Finley Cai Aies Regalis-Olcay June 21st,20XX

I opened my eyes to an extremely pleasant feeling and a bright head of gold hanging over my face. The familiar features curved up and golden eyes narrowed into slits as the smile spread across her face.

I closed my eyes and opened them again, struggling to accept reality.

The ceiling was still the same dull white it had been when I had moved in, the walls were the same forest green I remembered. The air was just as stifling and boggy as the human world’s air tended to be, and I couldn’t feel my wings digging into my back as I laid flat. Well, if I’d had my wings out I would probably have floated up into the air in my sleep, but that hadn’t happened in a while.

I shook off my distracted train of thought and forced myself to focus.

This was the human world, so why was my grandmother standing over me?

She let out a gentle chuckle at my exaggerated reaction and stepped back from the bedside to give me space to get up. I’d fallen asleep on the couch the night before, so she hadn’t entered my room and only looked around the living room while she waited.

Her steps were light as air as she walked around the apartment space and her gentle smile hooked downward into a mild frown as she noticed how messy it was. It wasn’t my fault though as it had been a few days since Jake had come around and cleaned up.

Ever since he had finally caved and agreed to move in with me after graduation, he had been regular about coming to clean up the apartment and would even nag at me for letting its state decline. Again, it wasn’t my fault. I was barely in the apartment, to begin with, and when I managed to get home, I would only have the energy to fall asleep.

“So, this is where my grandson sleeps?”

Her voice tilted upwards at the end of the sentence and made her statement into a question. I hurried to explain myself.

“No, not really. I have a bedroom! I was just so tired that I fell asleep- Sorry. Why- How are you here?”

Everything I wanted to say or ask all tried to escape my mouth at the same time and came out sounding a jumbled mess.

Her frown resorted itself into a smile and she used a gentle hand to ruffle my already messy hair.

“Well, the original plan was for you to stay here for two weeks but somehow almost a month has passed, and you haven’t come back home. I thought I should come here and see what about the human world was so entrancing. Your mother was the same you know? Always loved this place to the point of obsession although I can't imagine why.”

She sent once more disdainful glance around the apartment and made it clear that she was not by any means impressed. While I could have tried to defend this world by establishing that the inside of my apartment was not a fair reflection of the world at large, I was too thrown off by her appearance to put the words together.

I shook my head a few times to make sure this wasn’t just an elaborate hallucination and blinked a few times to double-check. It was as I opened my eyes for the third time that I felt the magic in the air, thin as it was, become frantic and a bright light erupted in the middle of my living room.

It occurred to me that I had never actually seen a person transport as I watched the phenomenon unfold Infront of me. The light slowly stretched out into a size slightly larger than me and split off into five strands of light, one for each limb and the last for the head.

The thin sheet of light slowly began to solidify, and my great-grandfather’s face became clear. His cold expression quickly contorted into one of sickness and before he said anything, he ran to the trash can by the side of the room and emptied out his stomach.

I was torn between being worried about him and being happy to know I wasn’t the only one that had such a reaction. I chose to ignore my grandmother’s twisted expression and ran over to Theodulus with a bottle of water and a towel.

“Bloody dirty air.”

He rinsed out his mouth as he cursed and wiped his mouth clean with the towel. As he took care of himself, he caught sight of my grandmother and his expression soured even further.

“Don’t look at me like you didn’t react the same, Heloise. This air is bad enough for me, it must have been hell for you.”

Although she didn’t verbally respond, she averted her eyes and her smile flattened in embarrassment, indirectly proving his statement to be true.

Watching the two of them interact in my unlit and messy apartment looked like a CGI scene in a high budget movie. Incredible but unreal.

“Grandfather! Wha-“

He cut me off before I could ask and motioned toward Heloise as he responded to my unasked question.

“Why else would I and her be here? You decided o stay in this world for longer than you were supposed to. Had to make sure you didn’t manage to get yourself killed or hurt.”

Although his words were harsh his eyes constantly roamed over me and around the apartment to make sure I wasn’t hurt and that there was nothing ready to hurt me. I got the feeling he would have bubble-wrapped the apartment if he knew what bubble wrap was.

Did he know what bubble wrap was?

From how they both talked, I assumed that they were familiar with the human world, but from what century?

Heloise went to sleep before my mother became queen, which was over a century ago if the textbook I’d read was correct, and I couldn’t even guess as to the last time Theodulus was in the human world.

“Well, I’m not quite as jobless as Theodulus over here and didn’t just come to check up on you, although that was important. I finally found a graduation assignment for you and I thought you might as well get it over with while you were still in the human world.”

I was confused and a bit lost.

“A graduation assignment? Like the one Ion had?”

She took note of my worried expression and quickly hurried to comfort me in her same gentle and calming tone. I had to say that being doted on like this wasn’t half bad. But then I thought about it a bit more and realized that almost everyone in my life treated me like a temperamental toddler, except for maybe Jake, who saw me as a stubborn teenager he needed to take care of.

Well, it wasn’t bad for now. I’d let it go on until I got tired of it.

“Not at all, darling. You probably know that all fairies need to complete general education before they can be considered as mature fairies correct?”

No actually, I didn’t.

But I felt like admitting my ignorance would not be a great choice right now.

“At the end of this general education is a test where you come to the human world and grant the wish of a single human, which I, personally picked out for you. Usually, fairies need about thirty years of education but you’re a royal! You’re also used to the human world, I thought you would be able to handle this relatively quickly. All you need to start is to unroll the scroll.”

She brought out a long scroll from her fan like sleeves and handed it over to me. I was already overwhelmed by my two grandparents suddenly showing up in my apartment, then I was confused by a whole education system I had only been vaguely aware of.

