Nice to meet you too, Lilly. I'm guessing you're taking over from Magic & Sparkle now, are you?" said Elida in her soft Irish accent.

"Yes and no. I'd like Magic & Sparkle to keep running the day-to-day side of things, they know what they are doing. I'll be working more on the 'tactical' side of things, but I'm gonna be available to help out more generally too, if you guys need me. Ok, so let me explain what's going on from my side of things, then I'd like to talk to you three ladies about teeth and braces."

"So, I've got a small team of tech people joining us a bit later. One of the guys, Puck, has been working on some tech that I'm hoping may help us locate the victims, or more specifically, the use of magic. The bad news is that I'm told that it's very much a 'work in progress' and anything we DO get from his kit is likely to be not all that accurate, and may take some time to get the results... which I don't mind too much, because anything it can give us might be helpful. And it's going to help Puck's team to improve the kit, which has got to be good in the longer term. So, I'm looking at the tech kit as being our backup at the moment, I'm guessing we'll probably need to do it manually again tomorrow: what exactly have you been doing?"

"Well, so far we've been doing a simple combined 'detect angst and magic' spell: the big problem with that has been that it's a pretty short-range spell, meaning we had to pretty much be just inches above the roof, and fly around any big houses" explained Magic, "However, with the 'resources' we were able to look at earlier on, we think we might have a couple of alternative spells that might work a little better. Also, it was a bit slow with just two of us, but if ALL of us could do it tomorrow, it would be a lot easier!"

"That sounds like a good plan. So how did you keep in touch with each other?" asked Lilly

"We just used our phones... yeah, we could do with something better if there's more than just two of us, don't suppose you guys have something we can use, Lilly?"

"Yeah, leave that with me. So, when you finally found your 'victim', what did you do?"

"So, the first one, which I guess was really victim number 2, we caught up with when she was at home, having visited the orthodontist - who of course failed to remove her braces. So when Elida and Faylinn arrived, we just put her into a short sleep - making sure her room was secure, of course."

"And that was good enough for you guys?" asked Lilly of the two tooth fairies.

"Yes, it worked out nicely" replied Faylinn.

"So what about this morning?"

"Well, I think we got very lucky this morning: it was actually getting late, just after 9 o'clock. We were actually checking in on the phone when Sparkle found Violet - victim number 3 - just moments after she had discovered her braces" explained Magic.

"Yeah, so I quickly called Faylinn, and threw a 'calming' spell at Violet." explained Sparkle. "Magic got there a few minutes later, and we ran a 'FairyTime', giving us time to hack her phone, and find out more about her. I think I might have overdone the 'calming' spell though, she was pretty much out of it sitting on the settee.... so when Elida and Faylinn got to us soon after, we just put her to sleep on the settee."

"So you're happy working on the victims when they're under a sleep spell?"

"Yes, it's been just fine so far...." said Flora

"But the braces were a LOT harder to remove this morning: there was definite signs of some quite old magic, and whilst Faylinn and I tried quite a few things, we had no luck, which is why we asked Flora to join us" explained Elida

"Yes, and even the older magic I knew wasn't enough to remove them... It was Elida who suggested combining three spells that finally let us remove the braces" explained Flora.

"I get the feeling that we might struggle tomorrow: whoever is doing this is clearly getting better at doing it. And it's not just how he or she is gluing the brackets onto the victim's teeth, the quality of the braces themselves looked 'better' too" said Faylinn.

"Well, that brings me on to my next question: we believe that this is all being done by a tooth fairy who has, for some reason, gone a bit rogue. Now, to be honest, I'm not over familiar with what you guys do, so Flora, can you take me back a few years, and explain what you used to do, then tell me how things have changed...". Lilly was clearly not wanting to let on to the tooth fairies the extra details, and history that she - and Magic and Sparkle - knew about this rogue fairy... it was a 'need to know' basis, and for the moment they didn't really need to know.

"Well, going back several generations, it was all a lot simpler. They didn't have braces back then, it was just teeth. Of course, the 'bread and butter' was giving out a silver threepence when a child lost a baby tooth. Plus, there was doing things to help when someone got toothache and all that sort of thing: apparently some people just couldn't afford to go to the dentist. It's a lot different now.... yeah, we still give out the money for baby teeth - a POUND now, would you believe it!! But there's a lot more about calming both kids and adults before they go to see the dentist. And now with braces - I suspect you two can fill in Lilly about that better than I can!"

"Yes, we see a lot of kids scared to go to the dentist, but also a lot of kids scared to visit the orthodontist, scared of getting braces - so a lot of 'calming' spells there. Then getting a bit sore for the first week or two after getting braces, and then after adjustments, so there we're either doing some 'painkilling' spells, or 'remember to take some painkillers' spells. What did I miss, Elida?"

"Well, I guess the problems when some kids get awkward appliances, like those big bulky twin blocks. And don't forget the absolute panic some kids have when they get given headgear or a facemask" added Elida.

"Yeah, I must admit, I actually feel sorry for kids that get headgear, and their parents are very insistent on them wearing them enough: working with them can take quite a bit of time. But I guess with general dental hygiene being better, we get less of the toothaches that I suspect Flora used to see"

"Absolutely" replied Flora

"Ok, so go back even further, maybe as far as fifty or a hundred years ago.... what would tooth fairies be doing then?" asked Lilly. All three of the tooth fairies were silent.

"You think our 'Dark Tooth Fairy' could be THAT old?" asked Elida. Lilly realised that only Magic had, as yet, put those three words together, and she knew the real details: it was clear that Elida was a lot brighter than she let on.

"There is 'certain evidence' that we have seen" said Lilly very carefully, "that indicates it could be a distinct possibility, and it would certainly explain the use of the rather old magic".

"But how could a fairy even LIVE that long?" asked Faylinn.

"Good question, and we have no ideas on that one yet. So, what skills will she have? All indications are that this MUST be a tooth fairy, so I'm happy to call her a 'she'"

"Going back THAT far, I’m guessing it's going to be a lot of pain-killing, and a lot of relaxation, say when they had a tooth pulled. No nice anaesthetics back then...." said Flora.

"So did our Dark Lady start doing this BEFORE we saw the braces? Maybe doing some simple tooth stuff?"

"You know, when we were in the dentist yesterday, I think I saw some notes there about a couple of urgent cases. But I didn't think it was really relevant at the time, as it was about things before the braces stuff started" said Sparkle. “I guess it could be just normal stuff, but maybe it was her?"

"Ok, so why the move to braces?"

"Oh, come ON, Lilly" said Sparkle smiling widely, "you know we fairies all love sparkly stuff!"

"Yeah" added Elida, I remember the first time I saw a human in braces close up: wow, they were so beautiful! Now imagine a tooth fairy that's never even HEARD of braces, never even seen them from a distance. There's no WAY she's not going to be instantly interested in them. And if she really IS 'dark', and she sees how many kids actually HATE braces, I mean, she's just found the perfect weapon!"

"Ok, but what about the glue?" asked Lilly

"Oh, historically I guess we tooth fairies would have needed various sorts of magic glue to hold rotting teeth together and that sort of stuff, which of course we hardly need now.... so yes, I guess that's a skill we no longer have or need." said Flora.

"Well, thank you ladies, that has all been VERY helpful! I'm going to go and check in with my tech guys, see how they are getting on....." said Lilly. Before Lilly left, she spoke to one of the operations team in her office. "Oh, hiya, it's Lilly here. Look, can you do me a favour, and run an in-depth security check on both Elida and Faylinn, I may need to bump their security levels up quite severely.".

Next, she made another call: "Hi Ella, where are you guys?" asked Lilly on the phone.

"We're in a nice fairy-tent on the top of the town hall: it's a nice big flat roof here, and good views across the town"

"Ok, I'll be with you in a few minutes...."


Offline firesonga

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Re: Story - The Dark Fairy
« Reply #21 on: 03. March 2022, 21:19:08 PM »
Sparky, thank you for this story. It has been really good so far and I can't wait to see where it goes.

Offline Sparky

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Re: Story - The Dark Fairy
« Reply #22 on: 04. March 2022, 02:01:41 AM »
Sparky, thank you for this story. It has been really good so far and I can't wait to see where it goes.

Always good to hear that I have at least ONE reader  :D

And there's PLENTY more (victims) to come..... and something tells me that our Dark Fairy will not be too easy to find....

Offline zahnspange

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Re: Story - The Dark Fairy
« Reply #23 on: 04. March 2022, 19:19:00 PM »
 ;D you have definately not only one reader ... i appreciate your story very much and look forward to each part ... can´t wait for the next victim !

Offline xxxforce

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Re: Story - The Dark Fairy
« Reply #24 on: 04. March 2022, 23:09:46 PM »
also for me.. You're definitely a very talented and creative writer..
You can't say that this story is a pure fetish story anymore.. its a bit like a fantasy novel  and i really enjoy it, just because its fun to read and as a reader you want to know - How does it go on in the next chapter?  ;D

Offline Sparky

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Re: Story - The Dark Fairy
« Reply #25 on: 05. March 2022, 22:09:08 PM »
Chapter 15


"Hi Ella, how's it going?" asked Lilly.

"Not good I'm afraid." relied Ella

"Oh, what's the problem?"

"Well, Puck just plugged everything in, and it looks like one of the two sensor systems is dead, and the main kit has gone way out of calibration."

"Oh, not good.... Are you guys happy with your location?"

"Yes, I think for the moment it gives us good visibility, but we may decide to relocate later on, I guess it depends on how things go"

"Ok.... let's go and talk with Puck...." said Lilly. She knew that Puck would probably be very stressed and worried, which wouldn’t be good in terms of him sorting out the kit.

"Hi Puck, Ella tells me you have some problems..."

"Yeah, this sensor got damaged, and the rest of the stuff is way out of calibration". Puck clearly sounded stressed.

"I'm guessing a fair bit of work.... would you care to guess how long it might take to get it all running again?"

"Twelve hours at least, if not longer... so please don't do what they do in the films ,and say 'you've got six hours'... it just won't happen!"

"Come on Puck, I'm really NOT like that! Am I? Ok, so we won't be able to use it tomorrow then... maybe the next day, if things go well?"

"Yeah, with a bit of luck"

"Ok, well look, I know you're going to be working on it now, but don't try and be a hero and pull an all-nighter. Ella, make sure you BOTH get back to the guest house to join us for dinner, and that you both get a good night's rest: I need you both at your best tomorrow to try and get this working. Puck: is there anything I can do to help.... I mean, clearly I have no idea how to actually FIX anything, I'm thinking about any extra equipment, other fairies and so on...."

"Ummm, let me chat with Ella"

"Ok. I appreciate this is kit very much a 'work in progress', so when you manage to get it running, *any* help you can give us will be really great. Plus, hopefully this is all going to be helpful for you in terms of making it better. So, anything you need, just shout... this is a Priority One, so we can pull a bit of rank if we need to! But just take things gently, don't feel you are under ANY pressure.... because when you're under pressure, that's when you'll make silly mistakes!"

Lilly stayed and chatted with both of them for a little longer - when she finally left, she could tell that Puck was a lot more relaxed.


Back at the guest house, Lilly met up with Magic and Sparkle. "So, we definitely won't have any fancy kit to help us tomorrow, they have some issues, so we're on our own. By the way, I've asked someone to send us some comms kit for us to use tomorrow... So, what's your plans?"

"I guess pretty much what we did yesterday and this morning, except that there will be more of us, and there's a couple of other spells I found in those books you got out of the Archive that might help us a bit. But finding our next victim is one thing: I'm worried that our three tooth fairies are going to struggle tomorrow. Why don't you take Flora to the Archive, let her dig around to see if she can find some useful old spells."

"Whilst I'd like to do that, letting Flora anywhere near the archive is a big no-no" explained Lilly

"Oh, why?"

"I can't go into details, but she managed to get herself indirectly involved in something last year. So, I'm currently getting a security check done on Elida and Faylinn. I'm thinking that we don't worry about it tonight, let's wait till tomorrow, and see what we're actually up against, then I'll take one of them down into the Archive.... That work for you guys?"

"Yeah. So what are YOU doing in all this?" asked Sparkle

"My job is to actually find our Dark Fairy, and do whatever needs to be done. And to get you guys whatever resources you need, to both help our 'victims' plus do whatever is needed to contain the situation. From what Faylinn said earlier, it looks like they contained things nicely this morning. As for the previous couple of cases... I agree with what you put in the report, it's 'out there' now, so I gess we'll just have to live with it. As long as we contain anything in the future, I'm hoping we'll be ok. So, a question for you: what's your take on Elida?"

"A little inexperienced, but VERY capable. Watching her working with Faylinn, and also with Flora today, I get the feeling that she actually UNDERSTANDS the magic, as opposed to most fairies, who just USE the magic. From what I understand, it was very much her idea to try the various combinations of spells, that led up to the triple-spell that actually worked. You might want to have a word with Flora, but I'm seeing in her a lot of what we saw in you - she's going to be quite some capable fairy in the future, and probably not that that long in the future either" said Magic.

"Yes, I was getting some good feelings when we were talking earlier. Maybe having a word with Flora would be a good idea....". The three of them chatted together for a while, partly work, but also about other things. Lilly's phone rang: it was one of the operations team: both Elida and Faylinn checked out ok on the security check. "Ok, I need to find Flora, and have a quick word." Lilly found her out in the garden, talking with both Faylinn and Elida.

"I'm sorry to butt in, but Flora, can you spare me a couple of minutes?". Lilly took Flora into the small library.

"Is there a problem?" asked Flora.

"Why do people assume there's a problem just because I want a word? No, I was wanting to ask you about Elida."

"What about her?"

"Tell me what you think about her..."

"Well, a bit inexperienced, but VERY willing to learn - I did an informal session yesterday with her and Faylin, and she was just taking everying in... so definitely NOT stupid. I'm not really sure how to put it, but, unlike many fairies, she really seems to actually UNDERSTAND what the magic is about... I saw her trying out some stuff this morning that fairies with three or four times her experience would never even think to do"

"Yeah, that's funny, Magic said exactly the same thing about her understanding stuff."

"I think, with the right guidance, she could become one of the great tooth fairies!"

"Would you be interested in mentoring her maybe?"

"Would absolutely LOVE to!"

 

Dinner was at 6:30pm. Ella and Puck got there a few minutes before: Lilly had organised that an FAS operative would be looking after their kit at all times.

Lilly introduced everyone before they all went into the dining room for dinner. The food was simple home cooking, but tasted really good. As they ate, they chatted and got to know each other a bit more: whilst various of them had met at work, few of them had actually met socially (apart from Magic, Sparkle and Lilly, of course). It wasn't long before they started chatting about the problems of 'The Dark Fairy' (of course, whilst M, S and L by now had a pretty good idea who was carrying out the braces spells on people, they had not given ANY details to anyone else)

"So, this fairy" said Lilly. "When is she doing her magic do you think?"

"Well, if I was a nasty fairy, I'd want it to be dark, with everyone in bed, asleep. So that's going to make it well after midnight, but probably before 5am" suggested Magic

"Yes, that's what I'd do" agreed Flora. "The actual magic probably only takes minutes, but if it was me, I'd probably want to sit there for a bit, and admire my handiwork, look at the lovely shiny metalwork inside the victim's mouth. But what I don't get is, if she likes braces so much, why is she only putting braces on one person at a time?"

"You know, that's an interesting point!" said Sparkle, "although people like murderers usually only kill one person at a time."

"Oh, Sparkle!!! We're eating dinner!" said Magic.

"I'm sorry..." replied Sparkle, "but I suspect it's quite normal. This fairy needs to 'get her fix', and once she's 'done the deed', then she's probably feeling a lot calmer.... A bit like a drug addict, I guess."

"So, Lilly, at the moment, which is more important: fixing what she does, or catching her?" asked Magic

"For the moment, I think that we're going to have to just fix what she does. One VERY important thing for you all to take note of: the whole reason we're keeping such a low profile - for the moment at least - is that I don't want our 'Dark Fairy' knowing that we are here, and that we are onto her. When we finally track her down, I would like our encounter to be a complete surprise for her. So, if at any point you actually SEE our fairy, do NOT approach her, keep well away from her. Yes, follow her if it's safe, but at a good distance. And don't use any magic, she might be using a magic detection spell to protect herself."

"But, to be honest, trying to 'catch a fairy in the act' without any support from Puck and Ella is going to be like finding a needle in a haystack, and would rely on so much luck. But if these guys are able to get their tech working, then there's a possibility we might be in with a chance. So, for tomorrow at least, we don't need to be up in the middle of the night, just early enough so we're searching before, or as, people start to wake up. We have a couple of new spells we can try out too"


Offline Sparky

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Re: Story - The Dark Fairy
« Reply #26 on: 08. March 2022, 18:56:23 PM »
Chapter 16


As we now know, Runesdale is a quaint town in middle England, located near a large forest. As well as the ridiculous number of Coffee Shops, it also has a US themed 50's cafe:

"Stepping through the doors of JB’s diner is like going back in time. They have spared no expense in decorating the interior with countless items of 1950’s memorabilia and paraphernalia. Almost every space on the wall, ceiling and everywhere possible has been covered with images suitable to the area. The staff are also in keeping with the theme with plenty of pin up looks and even the odd roller-skating waitress."

Caroline Whitepetal was a single mum in her 40s, she shared a 2 bedroom house - located in the south of Runesdale - with her daughter Belle. Belle is 22 years old, and currently works as a roller-waitress at JB's Diner. Luckily for both of them, they actually get on pretty well together, so don't have any problem having dinner together at home - they take turns in cooking - or even spending the evening together. Tonight, after dinner, they played cards for a while, then watched TV.

Finally, about 11pm, they both went off to bed. Tomorrow, Caroline and Belle would both be getting up relatively early, to go to work. By midnight they were both asleep.

A few hours later, a small dark figure, invisible to humans, entered the house, and looked around. The house was suitably dark and quiet, so she went and looked in the bedrooms, where she found Caroline and Belle both fast asleep. After waving her wand a few times, she sat back and admired her handiwork: happy with what she had done, she then left the house, and flew back to.... well, I'm not really sure.

Caroline's alarm beeped gently, waking her up. She went into her ensuite bathroom - still half asleep - to get herself ready for work. In there, she looked in the mirror... and SCREAMED! Her scream was so loud that people who lived half a mile away could probably hear it.

SHE HAD CROOKED TEETH, BRACES, AND HEADGEAR!

In the other bedroom, Belle had been woken by her alarm, and had gone in the dim light into her en-suite bathroom, where she turned on the light. She caught sight of herself in the mirror, and something looked... odd. She went to the mirror to look closer.... and SCREAMED! Her scream was also so loud that people who lived most of a kilometer away could probably hear it.

SHE HAD CROOKED TEETH, BRACES, AND HEADGEAR!

The strange thing is that, when Caroline and Belle both went to bed last night, their teeth were quite straight, and neither of them actually had any braces!

They had both screamed at pretty much the same time, but still heard each other. They both ran out of their bathrooms, through their bedrooms, and met on the upstairs landing. And just stared at each other!

But it was odd, they both suddenly became quite amazingly calm about the whole thing, and they both went into Caroline's room, and sat and chatted for a few minutes. They looked at each other's braces: whilst they both seemed to have bands around their molars, and typical metal brackets on their other teeth, with an archwire held in place with quite plain ligatures, Caroline had a metal facebow attached to an elastic strap that went around her neck, whereas Belle's facebow was connected with elastics to a set of straps that went over and around her head. Caroline's teeth were a bit crooked, whilst Belle seemed to have some nicely protruding top teeth.

Caroline leaned over, and undid the elastic bands that were holding Belle's facebow in place. Belle remembered one of her friends at school having a headgear, and knew that the ends of the facebow went into tubes on the braces, so she tried gently pulling on the facebow, but nothing happened. So Belle then leaned over to her mum, unclipped her neck strap, then got her to open her mouth, so she could check her facebow. As expected, the ends of the facebow went into some tubes on her molar bands. But, like Belle's, her facebow seemed to be somehow fixed firmly into place too.

And that's when things started to get a bit strange. For a start, they were both back in their own beds, feeling rather rough - clearly something they ate last night just wasn't agreeing with them. Plus, the facebows they had been wearing seemed to have magically gone. And their braces, and their twisted / buck teeth, well... who really cared about them any more? What was more important was to call work, and let them know that they wouldn't be going in, at least not this morning - maybe in the afternoon if their 'problem had passed', so to speak. After calling work, Belle went into see her mum again: they were both feeling rough, and whilst Belle knew that her mum also had braces... well, that was normal, wasn't it? After a quick chat with her mum, Belle went back to bed again, and both Belle and her mum slept for a while.

Some time later in the morning, Caroline woke up again, and went to the toilet, after which she felt a LOT better. As she looked in the mirror, she had a strange feeling for a moment. A feeling that she had braces on her teeth. Or was it a dream that she had just had? Not that it mattered, there were definitely no braces on her teeth. Although one of her teeth... didn't it used to stick out a tiny bit? It certainly didn't any more.

She went to check on Belle, who it turned out was in the loo. When she came out, she was feeling a lot better too.

"You know" said Belle, "I just had the STRANGEST of dreams....."


Offline Sparky

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Re: Story - The Dark Fairy
« Reply #27 on: 11. March 2022, 18:54:36 PM »
Chapter 17


The eight fairies met for breakfast at a little before 5:30 am. Ella and Puck wanted to get a good start on working on the technical kit, and the other six fairies planned to get out searching for today's 'victim': they had absolutely no doubt that there would be one, the question was just where, and what braces would be awaiting them this morning.

While they were eating, Lilly pulled out a small container, put it on the table, and opened it. "As promised, some comms devices for everyone. Ella and Puck, you take one each too, even if you don't need it this morning, it will probably be useful at some point." The devices looked like the wireless in-ear monitors we often see on TV.

"So how do they work"

"Interestingly enough, by some VERY modern magic. They're fresh out of the lab, made for us by one of Puck's colleagues. No messing around pressing a button to talk, it just works out when you want everyone to hear what you're saying, but doesn't come on if you're just talking to someone locally. Plus, if you just want to speak to one person, think of them as you speak"

Magic put hers into her ear, and Sparkle did the same. "Red Leader to Blue Leader, do you copy?" said Magic. "Copying you loud and clear, Red Leader!" replied Sparkle. "Yes, VERY nice..... should be a LOT easier than trying to talk on the phone when you're flying!"

"What HAVE you two been watching on TV?" asked Faylinn.

"Who knows, those two seem to be a law unto themselves sometimes!" commented Lilly.

They continued eating the excellent breakfast, still chatting.

"I'm thinking we divide into two:" said Magic, "I'll take Elida and Faylinn and cover the southern housing estate, and Sparkle, you take Flora and Lilly, and cover the western housing estate. I suggest we alternate between the spells we were using yesterday, and the new spells that we found yesterday... I'm saying that simply because we know what we did yesterday was effective, even if short range, but we're not yet sure how good the new ones will be".

"Sounds like a good plan to me" replied Sparkle.

By 6:30 am they had started flying around the two housing estates. By 7:00 am they had had no 'positives' so Sparkle went off to do a quick tour around the central area, where there were a much smaller number of houses and flats over shops, but again found nothing.

Magic was doing a second circuit where she had checked earlier, when suddenly she got a response. "Guys, Magic here, I have something!".

"Yes, so do I" added Faylinn, "And I can actually hear them screaming!".

"Them?" asked a voice in their ears.

"Yes, sounded like 2 screams at the same time!" replied Faylinn.

Both Magic and Faylinn flew to where they each thought the victim was: they met on the upstairs landing just as Caroline and Belle came running out of their bedrooms.

"What the heck?" said Magic, who instantly ran a "FairyTime" spell (I need to explain that these spell are quite local, so only covered the two victims and the two fairies, and the area around them... the effect was that whilst the world appeared to freeze, the two fairies could do stuff in the house... but they would need to end the spell to allow the others to get there).

"Ok, Faylinn, we have no more than 10 minutes: you take a look at them both, see what you can find, I'll look around to see who else is here, and see what I can find out about them". Faylinn took a good look at Caroline and Belle. Their braces were actually pretty much identical, and quite typical of what humans got for real treatment: shiny molar bands, top and bottom, glued onto the front full molars, with medium sized shiny metal brackets glued onto the other 20 teeth. Caroline's medium-thickness archwire was held in place with bright fluorescent pink ligatures, whilst Bell had neon green ligatures. Like that it probably wouldn't be so bad, but they both had a single shiny steel facebow connected to their top teeth. Whilst Carol had a simple cervical strap, Bell had an interlandi headgear, with stretched elastics connecting it to the facebow. Faylinn looked more carefully at the facebows, and could see some glue holding them into their respective headgear tubes on the molar bands.

Faylinn also took a note of their teeth: assuming they both had straight teeth before, Caroline's teeth had been twisted around, and Belle's top front teeth were also noticeably protruding, with gaps between them. She ran a 'diagnostic' spell, to see what she was dealing with.

Magic flew around the house quickly, and returned a couple of minutes later, with two mobile phones in her hand. "Looks like there's just the two of them living here, and nothing else exciting to report.....". She started looking at their phones. "Ok, so older lady is Caroline, younger one is Belle, they seem to be mother and daughter. And guess what...." asked Magic.

