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130 Reasons Why I'm Fairy Trash

22. Hate That I Love You (H.P.'s first birthday)

Second Tuesday of Late Winter; Aurora 7868

Year of Breath; Winter of the Green Bat

It would have been a crowded birthday party, if they knew anyone to invite. Both of Ambrosine's roommates had coughed and ruffled their wings when he'd pressed them to find if they were going to be there, and hadn't come back since. That left him in the little Academy dorm with his quote-unquote damefriend all afternoon, and that was supposed to be great, wasn't it? A room full of light snacks and a pretty damsel watching him kneel on the rough cloudstone floor with the crumpled posters and watered-down paints? He'd even managed to smuggle two whole packs of assorted cookies past his comb's resident adviser. Solara had eaten an entire sleeve of them herself, sprawled across his simple gray bed on her back.

"Come on, jump already, kiddo." She waved another minty cookie over their son's head. "Aw, you can do it. Jump. Fergus, why won't you jump for it? A cù sith would jump for it."

The nymph didn't stand up, or uncross his arms. Surrounded by bright, sparkling blobs of finger paints squirted out from crushed bottles, with fresh bark strips for his canvas (the cheap kind, not that he needed to know), and he wouldn't uncross his arms. Ambrosine couldn't help but shake his head every time he looked at him. What a weird kid.

But he loved that weird little kid anyway, more than he'd ever loved anyone or anything before, except maybe, maybe, Solara's beautiful navy blue waves and curls. Ambrosine always knew he wanted kids someday, although Fergus had of course been… unplanned. In retrospect, he ought to have kept more honey contraceptives on hand, but such things were getting scarcer as the Great Ice Times ravaged Earth far below, so what was a simple drake to do?

Granted, Fergus wasn't a curious soul. He was stiff and serious, and not particularly liable to stumble across a jar of honey hidden away with the breakables and cotton balls in a high cabinet anyhow. Especially considering how much he preferred the ground level. Curious, no, but the instant the little rebel suspected his father might be keeping something away from him intentionally, he would be on that jar in a wingbeat. And Ambrosine had learned all too quickly that Fergus (Bless his core) had been afflicted with a severe honey allergy from the moment of his birth. So Ambrosine gave him spoonfuls of grape jelly as a form of positive reinforcement when he did something right instead. And of course, there would be other downsides to such an allergy once he came of age and was chasing pretty damsels of his own… How unfortunate for him.

Especially when considering the matter of the freckles. Ambrosine hadn't yet resisted the urge to run his thumb across Fergus' face every time he scooped the child into his lap; his precious nymph had such dashing freckles. They'd only come in a week ago, pale and salty against his sharp cheeks and up his nose. Ambrosine knew what they meant and he accepted them nonetheless. By natural insect law, those folk who showed so many freckles were born to be commanders. Warriors. Murderers, oftentimes.

True. Everyone said young gynes grew up to kill their fathers, and that adult gynes killed their freckled young. More gynes probably ended up abandoned with changeling host families before their first birthday than didn't. Ambrosine's roommates urged him to subject Fergus to the same fate, but Ambrosine had always refused their pestering. With his squarish features and stubby, crooked wings, the little nymph had never been quite so "normal" anyway. What were a few freckles between father and son then?

To some people, a lot. So many people believed gynes to be such a primal type of creature that it was like they didn't even see them as Fairies. Ambrosine's own father was unfortunately one of them. Praxis Whimsifinado was out in front of the Academy's main on-campus restaurant right now for the career and recruitment fair, checking out the students delving into psychology and attempting to persuade them on the merits of Wish Fixers over the cloudlands' other therapy options (the Applebloom's in particular).

Praxis had often lauded back in the days of Ambrosine's youth, gynes were slaves to their base instincts, and ought to be changelinged with the infants of another race in the universe while they still had a chance. The man was a traditional fairy in that regard. Ambrosine had only barely gotten word of his father's coming the day before this one, and managed to send Solara and Fergus out while he worked frantically to wipe any trace of having a baby from the apartment. All the more reason to stay inside today. Father busy. Bedroom secure. It was logical fact, really.

"I don't want a birthday," Fergus said.

Ambrosine finished marking out the word Sewing on his poster, then set down his paintbrush and stretched his cramping wrists. "Why don't you want a birthday?"

"Because we don't usually have birthdays. This is different. This is weird." Fergus picked up a small brown pouch lying just within arm's reach. Ambrosine took it away and clipped it to his belt.

"Don't play with that. That's Dad's s-s-special psychology class satchel. My central test theory assignment is coming up and I have forget-a-cin in there. I'm s-supposed to find a subject whose memory I can wipe so I can run them through the s-same trial multiple times and observe their reactions."

"I don't need a birthday. I didn't need one last month. Why do I need one now?"

"Because you're getting older. You're growing up."

Fergus wiggled his toes. He'd stretched his legs out in front of him probably… two hours ago? Going on three? Ambrosine had never known a nymph who could sit still and quietly on the floor for so long, let alone with a heavy chunk of stone in his lap, let alone with posture so stiff and straight, but he planned to love and support the little guy anyway.

"I know what your plan is," said the nymph at last.

"My plan?"

Fergus locked an unnervingly solid stare on Ambrosine's face. "Yes. I do. You think if you give me a party, I'll want to go outside again. Well, I don't. I already had to go out this morning when I didn't want to. I'm not going again. I'm staying right here."

Ambrosine took a fresh brush and dipped it in the blue squirt of paint. As he started on the letter C, he said, "I'm giving you a party because I like you, speck, and I want you to be happy."

Fergus continued to pierce him with that unblinking lavender gaze. He'd gotten those purple eyes from Solara (although hers were slightly bluer, so… not really sure where the genetics came from there, actually). "Dad. Birthday parties don't make me happy."

"Well, you have me stumped there. We need to s-sit you down and do a functional assessment one on one, don't we? Let's see." Ambrosine broke eye contact to finish painting the word Club. "Hmm. What actually is reinforcing for you? You like pretzel s-sticks. And pancakes. And impromptu naps."

Solara rolled to her stomach, folding her hands so the foil cookie packet crinkled. "I can't believe we have the only baby in the world who doesn't know how to have fun. Amby, he'll be the death of us. Drakes… Fergus, here. Snickerdoodle. Jump for the snickerdoodle."

Fergus kept his eyes trained on Ambrosine for a moment longer, then turned his head. "I'm not jumping for that, Mommy. Also, I can't reach it even if I do jump. It's too high. I know what you're doing."

With a shrug, Solara popped the cookie in her mouth and rummaged in the packet for another one. "If you had any idea how much sugar was in this thing, you'd jump for it."

"'Lara, we've been over this." Ambrosine glanced up at her face for the first time since she'd wandered into his little cell of the sprawling Academy hive with its central fire pit, meal table, and three rumpled beds. From under the scarf on her head, a single loop of hair curled into a beautiful swirly S right between her eyes. Oh, Solara was always a gorgeous sight to behold, but Ambrosine couldn't ignore the way her eyes roamed across him as much as they did the humble furnishings: like she didn't really see him there. The knees of his pants had started to wear thin from all his crouching and rubbing against the floor. His hands were still up to the wrists in wet paint, and his forehead had started to itch awfully, but Ambrosine didn't dare scratch it with his fingers coated in such a mess. Purposefully skimming his wings together to refocus her attention, he said, "I don't want him tasting sugar until he's older. His brain's still developing. You'll s-stunt his growth."

Solara crunched through another gingersnap and swallowed before she answered. "He just shed his exoskeleton this week. He's a baby; it's not like he's going to remember anything that happened today." Slipping off the bed, she floated around behind her quote-unquote drakefriend to size up the sewing club posters, and poked his hand with her bare foot. "Not bad. You know, speaking of things we've been over a hundred times, we really need to stop dancing around the subject. Amby, the kid's a year old, and he still can't F-L-Y."

"I don't need to fly," Fergus announced. When Ambrosine glanced over, his son unfolded his arms and instead started tapping the chisel in his hand against his teeth. His chubby fingers, nearly swallowed in the thin gray sweater Ambrosine had swiped from the lost-and-found, slid across a row of gashes down the stone tablet in his lap. "It's dumb. There's nothing to read up there. And walking is a lot less tiring anyway."

Solara tossed the cookie wrapper in the general direction of the wastebasket. It didn't make it, and twirled down to the dirty floor. "I see you've learned your alphabet since the last time I stopped by."

"No, just my ABCs." Fergus paused. "How do you spell 'podium'?"

Ambrosine dropped his gaze to the first paintbrush again, with a dot of bright yellow still clinging and now hardening at the tip of its hairs. Taking it, he started sketching out a curl of golden thread. "Well, there's a big word for a little mouth like yours. Good job, Fergus. S-Solara, can you get the itch between my eyes?"

"Sure." She felt down his face until she found Ambrosine's nose. Her nails were long and pink, and they felt… perfect scratching across his skin. He leaned his head back against her stomach.

Fergus straightened his shoulders importantly, which somehow made him look squarer than he already was. The spiral cowlick, a Whimsifinado family source of pride, that uncoiled from the lower back of his hair bobbed every time he moved. "Dad, help me spell this word. It's more important than the things you're doing."

"Podium. P-O-D-I-U-M." As Solara withdrew her fingers, he glanced over and said, "What are you writing?"

Fergus copied the symbols down carefully. Or he made the attempt, at least. His chisel was more of a shallow scratching tool than an actual carving one. The faint white marks it left on the tablet could be wiped away by a stray finger, but it seemed to make him happy enough, so Ambrosine let him entertain himself that way. "I'm making up new court cases for the game I'm playing with Bracket and Starbright," Fergus said. "I'm being both lawyers."

Ambrosine considered the two names as he sat back on his heels. Solara's bare toes poked absently his own. More importantly, since he'd gotten her off the bed and behind him, she was perfectly willing to comb her pale fingers through his black hair in that deep, quick way that always sent shivers down his wings. "Bracket and Starbright are almost five decades older than you, Fergus. They'll be off to Spellementary School this s-summer."

"Yeah, so?"

"In just five decades, you'll be off to S-Spellementary School too."

"Yeah, so?"

