“ Read it to me again, mommy,” the enthusiastic five-year-old exclaimed to his mother.

She laughed, “ Tip, honey, we’ve read it two times already. I think that it’s finally time for my little bundle of gratitude to go to sleep.

” He sighed, “ Okay, mommy. But will you tuck me in?”

She put her thumb and index fingers on her chin, as if mulling it over, Tip waiting patiently for her answer. “ Of course I will, you silly duck,” she exclaimed finally, tussling his thick coils of of hair, blowing raspberries in his tummy. She picked him up and into her lap, peeled back his woodland pattern bed sheets and set him in the bed, gently tucking the sheets at his sides.

“ Are you comfortable, Tip?” she asked, grazing his smooth brown cheek with her ivory thumb.

“ Yes, mommy,” he yawned, eyes finally fluttering as one might imagine a sleepy child would after two round of The Elf and the Boggart.

“ Okay, sweetheart,” she leaned down and kissed his forehead, her long black hair spilling over her shoulders, “ Ya masalunata owehana,” she said in a language they shared.

“ I love you,” the child said, eyes finally closing, mind drifting off into a warm place.

She smiled, “ I know.” She got up from the bed, moving silently to the door, a dim orange flame following behind her. She made her way through the living room and to the kitchen where she pulled down a bottle of Elvish dandelion wine from the top cabinet, the dim flame extinguishing. She poured a glass, first basking in its sweet scent, remembering a place she’d chosen to leave behind. She took a sip, moving back to the dark living room to sit on the couch, taking the throw pillow and placing it in her lap. She eyed a framed picture of people she remembered to be far away on the table against the white brick wall. She breathed in the smell of jasmines, the kinds she liked to keep in the massive window of her and Tip’s Brooklyn Heights apartment. She picked up a cigarette from the coffee table and then paused. She knew that Tip hated it when she smoked. The smell. The way she looked while doing the act. He told her that his teacher said smoking causes cancer. Though he didn’t know that the Elvish are immune to any and all diseases known to all that exist, she didn’t like him worrying about her. But then again… she was an adult, therefore she would do what she pleased. She snapped her fingers at the end of the cigarette, a small spark growing the more she inhaled. What am I even doing here, she thought. She exhaled, took a sip of wine. Nimgalu Tip nawento mwentahe, she said to herself. It’s what is best for him.

A soft blue light caught the corner of her eye as she stared out of the wide set window that thoroughly exposed the New York skyline, a flurry of lights capturing her immediate vision. She looked at the metal prism on her coffee table with hieroglyphs engraved with lapis lazuli. She pressed her finger on the ankh that held itself in the center of the side closest to her. A soft blue stream of light widened and morphed into a face, curving to fit its features. She took another drag of her cigarette.

“ Ana Terroan,” a female voice said in a language that she knew all too well, “ You know that thing between your fingers is what’s killing the humans today, don’t you?”

A joke, she thought, “ Oh, f off, won’t you, Kaliana?” She smirked.

Kaliana laughed, “ Just kidding, sissy.”

Ana sighed, took another sip of wine. As much as she wished this was a social call, she knew exactly why her sister was calling. The only time her sister would ever call her was to ask her to come back to Lodrien, the perfect, yet suffocating world of the Elvish, her home realm. “ I know why you’re calling, and the answer is no.”

Any air of humor disappeared between the two as unease consumed its place,

“ Look, mother told me to tell you that she’s sorry and that she desperately wants you home,” Kaliana said quickly, sputtering out the words as if she thought Ana might drop the call.

Ana side-eyed the the light projection, “ And my son?”

Kaliana looked down, “ She feels bad about everything she’s said.”

Ana eyed the golden ring centered with a star cut rose quartz gem on her pinky finger, the skin around it a slight blush of a color compared to her porcelain white skin, “ All of what you just said is bullshit. I don’t believe you.”

Kaliana sighed, annoyed, “ Ana, she-,”

“ Condemned my son before his birth, calling him a bastard halfling not worthy of the Terroan name?” Ana questioned mockingly, cutting off her sister.

