"I have no lineage to speak of—my paterwing flew off with some blue-winged skimpsy soon after he saw I had no twists in my hair—but the name's Cidinen Everdance, and I'm your local Pixie! Of course, most Pixies here are local. But I've lived here the longest, and if Trea Woodsworth tells you any differently, don't believe her. You can't trust a Pixie with dull wings." She fanned hers out in demonstration to the contrary, displaying their brilliant colors.
"Oh joy! I've never met a true fairy!" Sada exclaimed, thinking of the fairytales and bedtime stories her nurses had fed her dreams with; Governess Brown would be so shocked to see she had been wrong, calling them make believe and—
"Not a Faery! A Pixie!" Cidinen cried, looking incredulous. She clutched at her bosom as though she'd been pierced there by an arrow. "Don't wound me so, new friend."
"I beg your pardon! I knew not the difference. Then it is an honor to make your acquaintance, Miss Cidinen, Pixie of Elt."
Cidinen was nodding appreciatively. "The same to you, bright days, bright days! Though just Cidinen will do fine. It's so pleasing to the ear, don't ye say? Oh—this is how we say, 'nice to meet you' in the way of the Pixie." Cidinen crossed her legs then bent to the side at the waist, displaying her wings. She made them shiver, sending the light playing across them and that crushed starlight dropping weightlessly to Sada's shoulder.
"Ooh, wonderful!" Delighted, Sada gave a little clap.
"The pleasure is my own."
"I must say, after meeting the Trolls I expected other people of this world to speak in a similarly archaic fashion. Yet your own speech is very modern."
"Archaic...as in old?"
Sada nodded emphatically. "'Thee,' 'thou,' 'art,' and such."
"Oh sure, sure. To call that old is to speak true; we haven't spoken in such a manner in many o' many a century. But the Trolls think it makes them sound smarter. More refined, I think Avidi said. Nobody wants to tell them it isn't so. Or, that it doth art not so, as they might say." The winged woman tried and failed to trap a giggle behind her hands.
"I must admit, it was difficult to understand upon our initial meeting. The common people of my world talk more similarly to you than the clan, and even in my lessons of courtly mannerisms I believe my tutors only spent one day on archaicism."
"Are there Trolls in your world, then?" she asked, eyes wide. "Oh, I can't believe humans are real! I'd thought you all to be legends! We all wondered what happened to you after the second war, anyway."
"Which war do you speak of?" The Elves had mentioned something similar. "Do you know our histories?"
"Ahh...never mind, never mind dear. You were telling me about the Trolls in your world?"
"Oh, ok. Unfortunately we do not have Trolls in Califia, or anywhere in the Americas so far as I know. Nothing so exciting as them. It's simply that my people once talked in a similar fashion, and learning the ways of history is important," Sada explained.
"Oh. Why?
"Well..." She frowned. Why was history so important? She wasn't quite sure, and so she regurgitated what Governess Brown had told her when Sada had asked why she needed to know the customs of her absent mother's people. "Oh—to do away with the bad and imitate the good."
Cidinen nodded along thoughtfully then smiled, and Sada did the same. The explanation sounded fair to both sets of ears.
"I can't say I see why you'd want Trolls in your world. Pixies, sure, we're nice to look at and talk to, but...the waddlers? Humans are strangelings, strangelings as you are fleshlings."