Hide'n'Seek

I was getting all scratchy and itchy and mottled my left side tingling and I didn't blow my nose now in... how long was it?... seven thousand twenty eight years? At the beginning I was still counting the human years, then I moved to centuries, then I just kept on guessing, more out of boredom than out of interest. C'mon, girls, it cannot take so long to find me even if I hid in a pearl shell and rolled in the ocean, how big after all is the ocean, it is just... an ocean. The thought of it made me throw up again, this was the only aspect which really bothered me in the game, seven thousand years is not a lot, but still... throwing up for the most part of it was not fun. 1

I waited another year before deciding that it was not funny anymore, and then started scratching the shell from the inside. I couldn't sense any of my sisters near by, but the sound will certainly guide them to me without losing face. I smiled to myself imagining their frustration at not being able to find me by themselves, though I would never boast about it. After all I loved them, well... a little bit.2

I kept scratching waiting any moment to hear their approaching whistle. Somehow the sounds I started hearing did not sound like my sisters and for a moment I panicked. Then I introverted shortly remembering who I was, picked up from my mental library what I considered the right decoding pattern and time flow rate and listened attentively. Maybe the game changed meantime and they cheated on me? A tiny blade penetrated between the two shell halves tickling my middle while melting away, and I exploded in laughter just as the shell popped open. The top jumped away and just in front of my eyes there was this ugly, huge, monstrous half size she troll (I sensed female patterns there) who started screaming its head off as if it was seeing me. And if it was... oh, motherly father... I started screaming in perfect emulation to its sound hoping it will calm it down and immediately stretched from my pearl size to a hill size while trying to pick her up in my tree size teeth in the universal sign of love and friendship. She just kept on screaming, even louder now, with sounds which did not match any pattern in my library, ran a short distance away and started climbing a tree trying to get away from me. It really embarrassed and saddened me, no other creature I ever allowed to see me was afraid of me, and this little troll was making me feel a disgrace to my race. I almost decided to change my time frame again and vanish back into the shell and then transcend back home covered in shame, when I saw her slip from a branch and falling. I was not a genius in my class but it was clear to me that at this rate of acceleration she will simply splash and die when she touches the hard ground, and something deep in my making told me this is the kind of event one does not allow to happen even to trolls... I stretched my third limb overcoming my guts' deep disgust and let her soak into my body softly cushioning her fall... hey, she was not disgusting at touch at all contrary to what I expected. Actually she was quite smooth, and hard, and warm... I growled happily and tried again to pick her up in my teeth....3

"P... p... pleas...ssse... do... do... n't ee... eat mmm... me..."4

I immediately locked into the right translation, understood her words, let her down to ground and started bawling the troll way... or maybe I should say human way since this is what I picked up from her mind. Oh, the distress was unbearable... a living creature thinking I was going to eat it.... my bawling grew in intensity, with each tear creating a foot deep crater as it fell to the ground near me. I was careful to miss her so as not to squash her, then adapted my density so that the tears were like this place's water. I was so upset at her that suddenly I hovered above her and let one tear fall right on top of her, wetting her head to toe. She yelped and stopped crying. Then I felt hunger growl inside me (the time rate for these humans was a lousy one) took a bite at the tree, sat down and started munching still crying uncontrollably. I was upset, but careful enough to remember adapting my invisibility to this world's other creatures, letting the right coding pattern only in this young creature's mind. So she continued seeing me, though she seemed to start calming down. 5

I watched her attentively. We were both sniffing. Last time I've seen this race, if it was the same race, they were still naked and hairy and dirty and had no idea about fire. Seems they developed so fast, a mere several thousands local years and look at this place. True, they were still traveling in long tin noisy boxes, one of which was flying over my head right now, but at least they discovered speech... I did the most unethical of things in all worlds and hoped I will be able to mask it well enough from my sisters, looked mentally around, and hastily read the little creature's mind as she was sitting there, eyeing me with fear and... curiosity. Maybe?... I showed my teeth again and tried to pick her up and she started screaming again... no, definitely still primitive this race... I started searching clues in the information I gathered from her head trying to get a reasonable way to approach her, the mess inside that bone box was incredible and even for my race's absolute adaptability I had some problems. True, I was still a baby. In another hundred thousand human years I will be perfect. 6

I found it. Incredible, simple, so suitable for a creature with this size and local age and mental pattern... suddenly I felt a tenderness conquering my insides as I looked at her and screamed at her... adapting my voice fast enough to a whisper before permanent damage was done and hoping that the accent I emulated was suitable.7

