Holly's no good very bad night

[darvit]

Holly activates the thermal coil in her suit and climbed to thirteen thousand feet, the wings on her back—shaped like a Hummingbird's, but constructed almost like insect wings—fluttering at high speed. The battery readout showed four red bars, and Holly decides silently that she's going to take the long way tonight, across Europe and the British Isles. Regulations said always travel over water if possible, but she never could resist knocking the snowcap from the highest Alp on her way past.

It's cold, up here, even though the suit. The moon seemed huge from this altitude, the craters on its surface easily distinguishable. Tonight it was a perfect sphere. A magical full moon. As Holly follows the Italian coast up to Monaco, then from there up across the Alps to France, she idly muses about how those working immigration would have their hands full, as thousands of surface-sick fairies were drawn overground. Many would make it, probably causing mayhem in their revelry. With how many illegal tunnels there were, it was impossible to stop them all.

As she passes above France, she visibly toys with the idea of visiting Disneyland Paris. The LEP had several undercover operatives stationed there, most of them working in the Snow White exhibit. It was one of the few places on Earth where the People could pass unnoticed. But she shakes her head and decides against it, there's too big a risk of being photographed and with a sigh of regret, she passes over the shower of multi-coloured fireworks below.

Once across the Channel, Holly flies low, skipping over the white-crested waves. She called out to the dolphins and they rose to the surface, leaping from the water to match her pace. She could see the pollution in them, bleaching their skin white and giving them red sores on their backs. And although she smiled, her heart was breaking. Mud People had a lot to answer for.

Finally the Irish coast looms ahead, and Holly punched up a map on her wrist locator and set it to sweep for magical hot spots. The best site would obviously be Tara, near the Lia Fáil, but on a night like tonight, every traditionalist fairy with an overground pass would be dancing around the holy scene, so best to give it a miss. But a second site flashes on her locator, just off the southeast coast, easy access and remote. Holly reins in the throttle and descends to ninety yards. She skipps over a bristling evergreen forest, emerging in a moonlit meadow. A silver thread of river bisected the field and there, nestling in the fold of a meander loop, was the proud oak.

After checking her locator for lifeforms, finding only cows two fields over, she cuts her engines and glides to the foot of the mighty tree. There, she removes her wings to hook them over a low branch and unstraps her helmet, massaging the pointed tips of her ears. Her eyes are both hazel, rather than the one hazel, one blue people in the group have seen before.

For a moment, she pauses, seemingly enjoying the view of the picturesque Irish countryside, that the Mud People had yet to destroy. The river folds gently before her like a silver snake, hissing as the water tumbled across a stony bed. The oak tree crackled overhead, its branches rasping together in the bracing breeze.

Now, to work. Holly bends to the ground, brushing the dried leaves and twigs from the clay’s surface until her fingers close around a smooth acorn. Now, all she needed to do was plant it, and—

Something whizzes over Holly’s head, something that glints in the starlight, but her reflexes are good and she narrowly dodges it, curling her tiny form up into an even smaller target. Just as quickly, she draws her pistol and rolls toward the shelter of the tree trunk, looking startled, her brain scrambling for an explanation.

But something is waiting beside the tree, something roughly the size of a mountain, but considerably more mobile.

“Nice peashooter,” grins the figure, smothering Holly’s gun hand in a turnip-sized fist. Holly barely manages to extricate her fingers a nanosecond before they snap like brittle spaghetti, tries to make a break for it, but another voice sounds behind her. Cold. Impersonal. Young.

“I don’t suppose you would consider peaceful surrender?” it says, and Holly turns, elbows raised for combat. “No,” the boy sighs melodramatically. “I suppose not.”

Holly put on her best brave face. “Stay back, human. You don’t know what you’re dealing with.”

The boy laughed. “I believe, fairy, that you are the one unfamiliar with the facts.”

Holly's face flashes with surprise. Fairy? How could he— nevermind that, more pressing matters. “I have magic, mud-worm. Enough to turn you and your gorilla into pig droppings.”

The boy took a step closer. He can't be older than 12. He has pasty white skin, neat black hair, and a pair of mirrored sunglasses on his face. But she doesn't realise that, yet. “Brave words, miss. But lies nonetheless. If, as you say, you had magic, you would have no doubt used it by now. No, I suspect that you have gone too long without the Ritual and you are here to replenish your powers.”

Holly looks dumbfounded. Here was a human before her, casually spouting sacred secrets. This is disastrous. Catastrophic. There's fear, there, beneath the confusion—if humanity finds out about the People, then generations of peace will end. Their entire society would be doomed.

There's only one last thing to try. Holly summons the final dribble of magic from the base of her skull with a subtle crack of her neck, and fills her voice with the bass tones of the Mesmer, “Human. Your will is mine.”

But the boy just smiles, safe behind his mirrored lenses. “I doubt it," he says, nodding curtly.

That's when the dart hits Holly, and her world world instantly dissolved into a series of technicoloured bubbles and, try as she might, Holly couldn’t seem to hold on to more than one thought. And that thought was: How did they know? It spiraled around her head as she sank into unconsciousness. How did they know? How did they know? How did they…