New York City, despite the image and that word "city" does have its share of animals.  It has a few animal oriented nature faeries looking after them.  Zoonabelle, for example, covers the great multitudes of migratory water birds that come and go through Jamaica Bay.

Flea covers a lot of creatures others might dismiss as vermin, such as the rats and to some extent, the pigeons (aka "skyrats").

But others seem to be in the "anyone's" department, and this includes the fish that live in ever increasing numbers in the waterways, which have been becoming cleaner year by year.  New York City has even been graced by whale visits, though those certainly aren't regular residents.

Flea has endless options for finding fish.

There is also Proge's Fishing Buddies, and those are somewhat more limited.  Making a wild guess, they figure that where Proge might have his boat, they might find both:  friends and fish.

But the trail leads them... to Proge's home.  He's out right now, in another thread, but Flea and Oscar find that he lives in an odd little corner of the Bronx, right by the water's edge.  Gildersleeve Avenue, close to Pugsley Creek, a neighborhood that really doesn't fit the mold of the city, being mostly small bungalow homes.  They find his home, and his boat on its trailer, and everything neat and tidy in a very un-Goblin way... hard to tell who around here might be friends... but the water is near, and there is a park.  Plenty of fish, and certainly birds...a few squirrels...  Flea could probably find some rats.

Oscar sighed, taking a look around Proge's home. He shook his head as he surveyed the interior of the small, bungalow home. "I got nothin'" he commented to Flea as he poked around the strangely tidy home. "I hope you can find someone to talk to 'cause there ain't nothing inside here to give us any clues at all."
This message was last edited by the player at 00:00, Wed 24 June 2020.

Flea is clearly looking around for local animals.

Oscar, biding his time, finds Proge's boat.  It's sitting on its trailer.  Oddly, it looks a little battered.  It's been through something rough.

On arrival, Flea had immediately hopped into the undergrowth. She then poked her head out and started to make a weird sort of keening, chittering noise. To most ears, it would be a fairly random, meaningless sound - some small animal, perhaps, doing whatever they get up to in the bushes. But to listening animals, it had an altogether different significance...

"Listen up, good buddies! Flea needs your help! If you've lived here for a while, come and talk! Come and talk! Very important things are happening Come and help Flea!"
This message was last edited by the player at 13:33, Fri 26 June 2020.

Oscar wandered around the boat, taking a closer look at the details. He was trying to figure out what might have happened to the craft. He was no expert with boats, but he was observant and he was trying to figure out what the circumstances were surrounding the damage.

He gave Flea a bit of distance, not wanting to spook the gathering of animals that she was convening.

It doesn't take Flea very long to get a response.  After a few moments of calling, a furry grey head pokes out from a bush.  A squirrel, the common bushy tailed resident of the city.

Every fairy knows there are several proven ways of attracting a squirrel.  One is to act like a nut.  But a better way is to simply talk to it, in its own language.  This, Flea can do.

Squirrels, however, have their own way of looking at the world, their own priorities, and it takes a long time to get them to talk about what you want them to talk about, instead of what they want to talk about.

But Flea has a better chance when a crow arrives.  The black bird arrives, flapping down between Flea and the Squirrel.

"Wuzzup, Nutsy," the bird says to the Squirrel.  "You trying to help out the Fairy here?  She didn't call you for some fluffy tailed whackadoodliness.  She needs some smarts."

The bird looks towards Flea.  "I'm Bartholemew.  My fuzzy friend here is Trixie.  How can I help you?"

Meanwhile, Oscar looks around the boat.  It smells of water and fish.   This boat, despite the evident damage, looks like it still works.  It received some damage, but it is still floatable.

But there is something else here, something quite odd.  It looks like a shiny, slick, mottled grey cloth.

Oscar picked up the cloth, turning it over in his hands as he examined it closely. His first though was that it might be a skin, like that of a Selkie. Not wanting to jump to any conclusions, he focused on what he could discover through an initial examination.

He headed back to Flea, waiting until she was finished with her conversations before breaking in and delivering the news of what he had found.

"Bartholemew... Trixie... nice to meet you both!" Flea was, as always, far politer to animals than to mere people. But then, people were nowhere near as nice to her as animals, so it seemed fair. She cut to the chase, as she suspected she had no time for small talk about nuts and really tasty garbage.