Solara's fingers tightened until she clasped two fistfuls of his hair by the roots. Leaning over Ambrosine, she drooped her weight against his shoulder. That pinched one of his wings, but he ignored it and just looked up at her instead. The usual purple scarf kept her gorgeous starry night sky hair folded completely back and out of sight. Disappointing, but not unexpected. Today was a special day, and maybe if he did an excellent job on these posters, and if he could get Fergus to go down in his box for the night without a lot of fuss, Solara would actually let it down for him, and he could take his hairbrush and work some real magic with that theoretical canvas. If it were going to happen, tonight would be the night for it. Her lower lip glistened blue with gloss, and she pushed it out in a pleading pout. "Amby, we have to. It's the only way he's going to learn."

"Learn what?" Fergus asked, pausing from his work to squint up at them. The certain way he tended to half-lid his eyes made him appear critical beyond his years.

Solara rubbed her wings together for emphasis. She let go of Ambrosine's hair (a shame), and he exhaled air and dry magic in a long, steady stream. "I don't want any damsels getting him plugged up with babies before he's ready. And if he gets assaulted, he needs to have an escape plan."

"'Lara, we can't just…" He made a hand sign to suggest the words Drop him from the roof. "That's not allowed. If we get spotted, we are s-so toasted."

"Where am I not allowed?"

"Amby…" Her voice pitched into a whine. Her fingers moved to massage several wasp stings on her right arm. Alas, poor Solara- she adored Earth, but for some reason or another, the wasps on that planet adored her too. "I want him to grow up in Fairy World. If he sets one foot on Earth in this condition, the will o' the wisps will snatch him up and drag him down to their burrows. That's not the life I want for him. This is important to me."

"What's important to you?"

Ambrosine fingered the two paintbrushes under his hands. The last time Solara had used that voice on him, he'd gotten suckered into designing her sewing club posters. And a few times before that, he'd bought her that sparkling crown-polishing rag she saw at the swap meet. And some time before that, the night when Fergus had been conceived, their first time together, after she'd let him braid her flowing hair…

He knew he was just reinforcing her whining behavior by giving in. Intermittently reinforcing it, too. It didn't help either of them, but Ambrosine had witnessed his damefriend in the midst of an extinction burst once before, and he never wanted to make that mistake again, even if it went against everything the psychology classes were trying to beat into his head. He picked at a splotch of green on his wrist.

"I don't like having to force him. He's just a baby."

"Force me to do what?"

"He's a year old." Solara placed her hands around his neck and brought her head down to his level. Warm effervescence closed over his ear. "Your dad forced you. Mine forced me."

"Yes. That is exactly why I didn't want to force him."

"And we turned out fine, didn't we?"

"Why are you two fine?"

"Well, I don't exactly have a trusting relationship with Praxis."

"Who's Praxis?" Fergus demanded, popping his thumb out of his mouth.

Solara rotated his face until their noses bumped together. Her eyes had gone wide, pupils enormous against her violet-blue irises like, well… little solar eclipses. "It's natural. Birds do it."

"What's natural?"

Ambrosine squirmed as her fingers slid along his neck. "W-we're not birds, 'Lara. I don't want to s-scare him."

"You're working on a central test theory project anyway, aren't you?" She glanced meaningfully at the satchel with the forget-a-cin on his belt. "If he gets scared, use the stuff and start him over again."

"What's 'the stuff?'"

Well. She was right about one thing. The project was due Friday afternoon, and now it was Thursday morning. Ambrosine hadn't even started. He'd been procrastinating because Solara had come to spend the weekend for their son's birthday. He did need a test subject whose memory he could wipe multiple times, and if Fergus learned to fly after it was over, all the better.

Still…

"I don't know. Th-there just isn't a good place to practice."

"We can do it on the balcony. We have a balcony." Solara's tempting fingers crept back towards his scalp. "He'll never forgive you if he grows up never learning how. You can't coddle him forever. He needs this. I need this."

Fergus lowered his chisel. "What's out on the balcony?"

With another sigh, Ambrosine dipped his hands in the water bucket on his left. "You know, not much. Pretty scenery."

"Hmm. Sounds boring. I'm in." Fergus brushed his hand across his tablet, then laced his fingers together and set them in his lap. "What exactly are we going to do on the balcony? If she's suggesting it, it must be a special occasion. Not just my birthday."

"We're going to fly," Solara said, retying the purple scarf over her hair. Sigh. Ambrosine probably had more of a love-hate relationship than with the damsel herself.

Fergus considered this proposal with his fingers steepled in front of his chin. Then he turned towards Ambrosine. "Maybe I wasn't clear. I don't do flying."

Ambrosine rinsed the first of his brushes. He pressed his thumb carefully down on the bristles to shake loose the hard chips of paint. "Well, we're going to fix that today."

"How?"

"By encouraging your instincts to kick in."

"Why?"

"Because flying is important. You'll need to be able to get around."

"Why?" Sulkily, Fergus dropped his eyes to the folded hands in his lap. "All the types of wingless Fairies - the naiads, I think is what they're called - don't have to fly. They get around fine."

"Let's just go," Solara complained from her place by the balcony exit. She already had the curtain lifted with her arm, checking for any rogue Fairies who might be flitting around.

"In a minute." Ambrosine lay on his belly so he was more level with his son. "That's right. There are many Fairies who don't have wings. That's why s-society uses taxes to build things like the tram system, so cars on cables can carry Fairies between all the thousands of islands that make up the cloudlands. But those can be expensive sometimes. Flying is free. And really, wouldn't you just not want to rely on someone else for s-simple things as you're growing up? What if the trams had to be repaired one day, and you were in a rush to get to school or work?"

"Then I'd poof. Duh."

Ambrosine sighed. Gingerly, he pushed his thumb into Fergus' freckled cheek and traced a stray pattern across his skin (Fergus leaned away). "You're not getting into the s-spirit of this. Listen. I've been saving up money so I can buy you a wand of your very own. You can start learning magic once I do. But until then, let's s-start small, by teaching you how to use your wings."

"But I can run up the stairs under people's floating feet faster than I can elbow my way to the top, trying to wriggle my way through the crowd and getting my wings bumped."

"Just pick him up and carry him," Solara groaned again. "It's not hard. Can we please go? The coast is clear right now. I don't want to be out here when the crowds start coming back. Amby, you know how I feel about crowds."

"Fergus." Ambrosine scooted forward on his elbows. "Can you trust me? I'm a lot older than you are. I promise, there are many times in life that you will wish you could fly. It's easiest to learn when you're young."

Fergus rubbed his knuckles. "The trams move between the clouds faster than you can fly, and it makes you less tired."

"That's right. But this is important to me and your mommy. Will you do it? Please?"

As Fergus' resolve began to waver, Solara motioned again for them to join her. "Amby, he's one year old. You don't have to turn everything into a teaching opportunity.

"Well, I c-can't just make him, Solara. He's his own person and I want to respect his choices. Can't you be p-patient?"

"One way or another, be it age or forget-a-cin, he's not going to remember this." Her voice turned more incredulous than annoyed. She patted her hip, searching in vain for the wand sheath she'd left on the bed. "Just poof him straight out there. He doesn't know any better; it's for his own good anyway. Fergus, sweetie, get my wand."

Ambrosine sat up. "Fergus, stay right where you are."

Solara snapped her fingers, more and more with every passing second as the nymph scrambled to comply with her request. "Fergus, hand me my wand."

Ambrosine locked his eyes on his son. "Fergus, you do that and you won't get any juice at dinner."

Fergus looked back and forth between them, his usual panic flaring up in his square face when faced with two competing tasks at the same time. He dropped the wand to the floor and pressed both hands over his ears. "Solara," Ambrosine sighed, getting up and crossing to the nymph's side. He picked Fergus up and held him to his neck. "You can't s-snap at him like that. He's just a baby. He doesn't know he's doing anything wrong. All he knows is that you're loud and s-scary when you're mad at him."

Solara ignored him. Floating over, she scooped her sheath from the bed and buckled it around her waist. Then she grabbed her wand off the floor and shoved it inside with a tough scrape of wood against leather. "Fergus, I'm your mommy. When I ask for something to be done, I need it done. Okay? Say 'Okay.'"

Ambrosine brought his hand to the back of Fergus' head. "His wings are twitching. You s-scare him when you're angry."

"How could I be scaring him?" Solara's hands slid up to her hips. She cocked her head about thirty degrees to one side. "All I did was give him a simple instruction. That's the same thing you do. He's old enough to bring his mommy a wand when she asks him to."

Ambrosine took a step back, tightening his grip. His eyes flicked left and right across her face. Quietly, one of his hands moved to the satchel hanging beside his wand sheath. "S-Solara, you have to be patient with him. He's emotionally s-sensitive, and yelling at him when he's nervous doesn't do any good. Don't yell. Please don't yell…"

"I'm not yelling," she protested, and her gaze fell on the hand digging in his satchel pocket. Her wings drooped. "Oh, don't you dare. Ambrosine, don't you dare. This is not the time. If you say one word about central test theory and thought experiments, I will fly right out of this room. Do you hear me? I'm not coming back."

The tears blurred his vision too much to tell if she was looking him in the eye. Ambrosine clenched his hand around his satchel. "I'm s-sorry. I'm sorry. Please don't be mad. I just can't lose you too, Solara. I can't."

"And I can't believe this. You're actually going to do it." Solara threw her hands in the air. "I don't know why I keep putting up with this; I could have any drake I wanted if I really tried, and yet here I am, sticking things out with you, just because you're the one that had to go and get pregnant on the very first night, of all things. First night, Ambrosine." Her fingertips moved to her eyes. "And here we are again, and you're doing that thing you do every time I voice the slightest disagreement with you. I can't do this. Why do I keep doing this? I can't. It's times like this that I wonder if we should split up-"

"No!" Ambrosine grabbed the canister from his satchel, smashed its button, and flashed the light in her eyes. Fergus squeezed his hands over his ears. His tight throat bobbed against Ambrosine's neck. Solara fell back on the bed, dizzy and fumbling for purchase with her hands.

It was a moment before she managed to straighten up again. When she did, it was in slow motion. She wiped her face with the back of her wrist. Her eyes latched onto the little yellow canister in Ambrosine's shaking hand. He saw the pain bleeding from her face when she raised her eyes to lock with his.

"What? Amby? Y-you used the forget-a-cin on me?"

Ambrosine withdrew, wrapping his arm (canister still clenched in his fist) around the back of Fergus' head. "You wouldn't s-s-stop yelling at me!"

"What did you take?"

"I- I just- You were mad- You were mad, and I just- I'm s-sorry." His wings jittered against his back. "'Lara, please don't be mad. Y-you know I love you, right?"

