It was a night like any other night that the portals between the realms saw their favorite little demi fae flit through from the lands of the Tar'sall and Rhydin. It was cold, but the winter bald moons smiled just as brightly upon their immaculately birthed child. Small as she was, no bigger than a man's handspan fingertips to palm base, she shone pale and pristine as a shooting star in its shining, joyous path across the star bright sky.

Her flight took the tiny, winged damsel across the many dips and hollows of the country until she found her night's romping grounds over the still snowless roil of the southern glen. There was a figure walking down below that caught the little ones wide eyes; his presence drew a most curious smile across her neat, heart cut features.

It was a mage, a blue skinned ice mage, his heart like solid stone. He had a rigid step and a haunted, purposeful look about him. Images and designs of a most curious and and powerful kind decorated his skin in carefully scarred ruin. Had he the means, the mage would no doubt have carved into the fiber of his heart, not just the canvas of his skin. Alone he walked, and alone he drew the mischievous fae woman down from her flight to crouch and creep along the ground.

Her wings glittered like bits of abalone jewelry, her hair streamed like milk composed silk, her body sculpted and fine as any nouveau statuette. Minute as she was, and stealthy as she played, the pint sized pixie did not quite sneak up on the ice mage like she'd been hoping. For you see, tiny and feather hearted as she was, the demi fae held a great, burgeoning power. It echoed out from her like an undeniable halo, like the flicker and tease of a scented oil lamp. It was this presence that drew the mage's glance first; sharp and distrusting.

The mage called out a challenge for the immense power he felt creeping towards him through the grass. Steady as a brace, the blue man gave pause, his eyes searching until he found that most curious figure slinking through the brittle blades of winter spelled grass. He called out again, bristling with caution.

This time the little fairy could not deny him; the power of three was too close, he'd already called her out twice. With a piteous wail and a burst of life from her wings, she zoomed up from the ground quite indignant and pouting.

'No fair, no fair! Shang was not even close!' Came her queer cry. It canted the mage's head, making him do a calm double take. Had it really been this petite creature that was emitting so bright an aura of power? Upon stepping closer, and in combination with the fairy's complete disregard for personal space, the blue man found it was. His eyes immediately went to calculating, still suspicious and wondering. Their exchange was perhaps the oddest meeting the glen had seen in a long time; the mage with all his deep caution and the fairy with her bubbling, kindly disposition.

Her state shocked him with her nudity and her unrelenting friendliness, not to mention her shameless display of magic. She changed sizes from eensy to gargantuan without a second thought. The mage received quite the eye opening lesson in the ways of this whimsical little woman, yet unlike those before her, he found he could not so completely loathe this creature.

She held no ambitions to greatness, no vain lust for power or flesh like the others in this realm he'd been exposed to; no. This fairy seemed only to seek his friendship and company. Even her nudity was a form of humble piousness, a tribute to her maker as well as a marvel in her immortal biology.

Intrigued but still not quite at ease, the mage struck a wordless understanding with the fairy. As the night came to a close and thus their exchange, the little fairy found a perch on her icy new friend's shoulder. So unassuming and sweet was she that the demi fae had managed to indulge in a thing denied to all others thus far had failed to since the mage's submersion into the realm of rhydin....Closeness.

Thus the lesson for this nights tale; the greatest power comes not from insistence and seduction alone, but from an open heart and a willing soul.

To be continued...

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Somewhere between the moon's remaining hours and the sun's crowning glory, the little moon child had been delivered to the home of her hoarfrost friend; the ice mage. The growly man's speed was incomparable whilst in the charge of such a precious bundle, his haste great but careful, as he placed her to a tree overlooking the ice mage's currently empty shell-like home. Despite the large man's offer, the still petite and pint sized damsel denied further assistance. Large and growly did not press the fairy further, he turned and ambled away into the night, leaving the pale pretty to her waiting.

Night turned to day, and then day to afternoon; the little fairy continued waiting all the same. For what could she do with such a grievous wound to her leg" Though the bullet graze was not deeper than the length of one's fingertip to that first elbowed-finger joint, her fae body was in constant labor. It was the metal you see, so severe a substance to their immortal, un-man-touched souls.

Slowly but surely, the ice mage entered the scene, his senses primed and piqued to the presence of his unlikeliest of haunters. Even scores across the great grass lawn his home was nestled upon of a most grand and looming institute, he saw the little one's five inch form curled oh so tight and pale in the fork shaped crotch of a nearby sapling.