"Are you twelve year old? Are you a poet?" I would not have guessed that this primitive race discovered a way to create art with their primitive language and sounds. But I read it in her mind, clearly. I saw her looking up at my three stories high bulk, somehow my munching got her to smile, or was it my accent? And what was that red color mounting in her cheeks, she was not going to die now... I sifted fast in the knowledge I stole... blushing they called it?8

"You are not going to eat me, are you? And I am twelve year old..." The blush got deeper. "And I write stories. Also poems. Stupid poems."9

I read a few of them in her mind, sounded nice to my inexperienced perception.10

"And you like... Japanese fairies?..." I was getting mixed up again, what was a fairy?... and suddenly she laughed like only a kid... hey, that's what she was, a human female kid... like only a kid could laugh.11

"And you are a monster, huge and stinking, and my fairy will kick your butt if you eat me."12

I was not going to let myself be intimidated by a primitive human she thingy, especially after understanding what she meant by "stinking" and "butt" though I did not possess such a thing as "butt". But she possessed one and she knew what it means. And how could she call me stinking when I was cleaning myself every century of their time?... I tried to smell myself... I smelled so nicely of horse manure, something may have been wrong with this kid's smelling senses. I was so mad that I decided to take my terrible revenge on her and still keep to my ethical behavior and I metamorphosed within seconds to whatever was in her mind displayed as "fairy". The wings were not functional and the golden dust made me sneeze but I could simulate it all so good that she fell back on her butt... ha-ha... and stayed quiet for at least five minutes. Suddenly I did not feel any need of revenge anymore, just pure sadness at having played this trick on her. I was about to metamorphose back when she clambered to her feet, hugged me and kissed my cheek. My simulated fairy was so real that it blushed... hey, wait till I tell my sisters how good I became in such short time. I was not even disgusted by it, actually liked it.13

"My name is Annie. Are you real?" 14

"Of course I am real. My name is..." I guess it sounded horrible to her since she made this horrible human face, so I decide to do it differently. "OK, just call me Jack."15

"But Jack is a boy's name." Those humans were a difficult species.16

"So what is a female name?"17

"A girl name, you mean. I will call you Jackie, like my mom. Boy, will she have a fit when I bring you home." Girl... boy... she was getting me even more mixed up, but the fairy patterns I decided to assume helped me get over it quite quickly. I think I was even starting to enjoy playing with this small female... oops, girl. I smiled, showing small fairy teeth and this time she did not run away screaming.18

"OK, call me Jackie. Can you write a poem about it?"19

"Jackie Jackie
Crazy wacky
You are cracky
Trackie trackie..."20

I did not find any trackie in my dictionary nor in hers.21

"Hey, what is trackie?" I asked her.22

"Nothing, just had to make a rhyme fast. Can I show you to my mom?"23

Strange creatures, I thought again, though I started finding this little girl quite charming, if to use one of their words. I had to make up my mind fast. I was a baby and I would be forgiven, but if my sisters came along and saw me showing myself to these creatures it could become quite dangerous for them. Since they got in their first school grade a few earth millenniums ago they became quite sticky with their ethics, and letting any primitive species know about us was considered a risk to be prevented at any cost. I shivered when I remembered them lecturing me about it and the way they insisted on at any cost. I stuck my imaginative tongue at them and decided to act my age, after all I was a baby and babies are supposed to have fun till they grow up.24

"OK, but... can I pick you in my teeth? I must show you my friendship somehow." 25

She did not look too convinced, so I smiled showing again my small teeth (which could bite a rock to dust but she did not know it) and she sighed and kind of reluctantly agreed.26

"And you promise not to let me fall? You are a fairy and you may lose your magic if I stop believing in you."27

"That's human nonsense" I answered, not knowing how it popped into my mind, picked her by her belt and soared to treetop height, trying to keep the wings fluttering as if they were really working. For a few delirious moments I changed my pattern so everybody could see me and almost dropped her when I exploded in a huge laughter seeing people on the ground starting to point up at us and screaming and running away. They were screaming witch... witch... "Your humans don't seem to like fairies like you do..." I tried to say with mouth closed, fearing to drop her.28

"My humans are stupid..." she shrieked with childish glee and happiness, "...but my mom is great, she believes in fairies too. She has a collection of plastic fairies."29

"But you know I am not a real fairy, don't you?"30

"I am a kid, I know what I want to know. You are a fairy!" Childish resolute determination. Well, maybe this race was not so bad after all, this kid was thinking my way. I wondered if there are others of the same kind, as I turned myself back into invisible including her in my pattern and landed before the house I picked up in her mind. There I made myself visible again. A funny kind of human immediately attacked me... hey, what was that?... I sensed a mess of unclear patterns showing anger, fear, and... protection towards this kid. It kept jumping tearing off pieces of my simulated body, then again, then again. 31