"There was a goblin that came out here to fish. He was called Proge. He came a lot! Did you see him here? And if you did, did you seem him do anything strange, or something happen to him? He's forgotten he is a goblin, and you know how bad that is. If everyone starts going around forgetting who they are, it'll be chaos! You'll end up with mice trying to fly, and mosquitoes thinking they're badgers... or badgers thinking they are mosquitoes, which would be a lot worse, now I think about it. I know nothing can happen without you decent citizens knowing about it! You're far more intelligent than humans, they never see anyfink!"

As it turns out, the Crow has a vested interest in keeping track of this boat.  Sometimes, when Proge would come back from fishing, there would be some tasty morsels of leftover bait. One might think that seagulls had the first dibs on these treats, but often, Proge simply didn’t leave them opportunity.  Then, it belonged to Crows- and of course, if the crow wasn’t quick enough, it fell to rats and others.    It’s one of the lessons of being a crow- wait your turn, but never miss your turn.  And this means watching carefully.  And this makes them excellent for keeping track of things… as long as those things had something of interest… like tasty fish morsels.

“So the Goblin here takes his boat,” the Crow begins.  Like many animals, Crows have an instinctive ability to sense through the veil, they are exceptionally sensitive to the supernatural.

“Just like he takes it a lot.  I watch, always I watch and wait.  But he did not forget, no it is more.  He changed.  He took the boat, and there was a storm, a strange and small storm.  Not the kind I know."

As Flea knows, birds are also keenly aware of weather.  They know things.

"When he came back from the storm he was not the same.  He was a human.  But he was still the same.  But not a Goblin.  Human.  I do not understand how this can be, but it was.  Very strange.  Since then, he has not taken the boat out, but it has not been long.  Umm... Squawk."

The Squirrel perks her ears.  "Same and not the same?  And they say Squirrels talk nonsense."

"When you see, you see," the bird says.

"And I do not remember a storm," Trixie adds.

"I said a SMALL storm.  Not here.  Away, north, east."

Trixie looks across the street and looks puzzled.  Bartholomew shakes his head.  Birds and Squirrels have a different sense of scale and distances.

Flea considered this with a deep frown. This was far more complex than stuff she usually had to deal with. Finding hidden nuts the squirrels had lost (yet again) or setting a trap for the exterminator (because irony is lovely) were second nature. Being a Seuper Sekrit Detecive ::tm:: on this level was entirely different. Still she ventured onwards.

"This storm, was it just on him? Or did it get anybody else? You ever seen one like it any other time?" It changed him... took away his goblin nature. Not good. She looked up at Oscar.

"It's a bit weird. They saw him go out, all right! Bartholemew here is a pretty clever fella, I can tell. He knows his eyeballs!" Humans might have said onions... "He said Proge went out fishin' same as always. But there was a real small storm where Proge was out there, and when he came back he had lost his...  um... goblinositudinosity!"

That was a very clever word, and she was proud of it!!!

"Like, it wasn't he forgot. He actually changed. It got taken away! He's not lost his memory! He's lost his SOUL!"

Oscar shook his head. This did not sound good. A magical storm that takes away the Fae spirit? There was no way that sort of thing was a 'natural' phenomena.

"Someone's taking Fae essences." He refused to use the word soul, as in his mind it hearkened to the Judeo Christian mythology that Oscar was not much of a fan of.

"That storm had to be the work of someone. Maybe a magical spell or something. If both events happened over water, that's a connection we need to follow up on. That ain't no coincidence. Flea, can you ask the fish of the birds to pinpoint the place where the storm manifested? I know they can't read a map, but maybe they can swarm the area where it happened, so we can know exactly the spot to check out."

He shrugged. "and before you ask, no we're not going out on the water to check it out, not at least without some backup. You can fly out there. I can't."

Flea stood up and dusted herself off - which was a gesture that was more symbolic than effective, given how filthy she was most of the time. "Yeah, yeah. I get it. Flea does all the heavy liftin', same as always. Honestly, this city would just fall apart if it weren't for me holdin' everything together! But do I get the respect? Nooooooooo!"