Solara wiped her face with both hands, one after the other. Softly, they fell back into her lap with the palms upturned. "Oh. Oh. Yes. I love you too, Amby. I've trusted you with my everything, and I still love you even when you're afraid of losing me. I know you don't mean to. I know you don't always think when you're panicking, and you're scared. But you can't do this anymore. It isn't fair to me."

"I'm s-sorry… I'll stop… I promise, I'll stop…"

Her eyes slid from his face to his arms, and to the large nymph clinging to his chest. "Right. We… We were going to take Fergus out flying. Weren't we, Fergus?"

Fergus did not respond. Ambrosine bounced him in his arm, and their son finally turned his head and forced words around his thumb. "I guess you were. I still hate everything."

Ambrosine ran his fingers through the nymph's black hair. It was silky and shiny like his mother's, even though the color was dull and it would never be long enough to pin or braid. "Yes. Yes, you're going to learn to fly today. I know you're s-scared, but I think you're very brave."

"I'm not scared. I just don't see the point of flying." Fergus took Ambrosine's cheeks in his little hands and looked at him very seriously. "I don't want to do this, Dad. But I trust you. I'll try."

"Thank you, Fergus." Ambrosine set his son down on the floor, and slid the forget-a-cin canister back into the pouch on his belt. "I appreciate it."

"That's my good little drake." When Fergus stretched up his arms, Solara actually knelt down and scooped him into her lap, much to Ambrosine's surprise. As she stood with the large baby cradled in her arms, he caught the coils of blue hair that leaked out from her scarf in his fists, twisting it around his hands. Solara's curious smile shifted to one of straining patience.

"Fergus," Ambrosine scolded, reaching towards him once again. "Don't mess up Mommy's hair. Mommy likes her hair just the way it is."

Solara passed the child over and brushed off her skirt. Then she held out her hand. "Shall we go?"

Swallowing, Ambrosine placed his palm in hers and wound their fingers together. "We should."

Solara did the honors with a whisk of her hand, yanking aside the gray curtain that led out to the balcony. Both Ambrosine and Fergus shielded their faces and blinked at the light, even if it only came from the stars.

"Now." On dainty feet, Solara crossed the balcony to its thick rail and peered over the edge. "It's all clear down below. Come on, Fergus. Up on the railing; there we go, Mommy's got you. See? It's wide and strong enough to stand on. You're supposed to do this. We're meant to fly. Even our buildings are designed for it; we're a very logical society. All you need to do is walk straight off the edge and let your instincts do their stuff."

Fergus, standing, put one foot over the drop and let it stay there while Ambrosine squirmed in the background. Then he turned around and sat, preparing to slide back to the solid balcony. "Nup. Not doing this."

"Fergus," Ambrosine pleaded, finally coming forward. "Your mother is right. You need to learn to fly."

"Why?"

"Because that's what I need you to do today."

Solara crouched until her face was level with their son's. "Let's do it together, hon. Just spread, drop, and flap."

Fergus wrinkled his brow. His thumb slipped into his mouth. "Spread, drop, and flap?"

"That's right. Three things. You can remember three things, can't you?"

"Spread, drop, and flap."

"Mmhm. It's logical. Watch me demonstrate." Solara sat beside him, swung herself onto the railing, then hopped to her feet. She posed, pointing her toes like the stage performer she'd always wanted to be. Her pale wings flew out to either side, sweeping open like thick sails. Ambrosine pressed the pads of three fingers against his lips. Silhouetted against the purple evening sky, her shoulders thrust back and chest out, chin high, her dress dancing against her calves in the light breeze, she looked absolutely s-s-stunning. Even with her hair tucked away beneath her scarf. Dear dust, he wanted to marry that dame. It would never work, of course, and not just because he was so anxious and she was so scared of him, although that was certainly part of it. But for just one moment, Ambrosine pretended that it could.

"Spread. Drop." Facing them both, Solara crossed her arms in an X over her chest, leaned, and plunged straight backwards off the balcony rail. Fergus scrambled up to see her fall, and Ambrosine came to stand behind him.

"And up!" Solara spiraled upward, her wings flared behind, and twisted to watch her son's reaction. He folded his arms, unimpressed.

"It's too high. I don't want to."

"You don't even want to jump off the bed," she complained. "In fact, you're more likely to crash if we start you on anything smaller than this. The height gives you more time to ease into what you're doing. Just jump right off, and your wings will take over. Give it a try."

Ambrosine drew his wand. "We'll make it easier for you." With a wave and a soft poof, the balcony rail gained a slant like a slide. Because he'd been standing on it, Fergus immediately started to tip down. He skidded to a halt so quickly, his feet flew out from under him and he landed on his back. That made him gasp. Scrambling, he crawled back up the ramp and wrapped both arms around the nearest post on the rail.

"What happened?" Solara asked. "You were doing so well."

Fergus put up one finger. "Yeah, give me a minute. It's not like this comes naturally."

"But it does, Fergus." Solara landed beside him with a pat. She took one of his tiny square wings in her hand and swiveled it up. "Look at this logically with me, baby. Look at yourself. You have such beautiful wings. Why would Mother Nature give you these if they don't do anything?"

He pointed to his floating crown, eyebrows raised.

"Okay, fair enough."

"No," Ambrosine scolded, settling beside them. "The crown is a biological tool that filters your connection with the magical energy field s-so you can breathe."

Fergus closed his eyes. "Dad, while that is extremely fascinating, probably, I'm still not going to do it."

"I thought you said you'd try."

"I did. I let you bring me out here, right? I went all the way up to the edge. That's good enough for today." Fergus reached behind him and grabbed two fistfuls of Ambrosine's vest. His wings chirped together in a way that wasn't quite natural for fairies. "I can't do this. I won't do this. Dad, I don't do heights."

"Don't worry. We'll go at your pace, for your comfort level. I won't drop you."

Fergus loosened his fingers. "I hope you're promising that."

The forget-a-cin canister dug into his hip through his satchel pocket.

"Well, this is getting us nowhere." Solara picked Fergus up with both hands and chucked him out into empty space. Ambrosine choked on his own spit.

"Solara! He didn't want to be dropped!"

"That's why I didn't drop him. I threw him. And, you're the only one who said you wouldn't. Simple logic. Duh."

"He's our baby!"

"If he hits the ground, he'll bounce," she insisted as he rushed past her to see. And what he saw was Fergus plummeting fast and hard, his tiny hands stretched upward and half-closed with desperate fear. Making a snap decision, Ambrosine lunged forward.

Solara caught him by the arm and swung him around again. "We tried being patient with him, and that got us nowhere in the course of a year. A whole year, Amby. We need to take drastic measures. He'll be fine."

"But-"

"His instincts will kick in before he hits the ground. If they don't, well, it's a good thing you brought the forget-a-cin then."

Uh.

Hmm.

Well. She did have a point. His dorm apartment wasn't all that high, and Fairies weren't easy to break. In theory, he would bounce upon hitting the clouds below, and while he might get hurt, it wouldn't be dangerously so. He'd heal soon enough. And it wasn't like he was going to remember any of this anyway.

He still shut his eyes so he didn't have to see how close Fergus came to the ground himself. With a swirl of her wand, Solara poofed down to retrieve their nymph, and poofed next to Ambrosine again. Fergus' freckled face had turned as pale as the bleached sun.

"You promised!" he screamed the instant he saw Ambrosine. Ambrosine flinched away.

"I'm s-sorry. You were doing so well, I didn't think you needed me."

"You don't break promises! Never, ever, ever! That's the most important thing!"

"You almost had it," Solara assured him, stroking his hair. Fergus smacked her hand away and covered his ears.

"Get away from me! You're stupid and I never want to see you again! Ever!"

Ambrosine snapped to attention. "Fergus. Don't speak to your mother that way. 'S-stupid' is not a nice word to call anyone, but especially her. She has your best interests at heart."

Fergus jabbed his pointer finger into Solara's nose. "She threw me off a building! I don't have to respect her, and I don't have to even like her. She gave up the right to have my respect by making bad choices."

Spoken like a true gyne: rebellious and intense. Praxis would not have approved. Solara tsk tsked. She pressed her thumb beneath his eye, then stood him on the balcony rail again. "You're being overly emotional about this. Don't cry, luv. Be strong for Mommy. Remember that logic can overcome any fear."

Ambrosine sighed and reached into his pocket. Holding the forget-a-cin canister in front of his son's eyes, he pushed down the top and flashed the light. The pre-bottled magic jumped like a spark from the canister to his forehead. Fergus staggered backwards, rubbing his face with both palms, and went over the edge of the balcony again. His square wings snapped out, desperately beating to no avail. Both parents watched his tumble with lips pressed together hard. Solara nudged Ambrosine with her shoulder.

"See, that wasn't so bad. How many doses do you have left?"

Ambrosine checked the label on the canister. "Eight. And I sh-should be taking notes for class tomorrow."

"Oh, right. Central test theory." Solara pressed her thumb to her teeth, then peered over the railing. She poofed off again, returning with Fergus kicking and squealing in her arms. His face was flushed from the chill of the air, his pudgy hands planted to his cheeks. He must have been upside-down for too long on that last dive. The lid to his forehead dome was open a thin slit.

"I hate you!"

Ambrosine raised the forget-a-cin canister, and lowered it. Raised it again, and lowered it. "Solara, we should s-stop. He doesn't like this."

She closed the lid on Fergus' head. It latched. "He's fine. I didn't even let him hit the ground."

"Not that. I don't want him to be afraid of us. A-and what if we damage his eyes like this?"

"Your eyes are bad," she pointed out, "so he'll probably inherit that anyway."

"Get away from me!" Fergus sunk his teeth into Solara's arm. She started and let him go. Ambrosine grabbed him before he could fall and pulled him to his chest.

"Ouch. The little crockeroo bit me. On purpose."

"There, Fergus. Shh. I've got you."

Fergus wrapped his arms around his neck, with his mutated, square wings shaking against his back. "Dad, I can't do it. I can't do it. I hate heights. I hate them, I hate them."

Ambrosine shut his eyes. "I know. Fergus? Fergusius, look at me." He turned his son's chin towards him. "You tried. And that means the universe to me."

He put Fergus down and raised the canister again. Fergus squinted blearily, and didn't resist. He continued sobbing, even if he couldn't remember why. He took one look at Solara, and instantly hid himself behind Ambrosine's wings.

