Tiatha had been given a list of Fey who might be interested, or who ought to be interested, in this year's Thanksgiving Dinner.

The list had been sorted... in reverse alphabetical order, because Edna had accidentally double clicked the name column.  It was one of those very, very minor things that set the wheels of fate turning in one direction instead of others.  Most Humans never noticed, thinking that fate, if there was such a thing, rested on very big things.  A few scientists had concluded otherwise, and described how a butterfly in Brazil could cause a tornado in Texas, but such things didn't matter to most Humans.

Butterflies mattered to nature Fey, especially Zoonabelle, who had been placed on top of the list by that little extra tap on a key, so she understood instinctively the importance of this event.  She couldn't just be a passive participant now; the universe wanted her involved.  Again.  So soon after that Troll affair.

(This would make two.  Zoonabelle shuddered.  It meant there would be three.  If there were two, there was always a three.)

 Zoonabelle lives in the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge, the coastal marsh near John F Kennedy Airport, alone in an old boat stuck in the sand and abandoned.  Very much a loner, by Fey standards, but most Nature Fairies are.

But she's decided there is a meaning in the fact that she was first.  She knows the city is home to a handful of other Nature Fairies.  Most of them she's never met.  Everyone has their own "turf" as it were and hers is fairly well removed.  It's on the far side of Brooklyn, and it takes a lot to get a Nature Fairy to fly over Brooklyn.  (Though Zoonabelle recently did it, and therefore knows exactly what it takes.)  But she knows the names, and a few she's actually met.  She knows all the names, though, and where to find them.  The birds tell her.  Birds trust Zoonabelle instinctively.

She decides, therefore, to do the logical thing.  Start with the closest.  That would be... Flea.

Zoonabelle has recently learned that she has more courage than she thought she ever had.  That will be necessary, because Flea, unfortunately, lives somewhere Zoonabelle never thought a Nature Fairy... one of her own kind!... would call home.  Lower Manhattan.  Canyons of stone and glass.  Was there any nature there at all?  It seemed an impossible task, to find anyone in that.

But being a Nature Fairy changes the basic premise of impossible, when you can speak to birds, and ask about others like yourself, who are small and magical and have a mystical affinity for animals.  That narrows down the search range considerably.

At this time of year, it was a very busy period fo Flea. All the little babies from earlier in the year were fairly close to being grown up, some animals were talking of where they might go for the winter, or good spots to hibernate. The animals that braved the icy New York winter were all in full speed preparation, shovelling as much food as they could in larders, or themselves. There was not one moment where she wasn't hauling nuts around, digging out a hole under a tree root in a park, or giving moral support to the panicing squirrels. (Squirrels panic a lot. About anything. The default state of the squirrel brain is "Oh god oh god oh god oh god oh god oh god..." and when food store time is on them, they can quite literally run around in circles getting absolutely nothing done, because they are panicing about running around in circles getting absolutely nothing done. Squirrels are a major pain at times.)

At this moment, she was perched in a gutter on the top of a six storey brownstone. Around her were the local juvenile pigeon population, a couple of dozen who had got used to their wings, had the whole 'grabbing any food in sight' pretty much down, and were now going through the pigeon version of adolesence. That meant a lot of sex-crazed birds strutting about and utterly failing to impress other sex-crazed pigeons. It was an awful lot of fuss over not a lot.

Flea had found a half-eaten corn on the cob near some trashcans in an alley, and had hauled it up to the roof. She was sharing it, of course, but also crunching away at the corn, which was smeared with old congealed butter, and dirt. Each kernel was about the size of a melon, relative to her own tiny size, so this was a pretty good find. She'd save a couple of kernels and eat well for a couple of days.

As she was eating, she was listening to an old raven who had perched nearby. She'd known him since he was an egg, and often heeded his news. And his jokes. He knew more filthy jokes than anyone she had ever known, and this particular loft of squabs were getting an education in totally unrepeatable stories. However, pigeons and corvids were of different families, and their languages were not really that compatible beyond the basics. Flea was translating the stories.

The raven cawed and then cackled, flapping his wings in amusement. Flea thought about what he had said, and then made a bunch of suggestive cooing noises, putting the last part of the tale into pigeon. "And that's when the heron said, 'That ain't my beak, lady!'..."

She then cackled in merriment at the response, as the pigeons warbled their own amusement. She tossed a few more kernels to them. The raven preened his feathers, and spoke, his Brooklyn accent surprisingly thick. "Dats da way it is, whatcha gonna do? Dem wadin' boids, dey got just one thing on the brain. An' it ain't seashells. Hey, do ya know the one about the guy who goes on a date wid a goose in his pants?"

Flea blinked. "A goose? Was he insane? Geese... look, even I tread carefully about geese. They're totally nuts! Real psycho!"

"It's a joke, doofus!" The raven cawed, in exasperation. "They ain't meant ta be true!"

