Mouse was always happy to have his ears scratched.  Unfortunately, the faery seemed to startle at the sight of Ragwort and sat down rather clumsily.  He moved around beside her, nudging into the space between her arm and her body.  Then, taking a firm, yet amazingly gentle hold of her wrist with his mouth, he helps her stand.

He does so by slowly growing, not to his full size, until her feet are soundly on the ground.  He chuffs happily before returning to his normal-dog size.

"I'm a costume designer?" Violet responded. "And you're a pixie a hell hound and a witch?" It wasn't said insultingly but she was clearly trying to guess what they were, aside from the pixie whose species they were openly discussing.

"Thank you." Violet said to Mouse, wiping her slightly slobbered hand on her jeans. "Um... do hell hounds like dog biscuits?" One of her friends had a pet dog and Violet thought she might have a few left in her knapsack, she started rummaging and triumphantly pulled out a baggie of gravy bones.

Mouse woofs happily.  He doesn't much like being called a hell-hound.  On the other hand, more cookies!

All in all, he'll take the cookies and chalk the insult up to the fae being new to this.  His tail wags happily as he sits back on his haunches and raises his forepaws off the ground.  Reduced to normal dog tricks, the things I do for cookies, he thinks to himself.

Having no idea that she's said anything wrong, Violet just focuses on feeding the dog biscuits to Mouse and scratching him behind the ears some more. "Such a good dog."

She looks ay with a grin Violet "No, I am not a witch. If I was, I am not all these good folk would want to be with me. I a am A Djinn. I guess your an elf?"

She looks at Ragwort "We fly really good too. Some one told me there was some Pixies who couldn't fly running around here. Are they upset or something?

"Pixies who can't fly?"  Ragwort gives a puzzled look.  "Is that a joke?  A riddle?  Or do you have us mixed up with the Little People.  Brownies and Leprechauns and others, they can't fly either, you know.  Maybe you saw Jacque LeLoot.  He's a Lutin and can't fly.  Or one of those weird winter Gnomes.  You should see them ice skate!  Like they were born to it!  But they can't fly, no."

Amera grins. "I think I heard that some pixie was messing with the Christmas trees but they said the pixie could not fly and I figured it must not be a pixie" she said off handed. She hoped he might know who it is.

"Oh, not us!" Ragwort says, sounding a little hurt.  "I heard about that.  Busy, Human places, so crowded, so many people, you know we don't like those places!  We play among flowers and thickets!"

"Besides," he continues after settling down.  "there was magic there, more than we have.  You can feel it.  Well, we can.  But it's not us.  It's those weird little Gnomes who wear red."

"Well a lot of people call spiders insects and they're arachnids so I guess it would be easy to get confused and think anyone under a foot tall is a pixie and anyone doing magic is a witch... I'm not entirely sure why you think I'm an elf... I mean my ears aren't pointy but maybe I'm wrong about that too... All I know is sometimes when I look in the mirror lately I look strangely pale and my hair is odd." Violet shrugged. "And now..." She looked at the small group. "I might be going slightly insane but it certainly seems more interesting than last week." She frowned thoughtfully.

"So other than the fact that they're graffitiing Christmas trees and can't fly and look enough like pixies or one of the various descriptions of pixies to be mistaken, was there any more descriptive details? I mean what were they writing, if it was something like 'lutins were here' but the person had never heard of a lutin they might assume it was the name rather than the species." Violet had certainly never heard of one... but if the pixie said this Jaque Leloot was one then she supposed they must be similarish. How was that for logic? Taking the word of a pixie... but she could see it, and it spoke to her, so she might as well look for the internal consistency of what may or may not be a delusion.

Mouse sits quietly, listening to the females talk.

When the new one, the sidhe, denies being an elf he looks at her with a doggy grin.  He yips quietly then deliberately winks at her.

She grins at Ragwort "That's what I said. It couldn't be Pixies as the little people who did do it could not fly. I wonder where these red caps are? I mean I was thinking of putting up a grand tree but for kids, so I don't want it messed with by these red caps."

She looks at Violet "You look like an elf to me. But I can see though all the illusions. Like you might be able to soon. What have you seen that is odd?"

"Well I hope it's not red caps, aren't they supposed to dip their hats in fresh blood or something? Gnomes wearing red could be a fashion thing or making a statement, like anti-Christmas gnomes... I'm not sure what they'd have against it specifically but a lot of extremist groups seem to be based around racism or religious intolerance, maybe they're all about the traditional yule or hate fairy lights because they think there should be gnome bells as well?" Violet shrugged. "As for what I've seen that's odd, I'm talking to someone who made a drink appear from thin air, a flying pixie and a dog that just winked at me... not to mention the floating stick, the slightly glowy white skin that none of my friends seem to see or when Mouse grew the size of an elephant. I think I've seen more things this afternoon than the rest of my life put together."

Ragwort looks at Violet.

"Spiders are bugs," he says.  "Creepy hairy bugs."  Pixies never worked well with metaphors.   But on the other hand, being 11 inches tall, he does have a different view about spiders.

But these Gnomes aren't Red Caps.  They just have red caps.  Bushy white beards.  They're not... well, never heard of them being cruel to anyone.  Just weird."