"Sh-she's back. Don't let her get me."

Ambrosine glanced at the curtain that led inside. "Solara? Maybe you want t-to-"

She brushed at her face, staring straight ahead. "It doesn't bother me. He needs to learn to fly, Amby. I don't want the wisps to get him." Her fingers tightened around the balcony rail. At the sight of a passing drake flying some ways off, her wings kicked up, then lay flat. "No one is going to catch him unless he wants to be caught."

So it went, until their son went over the rail one time too many, and someone actually did catch him far below.

"Oh no," Ambrosine muttered, leaning over. Solara pulled away, leaving him to squint down at the startled fairy standing on the clouds far below, next to the courtyard well. His tablets were scattered on the ground around him. Fergus was in his arms. The other fairy looked up, wide-eyed, and his lip curled.

"Whimsifinado."

Ambrosine reached behind him for Solara's soft hand. "Thimble. Does Orin know you got outside again?"

That was mean. He knew it when he said it. Drone Fairies were people too, even if they were flaky and unreliable when it came to loyalty and couldn't seem to do much of anything without a gyne there to keep them from walking straight out of the floating clouds and plummeting to Planet Earth far below.

Nope. That was still mean. Good thing no one heard it.

Richard did not acknowledge the comment. Instead, he hugged the shaking nymph to his chest, his expression morphing to a glare. "Did you just throw your son off the balcony?"

"No, I just dropped him." After swallowing, Ambrosine called down, "His instincts were s-supposed to kick in."

"You couldn't have found a smaller ledge?"

"Okay, I s-see your point. Give him back."

"I don't want to. You are clearly a terrible parent. Unsurprising, given your youth."

"What do you know? You're an infertile drone."

Richard reared back his head as though struck. Then he adjusted his wings. "Hmph. The minds of children are enough for me. I plan to devote my life to training the young, since their parents can clearly not be trusted to do so properly."

That was the end of the flying lessons, then. Ambrosine wiped Fergus' memory of the event and checked the dosage label on the forget-a-cin canister. Only one dose left. Good to know.

They gave Fergus some juice in a flower-shaped baby cup and set him down on Ambrosine's bed, which was centered around the dimly-glowing firepit in the middle of the single room. Ambrosine's roommates still hadn't returned, and a swollen, bitter chunk of his brain wondered why. They'd probably gone out to eat somewhere without him. They'd done that more and more frequently over the course of the last year. At first they'd asked him if he'd be offended, and he'd told them no back then, but there were more nights now than there weren't when they'd float through the curtain chatting and laughing and playing with the fancy parasols from their expensive drinks, while he lay blearily in bed with two open textbooks and a chubby nymph chewing on his toes.

The more rational part of his mind understood. He was busier than he used to be now, juggling his advanced classwork with raising Fergus with very little assistance from Solara, who still begrudged their son for the scars his sharp teeth had left across her breasts while he'd been nursing. Fergus, while relatively calm and easy-going, was still in that needy phase of his life and required plenty of attention. It wasn't jazzy to be seen hanging out with the adolescent who had a baby now.

Maybe things would be different between them if there were a ring on his middle finger. Stupid fairy courtship traditions. Stupid Year of Promise. Stupid unexpected heat cycle. Stupid anxiety. He and Solara would have notched each other's wings and been happily married three months ago if it weren't for his stupid anxiety.

"Thanks for coming to s-see us today," he told Solara, picking up her bag from the floor. Her slid her chisels and tablets inside and handed the bag to her. She took it, but didn't hoist it over her shoulder.

"Of course. I love my two favorite drakes."

"I'll s-skim with you back to your room. And bring the posters." And then he'd have to get this floor cleaned up. He could kick the dirt around.

Solara averted her gaze. "Actually… I thought that I might stay the night. If you don't mind it."

Puzzled, he looked at her, and his eyes widened as Solara began to tug down her scarf. Her deep blue curls tumbled free from their bindings, pattering into place behind the apples of her cheeks and the gentle curves of her shoulders. They trailed halfway down her spine, where they swirled into a pool so tangled and frizzy and bunched. The perfect capture of river spray. Ambrosine brought his hand to his mouth. Her hair wasn't entirely blue, and that was the beauty of it. Streaks of natural white ran like comets or yarn from her roots to her tips. He followed the spiraled vortex of it all with his eyes.

Oh, he wasn't in love with that amazing damsel just because of her awe-inspiring hair, no matter what anyone who knew him only from afar might say. He was a therapist taught to see past the surface and view the internal workings of the mind. Solara was a songbird, a writer, a creator. And she had such striking solar system hair, like peering down at Planet Earth from far away. Ambrosine liked it best when she outlined her lips in blue like this too, even though it was expensive. It really brought out the sparkle in her indigo-violet eyes. And by all the water flowing from Kiiloëi, she had a strand of gorgeous hair curling in a delicate 'S' right above her lovely nose that made her look so-

Ambrosine smacked himself in the cheek. Gootchie-goggling later. Conversation-making brain parts try to work now.

Well… maybe a little gootchie-goggling was okay. Solara didn't mind. In fact, the way she stood with her long lashes downcast and her hip turned his way, she was practically encouraging it. Dear King Nuada, how he wanted to run his fingers through that hair again, twirl it around his thumb, plait it, add some beads and ties…

"Oh," he whispered. His hands lifted towards her face, and she didn't stop him from stroking her sweeping cheek. "C-can I…?"

"Get your brush," she said distantly. "You can braid it tonight."

"You can braid it tonight."

Those were the same words she'd said, the night it all happened in the first place…

"Oh." The only breathless word. "S-Solara, your hair is…"

Centuries of ear cuffs and warning looks and biding his tongue prevented him from saying the word "beautiful", in addition to "gorgeous", "perfection", and some other noise that was more of a high-pitched squeal than a coherent thought. Ambrosine sank down to the kitchen floor, closing his eyes and just tasting the smell of it.

Her hair. Her hair! That snippet of night sky, flecked with white stars, waterfalling over her left shoulder- it was her hair, after all these millennia of hiding in that shimmery purple scarf that had been taunting him even back when he'd had only nineteen lines plugged into his core, rather than the twenty-two floating invisibly above him now. The hair that until this moment had peeked out only when she shifted in the wrong (right) direction. Glory, glory, it did not disappoint. Thick with volume, dripping with layers. Blue, blue, blue, and spinning…

Dear King Nuada had struck him dead. Stitched him up whole again with both his Faeumbra and Faelumen counterparts and sent their reunited core up to Plane 23. With shivering fingers, he stretched out his hand and set it down on the strands that had spilled across his knee.

Solara pushed a finger beneath his chin and lifted it, briefly turning his focus away from her hair and back to her eyes. "You like that, don't you, Amby?"

"I- I- I-" he stuttered. By dust, his vision was swirling. With his free hand, he clenched the front of his cherry-colored (and currently cherry-smelling) vest in his fist and flapped it at his burning throat. For a moment there, he took himself away from the situation and appreciated every universal puzzle piece that had fallen into place to land an eggheaded therapy and business major, trembling in his dorm's tiny kitchen area, beside the damsel who had the most incredible hair in this quadrant of the known universe.

Her bare toes slid up and down his lower leg, urging him on. That was supposed to be scandalous or something, wasn't it? People said that, right? For some reason? Ambrosine swallowed. Hugging her hair against his neck, he managed, "C-can I brush it?"

"Cutiecore, you can do whatever you like." Solara lay on her side then with her blue and black hair falling in loops. Ambrosine, with careful fingers, drew what was on the floor into his lap and stroked his hand along it. Oh, if he'd realized before that being dead would feel this good, he wouldn't have tried so hard to avoid getting drafted for the war. Cruel, perfect, squirmy death. He twirled his fingers through her curls, fascinated with the way they somehow avoided tangling themselves in knots.

"I'm not hurting you when I do this, am I?" he asked, glancing up.

"Hm? Oh, no, of course not. It's nice." She snuggled closer, lifting her head so it rested on his knee, too. "Get your fix now. I'm thinking of cutting most of it off."

… No.

No, no, no, no, no. For a moment he could only stare at her, still hugging a mountain of hair to his chest. His words began to slip out faster- his eyebrows, who knew where they were. "Wh-what? Why would you do that?"

Solara shrugged, her eyes shut. "It almost doesn't all fit up in my scarf anymore and it just gets in the way."

Ambrosine shook his head, not letting go. "You should keep it. I really like it."

"Hm. Should I start letting it down from my scarf when I'm out and about, do you think?"

He pressed a few soft strands to his nose. "Well… Maybe not. I don't want the word to s-spread. When the other drakes see this hair, they might all come to court you, and you could meet s-someone more interesting than me."

"Aw, glitter. You know I'm attracted to your sweet and goopy smile, Ambrosine."

He smiled thinly. At last (but still reluctantly) releasing most of her hair, he lowered a hand towards her and walked his fingers along her arm and across the ties on her kirtle. "And here I thought you took an interest in me for my brains."

"Mm, no," she murmured, leaning up to brush his lips with hers. "Nor your family's fortune either. I'm a simple soul who really doesn't ask for much- What do I care about that? I wouldn't have become an author if I were in this for the money. Hearing your thoughts is enough."

Swallowing his own saliva, Ambrosine pressed into her, holding the kiss there between them like a floating thing. His hands slid beneath her back between her wings, bringing her up and nearer. Solara readjusted herself so she was sitting up, one arm braced behind his neck. Her other palm curved against his cheekbone.

"You really like my hair?" she asked after a deep moment, nudging his mouth away with her thumb.

"My dust, yes. I haven't s-seen anything come close to its equal before."

She spun her finger through the black curls that snaked behind his ears, and specifically that infamous Whimsifinado family cowlick. "Maybe we should make tonight the night, so you can enjoy touching it while it's still here."

He paused, hands and lips both hovering. "Tonight?"

"Do you really have any objections?" Solara asked, blinking lightly.

Ambrosine gave a slight smirk in one corner of his mouth. She pinched her tongue between her teeth and reached up to play with his spiral cowlick some more, and he allowed his eyes to wander once again over that river of dark blue starlight bleeding across the dirty floor. "Just one s-suggestion. This would look jazzed in a triple fishtail."

"Would it?"

"Wouldn't I be the one to know?"

"You're the expert. Get your brush. You can braid it tonight."

