Troll Or Derby, A Fairy Wicked Tale by Red Tash

any soap, but I didn’t really care.
    Just get some warm water on me, wash it all off, wash it all away … The showerhead might have been old, but the pressure was high and the water was hot. I don’t know how long I was in it before I finally let my shoulders drop from my ears.
    I was stretching out my neck when I felt a draft. I opened my eyes, and stared right into the black eyes, black face, black hair, and black teeth of the drummer.
    “Very nice,” he said, in an accent. Irish? I was too dazed to place it. “I think you’ll do quite nicely, Roller Deb.”

Chapter 10.5
    The Legend of Biggie Smalls
    Harlow

    Biggie Smalls isn’t his real name. Honestly, I don’t even know if thunderbirds have names in the sense that the English or the fae do. Best I can tell, thunderbirds tend to communicate telepathically (with the exception of an occasional squawk or death song), and when a creature’s talking straight into your head like that, you don’t really pause for introductions. I never felt right calling him “Big Bird,” which is the closest approximation to how he introduced himself.
    Anyway, Biggie and I go way back. My parents and I were camping, out West. The Grand Canyon, maybe. This is one of those memories that’s not totally clear—either because I was too young to remember, or some damned enchantment. I don’t know.
    What I do remember was Biggie was separated from his family, only there’s no way I could have understood that at the time. I’d never seen a Thunderbird before, and I didn’t know he was a baby. I was a baby, myself. We played, and he was squawking. When he flapped his wings, lightning shot out in waves. I’ve seen a lot of magic since then, but that was the most beautiful and frightening thing I’d ever seen at that point in my life, and I’ll never forget it.
    He lit on my shoulder, and I was carrying him parrot-style to show my mom and dad. I remember my father looked so concerned—and he opened his mouth, probably to warn me—but just then MamaBird swooped in and reclaimed her child, and I was caught in her talons.
    She flew us straight up into the sky, leaving a contrail behind the likes of which I’ve never seen again. Like a rocket launch. Boom .
    The Thunderbirds roost in huge flocks in the sky. I think I’m one of the few non-birds to have seen a T-bird roost up close like that. It’s not a story I’ve heard others tell, anyway.
    Well, MamaBird had one thing on her mind—feeding her babies. Biggie had two fellow hatchlings, and I nestled in between the three of them, confused and awed by what I was seeing. Below me, through the vapor, the yawning, snaking maw of the canyon cracked the surface of the desert. I was enraptured.
    And I was about to become lunch. MamaBird picked me up and tossed me into the air with her massive beak. Before she could catch me and chew me up, though, Biggie was flapping his wings and squawking, sending thunder and lightning in waves all around us. I landed on top of him—he was surprisingly strong. We tumbled off the edge of the cloud nest, and free fell.
    The wind whipped like crazy in my ears. Trolldrenaline coursed through me, and I knew I would fall, heavy and hard, into that canyon floor, to my death. I was never more frightened in my young life.
    When my parents were murdered, I think I was in too much shock to feel fear. There are holes in my memory from that day, and I don’t think that can totally be blamed on spells. Humans aren’t the only ones who block out trauma.
    But then the flock arrived. They must have been responding to some instinct to protect their young, because they buzzed in like a squadron of WWII fighter jets, shifting through the sky in tight formation, forming and reforming beneath us tighter than a flock of starlings. Lightning and thunder balled all around us, and I deafened to my own screams. Rain showers buffeted us from every direction, and Biggie’s tiny talons dug deep into my shoulder as he so