“ Ana, she apologized,” Kaliana exclaimed, the light of the projection flickering at her jewelled ear.

“ Not to me, Kali,” Ana took another drag, exhaled, “ If she really felt as sorry as you say, she would call me herself.”

Kaliana pursed her lips “ Now you know better than most that mother hates confrontation. I don’t know why you even expect those types of gestures, Ana.”

Ana picked at the lint on her pink Victoria’s Secret pajama bottoms and sighed, taking another sip of wine, a settling warmth beginning to awaken in her lower stomach, “ Neither. Do. I.”

Kaliana sighed again, this time pleading, “ Ana, please, you and Tip, come home. The entire family misses you. Our brother Arius is never home anymore because this gigantic house reminds him too much of you.”

Ana took another drag of her cigarette, the fire finally beginning to reach the butt of the filter. She indeed did miss her family, but the way her mother condemned Tip because he was half human was a cause for concern and the main reason why she took her newborn child and left home in the first place. She looked at her sister in the light projection. Though her younger sister, Kaliana, did have the same long ebony hair that cascaded down to the small of her back and ivory skin as porcelain as the finest of China displays, her eyes were that of a warm honey and crimson while Ana’s were a dark emerald green. A knowledge of what the world had to offer and what it would just as well steal from you lingering behind them.

“ Look, Kali, I understand what you're trying to get at, but--,” she stopped abruptly.

What was that scratching she heard coming from the front door? Had she imagined it? Her slightly pointed ears twitched. Someone’s trying to get in, she thought. F. She got up from the couch, waving her hand over the prism and pinching her fingers together, the device following her command to mute. Kaliana was saying something that couldn’t be heard, soundlessly watching as her sister conjured a line of red roses that trailed behind her, the pink shimmer of her magic coating the floorboards. Ana trekked slowly to the door, pressing an ear to the hardwood, trying to hear what was happening on the other side. For a moment, everything was silent, and she exhaled.

Then suddenly, a lighthearted and childlike whisper came as soft as silk, “ Guess who, poppet.” the soft roses at her feet immediately spiked, crystallizing and dispersing  through the hardwood door frame and towards the voice. Ana backflipped over and behind the couch, sticking the landing. She knew who it was. Who they were. They’d found her. And she didn't know if she’d be able to hold them off. Damn.

The eyes. They were the first thing she saw as they walked through the door, now in a heap of shreds in the hallway. Big beautiful eyes that were all the same shade of orange, green and hazel. The next thing she noticed were big smiles fitted into the faces of what looked like genderless toddlers with heads too big for their bodies. Lastly, she noticed their naked bodies with no genitalia to speak of, a tan splotch of skin covering the crotch between their legs. She looked at the one on the very right, the childlike creature clutching its side, blood running down its arm and leg. Its eyes glistened as if beginning to cry, still smiling. Good, she got one of them.These beings were Shiide pixies, the evilest and the most beautiful of the fairy breed who gained power as the fear of everyone and anything around them increased.

“ The tramp snagged me,” the pixie said, calmly pulling the crystallized rose shard from the underdeveloped muscle of its bicep, giggling and crying at the same time it spoke. Its nose began to run. “ You W****,” the discombobulated pixie said, leaping towards her, dark violet butterfly wings sprouting from its back.

Ana was ready this time. Her ring hummed, the pink light of the gem growing brighter with each breath that she took. “Nature,” she said, “ Listen.” And with that, as the beautiful and deadly creature’s hand was just inches from her face, a winding tree trunk sprouted from the floorboards. A branch sprouted instantly from the trunk’s side and grabbed hold of the pixie by its ankle, pulling it violently to the ground, its face catching on the back of the couch. Another branch sprouted immediately after the pixie was down, twisting and fastening itself into a sharp point. After it formed a blade of sorts, the branch ran the pixie through its nape with a wave of Ana’s hand, piercing the floorboard through the center of its neck. The trunk absorbed the pixie’s blood and dissolved back into the floorboards with its carcass, as if both were never there.

Ana exhaled. She watched as the pixies struggled to fight back tears, their eyes glistening. She smiled, “ So, who’s next?”.