"They both had lovely straight teeth yesterday?" replied Faylinn. "Too easy! Clearly their braces and so on are all magic. So, as expected, a bit of a step up on yesterday. Apart from there being two of them, our Dark Fairy has fitted molar bands to both of them, and the facebows are both glued into place. The good news is that I think the glue holding in the facebows is similar to what she used yesterday, although the glue holding the rather nice shiny metalwork to their teeth is different. It goes without saying that their teeth have been twisted, and the younger one - Belle you said? - has some lovely buck teeth!".

"And I like the touch that she gave them different headgears!" commented Magic. "Right, I'll just copy a few selfies from their phones, put their phones back where they were, then I think we can end the FairyTime spell, and let the others get here!"

"Want me to do some 'calming' spells on them?" asked Faylinn.

"Yes, probably a good idea" said Magic, who then ended the FairyTime. "Red Leader to all fairies: we have TWO victims today! Let me repeat that: TWO victims! I'll meet you all up on the roof!". Elida got there a minute later, the others took another couple of minutes.

"Something tells me you just ran a FairyTime" commented Lilly.

"Yup, come along into the main bedroom and meet our two victims" said Magic, "Mum and daughter: mum is Caroline, daughter is Belle. We have molar bands and glued-in headgear today! And some cute buck teeth! How they doing, Faylinn?"

"I've calmed them down, and they are both feeling VERY confused.". They all went into the bedroom.

"I'm not surprised" said Sparkle. The two ladies were sat on the bed and looking at each other's braces. They had both unhooked their actual headgears, and put them on the bed, and were trying - unsuccessfully of course - to remove each others facebows. "So, how do we want to handle this then? Get them both into bed, and knock them out?"

"That's probably the simplest" said Faylinn.

"Tell you what, why don't we leave you three to get on with it, I'll make sure the place is well locked up, then we'll have a look around the house" suggested Magic. While the three tooth fairies 'persuaded' Belle to go back to her own room, then put them both into a gentle sleep, Magic, Sparkle and Lilly went down to the lounge to chat.

"My first question is: was the new detection spell any use?" asked Lilly.

"I'm not sure. I actually picked them up with the old spell, even though I was 2 houses away... and I heard the screaming. Don't know about Faylinn".

"Did Faylinn have a chance to look at our victim's braces yet?"

"Yes, she did it while we were in FairyTime. For some reason, our Dark Fairy seems to have used two - or maybe I should say at least two - different glues today. Faylinn felt that the glue holding in the facebows was similar to what she used yesterday, but the glue holding the molar bands and brackets on was quite different".

"Something tells me that we may need to go visit the Archive... anyway, let's have a good look around, see if we find anything useful".

A few minutes later, Sparkle called out "Hey, Lilly, come on into Belle's bedroom a moment....". Lilly walked in to the bedroom, and looked around. Belle was lying asleep / unconscious / whatever on the bed. Hanging up on the front of the wardrobe was a familiar outfit - it was the sort of thing that waitresses at a 50's diner would wear: she remembered Sparkle saying that there was one in town.

"So what's so interesting then?" asked Lilly.

"Down there...." replied Sparkle, pointing to an area with several pairs of shoes.... and a pair of roller boots.

"Oh, very nice" said Lilly, smiling. Unlike the relatively plain roller boots Lilly was wearing, these were multi-coloured, with loads of sparkling glass 'jewels' all over them, and each of the four wheels on each boot was a different colour. While she was in the bedroom, she looked around the room. Something was trying to get her attention, but she couldn't work out what it was. She walked around, doing 'detect magic things' spells, but apart from Belle's braces, nothing came up.


In the other bedroom, the three tooth fairies stood next to Caroline, the mother, and took another look at her mouth: she had a very typical set of braces, but unlike the previous cases, she actually had molar bands. They had taken off the cervical strap, but the facebow was strongly glued into the tubes of the upper molar bands. To be honest, it didn't matter if the facebow actually remained in the bands, as long as the bands and brackets came off, everyone would be happy.

All three tooth fairies ran diagnostic spells on the braces. "Whilst the glue holding the braces in place seems to be quite different, the glue holding the headgear in really feels like it's the same as yesterday. What do you two think" asked Faylinn.

"Yes, I was getting that same feeling: so why don't we try that same triple spell as yesterday, maybe we'll get lucky?" replied Flora. They ran the same three spells, and whilst the braces remained firmly attached, the facebow appeared to be lose. Elida leaned over Caroline, and was able to pull it out, leaving just the 4 molar bands, and the 20 nice shiny metal brackets. Today's brackets were similar to the ones Violet had yesterday, but were a little bit bigger.


Lilly walked back into Caroline's bedroom, where the three tooth fairies were working on Caroline. "How's it going, ladies?"

"Well, we just managed to remove the facebow, we did pretty much what we did yesterday, but we're not having much luck with removing the braces yet" said Faylinn.

"Ok... keep trying". Once again, Lilly had a feeling that something was trying to get her attention, so again she ran the 'detect magic things' spell, but found nothing, apart from the braces. She was walking by the end of the bed, when something shiny caught her eye: it was on the bedside table. Lilly went to look: it was a small round silver coin. She picked it up..... then immediately walked back into Belle's bedroom, where she found exactly the same thing on her bedside table.

"Interesting!" said Lilly.

"What is?" asked Sparkle, who was still looking around Belle's room.

"I just found these, one by each bed...." said Lilly, showing Sparkle the two tiny silver coins.

"Isn't that the sort of thing that old tooth fairies used to leave little kids who just lost a tooth?" suggested Sparkle.

"Pretty much what I was thinking.... let's go ask our 'experts'". Lilly and Sparkle walked back into Caroline's bedroom.

"Ladies, can I just interrupt a moment.... just found these, one by each bed", and she showed them the coins.

"They look very much like old silver threepenny pieces, the sort of thing that we tooth fairies used to give young kids in exchange for their baby teeth" said Flora

"The strange thing is, they don't seem to be at all magical" said Lilly.

"They won't be. They are normal human coins" explained Flora.

"Oh, I never realised... so how do you get them?"

"That's for a tooth fairy to know, and others to not ask about!" said Flora with a wide smile. "I always carry a few one pound coins with me to exchange with baby teeth..."

"Yes, me too" said Faylinn

"Err... Lilly...." said Elida.

"Yes, Elida?"

"You know, I think I might also have seen one of those beside Violet's bed, yesterday!"

"Well, well, looks like we've found our Dark Fairy's 'calling card', interesting! And you never know, it might come in useful..."

Lilly left the three tooth fairies to continue their attempts at removing Caroline's braces, and got Sparkle and Magic together downstairs for a chat. "Looks like our tooth fairies are struggling"

"Yes, I think they are, sounds like you need to take Faylinn to the Dark Archives, to see what she can dig out" suggested Sparkle.

"Actually, I was thinking of taking Elida"

"Elida? Why her, surely Faylinn is far more experienced?"

"Whilst Faylinn I'm sure is a good tooth fairy, I think I need more than that to search in the archives. When I was down there with mum, even I was struggling, but I'm getting a good feeling about Elida - and you said it yourself, she seems to UNDERSTAND magic."

"Ok, fair comment, I'll support your choice!" said Magic. "In the meantime, I think we need to get our two ladies into some sort of 'holding pattern' - any suggestions?"

"Well, if nothing else, we should get them both to call work with some good excuse for not going in. By the look of the kitchen, they ate here last night, so maybe they got the shi..... errrr.... upset stomachs...?" suggested Sparkle.

"Oooh, you are nasty!"

"Yeah, but it's entirely credible for them.... ok, Lilly, we'll see you later!"


Offline Sparky

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Re: Story - The Dark Fairy
« Reply #28 on: 13. March 2022, 21:56:02 PM »
Chapter 18


"Elida, can you come with me a moment, please?" asked Lilly. She took her down into the lounge, where they could talk without being disturbed.

"Am I in trouble or something?" asked Elida.

"Why do people think always they are in trouble, just because I need a word. No, you're not, in fact completely the opposite."

"What do you mean"

"Let me start by asking you a question or two: First - and this isn't a job interview, I want to know your true feelings - do you actually ENJOY learning and doing magic?"

"Yes, absolutely. Especially the last couple of days, I've learnt SO MUCH!" replied Elida with a sparkle in her eyes.

"And do you sometimes feel.... hmm, how do I put this... that people underestimate you, that you could probably do a better job than them, if only you knew a little bit more? Try and be as honest as you can, and don't worry of it makes you feel a bit big-headed!...." said Lilly in a gentle and pleasant way.

Elida thought for a moment. "Yes, I do.... In fact, it's been so nice that both Faylinn and Flora have been letting me try so much."

"It was your idea yesterday to mix up the multiple spells wasn't it?"

"Yes, it just seemed like such an obvious thing to try, I don't know why Faylinn or Flora didn't suggest it! Oh, that sounds so bad...."

"Don't worry about it. Let me tell you something: I used to have the same sort of problem. Maybe it's something I can help you with? Anyway, thanks for being so honest with me." Lilly paused. "How would you like to learn something VERY different today, something that will probably stretch you a bit?".

A big smile came to Elida's face. "Yes please, Lilly!"

"So, I need to explain a few things, but before I can do that, I need you to sign this. It's similar to the security document you signed when you joined up, but goes a lot further. Don't rush it, you need to understand what it is you're signing...." Lilly gave her a copy of the same document that Magic, Sparkle and her mum had also recently signed.

"Dark Archive?" asked Elida.

"Don't worry, I'll explain all that in a moment ...". Elida took a few minutes to carefully read the document, then signed it. "So, what's this all about?"

"Well, first of all, you should find your security level has gone up .... quite substantially. That may be just temporary, but it might be more permanent, depending on how things go".

Elida looked at her 'pass' and was VERY surprised.

"You're joking?"

"No, not at all. I'm about to tell you some stuff, which you can't talk to anyone else about, unless you KNOW they have the correct clearance. At the moment, assume that that includes just me, Magic and Sparkle. Noone else. Understood?"

"Yes."

Lilly explained to Elida a simplified version of what they knew about the history of the destruction of the old palace. And about the existence of the Dark Archive. "That's where those new spells we were using this morning came from."

"Suddenly some of the stuff you've been saying makes so much more sense. But why are you telling me all this?" asked Elida

"Because I'm about to take you down into the Dark Archive. I need you to search for some old magic spells that can help you guys with removing those braces"

"Surely, if it's older magic, it would be better to take Flora?"

"Yes, I know, I agree, but unfortunately she can't know what's down there. Or even know that it exists. We can let her see certain specific things that we bring out, and have checked, but no more. And please don't ask me to explain"

"Oh.... right...."

"And from what I've seen of you working earlier on, I think you're going to find what we need very quickly... So, I'll have a quick word with Flora, and explain you and I are going to be visiting 'an important resource', then can you have a word with her, and get some ideas of the sort of things we will need?"


"Ok, ladies" said Lilly, talking to Magic, Sparkle, Faylinn and Flora. "I'm going to take Elida to a rather restricted 'resource' that we have access to, to see if we can find you some more relevant magic for you to use. In the meantime, I think maybe you guys need to wake these ladies up, and get them to call in sick to work. I have no doubt that between you, you can come up with something that won't sound too strange for our mum and daughter here to tell their respective bosses"

"Good idea" said Magic, "and maybe we can all have a cup of coffee while we're at it...."


As they both flew back to the office, Lilly explained a few more things to Elida, like how the Dark Archive was under her mum's office.

"Your mum's office?"

"Yeah, she's your boss!"

"Oh, sorry, I never realised!"

"That's ok. Actually, I'd better call her....".

Ten minutes later, Lilly's mum had let them into the Dark Archive: being the keeper, she was one of the few fairies allowed to let people into the Archive: even Lilly couldn't get in to the Dark Archive without her mum... it was all done to stop... well to stop a Dark Fairy from running amok.

"So, this is the first room we're interested in" said Lilly, showing her the 'Older Magic' room. "Although we'll probably also need to take a look in the 'Dangerous and Dark Magic' room afterwards. The room was large, with many old wooden shelves holding up hundreds of old books. As the place was hardly ever visited, it was dusty, and had an 'old' smell to it.

"Wow! There's a lot of books in here!" said Elida, clearly very impressed. The main library (the general one used by all the fairies) was a lot bigger, but all the books in there were very modern, the books in here oozed out a feeling 'we are VERY old'. "How are we going to find what we need?"

"Well, it's going to be more of 'how do YOU find what we need'?" replied Lilly, and she showed Elida how to use the search spells, which of course Elida picked up straight away.

"Ok, so I'm going to stand over here, out of your way, and let you just get on with it. Just ask if you need me!". Lilly stood there and watched as Elida waved her wand, running some quite complicated combinational search spells, as if it was something she did every day. Things to do with teeth, and glues, and other similar things. Quite a lot of books slid out from the shelf by an inch, marking their locations.

"No, far too many... " said Elida, who continued to narrow down the search. A lot of the books slid back into position on the shelves. "still too many... ok, let's try something a bit different.....". Bit by bit more of the books slid back into their normal places on the shelves, leaving just a few still proturuding. "Ok, let’s try that lot…" she said, waving her wand. Several books came off the shelves, and stacked up in front of Elida.

"I think what we're going to need is going to be in here somewhere" she said, quickly looking at the books. "This first one is a more general book, the others appear to be quite specialised, but I'm SURE that if we ask them nicely, they'll help us find what we want." explained Elida. When asked, the books were very polite, and opened up at the correct pages. They both looked at the books together, and found what they appeared to need.

"Ok, so far so good. Next, I think we need to search for something to help us detect our Dark Fairy..." said Elida, "let me try this...". Elida said a few words, searching for 'detecting tooth fairies who are doing magic', and waved her wand. Nothing happened, then suddenly a small book on the shelf right next to her popped out.

"Yes, come on then" she said, encouraging the book, which gently flew over to the desk, and opened up, at page 404. Elida smiled when she read what the page said: 'The requested resource could not be found but may be available in the future. Subsequent requests by the client are permissible'. Next to the text there was a rather nice drawing. "Oh, what a nice way to say 'no'" commented Elida.

"Thank you book... you might as well wait here for the moment, I get a feeling that you're going to be needed again". Elida tried another, rather more general, search 'detecting other fairies who are using magic'. The book fluttered, and opened up on page 401, which said 'Authentication is required and has failed or has not yet been provided'. Then it helped a bit more by turning to page 305, which stated 'The requested resource is available only through a proxy'

"Oh... ok... Lilly, maybe you can help on this, I'm assuming that your security level is rather higher than mine" and explained what the book had just shown her. Lilly came over, and basically repeated the same search request.

Once again, the little book fluttered it pages, this time opening at page 308, which said 'This and all future requests for this resource should be directed to the Dangerous and Dark Magic Library'

"Well, little book: you may be small, but you are both very pretty and very helpful. You may now go back to your shelf!" said Elida. The book ruffled its pages, briefly turned to page 200, and when Elida had read the one word on the page, the book closed itself, and went gently back to its shelf.

"I guess we now need to go into the other room" said Elida.

"Actually, we could do with one more detection spell: for old silver coins" said Lilly. "You never know, if we're having trouble detecting her magic, we might catch her by her coins!"

"Nice idea, Lilly, ok..... let's try this: search for silver..." Once again, a lot of books offered themselves. "Ok, how about 'silver coins' then?". Most went back into place, leaving about 6 or 8 books sticking out. "Ok, books, let's forget the magic search for the moment: I'm looking for something to help us detect a tooth fairy who has a few old silver threepenny coins on them. Any takers?"

One book gracefully slipped off the shelf, and came down in front of her. The book was clearly well used, the back binding was damaged, and there was noticeable wear on the covers. Elida opened it up, to find a name on the inside front cover: 'Princess Buttercup'. "Well, Princess, clearly you liked this book, so book, can you show me what you know?". The book gently flicked through its pages, and stopped at a page that had clearly been read many times, and there were even a few notes in the margins.

"Did you just say 'princess'?" asked Lilly.

"Yes, this is Princess Buttercup's book, whoever she was."

"If I remember correctly, she was one of the two princesses that were never found, the one that wasn't the tooth fairy"

"I wonder if she used to do something like play hide-and-seek with her tooth fairy sister, and used this to help find her?"

"Yes, I guess that's quite possible."

"So, I would say that we have all we need from in here: do we just take these books with us?"

"We can take that general one with us, but not these others – there’s too much dangerous stuff in them for them to be out in public." Of course, what Lilly REALLY meant was 'for Flora to see'. "Plus, I think Princess Buttercup's book should stay here too. Use your phone to take pics of the pages we need, and we can print them out upstairs. Then, as you said, we need to go and have a look in the other room....".

Lilly led them both into the 'Dangerous and Dark Magic' room: as they entered, they could feel a sort of 'clamminess' from the dark magic. "So, it should be the same principles to search in here, just be VERY careful how you search, there's some nasty stuff in here: I saw some of it when I was down here the other day with mum!"

Elida carefully ran a search spell, this time searching for 'detecting other fairies, without them knowing', and suddenly one dusty book flew off the shelf, and headed straight towards Elida. Elida put her hand out: "Don't you DARE!" she said very firmly to the book. "Down on the table! And NO messing about, otherwise you're going STRAIGHT back onto your shelf!" she added, pointing at the table. The book gingerly and gently landed on the table.

Lilly was pleasantly surprised: Elida seemed to know exactly how to control these darker books, without needing anything explained to her. And she seemed to be in complete control.

Elida stared at the book, then waved her wand. The book opened itself, and started flicking its pages menacingly. "Behave!" she commanded, "otherwise you know what will happen" she said in a stern voice. "Now, which page do I need to look at?" she said more pleasantly. The book realised that Elida wasn't going to stand for any messing about, and did what it was told, opening at page 53. "Oh, yes, very nice.... come and have a look at this, Lilly!"

Lilly took a look at what was on page 53: yes, it looked like it could be a VERY helpful spell, despite the side-effects it would have on the caster. But the good thing about the spell is that no other fairies could detect it was being cast, which is probably why it had those side-effects.

"I think we need to memorise this one" suggested Elida, "I don't think I'd be comfortable with anyone else knowing it, not even Magic or Sparkle"

"Yes, very fair comment...." replied Lilly. They both spent a few minutes learning the spell, as well as reading some notes on other useful spells that could help, which some helpful historical fairy had written in the margins.

"Thank you very much, book.... now close yourself up, and go back to your shelf... quietly!" said Elida with a lot of authority. The book did exactly as it had been told, without any fuss.

"While we're here, one more please Elida: we could do with something to help Puck... you know, help him calibrate his equipment. I'm guessing if it's old-ish and dark-ish, then pretty much anything will do. Even better if it includes teeth or glue. But something pretty stand-alone".

"Yes, that makes sense. Ok, books, you just heard Lilly, any suggestions?" and she waved her wand. Two books started jiggling on the shelf, then settled back down after a few seconds.

"If I didn't know any better, I'd say those books are actually excited!" commented Lilly.

"I think they probably ARE. I mean, how often does anyone come down here, and even just talk to them, let alone search them? Ok, you two, come on down, and let me see what you have for us." They clearly knew that Elida wouldn't accept any nonsense from them, and both came over to the desk, landing beside each other. One was a very plain brown book, the other was a more colourful blue.

"Let's start with you, brown book... what's your suggestion?". The book opened to a page with a spell that allowed you to magic up new teeth, typically to replace old decayed teeth. "Hmm, interesting, not sure how that one works for us....". With that, the blue book started jiggling gently. "Yes, blue book, settle down. Now what do you have for me then?". The blue book opened its pages, and weirdly offered a spell for creating a jawbone. "Ah, right, yes!" exclaimed Elida. "Hey, were you two talking to each other up there on the shelf?" The blue book jiggled excitedly.

"Well, thank you both.... let me just take a picture of you... smile!". Elida used her camera to get pictures of the spells, then told the two books to return to their shelves.

"Thank you all for your help today! Would you like me to come back again?" asked Elida. Lots of the books jiggled on their shelves.

"I must say I'm very impressed, Elida," commented Lilly as they walked out, "you were in complete control there..."

"Yeah, I'm not sure how, but I just seemed to instinctively know what I needed to do" replied Elida with a big smile on her face. "And you know, those books ARE rather cute!" Lilly closed the door to the Dangerous and Dark Magic Library, and they walked back upstairs.

"Find what you were looking for?" asked Lilly's mum as they walked out of the cupboard.

"Yes, I think we did, plus I think Elida had a good feeling for what else is available, should we need it. Umm, Elida, I need a quick word with mum, why don't you.... err, yeah, make us all a coffee".

"Sure thing..." said Elida, understanding that they needed privacy for a few minutes.

"So" said Lilly, "not only is Elida a promising tooth fairy, she was able to search the Dark Archive like she's been doing it all her life. And she didn't allow the books in the 'Dangerous' room to mis-behave either... she kinda reminded me of my old school teacher, Miss Jones! But it's like she actually understands those books: I'm thinking you might like want to use her skills in the future"

"Thanks for the heads up, Lilly. So, how's it going in Runesdale? I'm guessing you are having some braces issues again...."

"Yes, this Dark Fairy is learning quickly. Today we got a 'two for the price of one': a mother and daughter pair, with some not very nice braces on their teeth. Ok, yeah, they are really nice and shiny, with lots of metal, so from a fairy perspective they are ACTUALLY very nice... but you know what I mean! And they are stuck on very well, which is why we came here to see if we can find some new - well, actually very OLD - magic to try out."

"So why did you bring Elida? and not Flora? I mean, Flora knows old magic pretty well"

"Yeah, unfortunately there's a bit of a security issue with Flora, so out of Elida and Faylinn, I've been watching Elida, and I had a feeling she would be a lot better at this - and it turns out she is. I'm not saying Faylinn isn't a capable tooth fairy, far from it, but she's just your normal 'get on and do the job' sort of fairy. Elida is so different - to be honest, I see a lot of me in her, if you know what I mean"

"Yes, I do. I have a feeling I'll want to have a chat with her when this is all over, and I'll probably need your help to do it"

"No problems with that, mum....."

There was a knock on the door: Elida had returned with their coffees. While they sat and drank them, Elida connected her phone to the printer, and printed out the spells they needed, then put them inside the one book they had brought out with them.

"Ok, thanks mum! We need to get back to Runesdale, and remove some braces....."


Offline Sparky

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Re: Story - The Dark Fairy
« Reply #29 on: 15. March 2022, 14:49:32 PM »
Chapter 19

While Elida and Lilly went off to the Dark Archive, Magic and Sparkle had a chat with Flora and Faylinn.

"I'm guessing that you've reached a bit of an impasse for the moment?" commented Magic

"Yes, we have. We're assuming that Lilly and Elida might be a while, in which case both these ladies are going to be missed at work"

"Yes, we were thinking the same, so I suggest giving them both gippy tummies - they would probably just assume it's something they ate last night - and tell them to call work, and say they don't feel too good, but they hope to be in a bit later if they feel better" said Magic.

"Are we allowed to do that? I'm thinking 'nudges' and all that..." asked Faylinn

"We are on a Priority One, plus Lilly specifically said we can do pretty much whatever we need to, to keep the situation contained, so I'd say there should be no issues".

Flora smiled. "It's been a while, would you mind if I did the necessary?" she asked.

"Be our guest!" replied Sparkle. "But be reasonably nice to them!"

"Don't worry, I will....". Flora went into each bedroom in turn, woke them up partially (so they actually DID still feel a bit rough!), threw an 'ignore the braces that you seem to have in your mouth, they are actually quite normal' sort of spell, then got each of them to call work, telling them that their guts were suffering (which they seemed to be - magic can do some useful things at times!), but they hoped they might be feeling better a bit later on. Caroline's boss was fine, but Belle's was a bit upset, but accepted there wasn't a lot she could really do.

Luckily, without needing any magic, they both just decided that staying in bed for the moment was probably the best thing for them, and with the help of a little more magic, they fell asleep again.

After that, it was really just a matter of waiting for Lilly and Elida to get back - hopefully with some magic that might help them.

------

"So, we found this book in...." Elida started to explain to Faylinn and Flora. Lilly looked over at Elida, to remind her. "... in a private collection" explained Elida. "There's some good basic stuff I think might help us, plus I was able to take pictures of some pages from some other books too, but which we weren't allowed to bring with us."

'Nicely put, Elida!' thought Lilly.

Flora looked at the very old book, gently flicking through it. "I don't think I'd better even think about asking where this came from, but yes, I think you're right." She then picked up the printouts - several of which detailed some very old 'glue spells' - and smiled. "Ohh, VERY nice.... we just need to work out the opposites of these ones, which hopefully won't be too difficult."

Faylinn also took a look at the book. "Oooh, interesting! I'll have to have a proper look through this later too" added Faylinn. "So, let's see if any of this helps us!"

The three tooth fairies chatted for a while, working out what the reverse of the glue spells would be, and wrote a few notes. With the book and various other bits of paper to hand, the three of them briefly looked at each other. "I can see you want to try the first one, don't you?" said Faylinn to Elida. "Go on, you've earned it...". Elida stood over Caroline, and tried the first spell, reading the words carefully from the book. There were a couple of tiny crackles from the braces, but nothing happened.

