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The Fairies (8 ) : The City has been lit up for the Star Festival with banners and twinkling decorations strewn off the windowsills of shop fronts and windows. The gardeners at one particular park have put their heart and soul into creating a fairy's paradise: Fairy lights have been carefully dangled from trees to make strings of stars, little beaded jewels have been hidden among the hedges, and even the old cobwebs have been sprayed with just a touch of glitter. The park is open to everyone and the citizens of Destiny City have been invited to respectfully explore the hidden wonders that have been placed throughout. The park is magical enough on its own but there have also been reports of a strange, ethereal and shimmering stranger in the park. The glimmer of a beautiful costumed figure fluttering through the park has been passed around as rumor, and no matter what anyone claims to see, no one can take a picture of it. As if simply seeing some magical figure isn't mysterious enough, there are also reports of mischief and small pranks being played at the same time this figure seems to appear.

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He was out patrolling or more specifically Nate was following up on a rumor, a reddit page of strange going-ons, about a ghost that was haunting this one particular park. The park had been covered in lights and was apparently a magical sight to behold but the strange ghostly figure drew even more people, those hoping to spot the apparition. Others who wanted to prove that it wasn’t real. Some who were just into that kind of thing.

Nate wasn’t really into any of that, he was more or less trying to determine if it was some negaverse BS that was happening. He would have been there powered up but there were just too many damn civilians around, even this late at night. So when he saw the crowd he found a corner to slip into so he walked out of the shadows as a normal man, mingling with the other people there to see the lights and the spooks. To his surprise, once he started to walk through the lit park the fairly large group of people actually seemed to fade away. He still saw people here and there but for the most part he was alone. It was while he was actually admiring the little bead threaded through the foliage that a movement out of the corner of his eye had him turning that way, almost instinctively.

There he saw a figure, a gossamer, glimmering figure floating through the park. Ethereal. Beautiful. Far enough away that he couldn’t make out any specifics but close enough to tell it was humanoid in nature. Nate tried to follow but his way was blocked when some strands of lights got tangled around him. Every time he thought he had freed himself yet more lights, or those fake cobwebs, or a string of stars either ended up around his feet or his head or just in general slowing his path forward. Finally he gave up. There was no point in fighting against the park itself since that was the only ‘logical’ excuse for his current state of distress. “Fine! Fine! I’ll leave the ghost alone, alright?” He informed no one, and everyone, in a huff, throwing his hands up in defeat.

The lights didn’t suddenly drop off him like some living creatures but Nate realized that they were no longer ‘actively’ tangling around him as he backed off trying to follow after the figure. He was still twisted up but he was able to slowly work his way out of the light web he had gotten caught in. Hearing little tinkling laughs as he went, even as he muttered under his breath about Puck and his ilk.

Not entirely certain that the whole thing wasn’t negaverse shenanigans, but willing to admit that at least this particular fact finding mission was pointless, Nate extracted himself from the lights and made his way out of the park. He didn’t feel fatigued or tired in any way, other than mentally. Nor was there anything that made the hair stand up on the back of his neck. It was abnormal, sure but not malicious. At least not to the point it was causing anyone any harm that he could see. So at least delaying judgment on the situation, Nate decided it was worth coming back at a later date powered up to try to sense any chaos going on. In the meantime he had a family to get home to.

It wasn’t until he was at his house that he found a small little emerald green star tied to his shoelaces…. And the laces themselves in a gorgon's knot. “Bloody pixies,” he muttered even as he used a pair of scissors to cut through the laces on each shoe.