My water kata finally saw field use when we sensed a single one of the fairies flying ahead of the rest. It took me a little bit of mental orienting to realize that we had somehow lead the lot of them in a giant circle and now we were between them and the capital.

Once again, I was caught by a sense of wrongness that this should happen right when I had decided it was time to finally settle this. No matter what I felt though, what we had to do did not change.

Truthfully, it did not matter if a message got back to the capital. I was very curious though what my water kata would do in a real world application. It launched a wave of pure force, as though sending the very concept of a wave through the air. It probably worked through solids and liquids as well, but that still needed to be tested. At any rate, this was exactly the kind of situation I knew it could handle. I just didn’t really know what it would do to something other than a wooden dummy.

I decided to try it out and launched the attack straight up as I felt the invisible source of spirit energy was overhead. I did not know what to expect, but when a tiny form flickered into existence and fell out of the sky I knew that, just like the wind and fire katas, this kata had ludicrous power beyond anything I could have imagined when it came to real world applications.

Just like with Nier, it was time for plans to change. Fast.

When Mr. Adderson lead the rest of the group in, a small sparrow had landed on a nearby branch and was staring directly at me. I normally wouldn’t have thought much of it, but knowing we were looking for a changeling I found the behavior suspicious. This is why my eyes were locked right on it when I said those antagonizing words in the spirit speech.

My suspicions were confirmed when the sparrow did little more than look around at the suddenly materialized fairies, and then stared at me with what I would presume is the closest thing to astonishment you could see from a bird. That settled it. I immediately put my water kata to use again. It had worked so well stunning this little fairy we had captured, so I figured it could do the same to the changeling in small bird form. What I was not prepared for it to do was take out all four of the other fairies as well, knocking them into the bushes at the edge of the clearing I had created earlier when preparing this area.

I didn’t really know what else to do, so I just asked the spirits in the bushes to tie them up. They had woken up and become low-grade sentient when I had them move around, and now all the bushes in this little thicket gladly followed my every command.

Now, we have five little fairies tied up with plant roots and a changeling in sparrow form in my arms with the only sign of life he’s giving off being the fact that he’s still breathing. I’m not even sure if the little guy has blinked much since I caught him.

“Well, I have to admit. I did not expect to be able to catch them that easily.” I commented. “Thank you for all the good work Mr. Adderson. You truly were instrumental in this effort. It could not have been easy going all over the place like that.”

“Heh, well… you know… I still don’t trust your cagy little ass, but you’re still one of ours. I gotta admit, it felt damn good to be part of the effort to stick it to those stuck-up fairies. Normally, I’d think anyone who’s got a bunch of little fairies tied up like this is the bad guys. After seeing the way things go down at the fairy capital though, I have to say I like the feeling of getting to see them like this.”

“I didn’t even get to do anything at all that time.” Tia commented as she stood awkwardly off to the side.

“Believe me Tia, you did plenty just by staying out of sight. The fact you left an impression on Nier was important too. That plan would not have worked without those two contributions that you made.”

“But still, you’re damn scary.” Mr. Adderson commented as he looked over all of them. “Being able to fight is one thing. Being able to wipe out the entire enemy in a single well prepared move though…” He shook his head with a toothy grin on his face.

One of the tied up fairies whimpered in fear as each of them looked between us.

“So, what do we do with them?” I asked.

“Well…” This got Mr. Adderson looking considerably more uncomfortable. The fairies all looked up at us when they realized we were talking about them.

[P… please! That dragon was not acting on the authority of the queen when he decided to go after you! We were sent after you in order to make up for the mistake the dragon made! We are peace messengers!] One of the fairies begged.

“What’s it saying?” Mr. Adderson asked, suddenly putting on a more stern expression.

“She says their mission was to make peace with me and Tia to make up for that dragon coming after us.” I told him.

“The changeling and the dragon queen seemed to be pretty impressed with how you messed up Nier. I think they’re probably telling the truth.” He said, although I could see some obvious discomfort as he shifted his weight while saying this.

“You don’t like the idea of me making peace with them, do you?” I asked.

“Well… I mean, I don’t think it’s a good idea to be enemies or anything, but… yeah, it would make things a little complicated if you were to get all chummy with that conniving two-faced tyrant they call a queen.” Mr. Adderson said.

“Hmm… it sounds complicated.” I said. “How about we just keep them all as prisoners and bring them back to where the rest of the group is? You can tell the whole story after we meet up with the boys, that way we can get their opinion as well. Eirlathion and mother could get a chance to speak as well, we still have to fill them in on the true nature of our previous life. Now that we have an idea of how large the scale of this reincarnation incident was and how much it is affecting, I think it is very important for them to know the whole truth.”

Mr. Adderson shrugged his shoulders. “Yeah, that sounds good. We Earth people got to stick together, yeah? Good to see you can at least trust me on the right things.”