"Go on, Flora, you try the next one....". Flora read the second spell, pointing her wand at Caroline's mouth. A few crackles, and a short buzz, but nothing. "Go on, Faylinn, your turn" said Flora, passing the book over. Faylinn turned over a few pages, searching for something she had seen earlier. Moments after she uttered the words, a small amount of smoke came from Caroline's mouth, but the braces were still firmly attached. They tried a couple more spells, but no luck.

"I think maybe we need to be combining spells again" suggested Flora. "Elida, you seem to have a knack for this, which ones do you thing we need to combine?"

"Well, I'm not 100% sure, but I have a few ideas...." replied Elida.


"Hooray!!!!" shouted out Elida about 20 minutes later: they had finally managed to remove Caroline’s braces. "Hopefully it won't take a moment to remove Bella's braces too". With the braces removed, Flora moved her teeth back to being straight again.

"Nice teeth" commented Flora, "they look so much nicer like this... although the braces are nice in their own way."

"Ahh, Flora, you've just lost the enjoyment of seeing nice sparkly things, haven't you?" teased Faylinn

"You're probably right, but I do love the sight of nice straight teeth, especially when they look as nice as hers."

The three of them then moved into the other bedroom, and repeated the spells they had just used, but on Belle. Within minutes the braces were removed, and her teeth were straight again. "Another set of nice teeth" commented Flora, "but not as nice as her mum's!"

"So, I guess we now need to tidy up a few loose ends" commented Lilly. "How about we give them some real upset stomachs, that will magically clear after a visit to the loo. After that we can wipe their memories for the last few hours, and implant something about them eating something last night that must have given them dodgy guts?"

"Well, definitely more than nudges, but I must admit, it's probably for the best" agreed Sparkle. Wands were waved, memories were wiped, and fake memories installed.

With their work done, Faylinn went and had a word with Sparkle. "Hey, Sparkle, there seems to be a bit of a backlog building up at the office, I was thinking that, if we're all done here for the day, maybe Flora and I can go and sort out a few other cases - we can be back here for tea time"

"Good idea, let me just double check with Magic and Lilly...". Using the clever comms kit, she just thought about wanting to talk to the two of them. "Guys, Sparkle here, got a second?". The others came back to her, and agreed that they could go. "I'd like Elida to stay here though" commented Lilly.

Five minutes later, the four of them were sat on the roof of Caroline and Belle's place, chilling out for a few minutes.

Elida put her hand in her pocket, and brought out several sets of braces: the set that they had removed yesterday from Violet, and the two sets from today. "It's interesting, todays brackets are a bit larger than yesterday's - I wonder if that's relevant in any way?" she asked no one in particular.

"I think she's just evolving" replied Lilly. By now, all four fairies were looking at the braces, which were now sparkling nicely in the sunshine. They really DID look so nice.

"Erm, would you mind if I kept them?" asked Elida (she also had all the headgears in her other pocket).

"Something tells me that you like braces...." said Sparkle, smiling and showing off HER braces. Elida turned a bit of a pink colour. "Don't worry, there's nothing particularly strange about liking braces. I'm quite open about my love of braces...."

"I'm not sure what it is about them" replied Elida, "Yes, I know part of it is that they really are nice and shiny, but maybe it's also because I know I can't have braces myself"

"You never had 'wishes'
  • as a kid then?" asked Magic. [* wishes are the fairy equivalent of human braces, used to straighten the teeth of fairies with a malocclusion]


"No, I didn't.... but they don't look half as nice as human braces. Hey, I was thinking......"

"Yeah?"

"Well, we're done for now, aren't we?"

"For this morning, yes" said Lilly, "but this afternoon I was hoping you might like to go and work with Ella and Puck, do some magic for them to help them line up their kit. So, what you wanting to do then?"

"Well, can we go back to the orthodontist's again - I was thinking it would be fun to go and watch a few more patients!"

"I like your thinking there, Elida! Maybe we should all go, I think a bit of fun like that would do us a lot of good...."


-------


"Hi Ella! Hi Puck!" said Elida. It was after lunch, and she had just joined them on their roof, to help them test out their equipment.

"Oh, hi there Elida! Lilly said to expect you" replied Ella.

"So, have you had any luck getting your kit working yet?" Elida asked Puck.

"Yes, a few steps forward. The second sensor is still not working, but we'd like to do some simple testing, and Lilly said you'd be able to do some relevant magic for us" said Puck.

"Sure. So, what have you done so far?"

"Well, Ella's been doing some mainstream modern magic, and this single sensor is detecting it ok, but what we haven't done is try it with some older-style magic. I have no idea what the technical differences are, to be honest"

"Ok, well, I can think of quite a few things I could try for you...."

"Excellent. Hey, let's take a quick break before we start" suggested Ella, "grab a coffee, let our brains take a short rest, and we can have a chat about what to try".


"Ok" said Puck about half an hour later. "I know modern magic works, so want to start with that, Elida?". Elida did a few simple bits of fun magic... fire balls and that sort of thing. "Yes, it seems to be seeing that ok. Want to try some older magic now?"

Elida took the braces that she had in her pocket, and felt them, trying to get a feel for how the Dark Fairy might have created them. Then she used the two dark spells from the archive: one to create a jawbone, the other to put some teeth into the jawbone. After that, she used an old spell to create some braces, and finally another old dark magic spell to glue them on to the teeth - the whole thing took no more than 20 or 30 seconds, and it was clear that Elida was rather enjoying what she was doing.

"Hmmm, strange, I got nothing at all there....." said Puck.

"Oh... so how do you actually detect the magic then?" asked Elida. Puck started to explain, using long words and phrases like 'oscillator' and 'super heterodyne' and 'phase variance'. "I'm sorry Puck, but you lost me as soon as you said 'oscilloscope'"

"'Oscillator' actually.... but close!". He tried to simplify things for Elida, explaining that it was a mixture of clever electronics, clever software, and clever magic. "Ah!!!" exclaimed Puck, who had just had a brilliant idea that would explain the problem.

"What is it?" asked Ella.

"Well, the magic I'm using here to detect stuff is very modern magic - maybe we need to use some sort of OLDER magic? Elida, I'm going to need your help...."

Elida spent the next hour or so working with Ella and Puck, figuring out how to do stuff with the limited knowledge she had. They managed to detect some slightly older magic as a result. "I think I need to go back to.....". She was about to say 'The Dark Archive' when she remembered what Lilly had said earlier on. "Umm... to where I was this morning, I vaguely remember seeing some stuff that might be relevant there"

"The Dark Archive, you mean? Don't worry, Lilly told us both about that earlier, said there might be something there that might be helpful to us"

"Yes, it was there... let me ask Lilly if I can go back". Elida got her phone out and called Lilly, and asked her if she could go to the Dark Archive again.

"Sure, why don't you and Puck go together?" suggested Lilly. Elida asked Puck if he would go with her, and he agreed it would probably make a lot of sense. "Ok, I'll let mum know you're on your way."

At the Dark Archive, Elida quickly impressed Puck with her skills at not only finding the information they wanted, but at the way she was able to control the books. Elida and Puck took pictures of the relevant pages, then went back to site.

"You know" said Puck on the way back, "You're a natural with those books - I could see you were really enjoying what you were doing there!".

"It's strange, but in a way the 'dark' books are actually like bullies: big and tough on the outside, but inside they are actually really nice, if you treat them right".



"Any luck" asked Ella, when they arrived back.

"We think so, yes..." replied Puck. "Ok, Elida, want to try something?" said Puck a while later, after they had 'installed' the older magic spells into the equipment. Once again, Elida created some teeth models, then magicked some shiny braces. "Yes, I'm seeing that this time... keep going!". Elida then started using two or three different 'glue spells'. "Yes, I'm seeing all of those too!"

"Nice work, you two!" said Ella.

"So, does that mean it's ready for us to try tomorrow?" asked Elida.

"I wish...." said Puck. "You know, I sometimes think it would be nice if us fairies could have fairies to grant us our wishes! But no, detecting the magic is a big bit of it though. As it is, whilst we might be able to DETECT magic, we need to not only make sure it works at a distance, we need to be able to find out WHERE it's being used. That's why we need the second sensor, that way we can try and calculate the amplitude and phase angle..... sorry, let me try that again: it's like listening for a sound: with one ear, you can hear a sound, that the sound is there, but you don't really know where it is. With two ears, your brain can do some clever work to work out the direction, and if you're lucky, how far away. All we have so far is one ear, and very little brain!"

"Ah, so THAT's why you need the second sensor!"

"Absolutely. Then there's a load of calculations that need to be done, and my tests last week were taking really ages to give a result. I'm hoping that I can work on it, and make it a bit faster. You know, Ella, I'm wondering if having a third sensor might be useful?"

"Yes, I could see that. Maybe once Ambrose has fixed the broken one, he could make us another? Tell you what we could try in the meantime though: all the testing so far has been pretty near to the sensor. I'm thinking we need to get Elida to go a bit further away."

"Yeah, I can do that!" said Elida. Several sets of braces glued to teeth models, and a bit of tweaking later, they were managing to detect older magic at a range of up to about a mile. However, other than being able to say 'it happened, and it's over there, somewhere', they had no real idea in what direction or how far away it was.



"I hear you've made some good progress this afternoon" said Lilly to Puck, as they were all having their dinner together.

"Yes, we have. Elida has been very helpful to us this afternoon" he added, looking over at her, and smiling. "But I'm not sure if it will be enough to be much use to you yet. All I can tell you is that some sort of magic happened, somewhere, within the kit's range"

"Ok, so what do you need to do next then?"

"I'm waiting for Ambrose to finish fixing the second sensor - he thinks he'll have that tomorrow morning sometime. And we've also decided to get Ambrose to make us a third sensor, it's likely to improve things"

"That is great news, Puck, well done! And thanks for helping him, Elida! So, Magic, Sparkle: would it be of any help to simply know that someone has done some magic?"

"Yeah, I was just thinking about that.... I mean, if we want to have any chance of catching our Dark Lady, it would be very useful to know when she's out and about."

"Ok. Ella, Puck, how would you feel about getting a few hours rest, then doing a through-the-night stint? Once you've detected something, then you could come back here and get some sleep. There'll be an FAS guy to keep you company too... and keep you awake!"

"Yes, if you think it's worthwhile, why not?" said Ella.

"And is there any particular advantage in us being woken in the middle of the night if Puck or Ella spot something?"

"Well, it WOULD allow us to get a head start on things, maybe get to our victim before they wake up."

"Ok, that might be helpful...."

"Ella, just call me, whatever time it happens, and I'll wake up everyone else" said Lilly.

"OK"

"So, this afternoon, Magic, Sparkle and I tried out some of the magic that Elida and I found yesterday morning, and we now think we have a combinational pair of spells that should help us detect magic, and very specifically older magic, at up to say 200 metres, which should help us to find our victim a lot quicker tomorrow. We'll show it to you all after dinner"



After dinner, Elida had a quiet word with Lilly. "Lilly, you know that spell we found yesterday.."

"Which one? There were quite a few" replied Lilly.

"The one we memorised."

"Ah, yes, THAT one...."

"Tomorrow morning, after we've finished sorting out tomorrow's victim, I was wondering if we could try that spell out. I'm thinking that if there ARE side effects, I'd like to know what they are BEFORE needing to use it"

"Very good thinking there, Elida. Plus, we need to see what effect that 'recovery spell' has in helping to reduce the side effects."

"Yes... I'm wondering if it's worth getting Magic and Sparkle involved?"

"What, casting the 'detect fairy' spell?"

"No, casting the 'recovery spell', the one that might help with the side-effects. That would leave us two to concentrate on tracking our Dark Fairy. My limited experience is that it's a lot easier to cast a spell on someone else than on yourself"

"Ok, that sounds like a good plan, and I have no problems involving Magic and Sparkle with that magic. Leave it with me, and yes, we'll find somewhere that we can 'have a play'. Hey, good work with Puck earlier. You two seem to be getting on well."

Elida went a tiny bit pink. "Yes, we are...."


Offline Sparky

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Re: Story - The Dark Fairy
« Reply #30 on: 20. March 2022, 01:10:18 AM »
Chapter 20

By now a very popular tourist destination, Runesdale is a quaint town in middle England, located near a large forest. It now has six large hotels to cater for the many visitors, along with a huge number of small cosy restaurants (and that's in ADDITION to all the Coffee Shops....).... who realised that Runesdale would be so popular?

Anna is a model, in her early 30's. Today she has to get up early, so she can get to a modelling assignment by 9am. It's nothing exciting, it's just clothes for an online store, but it pays reasonably well, and it's pretty straightforward stuff. The problem is that it's going to take her about 3 hours to get there: she'll need to go to the shops to get some snacks for the journey, then catch a bus to the station, where she'll have to wait a bit for the train to arrive. At the other end, she'll need to use a taxi, as she has no idea about the local busses. Luckily, her Uber app has told her that they operate in the area.

So, Anna had set her alarm for 5am, to give herself time to vaguely wake up, have some breakfast, then have a shower and wash her hair. As it dried, she brushed it into a simple but tidy bun: the hairdressers would be doing stuff to it later. She didn't bother putting on much makeup either: again, later on, the makeup artists would do whatever it was that the customer wanted.

When her alarm woke her, there were two things that she was blissfully unaware of. The first was a tiny fairy, dressed in black, who had been sat on the end of her bed admiring her handiwork, and had scurried off very quickly when her alarm had gone off. The other was that, whilst she had a mouthful of metal braces [*see note below] and a facemask - it was one of those with a single chunky metal vertical bar - that was connected to her braces with metal springs (making it impossible to remove), she was blissfully unaware of her orthodontia. What I mean is that it was definitely there, she just couldn't see it or feel it. Or maybe she did, but something in her brain was 'subtracting' it from her awareness.

Yes, very strange, but magic is like that!

So, she got up, went to her kitchen to have some breakfast, then went and had her shower. Yes, the facemask and braces made things rather difficult for her, but as far as Anna was concerned, she wasn't having any problems, as her brain was 'normalising' everything.

Now fully dressed, she left the house, and walked the short distance to the shops. Whilst it was still quite early, there were a few people around, and the strange thing was that most of them were staring at her as she walked past. Which is easy for us to understand, as you don't normally get to see a young woman wearing an orthodontic facemask. In the shop, the shop assistant was also staring at her, even grinning a bit, and thinking something like 'WTF?... although I'm glad it's her wearing it, not me!'. But poor Anna had no idea why they were behaving so strangely.

Anna put the snacks and drinks into her bag, and then walked the short distance to the bus stop. There were two girls, late teens or early twenties, already at the bus stop, and when she arrived, they were both staring straight at her, grinning stupidly. Of course, from their perspective, Anna was wearing a fairly chunky orthodontic facemask, held in place by very visible springs that went into her mouth. But as far as Anna was concerned, she was entirely normal. And very confused. She got her makeup mirror out, and looked at herself.... no, as far as she could see, she looked absolutely normal!

A few minutes later, the bus arrived, and she got on: as she did so, the bus driver also gave her a very strange look, but she just ignored him, and went and found a seat near the front. The bus slowly pulled away, going down the street. A minute or two later, after they had already passed 2 bus stops, Anna felt a strange feeling, urging her to get off the bus, and go back home as quickly as she could. She wasn't sure why she had that feeling - it certainly couldn't be anything to do with 'have I left the gas on', because she didn't HAVE gas. But there was SOMETHING that she needed to go home for, and hopefully she'd remember when she got there.

She pressed the <stop> button on the vertical handrail in front of her, got up, and walked to the middle set of doors. The bus slowed down, and stopped at the next bus stop, the doors opened, and Anna got off. She recognised where she was, then crossed the road, to catch a bus back to where she started - yes, she could have walked, but the bus would probably be a lot quicker. The bus driver on this second bus simply ignored Anna, and she walked straight to the middle doors: she knew she would only be going 3 stops, so it seemed silly to sit down. Of course, while she stood there, she was visible to a couple of lads sat at the back of the bus, who started smirking and talking to each other. Anna was quite glad when the bus finally reached her stop a few minutes later, and she got off, and started walking briskly back to her flat.

Once there, she let herself inside. As she passed the mirror, she took another look at her face: she wanted to double-check that she didn't have something on her face, which would explain why everyone was giving her strange looks. Satisfied, she paused.... and remembered the reason she had come back home - she was sure she forgot to close her bedroom window. She walked into her bedroom, where she found that she had indeed left it open.

Anna took a look at her watch: damn, she was now running rather late. Was it going to be a good day or a bad day? Would she be lucky, and the bus wouldn't get held up, and she made the next train? Or would it all go wrong? There was nothing she could really do about it, so she decided to just get going: she could message the customer once she was on the train, and let them know she was running a little late.

As she approached the bus stop for the second time, her bus was arriving. There was plenty of space on the bus, and she even got a seat. And, for a change, everyone seemed to be getting on the bus nice & quickly, and it felt like every light was green: she'd never got to the station so quickly. Oh, and nobody looked at hhe strangely, like before.

As she went into the station, she thought she had just missed her train, but luck (ok, the fairies) was on her side today: the train was a couple of minutes late for some reason, and she was able to get onto it ok. She checked her online app, and it indicated that the late-running train would actually get in at 8:49am, so if she managed to get an Uber fairly quickly at the other end, she would be no more than 5 or 10 minutes late!

Disaster averted!


[* And when I say mouthful of metal, I mean that. She had molar bands not only on her front molars, but also on her pre-molars and her canines (top and bottom!), with her 8 incisors being the only teeth with simple brackets. In addition, there were thick wires attached to the top molar bands that came forwards to the level of her canines, which is where the springs for the facemask were attached]


Offline Sparky

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Re: Story - The Dark Fairy
« Reply #31 on: 20. March 2022, 14:44:42 PM »
I'm going to be away for a week, so thought maybe I'd post an extra chapter before I went!

-------------------------------------

Chapter 21

Her phone was ringing. Lilly grunted, found the light switch, then grabbed her phone. It was Ella.

"Good morning, Lilly!" said an excited Ella

"What time is it, for goodness’s sake?" asked Lilly, noticing that it's still dark outside.

"It's a few minutes before 5am. We just had a ping, about 5 minutes ago. It was there for several minutes, then faded away"

"Sounds like she's been and gone then...?"

"Yeah, that's what we were thinking"

"Ok, thanks for the call. I don't think we need to panic; my alarm was about to go off anyway, and I'm sure today's victim is going to be asleep for a bit longer. Hey, you can join us for breakfast, then grab some sleep"

"Ahead of you on that one, we're already turning the kit off!"

----

"Good morning, ladies" said Lilly as she got downstairs. It was several minutes before 5:30. "Our Dark Fairy struck again just before 5am. I'm guessing we should have plenty of time, I mean, who ever gets up THIS early? So, let’s have some breakfast then go and find today's victim!"

"Yes, I wonder what delights await us today? It's about time she tried a fully-banded look!" said Magic.

"How about DOUBLE facebows, glued in... along with some J-hooks, and goodness knows what headgear to go with it?" suggested Elida, smiling.

"We've not seen a facemask yet. Or a herbst...." said Faylinn.

"Has anyone noticed that she's staying very firmly with NON-removable braces? No twin blocks, no bite plates, no removable expanders. She definitely wants to make their lives difficult!

"Let's be grateful that she seems to be happy to just twist teeth and add braces. Imagine what would happen if she removed someone's teeth, and gave them dentures" commented Flora.

"Oh, ouch, don't go there..." said Magic.

"Hey, well done guys" said Lilly, as Ella and Puck walked in.

"I will confess, it WAS quite exciting when we started getting something" said Ella.

----

By 6am, the six girls were flying over the houses, 3 to the south, 3 to the west. With the new spells having a greater range, they were able to cover the area quite quickly.

"I think I may have something" said Magic, as she reached the main road, where the shops were. "Let me try and narrow it down a bit....". She kept circling, and casting the spells. "It's odd, every time I run the 'detect magic stuff' spell, it's pointing me in a different direction, although I'm getting absolutely nothing on the angst side of things!"

"She must be moving"

"Yeah, I already guessed that! Ok, so where the hell is she?". She ran another 'detect magic', which pointed down the road. "Hey, there's a bus.....". Magic chased after the bus, and went inside to have a look. She was about to run another 'detect magic', but then realised there was no need: today's victim was sat downstairs at the front - her very obvious facemask was a bit of a giveaway! "Got her!" added Magic.

"Where are you?"

"I'm on a big green bus...."

"Oh.... not good"

"No, not good! I'll have to do something to get her off the bus, and get her to go back home. Any idea where home IS yet?"

"Working on it...."

Magic waved her wand, implanting a couple of urgent ideas into Anna's head: the first one was to get off the bus at the next stop. The second was that it was very important that she got back home. Magic watched as Anna stood up and rang the 'stop' bell. Not long after, the bus stopped, and the doors opened, allowing Anna to get off the bus.

"Ok, we're off the bus.... She's crossing the road...... and at the bus stop opposite, I guess she's gonna catch a bus back again"

"Good. So, any hints what today's victim is wearing?"

"Apart from the facemask, that's held in place with small metal springs, no, not yet"

"Metal springs? Hey, I bet that's a 'wired-in facemask', would be our Dark Fairy's style!"

"Did someone say facemask?" said Faylinn, feeling good with herself for predicting things right.

Faylinn and Flora arrived a couple of minutes later, and joined Magic at the bus stop. "I wonder where she lives?"

"No idea, I'm just planning on following her". A bus came, and Anna got onto it. She went and stood in the middle of the bus, by the exit doors. The 3 fairies watched as the two lads at the back of the bus smirked and clearly talked about Anna, but Anna didn't react. 3 stops later she got off the bus. Again, there were a few people around, clearly staring at Anna in her facemask. Once again, Anna ignored them, and started walking along the road, then turned left into a smaller road, which is where Elida, Lilly and Sparkle met up with them.

Elida flew backwards, directly in front of Anna's face, taking a look. "Nice facemask, it's held in with a couple of shiny metal springs, which seem to be glued or welded to the facemask, so I'm guessing it's the same in her mouth, although I can't see anything yet. Go on, give me a smile so I can see!". Sadly, she didn't.

It wasn't long before Anna stopped, went up to a front door, which she opened, and went inside. One of the first things she did was to take a look at her face: it seems she was checking she didn't have anything on her face, that might explain why people were looking at her - but she was completely ignoring her facemask and braces.

"It's weird, she has a facemask, plus, by the look of it, a mouth full of metal, yet she's been behaving like it's 100% normal" said Magic.

"Does she even KNOW she HAS them?" suggested Sparkle.

"What do you mean?"

"I think our Dark Fairy just pulled a joker out of her deck: she's given her extreme braces, and run a spell that completely stops her brain from letting her know they are there".

"Oh my, that is so sneaky.... and SOOO cruel!"

"I have to admit it, I do admire what she has done! She is getting really creative!" commented Lilly

"Well, we're back home, we have work to do: as we're all here, I'm going to run a FairyTime, everyone ok with that?" said Magic

"Go for it!" said Lilly.

With the world around them stopped, they started looking around for clues. While the three tooth fairies examined their new victim, Magic was hacking her phone, and Lilly was on her laptop.

"Ok" said Lilly, "from what I'm seeing, this lady is Anna Witchstone, and I think she's some sort of model. Ah, yes, she was off to a modelling assignment this morning, pictures for an online catalogue. The reason she's up so early is that it's a bit of a trek for her, she's supposed to be there by nine."

"Yeah, it looks like she's in her early 30's, lovely teeth too - well they were before our Dark Fairy got hold of her!" added Magic. "What can you guys tell me about the current state of her mouth?"

"As we pretty much guessed, her facemask is held in with springs, apparently welded at both ends. She has lovely shiny metal bands on ALL her molars and pre-molars, plus her canines, and shiny brackets on the 8 incisors, plus a couple of glued-on springs between some of the brackets - I guess they would normally be elastics. A reasonably thick rectangular archwire, held in with some lovely bright fluorescent orange ligatures. Finally, there's heavy metal wires welded to the molar bands that her facemask springs are attached to" reported Faylinn.

"Any ideas on the glue yet?"

"Half a moment....". She waved her wand. "Very similar to what we had yesterday, I think... what do you think, Flora?" said Faylinn.

"Yes, not quite the same, but it does feel reasonably similar" replied Flora.

"Right." said Sparkle. "You know, I'm thinking that, if we're lucky, we might be able to get Anna to where she needs to be only a bit late. I say we keep the FairyTime running, and do everything in there, so we don't lose her any more time. That way we'll pretty much contain everything."

"It would be ten times easier if we could get her lying down, mouth open...." said Flora.

"Ok, so we end the FairyTime, get her moved and positioned quickly, then run another FairyTime, and get working on her. That work for everyone? Lilly, any issues with running multiple FairyTimes?"

"Fine by me!" said Lilly.

"Elida, do you want to run the spells to get her into position?". Sparkle ended the FairyTime, Elida hit Anna with a 'keep calm' spell, then moved her into the bedroom, lying on her bed. "And we're back in FairyTime, go for it ladies!"

