The larger fey looked at her new companion, walking around the newcomer in a circle, inspecting her thoroughly. "So you're my familiar, huh? That means I get to boss you around?"
The smaller one, with dragon-fly wings quivering, answered, "I'm not really sure what it means. But I'm pretty sure I'm meant to help and protect you." She reached up and rubbed the knob of one of her antennae, a nervous gesture.
"Which Court do you align yourself with?"
"Huh? I... I don't know anything about any Courts. And you don't look like any sort of courtier. Are you a member of a court? Whichever one you're aligned with, I suppose."
That stopped her circling. Taken aback, she backed up to look at the newcomer. "Not a member of a Court? You're Wildfae? You don't have the flavor of Wildfae on you, Sprite."
"I'm not a sprite. I'm not a wildfae. I'm not really any kind of fae. I mean, not like you are. I'm... I just am. I wasn't this shape before."
"Before what?"
"Before now."
"You're going to have to do better than that. You are a sprite, I can see that with my own eyes. A water sprite, given the froggish feet and the webbed fingers. And the dust off your wings tastes of fae. You're fae."
"Well, I am now. But before you called me, conjured me, I was just... well, I wasn't. And I get the feeling I could be something else, if you wanted it hard enough."
"Can you be a goat? A dwarf? A dragon?"
"None of those. But I think I could be other things my size. A cat, a bird, a snake, a spider."
"I don't want any of those."
"Do you want a sprite?"
"Well, the magic seems to think so." Beatal thought back, carefully. "I was praying to my patron - a Kirin. It's been answering some of my prayers, lately. And I thought maybe it would be nice to burn some herbs and stuff in this neat brazier I found, as an offering. I asked it for someone to help me out, keep me company. All these tall-people are very burdensome to have as companions. And then everything got very smoky. The smoke all gathered in, and then there you were. Did you speak to the Kirin?"
"I don't know what a Kirin is. You're the first person I've ever spoken to. But I... I know about people, kind of. I just don't remember meeting any before. Or doing anything else before. Or having a before, really..."
"Okay, may I have your name?"
The smaller fey raised an eyebrow and squinted at her. "I still know better than to give you my name or anything else. And I don't think I have a name; or at least I don't know what it is. Call me whatever you like. I think I'd like a name you gave me."
"Ah-hah, I see what you did there," laughed the bigger fey. Bigger only by comparison, of course. Beatal stood 24" tall, about as small as a fairy of her ranking could be. She looked like a tiny purplish goblin, but with the armored wings of a beetle. However, she towered over her companion, who stood only about ten inches in height, obviously a fairy of a much lower rank. "I think I'll call you Toot-toot. If you'll answer to it."
"Toot-toot... yes, that will do fine. So what am I here to do?"
Beatal shrugged. "Help me, I guess. We're trying to save the world or something; I'm sure you'll come in handy. Can you blow a thelarr?" Toot-toot nodded, carefully, as she decided perhaps she could. "Good; you can accompany me when I do music stuff. Can you drop invisible?" Toot-toot immediately phased out, then back in, nodding. "Excellent; you can help me with scouting. I'm the primary scout for the party," she said proudly. "But secretly, I'm not very good at it. You can help me, and then I'll scout twice as much - that'll be more than anybody!"
Toot-toot offered up, "I can shoot, too. My arrows don't do a lot of damage, but they're made from poison-tree wood, and they'll make big people sick. That's useful." Then she got a sly look, and scrunched up her face like she was trying to do something very difficult. Beatal heard, telepathically, And I can talk to you like this. Not other people, though. This is just for you and me.
Beatal clapped her hands, delighted. Having a sudden idea, she picked up a rock, about the size of her hand, and cast a cantrip on it. It lit up, shining brightly. She handed it to Toot-toot. "Okay, fly up a little, then go invisible." The sprite did as directed, and Beatal watched the light, laughing gleefully when the light disappeared when Toot-toot did.
But then Toot-toot didn't return. "Toot? Where are you? Come back! Come back right now!" With a magical wrenching, suddenly the sprite stood before her. "What happened?" she asked.
Toot-toot sat down, a bit shaken. "I thought I saw something interesting, so I flew toward it. I was over by that tree, when something just yanked me out of being, and then here I was. Hey, look - you can see the light-rock I was holding - it's over there where I was when I came back."
Beatal looked at the rock, then mentally added up the distance to it. The sprite not only was able to turn invisible twice in short order, which she couldn't easily do, but might be faster than her, too. Those froggish feet, though made her slow walking. But who needed to walk, anyway?
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