They screamed and yelled awful things at her, cursing her name, her family, her health. They knew they couldn’t win against her. And she knew it as well. Her newfound confidence made her stand straighter.

“ Just give back what you stole,” one of the pixies pleaded, inching closer to her. Ana didn’t answer. She just stepped back, conjuring a single rose in her hand, a thorned vine running down the length of her forearm. This was going to end. Right here and now.

“ Mommy?”, inquired a tired voice coming from the hallway entrance.

Her eyes widened and she gasped, “ Tip, go back to your room. Now!” He was going to ruin everything. He remained there, motionless, taken aback by his mother’s harsh tone.

The pixies immediately snapped their heads towards Tip. “ I sense it,” one of the pixies said,“ The child is marked.”

For the first time, the hairs on the back of Ana’s neck stood up. She couldn’t let these sadistic, beautiful creatures lay a finger on him. But, sadly, she didn’t realize her mistake until it was made.

“ Oh, the fear we sense inside of you betrays you where you lie,” the two pixies sang in unison, “ And now we grow oh big, so big, be careful or you'll die.”

Ana cursed, realizing that she’d let a sliver of fear seep through her pores. The fear of losing Tip.

The two pixies began to grow from three feet to six, their childlike appearances growing tighter and strained. They smiled warmly at Tip, then to Ana. One rose its hand, its nails growing long, sharpening, “ Ready?”

The rose in Ana’s hand crystallized and shattered instantly,     “ Dammit,” she said in a panic. Her magic was being siphoned, the lust for her fear oozing from these pixies. Before she got the chance to conjure another jewelled rose, one of the pixies lunged at her, this time succeeding in grabbing hold of her while in her flabbergasted stupor, wrapping its fingers around her neck. She suddenly couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. The Shiide pixie pressed its fingers together, creating a miniature collection of sharpened blades with its nails.

The other pixie eyed Tip, the child watching silently as his mother struggled, tears streaming down his eyes and hands covering his mouth. It walked up to Tip, “ Give it to me.” The pixie spoke in heavily accented English. It didn’t seem angry or vengeful, which made this naked, six foot childlike creature even scarier.

Tup’s voice quivered quietly, “ B-But I didn’t t-take anything.” The creature looked down on Tip, tipping its head to the side. The child continued, “ M-Mommy says that stealing is bad a-and that--”

The pixie slapped Tip in the face. Hard enough to knock the five-year old on his stomach, crying loudly. The pixie leaned over Tip, sniffing at Tip’s hair and down his neck. It stopped,  “ Found it,” the pixie said with a smile. It began to violently tear at Tip’s night shirt until it spotted a tiny dragonfly tattoo, barely an inch long and wide on Tip’s bare backside. Its smile widened. The pixie brushed its lips to Tip’s ear, “ This might sting a little.”

Tip’s eyes widened in fear, “ Please, don’t.”

“ Shut up, welp,” it said, widening its mouth to expose a gray tongue, a plethora of needles at the tip, “ Hold tight, little one. You’ll be freed soon.”

“ Mommy!” Tip screamed in fear.

But she lay motionless, a syringe needle of a fingernail pressed in the corner of one of her crimson eyes by the pixie hovering over her, dead where she lie. The pixie that committed the act craned its head towards Tip, processing the reaction of the child who’d just lost everything that he’d cared about. Tip’s head dropped to the floorboards, the strength of his neck finally leaving him.

“ Are you sad?” asked the pixie who was pressing its weight over Tip’s body, pulling up at a handful of Tip’s hair so that he could look back up. The creature shifted his attention from the marking so that the child could catch a glimpse of his dead mother.

“ F you,” the five-year-old said quietly, vengefully, his vision blurred by tears.

The creature smiled, “ Well don't be. It’s not as if her death will actually mean anything.”

Both of the pixies laughed joyously, wholeheartedly, as if hearing the funniest of jokes.

