Merry Christmas everybody! I'm not certain it is all THAT appreciated as a Christmas present that I actually delayed this by around 12 hours just so it could be released with December 25th as it's posting day, but hey, it lets me actually legitimately say "Merry Christmas" in the opening comment.

Anyway, starting from this chapter and continuing on for several chapters, the POV will kinda be all over the place. This is the chapter which I actually wrote straight after getting off of my hiatus (for those who don't know, I have a constant 3 advanced chapters, sometimes more, just for subscribers,) and comparing it to the previous work the change in tone is rather obvious (and also gets a bit faster.) I will leave it to you all to judge whether it's good or not. I'll tell you this much though, I've been enjoying it. (Just a little embarrassed that my amount of free time to dedicate makes THIS large a difference.)

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??? POV

“Did you hear what all the fairies are talking about?” A small winged boy looking to be around 6 years of age bounced up and down in a room… “They said there’s a new princess!”

“Really?” A girl who looked to be only a little larger than the boy responded.

“Yeah! Do you wanna ask Mommy if we can see her?” The boy continues to bounce happily.

“Can we really meet a princess?” The girl responds. “They’re supposed to be important, right?”

“Yeah, but we’re important now too! They said great fairies and all that stuff, we’re the first children great fairies ever! Maybe we might be able to see the princess!”

“Ok, let’s go ask.” The girl agrees and then leads her brother as the pair run through the room, but the boy immediately begins flying with his insect-like fairy wings and outpaces his sister who is still on foot.

“Mommy! Can we ask if we can see the princess!?” The boy asks as he is still flying through the air. He does a mid-air reverse, kicking his feet out in the same direction he is flying, and stops himself as he plants both feet on the wall, then kicks off and flutters down to land on the ground at the same time his sister is arriving.

“Joshua, what have I told you about flying and putting your feet on the wall!” The mother scolds and then sighs.

“The fairies were saying there’s a princess now!” The boy says, apparently not paying attention to what his mother was just saying. “She was just born, and we wanna see her!”

“What!? I don’t think they are going to let you see a newborn princess.” The mother responds. “Wait, I heard fairies don’t have babies the normal way, are you sure you heard that right?” She asks.

“No.” A fairy with the appearance of a teen girl over in the corner said. “He’s wrong about that. I heard it too, they said the princess was adopted.” Her eyes immediately go to the floor after she says this and lets out a heavy sigh.

“Yeah! That’s what I meant!” The boy says.

“You can’t keep messing up like that.” The teen girl says. “You may still look like you are six, but you are really eight years old now! It is about time you started paying attention and not getting so hyper excited all the time.”

“Yeahh…” The boy sulks and casts his head down for a second.

“Kelly, don’t be too harsh on him.” The mother scolds her.

“Mmm… but I don’t think…” She begins to protest with a subdued, almost sulking tone, but then her words are cut short when the side of the wall opens and everyone’s faces become surprised when they see the man standing in the door way.

“Wow! Mister Steven!” The boy says, and then picks himself up with his wings and flies through the air toward the man. “I heard you were in jail for something, did they let you escape?”

“What!?” The man responds to the sudden question from the child suspending himself in the air with rapidly fluttering wings.

“Joshua!” The mother gives an angry bark from across the room.

“Urp!” The boy gives a guilty yelp and then immediately drops to the floor with a noisy plop of shoes hitting wood. His mother keeps an exhasperated glare on him, but then her face softens instantly as her eyes turn to the man in the door.

“Sorry about him.” She says, briskly crossing the room herself at a walk. “I’m glad you are back. Everyone’s been on edge since…” She trails off, leaving her sentence unfinished.

Steven lets out a sigh as he gazes into her eyes. “Yeah, a lot of crazy stuff has been happening in the last few weeks, and it sounds like it just keeps getting crazier. But, it sounds like things might start sorting themselves out soon. If everything goes right, we might start seeing some proper due process in the courts here. We might even be able to save the others.

“I see…” The mother responds. “Well… again, I am glad you are back. I’m sorry, but Mr. Neilson isn’t here. He flew out into the woods about a week ago and hasn’t been back, so it’s just been the four of us.”

“Is that right?” Steven responds. “I guess I don’t really blame him. This must have been a really upsetting couple of weeks.”

The two adults go silent after this. Both of them avoid each other’s eyes in the silent awkward memory of past events. Perhapse because he could sense how upset the adults were getting, or maybe just because he had no tact and saw a possible chance, the boy chooses to speak up at this time and break the silence.