The memory vaporized at his fingertips, taunting him with promises that it would never return. Ambrosine of the present day reached very carefully up and slid a swirl of his own hair behind his pointed ear. He swallowed, only to find his throat dryer than a genie's lamp. No one had ever made him feel special until Solara slipped into his life. Even the Whimsifinado fortune didn't seem to make him a worthy catch in the eyes of damsels. Sure, Ilisa Maddington was a… part of his past, as she was of most drakes' pasts these days. He'd technically been drafted into that event. But who was Ilisa? She wasn't Solara Wurpixiz. She didn't have Solara's bare feet whisking across the floor that perfect autumn day when they danced, her triple fishtail braid flying behind her. She didn't have those imperfect teeth that made her a real person instead of a celebrity fantasy. She didn't have that adorable nose just perfect for landing kisses…

And Ilisa hadn't let him braid her hair. Oh. Ambrosine hadn't braided hair - anyone's hair - since the day he'd told Solara he was pregnant (because granting Fergus braided magic lines so he could breathe didn't really count). Yes… He'd been shaking and sobbing when he confessed those test results to her out beneath the ulk tree grove on campus…

When the words left his lips, Solara took a step back, pressing three fingers to her own. Ambrosine's eyes flicked up to meet hers. She didn't have any words for him, but he could read her body posture: But it was our very first night of courtship, by fairy tradition we're supposed to stay hands-off for a year, this wasn't supposed to happen. He let his gaze fall again. His arms, already strangling his thin body, somehow dug deeper until he was a beanstalk in a dirty sweater in the dark. He stayed mute, with his head bowed and wings drooping. Awaited the sentence that would slice across his throat like a sword.

She would stay with him. Wouldn't she? She ought to. It was her nymph too, after all. Technically there were no legal obligations. Absolutely there were no legal obligations. Tradition had always been hazy regarding that. Fairies had predictable fertility cycles that offered centuries of (often welcome) inability to conceive, so unexpected pregnancies were almost unheard of. It was expected that the couple would be smart enough to pair up when the drake was safely out of season. He should have known his cycle. He should have taken the time to calculate it. He should have been smarter.

Some couples even made the effort to get in contact with their Anti-Fairy and Refracted counterparts to alert them of the plan in advance, to assure themselves that since they were technically responsible for the creation of other lives besides their own children, those other children too would be born into good homes. Or at least they would give their counterparts time to mentally prepare, and perhaps go out on a lunch date together if up until now they had never met. It wasn't uncommon for Fairy couples to decide against having children purely because they didn't trust their Anti-Fairy counterparts to raise the resulting pup in a healthy, stable home. They could always return to school for their godparent licenses if they so desired; godchildren made a fine substitute for the real thing.

Fairies lived for hundreds of thousands of years, even a million or more at times, so there was really no rush. Rearing offspring was a pastime of the older and the wealthier. Not two children who got a little too carried away on the first evening of Autumn Break. Not two children still struggling through all that school.

He should have remembered his time of fertility was coming on. He should have waited just another two years, and then it would have been over. It wasn't her fault. It wasn't her responsibility. He should have known better. That's what everyone said when "accidents" happened, right? She didn't have to stay. Damsels could choose these things for themselves. They shouldn't have to be tied down. If Mother Nature believed Fairy mothers were necessary for raising young, then it wouldn't be the drakes who got pregnant. Evolution- that's exactly what an Anti-Fairy would say. Those shrieky freaks always had the shrillest voices on that matter.

What was he going to tell his dad? Mom would understand him- Mom always understood him. Even if he had a swollen belly, she would hug him all the same. Nettle Whimsifinado was a passionate and fiery dame, whose shapeshifting skills on the saucerbee field knew no equal. Even being blinded by lightning hadn't slowed her down too much, merely given her the opportunity to bow out of her professional sports career with grace and fame. Nettle knew how to have fun. Maybe that's what he saw in Solara too. Was that weird?

"Amby," she managed to find in her at last. Raising her tired, rubbed-raw palm to his cheek, Solara lifted his face. "Amby, look at me."

"I can't," he mumbled back with his eyes still shut.

She was suddenly too young and too scared for this. He could feel that energy thrumming through her fingertips. She bowed her head. "Hey. Listen. Ambrosine, hey. I won't pretend… that this isn't hard for me. I won't pretend I'm not disappointed. I won't pretend that I'd wish for it to be undone if I had the choice. I won't pretend any of that. I don't know if I can make myself love a baby I never wanted."

"I'm s-s-sorry… It's all my fault." He touched his fingertips against his stomach. It was only just starting to grow round, so faint right there that it would be easy to miss if you didn't know how scrawny his body usually was. Ambrosine had noticed the symptoms before the actual bump, his magic turning into little more than static shocks, and the presence of oozing purple jelly inside his head. Like something else was feeding off his power. He'd waited until he was sure. He'd waited until he didn't think he could cry anymore.

Solara swept his face up in both hands. When she squeezed inward, it forced his eyelids to flutter shut. "No. We started this together, and I'm going to try and help you even when it's hard."

"You're never there. You never h-have been."

"I… said I'd try. You know it's hard, with the jobs I work and my dad so sick. But I'm going to try. I'll make time to visit you."

He held her wrists as the sniffles began. "I know what will make you s-stay… I'll buy you that penthouse s-suite in Faeheim you've always wanted. I'll visit you every morning three days a week, every s-single week. I don't care what time my shift will start. I'll be there."

Solara nodded, her gaze wandering to the ulk trees. "I'd like that. I'll come to see you too. I won't miss a single month, for the rest of our lives. I'll be there. Ambrosine, you…"

She stopped, so he cracked open his eyelids. Solara stared at him, the words lost in her throat. Then she pulled him in. Her hands moved like it was natural. There she was, wrapping her arms behind his neck and choking when she spoke.

"I love you."

Ambrosine stood there, his wings beating at his back but not lifting him off the ground. He raised his hands like hers, but didn't know where to place them. "W-what? Still? After I decided to get pregnant, for s-some reason?"

"I love that about you. I love the way you sing when you comb your hair on the balcony. I love how well you can draw in the dust with a stick. I love the shy way you smile when you step aside to let a damsel pass you in the hallway while you bob your head and hug your worktablets to your chest. I love that you don't mind if you weren't my first. You're not the first drake I ever kissed. You're not the first drake who asked if he could court me. You're not even the first drake I ever…" She squeezed her eyelids shut. "But- but you can be the last one. You're the only one I've ever trusted this much. I love you. It was never lust to you, when you thought my hair was pretty. You thought it was a gift of trust, and that's how I knew you were the one. You're the one I want to stay with, Amby. We'll make it through this together. Even when it's hard, even when we're scared stiff."

"You know we can't-"

"This will work."

"But my dad-"

"-never has to know until Plane 23."

The careful, tiny kiss tasted like their first night all over again. The wetness leaked from his eyes. It curled down his cheeks and dripped onto his scarf. Ambrosine pressed the heel of his hand to his mouth and let himself cry on her, and let her cry on him, and they were supposed to be okay forever then.

Which they were. Okay forever. He'd made sure of that.

Solara settled on the floor between the balcony curtain and the nearest bed, tucking her legs underneath her. Ambrosine pulled his box of pins and ties out from the corner, and knelt behind her with the brush. Her hair parted into three sections as easily as boiled butter. Before going on, he held his hands locked together in front of her stomach, and kissed the deepest part of her cheek. "I love it when you s-spend your weekends on us."

"Yes," she murmured. "I try. There are some days when I can't even believe I actually have a son. Sometimes it's hard to remember. I could never walk out on you forever, Ambrosine, but sometimes the stress gets to even me."

"You? S-stressed? No." Ambrosine brushed her hair into three distinct sections and started to sing under his breath. "And if you were a hummingbird, then you would understand. It's fine if you don't know the words, but s-sing them if you can…" After a few verses, he commented,"You know, you always s-said you wanted a kid of our own one day."

"It's been longer than one day."

His laughter spurted, but she cut him off.

"What did you take from me, Ambrosine?"

Ambrosine shut his mouth. "What?"

"The forget-a-cin." Solara turned her head. "I know you took something earlier. What was it?"

He looked unhappily at the two lengths of hair drooping from his hands; her first braid was only half-completed. They were still gorgeous and desirable, of course. Solara always took advantage of his fascination with touching her hair to share her deepest feelings with him. Normally he was okay with that, but realizing she'd offered them today in order to lure him into a conversational trap about her memories made the idea of braids lose some of its luster.

"It… it wasn't really anything important."

"It was important enough to steal away from me."

He shifted his wings. "You asked Fergus to bring you your wand, and when you didn't, you s-started to get impatient."

"'You, you, you,'" Solara muttered. Without turning her head, she brought her fist to her chin and flared her nostrils as she sighed. "I really hate that I love you sometimes, Amby. You're adorable, and you've never spoken an unkind word to me or touched me without permission. At least, not that I remember. And I know it's insensitive of me to say, but dealing with the cycle of your anxiety and lashing out is… It's difficult for me sometimes."

Ambrosine completed the first of the three braids quietly, then moved on to a new section of her hair. "I'm s-sorry."

Solara placed her palms to the floor and shifted her weight. "I'll support you wholeheartedly the moment your coping mechanisms become less extreme, but you can't punish me like this, Amby. I love you, but it isn't right and I don't know how much longer I can be a part of it. You can't just rearrange someone's brain as a way to deal with your problems."

"Technically I'm negatively reinforcing you, not punishing," he muttered under his lines.

Her hand reached over her shoulder and found his. "I think I liked it best when we weren't seeing each other so much. Do I make you anxious? Is that what's wrong?"

"It's not you, 'Lara." Ambrosine pinched his tongue between his lips, concentrating on the next twist of hair. The first one didn't want to stay tight. He pinned it up with a pink flower from his decoration box, just for now. "Classes are just hard, and I've been taking care of Fergus mostly by myself for so long. And of course, now there's a war s-starting up on the other side of Fairy World…"

Solara said nothing, and Ambrosine tilted his head. "Would you still love me if you'd known about my anxiety issues from the s-start?"

"You asked me to try," she whispered. "So I'm trying. I really am. After all, I have my anxieties and past traumas too. You've always been respectful and patient with me. I think you have. But this isn't always easy, Amby. We need to find a compromise. It isn't… fair."

No. Nothing was. But at least they had each other. She loved his singing, he loved her hair. They were okay. Okay forever now.

"I'm s-sorry. I won't use the forget-a-cin on you again."

