Wild Things

She's Not A Faery

Two days went by before Ashley remembered to try to give River her checkup. In that time, she had the faery male moved into the compound with the other fae, promising herself that if he didn't do any more monkey business for three weeks, she would take his collar off. Ashley then grabbed a specialist in faery children and went to River's room to give her a checkup right there since she probably wouldn't be willingly moved to the infirmary. And indeed River was glaring at them balefully, the covers on her bed pulled up to her nose. Ashley sniffed the air and noticed that it smelled like lavender. Perhaps the fae child had been using some of her inherent magical abilities to make her sanitary room feel more like home.

"What do you think?" Ashley asked, looking at the specialist.

The specialist shook his head. "I can tell you from here that her coloring isn't good. Could you be so kind as to remove her from her sheets?"

Ashley grumbled and went to retrieve the ornery faery. She resisted harder than Ashley expected, and had a pretty strong grip for a fae. Ashley then brought the limp faery to the specialist, who had his stethoscope out as well as some other equipment Ashley couldn't name. The specialist looked into the faery child's ears and eyes, and down her throat. He was frowning and looking more closely at her face by the end of that test.

"Is something wrong?" Ashley asked curiously.

"She's... a rather odd faery," the specialist mumbled. "What sort of wings does she have?"

"I... don't know," Ashley realized. "I never saw them."

"Time to find out, then," the specialist said and started to take off the faery's shirt.

River didn't like this at all, and she tried to run away. The specialist made a grab for the faery, but she was stronger and faster than he expected and easily slipped out of his grip. Fortunately the door was closed so the specialist was able to grab the faery child before she escaped entirely. The specialist kept River in a firm grip and worked her shirt off. Then his eyes went wide.

"What is it?" Ashley asked, concerned. She couldn't see River's wings from here... if she even had wings anymore. "Were her wings cut off?"

"No," the specialist whispered. "She never had wings. She's no faery. She's an elf."

Ashley's eyes widened. An elf! A real Wild Elf! But then that also meant... Ashley's thoughts trailed off. What was her relationship to the faery male? Ashley had heard darker stories about elves, stories of mysterious mental powers and elves using mind-control on the more weak-minded faeries. What if this elven child used her mental powers to secure herself a bodyguard? The outside world was notoriously dangerous for elves and a faery bodyguard could get rid of most of the dangers Wild Elves faced. No wonder the male faery had been so distressed! He had woken up free of the elf's influence to find himself injured and collared.

"We should bring her to one of those elven facilities," the specialist continued. "We don't have the right equipment or personnel to care for her here. If you want, I can call them right now."

"Sure, go ahead," Ashley said, her eyes fixed on the faery – no, elf child. Or would one say elf child? Was it elfling? What do you call young elves?

The specialist left the room to go and call the people to come and get the elf child. Ashley found herself wondering what happened to the elfling's parents. Had they gotten killed? Or did they know they were going to die and arranged to have the elfling get a fae bodyguard? Or did the elfling think of it herself? Ashley couldn't imagine elven parents allowing their child to go missing for so long. They would have done something to get her back again.

River turned her perfectly smooth back to Ashley and clambered back into bed, curling up under her blankets for warmth or security. Ashley decided that the sleeping position was normal for elves and she cursed herself for not noticing River's strangeness earlier and investigating. No wonder River had seemed strong and fast for a faery. When she grows up, she would be many times stronger than any faery, male or female. Even now she had twice the strength of a male faery twice her age. Elves were kind of scary now that Ashley thought about it, stronger than faeries and humans and capable of mind control. But elves were so helpless at the same time, victims of dogs and the elements. It was a very strange contrast.

Just then, the specialist came back into the room. "They said they'll be here in an hour to pick her up," he said. "They also said... well, I told them about the male faery and they want to have a look at him. They know about as much as we do about elven mind powers. They want to see if anything is different in his brain from a normal faery."

Ashley snorted. "Maybe they should borrow a couple dozen faeries and take 'before' and 'after' pictures. That would be more scientifically accurate."

"We have a pretty good collection of faerie brain scans," the specialist reminded her. "We scan them every time they have their one major physical a week after they first come in. We can find the derivations from the norm pretty easily from those."

Ashley found herself staring at the lump under the sheets that was the elfling River. "I wonder if they scan elven heads as much as we do faery ones," she murmured.

The specialist shrugged. "From what I've heard from my buddies down in Conto is that elves don't like the machinery. They don't scan elves unless there's something seriously wrong with them."

Ashley nodded once and then decided something. "Well, enough talk. Let's go out and lock the room and then we can go and get our faery friend. I get the feeling he's not keen on returning to the infirmary."