The Hidan tribe were finally coming into sight as we watched out over them from the tree-line that marked the western boarder of the Eastern fey forest. They travelled in a caravan that looked like it was made up of more animals than people.

The beasts that they had along were not just any kind of beasts of burden either. On Earth, during the time of the American pilgrim age during the western expansion, you might have expected to see oxen pulled carts with the occasional horseman riding about for greater mobility, as well as maybe the occasional mule to carry some small burden.

Here, among the Hidan caravan, there were predatory animals such as lions and wolves riding along side great beasts like rhinoceros and hippos. There were even a couple elephants. These were only the animals we could recognize from Earth. There were also several very strange looking quadrupedal creatures that looked almost like animals we might recognize, but not quite, as well as some wolves that seemed almost as large as the rhinos. From the distance we were at, it was hard to tell for certain what those strange animals were. But, I felt we would be getting a better look soon.

Among our group, we had roughly divided into three groups. Those of us hailing originally from Earth were the largest with me, Tia, Levin, Rolwen, and Mr. Adderson. We were now keeping a tense distance between us and the two individuals from the fey court. Sagle, still in his strange alien-looking adult form which I assumed was the natural form of a changeling, and Ramir, the fairy man from the Hidan.

Mother and Eirlathion made for a rather sad group torn between the other two. I most certainly had my sympathies for them. They had come along for our benefit, but now so many unexpected turns had come up that they were caught between two opposed factions, neither one of which they completely belonged two and both of which they absolutely did not want to be excluded from. In the current situation, aligning with either side could alienate them to the other. So, they had chosen to keep completely to themselves and watch what was happening.

As I had suspected, Sagle had not relented this time. I really should have known he was capitulating too easily that first time. This second time around, I was talked down to like a child. I was smart enough not to answer when he had asked for my age in my last life, but my lack of answer didn’t matter. He was very quick to point out that, no mater my previous age, my total age was just as much that of a child in the eyes of the fey as my physical age was to a human. And then, with a little bit of insistence that we had no right to deny Ramir the ability to travel with his tribe if he wanted to, and a lot of talking down to us about how we had to be protected and we were being reckless, it was pretty much settled that Ramir would be along for the ride from this point forward.

As we continued to keep to our own groups and observe the slowly approaching caravan, the only person who was physically an adult in our group walked up beside me. I was instantly conscious of the fact that my head only just barely came above his knee. This suddenly drove it back into perspective how absurdly young I was now in this new life. And yet, here I am. Negotiating for my future against direct emissaries of the queen of this realm. And, going by how our previous discussion had gone, being easily handled like the temper-tantrum throwing child I had been proven to be.

The tall black and bearded earth-born fairy knelt down next to me. I could sense the unease in his motions. He had been rather quiet since that second round of negotiations I’d had with Sagle. He seemed to feel pretty bad about the part he played in setting it off. For my part, I had been acting as though it hadn’t happened as I pretended to ignore his struggles. I would gladly just brush it under the rug, but it was pretty clear he was beating himself up over it.

Now, it looked like he was finally ready to step forward and deal with all the stuff weighing down on his mind. About time. “Look, I’m sorry about what happened.” He said.

“It really doesn’t matter.” I said. “It’s not really your fault. Not individually anyway. We were all naïve for just wearing these things openly on our wrists like that. Yours was just the first one he spotted. And besides, even if one of us had been bright enough to wear these things in a more concealable way, I’m pretty sure that changeling would have found some way to work my ability to create these things into the conversation somewhere.”

These were the words I had saved up and reasoned over and over again in my mind for exactly this moment, and they all came spilling out with a lot more bitterness attached to them than I had intended. I did not look the man beside me in the eye, but I could tell that I had not given him the ease of mind that relieving him of responsibility for the actions he had been stressing over ought to have given him. Of course, I hadn’t expected a single re-assurance to do so, but the fact that I was so conscious of how much venom was behind my words when I said it made the concerned look on his face almost painful to me.

I signed and turned to face him, looking up into the face of the physically adult man who towered over my regressed toddler body. I had gotten used to it back in the village, but I was in a child mind-set at the time. Now that I was forced to think more like an adult, the way everyone towered over me like giants was quickly proving to be very disconcerting.

“Look, Mr. Adderson. That may have come out a little wrong, but I mean it. This one is not on you. We are just caught up in the middle of an incredibly unfair situation. Me and Tia are were just fighting to keep ourselves from getting killed. Now, it looks like we are safe, but right on the heels of that we now have to fight to keep a little bit of our personal autonomy while the very people who were trying to kill us before are trying to exploit us for what good we can do for them like some kind of political resources.

“Levin and Rolwen were kidnapped from their homes to be food and slaves for me and Tia. They just got lucky that the elven kids they were brought to happened to be from Earth like them, and now they are treated as friends rather than having to play servant to…”

“Wait, wait, wait! Back up a second!” Mr. Adderson interrupted. “What do you mean by food?”

Ah, right. He probably hasn’t been told anything about that yet.

“Haven’t you ever wondered why your body does not seem like it needs to eat or sleep?” I asked him. “It is because you are not eating solid food like you were as a human. You are eating spirit energy now. For a fey as strong as you, I think your body is probably getting enough energy from your own spirit. It is the same for me and Tia since we are both from Earth as well. But, normal elf children don’t have spirits that are that strong. They need to get the spirit energy that they are lacking from human children. Thus, it is an elven custom to kidnap some children with strong spirits from nearby human villages.”