"How about we try repeating what we did yesterday, see if we get lucky?" suggested Flora. The good news is that they quickly managed to remove the metal bands, and thus also the facemask that was attached to it, but the 8 brackets remained. "Ok, so looks like she's done something different with the brackets today! Suggestions?". Elida got out the various printouts she'd got yesterday from the Dark Archive, and they started reading.

"Ladies, the FairyTime's going to end soon, I'm guessing you'd like another one?"

"Please...."

While Flora, Elida and Faylinn continued working, Magic, Sparkle and Lilly had a quick chat. "I reckon this will have lost her no more than 30 minutes. So how about we help her on her journey? Get the buses and trains to nicely arrive on time for her. Make sure there's a taxi ready at the other end. The worst case is she's ten minutes late." suggested Sparkle

"I'll go with that. But what about the people who saw her?" asked Magic

"She's a model, and by the look of it, dressed quite plainly today. I'll bet that she's not normally up till a bit later, so I reckon that the people that she saw this early in the morning don't actually know her, or even if they do, they possibly didn't recognise her - so what did they see? A stranger, wearing something odd on her face, ignoring their comments and strange looks? That sounds to me what a seasoned facemask wearer might do anyway. And it's reasonable that she could be wearing a facemask out in public this early in the morning, needing to keep up her hours. I think we just ignore all that!" said Lilly. "You guys ok with that?". Magic and Sparkle both nodded. "So that leaves just one loose end..."

"Oh, what's that?"

"You made her think of something, which made her want to come back home. We need to give her that something. Ideas?"

"It's a ground floor flat - how about she left a window open?"

"Excellent! One of you go open a window, I'll go see how the others are getting on..."

Lilly went back to the 3 tooth fairies, to discover that they had just managed to remove the 8 brackets, and Faylinn was moving her teeth back to where they should be. "Well done ladies. When we end the FairyTime, can we get her back where she was before you moved her, then I'll wipe her memory of going and lying on the bed and back again, and remind her that the reason she came back was because she forgot to close the window. Then we're all going to make sure she gets where she was going as quickly as we can.... so, get the bus arriving as she gets to the bus stop, make sure people get on the bus at all stops nice and quickly, and give the bus green lights all the way to the station! One of us needs to get to the station, and hold up the train for a few minutes: she will have missed her original train, but no reason she can't make the next one!  Then we can all have a nice train ride, and make sure that she gets a taxi ok at the other end!"

It took a lot of work and coordination, but with 6 fairies all working together, they managed to get the bus to the station amazingly quickly (probably at the expense of a few other people being late!) because all the traffic lights seemed to be green, and Magic managed to delay the train long enough for Anna - and the fairies - to catch it. While they were on the train, Lilly made a phone call, the result of which was that, when Anna went to book her Uber a few minutes before arriving, one would be waiting for her.

With Anna on her way in the taxi, the girls sat down outside the station. "Well done, everyone, crisis averted! And all with minimal knock-on effects!"

Elida had her phone out and was doing something. "Good news: there's a fairy café just down the road, I think we all deserve to go and have a coffee...."

As they waited for the coffees to arrive, Lilly asked Elida "I'm guessing you have her braces with you?"

"Yes, I do..." She put her hand into her pocket, and got them out. Whilst they had removed them in two goes, she had re-assembled them. She put the braces onto the table, and looked at them. They looked very pretty!

"Nice set of braces" commented Sparkle

"Yes, they are very pretty, aren't they?" replied Elida, her heart beating a little faster than it was a couple of minutes before.


Offline firesonga

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Re: Story - The Dark Fairy
« Reply #32 on: 20. March 2022, 20:20:45 PM »
This is such a unique story thank you for taking the time to write this. And now to leave us in suspense, thank you though for not doing it as a cliffhanger though. Safe travels.

Offline lalala

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Re: Story - The Dark Fairy
« Reply #33 on: 20. March 2022, 21:16:13 PM »
Fascinating story, really enjoying it!  Safe travels!

Offline Sparky

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Re: Story - The Dark Fairy
« Reply #34 on: 22. March 2022, 01:53:20 AM »
I think the fairies must have been helping me today.... a 3 hour journey down to Devon went amazingly smoothly

Offline Sparky

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Re: Story - The Dark Fairy
« Reply #35 on: 28. March 2022, 20:58:57 PM »
Chapter 22

Once again, Faylinn and Flora went off for the rest of the day, to attend to a couple of cases that the office had for them, which conveniently left Magic, Sparkle, Lilly & Elida alone, to go and try out the 'locate a fairy without them knowing' spell that Elida and Lilly had memorised. They went and found a big empty field.

Lilly explained to Magic and Sparkle that they had a spell that would, if it worked, let them see the Dark Fairy (without her knowing). "However, it sounds like it has a nasty side effect... it makes you dizzy / feel drunk, and eventually pass out if you use the spell too much."

"So, you gonna teach it to us then?" asked Sparkle.

"No, I was planning on me and Elida using it, it's a bit of dark magic we found in the Archive. But we need to find out how it affects us, and we need you to try out a sort of 'recovery' spell on us that might help reduce the effects." replied Lilly.

Elida told them the recovery spell they would need to use.

"Ok, Elida, give it a go...." said Lilly. Elida cast the spell, then a few seconds later Sparkle hit her with the recovery spell.

"Well, that worked fine, I could see all of you, but my head did start to spin a bit, but Sparkle's spell did help a bit. Your turn...". Lilly cast the spell, then Magic hit her with the recovery spell.

"Yeah, see what you mean!" said Lilly. "Everyone glows brightly, and everything is a bit spinning! You want to try again?".

"Ok. But Magic, why don't you go over to the far side of the field, and hide away in the undergrowth....". Once more, Elida cast the spell, and Sparkle countered.

"Whoa... not so nice.... But I could see Magic quite clearly. Ok, let's try it once again....". A third time Elida cast the spell, and Sparkle cast the recovery spell. "I don't think I can.......", and that's when she gently collapsed onto the grass. It was clear that she was still breathing, but it was a few minutes before she came around.

"You ok?"

"Not really, I feel....", and that's when she threw up. "Give me a few minutes.... but Lilly, you need to do it too, so you're prepared for what it feels like!"

Lilly did the spell a second time, and started to feel a bit dizzy, and when she had cast the third one: while she didn't quite pass out, she fell down on the grass, and also threw up. Magic and Sparkle threw a couple of extra recovery spell onto Lilly, in case they helped.

"Oh, definitely not good... about ten times worse than being on a fairground ride!".

"Did the extra recovery spells help at all?"

"Not that I noticed. The first one each time seemed to take the edge off it though....". Finally, about 15 or 20 minutes later, the field stopped spinning for both Elida and Lilly.

"Ok, when we need to do this, we're going need you two with us: Sparkle, you stay with Elida, Magic, you stay with me." said Lilly. "I'm guessing that what's likely to happen is that one of us will spot our Dark Fairy, so I suggest whoever that is follows her, and recasts the spell, to work out where she's going, reporting to the other. The second one of us can try and get a bit ahead, ready to take over. Don't repeat the spell too quickly, or we won't find where she's finally going."

"Yes, that sounds good to me,” said Elida.

They sat and chatted for a while.

"Hey, is it just me, or has anyone else spotted a pattern to where her victims live?" said Magic. She waved her wand, and her tablet appeared, and she brought up a map, and roughly marked the 4 locations: they were all to the south of the town, and more generally to the east. "Now, the farm buildings are to the south-east... if I were a fairy needing to hide, that's where I'd hide, or in the woods behind the farm"

"So, Lilly, why don't we go there, and run the spell again, see if we spot anything: I reckon we might spot her even if she's inside"

"Yes, that sounds like a good idea, and it will be good practice.... but only cast the spell twice each". They all flew off to the farm, and tried the spell in different places, but had no luck, so they went back to their guest house, to have some lunch. Ella and Puck had got up, after managing a few hours’ sleep.

"Hey, can we borrow Elida again?" asked Ella.

"Sure, although we think you should relocate the kit - we'll get the FAS guys to help you"

"Where to, and why?" asked Ella. Lilly explained that they had a good feeling that the Dark Fairy had found a good place to hide, somewhere near the farm or woods (although they couldn't find her), and her victims all seemed to be towards the south east of the town centre. "So, I'll leave it to you to have a quick fly around, and decide where to locate yourselves."

"Sure, no problems"

------

"So, what we three gonna do this afternoon?" asked Sparkle, after lunch.

"Well, maybe I can take you to the Uni, and introduce you to the milkshake bar?"

"Milkshakes?"

"Yeah, more bar than milkshake though... they ARE alcoholic.... come on, it is a STUDENT bar, we're not THAT stupid!"

------

"Anyone seen Lilly, Sparkle or Magic?" asked Faylinn: the other 5 of them were sat around the dinner table, about to start their dinner. Suddenly the front door opened, then closed loudly a few seconds later.

Lilly, Magic & Sparkle walked into the dining room. Actually, I tell a lie, all three of them ROLLED in: Lilly had persuaded the other two to get roller boots! And they sort of 'fell' into their chairs. Yes, they were all a little drunk!

"Boy, those milkshakes were strong!" said Magic.... "But somehow, that makes it so much easier to walk... err, roll... in these things!".

Five completely sober, plus 3 slightly drunk, fairies ate their dinner: once again, the fairy who ran the guesthouse had made them an excellent dinner. As she ate, Lilly noticed that Elida and Puck kept glancing at each other, which pleased her.

"Well, I'm happy to report that we've moved all the kit closer to the target zone, and it's still working!" said Ella. "So, we have good news and bad news: the good news is that the second sensor has been repaired, and is working well, so we can now give a reasonable estimate of bearing and distance to where the magic is happening. And once again, Elida was very helpful today with our testing."

"You know" said Elida, "What it REALLY needs is an App, that can automatically overlay your results onto Google Maps".

"Yeah, but we haven't got the time to do that right now. But I'll see if I can do something manually... take the results that Puck gives me, and manually work out the location, which I can then check on the map... I'm guessing that would be easier for you guys?"

"Absolutely!" said Lilly, who was starting to get a little less drunk. "And the BAD news?"

"It's taking about 10 to 15 minutes to actually GET the location from the kit. But we're going to keep working on it, see if we can get it quicker for you"

"Damn it!" said Lilly, "I'll guarantee she won't hang around THAT long. But at least we'll find our victim quicker - and maybe we'll get lucky with our fairy-locater spell"

"You have a fairy-locater spell?" asked Faylinn. "Nice!"

"Yes, but it's going to potentially need 4 of us to do it... so you and Flora may need to deal with tomorrow's new victim by yourselves" explained Lilly.

"I'm sure we can manage that; we're getting pretty used to what to do now,” said Faylinn.

Lilly exhaled a big breath. "We're getting so close to her, and unless we get very lucky tomorrow, we're still so far away from actually finding her. So, Ella, Puck, what's your plans for tonight? Same as last night?"

"Yes, I think so... get a bit of rest, then back to site a bit after midnight. While we wait for something to happen, Puck and I can review everything he's done, and see if we can speed things up a bit. And we should have the third sensor ready by tomorrow, maybe THAT will make a difference."

"Guys, I need to tell you that you are doing a great job, especially given that you're not in a normal indoor lab. And that includes you, Elida!" said Lilly.


Offline Sparky

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Re: Story - The Dark Fairy
« Reply #36 on: 31. March 2022, 17:42:51 PM »
Chapter 23

Runesdale is a quaint town in middle England, located near a large forest. It's a very popular place to live, and the small-ish town is home to 11 different Estate Agents, with a twelfth one opening up next week.... One thing that Runesdale lacks, is a Public Toilet.... not that it really matters, because you'll have no problems finding a Coffee Shop, and I'm sure if you ask nicely....

Daisy was up late last night... or maybe I should say 'Daisy was up late this morning', as it was about 2:30am by the time she finally got into bed. Normally she wouldn't be up quite THAT late, but last night was a good night, she had a lot of customers willing to pay for her 'online services'.

After finishing online, she had removed her (fake) braces, and her 'work clothes', and had taken a nice warm shower, which not only freshened her up, it also relaxed her, and once in bed she quickly fell asleep.

A couple of hours later, Daisy was sleeping deeply, when a certain very attractive small figure dressed in black, with lovely dark wings to match, came into her room. For some reason, the Dark Fairy was a little more upset than normal, and had decided that THIS victim was going to suffer!

Earlier this evening, our Dark Fairy had visited the orthodontist's place, and had been reading a couple of older books. One of the books had contained pictures of humans with full bands on all their teeth, and they looked absolutely wonderful. She had also seen an article about jaw surgery, and how they used to use lovely shiny wires to hold the person's jaws together. Plus, she re-read the book that showed such beautiful shiny things as expanders.

As she looked at Daisy lying in bed, she was getting some strange feelings. Feelings that there was something nearby that she should look at... She flew around Daisy's flat, and in the second bedroom she got the most pleasant surprise. There were shiny braces. And facebows and headgears. One particular item caught her eyes: a beautiful black leather high-pull headgear! She decided that she could use that in a moment, so picked it up, and took it with her, back into Daisy's bedroom.

So, what to give this poor victim tonight? She started with a full set of shiny metal bands on ALL her teeth, wisdom teeth included. Then welded in an expander, across the roof of her mouth. Next, she added thick shiny archwires, with a few springs on them both at the front, all designed to give her a very obvious shiny metallic mouth look. But what colour ligatures should she use tonight to hold this amazing orchestra of metal together? She chose a mixture of Ruby Red, Gold and Purple! Then she used some wires on her front teeth, to hold her jaws together.

But there was still something missing: headgear. She magicked up a pair of facebows, fitting one to her top jaw, the other to her lower jaw, both held in place with glue. She used Daisy's own black leather high-pull headgear and connected that to her upper facebow, then magicked up a matching black leather neck-strap for her lower facebow.

She sat back, and admired her handiwork: yes, it was beautiful! In fact, it looked so good that she sat there for at least 5 minutes, admiring her handiwork.

By that point, Daisy was staring to stir a little: not surprising given all the metal that was suddenly in her mouth. The Dark Fairy watched as Daisy started to wake up, and decided that maybe it was time for her to go.

Daisy's mouth felt very strange to her. She tried to open her mouth, to yawn, but discovered that she couldn't - something was stopping her from opening her mouth. Her tongue could feel something in the top of her mouth, and more generally a metallic taste in her mouth. She put her hand up to her face, and felt the two facebows - this was something she was quite familiar with, she often wore headgear with her fake braces.

By now, Daisy was pretty much fully awake, and started to wonder where these braces had come from: after all, she had removed her own fake braces before coming to bed. She got out of bed, turning on the bedside light, then walked over to her dressing table, where she sat on her stool, and looked into the mirror. She saw the two facebows going into her mouth, and the associated headgear: half a moment, wasn't that her OWN leather headgear? It was. But there was now a matching cervical strap made of leather too. Nice! She opened her lips, so she could see what was inside her mouth: what she saw was just amazing: she had full bands on all the teeth that she could see - which explained the metal taste. An amazing mix of coloured ligatures. What seemed to be small springs on her archwires.... and wires at the front that connected her top braces to her bottom braces - well that explained why she couldn't open her mouth! Her open mouth turned into a huge smile!

"Wow, thith ith jutht amathing!" she said to herself.

It was at about this point that a couple of other small creatures - our hero fairies - arrived, not that she could actually see them.

For some reason, Daisy felt a little sleepy, and closed her eyes for a few moments, and fell asleep whilst still sitting at her dressing table. When she woke, just moments later, she found a piece of paper on the dressing table in front of her. It said 'I wish I could keep these braces for a while, they are so cool!'. She had no idea where the piece of paper came from, but something told her that she really should say those words.

"I with I coulg keep theethe bwathes for a while, they are tho cool!" she said, with a lot of difficulty. With that, she went back to her bed, where she lay down, and spent a short time 'enjoying her braces', then fell asleep again....

Offline Sparky

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Re: Story - The Dark Fairy
« Reply #37 on: 01. April 2022, 21:23:57 PM »
Chapter 24

Now that Ella and Puck's kit was working, they decided that needed to be ready to get into action at a moment's notice. Whether they would be able to actually CATCH a certain fairy was another matter, as it seemed that it would take up to 15 minutes to get the actual location, and they were pretty certain that the certain fairy wouldn't hang around THAT long, but it was always worth a try. Now, whilst the Dark Fairy had visited the last victim around 5am, they couldn't guarantee that she wouldn't be earlier, so they decided that they would all try and get some sleep, then get out and wait with Ella and Puck from about 2:30am.

Now, you're probably asking 'hey, couldn't the fairies just keep flying around, to try and catch our Dark Lady?' It's a nice idea, but the reality of it is simply that flying and casting spells DOES rather take it out of you. It's something you can maybe do for 30 minutes, maybe an hour at a push, but that's about it. Lilly had already thought about this, and if they didn't make any progress in the next few nights, then one option WAS to call in a load of other fairies to help. But she was trying to keep a pretty low profile, so the Dark Fairy wouldn't spot them. Flood the place with a few dozen other fairies, and it's no longer 'low profile'!

So, from about 2:30 they went and sat patiently on the rooftops, adjacent to where Puck and Ella were. They made sure to take some cards and some soft drinks with them, to keep them occupied. It wasn't until around 4:30 that Ella reported: "ok, guys, looks like we may have something, give us 10 minutes or so....".

"Ok, Elida, when we get there, you go up high, and run the 'detect fairy': I don't imagine we'll get anything but it's worth a try, and by being up high, you should get good coverage. Sparkle, make sure you stay with Elida to cast the recovery spell, and Magic, you're with me, just in case.... Faylinn and Flora, start searching for magic when we get there, to locate the specific house, then just wait on the roof until Elida has cast her search spell. We'll keep away from Faylinn and Flora, so you'll know that if you detect THREE fairies, you'll know our Dark Fairy is still there."

The girls got themselves ready. Lilly went over to see Ella, who was waiting with her tablet to put in a range and direction, to convert it to grid coordinates, which she could then put onto the map app.

"Ok, here we go.... it's off to the south-west, about half to three quarters of a mile or so..." The girls launched themselves into the air: they could start on their way, and Ella would give them more details in a moment. Ella mumbled as she pressed buttons. "Ok, in the vicinity of 98 Archwire Avenue... that's 98 Archwire Avenue!"

"Thank you, Ella! - and thank you too, Puck!" said Lilly.

The others typed the address into their tablets, and very quickly saw where they needed to go.... once there, Faylinn and Flora ran a search. "Ok, got it!" said Faylinn.

By this point, Elida was up quite high with Sparkle, and guessing that the Dark Fairy would probably be going to the south, stayed a little to the north, then cast the 'find a fairy without them knowing' with as much power as she could, followed by Sparkle running the 'recovery' spell on Elida.... She could see two fairies together on the house, and could see Lilly and Magic over to the side. She looked around as much as she could, but sadly that was it. "Sorry guys, no luck, I think she's gone....".

"Ok then, thanks for trying... let's get in and meet today's victim!" said Lilly. Sparkle went over and stayed close to Elida as they flew down: she knew that Elida was likely to be a bit dizzy for a while.

Faylinn and Flora were the first into the house, but the others were there moments later. "Hey, don't suppose anyone noticed what number house this is, did they?" asked Lilly.

"I'll go take a look, if you like...." said Sparkle, who flew outside.

The others all went into the bedroom, where they found tonight's victim. She was actually awake, lying in bed, and touching her braces with her fingers. Unlike any of the previous victims, she wasn't screaming. In fact, she had the most massive smile on her face!

"Oh, nice and shiny!!!.... DOUBLE headgear! And it looks like she has full-bands on all her teeth too!!!" commented Faylinn.

"Nice mix of colours for the ligs" added Magic.

"Hey, did she get her mouth wired shut? And that is some snazzy headgear, looks like it's leather!" said Lilly. The fairies were all staring at the victim, admiring the large amount of metal, when Sparkle returned.

"Ella - looks like we're at number 94 - so well done!" said Sparkle, who then got close enough to see tonight’s victim. "Hey, I think I recognise her" says Sparkle, "She's a..... ummm.... well... umm.... errr..." (digging herself rapidly into an embarrassingly big hole)

"Do go on..." says Lilly.

"She's a.... a.... a.... fetish.... cam-girl.... usually wears fake braces, and I'm thinking that lovely leather Interlandi headgear with shiny brass rivets she's wearing is actually hers..."

"And you know this ... how?" asked Lilly

By now, Sparkle was bright red. "I may have 'accidentally' paid for her erm... private 'footage' over on OnlyFans... whilst doing some braces research, of course!"

"Ok, and the channel's called...?"

"Daisy's Super Special Metalmouth Stream. Oh, this is SOOO embarrassing."

"That's ok, I mean, there's only.... well, you, me, Magic, Faylinn, Elida and Flora that now know your naughty little secret"

"But what about all our readers?"

"Sorry, yes, forgot about all of them! Anyway, that explains her massive smile, she's actually ENJOYING what our Dark Fairy has given her tonight,” said Lilly.

"I've got an idea,” said Magic. "As she seems to like the braces, why don't we just lock her in, leave her a note, then come back later on, after we've all had some more sleep". Her comment made both Elida and Faylinn giggle.

"Yes, I guess we could...... but I have a better idea! Let's go talk to her, see what she wants? I reckon there's a good deal to be made here..."

"How do we talk to her?" asked Elida. "I mean, humans can't actually see us or hear us."

"Not like this they can't, but we can put her to sleep, and join her in her dream."

"You're kidding? No way!!"

"Yup, it's something Tats and I and a few others worked on when we were both still at Uni, it can be quite useful. Hey, why don't you join me? And Sparkle, you know her, so why don't you come too. While we do that, Magic, do you want to do your normal work of hacking her phone and computer, see what else you can find about her. It would even be nice to know her real name!"

"Oh, this is gonna be so cool!" said Elida. Lilly smiled: she remembered the first time she had gone into a human's dreams... yes it WAS pretty damn cool!"

"Ok, two things, Elida: First we may or may not have our wings in the dream... either way, it's not a big deal. Second: if you do magic in a dream, it's about ten times as effective, so just do small things! Ok, let me put her to sleep - Faylinn and Flora: feel free to have a good look at her mouth whilst she's asleep, it won't affect us!" Lilly waved her hands and cast a sleep spell. "Are you two ready? Take my hands.....". Lilly said the relevant magic words, and a moment later they were in an orthodontist's office. They looked at the treatment chair, and Daisy was sat in it, her mouth full of metal. For whatever reason, the orthodontist and his assistant were not there.

"Hello Daisy!" said Lilly.

"Oh, hello there.... sorry, I didn't see you!". As Daisy spoke, her voice was both distorted by the braces, yet at the same time clear and easy to understand. The fairies moved closer to Daisy. One other advantage of being in a dream with humans is that fairies and humans were actually the same sort of size.

"I'm Lilly, by the way, and this is Sparkle and Elida."

"Hi ladies! Erm - are those wings you have there?"

Lilly waggled her shoulders, and could feel that she did indeed have wings. "Yes, we do..."

"It's odd, I've never seen anyone with wings before, even in a dream"

"Yeah, that's because we're all fairies...."

"Oh, come on, everyone knows that fairies don't exist!"

"I promise you that fairies DO exist. How do you think you got those braces?"

"Well, it's a dream... I can dream up anything in a dream"

"I was thinking about the ones you were enjoying just before you fell asleep."

"Ah, yes, THOSE. I WAS rather wondering how I got them. Hey, did YOU give them to me?"

"No, it wasn't us, it was another fairy who gave them to you. Anyway, Sparkle here tells me that you like braces!"

"Yes, I do! So, my braces... from what I could tell, they were pretty extreme! Hey, did you get a good look at them? I'd love to know exactly what I have..."

"Well, from what I saw" said Elida, "you have a mouthful of full metal bands, with multi-coloured ligs. I think I saw a couple of springs too. Your jaws seemed to be wired together, and you have two facebows, with rather nice leather headgears"

"Oooh, nice. Leather - I bet that's MY leather high-pull." Daisy sat and thought a bit. "Hey, you say you're fairies?"

"Yes."

"And aren't fairies supposed to fulfil wishes?"

"Ummm... yes..."

"Even in dreams?"

Elida looked at Lilly, who answered the question: "Yes, we do".

"So, if I was to wish that all three of you were dressed from head to toe in leather cat-suits.... you'd have to do what I ask"

"You're enjoying this, aren't you?" said Lilly.

"Oh, of course I am... so do I get my wish?".

Lilly breathed out noisily "I suppose so!". She made her wand appear, and waved it, and the three fairies were now all dressed from neck to ankle in black leather catsuits, with suitably matching black roller boots.

"Not too bad!" said Sparkle. "You happy now?"

"Yes, and may I say how lovely you all look in black! Anyway, why DID you crash my dream?"

"Ah, yes.... the braces!" said Lilly. "Hey, Sparkle, you're probably better at this...."

"Ok, so you got given some rather extreme braces by someone we have got to know, but there's good news and bad news.... I know you like braces coz I've seen some of your videos, and something tells me that you'd probably like to keep them..."

"Definitely an option!" said Daisy, "although I'm not quite so keen on having my jaws wired shut. I mean ok for today, but I'd like to be able to eat"

"The problem is that, as they are, I can guarantee that no human will ever be able to remove your braces. Ever!"