“Mr. Adderson. In regards to that not so subtle barb you threw into that last line, we will have a long conversation about that later. Right now, I need to address our prisoners.”

I sighed and then turned back to the fairies as I brought my free hand up to also hold the bird-shaped changeling in my hands.

[I apologize for us using my home tongue for so long. It must have worried you given the situation you are in. Be assured, we do not plan to kill any of you. About the peace mission you say you are on though, we will have to discuss that in more detail with the rest of the group we are part of. Until then, you will be the prisoners of my group.]

Due to how inappropriate it would be, I had to try very hard to suppress a smile at the way I had managed to find a way around the weird lack of possessive pronouns in the elven language. I had used the elven word for "me" as much as possible because it also roughly doubled as the equivalent of the word "my," making it the only possessive pronoun in the language.

[Truly?] One of the fairies chirped excitedly.

[Why are you so relieved? We are all ready to die in service of the queen!] A female fairy admonished him.

[Yes, but this is a peace mission! Who ever heard of dying during a peace mission? Dying itself on a mission like this could be considered a failure!] The first one squabbled back. He quickly got several other voices of agreement from the remaining three tied up fairies.

[Now then, this little guy.] I said as I turned to the sparrow-shaped changeling who might as well have been a stuffed animal for all he was reacting. [How about you? Are you done acting like a nervous and stunned bird yet? A real bird would have woken up and tried to fly away a long time ago by now, so you are really not fooling anyone.]

‘It… is not because of that, master Asaren.’ He said.

‘Ok. Spirit speech, is it?’ I replied in kind. ‘And where is that master thing coming from?’

‘Is that not how they address the magi of the world you come from? I would gladly adjust to using the term you are accustomed to if you would inform me.’

Oh? He thinks I’m a magus, then? But fortunately I have a card to avoid this nonsense.

‘Well then, let me ask you. Do you have a title that those in the capital refer to you with?’

He did not respond immediately when I asked him that question. For a little bit, I was just staring into the stunned eyes of a bird once again.

‘I… am referred to with great respect and addressed as lord Sagel within the court. However, I do not have an actual noble title of my own. I do not feel that is quite the answer you were expecting though. Do you perhaps mean to say that not only is the position you have in the world you are from similar to my own, but also that you are not addressed with any form of title?’

‘I did have a few titles in my old world, but none of them were related to my magic. You are also not one of my students or my co-workers, so you are not in a position to use either of the titles I had.’ I told him.

I caught a small scoffing laugh coming from Mr. Adderson’s direction.

[Ignore him.] I said aloud in Elven.

“Did she just make a rude comment about my mother in Elven?” Mr. Adderson whispered to Tia.

“You’re going to make the prisoners nervous if you joke around in a language they can’t understand.” I said to shut the nonsense down and also rescue my extremely baffled looking sister.

Suddenly, like a light switch had been flipped, Mr. Adderson got an all-business look about him that made the joking about from a moment ago seem like a lie.

“Yes mam.” Mr. Adderson said, and then immediately switched to spirit speech. ‘In that case, I will carry these five myself. Will you be Ok with that one?’

The air around him had instantly swapped from the laid-back joker giving me a hard time to serious soldier. It actually made me feel a bit like I might be going crazy and doubt my own memories from only seconds before. It made sense though. I’ll just chalk this up to a soldier’s discipline. That little bit before must have been just him letting off some steam from feeling like a stressful job had been completed.

‘Maybe.’ I said and then turned my attention back to the changeling. ‘I don’t suppose there is a reliable way to restrain you that you couldn’t just transform out of.’ I said.

‘Umm… actually… if you were to chain me in black iron and pierce part of my bindings directly into my skin, that would render me helpless.’

‘Not an option at the moment.’ I commented, wondering at the fact he would have revealed information like that so easily. A good faith offering I suppose, or perhaps he thought I might have only feigned ignorance to test him. ‘I am getting the distinct impression though that you will behave so long as I have a hand on you. So, can you become something smaller? Perhaps making yourself into a fairy would be good, the proportions are far easier to grasp.’

‘Yes’ he said with an awkward warble as though he wanted to add an extra phrase to that ‘yes,’ but couldn’t decide what would be the right words to say.

After this, he turned into a human-proportioned creature the same size and shape as one of the fairies, except without wings or the youthful appearance. All and all, he looked just like a shrunken 6 inch tall middle aged human man. I was relieved to see he also had the ability to mimic clothing with his transformations, otherwise things might have gotten awkward.

The clothing was mostly died linens with a rough baggy appearance. It was far lower quality than what the elven adults dressed themselves in. Somewhat similar to how elven children dressed. Was this, perhaps, how a human peasant dressed?

“Well then, let us be off.” I said, setting my thoughts on the local clothing culture aside. With that, the three of us got walking to where Tia and I had left the others as we carted along our tiny prisoners.