“Fuuuck!” Mr. Adderson Exclaimed and shook his head.

“Yeah, me and Tia have been trying to get mother and Eirlathion to stop treating the boys like they are our pets or something. They don’t do anything like that since you arrived, but it’s not because they realized treating humans like that is wrong. It’s just because they found out the boys are not your typical humans at around the same time you appeared.” I told him.

“Fuck!” Mr. Adderson said again as he stood up and started pacing.

Well, this was not going anything like I had envisioned.

“MR. ADDERSON!” I yelled.

“WHAT?” He yelled right back, causing me to flinch a little. He sighed and then shook his head, pinching the bridge of his nose with his fingers with a sigh. “Ahh… sorry about that.”

I huffed. “Look, I did not tell you that to get you riled up!” I said. “What I am saying is that we are all having to deal with some shit! We’ve all got a lot going on! And, you know what? The crap you’re going through right now is not exactly fair either. You might not think that everyone around you speaking a foreign language and having no clue what’s going on around you as really big things are happening compares to all the stuff I just dumped out, but make no mistake! That stuff, it can make a man feel powerless. That kind of powerlessness can wear at your mind! That kind of stress can get even worse when you know that the fate of the people you care about around you could easily be hurt depending on how things go! What I am saying is that I understand!”

Mr. Adderson sighed again. His head went right down to the holster his thumb and fore-finger had created for the bridge of his nose, and rested it there. “Fuck.” He said again and shook his head. “Man, I told you, right? It’s just bizarre to see a toddler speaking like an adult about complex heavy concepts like this, alright?” He muttered. His words sounded dismissive, but I was able to see them for what they were. Not only did I drop a bomb-shell on him about the boys, I’d also dredged up a lot of things in terms of his own emotional storm he was dealing with. He could be forgiven a dismissive comment if it was meant to help him deal with all the stuff he was dealing with.

“Ah man.” He said and then looked around the rest of us. The boys and Tia had started paying attention as the discussion between me and Mr. Adderson had become so much more animated, especially since he had started throwing F-bombs around. His eyes immediately narrowed in on Levin and Rolwen. “Wow, man! I mean, I had no idea you guys had that much shit going on! I mean, I knew about what was up with the girls, but…”

“It’s fine.” Rolwen said. “Actually, I think Asa gets more upset about it than I do.”

“Damn it!” Mr. Adderson roared. “You SHOULD get upset about something like that!”

“Why?” Rolwen said with a dismissive laugh. “I mean, if I had stayed with my birth parents, I would be alone in this world. This way, I get to be around other people who were also from Earth like me. About the only part I was upset in all this about was when people were out to hurt Tia and Asa.”

“Why? Because, like she just said, they made you fucking slaves and food for elf children!” Mr. Adderson roared at him.

“Eh, her words, not mine.” Rolwen brushed him off, almost as though he was amused at how angry the guy was getting. Damn it Rolwen! He HAS to be being facetious here. He knows exactly what he’s doing. I can almost see the creative wheels in his head turning in order to dismiss everything Mr. Adderson says in some way or another.

Mr. Adderson’s jaw seemed to be working uselessly to form some kind of argument as he turned his flabbergasted face toward me as though looking for some kind of back-up, before turning his disbelieving and aghast face back to Rolwen. This process was repeated several times before finally throwing up his hands.

“Yeah, whatever!” He said and paced off in a large circle before facing back toward us. “Right, sooo…”

“So, you were just having a touching moment with Asaren where she tells you all about how it’s Ok to have feelings.” Rolwen teased.

“Alright, Rolwen, I think you’ve had enough fun at Mr. Adderson’s expense.” I said. “Levin, feel free to treat Rolwen like an annoying brother if he says anything else snarky.”

“Maybe Tia should just bite him.” Levin suggested.

“I’m not going to bite him!” Tia responded, aghast at the suggestion.

“Sure! That’s just great! Just when we got done explaining how we’re not food for Asa and Tia.” Rolwen scoffed with a smarmy grin.

Levin jabbed his thumb into Rolwen’s arm-pit using a pain-compliance technique I had taught them during our practice. This technique could be brought further with more force in order to pry a person’s ribs apart and damage the intercostal muscles, but of course Levin stopped it at just a light jab. That was enough though to get quite a yelp out of Rolwen for all his antics.

“Hey! Someone’s coming!” Tia shouted and pointed out over the fields toward a small group who had split off from the Hidan in order to approach ahead of the rest.

“Well, I guess it’s negotiation time.” I said. “The way I understand it, our new minder is going to handle the negotiations while we just stand there like pretty faces.”

“Look! They have dogs!” Tia cheered, not even seeming to have noticed what I said.

“Those aren’t dogs, those are wolves!” Levin corrected.

“No! They’re tamed and domesticated for humans, so they’re dogs!” Tia insisted.

“They’re wolves though!” Levin argued back.

And Tia does it again. Seriously, it is almost enough to make me forget she’s over a thousand years old and a divine creature. At the same time though, how perfectly convincing she is in her child-like act while simultaneously achieving some kind of goal in all of our interests only further cements in my mind the high likelihood that this is all an act.

If it weren’t for the occasional moments of seriousness she has shown me when she felt concerned for my mental health, I might not even be able to tell which scenario was more likely.

Unfortunately, though, her efforts wouldn’t be enough. The way she was pointing was just far too fluid and had none of the jerking hesitation of a real toddler unfamiliar with their own body.