I knew Mei was invested in the public education of the fairies and spent most of her time working on it, but I hadn’t looked into what the current system looked like.

The scroll hung heavily in my hand as I took it from my grandmother’s hands and slowly unrolled it. I didn’t even know what the test was, so I was reluctant to start a mission but at the same time, I couldn’t risk her taking my hesitation as a reason to send me in for thirty years of school.

I hadn’t even graduated high school over here yet so signing up for thirty years of public education was not something I wanted.

The scroll shone brightly as its seal broke and words jumped off the page and into the air.

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ASSIGNMENT

Person: Kiana Tamar

Location: 1G567N670-INAFGIS-897237-0002

Mission: Locate her and grant her wish.

Rules:

You may not use any direct magic in this case. (Ex. Using a spell to make a human fall in love will not count as a successful mission. Using magic to make money will not count as you successfully making the wisher ‘rich’) You must use magic in a resourceful way to resolve the wish. The target of the mission must be at least 92% human! If you suspect your target does not meet this condition you must report it as quickly as possible. No reanimation magics You may not ask any adult fairy for help (age mates are okay). You may not use magic to influence the human’s final evaluation. Points will be deducted if you alert the human of your identity as a fairy A time limit of three decades.

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And so the list went on, of various restrictions.

It didn’t look that hard, but I understood how it would be difficult for a fairy that had no connections to this world.

What bothered me though was the fact that coming to the human world was an established part of the fairy education system. My mind drifted to the so-called ’heroes’ I had seen on the news recently and I couldn’t help but wonder if they were related.

Theodulus let out a cough and roughly handed me a similar scroll, but this one was silver, as a contrast to the other.

“Well, I thought I would give you your mission as well. All you need to do is make a deal and win it. It has to be a rather large-scale deal mind you, but it shouldn’t be anything too difficult.”

I suddenly felt extremely tired despite having had almost five hours of sleep. The two scrolls hung in the air and seared their contents into my brain, both with time limits, but worse, both that required me to get involved with random people.

“Calm down darling. If you can’t do it this time you can just stay with me in the castle and try again next time.”

I decided to switch my attention to the school Theodulus had given me. Unlike the fairy scroll, it had much fewer instructions and only had a time limit, Deal limit and a location.

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MISSION

Time limit: Three months

Location: Human world.

Deal limit: A life

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“What’s a Deal limit?”

My grandfather’s eyebrows ceased as I asked what by his reaction, I could gather was an obvious question, but he responded anyway.

“I already explained this to you before Aies. Each goblin is assigned different levels of deals they must strike and win to graduate. As a royal, your limit is naturally heavier than others.”

“So, I have bet my life on something?”

“What? Of course not!”

He scoffed off my shocked question as if it was the most ridiculous thing he had ever heard.

“I’d love to see what sort of deal you could make in this world that was worth your life!”

He started to laugh but then his expression froze, and he looked at me warily.

“Well, knowing you, you’d manage to find one. Let me make this clear, you have to find a deal that the human is willing to bet their lives on okay? If I hear you betting your life on anything, I’ll take you back to the goblin realm and lock you up myself.”

I could only nod at his intense tone and tried to process it all when both Heloise and Theodulus’s devices began to beep loudly.

“Ah, looks like my time is up.”

“Looks like this piece of garbage is at its limit.”

The devices that they wore, a choker for Theodulus and a long locket like mine for Heloise, glowed brightly and showed they had reached their limits in sustaining two royals in the human world.

“Wait! Why are you guys leaving!”

I knew why they were leaving; I was just reluctant to see them go. The devices could only take in so much magic and filter it through them before it ran hot became unstable. They needed to return to the other world before that happened.

Heloise dragged me into a hug and held me tight.

“It's okay darling, I’ll be right in the castle whenever you want to see me. I’m not going anywhere for a long time.”

She then placed a kiss on my forehead, and I felt a rush of magic flood into me although I didn’t recognize the spell. Before I could ask for details, Theodulus put a heavy hand on my head and ruffled my hair with an affectionate grin on his usually stoic face.

“You can come to the goblin lands anytime kiddo. I’ll teach you how to use your father’s gift later but remember to keep it on!”

He suddenly scolded me for not wearing the ring and bracelet set my father had left me as regularly as I wore the locket my mother left me. The main reason I avoided wearing it was because it wasn’t as easy to hide as the locket and I couldn’t risk being identified while I switched between being a regular student and working at Volui.

Although I guessed I wouldn’t need to hide it anymore. Will and Aleka and Nik had all worked in tandem to convince me to reveal my identity to the world and I had let myself be convinced. There wouldn’t be much of a reason to hide it once I graduated and if I ever wanted to go out without being recognized I could just change my appearance with magic.

I nodded in response to the scolding and promised to visit soon as they disappeared. And just like that, I was alone again.

But

I wasn’t lonely.

I had everyone in the other world. Like Mei, Theodulus, Heloise, Cambridge, Corin, Ion, even Akseli.

In this world, I had Will, Jake, Sparrow, Nik and Aleka.

There were people I could see if I wanted to and people I would see even if I didn’t want to.

I thought back to a few months ago and traced all the events that had filled my life since January and instinctively pinched my arm to make sure I wasn’t dreaming.

It was all real, and while there were events, I wished hadn’t happened there were much more that I was so, so happy had happened.

I had friends and I had a family.

My phone’s piercing ringtone pierced through the silence and its screen lit up with caller Id.

It was Sparrow, probably calling me for a final fitting. With a groan, I peeled myself off the floor and slumped into the bathroom to take a shower.

I had a long day ahead.