"And that's a promise?"

"Um- I-"

"Oh, good," came Fergus' small voice out of nowhere. "We get room service now."

Ambrosine and Solara both jumped at the shoulders, wings skipping out. Between her hair and their conversation (Well, mostly her hair), Ambrosine hadn't been paying any attention whatsoever to their surroundings. But upon recognizing the new aura that had just ducked beneath the front curtain and into the room, he dropped Solara's partial braids and covered his mouth with his hands.

What was he doing here? He hadn't been invited. Not tonight. Not to show up unannounced. Ambrosine had already made a point of bringing his father in to see his dorm that morning, specifically to deter him from popping by later. He'd worked so hard, gotten the place so clean, hidden all the signs… he couldn't lose Fergus any more than he could lose Solara.

How was this fair? There hadn't been any warning. He'd actually put forth effort into preventing an encounter between his father and son. It was all for nothing now? In the blink of an eye? In the middle of a conversation?

Praxis Whimsifinado always dressed all in black. The exception to this style was the dark green leprechaun hat perched between his head and his floating crown. Tufts of red hair swirled out from beneath the brim, or drooped in a mustache beneath his nose. He always hovered, never walked. Walking was for poor people. In his left hand, he cradled one of those expensive golden drinks with the little paper parasols and frozen chunks of fruit in place of ice cubes. Ambrosia. His favorite, and the drink he'd named his middle child after.

Ambrosine watched, petrified, as at the squeak of Fergus' voice, Praxis turned his head. And almost fell out of the air. Because, well, there was a nymph on his son's bed, of course with bright eyes and a spiral cowlick too similar to his own for the older drake to simply ignore him and float away.

And even though they were as light as salt, that very same nymph undeniably had the dozens of facial freckles that marked him as a gyne.

No… no…

Ambrosine felt for his satchel and clenched his hand. One dose left. He couldn't waste it. It had to be exact. He had to be sure.

"I want more juice," Fergus said, holding out his baby cup. "Shaken. Not stirred. That's what my dad says."

"What in the name of dust?" Praxis muttered, moving towards him.

Instantly Ambrosine launched himself out of the shadows behind the bed, over Fergus and the blankets, and barred the way with outstretched arms. "Father! H-hi. I w- I w- I w-wasn't expecting you to come b-b-back here again t-tonight. Again. We could have met up for s-supper somewhere. My treat."

"The plan was to bid good-bye to my most favored son before I leave him for the semester." The older fairy flicked his eyes past his shoulder. His lips lifted from his teeth just enough for Ambrosine to see the pink of his tongue pressed against their backs. "Exactly whose nymph is that?"

Ambrosine's eyelids flickered. Cold sweat gathered between his wings. A jittering lump bounced in his throat. Please, oh please be too distracted to notice Solara. He looked up again, his teeth fastened in his lower lip for a second more. "Not… I… didn't…"

"Where do your eyes go when you're having a conversation with your father?"

Appropriately, Ambrosine cast them to the floor. "Father, I-"

"And where do your feet go?"

His toes were pointed inward, feet arched. They were always arched when he was tense. Ambrosine straightened first one, then the other.

"And where should you put your hands?"

Clasped in front of his waist. Stiffly, Ambrosine bowed, taking care to spread his wings out to the sides in the proper way for a young bureaucrat such as himself when addressing a drake of even higher rank. Upon rising, he kept his face absolutely straight.

"I- I realize that I'm s-speaking out of turn, Esteemed Father, but this is important. It isn't what you assume, s-sir. He's my fifth interest-studies s-semester project for my children's therapy class. I'm t-taking care of him until the end of t-t-term."

"Wait, what?" said the nymph, unimpressed.

"Fergus, shut up," Ambrosine muttered.

"'It isn't what you assume, s-sir,'" Fergus repeated in a mocking tone.

Praxis squeezed his temples, and sighed. Gently, holding his hand low, he shook his golden drink so the fruit chunks inside rattled against the glass. "Where did I go wrong? Ambrosine, Ambrosine, you realize I had you betrothed to another damsel millennia ago. Kataleen was so good for you. It should have been so easy. I never had to go through this with your sisters. They did precisely what they were taught, and look at them now. Both married to successful drakes of high standing, and as happy and well-off in life as they could expect to be. King Nuada, smite me now…" He rubbed his face again. "Ambrosine. What is the Whimsifinado family creed?"

"Páistí refracta f-foirfe daoine. 'Oldest s-sons don't make mistakes.'"

"Ambrosine."

Hesitantly, he lifted his gaze. "Y-yes, Father?"

Praxis raised both eyebrows. One hand remained behind his back, relaxed and not concerning, while the other continued to rattle the ambrosia glass. The heavy gingertie wand glinted in his sheath. "Are you afraid of me?"

"I- I- I respect you, s-s-sir."

"Do you? And is there anything you want to tell me?"

"N-no, sir… Yes. No… No, sir. A-actually. Actually. Y-yes. Actually th-there is. Forget you, old man!" Ambrosine flashed his hand towards the satchel at his waist. He managed to get the forget-a-cin canister out, but Praxis knocked it away across the floor before he had the chance to do anything with it. Fergus yelped and covered his ears. Solara, thank the stars, stayed hidden behind the bed- she was shaking and afraid, and that might save her. Ambrosine sprang back- too slowly. The hand slapped towards him before he could poof away. Praxis slammed the younger drake into the wall by the neck and held him pinned.

"My dust. So this is why you were wearing those ridiculously loose sweaters when you came home for that one weekend. Although they weren't quite so loose on you, were they? Only there to cover up your pregnant tummy? Didn't want to be caught in paternity wear?"

Ambrosine closed his eyes. The rough cloudstone scraped across his cheek, threatening to draw blood. "I never intended to d-disguise it, Father. If you didn't notice any s-signs, that was just a coincidence."

"Did you think you could hide him from me forever?"

"I love her."

Fingers clenched. "Don't tell me this is about Solara. I thought I made my standing on this issue quite clear. You know the hole she crawled out of. Whimsifinado drakes don't get pregnant from no-status damsels like her."

Ambrosine grasped his wrist in his hand. "I love her. S-Solara is my everything. She loves me too. Because of who I am, not because of my s-s-status. She's patient and talented and kind and-"

"She's not good enough for you."

"W-we were beginning the Year of Promise. Th-that's where Fergus came from. It was our first night of official courtship. You of all people should know this is how our s-subspecies does these things. 'A year and a day.' Lughnasa tradition. I wasn't planning to get pregnant from it. It just sort of h-happened."

Praxis shook him by the collar. Ambrosine's head bashed twice against the wall, a squeak leaping from his mouth each time. "I didn't mean his general existence is deserving of punishment, you brownie-brain. Oh, why me? It's not my business if you wanted to go tumble about in the honeywheat fields with some doe-eyed damsel you plucked out of the mucky streets. I meant his freckles. You gave me a grandson with dustforsaken freckles."

"You guys are messed up," Fergus said. He stuck his thumb in his mouth.

Praxis pulled his hand away from Ambrosine's neck and pointed towards the bed. "Do you see those blemishes upon his face? Can't you feel the pressure tingles in the air? He's a gyne. He'll only cause you trouble."

Ambrosine didn't draw his cheek from the wall. "H-he doesn't mean any harm. He's just a little s-sarcastic."

"Gynes always kill their parents, and any other elders in their family they can get their dirty hands on. Don't you know anything?" Praxis switched his drink to his left hand. Before he sipped it, he gave his mustache a simple stroke. "I'm only trying to protect you."

"He's my baby." Where had that forget-a-cin container gone? Ambrosine scanned the floor, and heard his father scoff.

"He's a menace. A bloodthirsty monster. I thought they taught you such things in Spellementary School these days. You should have drowned him instead of weaving lines into his core. In fact, I could drown him right now. He's still a nymph. Immortality won't kick in until age five. It won't be hard. I doubt he can even fly."

"You won't touch him," Ambrosine insisted. It took every fleck of concentration to keep his voice level, and it was rattling his wings at the knobs. Again, he took up position between his father and his son. His wingbeats staggered. His eyes slipped to the floor, but his hands tightened. "He's s-still under the age of two. Therefore, True Love Clause applies. You phys- You physically can't take him away from me. That's the rule. There's a shield- a pink, glowing shield…"

Praxis sighed. He let go of his mustache, and pressed his thumb to the center of Ambrosine's forehead. The lid to his forehead dome unlatched with a soft pop. Praxis then took his hair in one fist and pulled it open the rest of the way. Without an ounce of hesitation, he splashed his entire drink inside his son's head.

Ambrosine's core reacted instantly to the impact of sugary frozen liquid. His fingers closed over empty air instead of his father's blazer. Ambrosine crashed onto his side, then flopped onto his back. His lines fritzed. His fingers responded to jerky commands that weren't his own. Upside-down and immobilized, all he had the power to do was lie there as his father grabbed Fergus by the arm. Fergus cried out, like True Love Clause didn't exist at all. Solara just watched them walk past her without doing anything. She made eye-contact with his father, and looked away. She clutched her shoulders in her hands.

"Stop," Ambrosine wheezed.

"Uh, Dad?" Fergus reached out his hand over Praxis' sharp shoulder. "Hey, Dad?"

"'Lara… please…"

Ignoring them both, Praxis drifted over to the balcony curtain. He swished away beneath it and was gone. Ambrosine struggled to crane his neck.

"S-Solara?"

It took a moment before she moved. Then she stood, brushed off her skirts, walked over, and knelt beside him again. She held her wrist in her hand.

"'Lara, he- My dad has Fergus. S-stop him. He'll kill him."

"… Maybe this is for the best."

Ambrosine slid his eyes left and right across her face, trying to control some of the spasms of his body. He squirmed his shoulders. "What? H-how can you s-say that? He's our son."

"He's always been more your son than mine," she said, quietly. "I'm not really better than Praxis. I'm the one who threw him off the roof." She tucked her feet beneath her cloudy skirt until only her toes poked out from beneath. Her fingers brushed across her woven hair. "Ambrosine, he is a gyne. The freckles prove that. Your dad had a point. Gynes get territorial once they grow up. The only language they really understand is that of physical strength. Sooner or later, he's going to challenge you for dominance." Her fingers wrapped around his forearm and gently squeezed. "And I don't want to lose you like that."