"Ah, not good"

"Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention that I'll guarantee that the facebows are also both irreversibly glued in too"

"That's not so good either! But I'm guessing you guys CAN remove them?"

"Yes, we can, and THAT's what we need to talk about..."

"You holding me to ransom?"

"Oh, no, not in the least! What I was thinking was that we could remove them for you, but then put them back again, but in a way that you COULD get them removed later on"

"Oooh, yes, I do like that idea! But it's gonna be a bit awkward going to an ortho with braces, and asking him to take them off..."

"Hmm, maybe we can help with that too...."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, Elida here is a tooth fairy, and she's pretty good with braces too. Elida, would you be interested in taking Daisy on as a longer-term client?".

Elida smiled. "That sounds like it could be fun!"

"So, what do you think, Daisy?" asked Sparkle

Daisy was smiling (and therefore showing of a lovely sparkling set of dream-braces). "Definitely interested"

"I have a suggestion,” said Elida.

"Go on,” said Lilly.

"We remove the magic braces, but replace them, exactly as-is, but in an easily-removable way. For today. I can come back this evening, and un-wire them. Then when Daisy wants them changing, I can come back and see her again"

"I have a couple of problems with that, but I suspect we'll work a way around it. First of all, we're going to get into a LOT of trouble if we just give Daisy braces."

"What if she wishes for them?"

"Yes, that would work, I think. The other issue is that, Daisy, you can't be asking for different braces every five minutes... I mean, we all have real jobs to do"

Elida smiled, but this time there was a certain wickedness to her smile. "That's ok, if she mis-behaves, I'll just give her something extreme and nasty, maybe leave her with her jaws wired together for a few days"

"You might get into a bit of trouble if you start doing that!"

"Would I? I'd would just claim that it was justifiable use of excess spelling!"

"Hmm, let me think about it. Daisy, what do you think?"

"Yes please! And I promise to try and be sensible" replied Daisy

"Ok, sounds like we have an agreement. There's another minor thing, Daisy: you can't go telling anyone and everyone about us"

"You kidding? Who's ever gonna believe me, a fetish streamer, if I said that fairies were real!"

"Ok, so, I think we're pretty much done here...."

"Lilly?"

"Yes, Elida?"

"Can I try some magic in here?"

"Ok... what you thinking?"

"I thought I could give Daisy a few more braces..."

"Yeah, go on!!!" said Sparkle, "I'm sure Daisy won't complain!". Daisy nodded in agreement.

Elida took out her wand, and cast a spell, leaving Daisy with 12 facebows, 4 sets of J-hooks, 2 facemasks, and goodness knows what other metal inside her mouth.

"Oops...." said Elida


Offline silver-moon-2000

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Re: Story - The Dark Fairy
« Reply #38 on: 02. April 2022, 21:18:22 PM »
I really had to laugh there.
"Oops..." indeed. Elida may have forgotten about the magic being ten times as strong.  >:D
Can't tell you how envious I am of your talent of story-telling.

Offline Sparky

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Re: Story - The Dark Fairy
« Reply #39 on: 03. April 2022, 15:37:53 PM »
It's fun when you get the chance to write something as silly as those last two paragraphs, and even nicer to know that it managed to raise a laugh!

Offline Sparky

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Re: Story - The Dark Fairy
« Reply #40 on: 03. April 2022, 15:40:36 PM »
By the way, you may have spotted I changed my avatar... I searched for images of dark fairies, and that was the closest I found to my idea of what my Dark Fairy looks like

Offline 8749

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Re: Story - The Dark Fairy
« Reply #41 on: 03. April 2022, 18:11:25 PM »
hi Sparky,

your story is really great! I'm really looking forward to the sequel. I hope we accompany Daisy still a weile!

Offline Sparky

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Re: Story - The Dark Fairy
« Reply #42 on: 03. April 2022, 23:03:15 PM »
Following Daisy's story wasn't something I had thought of..... interesting idea though! In the meantime, let's see how the fairies get on....

--------------------

Chapter 25


"Ah, you're back again,” said Faylinn. "How did it go? From the smile on Elida's face, I'd say it went well."

"Yes, we have decided to help Daisy with her love of braces.... So, we would like you guys to remove Daisy's braces, but put them back again using normal human glues" explained Lilly.

"I'm ok with the first bit, but don't we need a wish for the second bit?" asked Faylinn.

"Indeed, it will make it a lot easier to justify, and I think Sparkle is already working on something...."

Sparkle had magicked up a piece of paper, and used more magic to write on the paper. She then put it on the dressing table, in front of Daisy, so she'd see it when she woke her.

Magic came back in and joined the others. "Well, Daisy's real name is apparently Carrie Rosepeach, she's in her mid-30s, and lives here alone. She has a part-time day job working in a cafe, plus, as we already know, earns a not insubstantial amount from her braces streaming service, which she does in the evenings. She has several items of fake orthodontia in the other bedroom, which she uses for her streaming. Apart from that, she's pretty normal."

"Ok, ready for me to wake her up briefly?". Sparkle waved her wand, and Daisy woke up, still sitting at the dressing table. In front of her, she could see a piece of paper which she was sure hadn't been there earlier. It said 'I wish I could keep these braces for a while, they are so cool!'. She had no idea where the piece of paper came from, but something told her that she really should say those words.

"I with I coulg keep theethe bwathes for a while, they are tho cool!" she said, with a lot of difficulty. With that, she went back to her bed, where she lay down, and spent some time 'enjoying her braces'.... The girls, especially Flora, were a little embarrassed, so left Daisy alone for a bit. After that, Sparkle crept back in again, and sent her to sleep, allowing the three tooth fairies to do their job. Today it was slightly different, in that having removed the braces from Daisy's teeth, Faylinn cleaned them up, and Elida re-fitted them, but with a more normal sort of glue, which she (or any human orthodontist for that matter) would be able to remove later on. She then wired Daisy's jaws together again, and finally fitted the two facebows. Rather than re-use the black highpull and cervical headgears, Elida magicked up a bright yellow Interlandi headgear, and fitted it: she thought that Daisy might enjoy the bright colour and different style - and besides, if she didn't, she still had the black headgears she could use.

With their work done, they all went back to the guest house to get a few more hours sleep. Lilly was just about to get into bed when her phone rang.

"Lilly, we have a bit of a problem." said Ella.

"Oh, what's wrong?"

"Well, after using the kit this morning, it err... well.... suffice it to say that there was a load of sparks and smoke!"

"You're telling me it blew up?"

"I guess I am. It doesn't look TOO bad, but we've got a bit of work to do."

"Call in whatever help you need..."

"I already did: Ambrose is on his way! I was hoping Elida could maybe work with us..."

"No problems with that: I get a feeling she'll enjoy that, for a couple of reasons. But let her get a couple of hours sleep first"

Ella smiled. "Sure. But yeah, Puck and Elida seem to get on pretty well. And Elida seems to like learning new stuff, doesn't she?"

"Yes, she's a bright one is Elida, and good at thinking a bit outside the box too. Hey, when she's with you later, let her help with with the kit, I bet she'll enjoy that, and it wouldn't surprise me if she teaches you all something new!"

---

The team started coming down to the dining room shortly after noon: Lilly had spoken with the lady who ran the guesthouse, and had organised them all some brunch, as they had all effectively missed out on breakfast.

"Hey, Elida," said Lilly, "it seems Ella and Puck had a few 'technical difficulties' with the kit this morning, you up for spending the afternoon with them, helping out?"

"Oh dear!" replied Elida, "... and did the 'technical difficulties' include any sparks or smoke?"

"Yes, it did," replied Puck, "but we left Ambrose working on it, and it seems he's pretty much got it working again, plus he's managed to connect up that third sensor he built us. So I'm going to be testing it all out, and working on the magic and software this afternoon, and I was hoping you can help us test it again"

"Of course! Hey, maybe you can explain a bit more about how it all works later on?"

Lilly watched as Elida and Puck chatted together: her experience of Puck was that, whilst being pretty clever on the technical side of things, he was rather geeky, and felt awkward around most girl fairies... so it was so good to see him interacting with someone like Elida. Plus it was also clear that Elida seemed to enjoy spending time with Puck too, and she thought it went more than Elida's curiosity into the way the tech stuff worked. (Yes, Puck worked with Ella, but that was entirely a work thing, and Ella was also a bit geeky in her own way too!)

"Hey, you maybe going to go over and see Daisy later on?" asked Sparkle.

"I guess I probably should" replied Elida. "Something tells me that you'd like to come along too?"

Sparkle didn't actually reply, but she did smile back at Elida, showing off her silverware.

"Hey Lilly, any chance you can explain that 'go into a dream' spell we used earlier?" Elida asked Lilly. "I'm sure I'm going to need to chat with Daisy again, if not today, then maybe next time."

"Yeah, ok, but keep it to yourself will you, it's not an officially sanctioned bit of magic" replied Lilly.

-----

"So, how come it takes so long to work out where the target is?" Elida asked Puck later on.

"Well, it's the way the calculations need to be done...." he replied, and he quickly started talking in loads of technical words, which Elida just didn't understand.

"Hey Puck, that's way over my head, can you simplify it a bit? Look, I REALLY want to help you guys somehow, but I need to understand things a bit".

Puck remembered a comment that Lilly had made to them, about 'don't be scared to let Elida get involved, she's brighter than you might think'. So he sat down with Elida for a while, and explained in simple terms they way the equipment worked. The way Elida was asking questions made it very clear that she understood what he was telling her, so he explained a bit further.

"So, why do you do it like that?" asked Elida "Surely it would be quicker to...." and she went on to describe a way that seemed like it would be better.

"Yeah, we actually started doing it like that, but it was actually slower...." explained Puck. They continued talking: Puck was actually enjoying explaining his work to someone else.

It was about ten minutes later when Elida said "but hang on, you're assuming the target is an instantaneous one... but we think she's there for several minutes, so couldn't you......." and then made another - amazingly sensible - suggestion.

"Yeah..... I guess, in THIS case, you're right... so maybe if we......". Elida and Puck exchanged ideas for a few minutes, then called Ella over, so he could do some sort of 'sanity check' on their ideas.

"How's it going?" she asked

"Well, Elida just came up with an idea: Up until now, we've been working on the basis that we get one hit on the target, and from that we try and calculate a location. But Elida just reminded me that, for what we need NOW, our Dark Fairy target is actually hanging around, probably for a few minutes, which means we could use a more iterative method, using multiple sensor readings. Ok, she's gonna be moving around a bit, but from our perspective, that just a tiny amount, and I'm thinking....." and Puck explained how he thought he could change things, and make things happen a LOT faster.

"You know" said Ella, "that actually makes a lot of sense. It wouldn't work in all cases, but yes, we DO know she's going to be hanging around for a few minutes, so yeah, let's give it a go! What can I do to help?"

Over the next couple of hours, they managed to get a basic setup working, and over the  two hours after that they managed to make it suprisingly usable. Elida had flown off quite some distance away, and did the sort of tooth and braces magic the Dark Fairy was doing, and whilst the accuracy was maybe not quite as good as it could be, they were getting a location within two to three minutes.

When Lilly arrived, Ella, Puck and Elida were sat having a well earned cup of coffee. "From the smiles on your faces, I'm guessing you've made some progress?"

"I guess you might call it 'some progress', although I think I'd call it more like 'a hell of a lot of progress'" replied Ella.

"So, what have you managed to do then?"

"Well, we think the accuracy may only be within a hundred meters or so, BUT we should be able to give you guys a location in 2 to 3 minutes"

"You're kidding? That's absolutely amazing! Well done guys! If it's a few houses out that won't matter too much, it won't take us long to fly over something like a dozen houses to find our Dark Lady."

"And hopefully it won't blow up again tomorrow, we've been testing it solid for the last couple of hours"

"So, how come the massive improvement?"

"Well, part of it was having that third sensor, but a big part of it was Puck explaining things to Elida, and Elida suggesting a new way of doing things. You were right, having someone not so close to what we've been doing worked well"

Offline Sparky

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Re: Story - The Dark Fairy
« Reply #43 on: 05. April 2022, 19:48:04 PM »
Chapter 26

With the magic-detecting kit all working, Elida decided that maybe she should go and see how Daisy was getting on, and remove the wire holding her jaws togethers.

"Hey Sparkle" she said to her phone. "I was going to go over and see Daisy - you said you'd like to join me"

"Try and stop me" was Sparkle's reply. They agreed to meet on the roof of where Daisy lived.

"So how did things go with Ella and Puck this afternoon?" asked Sparkle, as they sat for a moment on the roof.

"Yeah, amazingly well! We should be able to get a reasonably good location with a couple of minutes..."

"Oh, wow, that will be amazing, we might finally get to meet our Dark Fairy! I'll be honest, whilst all this braces stuff this week has been fun, there's only a certain amount of 'fun' you can put up with before it starts to get a bit boring."

"In what way?"

"Well, I've seen enough braces this week to last for some time. The most fun bit has been seeing how our Dark Fairy's skills have progressed over the week. I'll be honest, she did give Daisy a pretty good set of braces this morning! So, how have you been enjoying this week?"

"It's actually been an amazing and full-on week: I have learnt so much, about so many different things. I mean, that Dark Archive, it's pretty amazing. Then being allowed to try out all sorts of different magic both with Flora and Faylinn, and with you guys too. Plus it's actually been really nice working with Puck and Ella"

"You like Puck, don't you? From what I've seen of him, he seems to be quite a nice guy, a bit shy though. Go gently with him...." said Sparkle, smiling. "And as for what you've been doing this week, I suspect a few people will have been told about what you've achieved, and I'm betting you're going to be offered some interesting things to do in the future. But whatever happens, make sure you get to do what YOU want". Sparkle paused, to let Elida bask in the good feelings that she was, without doubt, experiencing. "So, we going to go and remove the wire from Daisy's teeth?"

"Ok. Hey, should we go have a chat with Daisy in a dream again - Lilly told me the spell"

"Yeah, why not? I never really got a proper chance to talk with her this morning". The two fairies went into the house, where they saw Daisy sitting in her lounge, watching the TV. On the table beside her were her two facebows, and the two rather nice black leather headgears, along with an empty cup of tea. The two fairies flew up in front of her, and spent a few minutes admiring her braces, although they couldn't see a lot, as her lips were only slightly apart.

"I might as well send her to sleep here, she looks pretty comfortable" said Sparkle, who then waved her wand, casting a gentle sleep spell on Daisy.

"Ok, I hope I get this right...." said Elida, who waved her wand and said some magic words. The next moment, they were in Daisy's kitchen, along with Daisy - in a dream of course.

"Hi again, Daisy! How has your day been?" said Elida

"Oh hello again.... Elida isn't it, and.... errr....."

"Sparkle..."

"Ah, yes, hi again, Sparkle. It has been a fun day, but I'll tell you what.... I'm so bloomin' hungry! I'm really hoping you're going to remove the wire from my braces so I can eat something!"

"Yes, that's the plan. So what about the braces: do you want to keep them for the moment?" asked Elida.

"Please, that would be nice! I had a really good look at them, and I think I'll be able to cope with them for a while."

"And the crooked teeth?" asked Sparkle, with a smile. "You know, they DO look rather good on you!"

"It's odd, I've always had really nice straight teeth, never needed braces as a kid - which is probably why I now have a thing for braces. So having crooked teeth is actually a bit of a thrill for me. I'm assuming that, at some point, you'll be able to straighten them again?"

"Well, either that, or maybe we could work out an unofficial orthodontic treatment plan, to make it seem your braces are slowly straightening your teeth."

"Could we? That could be fun to do. As long as my treatment is going to need a load of different braces and appliances."

"I am very sure Elida would love to do that for you...." suggested Sparkle. "Any special requests?"

"Well, it could be fun to have a facemask at some point. Definitely some expanders. Hey, any chance I could have some chunky removables at some point too? Maybe something like twin blocks or an activator?"

A shiver went down Elida's spine as she thought about what Daisy was asking for.... "Yes, I'm sure I can do that for you. Anything you DON'T really like?"

"I can't think of anything right now... but that's half the fun of having braces, being forced to wear something that you maybe don't want, that might be a bit embarassing. The jaw wiring for example: it's been a right pain, but that has made it quite interesting too!" Daisy replied with a big smile.

"Ok, so I'll add 'rewire Daisy's teeth together for a week or two' to the list then..." said Elida. Daisy's face looked rather shocked. "It's ok, I was only joking! So, for today, I'll remove the wiring, and leave you with your brackets, and those little springs on the archwires. I'm sure you'll still want to wear your headgear occasionally... oh, and don't worry about the fact that the headgear wear might move your teeth, I can easily fix that for you!". Daisy nodded.

"Hey, Daisy, before we go, I have a question for you: how did you first get into doing the braces streaming?" asked Sparkle.

"It was quite by accident, to be honest. I started off just doing 'normal' streaming, then moved on to being an occasional cam-girl, to bring in an extra bit of money. The problem is always how to get enough 'customers', so I started thinking about what I could do to stand out from the others, and get more customers and more money. I've had a thing for braces for a long time, but never did anything about it, so I started with a bent paperclip in my mouth, pretending I'd just got some braces... wow, the number of extra viewers I got just doing that! So I started buying some fake braces bits... Not only is the extra money useful, I DO enjoy wearing the braces!"

"You ever worn your braces out in public?" asked Sparkle.

"No, I haven't. But I guess I'm going to have to now, aren't I? Ooooh, what a nice thought......" said Daisy, smiling. "Hey can I ask you to do something before you go?"

"Another wish?"

"No, just a request. I would love to see what you guys look like with your wings open, I'm sure they will look pretty....". Elida and Sparkle looked at each other, and nodded, then both opened up their wings, to show Daisy. Fairy wings are very thin, clear-ish and dainty, rather like the wings on a dragonfly.

"Oh, my, you guys look absolutely beautiful! Thank you so much! And don't worry, your secret is safe.". The girls retracted their wings once more.

"Well, Daisy, it's been fun chatting, but I think we should go and fix your braces for you. Oh, do keep an eye open on your dressing table for a bit of paper that might occasionally appear, to prompt you to make a wish - we just need that to keep our systems straight!"

"Have fun with your braces!" said Sparkle.

Elida took out her wand, and waved it. The dream-world faded, and they were back in Daisy's lounge again, with Daisy asleep sitting in her chair.

"You know, I'm quite looking forward to doing Daisy's braces."

"It's very clear, Elida, that - like me - you have a thing for braces. But what is it for you that you like? I mean, you're a tooth fairy, and get to see a lot of braces."

"You know, I've thought about it many times, and I'm still not sure. Part of it is the look and feel of the lovely shiny metal..." said Elida, putting her hand into her pocket, and bringing out one of the sets of braces they had removed earlier in the week. "You have to admit, they ARE very pretty. Another thing is the awkwardness that many of the humans have when they have to get braces - mainly the kids." Elida was looking at Sparkle. "So, YOU have proper braces - in fact you are, as far as I know, the ONLY fairy with real braces - so why did YOU get them? And how do you feel about them now?"

"Definitely the sparkly thing to start with. And it's wierd, but I actually ENJOY the feeling of the brackets in my mouth. And the fact that I'm the only fairy with them is rather nice! And now? Well, I guess the feelings aren't quite so strong, plus my mouth is now very used to them, but it still gives me a thrill when I see my braces in a mirror!"

As they chatted, Elida removed the wire from Daisy's braces, and Sparkle woke Daisy up again, at the same time applying a slight memory wipe.

Daisy yawned. She couldn't remember why, but it DID feel rather nice opening her mouth. She ran her tongue over her braces: she wasn't really sure HOW she had come to have braces, but she was not going to complain. Plus they would look really great when she did her streaming later on. In the meantime, for some reason she felt very hungry, so went into the kitchen to make herself some food.

While she did so, two small winged figures followed har around, admiring the metal braces she had in her mouth.

------

Dinner at the guest house was a very happy affair that evening: if things went well tomorrow, they might actually manage to see the person they had been looking for for nearly a week now: the Dark Fairy. And once they knew WHERE she was, it would hopefully be a fairly simple matter to actually go there and capture her.

"So, Lilly, if we DO manage to track her down tomorrow, what will happen then? I'm guessing you'll be sending in some big burly guys to get her?" asked Elida.

"Actually, no. I'll have some FAS guys on standby, in case something goes wrong, but I'm planning that I'll go in with Magic and Sparkle. I'm really hoping that there's a nice princess under that dark exterior, and that we can take a more gentle approach" explained Lilly.

"I can't imagine she'll give in quietly" said Magic, "so are we going to be able to handle her ok?"

"Don't worry, I'm more than ready for whatever she can throw as us. Plus I've been reading up some spells from that place we visited, that we can all use. Besides, I'm not planning on storming in on her straight away, we'll have plenty of time to get ready for her"

Once again, they all went to bed early, arranging to all be ready by 3am, to go 'Dark Fairy hunting'!


Offline firesonga

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Re: Story - The Dark Fairy
« Reply #44 on: 05. April 2022, 21:34:02 PM »
Thank you for this great story and the progression of characters. I appreciate the effort and development.

Offline Sparky

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Re: Story - The Dark Fairy
« Reply #45 on: 07. April 2022, 16:43:32 PM »
Chapter 27

Runesdale is a quaint town in middle England, located near a large forest. I'm sorry to say that, with the massive influx of visitors and new residents, all the old residents have left the town. As a result, most of the Gentlemen’s Barbers and Ladies Hairdressers have now gone out of business, and five of the hotels are in the process of closing down....  However, on the bright side, the many Coffee Shops continue to do very good business.

Mike is a reasonably good-looking guy, in his 50's, with a shaved head. He's a teacher at the local secondary school, where the kids seem to get on pretty well with him, whilst at the same time respect him. His teeth were very average, which for someone in England means 'need fixing'. Several months ago, Mike's uncle had died, and left him some money, some of which he decided to use to get his teeth fixed. Last month, Mike went to see the local orthodontist, and got himself some clear aligners. Whilst metal brackets would have saved him a bit of money, he didn't fancy the idea of having such obvious braces for his students to see... thus the clear aligners.

Initially, he'd found the aligners felt a 'bit odd' in his mouth, even giving him a slight lisp, but now, a couple of weeks on, he's finding them be quite comfortable. A few students have spotted that he has clear aligners, but no one has responded negatively, with a couple of the students actually expressing their respect that someone in their 50s was willing to have braces to fix their smile.

Mike lives alone: he never married, but has had three long-term affairs, and has recently started to take an interest in a divorced lady a few years younger than himself. Before Mike went to bed last night - alone - he had removed his aligners, brushed his teeth and aligners, then put them back into his mouth. As school started the next day at just after 8:30, Mike needed to wake up a little after 7am, so that meant he had gone to bed at around 10:30.

Thus, at a little before 5am, Mike was fast asleep, and didn't notice the tiny figure, dressed in black, who entered his room (not that he would have actually seen her anyway, as humans are generally unable to see fairies)

The first thing that our Dark Fairy did was to run a sleep spell: she couldn't risk her victim waking up as she used her magic to give him a set of beautiful braces. Somehow, our Dark Fairy knew that Mike was a teacher, so the thought of giving him braces that his students would see was actually VERY appealing!

With Mike most definitely asleep, she opened his mouth to look at his teeth. AAAARRRRGGGHHHHHHH! What were those HORRIBLE things on his teeth? Our Dark Fairy had both read about, and seen patients with, clear aligners, and had decided that they were a disgusting way to get teeth straightened. She was therefore even more enraged than normal: this victim was going to get something a bit more extreme than she had originally planned.

She started by removing his aligners, and threw them onto the bedside table in disgust. Then she moved his teeth around - so easy to do for a tooth fairy. Next, she glued full bands on ALL of his teeth: they all had small 'barbs' on, which would be needed in a moment. In fact, it was worse than that: between his two molars, she fitted an expander, as well as a thick plastic bite plate at the front of his palate. As she added the archwires, she threw several small coil springs onto them. As if that wasn't enough, she added Herbst appliances on both sides.

She paused for a moment, to admire her handiwork. No, there was still something missing. She fitted a couple of screws to his plate - bone anchors - and connected wires to the thick wires of his expanders. Yes, that was better! Next, she used the many 'barbs' on the braces to completely wire his jaws together. So far, so good!

So, headgear or a facemask? Of course, she COULD give him both. No, double facebows today! But fitted and glued-in in such a way to be slightly annoying and uncomfortable, holding his lips slightly apart. She added a high-pull headgear for his upper facebow, and a cervical headgear for the lower one. Again, she looked at him. No, he deserved something 'better'. She removed the simple high-pull and cervical headgears, and magicked up something MUCH nicer for this victim.

Our Dark Fairy sat back and admired her handiwork. Yes, having the facebows hold his lips apart was an excellent idea, as it let everyone see the metal bands on his teeth, with the wires between the top and bottom.

The sleep spell was starting to wear off, and Mike was starting to feel what she had put into his mouth - she guessed he would wake up shortly, so decided that it was time to leave.