'Shang"...' Came the ice mage's voice. Though the name he bore with the barest inflections of anxiousness to his frozen voice only held one syllable, for the slightest of moments, it held all the music of a world consumed by concern.

She was hurt.

He could see it in the wobble and stagger as the moon child took a tumble from the tree and landed, feet first, in a form much larger. Yet still the little fairy smiled; albeit weakly, as she began to explain her state. Stoic through it all, though his brow keenly knitted as a hand reached in a forgetful moment to brace, Celeth ground out the fairy's foolishness at having such a drastic foible.

Metal was everywhere. Especially iron, he noted aloud.

Without much choice than the obvious, the ice mage drew the fairy into his pod-like home. Though surrounded by the very element that harmed her, respite was near immediate as she flopped and curled upon the mage's bed. She mumbled incoherently, crooning her thanks and inquiring meekly if he would stay with her during her sleep. Just a little sleep, she said in that third persona-type voice; just a little sleep, and Shang would be good as new.

'Of course...' The blue man replied quietly. After that, he was silent. Something overcame the mage as he watched the fairy curl in her cradle of milk washed hair and the bare boned nature of his sheets. So much like a child, so sweet and trusting and unassuming; the closer he moved, the brighter her happiness shone. Her shine was pure mana, undiluted power which haloed freely and sank deeply. The mage, ever greedy in his desire for power, exploited this nearness and guilelessly natured creature. Drawn to the bed, he laid to and beside, moving a gaze to take in her queerness.

The fairy moved, and as always, unconcerned or uneducated in the manner of personal space, she found a haven there along the mage's body. As her nudeness was a thing he'd slowly begun to come to terms with and grow numb to, for the worth of that power she exuded, he bore what weight her slightness boasted, and soon too, like the sleepy fairy, fell into a deep slumber.

It would be hours later, when afternoon had been claimed by early evening and evening by night, that the blue man would awake to a startling finding....

The fairy had crystalized.

All her softness turned hard and reflective as a well carved prism. All this, and still the moon child's rawness turned statue still laid atop the mage. He moved as though his world were crafted of eggshells and glass, fearful to the ridiculous notion he might break her should he breath in even the slightest, ill-judged of ways. What to do' How to breathe" How to move" The questions were endless, his panic at a level he'd not felt in some time; feelings were things the frozen creature was quite unaccustomed to, then again, one such as the moon child was a life he'd never encountered before. Not a soul, in all the mage's years, had made such a pure, unmotivated, untainted means of approach.

She gave and took nothing, a provider who sought no compensation, a soul swollen with an unwarranted benevolence and limitless patience.

As thoughts both bidden and unbidden flashed through the mage's brain, there came a loud, glassy, 'P'NK' to the precious shell that'd formed over his fae company. Soon that noise gave way to a series of cracks and spidering lines; her whole body was compromised, nearly a blur of refracted stone where mere moments before she'd been a surreal window of clarity. Unable to do more than stare and prepare for whatever was to come, the blue man braced, his hands to the sheets as a warm, echoing nova of light burst from inside that shell out.

There lay the winged damsel atop him, fleshy once more; an epicenter of calm in that shower of pure energy and crystal shards turned harmless dust. Yet it was the mage's turn to be stricken numb and immobile, a mirror to her light as his icy eyes flared an unrestricted level of smoky brilliance. Mouth agape, arms caught in some clawed, stiff manner, his voice hissed like a wraith, creaking her name to the air as though on the bed of his death.....but the fairy. Oh the pain that swelled within as she feared the worst. Begging came sudden and shrill to the air as she made to worm away, sobbing dryly her apologies and worries, wishing nothing more than safety from the wrath she felt was forthcoming; ignorant and innocent and frightened.

Her fear could not have been more misplaced....For all that power gathered and clouded while she healed within that crystal shell had merely washed over and soaked into the mage; overwhelming and sudden. As he came down from his mana-induced rigor, his voice did as well, and a great, heaving, soul satisfied sigh came from between those pale blue lips.

Arms moved with a volition all their own, encircling the trembling damsel. Reassurance rumbled quietly from the suddenly lethargic man with his scarred runes and normally stoic demeanor.

'I could not....would not, and never will harm you. Shang.'

And there in that night, for once in the icy blue, mage-man's life, he felt truly, utterly, and purely content.

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