"How can you even say that?" Ambrosine repeated. Every word fell dully to the ground. He struggled to sit up, but wrenching pain tore him down again. His head thunked. Sugar filled his bloodstream. Was this what it was like, injecting drugs inside your head? He'd never taken drugs ex vi et animo before. No one had invented anything they could prove would help his anxiety, so he'd never been tempted to dump things in his forehead chamber. Why was it so hard to drink magic now? It shouldn't be this hard. Should it be this hard? Where was the energy field? Was that still a thing?

"There will be drones," Solara muttered. "Gyne pheromones bring them in like fleas. They eat your food and don't look you in the eyes and don't respect you at all. I can't leave you to raise them on your own after Fergus gets bored of caring for them. You know he will. He gets bored with everything. But I can't stay with you either."

Ambrosine reached for her face. His hand touched her shoulder. "No. There's nothing wrong… with drones. They just s-see the world differently than we do… Doesn't make them stupid. Just diff'rent. We learn this i-in my classes. It's like one of those cultural differences… you like to write about so much. Solara?"

She looked away, the sob fluttering on her lips. "I c-can't! I don't know how to take care of drones. At least with Fergus, I'm his mother. He would never come onto his own mother." She took her two braids in her fists. "Amby, I can't. I don't want strange drakes crawling around our home. I don't feel safe like that. I wanted… a home. I need a place where I can be alone, where I can be myself, w-where I can feel like I'm protected and safe, and I'm s-scared."

"'Lara, you have to stop him. Praxis. He's going to kill Fergus. S-stop him."

"I can't- I'm scared- Your father s-scares me. We can have a new nymph, Amby. A kabouter instead of a gyne. Maybe a damsel, with beautiful blue hair you can braid every day. Later, when… when we're ready to be parents."

The choke- it- blocked out all his other thoughts. Were there other thoughts? He tried to flop over. "What? I sh-should have known I couldn't trust you to be on my side! You don't really love me, and now you're going to say we should s-split up."

Solara tried to touch his shoulder, but he batted her away. "Amby, please. Please! I don't want to split forever. I love you. But I agree with you. A break would be good for us. We're young, we can't handle this, your family hates me-"

He didn't stay to hear it. It took straining wingbeats, but Fairies were notoriously quick healers. Even with a slushy drink screaming inside of his head, Ambrosine managed to pick his way across the room. It helped to lean against the wall. Sure enough, Praxis had left the balcony. Where? Down by the courtyard well. With Fergus. Yes. He was there, holding the fighting baby gnawing on his arm. How did he get down there? Solara hadn't stopped him. Why didn't she stop them? That wasn't right. What time was it? Weren't there people around? Eating dinner. He had sugar water in his head. He shouldn't jump. Trying to fly in this condition would just be stupid.

Abandoning his son to die would be stupider.

Ambrosine held his hands parallel to his cheeks, palms facing, and brought them down near his chest like falling axes. Focus. Why? No. Fergus. Right. Ambrosine clenched his wand shaft in the soft bends of his fingers. Using magic while so dizzy was probably dangerous, but he needed to know he could stand up to Praxis. Poofing his scarlet vest off his body was something small. It was supposed to rematerialize on his bed, but it didn't even make it as far as the curtain before it poofed from dust molecules into its physical form again, and fell to the floor.

His white undershirt was still too fancy. The sleeves were long, the fabric warm, soft, and sticky against his sweaty skin. The cuffs were puffy like flower petals. It would have to do. Fergus was down there, and Ambrosine couldn't spend all day making himself look pretty. Heaving himself over the side of the balcony, he tumbled and plunged.

"Amby!"

Reorienting himself with a spiral was a challenge, but repeating his son's name in his head helped him focus. Ambrosine blinked through the influence of sugar. His father and his son were still there at the well, engaged in a small scuffle of hand and teeth. Use the wand. Didn't have a wand. Wait. Did have a wand. Stretching it out, Ambrosine gave it a wave to poof Fergus a short distance away.

Praxis poofed him right back. Baby near his feet. Son. A thin trail of cloudy puffs and glittering dust hung behind in the air.

"Father," he puffed, coming in for a terrible landing. His feet skidded. Ambrosine wiped his eyes. He stumbled forward, waving his wand again. He fired a blast of blue lightning and a curl of hot pink flames. Then another lightning shock for good measure. Praxis used his gingertie wand to deflect that last blow onto Fergus, who cried out where he lay crumpled against the well, hands pinned to his ears. Don't hit Fergus. Don't hit Fergus.

As Ambrosine staggered closer, Praxis scooped Fergus in his arms and cradled him to his chest. He turned his back, like he didn't even care about the approaching threat.

Don't hit Fergus. Don't hit Fergus.

Ambrosine stopped a few wingspans away. "Please. Daddy? F-for me?"

"He can't even fly," Praxis murmured, watching the nymph chew on his arm again. "Isn't that pathetic, speck? He's a year old, and he can't even fly. What have you been doing to him all this time? Messing with his dopamine levels so he'll never want to leave you?"

Didn't he know? That if Fergus was out of the picture, Ambrosine would have no reason to withhold his wand blasts? Baby. Good baby. Save baby. He raised his wand.

Grabbing his own wand, Praxis whipped around and made a sideways cut through the air. A blast of searing yellow flung Ambrosine backwards, knocking him over. He braced himself for the second one with his arm as he stood up again. It burned a gash in his sleeve.

"S-s-stop it. Stop. Father, why are you d-doing this? He's my s-son."

Praxis wrapped his hand around the back of Fergus' neck and stretched him, heavy and squirming though he was, out above the deep pit of the well. "Born out of wedlock. Mutated by her genes. Freckles of a terror. A blemish in the Whimsifinado line."

"I don't care!" Ambrosine lashed another pink burst in his direction. Praxis took it without recoiling. "Taste my pheromones! I love her!" Another blast, this one spiked with pink and combined with a lurching step forward. "And I love him!"

Praxis shot the wand straight out of his hand with a blue dart. It left a searing black mark in Ambrosine's right palm. He swayed to one side, fighting… the urge… to crumple… to… his… dustforsaken knees…

Stupid. Baby.

"Dad," he whispered, bowing his head. "If I'd been born with f-freckles, would you have drowned me too?"

Instead of using the McKinley grip to fire a sharp beam of energy, Praxis adjusted his hand around his wand. He painted a swirling pattern in the air, and shackles of purple energy wrapped around Ambrosine's ankles and wrists. "Of course. In the blink of an eye. Gynes are creatures of chaos. Whimsifinados value order. Oldest sons don't make mistakes."

Ambrosine's response was wordless. Choking. Didn't stop Praxis from dropping Fergus down the well like a stray hair plucked from a sleeve. Just like that. He floated away in the opposite direction from the dorm, spinning his sparking wand through his fingertips as daintily as a paper parasol in an expensive drink.

No. Baby.

Heaving himself back to his feet, Ambrosine lunged after him. The energy chains clenched against his wrists. His skin strained until it squeezed his bones. He screamed, and he never raised his voice for anything. Not until today. Twisting backwards, Ambrosine dug in his heels and yanked with all he had.

And old man Praxis continued floating off. Sheathed his wand and everything. Didn't flinch away, even when his son collapsed in the clouds behind him.

"Daddy? Please? F-for me?"

"I didn't kill him," Praxis said over his shoulder. He provided no further explanation, nothing about whether he took responsibility for this or whether he was allowing Ambrosine to make a choice that wasn't really a choice. He adjusted the green top hat pinned beneath his crown. "I'll cancel your betrothal to Kataleen, then. Don't come to any more family reunions. You have the family cowlick, but you've lost out on the right to call yourself a Whimsifinado. Your siblings will not be permitted to speak with you again." And then he disappeared in a whoosh of dust.

Ambrosine snatched up his fallen wand. He was shaking so hard that it fell out of his hand. It took two more tries to pick it up and hold it steady. He had to force the transmitting tip underneath each shackle, right up against his skin, and cried out as lightning shot up his arms. Bright red blisters spread like spiderwebs across his hands. He wouldn't be surprised if that damaged the nerves in his wrists for life. Well, maybe not. Magic wasn't supposed to damage Fairies forever. Magic wounds could heal in moments. But cracked skulls from falls didn't.

The chains burst into firecrackers. He flung his wand away. Sharpness stabbed his wrists. Didn't matter. Not now. On his feet, he swerved and pinwheeled. Catching his footing for just one perfect second, he sprinted for the well as fast as his floppy body could. He dove in headfirst.

Baby?

First there was stone. Smooth bricks of it, layer upon layer, lining his sides and blocking out his vision. Then the walls lapsed away, and Ambrosine broke into white clouds. He took a mouthful of water vapor, frozen crystals thawing back behind his uvula. One of his left front teeth stung with cold to the gums. He shook his head, wings still pinned to his sides. Fergus was here. Somewhere. Fergus was falling. At least if he hit, he would bounce. Fairies were tough to break. It was okay? It was okay.

Baby was nowhere. Somehow.

In his mind's eye, Ambrosine could imagine him. There was Fergus, plunging up ahead. His hands flattened to his cheeks, his eyes wild and searching as he flipped over and over in the cloudy sky. Useless square wings. Ambrosine kicked his feet, flailing at the air.

"Fly, Fergus!" he sputtered.

"No!"

"Please!"

"I can't!"

Ambrosine squeezed his eyes shut. "I can't baby you your entire life. You need to figure out how to be s-self-sufficient."

"I was self-sufficient! I was happy all by myself until you threw me off the roof!"

The clouds broke away. The open sky gleamed with purple. There was another layer of clouds below them, part of the hillscape, and at least that would prevent Fergus from falling out of this plane of existence and into another.

But where was baby?

There. Ahead. Just like he'd imagined.

Keep diving.

Sharper.

Swerving.

Beating.

Faster.

Can't get underneath him.

Right there.

Hand missed.

So close.

Almost-

"Fergus, please! Fly!"

But he couldn't. He hadn't learned how.

Ambrosine plowed into solid cloud at an angle, his arms outstretched, and slid to a halt. Fergus hit cloud with a noise like a squeak and bounced down the hill, where he finally landed in the vapor with a plop. "Ooooh," Ambrosine mumbled, crawling over and picking him up. "Um. J-just to clarify, your mother did s-say that because you're a baby, you won't remember the events of today, even without forget-a-cin, right?"

Baby held his head in one hand, his eyes squeezed shut. "Wow, thanks, Dad. Now I'm mutated, I have freckles, Granddad hates me, and I probably have brain damage. What's next? Mommy decides to ditch us and I get infected with a life-changing disease?"

