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 Posted: Fri Jul 15, 2016 3:10 pm
Cody seemed pretty interested in the nature spirits. He smiled. "So Reese has a friend now? It must be awful to be stuck in one place. Older than dirt changlings?" He asked. "I've only heard about the sickly kind."
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Posted: Fri Jul 15, 2016 3:24 pm
"He does, yeah. I don't know. If it is in your nature to only be able to be one place, it doesn't seem instinctual to leave it.He was lonely, though, so I'm glad he has the nymph. We also found his parents' glade, so that's good."
He chose a movie, but kept the volume low.
"Yeah. They're normal fae who take the place of the baby, so they're raised to childhood and then tend to disappear. The sickly ones unfortunately still don't tend to make it very long, even with modern medicine as advanced as it is today."
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Posted: Fri Jul 15, 2016 3:38 pm
"Aw," Cody said, "I wish there was something we could do to help them." The babies didn't deserve that date. It was awful that their parents rejected them because they were sick. "So their parents don't have magic Healy powers?"
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Posted: Fri Jul 15, 2016 3:40 pm
"Well their whole point is to pass as human babies for a time, so they're usually only raised by humans. Their fae parents abandon them and adopt the healthy human child. Some never leave the NICU, unfortunately." Dari shook his head. "I wish it was all happy stories to tell you."
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Posted: Fri Jul 15, 2016 3:56 pm
Cody frowned slightly. "So they're assholes," he said. "But what do they want with human children?" He asked. "Why don't they just heal their kids? Aren't they immortal?"
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Posted: Fri Jul 15, 2016 4:02 pm
"Well there's a type made of wood or clay that just appear like infants, and those never make it because they were never alive to begin with," Dari said, "Any powers have to be learned, so few have the ability. Besides, changelings aren't really a common thing. I don't think they ever were. It just does happen sometimes, mostly in Europe or here in the west. The fae children born to be changelings are dying of something already, or else the abandonment has denied them their fae heritage. Again, they're not so common that we know precisely what's going on."
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Posted: Fri Jul 15, 2016 5:08 pm
Cody still looked upset. He couldn't believe a baby's own parents would abandon them. "You'd think they'd want to save their own child, rather than exchange it..." He shook his head. He looked to Dari. "Tell me some of your adventures," he said.
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Posted: Fri Jul 15, 2016 8:04 pm
Dari smiled and stroked Cody's cheek.
"Well. Our Research department, that's Lori's team, does a lot of internet searching. Of course most of the videos they find are hoaxes, but there was one they couldn't disprove of a woman walking across the beach, putting on a shawl, and becoming a seal. So we went out there expecting to be there for weeks, and our first stop we find a woman eating a burger like...well. Like a seal, there's no better way to describe it. Toby approached her in the water later and she tried to run but didn't get very far. Over the next few days she decided that, because Toby had confiscated her pelt, that he was hers, which as you may know is backwards, and called it a 'date' when they went out together. Toby was pretty annoyed, but now he's marrying her." He began to draw circles on Cody's knee. "Maia was much different at first. You probably wouldn't recognize her save for her face. Then of course Toby was being an a** and not admitting his feelings so I pretended to relocate her and he called her crying one night and begged for her to come back. The rest is history."
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Posted: Fri Jul 15, 2016 8:33 pm
Cody chuckled in amusement. He tried to picture it, and failing, shook his head. "I can't imagine Toby being annoyed with her, even," he said. "What was she like, then?" He asked.
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Posted: Fri Jul 15, 2016 8:36 pm
"She was very naive. She hadn't spent much time around humans and hadn't tried...most things, I'd even say. She's come a long way since then." Dari grinned. "She's matured quite a bit. We weren't sure if she would be able to hold a job at the time and now she's our fae ambassador."
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Posted: Fri Jul 15, 2016 9:02 pm
"Did you teach her, too?" Cody asked curiously. He smiled. "She seems happy with her job," he said. "Tell me about your ghost kid," he prompted.
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Posted: Fri Jul 15, 2016 9:05 pm
"I did," Dari said with a bit of a proud smile, "She could speak perfect English, but not write or read it. She's fluent in Irish Gaelic, though.
He paused then and tilted his head. "Are you sure? It's pretty sad and a little unsettling."
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Posted: Fri Jul 15, 2016 9:21 pm
"She always seems to be reading," Cody observed. "You're a great teacher, love." Maia's love for reading was proof enough of that.
"I'll tell you if it gets too much," he promised.
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Posted: Fri Jul 15, 2016 9:26 pm
"She loves it," Dari agreed. He nodded then and began.
"Well. There had been a fire at the house in the late nineteenth century. A little boy and his mother were lost in the blaze. After renovating the house, the family began experiencing some spirit activity. We were called in, and discovered that the little boy was looking for his mother." He looked to Cody. Should he continue? "When we first arrived he took Maia's hand, and then we had our little incident in the hallway. The new nursery had been his room, it seemed. Michael talks about a white light, and he says that people can turn away from it after dying if their emotions are strong enough. That was what happened. He didn't believe that he could find his mother again, I don't think, but in the end Michael got him to cross over. He colored Maia and Michael some pictures and let Toby care for his teddy bear too. It was most likely the object connecting him to the earth. He was unhappy between those events, but he was not always frightening." Dari shrugged. "They ganged up to frighten us, though. We worried he might be a demon because the house filled with smoke and Toby says something started coming down the hallway at him." A shambling burnt corpse full of embers, but Cody didn't have to know that. "He was just a child, though. They like pranks. It was enough to make us leave the house."
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Posted: Sat Jul 16, 2016 11:21 am
Oh...Poor kid. He'd looked all that time for his mother? Maybe he hadn't noticed the passing of time, to have looked so long. "He must have really liked Toby, then," he said. Kids didn't trust their teddy bears with just anyone.
"Probably his intention," he said, thoughtfully. He moved to kiss Dari's cheek. "I'm glad you guys were able to help him." Whatever that white light was, the kid deserved it.
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