Zoonabelle found her target, eventually, conveniently up on a building, talking to a raven.
She rarely saw ravens.  Sea birds were Zoonabelle's thing.  But a bird was a bird, and someone talking to a bird was a Nature Fairy.

Zoonabelle was the far side of the Nature Fairy spectrum from Flea in some ways, and most obvious on first glance was the difference in fashion choice.  Zoonabelle supplied herself with "borrowed" doll clothing. Not "baby" dolls, that would be ridiculous, Zoonabelle knew. She adapted the clothing from fashion dolls.  She had a large collection, even so, of the millions of dollars worth of fashion doll clothing lost by little girls every year, a surprisingly small amount ended up with fairies.  More than enough to provide those that scrounged with substantial and quite colorful wardrobes.

Circling on the breeze, the cheery looking nature fairy settled down near Flea.

Her Seagulls and Egrets were much cleaner birds.   Settling down took a little work.

"Hello!" she said cheerily.

The arrival of a stranger into their midst got the birds into a fluster. Skittish things, pigeons. But since there was food and no sign of this person being a predator, they eventually calmed the chorus of cooing, and watched, as pigeons are also very nosey.

Flea lowered the chunk of corn from her face, and beamed. Her visage was grimy and smeared with some old butter, and worse. But it was also friendly, as was her nature. Another fairy was always welcome at her table, even if they did smell of some very odd things - was that... marshland? In the city? It made no sense!

"Hello! Sit down and have some corn. It's really good, very slippery! Have we met? I don't think we've met. I'd remember. I'm damn good at remembering things. Ask me anything I know, I'll prove it!"

She waved a hand at the raven, who hopped further along the gutter. And said "Kark!" in a rather annoyed way at being shooed.
This message was last edited by the player at 01:23, Tue 23 Aug 2016.

"You're one of us!" Zoonabelle says with guarded optimism.  Her slightly shaky voice carries a subtext- I really, really hope you are, because you are a little strange.  "And I am on an Important Mission!  They chose me first, above all others, which is very Meaningful because no one ever thinks of me.  Not at all.  Mostly they all forget I am out there but that's fine, you know how it is with us."

Again, her voice seems to indicate that she worries that things are utterly contrary to what she is saying.

"As far as I know, we haven't met.  I have met only two others of our kind, Jackanna who looks after the zoo and park animals, and Wezzle, who is in the north part of the city."

Flea has heard of him.  Sort of a "beach bum" of a Nature Fairy, though he counts a large part of the Long Island Sound as his domain and has done well with the endangered Ridley Sea Turtles that, surprisingly, show up on a couple of secluded islands close to the city.

"What nice pigeons!  There certainly are... a lot of them."

"There are..." Flea closed her eyes and concentrated hard, "Six hundred and seventy three thousand, four hundred and nine pigeons in my territory at this time." She opened her eyes and beamed widely. "That's a lot of pigeons, but don't even ask me to count the rats, because I might take all day! Did you know that this whole human big-village has about one pigeon for every human in it? That's a lot of pigeons. Sometimes I even forget their names."

She tore off a chunk of corn and held it out to her visitor, happily. She always shared! "I never met either of them. I don't go out of this place much. Too much to do! Not so bad once everyone goes away for winter, but right now, I can't really find much time to sleep. What made you come here? Do you want to help? Oh, that would be so nice! Do you have any experience with sewers?"

Zoonabelle wrinkles her nose at the very thought of a sewer.

"Sewers smell bad," she says.

A tidal marsh at low tide is no picnic for the nose either, but Zoonabelle is used to that smell.

"I am here because of the library," Zoonabelle says.  "There is a Human custom, and they wish us to participate.  Every year at this time, Humans gather at this time with their families, and they eat a big dinner.  They call it Thanksgiving.  I suppose they Thank somebody, or each other, something like that.  But, they chose me first, to contact me, and I think it means something.  Of course it does!  I think it means... well, you know... we Nature Fairies rarely see each other.  We have no families.  Not like Humans do.  This is a chance.  We could bring the others together, for this one day.  Be family.  Eat Human food.  Like... this thing you have."

Zoonabelle grabs the chunk of corn.  "Humans have extraordinary food.  The seagulls love it.  They will even seek out what the Humans throw away.  If the trash is that good, the part the Humans don't throw away, that must be magic."

Flea waved a buttery hand enthusiastically. "Oh, I know aaaaallllllll about it! That time of year is just the best garbage ever! I mean, even the bits that are a bit fusty are still pretty damn nummy! You really should hang around a few days after, there's always plenty to go around." She gulped down another few mouthfulls of corn, with all the table manners of a deranged hog.

However, the significance of the event is not lost on her. Sure, she looks and acts like no Nature Fairy worthy of the name - at least, so far as a lot of the other Nature Fairies might judge. But she is still one of them, and can see the opportunities this affords them all.