He could talk. Thank the stars he could talk like a living person who hadn't died. Fergus spat a bloody tooth onto the ground and wrinkled his nose.

"Heh. Look at that. S-sweet thing. Walk it off, kiddo. It's okay. You're okay. Going to be okay forever now." Ambrosine kissed his head and put him down again. His own chest and limbs were shaking, but it wouldn't do to let Fergus pick up his anxiety. Stay calm. Don't act afraid.

He pushed his hand against his eye, fingers clenching his hair, and found himself laughing at the thought. "Oh my s-stars. It's okay. You'll be fine. It wasn't natural for you to be born with a mouthful of those chompers anyway. I'm not s-sure even the Tooth Fairy will take it. If you can speak, you'll be fine. We're okay. Okay forever now. And now we've learned a lesson about why we sh-should never jump out of the clouds in the future, I hope."

"Yeah," Fergus muttered. "Now I know I can survive."

"That's not a good lesson."

"I can't feel my legs," Fergus groaned, rising to his wings. It was a strange way to float, with his wings spinning in rapid circles instead of sweeping back and forth. Ambrosine lifted his eyebrows as his son massaged his lumpy feet with one hand, while the other arm dangled like a limp worm at his side. Then Fergus looked up. "What?"

"Um. Look down."

The nymph didn't, but what his wings were doing slowly dawned on him anyway. His brows scrunched together, and his mouth twisted in a silent shriek of rage. But, the expression promptly disappeared. He folded his arms, awkwardly since one didn't seem inclined to function well, then crossed one leg over the other as his wings continued to churn behind him. "Feh. I deserve this."

"Good boy. But ins-s-tead of taking the opportunity to test out your newfound abilities, let's get you down to bed."

"Carry me."

"Fine. No," he said, stopping his son from burrowing into the stomach pouch beneath his shirt. "You're too big." He scooped Fergus up groom style instead and, not flying aimlessly around too much, brought him back up to the proper dorm.

Solara hovered a few inches above the balcony, rubbing her shoulder. She offered up an obviously-fake smile when he touched down beside her. "Well. Howdy, partner. You saved him."

Ambrosine looked at her, and said nothing. He looked at her. And he said nothing. He walked straight past her and set Fergus down on his bed. Fergus risked a peek at his face, then burrowed under the blankets and covered his ears.

"I'm glad," Solara added, floating inside after him.

" Why? "

Solara's wings skipped a few beats. She backed away, reaching for the balcony curtain. The fabric twisted in her hands. "Because- Because I know how much he matters to you. Amby, I know I'm scared. I know I said some terrible things about gynes and drones. I-it's not that I hate drones, it's just that I don't, um, know how to communicate with them, or what to say to them, or how to relate to them in any way, that's all. I just know what they're like, and I don't know if I trust or would be okay having them around me all the time if they're only there to serve him-"

"Not. That." He hadn't meant to spit the words, but they blurred the same way as his tears. "I meant, about True Love Clause."

"Right."

Ambrosine turned on his heels and marched towards her. Solara backed away again, this time out onto the balcony. Her hands pressed into her cheeks. He followed, pointer finger near her nose, until her hips bumped up against the railing. "Why was Praxis able to take Fergus like that? You were s-standing right there. True Love Clause should have kicked in, with its glowing pink shield and everything. I've s-seen it before. It keeps Fergus from being coaxed off by s-strangers when we're in the mess hall. We discuss these things in my classes. It's one of the natural magical laws: No one can interfere with true love. Parents are supposed to love their children. Tiny babies can't be kidnapped, only given up willingly. And it's like that for Fergus when he's next to me. Why not when he's with you?"

Solara slid along the railing, away from his accusing finger, her bare feet quiet on stone. "W-well. You know I never wanted him. And you know what he did to my breasts with those nasty teeth."

"That's not an excuse. You don't have to like him, but…" He tilted his head. His shoulders sagged. The finger came down. "You really hate him that much? He's our s-son, 'Lara. How can you say you truly love me, when you hate him s-so much?"

"I don't hate him," she whispered. "I really don't. And I would never leave you forever. I just think we need a break. We need time to grow up. I'm just-"

"-scared. S-scared of your future. Scared of your past. Scared of drakes. I know." Ambrosine took out the forget-a-cin canister, and looked at the label. Then at her. "I also know I only have one dose of this left."

Her eyes widened when he took that first staggering step towards her. "Don't you dare."

He took another. She took one away. Her hands clenched her skirts. Her eyes shifted left and right.

"Amby, please. I don't want to fight you. You're not thinking. What about Fergus? H-he's going to be traumatized for the rest of his life because of today. Shouldn't you save it for him? What are you doing?"

In two more steps, Ambrosine grabbed a fistful of Solara's hair and yanked her towards him. His jittering fingers could barely keep their grip on the forget-a-cin at all. He pressed the canister into her temple, pushing it deeper and deeper until the skin around it turned from fleshy pink to white. Salty blood and bitter magic swirled in his spit. "I'm s-s-sorry. This is wrong, this is so wrong, but I c-can't lose you. I can't. Please don't be mad. P-please don't be mad. Don't hate me. I love you."

Solara stared up at him, mute and without tears. Ambrosine stared back down at her. His teeth chattered like shaking wings. His wings shook like chattering teeth. Her hair lay still and dull in his hand.

In slow motion, Ambrosine lowered the forget-a-cin from her head. He released her sloppy braid. It fluttered down. "No. I can't. I p-promised I wouldn't use this on you again. I promised. But it's s-so hard, 'Lara. S-Solara, please. I love you. I love you more than anything, but we'll f-fight again one day, and you'll leave me f-f-forever." He touched his cheek. All four wings jittered against his back. "I c-can't lose you too. I can't."

"I don't want this, but-"

"My D-Daddy's gone. My mother's dead. All I have is Fergus, and you. Please don't make me do this by mys-s-self."

She swallowed. Her hand moved up to the place where he had held the canister. She took her hair between her fingers and clenched it tight. "Amby, I'm sorry. I love you - the good you - but this isn't working, and it's not fair. Please." Her voice left spiderwebbing cracks across the word. "Please let me go."

"I can't do that."

"Please, Amby. I think it would be for the best if we just-"

"I know what will make you stay." Before she could grab his hand, Ambrosine shoved the canister against his own temple and blasted it. He heard Solara screech his name before his eyes rolled back in his head. His arm went over the railing, his knees were falling, and the only thing left to see was white.

… So, why was he in the hospital?

And why wasn't he the one in the bed?

Ambrosine blinked several times as, puff by puff, his vision sprinkled back into place. Bed? He wasn't in bed. Hospital? Yes. The tang of citrus stung his nostrils and the roof of his mouth.

Where, though? He knelt beside the bed, head bowed and hands clasped on the rumpled sheets. They were clean and very white. His own son, the one he gave birth to, lay in the bed with a stack of pillow behind him. Quietly, daintily, he picked his way through a tray of hotcakes in his lap. No syrup. No butter. Just hotcakes with a scrap of bacon on the side. One of his arms had been bandaged up. It lay in a weird sort of fabric pouch at his side. He could only eat with one hand.

Did he have a name? Ambrosine had probably given him a name. That's what you did with babies, mostly.

He had a son. Baby was in bed. Good baby.

It was Fergus.

"Fergus," he mumbled, unable to tear his eyes away from the injured arm. He pushed his fingers through his hair. "What… Where… We're in the hospital? Are we still at the Academy? What's this town called again? Prudoc? Who did this to you?"

Fergus looked over at him, then rolled his eyes. "Your dad dropped me down the well. So. That happened. I think he was trying to drown me."

"Dad did this?" Ambrosine studied the hospital room. It was large, with eight thin beds lined up in it. Nurses and technicians fluttered about, asking questions and handing colored blocks to young patients in the beds. Very medical, very comforting. Organized. Good order.

He saw Solara stiffly leaning against the wall, arms folded and purple scarf firmly wrapped around her hair so not a lock of blue showed through. Ambrosine lifted a brow in her direction for confirmation to Fergus' report. She met his gaze and nodded, very slowly.

"Oh, yeah. Dad did this."

Ambrosine pushed himself into a standing position. Dear dust, he was tired straight down to his stinging bones. What… happened? How long was he out? Why didn't he remember how he got here?

Shaking those questions off, Ambrosine focused on the immediate situation, and stretched out for the injured Fergus. Though his son yelped and Solara had to grab the tray of spilling food, he dragged the kid against him and squeezed him hard around the middle. "Well, I've got you now, Fergusius. You're so good. Okay forever now. You can cry all you want. Granddad Praxis isn't going to hurt you anymore. I don't care if you're a kabouter or a gyne or a drone or a Yugopotamian. You're mine, and I will always love you." He wrapped a spiral of black hair behind the nymph's little ear. "Beautiful… You're never going to try to kill your daddy, are you? Sweet drake. Nice drake. Good baby."

"Uggghhh." Fergus leaned over backwards, his one good arm dangling and a bit of syrupy pancake clenched in his fist. "Dad, you're acting like an emotional wreck in front of the jazzy kids again."

"Hee hee. I'm glad you humor me so." Ambrosine lifted him up and kissed his forehead. Again. Again.

"Your stutter's gone," Solara said. Blunt. Accusing. Hurt.

"My what?" Ambrosine glanced up. Solara replaced the food tray on the bed. She would not look at him. Why wouldn't she look at him…? Still clutching Fergus to his chest, he circled around to Solara's side of the rumpled little hospital bed. She arched just one eyebrow and shifted a step away. Even so, Ambrosine wrapped her in an arm and a wing. "Mm. And do you know what else I love? I love it when you spend your weekends with us. It looks like this was a busy one."

She resisted. When he turned questioningly to her, pain and apology soaked her face. What an interesting expression.

"Solara? Is something the matter? He's okay. I'm sure we're safe here. No one will let my dad hurt any of us. We're okay."

No words spilled from her blue lips in reply, even in a whisper. She couldn't say them. Instead, mutely, Solara turned her eyes to the ceiling.

"I love you," Ambrosine told her, bracing Fergus on his hip.

She let him hug her, even squeeze her, when he tried again. But even when she closed her eyes and started to shake in his gentle arms, his chin resting on her head as he murmured, "Shh, shh, I love you, we're okay forever now"s into her ear, she didn't say a single word.