"Dazer, Dazer... down... down you stupid beast... down or I skin you alive..." a redheaded troll... oops, she human, came running out of the house with a broom in her hand and started hitting the yapping barking four legged human. I understood quite fast that this was anther species actually, a dog, and irrelevant of the broom hitting him he kept trying to bit away pieces of me. It was tickling and I started laughing my head off as the thing called woman finally succeeded to leash him away and was looking gap mouthed at the pieces of torn flesh that hung from my body with no blood coming out of it. I remembered my mistake too late.32

"Annie, in the house!..." she commanded, frightened, facing me with the stick part of the broom. 33

"But mom..."34

"In the house!..." she screamed again, running back to release the dog.35

"Mom!..." shrieked the kid, "...mom ...this is a fairy. She is my friend."36

The woman stopped, turned around, her chest heaving, her eyes frightened yet determined, something changing in her expression as she looked at her daughter, then at my dry "wounds" then at her smiling daughter... I looked desperately for understanding her emotions transformation in my assumed human thought outline... I think... I think that if I was human I would have called it changing into a... beautiful smile? I was probably looking at a member of this species that them humans would have called gorgeously beautiful. I smiled, remembering that I was still holding the kid in my teeth, and let her drop to ground on all four. Then did a fast repair to my damaged body parts and picked up the most impressive of human smiles which I could identify in her memories. She gasped and dropped the broom.37

"How did you do that? she asked.38

"Did what?" I asked, losing control on my wings and having one start flapping forwards hitting me in the face, while the other continued functioning normally. Seems I made an immediate friend in her (those humans were fast to make friends, I thought) since she joined her daughter in the laughter, before she answered.39

"You smiled just like my mom..." Well, that explained it, humans seemed to have some tribal affinities to each other... well, not so much unlike us on our home planet, I thought to myself. I decided to stop the fluttering altogether, rolled the wings like scrolls on my back, tore a piece of bark and sat down munching. I was so hungry... and it was so slow with these small fairy teeth... "What did she mean by fairy? Fairies don't exist, I know it for a fact, what kind of a trick is that?" Her eyes bright with expectation, her voice hesitating. "And you stink." It almost angered me, then I understood I have to bend down to their level so I analyzed her mind and chose a disgusting roses smell for myself. "That's much better," she said and I felt like throwing up at the stank. I was not so sure I liked this planet, too complex for a baby like me. Maybe my sisters could deal with it better. "Do you want to come into house?" 40

The tone this time was friendly, I even think she started liking me. I followed her into the house, the kid holding my right hand and jumping on one leg. I tried to pat the dog on the head as we passed by it, he snapped off one of the fingers and started chewing it, I grew a replacement immediately before the two humans would freak out - I was getting quite sensitive to their reactions by now, hey, maybe my babyhood was about to end soon? 41

I made a show of "flying" in, hit my head on the upper part of the door sill and Annie shrieked with merry laughter. Those humans they cry at pain, they laugh at pain, I estimated it will take them a few millenniums of their time to grow up. I followed their example and sat on the sofa next to the mom figure, carefully adjusting my density so that I do not crush it underneath me - priding myself for remembering to do it. I looked around, the place was stuffed with teddy bears, and tiger figures and fairy puppets.42

"I see you like puppets," I told Annie. She smiled. 43

"These are my mom's." I looked at the mom and again this blushing phenomenon took place. She looked embarrassed, yet somehow happy and relaxed.44

"I like puppets. I believe in fairies. What is your name?" she asked, carefully touching my wing with her fingers.45

"Jackie..." I said, and as she looked at me askew I told her my real name. When she finished rolling on the floor and wiping her eyes she said... "OK, Jackie it is..." then she rolled some more, and finally calmed down. They liked laughing, humans. I liked them. "And my name is Jackie too, so we have at least that in common. Would you like to eat something?" I guess my simulation of human stomach was making weird noises. I looked around, there were no trees there, just some red flowers, didn't look nourishing at all. I decided to skip the offer and shook my head. "Are you really a fairy?" she asked further.46

I paused before answering her. I peeked indiscreetly inside her mind (I was getting good at this) searching for a clue to the answer I should give. I saw there wonder, hope, mistrust, childish happiness, funnily there was no much difference between her and her daughter. No wonder with such a short time difference between them, so inefficient for grooming children... I was getting carried away with sudden longing for my world, my motherly father, even for my sisters... I snapped back into reality before I lost control of my shape.47