"It'd be good to have a get together. I mean, I know names and stuff. But we never meet. So this could be a lot of fun. And the Library, that's mine!" Well, in her turf, so as far as she is concerned, it belongs to her. Even those other fae and humans in the Library were there because she let them stay. That's how her brain works. Her turf - her Library. "So I'll make extra special double dog down swear on star sure that everyone has a good time!"

She turned and cooed at the pigeons, who strudded about, making an awful racket for a few moments. The thought of their first Thanksgiving leftovers was obviously one that got them stirred up. They heard tell of this magical thing called pie, and wanted to try it so very much.
This message was last edited by the player at 23:39, Fri 26 Aug 2016.

"The Library is Yours?" Zoonabelle asks, sounding puzzled and awed.  "I just have a boat.  It's a nice boat.  I decorated it."

She goes on to explain what she knows so far:  the Library is making a list of Fey who would attend, and also, those who should attend, and also, those who should really be on the list but aren't on the list yet because no one knows about them.  Zoonabelle ended up top of the list.  Clearly it was because this was Meant To Be.  She is Important.

"And I thought about it, and I understand it," she says.  "It is because no one else is as good at Finding as a Nature Fairy.  We know the animals.  My seagulls, your... goodness, that one is friendly... pigeons.  Do you know all their names?  With the Nature Fairies searching, very soon we will know all the Fey in the city, and invite all who need to be invited.  Although that is the part I am not sure about.  I don't know what they really meant about should be invited.  Are their some of us who would be more helped by this ritual?"

"Yes! I have the most important job in the Library, and everyone there knows it and says so! They often give me tribute in the form of things like cake and stuff!" Flea seemed very proud of this, and the concept of 'just humouring the silly fairy' never once entered her mind.

She munched on her corn as she listened. "Well, duh! Everyone knows that nature fairies know everything that is going on. Even the big people seem to know it, though humans are too dense to actually bother asking us anything. I wonder sometimes how they can get through the day without walking into stuff. Some of them can't even manage that!"

She lobbed several more kernels into the warbling mass of pigeons. "I know most of 'em. That is Coo, this is Coo, over there is Coo, and this one is called Coo..." The names sounded almost the same, but each had its own pitch, own variations. Not that most people would notice it, but nature fairies had far more experience at this sort of thing. "But who should be invited? I dunno. Prob'ly everyone, I guess. I dunno what the ritual is meant to do. I think it's all about eating too much, having big arguments, and falling asleep in the afternoon. Most human rituals are."

A rather broad, if slightly justified, view of human life.
This message was last edited by the player at 21:42, Tue 30 Aug 2016.

"Arguments?  That means there will probably be Goblins on the list.  We'll have to track them down, to.  They're... well... I saw a couple of them.  Of course.... yes, of course we have to invite the Goblins.  Ettiquette.   Oh my.. I hadn't thought of the Ettiquette.  This is going to be scarier than I thought."

Any Fey would know exactly what Zoonabelle is talking about.  There are always Fey creatures who are not nice.  Fortunately for Mortals, and especially other Fey, they respect certain rules and generally do not cause much trouble.  But some things provoke them, and high on the list is being disrespected by not being invited to a party other Fey are invited to.  Even if they have no intention to actually attend, not being invited is an unforgivable slight.  Humans wrote a famous story the wrath of an evil fairy who wasn't invited when she should have been.

And then they turned that story into a well known ballet.  The last time it was staged in Manhattan, only a handful of mortals knew that the part of one of the fairies was being danced by an actual fairy.

"Etty-ketty? I know all about that, don't I? Don't we?!" Flea turned to the pigeons and there was a chorus of cooing and flapping that clearly showed that these were polite, well brought up young pigeons, who had learned the proper way to behave. "What is etty-ketty, then?" Flea awaited a pigeon response, but the croaking voice of the raven broke through, and spoke in a passable version of fairy... Ravens were intelligent birds, and full of all sorts of surprises.

"Ettiquette. Ettiquette is where you make sure that both the biggest bird an' the smallest bird both get fair shares of a dead cat wot you find roun' the back of a dumpster. That's wot it is!"

Flea pointed at the raven and said, in approval. "See! We all know proper manners 'round here! But... oh, wait!" Her look became very worried, and she lowered her voice to a whisper, so the pigeons could not hear her concern. "Will we have enough dead cats? I mean, goblins eat a lot, and I bet each human can eat one whole cat just to themselves! I don't think I have enough to go round, not at this time of year. Maybe after new year, when the snow is properly run in... but it's too early for dead cat season. Do you think they might be happy with... I don't know... something cat shaped? Made out of garbage? Humans are idiots, they won't know the difference."

Flea had a lot of experience, in her own field. But her view of life was quite limited beyond that. To her, etiquette was a rule about metaphorical dead cats. The idea of expanding that to encompass things outside her frame of reference was one that did not immediately occur to her