“Hey! Mr. Steven! Guess what!? I just heard from the fairies that there’s a new princess who was adopted.”

“Huh?” Steven responds. “Oh, yes. I know about the princess. She is actually the one who let me out.”

“Really!? Did you get to meet her!?” The boy asks excitedly.

“No, it was one of her representatives. But, anyway, she is the one who is making the changes that might make things start getting better for us.” Steven’s eyes seem to be lighting up with life as he talks and he looks up at the boy’s mother. “Now it’s my turn to surprise all of you with something about the princess. She is actually from Earth, just like us.”

“Really!?” The boy exclaims with his jaw dropped. This seems to catch his older sister’s interest as well as she runs across the room to where the others are talking.

“She’s from Earth!?” The sister says. “Maybe we really can meet her then!”

“But wait!” The boy says. “If she’s from Earth like us, how come SHE gets to be a princess and we don’t?”

“Well, I don’t know how it all works exactly, but it sounds like the queen will adopt someone who she thinks has the right qualifications. Personally, even though I haven’t met this princess yet, I think the queen made an excellent choice with this one considering the kinds of things she’s doing already. I bet she must have really impressed the queen.” He smiled down at the children. “I wouldn’t get my hopes up about her being close to your age though. I’m pretty sure she isn’t a kid if she’s doing all of this.”

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Steven’s POV

Steven spoke with Veronica and her kids, as well as the teenaged Kelly who was in there with them, for a while. Since he had gotten out of that prison, showing his face to them was one of the first things he wanted to do. Now, however, he had to go and start really preparing his case.

He couldn’t help but sigh. This is going to be a really hard case. His client just HAD to go and tell the prossicutor everything without a lawyer present. Well, not that it’s his fault really. It’s this messed up justice system here. His client was let out due to a technicality, but Steven was 100% certain they were going to find something on him to renew the prosecution. He had made sure to tell them about the double jeopardy rule, but he had no faith it was going to be followed. The princess’ representative had said as much, it seems the queen has some kind of idea about how she wants this to go and she is just overruling some of the Earth laws the princess is trying to push.

Well, one thing possibly in his favor though is that one of those rules being ignored is that the princess, who will be acting as the judge, is biased in favor of his client. In fact, if she had just kept the old system, she could have easily just ruled him innocent. Although, it seems there is some pressure on her against that. Trying to get a jury to rule him innocent then seems to be her way of dodging whatever pressure is being put on her to come to a guilty verdict. Well, if the entire court is going to be against him except for one person, the judge is probably the one person he would most like to be on his side. So, it could still work out somehow.

Steven walked across his personal quarters and over to a table in the corner. On this table, there was a cage made of iron. And, in that cage, was a familiar looking imp. It was something he requested when he was released. He could have easily left this little guy behind, but he had no doubt that if he was left in that cell then, while he would be let off the duty of killing this guy, he would still wind up dead in the end when that big goat man came by. Failing to do anything would be the same as killing this mutated fairy.

Steven was not exactly certain why he wanted to save him aside from that. Honestly, he would be relieved to be rid of him. Somehow though, he was keenly aware it would be a bad thing to just leave him to the goat man. Did he seriously want to keep this guy alive? He still didn’t feel it was right to kill him, but the argument that this guy is better off dead at this point still seemed to have some merit. Perhaps… somewhere, he was just aware that if he left it for the goat man to kill this guy then it would mark a failure on him. He was the one given this job, so if he just left and allowed it to default to the goat man then it could only mean bad things for him in the future. Like this, he would likely still be pressured and pushed by Gailben, but at least he would have nothing to hold over Steven’s head.

He let out a sigh as he approached the cage. The imp was sitting in the middle with his arms wrapped around his knees, just staring off toward the wall. “How are you doing there buddy?” He said to the imp.

“a' amin il-uma quena Idn'uma. Rangwa amin il-uma i' lammen lle.”

Steven was pretty sure he was just rebuffed by the sulking imp. It was pretty clear he still had his mental faculties all together even in this warped form, it just made him more violent, and apparently uncontrollably homicidal toward his own former race. It was like someone with brain damage. Steven did not know him back when he was a fairy, but it’s pretty clear that however he was before he was still in there.

All that Steven could do is shake his head and continue on toward his desk. Well, time to get to work. Fortunately, he already has experience and exposure to this kind of case. Unfortunately, it seems the degree of the “incitement of a dryad crime” this time is several orders of magnitude worse than what his fellow Earth reincarnates had faced in their trial.