She was convinced that without her the whole metropolis would turn to a total disaster zone. In a weird way, she was possibly not far from the truth. Or at least, her little patch of turf would. She kept the wildlife in check, and a mammoth infestation of wasps, cockroaches, and possibly a plague of disease-carrying rats was only one whim away from becoming a reality.

She turned back to the animals. "You know, you've been super helpful. Flea gives you thanks, and I promise, I'll see about sending something good your way, soon. There's a new shwarma place opening up next week. It'll not miss a little food... Anyways, can you show me exactly where Proge was when this happened? I oughta fly out and take a looksee." She fluttered her wings and rose a foot or two off the ground, buzzing like a dragonfly. "I'd take the boggart, but you know how it is. Dumb big folk never even learned how to fly without a machine! And they think they run the world! HAH!"
This message was last edited by the player at 17:41, Mon 06 July 2020.

A little while later, Oscar is watching from a grassy lawn by the water at nearby Classon Point Park.  A New York Waterways Ferry is approaching the ferry dock nearby, but Flea has gone off in the other direction, along with Trixie the Crow.

Who will, no doubt, want some reward when this thing is over.  Crows despise working for nothing.  Fortunately, Crows will eat just about anything, and if anything edible isn't available, can often be appeased with an Interesting Shiny.

They fly east, towards the Whitestone and Throggs Neck Bridges.  Soon, Oscar is unable to see them- they're both pretty small.

Trixie squawks with some other birds, asking for help "coordinating".  Birds are excellent navigators, but sometimes work best in flocks.

The storm, as the birds play it out, was brief, came out of the east, reached a point, swelled up, and then.. faded.  The whole thing was disturbingly brief.

The storm reached its intense peak, and then vanished, at the Throggs Neck Bridge.  Right in the middle of the bridge.  Right where it crosses a thin peninsula of land... with buildings, and at the very tip, and old fortress, of the stone wall and cannon age, still maintained and used, but now as part museum, part college.

This is the place, according to the birds.  The storm came here.

Stone walls.  Iron cannons.  Very much NOT a nature fairy kind of place.

Flea did not like this. It all felt wrong. She was used to buildings and man-made things, she lived in New York City, after all. But this was old. And weird.

She landed atop one of the parapets, and kept herself hunkered down low. She started to hunt around for anything that was off. A trace of energy, scorch marks... hell, a chunk of goblin soul lying around would be kinda helpful...

Flea lands on the roof.  For all the age of the building, the roof is of the modern era.  Soft, rubbery sheet... the original leaked and was replaced many years ago.

It doesn't look at all unusual.  But then, Flea would have a hard time noting what was unusual on a roof.  For that sort of thing, a Goblin or Gremlin might do better.

Trixie lands nearby.

So does a curious Seagull.  The Crow shakes her head.

"What?"  the Seagull asks.  "What are you doing here?  They got food?"

"That's all a Seagull ever thinks about," the Crow replies disdainfully.

"Hey, you got your beaks in the trash as much as we do," the Seagull says.

"Well at least we don't have twelve different words for French Fry," Trixie responds.

"Sixteen.  Ours is a rich and intricately nuanced tongue.  So what gives, if it's not food?"

"Flea wanted to know about the storm here," Trixie says.

The Seagull gives a feather ruffle.  "Fairies always getting into things that shouldn't.  Lots of old Human stuff in there.  Old stuff.  But I've seen one thing here no Seagull ever seen before.  The storm came here, oh yes."

"I know.  Then it fizzled out," Trixie says.

"No.  Then it went inside.  Lightning hit, again and again, and the storm gathered and became smaller and smaller and went IN."

Flea yelped at that revalation! That was what they came for - and meant that it was also going to be a big risk if the thing was still around. She took to the air at once.

"Thank you all so much! That was pretty awesome! I'll be back with as much grub as I can carry later, and the next few nights too, if I can find it! This might just save the day. A'course everyone knows birds are where the brains are. Humans can barely walk. Thinking makes them ill. Fanks, kiddos!"

She then departed, at speed, before she could get caught. She dropped out of the sky and landed SPLAT! on Oscar's head.

"Make wiv the leg thing, buster! I think I cracked this case wide open. And my bloody wings are knackered! Home!"

Oscar looked up at Flea, but grudgingly complied, catching a cab back to the library.