"What in the name of the gods were you doing on griffin grounds?"
he says in a mild voice, polite as you can be....
"Take all the time you wish," the young man continues, "With what some
call the Underhill effect in this meditation room.....we have time
enough indeed."
Fred, being familiar with how time flowed differently in the realm of
the Faire Folk in legend, had an inkling of what that meant....
Anyway, Fred, if he'd been still human, would have been tempted to at
least try to bluff or make some convincing lie under different circumstances
(under Fred's system of honor....lies sometimes came under the heading
of "tact", "good manners", and "diplomacy"). However, he was presently
a pixie and as such meant he had a harder time at concealing the truth
(he experience emotions.....sharper and deeper than he had as a human.....and
as of yet couldn't suppress the trembling of his wings that happened during
the few times he'd attempted to lie in experiment). Finally, there was
the fact that this young seeming, tall man...whoever or whatever he really
was......was incredibly dangerous. Before he'd blacked out, Fred had seen
this man cast his spell. From the unconscious bodies around him the man
had also managed to magically knock everyone! Everyone, including
the very person that they were after.....if Fred's senses were right! Everyone
including the evil Amazons (who's leader appeared to have been accursed
with the Unseelie Curse and was just starting to show signs of it). Everyone,
including the very powerful new mage friends of his! Oh, this feat of magic
might may lay within this world's version of the Crystallic (Fred recognized
it for what it was), but there was something....more to this young seeming
man. A man who seemed young, but had an air of ancientness to him.
Dare he try to bluff?
Considering that Fred didn't consider himself crazy, he dare not!
Fred wasn't sure about this man's sanity, but at least something good
could be said about him. First, his friends are still alive (a good sign).
Second, none of them had been turned into something else like that poor,
foolish woman in the mural. Third, why not?
"We....were trying to find that one, I believe," Fred the pixie begins,
pointing to the one that he knows is the object of their quest, "As for
trespassing.....we had no intention what so ever at that...."
So, feeling like he really had no choice, Fred the pixie tells the tale
of his friends and himself, and why they had come to inadvertently trespass
on gryphon grounds.
As soon as the pixie finishes, the young man, after checking a medallion
he'd been wearing, smiles a bit ruefully....
-
"Little one.....I've
heard many strange tales over the centuries....but I must admit that is
one of the stranger ones," the man says, still smiling.
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