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Eirlathion’s POV

“Thank you for keeping these for me.” Eirlathion said, recieving his belongings from his apprentice Túeth. “Things have been crazy since we got here. I’m sorry, it wasn’t meant to turn out like this.”

“Yeah.” Túeth responded and looked down in a brief awkward pause. “I.. have to ask something. You mentioned the two humans were reborn, and from another world. You never mentioned though, are the girls the same?”

Eirlathion gave a sigh at this question. “Does that question even need to be asked? You have been too uncertain of yourself Túeth. I believe the answer in this situation ought to be pretty clear. That ought to have been an accusation, not a question.”

“I see. Why didn’t you tell me?” She responded.

“There, that’s a lot more like it. Anyway, well... it’s not like I hid it on purpose. Honestly, given everything that has happened, I can’t actually remember why it is that I only mentioned the boys. I am certain it made sense to me at the time.”

“Yeah, sorry about that.” She responds, to which Eirlathion sighs again.

“Túeth, if you think I hid something from you about your own daughters, you have every right to be angry no matter what I’m going through right now. This world is not gentle, and the situation in the world is rapidly turning against us. You are going to have to learn how to be tougher.”

“I’m sorry, mmm... master. It’s just...”

“That you still don’t think of them as your daughters?”

“What!?” Túeth jumps upon hearing that.

“You would show more interest in them and their situation if you did. Your tone earlier, asking about if they had their memories from their previous life, it was not to get to know them better, was it?”

“...no.” Túeth responds in a scolded manner.

“What did you really want with that knowledge?” He asked.

“It’s just...” Túeth looks down and hesitates. After several long seconds, it is clear she is aware she is not being motherly in her actions, but she also does not seem to be able to admit the real reason to herself. Or, if she is aware, then she doesn’t want to say it. If Eirlathion had more confidence in it being the latter, he would probably demand it out of her, but there is a real strong possibility of the former in this case.

“It is because you wanted to have that as an excuse to make it so you didn’t have to be a mother to them, isn’t that right?” Eirlathion supplied the reason for her.

“What!? Umm...” She looks around in a panic, after which Eirlathion lets out a sigh.

“Túeth, you may not want to be their mother, but that does not mean they don’t need one.”

“But... Aerien is NOT my daughter anymore! And Gaerien HATES me! How can I be their mother like that?”

Eirlathion sighs again. “Look, even if you don’t want to act as a mother to them, they are the last family you have right now. You should at least be able to adjust to being around them more. Try to make up with Gaerien if you can at the very least. She does have a previous life worth of experiences behind her, so I am sure she can be reasoned with despite her young age.”

“Master...” Túeth hesitates for a moment. “You... why are you saying all this stuff now?” Suddenly, her expression turns from scolded to accusatory. “You... you don’t think you can win in the court, do you?”

Those words shoot through Eirlathion like a bolt. After being called out in this way, he can do nothing but throw up his hands in defeat. He paces the room as he tries to find the right words to give her. “Sagel thinks the queen is trying to force Aerien to give a guilty ruling. I don’t know how much you have been following of what Aerien is doing, but she is using a method to get someone else to make the decision by using the laws of her home world. She also had me talk to someone who could represent me. However, when I talked to him, it sounds like it really doesn’t look good.”

There was a groaning of wood at that moment, and when they looked to the wall that had opened up, they saw a number of great fairies in the garb of the justice committee.

“Magus Eirlathion.” The lead fairy said. “Upon review of the evidence and testimonies of those present in Cundo village at the time of the dryad’s awakening, the justice committee has decided there is sufficient evidence to charge you with incitement of a dryad. By order of the princess’ new laws, you are to be held in temporary confinement until you can be arraigned tomorrow morning.”

So, it had come to this after all. “Well, it looks as though I cannot teach you anything more for the time being.” He said to his apprentice. “There is a book inside of my bag. It contains a lot of seldome known information about magic. Please learn from that.”

“But... master!” Túeth shouted behind him. Meanwhile, Eirlathion did not even look back at her.

“Alright, I will come along cooperatively.” He said as he walked into the middle of the group of great fairies.

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Subscriber's comment of the chapter

"these new three sound like a mom and her two kids all respawning together, and by chance even in the same family structure rofl, but still are these fairy's still kids because they have childish minds from before @-@"

                                                                                                                                            -Roy

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And, only 1 comment again. I think I am going to accredit it to the fact that, as I mentioned at the beginning, this was the first chapter after getting back from hiatus. I guess this gives Roy serious MVP points. (MVP = most valuable poster in this case.)