Now, like me, I bet you're asking 'but why doesn't she stay to see her victim's reactions when they wake up?'. The answer is actually quite simple: for her first three victims she HAD waited around until they woke up, but for some odd reason she just got no real enjoyment out of watching them. Yes, fitting the braces themselves made her feel REALLY good. Looking at them after was also pretty good too. So, she now took great enjoyment fitting the braces to the teeth she had twisted out of position, then would spend a couple of minutes admiring her handiwork. But when the victim started to stir, she would leave.

Two or three minutes later, Mike started to wake up: something just did NOT feel right. Something in his mouth. And there was something holding his lips uncomfortably apart too. He tried to yawn, but discovered that he was unable to open his mouth. So, he put his hand up to his face, so he could feel what was stopping his mouth from opening, but before his hand got to his mouth, it was stopped by something just in front of his lips.

By now, Mike was starting to panic, so he turned on the bedside light, got out of bed, and went over to the mirror to look at himself. He got quite a shock when he saw himself in the mirror, and his panic level started to rapidly escalate. He vaguely recognised that he had headgear: he had seen a couple of the kids from school in something similar (but away from school, of course), but their headgear looked NOTHING like the headgear HE was currently wearing! And he could see metal on his teeth... a LOT of metal!

Finally, the panic took over.

"Aaaaarrrrgggghhhh!!!!!!" he screamed!

Offline firesonga

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Re: Story - The Dark Fairy
« Reply #46 on: 08. April 2022, 01:13:20 AM »
It's good to know the coffee houses are thriving, shame about the hotels though. As always keep up the great story.

Offline Braceface2015

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Re: Story - The Dark Fairy
« Reply #47 on: 08. April 2022, 01:33:49 AM »
Sparky sent me an advance copy for my collection. Just wait till you get closer to the end. It gets better.

Offline Sparky

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Re: Story - The Dark Fairy
« Reply #48 on: 08. April 2022, 11:49:19 AM »
It's good to know the coffee houses are thriving, shame about the hotels though. As always keep up the great story.

The intro paragraph for each of the braces victims started off being fairly boring, but as things went on, I thought it could be fun to get a bit silly with them! It's clearly very tongue-in-cheek, but the thing about coffee shops is just SOOOO true! We have so many coffee shops in my town now....  and I'm not just thinking the chains, there's quite a few independents too!

Offline Sparky

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Re: Story - The Dark Fairy
« Reply #49 on: 08. April 2022, 12:12:56 PM »
Sparky sent me an advance copy for my collection. Just wait till you get closer to the end. It gets better.

Funnily enough, the "ending" was written quite some time ago (but got tweaked a bit), which made the writing of the earlier parts more fun - as well as easier - because I very much knew where the story was going (let's be honest, most stories that we write have a great starting concept, but we usually struggle to work out an ending!).

So, just before I started writing the story, I was going to take a break, then "Core" came up with the idea of a "Rogue Fairy" story, and he helped choose the braces that our many victims were given.... Maybe I'll get a break after this story?

Offline Sparky

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Re: Story - The Dark Fairy
« Reply #50 on: 10. April 2022, 18:52:14 PM »
Chapter 28


"Hey, guys, we have something,” shouted Puck. It was a little before 5am, and everyone was waiting to get into action. They had been waiting around for almost 2 hours, all wanting to finally find the elusive Dark Fairy.

"And I have a location coming up...." said Ella. "Wow, this new program is loads faster.... looks like it's close to where you were yesterday". The six fairies flew off in the general direction. In the background, Ella was doing a load of calculations to convert the vector location onto a map reference, then she entered the coordinates into Google maps. "You guys won't believe this, it's Archwire Avenue again, but the other end!... looks like about number 4 or number 6 Archwire Avenue. Happy hunting everyone!"

As the six fairies flew to ground zero, they knew what to do: Faylinn and Flora would find the house, but not go inside until they were sure that the Dark Fairy was not inside: Lilly had decided that, even with six of them, trying to deal with a dark fairy inside a human house would NOT be a good idea. She knew that the Dark Fairy would not come quietly, but would inevitably put up quite a fight. So, they needed to be out in the open, or wherever she actually 'lived'.

Sparkle was to stay close to Elida, and Magic would be with Lilly. As they got to the target location, Faylinn did the 'detect magic and angst' spell: it was spot on where Puck and Ella had sent them. "This is the place" said Faylinn, "second house in the road, so number 4".

Elida and Sparkle were slightly to the north, and well above the houses, with Lilly and Magic off to their side: that way, Elida would get a good view of the house, and the gardens between the house and the farm, where they were sure the Dark Fairy was hiding.

Elida took several deep breaths, hoping it might slightly counteract the dizziness that she knew would happen. "Ok, here goes..." said Elida, as she cast her first 'detect fairies' spell. Immediately Sparkle threw the 'recovery' on her.

"Any luck?" asked Sparkle.

"Well, just seeing two fairies at the house, so our 'target' has clearly already gone." Knowing that the glow from the spell would last a bit, she looked carefully around. "I think I may have her!" said Elida. "She's something like a couple of hundred meters almost straight ahead of me.... I'd say she's heading in the direction of the farm, as we expected.... let's go!". Elida quickly flew off in the direction where she had seen the glow, with Sparkle right behind her, while Lilly and Magic kept to her side, and slightly above her, in order to keep out of Elida's line of sight.

There was a balance between Elida launching the second spell early, to make sure she spotted the Dark Fairy again, versus waiting a bit longer, so she got a better idea where she was heading. "Ok, I'm going to do my second spell... you ready Sparkle?"

"Right behind you.... go for it!". Elida cast her second spell, which made her head spin a lot more, but Sparkle's recovery spell made it a little less bad. "Yup, she's down there... looks like she's following the fences and hedges, and still heading towards the farm. She doesn't seem to be going all that fast, so I'm guessing that she's not aware of us. Lilly, fly ahead of us a bit, but go a bit more to the left, as long as you two don't fly any lower you won't be in my way!".

It was still dark, but there was a bit of light from the many stars, plus light from a few street lights, so whilst they didn't see the details, they could make out the general shape of things around them.

"Ready for your third one, Elida? Sparkle, make sure you're with her...." said Lilly. They all knew that Elida was very likely to faint, and fall out of the sky.

Elida ran her third spell, followed by Sparkle running the recovery spell. Elida's world was spinning around her, she didn't feel good. "Farm...." she said, "crossing main road.......". And that's when she passed out, and started falling gently towards the ground. Like an aeroplane, her wings stopped her from simply plummeting, and her landing was soft, onto a patch of wild flowers and weeds.

It was now over to Lilly. "Ok, Magic, you ready?". "Yes, boss..." she replied, staying close to her. Lilly cast the spell, and immediately felt her head spin, but she could clearly see the Dark Fairy: she was heading towards the right of the main farm buildings. "Over to the right a bit" said Lilly, so that Magic knew what was happening. As they got to adjacent to the farm buildings, Lilly cast her second spell, making her head spin even more. "She's going to the back of the farm....". Lilly and Magic kept flying after the Dark Fairy.

"Ok, here goes nothing..." said Lilly, and she cast her third spell. Despite the even worse dizziness, Lilly could see where she was... and then the glowing Dark Fairy just disappeared from sight. "Got you, you bit......". And that's where Lilly passed out. Magic went down with her as she landed on a mossy roof.

"Ok, Lilly's down, how's Elida?" asked Magic.

"I think she's about to come around. Sounds like Lilly knows where she went,” said Sparkle

"I hope so".

"Oh my god, I feel so crap...." said Elida as she started to come around soon after... and then, as before, threw up.

"Elida's ok, going to take a bit to recover I suspect. Hey, Elida, well done!"

"How did Lilly get on?" asked Elida

"Sounds like she knows where our Dark Fairy is hiding, but she's out for the moment...." explained Sparkle to Elida. Elida got up very slowly, and took a few deep breaths, then started to gently walk around. The dizziness was slow to wear off, but Elida didn't mind, as it sounded like her efforts and Lilly's efforts had actually been successful in locating where the Dark Fairy was staying.

"Lilly's waking up,” said Magic. "Hey Faylinn, Flora, how's today's victim?"

"Well, he was a bit agitated, but we got him asleep now. I'm surprised you didn't hear his scream." said Faylinn.

"Go on, what's he got then?" asked Elida.

"Probably easier to list what he's NOT got!" said Faylinn with a giggle. "He has full bands, jaws wired together all around. Springs - think elastics - between the jaws, plus multiple small springs on his archwires. I think I can see some sort of bite plane at the top too. Plus two glued-in facebows, and a very interesting pair of headgears! Oh, I forgot the Herbsts...."

"Mmmm, sounds like he has plenty of sparkly metal in his mouth then!" said Elida, smiling.

"And outside too... you need to see it to appreciate it!"

"Hey guys" said Lilly, who had just come around. Like Elida, her head was still spinning badly, so she took several deep breaths, which seemed to help a bit. "Well done everyone, and that includes you, Ella and Puck! I'm pretty happy I know where she is... remember on the farm, behind that barn, there's a small stream going off into the trees? I saw her go just inside the tree-line, then she suddenly disappeared. I'm guessing there's some sort of entrance into the Old Palace in there somewhere."

"So why would she just suddenly disappear?" asked Magic.

"I'll guess it's to do with the residual magic inside the place, plus there must be quite a lot of stone from the Old Palace, so it’s like she went underground." suggested Lilly.

"So, what we waiting for?" asked Sparkle.

"Hey, girls, calm down. First of all, I need to recover, plus I need to get the backup in place, and we need to prepare ourselves."

"Prepare?"

"Yeah, load up that load of spells from..." and she was about to openly say 'the Dark Archive', but remembered that Flora and Faylinn would be listening in. ".... err, load up the spells we found the other day! But first, when Elida and I are feeling a bit better, let's go back and meet today's victim, and sort him out."
   
---------

About twenty minutes or so later, when both Lilly and Elida were feeling a bit better, Lilly and Magic gently flew back to where Elida and Sparkle were, then they all flew back to the latest victim's house together. They went inside, and into the victim's bedroom, where Faylinn and Flora were standing over a now sleeping middle-aged man.

"So, just after Elida gave the 'all-clear' we came inside, and found this gentleman" explained Faylinn. "Initially he was still asleep, but he soon woke up, then got out of bed a minute later, and went over to look at himself in the mirror. Clearly he didn't like what he saw, and that's when he screamed out rather loudly - I'm surprised you didn't hear it!"

"Yeah" continued Flora, "so we decided to just get him back to bed, and hit him with a sleep spell."

"We haven't actually removed anything yet, we thought you'd want to see today's handiwork as-is. You have to admit, our Dark Lady has done well today!" said Faylinn

Normally, both Magic and Sparkle would have gone off straight away to examine the victim's phone and laptop, but they were far more interested in what today's victim was wearing. Yes, they had heard Faylinn’s description of the braces, but yes, the headgear just HAD to be seen. Both the high-pull and the cervical headgears were made of bright red leather. But that wasn't all: the straps were all adorned with little shiny metal spikes, the sort of thing that would have made a great punk rock accessory back in the day! Added to the fact that the facebows had been adjusted such that they held his lips apart, giving an amazing view of the super shiny metal bands on his noticeably twisted and sticking out front teeth, along with the wire that held his jaws together, the effect was simply spectacular, especially to our fairies, all of whom appreciated the beauty of sparkly shiny metal.

Ok, so maybe Flora wasn't quite as transfixed as the others. Magic spent a minute taking pictures, to document today's victim.

"Wow" said Elida, vocalising what the rest of them were thinking. "She's definitely excelled herself today!"

"Yeah, but there's something a bit odd.... take a look on the bedside table, next to the lamp,” said Faylinn. Everyone looked over at the table, and saw the two clear aligners.

"Hmm... maybe he was wearing those when our Dark Fairy arrived? let's go do some digging!". Magic grabbed his phone, and started looking at it. Sparkle went downstairs, to try and find his laptop: she returned less than a minute later, laptop in one hand, and a small sheaf of paper in her other.

"Treatment plan!" said Sparkle, "You were right Magic, looks like he got the aligners a couple of weeks ago. You know, I bet when our Dark Fairy saw the aligners, she was not at all happy, and that's why he's got what he's got. Ok, you guys ready to start removing stuff?"

"Erm, do you mind if I just watch for the moment, I'm still not 100% after earlier" asked Elida.

"Sure, we'll be ok, although we may need your help in a minute to remove the glue" replied Faylinn.

"Any ideas on the glue yet?" asked Magic.

"Indications are that it's the same as yesterday". Flora started by carefully undoing the two headgears from the facebows, which she passed over to Elida. "Ok, let's get the wiring off, so we can open his mouth. Hmm, looks like she's wired every single tooth together today! I think things will be a lot easier if we get the facebows out first.... Elida, you going to be ok to help with this?".

"Yeah... same as yesterday? Probably a good place to start.." replied Elida. All three fairies cast a different spell, and they were able to remove the facebows.

"Makes a change for things to be relatively easy" said Faylinn, as Flora started to run a spell to undo the wiring that held today's victim's jaws together.

"Ok, so todays victim is Michael Goldstone, but he seems to call himself Mike" started Magic. "He's in his 50's, and he's a part-time teacher at the local school - seems like he's decided to semi-retire, does charity work two days a week. According to his treatment plan, and backed up by looking at his aligners, Mike has a slight malocclusion, and got the clear aligners a couple of weeks ago."

"Well, his malocclusion is a bit more than 'slight' now," commented Faylinn, "she's done quite a job on his teeth".

As she said that, Flora removed the last wire holding Mikes jaws together, and opened his mouth, and took a look inside. "I think you guys are going to like what he has in his mouth. She leaned back, whilst still holding his mouth open, to let Elida and Faylinn take a look.

A big smile came to Elida's face as she saw what was inside Mike's mouth. "Come on, share...." said Sparkle.

"Well, fixed expanders, with a biteplate attached. But he also has 2 bone anchors, which are wired up to the expander!" explained Elida.

"Oooh, got to see...." said Magic, who got closer so she could take a look. "Hey, Sparkle, this is pretty cool....". Sparkle joined her, and also took a look.

"Oh my, so much metal!" said Sparkle, running her tongue over her own braces, whilst wishing she could also have expanders and a bite-plate. And maybe even a few of those springs on her archwires. Heck, the Herbsts were rather appealing too!

"Ok, ladies, when you're ready.... can we have some space please?" said Flora.

While our three very capable tooth fairies removed Mike's braces, Lilly called up the office and spoke to John, to arrange a small FAS team as backup, reminding him that they would need to stay quiet when they got there, as she wanted to gain the upper hand by surprising the Dark Fairy. Then she took Magic and Sparkle downstairs so they could chat about what they would need to do in a few hours’ time.



Offline Sparky

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Re: Story - The Dark Fairy
« Reply #51 on: 12. April 2022, 16:47:26 PM »
Chapter 29

The three fairies, Magic, Sparkle and Lilly, are standing at the end of a narrow track, in front of a small brick building (next to an old barn). They are all dressed as young fairies, in nice colourful wispy dresses. Lilly also persuaded them all to wear roller boots today too, for some strange reason (ok, yeah, Lilly 'thinks they are trendy', I guess that's as good a reason as any!). A small stream flows out of the small building, and down into a gully.

"Ok, let's see what's inside...." says Lilly. They roll inside, and find that they are inside a building, a well house for a large spring. On a shelf to the side, they see a set of keys and an old lamp, as well as a bottle (with what looked like water inside - goodness knows how long THAT had been there!) and some rather decayed food.

"Better take the keys, never know when you might need them on a Colossal Adventure like this..." suggested Sparkle. She takes the keys, then they exit the building.

"Where now" asks Sparkle

"Looks like there's only one way to go.... follow the stream" replied Magic. They followed the tiny stream down a gentle slope, where they found the stream disappearing into an old metal grating in the ground. The continuation of the streambed is dry. "Hmm" said Magic taking a look through the grating, "not seeing much in there"

"Ok then" said Lilly, "this way", and she started walking southwards. A bit further on the ground rises up in front of them by about 20 feet (think of a small cliff), but there's a small gap, no more than 18 inches across, going into it, and to the side there's a big strong rusting steel grating set into the concrete, in a wall. From above, you'd be very lucky to see it. There seems to be a keyhole in the grating.

"Well, that explains why we never saw it" commented Sparkle

"Ok, ladies, all indications are that this is the entrance we need. I want you two to stay here for the moment, but be ready to join me at a moment's notice. Here, put these on...". Lilly passed Magic and Sparkle what appeared to be glasses.

"What are they?"

"They will let you see everything that I do, we can talk with our existing devices"

"So, where's yours then?"

"Oh, I got myself a cortical implant.... let's test it...". The girls put the glasses on, and as soon as Lilly waved her hand (we assume to cast the relevant spell) they could see what she saw, and hear what she heard. "Can you hear me ok" said Lilly, without actually saying anything.

"That is weird! How do you do that?" asked Magic

"The cortical implant does audio too... I just need to think it. Hearing you guys loud and clear too, by the way. Try and keep needless chatter down, that way I can leave the channel open, just in case. Make sure you watch and remember where I go, so you can get in quickly when I need you. I don't know how long the modern protection spells will last for"

"Ok. You sure you're going to be ok going in there dressed like that? You really DO look like a school-fairy!". Lilly was, if you remember, dressed like many young fairy girls do, in a wispy pink dress, with pink bows and flowers in her hair. And the pink roller-boots, of course!

"That's the idea. I'm an innocent young fairy, out playing with her friends, but gets separated from them - hey, kinda close to the actual truth! I really don't want her thinking I'm any sort of threat to her. Ok, we all ready? "

"Yeah, let’s do it!" said Magic.

"I'm ready too" added Sparkle. She used the keys to open the grate: the second key she tried fitted, turned perfectly, and allowed Sparkle to open the grating on some hidden hinges. With Magic and Sparkle watching, Lilly flew inside, which was quite dark. She waved her hand, to enable a shining orb, so she could see where she was going. Inside, she could see three walls made of stone blocks. The room was long, covered in mess and cobwebs, and at the far end she could see three doors. Two of them seemed to be locked, but the one to the left was unlocked. To the left of the door was a small discarded wicker cage.

"Ok, ladies, it's the door on the left....". The door lead into a low narrow passageway, which she carefully walked down, getting herself covered in dust and old cobwebs. The further she went along the passageway, the more she could feel herself getting angry. Finally, just before she got to the door at the end of the passageway, she saw a discarded three-foot black rod, with a very rusty star on the end of it: Lilly realised that it was just an old child-fairy's toy, but she still picked it up, and waved it: nothing happened. So, she put it down again, and left it. She went to the door, which was luckily also unlocked. The other side of the door, she found herself at the end of a much larger corridor, that went off into the distance. "I'm gonna get this bitch!" she thought.

"Hey Lilly, relax... I think you're getting closer, and it's starting to affect you! Time for some protection..."

"Thanks....". Lilly waved her hand, and cast a very simple protection spell: she'd probably need to cast a stronger one in a moment, but wanted to be able to feel what was around her, plus she was trying to use as little magic as possible, in case Miss Darkness could sense her. Finally, she found herself in a long corridor. Once again, she called up her wand (she now needed to look as 'normal' as possible, so doing stuff without her wand would not be a good idea) and cast another very simple 'light' spell, a bit brighter than the previous one, so she could see better.

Like the passageway, the much bigger corridor was made of large stone blocks, and it had the feeling of a dungeon, or maybe just some very large cellars, like you'd maybe get underneath a castle... or a Palace.

"Ok, let's see how my training in the Theatrical Society at uni goes...." thought Lilly. "Hello.... Hello.... is anyone here?" she said, trying to sound as innocent as possible. She looked into the third door on the right: it was the first one that was unlocked and open, but she saw nothing, but she still went in: it was a strange passageway, that twisted, and then split. She went left. On the wall there was a sign: 'YOU ARE IN A MAZE OF TWISTY LITTLE PASSAGES, ALL DIFFERENT.'

"You HAVE to be kidding me!" said Lilly. She went around another corner, where there was another sign, that looked almost the same, but actually wasn't quite: 'YOU ARE IN A LITTLE MAZE OF TWISTING PASSAGES, ALL DIFFERENT.' Then around another corner, where there was a third sign, again very similar, but slightly different: 'YOU ARE IN A MAZE OF TWISTING LITTLE PASSAGES, ALL DIFFERENT.'. She went a bit further: 'YOU ARE IN A LITTLE MAZE OF TWISTY PASSAGES, ALL DIFFERENT.'... then 'YOU ARE IN A TWISTING MAZE OF LITTLE PASSAGES, ALL DIFFERENT."

"This is getting VERY boring..." thinks Lilly, so the others can hear her.

"Why don't you try the 'xyzzy' spell..." suggested Magic.

"'xyzzy' spell? What on earth is that?" asked Lilly.

"Oh, just do it will you? 2 waves of your wand, and then say 'xyzzy'" said Magic

Lilly grabbed her wand from nowhere, waved it twice, then said "xyzzy". >>Poof<< Instantly she was back in the original long entrance room, with the small discarded wicker cage to the left of a slightly open door.

"Oh, ok, where did you learn THAT one then?" she asked Magic.

"Oh, watching far too many human kids playing silly games on computers...." explained Magic.

"Oh... right. I'm back where I started, let's try this again....". Down the small passageway, past the old 3ft long black rod (with the rusty metal star on the end of it), through the door into the large corridor. Once again, she stood in front of the third door on the right, the one that was open.

"Ok, don't go into THAT door, we now know where it leads - or rather DOESN'T lead!". Lilly continued on down the main corridor. "Hello?" she repeated, walking further along the corridor. The corridor bent to the left, and just around the corner, she saw something. She scanned backwards. "Ok, girls, there's some light coming out of a door... it's the 6th door on the left..." she thought, so Magic and Sparkle knew where she was going.

"Thanks Lilly, we can see where you're going really clearly..." said a voice in her head. Lilly could feel the lightweight protection spell that she had cast was struggling to hold off the anger and pain she was starting to feel, now that she was completely in what appeared to be remains of the old fairy castle, so she cast a stronger one. A slightly older one, but hopefully still recent enough that it would be less likely to be detected.

She went through that 6th door, and could see a small light at the far end of the room. Next to the glow there was an old tankard, probably containing something to drink.

"Hello," repeated Lilly, meekly, "is there anyone here?"

Offline Sparky

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Re: Story - The Dark Fairy
« Reply #52 on: 12. April 2022, 17:08:42 PM »
For those of you younger than about 50, you might want to read this article, to understand various strange references in Chapter 29 (then go find a copy of the game, and play it!!)

https://dereferer.me/?https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossal_Cave_Adventure


Offline Sparky

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Re: Story - The Dark Fairy
« Reply #53 on: 14. April 2022, 18:02:35 PM »
Chapter 30


"Hello," repeated Lilly, meekly, "is there anyone here?"

"Who the hell are you?" came a rough voice from the shadows.

"I'm Lilly...." she said, trying to sound young and a little scared. "I.... I.... I think I'm a bit.... lost!"

"Come closer" commanded the voice. Lilly walked towards the shadows, where the voice was coming from. Whilst she was pretending to be a scared young girl, Lilly was getting herself more fully prepared. She was pulling several spells into her mind, and into her fingers, so she could use them, if needed, at a moment's notice.

"You are a pretty young girl... I assume you're a fairy?"

"Yes, ma'am, I am", and she moved her shoulders a little, to release her wings a little, letting the other 'person' - who she assumed was the dark tooth fairy - see. Finally, the Dark Fairy walked out of the shadows, into the less dark part of the room - lit by both the light in the room, and the glow from Lilly's wand. She looked to be a little taller than Lilly (Lilly was a little shorter than average, which helped with her 'disguise'), and looked very beautiful, with long flowing dark hair. Unlike most fairies, her clothes were very revealing, with a short black top accentuating her large breasts, and a short black skirt showing off her rather nice legs. She had knee-length black boots on, and her fingernails were, of course, also painted black. As she walked towards Lilly, she unfurled her lovely dark black wings, clearly trying to intimidate Lilly, and looked at Lilly.

"What on EARTH are those things on your feet? I mean, the pink looks quite cute, but what ARE they?"

"Oh, they're my roller boots! Don't you think they are cool?" replied Lilly with a smile, skating a little across the floor to demonstrate them.

"Hey, nice.... I don't suppose you can magic up a pair for me, can you?... in BLACK, of course!" said the dark tooth fairy with a smile. A smile that, of course, revealed a beautifully perfect set of teeth.

"I guess I could, if I could actually magic them. My mum did these for me...."

"Ah, right, ok. You know, you have a nice smile..."

"Thank you!" replied Lilly, smiling.

"But there's something missing...". Remembering what the dark fairy had been up to recently, Lilly guessed that she was probably going to cast a spell to give her some sort of braces, so temporarily ran her own spell to reduce the protection around her head, and thus allow the spell to work properly. Of course, she was able to do that without moving even a finger. The dark tooth fairy produced her wand, waved it, and Lilly could suddenly feel something in her mouth. Braces. Quite a bit of them... Lilly let her tongue run around her mouth, feeling them. Luckily, they seemed to be nothing more than ordinary metal brackets. Oh, and a Herbst. Oh crap, she suddenly realised she also had two facebows and an Interlandi headgear to go with it! The good news was that there wasn't anything in her mouth, that would affect her speech.