"No I am not. I am just what you would call an alien baby. I am only twenty thousand years old, and I can change my shape as I wish. I was here playing with my sisters. I miss them." Unexpectedly, even for me, I started crying and my fairy eyes started dropping tears just like a human's. I climbed into her lap hugging her neck and buried my head in her bosom, shaking and miserable. I felt her hands going around me and hugging me, patting my head slightly, and I felt Annie coming behind me and hugging me as well. Somehow it felt nice, there was something to this human warmth that was simply conquering, penetrating into my heart and giving me a sense of almost home, of pleasure, love, I felt protected. Thinking that actually I could have smashed any of them with just a thought. Even their smell didn't matter anymore.48

"You are soft. You smell nice..." I told the mother. "I am sorry I am not a fairy. I can do tricks if you want. I can fly and make things move without touching them, I can even..."49

The sudden scream of sirens interrupted my talking flood. I lifted my head and looked at Jackie. Her face changed from pleased to deep worry. She got up, carrying me in her arms...50

"What the hell, this is not hurricane season..."51

She went outside with Annie holding her other hand and gasped, a terrifying sound like none I found in her previous memories. I turned my head to look at whatever it was she was looking at and for a few moments I remained locked in my human perception, the sense of terror crawling through my mind into my body, into my senses. The street was full with other humans, all of them frozen into an instance of full and absolute terror, all of them regarding the same way, upwards, eastwards... descending... oh, no, my sisters were coming back for me. My fairy body absorbed the human terror as well, it felt a sudden need to release liquids, what they call pee, but I controlled it feeling instinctively it is the wrong thing to do. I started whimpering and hugged Jackie's neck tighter. I felt her body start to shake as she hugged Annie close to her, unable to tear her eyes from the oncoming terror.52

They were approaching as two balls of fire, huge, their heat started getting felt, flames leaping in and out of their shapes as they merged from time to time into one, then separated again, a whistling noise drowning the sirens sound getting stronger and stronger...53

"I am sorry..." I whispered in her ear, "...these are my sisters coming for me, they will destroy you, it is part of our laws, no one is allowed to see us and stay alive. It is part of our self protection... I am sorry..." I expected her to throw me down to the ground, start cursing me and screaming at me. Instead she just hugged me tighter and whispered...54

"You are only a baby... I will protect you... don't worry..."55

Annie took hold of my hand, squeezing her body tight into her mother's side, her voice shivery...56

"Yes, I will protect you too..." she pitched in, as the dog approached them, ears lowered, teeth showing and a low growl escaping its throat. Three puny creatures facing with some kind of undefined courage the thing that pictured in their minds as Armageddon... 57

It is then that it happened. It snapped. I never would have imagined that it would be humans making it happen. I always imagined it as a ceremony where all our motherly fathers will stand around greeting me for the biggest and most courageous achievement of my baby life, and in a planet wide festival celebrate my transition from baby to brother. And here I was on this alien human planet, dressed up like a human carnival fairy, held in the arms of a she human woman, and promised the protection of a she human child and her pet. And here it snapped.58

I slid down from Jackie's arms, she tried to hold me back but there was no way she could. I tiptoed as high as I could and kissed her cheek, then bent towards Annie kissing her cheek as well, then bent towards the dog kissing him on the top of his head and losing my nose in his mouth in the process. It was all irrelevant. It was time for me to be found and take my lawful place in the world as a brother. Even if I had to break the law doing that.59

"I am going to be your fairy..." I whispered back, "...isn't a fairy supposed to protect its humans?..." 60

I changed my density, moved my time scale to my old setting, retraced into a pearl size the density of the center of a sun and shot upwards to meet the approaching fury. My size increasing the closer I got, my inner fires whirling and twisting and growing wildly till we clashed in a mess of fire and abandon and hell. I took hold of their squirming angry screeching forms and with one long whip of my comet tail I dragged them out of earth and on into space. All it took was parts of a second. And now I was a brother and my sisters had no choice but obey me.61

"You broke the law. You are going to stand trial, even if you are a brother now."62

"I am a brother now because I broke the law. I will take my chances."63

The phenomenon passed almost unmentioned in the news. There were speculations of a secret new army rocket experiment, even of a Russian out of control atomic explosion in space. The Geiger meters showed nothing, mass hallucination was the next best explanation.64

"Mom..."65

"Yes, Annie..."66

"Did it really happen? Are there fairies out there somewhere and we are not allowed to see them?"67

She hugged her daughter, swinging back and forth in the creaking wooden swing.68

"I guessed there are," she said, touching her own cheek and looking at the fine little pearl encrusted in Annie's cheek as well. The dog did not seem to mind the pearl on his forehead. He was too busy munching something that looked very much like a human nose.