Fairy Debt by Gail Carriger

Fairy Debt

    Gail Carriger

    "I won't do it, I tell you!" I was mad, and I had a right to be.
    Aunt Twill sighed dramatically and swished about where she sat in the lake shallows. Aunt Twill did most things dramatically. She was the naiad of the Woodle River, and it was a bit of a dramatic river, full of small but excitable waterfalls.
    "Unfortunately, it's your debt to pay."
    I crossed my arms and glared at her.
    She explained as though to a child, "Your mother was rescued from certain death by a human King. That's a great debt of honor for a fairy to endure."
    "Yes but these things are easily taken care of," I insisted. "All Mamma had to do was show up at the christening of the King's firstborn and grant it something humans care about." I tried to come up with examples. "You know – beauty, boxing, bee keeping. That sort of thing."
    My aunt fluttered her webbed fingers about her face in exasperation. "Yes, but your mother missed the christening and, most inconveniently, died."
    I sighed. I was only a nestling when she died, so I didn't remember. They say it had to do with a golden barbell and a frog with a steroid addiction but it was all kept very hush-hush.
    Aunt Twill reached down and gathered a few water lilies about her. "So the princess has no fairy godmother and you can't grow wings." She began braiding the lilies into a chain with her magic. "An honor debt warps wings, especially in the young."
    I fluttered my four stubby wings angrily in reply. They weren't of any use to me, but I liked to flap them for effect.
    "Debts carry forward to the next generation." My Aunt draped the water lilies about her neck. "You owe the princess."
    "But I've no working magic without working wings. Nothing to pay her with."
    "You have your Child Wishes."
    I snorted. A fairy's Child Wishes had power over only one thing, usually to do with human domestic life. Evolutionarily speaking, this ensured that mankind would always find value in sheltering fairy offspring. My cousin, Effernshimerlon, could manufacture safety pins as needed. My Wishes improved baked goods. For a fairy potluck I once made banana puff cupcakes so delicious they caused a visiting earth dragon to cry. Earth dragons are fond of cupcakes. They have notorious (and very large pointy) sweet-tooths.
    "What could I do with my Wishes?" I asked Aunt Twill. "Ensure that the castle's bread rises perfectly for the next one-hundred years?"
    I was being facetious, but my aunt took me seriously. She bobbed about in the lake and the lily chain fell from her neck.
    "No, I don't think that's enough. Not unless the castle's bread is cursed."
    I raised my eyebrows at her. "What do you suggest, then? I can't be fairy godmother to the princess, she's my age, that would be ridiculous." I felt as though everywhere I looked there was a troll with a club pointed at me, and no troll-pacifying porridge in sight. Was there no way to pay off Mamma's debt? "What do I do?"
    Aunt Twill shut her damp old eyes. I could practically hear her thoughts sliding about in her head, like water over pebbles. Very slow water over very large pebbles.
    "You'll have to pay it back the hard way."
    "Oh and what's that?"
    "Old fashioned servitude."

    I packed up and trekked west, away from the Woodle River, toward the Small Principality of Smickled-on-Twee. There lived a king who'd once rescued my mother from certain death.
    What else was I to do? I wanted wings. What good is a fairy without wings?
    I'm tall for a fairy (all that naiad blood) but really very short for a human. I come up to the knees of the average adult male. With stunted wings tucked under a tunic I looked like a hunchback. There's only one role at a royal court for a short hunchback — jester.
    I knew it would all end in tears the moment I saw the hat.
    "Do I have to wear it?" I asked the Most Jester in shock, staring at the ghastly thing.
    He jiggled his own at me. A four-pronged confection of red, blue, and green plaid tipped with silver bells.