"What just happened Lilly? We kinda felt something" asked Magic

"I just got braces - quite a bit of braces" replied Lilly in thought.

"Don't let her distract you!" said Sparkle, "keep focussed". She was right, she had slightly distracted her. Concentrate!

"You like what you feel?" asked the dark tooth fairy.

"They feel strange, but.... kinda nice!" replied Lilly, being quite truthful. Remembering that she was supposed to be a young girl, she put her hand up to feel the headgear, and as she did so, she got some strangely nice feelings! "So, who are you? I mean, the only person I know that can give us fairies braces is Santa".

"My name is Sebille, Princess Sebille, I'm a tooth fairy" she replied in the sort of voice we might expect of a dark and evil fairy.

"Ok, girls, the target IS confirmed! But don't do anything yet!" thought Lilly. "You're a princess? It's an honour, your majesty... your highness... what should I call you?" said Lilly out loud. Yes, those acting lessons were indeed coming in useful!

"You can call me 'Princess'! That's with a CAPITAL 'P'!" she replied. "So how did you get here?" asked the princess. [Sorry, that should be 'Princess'... with a CAPITAL 'P']. Lilly had been working on an answer to this, she had been waiting for the question to be asked.

"Well, Princess, I was playing hide and seek with a couple of friends, near that big old barn, and I followed the stream from the small brick building behind it. Then I tripped, and found myself in front of a large metal sort-of gate that was slightly open..." lied Lilly as convincingly as she could.

"Damn" replied the dark princess, "I must have forgotten to close it after me!". The Princess started coming closer to Lilly, and as she did, Lilly could feel the darkness, the anger and the pain emanating from her. She needed to activate an even stronger protection spell, to help keep her mind clear. It was a risk, as it was older magic, something she had found in the Dark Archive, but she could feel she needed its extra protection. Her middle finger of her right had twitched as she ran the spell.

The Princess stopped in her tracks. "I just sensed magic.... and it wasn't me!" she said. "What did you just do?" shouted the Princess.

"I didn't do anything" said Lilly, who was lining up a several more very strong spells, which she sensed she would need fairly soon.

"You're lying to me!" screamed the Princess at Lilly. Wow, that girl definitely has an anger management issue! She lifted her black wand, and threw some sort of spell at Lilly, that knocked her backwards. Lilly was, of course, prepared for this, and managed to unleash four of her own spells: two to give herself protection against what she thought the Princess' attack might be, and two other attack spells. Luckily, the princess wasn't expecting such strong spells, and staggered backwards from them, and that gave Lilly time to load up 4 more spells she had lined up.

The Princess came back at Lilly quickly, throwing a couple of lightning bolts, which Lilly managed to dodge, retaliating with a couple of buckets worth of ice-cold water, which hit their target nicely. The princess shook her face, getting rid of the water, and cast a 'get dry quickly' sort of spell on herself, so Lilly followed it with a sneezing spell!

The Princess quickly recovered from that one, and threw an elevation spell at Lilly, which Lilly wasn't really expecting, and followed it with another spell that pushed her backwards: Lilly was now pinned against the wall, a foot or so above the ground. The dark Fairy came over, and put her hand to Lilly's throat, starting to choke her.

"Oh, sh*t!" thought Lilly, "Guys, you need to get down here, fast!"

"Ok, on our way! Tats just got here too!"

"Oh, good, tell her to prepare a spell to seal this room.... and tell her it's a pretty big room....". Magic passed on the message, and Tats started to prepare a suitable spell (so she would be ready to cast it at a moment's notice) as they all started on their way to join Lilly.

Tats, Sparkle and Magic had cast their protection spells on each other, then went through the door on the left, along the small passageway, and out into the corridor, in the castle cellars. As they got to the corridor, they could feel the darkness, anger and pain getting stronger around them.

"Quick, let's get moving..." said Sparkle, sprinting down the corridor. They sensibly ignored the third door on the right and headed towards that 6th door.

Inside the room, Lilly was struggling against the Dark Princess, but the Dark Fairy seemed to have the upper hand right now. Lilly tried to unleash one of the other spells she had loaded, but it missed its target.

The three other fairies entered the room a few moments later: Magic and Sparkle launched two simultaneous attack spells on the Dark Fairy, which were enough that she let go of Lilly, who fell the short distance to the ground. Tats then let off a couple of spells against the Dark Fairy (one of which involved a load of nasty snakes), all of which gave Lilly time to catch her breath, and load up a couple more strong spells she had ready. As she approached the Princess, not only was the Princess starting to get up again, Lilly was starting to feel the anger and darkness coming through strongly, and she launched off the two aggressive bits of magic, then started loading some more. In return the Princess threw a few fireballs at Lilly, which she also managed to duck and avoid. That in turn gave Lilly an idea: she launched a 'wall of fire' above the princess, forcing her back onto the ground. The other 3 fairies held back for the moment - it was clear that Lilly was in control once more, albeit in a slightly 'uncontrolled' way!

"Stay down, will you, you bitch!" said Lilly, loading up and launching one of her two really strong spells: it lifted the princess up off her feet, and flung her against the wall: it was clear that the anger and darkness was getting to Lilly, but it seemed Lilly was actually using that to her advantage.

The princess started to get up again. "Who the hell ARE you? Certainly no innocent young fairy!".

"No, I'm probably your worst nightmare right now" screamed Lilly, releasing her final spell, another one that she had found down in the Dark Archive, amongst the very dark magic books. Chains with manacles on them appeared in the air above the princess: the manacles magically attached to her wrists and ankles, with the chains magically attaching themselves to the wall. Luckily not only did the manacles seem to hold the princess, they also had the very useful side-effect of stopping her magic. Lilly took a couple of deep breaths. The Princess had managed to stand up, and started shouting something pretty nasty (and thus not something I can repeat here) at Lilly. Using her anger, Lilly walked forwards and slapped Princess Sebille hard across her face. "Just shut up will you!!! And SIT DOWN!" she shouted, pushing the princess back onto the floor. By now, I think the princess realised that she no longer had access to her magic powers to be able to retaliate with. And boy, did Lilly know how to slap a girl's face hard! So, she did as she was told, she shut up, and sat down.

"Quick, protection spells on Lilly,” said Magic. With wands in hands, Magic and Sparkle started to aim the strong protection spells - the ones they had learned from the books in the Dark Archive - at Lilly. Lilly quickly calmed down.

"Thanks girls, timed to perfection! And Tats, glad you could make it! Ok, Tats, can you go close the door and cast that encapsulation spell, and make sure to use a well encrypted password!" With the door closed, Tats concentrated hard, and cast a spell, which resulted in all the walls starting to glow.

"That should hold up for a while!" said Tats. Lilly turned so that the Princess (Sebille that is!) could also hear her: "And just so our guest over here understands: that spell is encapsulating this room, no one gets in or out until she drops the spell. And the spell is secured with an encrypted password, which only she knows, so DON'T TRY ANYTHING!!!".

With the room secure, Lilly relaxed a little, walked over to the table, and picked up a piece of paper, and started to read it. Magic, Sparkle and Tats joined her.

"Holy crap, I'm feeling a LOT of anger,” said Magic

"Yeah, me too,” said Sparkle. "I'm not sure how long our protection spells will hold up"

Lilly put the paper down, and turned to them. "Take my hands...." she said, and cast a much stronger protection spell on all four of them, a spell that she knew that neither Magic or Sparkle, and probably not even Tats would have managed to cast. It had also come from the Dark Archive, of course.

Next Lilly wandered over to where the Princess had been when she entered. With there being a bit more light she could see a makeshift bed, along with a bookshelf, which contained several books. Lilly picked up a couple of the books, and took a look: they were a very old spell books. "Hmm, these would explain a lot, and should make interesting reading.". She took the books over to the table, where she put them down, next to the piece of paper she had been reading. She picked up the piece of paper again, which explained what had happened to Princess Sebille.

"Ok, ladies, come and meet our dark tooth fairy.". They all walked over to the princess, who was sat on the floor: she was being quiet, but was clearly still full of anger and hatred.

"Ladies, according to this piece of paper, this is indeed Her Royal Highness, Princess Sebille. It appears that her loyal servants sacrificed themselves to put the Princess into a sort of magical coma or sleep, hoping that she would soon be found. As we now know, she wasn't.... so, she stayed like that for almost a hundred human years, absorbing all the anger and hatred of humans from this devastated Palace. Until she woke up recently, that is...."

Lilly now turned to the Princess. "Princess, my name is Lilly, and these are my two friends Magic and Sparkle. And this, funnily enough, is another princess, Princess Tatiana, or Tats as she prefers to be called. Now look, Princess, this place has built up one hell of a lot of anger and bitterness in you. But underneath all that anger, I think you're most probably a really nice person, so we're going to try and help you. I'll need you to be calm for a few moments, so we can cast a very strong spell on you, which should take away a lot of those dark feelings that you have. But first, I need to do something...."

"Mirror" commanded Lilly. Needless to say, a mirror instantly appeared in her hand. "More light!". A large ball of light appeared in front of, and just above, Lilly. Lilly looked into the mirror and smiled widely. "Tell you what, Princess, I *do* like what you did with these braces!". Lilly's teeth were covered in large shiny metal brackets, top and bottom. Between all the brackets were a pair of thicker-than-normal archwires, all held in place with pretty pink ligatures. At the sides of her mouth were the bars of a herbst appliance, and in front of the brackets were two shiny facebows.

"Yeah, they do look pretty cool" said Magic, who was by now looking at Lilly's mouth, and smiling widely.

"Hey, Lilly, welcome to the 'fairies in braces club'!" added Sparkle.

As she spoke, Lilly undid the Interlandi headgear, and tried to remove the two facebows, but couldn't.

"Oh, you bitch, they're wired in!" exclaimed Lilly. "Ok, we'll try and sort that out in a moment".

"So, what do we need to do with the Princess then?" asked Sparkle

"We need to sort out her anger issues, like we talked about. Sparkle, you take her left hand, Magic, take her right."

"Anything I can help with?" asked Tats

"No, I doubt you know this spell, it's another one I found in the Dark Archive"

"Dark Archive?"

"Tell you later.... Ok, calm down, Princess, this is for your own good!" Lilly held the girls’ other hands. Her wand appeared in front of them all, seemingly not actually needing a hand to hold it.

"I thought you didn't need a wand?" said Magic

"For a lot of my magic I don't, but some spells, especially old ones, still seem to work a lot better with the help of a wand. Ok, here we go, say the words with me...". Clearly it was a very strong spell, as it created lots of sparks, a few bangs, and a load of smoke.

"How you feeling there, your highness?" asked Lilly after the smoke had cleared.

"I feel amazingly calm" she replied. "All that anger I had is... well, it seems to be dissipating. Thank you!"

"You sure?"

"Yeah, I'm sure."

"Ok, well, we're not leaving here till I'm at least 100% happy you're not going to be a threat to anyone. That spell I just cast to hold off the darkness and anger should last about half an hour, which should give us all time to have a nice chat. Oh, and get you to remove this stuff!" she said, indicating the headgear. "So, just to remind you, there's no way you can get out of this room unless Tats allows it. Plus, you already know what strong magic I have available to me: I should make it very clear that I won't hesitate to use it again if I need to! It's still loaded up inside me, and ready for me to cast!". She took a deep breath. "So, if I take these chains off you, are you going to be nice, and behave yourself?"

"I'll try to! I really will!".

"Tats, maybe you could keep a couple of spells ready, just in case?" asked Lilly

"No problems with that!" replied Tats, who had tactically positioned herself slightly away from the others.

Lilly concentrated, and cast the spell to release the manacles. "How does that feel?" she asked.

"I feel pretty good"

"That's great. Now, no magic unless I say so... understood?"

"Yes, I understand..."


Offline Sparky

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Re: Story - The Dark Fairy
« Reply #54 on: 15. April 2022, 18:51:47 PM »
It's Easter Weekend, so let's not wait the 2 days like I've been doing recently!

================================

Chapter 31

"So, maybe it's about time we properly introduced ourselves. I'm Lilly. These are Magic and Sparkle, they're the two who first worked out that something was going on in Runesdale. And that is Tats, she and I sometimes work together"

"Hello, nice to meet you all, it’s a shame it wasn't under nicer circumstances. So, I'm Princess Sebille, I'm the youngest of four daughters of Queen Tinkerbell the tenth"

"Ok, I just need to make a quick call....". Lilly magicked up her mobile phone, and pressed a few buttons. "Hi John" she said a few moments later when the call was answered. "Yes, it all went amazingly well. And yes, it is Princess Sebille...". John was clearly speaking back to Lilly. "Things are pretty stable here, we've done some spells to keep everyone calm, and Tats has locked the room down solid. So, I'm gonna spend some time debriefing the Princess, and keep us all locked safely in here till I'm 100% happy that her highness will behave herself." More talking from John. "Yes, by all means do bring her majesty here, I suspect the princess would like to meet her. And tell her majesty that Tats is here too". More from John. "Ok, see you guys soon!"

"Her majesty?" said Princess Sebille. "You mean my mother?"

"Sadly not" replied Lilly. "Your mother died a long, long time ago, and your eldest sister Rose took the throne. This lady is our current queen, and she's something like Rose's great-great- and another five or ten greats... grand-daughter. And Tats - AKA Princes Tatiana - is one of HER grand-daughters. You've been down here waiting to be rescued a long time!"

"Oh, wow...."

"Yeah, a lot to take in, I know. Ok. Now, remembering that I can cast that manacles spell again at a moment’s notice.... want to try some simple magic?"

"Erm, to be honest, I'm a bit scared to try."

"Try something simple... an orb of light maybe? Tats, be ready, just in case she tries anything...."

"Ok, let me try. Ok, warning, I need to call up my wand..."

"Go on...."

Princess Sebille’s wand appeared in her hand, and she thought carefully, then waved the wand. A beautiful colourful glowing orb appeared. She waved the wand again, and several more appeared, lighting up the room.

"Well, that went ok... erm, would you like me to try to remove the braces I put onto you?"

Lilly thought for a moment, and smiled. "Actually, no, not for the moment, although I'd appreciate it if I could take out the headgears".

"Ah, yeah, I quickly discovered that humans didn't like headgear, and found some articles that talked about fixed-in headgear - which made it an obvious choice to give to them, to cause maximum annoyance. Ok, give me a moment to work out what I need to do..." She carefully waved her wand, but nothing happened to Lilly's headgear - it was still very firmly fixed in her mouth.

"Oh, let me try again..." Sebby tried again, but again nothing happened. "My braces magic seems to not be working any more..."

"Could it be your anger... or rather the LACK of anger that's the problem. I mean, I've never come across anyone else, apart from Santa, who can put braces on a fairy. Apart from you.

"Yes, that might be it.... Sorry, I think you might be stuck with the braces and headgear for the moment!"

Lilly felt divided: part of her actually LIKED the braces - her mind briefly went back to a human that she'd kissed in a dream a while ago, when they both wore braces. But the other part of her was more realistic, and realised that it could have negative effects on her daily life (not so much the actual braces, more the double headgear). Like when going out for a drink! Well, clearly, she wasn't going to be able to fix the issue right now, so she put the Interlandi Headgear back on, connecting the elastics to the two facebows, - which felt strangely pleasant - then turned to more important matters.

"So, what can you remember about what happened to you? I mean the day the Palace got destroyed" Lilly asked the Princess

"Yes, I still remember it well: it was mid-morning, and I was down here with a small group of palace staff, practising my magic... we use these old cellars to practice, as there's a load of space, and it’s all pretty solid down here. And that's why there's those magic books down here. Anyway, there was a sudden bang, a very big bang, followed by an awful lot of noise.... we rushed out into the corridor to find the exit to the stairs were completely blocked, and there was smoke and dust everywhere: it didn't take us long to realise that we were completely trapped"

"Over the next couple of days, we tried all sorts of magic to get out, but I think the Palace - or what was left of it - was protecting itself, and stopped us. In the end, and with most of the us starting to get quite weak, it was decided to try and put me into a coma, enabling me to survive until someone came to save us"

"What about the door we used to come in? And which I assume you've been using recently?" asked Lilly.

"Yeah, that was odd: that door didn't used to be there, that's more recent... so yeah, we were stuck in here. Anyway, I woke up in here, a few weeks ago. I had a terrible headache, and felt really angry. So very angry! I somehow knew that the Palace had been destroyed by the humans, so I had to go out and wreak revenge for what they did" explained the princess. "Well, it made sense at the time!"

"As I wandered around, I discovered that that door had appeared, and found it led outside. I spent some time looking for any other fairies, or elves, but found none. So, I foraged for some food, and drank from that little stream that now flows nearby, then I planned what I should do to the humans for revenge"

"It wasn't long before I discovered that the humans had built a town. Of course, I'm a tooth fairy, but my powers were still a little weak, so I started by doing some simple stuff, like giving them toothache, or a few cavities in their teeth. Then I tried doing a few nasty things to their teeth, like twisting them a bit while they were asleep."

"Ah, we did wonder what you were doing to start with, we never found those victims.... do continue...."

"As my magic strengthened, I was able to sense the Dentist, so I went there and watched what the dentist did: it all looked so different from the rather old dentists of my day, but I noticed that not only were people's teeth in a lot better condition than I was used to, quite a few of them had lovely sparkly metal attached to their teeth... they looked SOOO pretty! I quickly discovered that someone called an 'Orthodontist' was responsible for giving them the shiny metal things, so I looked around and finally found the orthodontist's place, not far away: wow, mainly young people, but older people too, and so many sparkling mouths! Many had the lovely sparkly metal bits on their teeth... that's when I found out that they were called 'braces'. But some also just had something clear that clipped onto their teeth, that didn't look half as nice."

"Yeah, they call those clear plastic things 'aligners', they do the same thing as metal braces, but aren't quite so obvious, and nowhere near as pretty as the metal braces" explained Sparkle. "But do go on..."

"So, I watched what the orthodontist did, and saw the moving pictures on his magic mirror (we'd probably call it a PC screen!), and I soon realised that the humans use braces the same way that we fairies get 'wishes' (see the earlier fairies’ story!) to get our teeth straightened. A few of them even had lovely thick shiny wires that poked out of their mouths - headgear as I soon found out - in fact just the same as you're wearing now. But it's odd, a lot of the younger humans didn't seem to like the sparkly metal and wires.... So that gave me an idea, and I started trying to put the sparkly metal onto a few other humans when they were asleep. You should have heard the scream when they work up, and discovered what I had done to them! I even found one slightly older human wearing those clear things, and put PROPER metal braces onto them instead! I mean, at the time it felt like such a good thing to do"

Princess Sebille paused for a moment. "Oh, god, I did some TERRIBLE things, didn't I?"

"Yeah, you did. Took us a LOT of effort to sort out what you did!" said Lilly

"I'm so sorry..."

"Don't worry, I can quite understand the effect this place had on you! So where did you find out about the fixed-in headgear thing? I mean, that is just pure evil!" asked Lilly

"Yes, it was a bit of a master-stroke, wasn't it?" said the Princess with a smile. "I found some old books at the orthodontist's, and had a read: it said it was a popular way to treat non-compliant patients. I suspect that the people I gave it to really hated it!"

"It may have been popular, but quite a few years ago!"

"So, yes, that's about it. I was in here resting, ready for this evening's outing to cause some more pain and torture, when you arrived. Look, I'm so sorry if I hurt you at all,” said Sebby

"Don't worry, I'm ok, and more importantly, you're ok too"

They talking stopped for a moment.

"Ummm, Lilly...,” said Sparkle.

"Yes?"

"I'm thinking that maybe Princess Sebille ought to change out of the black, and into something a bit more befitting a princess, before we leave here."

"Good point. Very good point. Your highness, what would you like to wear?"

"Guys, can we cut the 'your highness' and 'princess' stuff, just call me 'Sebby' will you? That's what my sisters used to call me."

"Hey, Sebby, I'm right with you there!" commented Tats. "I'm not too keen on the 'princess' or 'highness' stuff either!"

"Anyway, to answer your question about some clothes, how about something in yellow and maybe a bit of gold?"

"Ok... hey, Sparkle, it was your suggestion, want to try out a few things with Sebby, see what she likes? I would suggest Tats helps too, but I'd also like her to keep an eye on things, just in case"

Soon after, Sebby was dressed in a very elegant yellow dress, with suitable gold jewellery. The clothes covered her a lot more than her previous black ones did, much more befitting a royal princess. And the makeup was a lot softer too.

"Ok, your highness - sorry, Sebby - I don't really want to do this, but for your protection and ours, I'm going to have to fit some magic-damping manacles and chains onto your wrists. To be honest, I get the feeling you're not going to want to do anything, so it's going to be more for show, but it will make everyone outside feel a lot better. Let's put something soft around your wrists first. Lilly magicked up some nice yellow extra-wide sweat bands that matched the rest of her outfit, then fitted the manacles on top. "How does that feel?" she asked.

"It will be ok... and don't worry, I understand why you need to do this" replied Sebby. "And I'm not planning on flying away either".



Offline Sparky

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Re: Story - The Dark Fairy
« Reply #55 on: 16. April 2022, 17:54:47 PM »
Chapter 32


"Ok, ladies, I think we're finally ready to leave. Tats, would you care to 'unlock' the room please? - I hope you remember the password you used!" asked Lilly, who finally felt that Sebby was now in a safe state to take her out of the angry ruined castle. They all walked together along the corridor, and to the door where they had come in. They were soon outside, and without all the darkness and anger around them, they all felt a lot better. Lilly looked around, and could see some of her colleagues nearby, and the Royal Carriage behind them.

"Give us a few minutes, we have a couple of bits we still need to do!" she said to them all. She turned to Magic, Sparkle, Tats and Sebby. "Ok, I'm going to remove all the protection spells from us, they'll wear off soon anyway, and I'd rather it happened in a more controlled way". Lilly used her wand, and removed the spells, such that the only bit of magic remaining were the manacles on Sebby's wrists.

"By the way, Tats, really great to see you again, and thanks for coming along today. Ok, Sebby, take a few breaths of the lovely fresh air... how you feeling?"

"I can feel some of those old dark feelings starting to come back a bit"

"Ok, hold on a moment." Lilly turned, and called to the group of people: "Mum, do you have that spell book I asked you to get?". Lilly's mum walked over, holding a large old book. She was trying VERY hard to supress a smile as she looked at Lilly in her double headgear and Interlandi.

"Mum, this is Sebby, or maybe I should call her Princess Sebille. Sebby, this is my mum!"

"Hi, Lilly's mum!"

"Nice to meet you, your highness! I'm guessing Lilly has managed to calm your previous anger?"

"Yes, I feel a lot calmer, thank you. You have an amazing daughter you know - she can control a lot of powerful magic, but I can see that she has a lot of compassion too, to balance it! You have brought her up well!".

Lilly's mum smiled, enjoying the compliment. "Here's that book you asked me to bring from the Dark Archive" she said, passing it to Lilly, still trying very hard to suppress a huge smile.

"Oh, wow, that's one of my old spell books!" said Sebby

"In that case, you'll probably recognise the spell..." said Lilly, casting an old 'dissipation' spell onto Sebby. "That should help those feelings go away for a while. And things should also get better the further away you are from here. Now, are you ready to meet everyone?". Sebby nodded. What about you guys, you ready to meet our queen?" Lilly asked Magic and Sparkle.

"We're coming over...." said Lilly, so that John's team could hear. They walked towards the small crowd, where Lilly had a quick word with John, then led the rest of the fairies over to the Royal Carriage.

"Your Royal Highness, it's a pleasure to meet you once again!" said Lilly - as she was in public, she needed to be formal. "Can I introduce my friends Magic and Sparkle. And this is your great-great- and lots more greats-aunt, Princess Sebille - and don't worry, she's feeling pretty calm now". Clearly Lilly didn't need to introduce Tats!

"Thank you, Lilly!" said the Fairy Queen. She paused, first of all looking at the double headgear Lilly had sticking from her lips, and then looking down at Lilly's feet. "Um, excuse me for asking, Lilly, but what ARE those strange things on your feet?". Lilly realised that whilst she had organised a change of clothes for Sebby, she was still wearing her pink outfit, with the matching pink roller-skates. She was very grateful that the queen hadn't mentioned her headgear, as she was currently feeling rather embarrassed by it.

"I'm sorry, Your Majesty, I guess I should have changed. They are 'Roller-Skates', and they are all the rage at university right now!" 

"Hmmm, you know, they suit you!" said the queen, with a big smile on her face. The queen then turned to Sebby. "And it's such a pleasure to meet you, Aunt Sebille!".

Suddenly Sparkle started laughing, and everyone turned and looked at her. "I'm sorry, your majesty, but Sebby... I mean Princess Sebille... well, she looks like she's young enough to be your granddaughter, but you're calling her 'aunt'! I'm so sorry!"

"No, no, you're quite right, it DOES feel odd." The Queen turned to Princess Sebille. "My darling, what would you like me to call you?"

"Sebby would be just fine, thanks!"

"Ok, in that case, maybe Sebby can come back to the palace with Princess Tatiana and me, in the Royal Carriage"

"Of course she can, your majesty, but she does need to keep the magic restraints on for the time being..." explained Lilly.