It means something, when  Pixie describes something as "weird".  That doesn't happen often.

"Hmmm, well if they've got red hats and white bushy beards... maybe they're upset that Santa kind of looks like them? I guess unless we find them or we can read their graffiti there's no way to know why they're going after Christmas trees." Violet shrugged, trying to be helpful but not really having a lot of experience to go off.

She looks at Violet "So, you never knew anything about the fairy world before today? That's so sad. I mean it is so fun being a free Djinn. But I did have a few bad centuries."

She looks at Ragwort "What do you mean by weird?

Ragwort scrunches his little face.  Pixies are known to have problems with complicated ideas.  Their life is a constant escape from such things.  In a way, they are quintessentially Fey Faeries; they exist for the joy of existing and do not understand why others don't see things the same way.

"Weird... you know, like they were... Humans.  Not satisfied with things.  Grumbling and scheming, full of wishes unfilled."

Most Fey are far more at ease with "what is" than Humans can be.  That is why, in stories, it is never the Fey getting their wishes granted.

"Scheming, we know, but we don't know what," the Pixie says.  "Do you?"

"How big were they? I mean... if they're over three feet they could BE humans with dwarfism and santa suits or something? Or could someone have spelled them into being that little and they want to go back to being humans?"

Violet sighed there were far too many possibilities running through her head... really they needed to just talk to them. It was like that sometimes though, the stories, the way things got from one place to another... sometimes she could almost see how things would make the best narrative and it just happened that way. Was that a kind of magic? Speaking of which...

"What kind of magic do elves do? I mean, if I'm an elf... like you said... what do I do? Genies making things appear that people want, like snacks and drinks and jewels and money and stuff, makes sense, but what other magic can you do? And can I do that? And how would I keep seeing a human in the mirror for so long?"

Violet stopped herself before more questions could come spilling out. There were so many... including many they probably wouldn't know, like were her parents secretly elves and she somehow hadn't noticed? How could she be an elf if she had human family? Was she a changeling like in those stories?

"They were Scheming? That is odd. When I was a slave, the humans who controlled me were like that but I have never know a fey to be like that." she looks at Violet. "I can conjure simple thing but not thinks like a cell phone or of real value. Well I could conjure a diamond but it would not last. When I got my freedom, I lost some of my power with my bottle"

Mouse stands up suddenly and grows briefly to his full height.  Standing just over five feet at the shoulders, he weighs as much as a prize bull.  After giving Amara a slobbery kiss, he shrinks back down to his normal dog size

He manages, somehow, to look smug.

Violet concentrated, staring at her hand and whispering "Cookie." Nothing seemed to happen. She sighed. "Hmmmm..."

Maybe you could only will things to exist with practice? Or maybe elves didn't do that kind of magic? Or maybe she wasn't really an elf at all and they were just confused? Violet frowned deeply.

Amara glares at Mouse as she makes a towel appear as she wipes off slobber. "Please, as much as I love animals, I hade slobber. she makes a Frisbee appear and throws it.

She looks at Violet "Don't worry, you will learn what your magic is and such. At least you are not stuck in a lamp and made to appear when it is rubbed"

"That's not right," the Pixie says.  "If you're an Elf you should know how to do Elf magic.  Whatever that is.  Must be secret because I've never seen it.  Then again, I've never seen an Elf.  Except in movies.  But you're not a movie Elf, most of those come out at..."

The Pixie stops, stunned, putting together Elves, Movies, Christmas... and the strange little Gnomes they were talking about earlier.

"Holy hopping hot dogs, that's what they are.  Christmas Elves.  They're in every Santa Claus movie, little folks, pointed ears, kinda dressed like Santa Claus.  That's them.  Only, why are they here, and what are they up to?"

"Ooooh staging a rebellion against Santa? Is Santa real?" Violet's face, which had been looking somewhat down about the magic not working, sort of lit up as she asked. "Are there usually Christmas Elves or has someone magicked them out of the movies? Do they really live at the North Pole?"

"I've seen Santa, of course he's real," the Pixie says.  "He shows up in the parade, every year.  But I never saw Christmas Elves in the city before, not a one.  Not a real one, anyway.  Lots of toys.  This is something new.  I wonder what they are up to."


I'm going to start a new thread, skipping over the time, and allowing the characters to regroup.  The new thread is, "At the Stock Exchange"

It's a short time-hop into the future, because while these characters were investigating the Pixies here, the others back at library have found out more about these "Christmas Elves".  They are Nisse, traditional Norwegian creatures.

What's more, whatever the Nisse are up to has some serious consequences, connected to the disappearance of an important Norwegian Troll.

Further, the group at the library has got a good idea of where the Nisse will make their next appearance:  the tree at the New York Stock Exchange.  So they will set a night watch over it, and wait.


The events of "At the Stock Exchange" will assume that characters have been watching over the area, ready to spot the strange little Nisse and catch one, and find out at last what is going on.

This is not mandatory!  The library is not that kind of organization.  They can only ask for help and hope.  If you want to be somewhere else, let me know.

Amara will bid the Pixie good by and say she will see him again soon.

She will lead Mouse and Violet to the Stock Exchange hoping to find something there.