The a sudden flash of blue light came from outside of the entrance to the apartment, chasing the darkness from the hallway and the living room, which now lay in disarray from Ana’s meaningless scuffle. The pixies hissed as they watched a squadron of ten lean figures dressed in black camouflage clad in platinum enter the room. The blades they had pointed in the pixies’ direction held blue stripes of light running down their centers and intricately wrapped hilts with no side handles.

It was at this moment that the remaining pixies knew that they needed to leave. The pixie hovering over Tip, the child now unconscious, cursed itself for not reclaiming the mark when it had the chance. It smiled and leaned down, kissing Tip’s cheek, “ Another time, halfling.” It snapped its fingers and vanished. The pixie still looming over Ana’s corpse did the same, making to snap its fingers, when, in the blink of an eye, it finds them laying next to Ana’s head. It then suddenly felt the full force of a boot in the side of its head, its body colliding with the window. It cracked.

The figure who kicked it walked around the couch to the bewildered creature, the pixie smiling as blood dripped from the side of its mouth. The figure leaned down and removed the face mask that it was wearing revealing the face of a man. About late twenties to early thirties with red hair coiffed to the side, freckles and green eyes. He also had slightly pointed ears, sporting two golden hoops at the end of one. He brought his hand to the pixies neck, the Shiide shrinking back to its natural, childlike form.

“ You will pay for what you've done here on this night,” the man said in the Elvish language, voice breaking slightly.

The pixie coughed and smiled in his face, leaning almost close enough to brush lips with the man, “ But you won’t kill me. You're not allowed to.”

The elf leaned even closer and the pixie exhaled slowly, looking him directly in the eyes and setting his jaw, “ But you will know hell.” The man grabbed the pixie’s neck, jerking it forward and shoving it back against the the window, cracking it more. He got up and turned his back on the pixie, “ Cuff him.” The squadron of elves in front of him rushed behind him, holding down the pixie as it struggled. One of the squadron officers pulled out a pair of cobalt blue metal handcuffs and secured the wrists of the pixie. The Shiide’s body immediately went limp and the squadron worked on removing the pixie from the apartment.

“ Commander,” a female voice said in Elvish, one of the officers  approaching the man from behind, “ We’re ready and awaiting orders.”

The Commander didn’t look back from where he was staring,  “ I’ll meet you at the station. Fill out the paperwork for his transfer to Dragun’s Jeweil. Rule out the charges as murder by Shiide-enforced petrification and lobotomy induced cognitive failure.” He walked to Ana’s still body and leaned down, touching her face with his gloved hand. “ Do you understand?”

The woman paused, “ Yes, Commander,” then she said authoritatively to the rest of the squadron, “ Alright, we’re moving out!”

They immediately made their way out the the apartment in a flurry of black, metal and blue. With another flash of light in a part of the hallway no one could see, they were gone. The man looked around the apartment, at the spilled glass of wine, the flipped over coffee table, the broken window, the cigarette bud and ash on the white carpet. He inhaled deeply, the scent of jasmine and tobacco filling his nose. A tear fell to his cheek and, suddenly, he wanted to vomit. But he didn't. He instead took a dead Ana’s hand in his and removed the quartz gem from her finger, the light no longer shining at its center. He then spotted Tip and, instantly, ran to him. He gently flipped the child around, taking Tip’s now unconscious face in his hands. Only a bruised cheek, he thought. He exhaled in relief. He then sat Tip up to take a look at what he thought he’d seen. On the center of the child’s back lay the black-lined tattoo of a dragonfly, untouched. He removed one of his gloves and ran a finger over the marking. It burned slightly. He sucked his teeth.

The tattoo aside, the man knew what he needed to do. He knew how both his and Tip’s lives would change starting tomorrow. He replaced his glove and removed his jacket, exposing an array of blue hieroglyph tattoos covering his arms, and wrapped it around Tip’s body. He then scooped Tip into his arms. “ Your Uncle has you now,” he whispered gently to the sleeping child, “ And I promise to always protect you.” He took the child out of the apartment, looking back at the place where his dead sister lay unmarked, except for one bloody tear running down her cheek. He closed his eyes and, with a quick flash of blue light, him and the child were gone.