"I'm sorry, Grandma, but you're going to have to return without me for the moment: I need to stay here and talk to the old palace. You need to be here too, Lilly...,” said Tats.

"In that case, I'll organise a suitable escort for you, your Majesty....".

"I'll join you real soon, grandma!" said Tats

As they walked away from the queen a few moments later, Lilly turned to Tats. "What do you mean, you need to 'talk to the old Palace'?"

"You probably don't realise, but like my mum, I'm a Castle and Palace fairy. Have you any idea how much magic goes into a Royal Palace? It makes the place alive, and have a personality. I regularly talk to the current Palace - sort of stops things going wrong quite so much - she's really nice. But I hate to think how the old Palace feels: he or she has had no one to talk to for a LONG time. If we leave her - or him - as they are, they're going to stay very dark and angry - so I need to explain the reality of what happened"

"Ok... so how do we do that then?"

"All four of us need to go back in again, and talk to the palace. And probably sooner rather than later"

"Ok, I'll put protection spells on us again..."

"No, no protection spells this time. I think we'll all manage for a short while without one: the Palace needs to see us 'naked', so to speak"

"You sure about this?"

"Absolutely, I had a long chat with the current Palace about it earlier, that's why I was late getting here"

"Ok... let’s get it done then! Magic, Sparkle...."

"Yes, Lilly?"

"We're all going back inside again, Tats needs to talk to the old Palace"

"Uh?"

"I'll explain as we walk. But we won't have protection spells, so try and stay relaxed...,” said Tats. Before they went in, Lilly went and had a word with John (he's the guy she talked to earlier) to bring him up to date about Princess Sebille, and explain what they were doing.

The four ladies went into the old Palace once again. At least this time they knew what to expect, so were able to be a bit more relaxed, and the darkness and anger didn't seem to affect them quite as much. They sat down in the middle of the room where they had been earlier.

"Ok, now just relax. The Palace can't actually do much to us, just affect how we feel, so we're pretty safe.... 'Hello Palace, are you there?'" said Tats

"Hello" said a voice that seemed to be everywhere, yet nowhere. The voice was a male voice.

"Hi, I'm guessing you're the palace?"

"Yes, I am, and who are YOU?"

"My name is Princess Tatiana, I'm a Castle and Palace fairy. I live at the new Royal Palace, and talk to her quite a lot. Our new Palace sends her love by the way! Oh, and these are my friends, Lilly and Magic and Sparkle. We come here without any magic to talk to you"

"So, what brings you here? I know you were here earlier..."

"Yes, we were, to rescue Princess Sebille. You'll be happy to hear that she's feeling a lot better now. But now we'd like to talk to you: it must be a long long time since anyone has spoken with you..."

"It is....

"So, I'd like to explain why you don't need to be angry any more...."

"But I have every right to be angry! The humans destroyed most of me, and almost all of fairy-kind with it! I need to exact revenge on the humans..."

"Yeah, a big misunderstanding there...."

"Misunderstanding?"

"Yeah... let me try and explain.... Short version: it seems it was a big BIG accident. The humans actually had no idea the Palace was here. Two brothers just needed some more space to grow crops and build some buildings, and without realising it, destroyed most of this place. And the elven place next door too. The good news is that most of the fairies managed to escape, including the Queen and King, and two of their daughters. However, one of their daughters, Princess Sebille, was trapped here. That was a long long time ago, and we now have a new Queen and King, and a lovely new Palace too"

"Oh...." replied the palace

"So, you really DON'T need to be angry" explained Tats

"Oh...." replied the palace once more. The four of them sensed a reduction in the darkness and anger that surrounded them

"It must have been VERY lonely for you here, with no one talking to you"

"Yes, it has been. I used to speak regularly with Princess Katie"

"Princess Katie?" asked Tats. She had been genning up on the history of the royal family, but the name wasn't familiar.

"She was the queen's niece..."

"Ah, ok."

"But how do I know I can trust you? I mean, you sort of feel like you're a princess, but how can I be sure you're not lying to me?"

"Yes, good point. Very good point". Tats thought for a moment. "Ok, how about a bit of quid pro quo: if I can get my grandmother, the current Queen, to come and visit you, can you be nicely relaxed when she's here? Please?"

"I would like that.... very much. And yes, I'll try and withhold my anger. So, tell me, I sense that I was very badly damaged... is there any hope of repair?"

"I'm afraid that the destruction of the palace building was almost complete, there's but a tiny part of your cellars remaining. So sorry, but there's no chance of repair. I really am so sorry"

"That's ok, it's not your fault."

"Is there anything else I can do to help you?"

"I would really like to talk to you some more, it's been rather lonely here..."

"Well, I think we need to go for now, but I DO promise I'll come back again tomorrow, and I'll do my absolute best to get our current Queen to come and visit you too, and reassure you that all is ok."

"Thank you... Thank you so much..."

They left the old Palace ruins, locking the gate as they left. Lilly spoke with the commander of the FAS: she needed them to guard the entrance to the Palace cellars: no-one in or out without either her or Tat's specific permission. She also placed a very strong locking spell on the entrance.

After leaving the old Palace ruins, all four of them ended up going to the Palace, where they all met with the Queen, and Sebby (who was out of her restraints, and feeling very much more normal). Tats explained what had happened earlier.

"In that case, it's my duty to go and visit,” said the Queen. "I'll leave you to organise the details"


Offline Sparky

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Re: Story - The Dark Fairy
« Reply #56 on: 17. April 2022, 16:49:37 PM »
Chapter 33


Today the queen looked quite different. No royal robes or anything, rather she was in very sensible clothing for going into an old dusty ruined Palace. Mind you, she did still have her crown on... I mean, she wouldn't be a Queen without that, would she? Lilly, Magic and Sparkle lead the way. Behind them was the Queen and Sebby, with Tats at the rear. Lilly led them all through the narrow passageway, past the old 3ft long black rod (with the rusty metal star on the end of it). Ignoring the door that led to the LITTLE MAZE OF TWISTING PASSAGES, ALL DIFFERENT, they went to the large cellar, where Lilly had first found Sebby.

They could feel a slight darkness and anger, but it was WAY less than when they had come in yesterday.

"Ok, I think we all need to sit down on the floor... I'm sorry Grandma"

"Don't worry.... this brings back many lovely memories when I was a child, and played in the cellars of our current Palace...,” said the Queen.

"How are we all feeling? Ok? Right, in that case.... 'Good afternoon, beautiful old Palace!'"

"Oh, hello again, Princess Tatiana!" said the voice that came from both nowhere and everywhere. "And thank you for coming to see me again! I sense you have someone important with you today?"

"I do. So first of all, you will remember Princess Sebille: she's feeling a lot better today. More importantly though, my grandma is with us, Her Royal Highness Queen Tinkerbell the Seventeenth"

"Your highness, it is a PLEASURE to not only meet you, but to know that the Royal Family survived after the disaster that happened here... I've been so worried that something really terrible had happened to the Royal Family". They could all feel the dark and angry feelings almost completely disappear. But strangely, Sebby started sobbing.

Tats, who was clearly the one in charge today, turned to Sebby. "What's wrong, Sebby?" she asked her gently.

"I'm sorry, but I just realised that everyone I knew, my mum and dad, my brother and three sisters, and many, many others... they are all dead, gone long ago. I suddenly feel VERY alone...". Tats put her arms around Sebby to comfort her. Out of the corner of her eye, Tats saw Lilly preparing a spell - she guessed some sort of 'calming' spell - but she shook her head. They had agreed on no magic today, plus it would probably do Sebby a lot of good to just have a bit of a cry. Besides, it wasn't as if they were in any rush today.

Three or four minutes later, Sebby calmed down. "I'm sorry,” said Sebby.

"No, don't be sorry, you have every right to cry, far more than any of us in here"

"Yes, you are right" said the old Palace, "and I share some of your sadness. I am so glad you have all come to see me today". There was a few second pause. "But, your Majesty" said the old Palace, "why are you in here, sitting on the dusty floor? You should be in the Royal Snug"

"OH MY GOODNESS, YES!" exclaimed Sebby, suddenly perking up and remembering. Everyone looked at her. "Excuse me, Palace, but does the Snug actually still exist?"

"It does indeed. Would you like me to get it ready for you?". This news cheered Sebby up greatly.

"Yes please. Come on everyone, let me take you all somewhere rather nicer..." She led them out of the room they were in, and back the way they had come. She opened the door that led to the maze.... you know, the one where it says "YOU ARE IN A TWISTY LITTLE MAZE OF PASSAGES, ALL DIFFERENT" and "YOU ARE IN A TWISTY MAZE OF LITTLE PASSAGES, ALL DIFFERENT".

"But Sebby, that's the maze, there's nothing there..." said Lilly, who had been into the maze the day before.

"Oh yes there is.... but you're not Royal, so you won't be able to find where we are going! Even having lovely magical shiny braces don't help! Follow me!". Sebby led them all into the maze.

"Oh, yeah, the signs just make it so easy...,” said Tats.

"Signs?" said Lilly. All I see are the signs that say 'YOU ARE IN A MAZE OF LITTLE TWISTY PASSAGES, ALL DIFFERENT, and variations on that"

"Oh, I can see big signs with an arrow underneath that say 'Royal Snug This Way'" said Tats. "... just follow us!"

Finally, Sebby was standing at the end of a corridor, with a blank wall in front of her. "Wand!" she commanded. Sebby waved the wand that had appeared in her hand, saying the magic word: "plugh".

"'Plugh'? You're kidding me?" said Sparkle. But she wasn't, as a lovely ornate door appeared in front of Sebby, who opened it.

"Welcome to the Royal Snug" she said... The room was, by Palace standards, quite small: about the size of a normal living room. There was a lovely burning log fire, and several very comfortable chairs in a large circle, and the room had a very warm and homely feel to it.

"Welcome back, your Royal Highnesses,” said the Palace. "Just a word of caution: don't use the door on the far side of the room, it's rather badly blocked." All feelings of darkness and anger suddenly disappeared.

"Grandma, why don't we have a room like this in the current Palace" asked Tats.

"Oh, we do, but it's limited to immediate family only..."

"But I'm the Palace Fairy! I should know about these things...." complained Tats.

They all sat down and relaxed, and chatted. It was very clear that the old Palace was also feeling a bit more relaxed, and he was very willing to answer questions that were asked of him.

"Ok, so I have a question... " said Lilly, directed mainly at the old Palace. "Yesterday, when we were fighting, Sebby was able to do braces magic, and fit these braces to me. But afterwards, when she calmed down, she didn't seem to be able to do any braces magic, why is that? I mean, I could really do with getting these facebows off!"

"I think you might have just answered your own question. She was calm, and no longer angry. There are some types of magic that only work when the caster has certain emotions" replied the old Palace.

"So, you think Sebby maybe just needs to get angry?"

"It's worth a try! Maybe you can try and get me angry at the same time?" suggested the old Palace

"Ok then, Palace, how about this:" said Tats. "You used to be a beautiful Royal Palace, full of happy fairies, all smiling and laughing. And in but a few moments, all that was taken away from you by the humans, you are but a tiny part of your previous majestic self. And YOU, Princess Sebille, as a result of the action of two unthinking brothers, you have lost your family!"

Sebille could feel a certain amount of anger inside her, plus she could also sense a small amount of anger from the old Palace... so she tried casting a spell to release the facebows - but nothing happened.

That was when Magic stood up, slapped Sebby hard across the face, and said in an angry tone of voice: "Look, Princess! My friend Lilly has a bit of a problem caused by YOU and your dark and angry magic! Fix it! Unless you'd like ANOTHER one of those across your face!"

"How DARE you, a commoner, address a Royal Princess like that!" screamed Sebby back at her.

"I'll address you any way I like... I said: FIX IT! NOW!!!". Magic turned Sebby around so she was once again facing Lilly. Luckily Sebby understood what she had to do, and waved her wand: the two facebows and the Interlandi headgear all just disappeared. Magic went down on her knees, in front of Sebby. "I'm sorry for what I just did, your highness! Please forgive me.... but I had to try...". At the same time, Tats quickly threw a calming spell at them both: whilst she hadn't really wanted to use any magic in the old Palace today, the situation needed to be rapidly defused.

Sebby took a few deep breaths, calming herself once more. "That's ok, Magic, I understand what you were doing - and it did seem to do the job nicely. Tell you what though, you DO know how to slap a girl: that was harder than the one Lilly gave me yesterday! Hey, Palace, what does a girl have to do to get a decent cup of tea around here?"

"You only need to ask...." replied the old Palace

"Oh, ok, I'm so sorry... Excuse me Palace, I don't suppose you could organise some tea for us all, could you?"

"It would be my pleasure, your highness! Earl Grey or Darjeeling?". Sebby was unsure, and looked at The Queen

"Oh, definitely the Earl Grey, please Palace!" replied the queen.

Offline Sparky

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Re: Story - The Dark Fairy
« Reply #57 on: 18. April 2022, 20:04:42 PM »
Chapter 34 - Epilogue

Elida was at her desk, just finishing off a report of a case that she and Flora had done together that morning. Since finishing off their work at Runesdale the other day, she had been paired up with Flora, and they had been doing some tooth fairy stuff together. It was a bit of a strange pairing, one quite old fairy, and another very young fairy, but they got on amazingly well, with both respecting each other’s skills and abilities.

"Hi, Elida!" said a voice to her left. Elida turned to find it was Lilly.

"Hey, Lilly, nice to see you again!"

"Can I have a chat with you"

"Sure, why don't you grab that seat from over there..."

"No, not here, in private"

"Oh, ok... give me a moment so I can save what I'm doing...". Elida finished what she was doing.

"Come on, let's grab a coffee on the way" suggested Lilly. After grabbing a coffee, Lilly led Elida to her mum's office, where Lilly's mum was, along with someone that Elida didn't recognise.

"Say hello to Sebby.... you'll know her better as 'The Dark Fairy'". Elida wasn't too sure how to respond to her: whilst she had heard about how Lilly and the others had brought her out from the old Palace, the last she had been involved with her was when casting a 'find fairies' spell from quite a height, and then removing that last set of quite excessive braces. Very nice braces though!

Lilly could sense Elida's 'unease'. "Don't worry, she doesn't bite. And she's not at all 'dark' any more." Elida relaxed a bit.

"Hello there, Elida,” said Sebby. "Lilly has been telling me about you: it seems you are quite a capable young fairy!". Sebby's voice was quite pleasant, and not at all threatening.

"Hi Sebby... nice to meet you!" said Elida, "All those braces you fitted were quite something, not at all easy to remove!"

"Yes, sorry about that... I was in a bit of a 'dark place' at the time, but I'm feeling so much better now." explained Sebby.

"So, I'm guessing you're maybe wondering why you're here?" said Lilly.

"Ummm, yes...." replied Elida

"So, when I first met you last week, I just assumed you were like many other young and inexperienced fairies, but I very quickly discovered I was completely wrong. Let's start with you combining spells to remove the braces... that's pretty advanced stuff,” said Lilly.

"Is it? It just seemed like an obvious thing to do to me...." replied Elida.

"Oh, ok. So, then you came with me to the Dark Archive: when mum and I went down there, we struggled to find stuff, whereas you just made things happen"

"Well, once you'd shown me the searching spells, the rest just seemed... well, obvious"

"Then you started using the Dark Magic, first of all with Puck, then you and I tried out the 'search for a fairy' spell, and you had absolutely no issues.... and I'm guessing your answer is going to include the word 'obvious' in it..."

Elida smiled. "Obviously!"

"Finally, you worked with Puck after the kit had 'blown up', and suggested what to do to make it work a heck of a lot faster, and we're talking some high-tech stuff that you'd never seen before,” said Lilly.

"Yeah, that was fun to do.... and yes, it all just seemed so obvious" replied Elida.

"I'm intrigued, what is it that makes it all so obvious?"

Elida thought for a moment. "I'm trying to imagine what a painter sees when they look at a new canvas: in their mind, they can see the picture they want to paint. But it's more than that, they can see that the picture will be made up of layers, one colour on top of another. Along the way, it will look strange to anyone else, but the painter knows exactly where the painting is going. Finally, when they add the last bit of paint, the end result becomes obvious. And that's kinda how I see magic."

"So, when I asked a couple of the team last week, they both said exactly the same thing, that you seem to 'understand' magic..."

"Yeah, I think that's probably a good description" said Elida with a smile.

"Lilly" said Sebby, "can I set Elida a simple task to do? I'd like to see her in action."

"Sure, if Elida's up for it"

"Yes... go on then,” said Elida.

"Well, as I understand it, there are magic controls set up in this building that stop people from doing magic"

"Yes" said Lilly, "Except in certain designated places... but here isn't one of them"

"Elida, can you think of a way around that? Can you do some sort of simple and small magic, in here? Somehow work out a way AROUND the restrictions. I'm guessing it's going to need an interesting combination of spells. Take a moment to think about it, I'm just interested to see how your mind works...."

Elida sat there, thinking. Yes, quite a challenge, but over the last week or so, she had discovered that she actually seemed to thrive on a challenge. She remembered a couple of dark spells that she'd read, they were below some of the braces-related spells she had taken pictures of last week, she was sure she had seen something that might let her 'get around' the magic restrictions. She pulled out her phone, and looked at them. This was FUN! She repeated one of the spells, and a small sort-of shimmering area, a little bigger that the size of a grapefruit, but with a few bits of sparking and 'popping', appeared in front of her. Well, that was a pleasant surprise. Next, she used the spell she had used with Puck, to create a part of a jawbone and some teeth, all of which appeared inside the shimmering 'ball'. Then she added some full-bands and some brackets, followed by an archwire, and metal wire ligatures. Keeping the whole lot there took a LOT of effort and concentration, but she had DONE it!

When Elida looked up, she could see that everyone was staring in amazement at what she was doing, which actually distracted her enough that it all disappeared.

"VERY impressive, Elida!" said Lilly, "I'm assuming that it was all real, and not just an illusion, although, to be honest, that doesn't REALLY matter."

"I believe it was real. I was able to create a small 'bubble' that ignored the magic dampening spells in here, then did some magic inside it" explained Elida.

"So, another question for you, Elida... why ARE you a tooth fairy?"

"Well, my mum was a tooth fairy, like her mum was, and it seemed like a good idea to follow her"

"And something tells me that you quite enjoy the braces side of being a tooth fairy, don't you? Don't worry, it's ABSOLUTELY ok to say yes to that!"

"I do actually..."

"I thought so. You still have all the braces from last week, don't you? And again, THAT is ok too!". Once again Elida blushed: yes, she DID have all of the braces, they were so pretty and shiny.... "So, another question: do you think that, especially after all that happened last week, that being a tooth and braces fairy is going to be enough for you?"

"Well.... ummm.... I feel that I could do so much more than just deal with teeth and braces...."

"Would you LIKE to do more?"

"Yes.... definitely"

"I'm glad you said that, because we've been chatting, and we have a few ideas we'd like to suggest to you. Mum, you do the first bit..."

"Lilly and others have commented on your abilities working with the books down in the Dark Archive, saying that you seemed to have a certain 'empathy' for the books....". Elida smiled. The boss was quite right, she did seem to know - without even needing to try - how to work with the books. "... so, I was hoping you might like to be our first librarian for the Dark Archive. As such, you would be helping anyone else who needs to find anything down there. Plus, there's a load of books down there that need to be catalogued, so we can search them."

"But, of course, you won't be able to tell anyone else what you are doing" added Lilly. "Are you going to be able to do that?"

Elida took a big breath: she was being offered something that was a big step for her, with a LOT of trust, but she knew it would be very interesting. "Yes, I can!" she said very positively.

"In that case, I have your first customer.... Sebby...."

"Yes... well, I believe you know a little about my history" started Sebby, "I was trapped in the Royal Palace for many years after it was destroyed, and it has been decided that I should tell everyone the truth of what happened. To be honest, *I* want to understand what happened too. And Lilly tells me there's several books down in the Dark Archive that should help me"

"It would be my pleasure,” said Elida.

"At the same time" continued Sebby, "I would like you to help me find some magic that might allow me, or you for that matter, to remove Lilly's braces. And maybe to let us give other fairies braces, but without needing to get quite so angry!"

"There is, however, one rule for the Archive" said the boss. "You must NEVER be there alone! Mostly, it is for your own safety, some of those books are quite dark...."

"Yes, I fully understand that. It won't be a problem" replied Elida.

"There is another reason," added Lilly, "one that I wouldn't normally tell anyone, but I think you need to know: we can NOT risk any one fairy assimilating all the knowledge that is down in the Dark Archive. We have seen what happens when a relatively normal fairy turns dark - sorry Sebby! - but if someone with your potential abilities were to turn dark... So, no mass-reading for the sake of it."

Elida took another deep breath. "Yes, I see what you mean. I will try very hard to be very careful..."

"Thank you, Elida." said the boss. "So, the next thing: how are you getting on with Flora?"

"It's odd, but we get on really well, she seems very relaxed with me, and I'm absolutely fine with her"

"Good, because, for the moment, I'd like you to continue working with her" said Lilly's mum.

"You may remember last week, before I brought you here to the archive," said Lilly, "that I mentioned that I couldn't bring Flora here. If you are working with her, I need to explain a tiny bit more: last summer, her daughter was involved in something she should not have been, sufficiently so that she is currently 'being detained at her majesty's pleasure'. Whilst we don't THINK Flora was involved, we aren't 100% sure, and so we don't want to take ANY chances. So, please, don't let Flora have any hints about what you are up to, outside of being a young capable tooth fairy".

"Ok... I understand" replied Elida

"I think you'll enjoy working with Sebby down in the Dark Archive, but something tells me that even THAT won't be enough to keep your active brain happy in the longer term. So, I'm not quite sure how we're going to do it as you are so young, and it may take a bit to make it happen, but we'd like you to consider joining us at FI5 on a part-time basis... think of it as being some sort of 'apprenticeship'" explained Lilly, "something to help you develop your abilities more completely. Interested?"

Elida had a huge smile on her face: she had NOT imagined all this happening today. "Yes please!!!" she said.

"And there's one last thing....". Lilly took a piece of paper out of her pocket, and passed it over to Elida. "We persuaded Puck that he needed to write you a note..."

Elida unfolded the paper to read the note:

"Dear Elida,

please can I take you out for a drink tonight, or maybe even dinner?

Puck"


===== THE END =====

(of this story....)

Offline Sparky

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Re: Story - The Dark Fairy
« Reply #58 on: 18. April 2022, 20:14:04 PM »
So, we have come to the end of "The Dark Fairy" at last.

Negotiations are under way with the major networks, and it seems there's a possibility of not just one but TWO spin-off series from this, as well as some Fan-Fiction that Braces2015 has written (but is sufficiently naughty that it won't be posted here :-) )

Let me give a taster of what MIGHT happen:


They were all at "The Golden Cup" public house. Well, ok, when I say "all", Flora had, not too surprisingly, passed on the invitation... 'not really her sort of thing'.

Lilly had decided that everyone involved with rescuing Sebby in one way or another should get together for a drink......

.....  but the drink was starting to get to Lilly, and she was starting to get quite loud.

"So there I was, dressed in a cute pink outfit, with matching pink roller skates..... and I go into the cellars of the Old Palace.... 'Hello' I called out....., 'Hello'.... Tell you what, my Theatrical Society training came in helpful! 'Hello' I called out, and suddenly, there she was, in front of me, The Dark Princess!". ........ .

......"There she was, all in black... I will admit, the outfit did look good on her, showing off curves that most fairies don't dare show off! All in black, and she unfurled her wings, trying to intimidate me, a lost school-fairy! 'Who are you?' she asks. 'I'm Lilly, I'm a little school-fairy, and I think I'm lost...'".

...."The next thing I knew was 'blam'". As she said that, Lilly actually cast a spell down onto the humans. "She gave me braces... and some headgear too!".


.... so lets hope the spin-off get picked up by the networks!

Offline Braceface2015

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Re: Story - The Dark Fairy
« Reply #59 on: 18. April 2022, 21:15:23 PM »
Sparky and I have accounts on DeviantArt where we have posted some of our stories. You can read my story by searching for 'The Cam-Show' and selecting 'most recent'.

Offline blueblur1997

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Re: Story - The Dark Fairy
« Reply #60 on: 19. April 2022, 05:28:42 AM »
I really discounted this story at first. But it got really good and a lot better than I had thought it was going to be. Great work!

Offline Sparky

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Re: Story - The Dark Fairy
« Reply #61 on: 19. April 2022, 19:54:30 PM »
"I really discounted this story at first. But it got really good and a lot better than I had thought it was going to be. Great work!"

Thank you for your kind words... yes, like with many stories, I can understand it taking a while to 'get into the story'.

I can promise you this won't be the last you hear of the fairies: already Braceface2015 has written & posted elsewhere a 'rather naughty' episode with Daisy, Elida and Sebby in it (well worth reading if you are an adult!), and I'm going to follow Elida as she gives Daisy a selection of braces to try out.

I also have a load of stories that got started - maybe just a page or two got written - and I'm going to look and see if any of those give me inspiration.

Whilst I have ideas, I'm going to take a bit of a break from posting my stories, to let my brain both relax and re-charge.