Finley Cai Aies Hall May 16th,20XX

I shoved Akseli away from me and held a finger to my lips to silence whatever complaints I knew he had. I'd tried to leave him in the other room but the male fairy had insisted on following me as a chaperone.

“If you don’t stay still I’ll seal you in a sphere and leave you there until I leave to the human world.”

It was a small space so I didn’t begrudge him for being so close to me. I’d even put more effort into keeping my wings close to my back to create more space but there was no reason for him to cling to me. I'd checked the platform multiple times to make sure it could support both of us and had even made a mini platform of my own with magic so we wouldn't be caught off guard if the unlikely happened and the platform did collapse.

We were pretty far away from the scene in an attempt to prevent Mei from noticing her magic perception drop and realizing I was close but that meant that I needed absolute silence to be able to hear the faraway voices.

The other fairy, Talan Aslan, as Mei had called her could barely hold back a guffaw as Mei read through the diagnosis and as a result could barely dodge as Mei whipped the folder at her head.

“You’re telling me that you think all of this is caused by… puberty?”

Aslan, having just been attacked, answered seriously but from the way her wings vibrated to the humorous undertone in her voice, it was clear she was anything but.

“It’s the only explanation. Even putting aside, the fact that a horn suddenly appeared without him being awakened the fact that his wings are still changing colour just shows that he’s still a growing child. I suspected it back when he was asleep and was still leaking magic but with this too I don’t think there are any other explanations.”

An odd expression graced my fiancée’s face at the revelation but I didn’t have the time to look at it properly because of my companion trying his hardest to hold back laughter.

“You mean you still mph-“

He suddenly found a solidified ball of magic in his mouth and began to choke in his efforts to dislodge it. His eyes begged me to remove it but aside from shooting him a warning glare I ignored him and turned my attention back to the scene. I didn’t like how much of a bully I became around the dude, but sometimes it really couldn’t be helped.

“But are you sure he hasn’t been awakened?”

“Not traditionally anyways. To be safe I checked for a few other signs but he doesn’t have any of the signs of an awakened goblin. His blood is still as golden as ever and his bones aren’t any sturdier than they should be for an unawakened goblin. As for the horn… His father was the monarch, after all, maybe he’s just an early bloomer? The only thing to worry about is how he’ll deal with the backlash when he doesn’t become the official monarch of the goblin people but you won’t have to worry about that for at least half a century.”

Mei gave her a blank stare and the right side of the upper lip curled into a distasteful expression at her friend’s flippant manner.

“You know that’s not possible.”

“Possible or impossible, it is what it is. Honestly, I'm more concerned about you than I am about his highness. All he needs is time for his powers to settle but you…when was the last time you slept? Or ate? Or did any sort of stress-relieving activity?”

“What are you talking about? I slept two nights ago….or was it two weeks ago. And I ate a couple of times… throughout the week. Hmm.”

Fairies didn’t have to eat but it was an accepted norm. Eating the right things could act as preventative measures for general health issues. Sleeping wasn’t something that a fairy did every night but it was necessary at least once every fortnight. Most fairies wouldn’t wait so long and would sleep every three days at a minimum.

“Mei, if you keep this pace you’ll have to enter ‘rest’ before you even ascend the throne.”

Aslan scribbled a note on her clipped and scribbled onto it. I realized with a start that the pen she had been using this whole time was her wand but that wasn’t the only thing that impressed me.

She ripped the page from the clipboard and folded it in half, then held it up to her lips as she whispered a spell. Mei suddenly put up her guard at the other fairy’s odd actions and nimbly dodged her attempt to stick it onto her forehead. Rather than just weaving to the side as one would expect, she bent backwards into a full bridge pose and then used her core to flip into a standing position, simultaneously making Talan step backwards to avoid her legs.

“ASLAN”

Before she could complete her threat Talan made another leap towards my fiancée and a dull thud flooded the room from the impact. The two fairies fell to the ground and began to tussle, one of them trying to keep the other down while they stuck the paper onto her face, and the other trying to resist without permanently crippling their friend.

Stepping back from the scene for a second, I had to admit how interesting it was to see my usually mature and stoic fiancée roughhousing like this. While she couldn’t be called cold it was rare to see her relax enough to mess around like this. A vaguely guilty feeling swept through me as I realized she was so bogged down by work because I hadn’t been around to help her or even approve the appointment of her aides to help her.

Mei’s loud cursing filled the room and refocused my attention to the scene where my fiancée stood apart from her friend with a nasty expression on her face and a thin, horizontal slip of paper floating above her head. It took on a slightly less corporeal form and waved in an invisible wind, but the words on it were visible from my distance away.

{Doctor’s Order: 72 hours of Relaxation}

Across her, Aslan looked at the proof of her victory with a satisfied smile, seemingly not noticing the scratch across her arm that resulted from the scuffle. Mei had brought out her wand by now and tried to dispel the spell that made the paper float above her head but Aslan’s proud smile only grew in response.

“You need to fill at least 72 hours of leisure time before it goes away Mei, so don’t even bother trying to cheat. I’m not the same rookie medic I once was. Ah-”

She stepped back quicker than any medic had any right to move and replaced the smugness on her face with a subservient smile.

“Your majesty, beating this lowly one up will not count as a leisurely activity.”

Mei stopped in the middle of stretching out her arm, probably in preparation to beat Aslan up and didn’t bother hiding her disappointment as she took a seat.

“Even if you tell me to relax, what do you expect me to do? It’s not like I have any hobbies or things I enjoy. Even sleeping wouldn’t take up any more than 8 hours.”

“There’s no way that’s true. What did you do to deal with Jaya? There wasn’t nearly enough work to do back then for you to have thrown yourself into it.”

Mei suddenly adopted an odd expression and randomly began to choose her words carefully.

“I…did. But it's not something I could do with this above my head.”

A sun of understanding set upon Aslan’s features and she looked at my fiancée like she was a mad person.

“You men you genuinely enjoyed doing that? I thought it was to make a point.”

“At the beginning sure, but after doing it for a couple of decades, I started to look forward to it more and more. I even had to completely cut my self off at one point because it was becoming an addiction.”

Once again Aslan looked at my fiancée like she was insane, and my curiosity about this mysterious hobby only grew.

“Well, the notice goes away whenever you’re fulfilling it so I don’t think it would get in your way but…”

“I don’t think I need a drunkard judging me on what I do for fun.”

Although the words were harsh, Mei’s tone was light enough that I could tell it was all in good fun, but what was more worrisome than their friendship possibly being broken apart by Mei’s harsh words was that the other fairy didn’t deny the label of a drunkard. But she soon made it clear that not denying it didn’t mean she was okay with it, considering that she followed up with an ‘insult’ of her own.

“You know, instead of constantly judging me and what brings me joy, you could stand to have a few drinks yourself. You know, make a few mistakes and have a few reckless nights before you’re officially a married woman…. Oh, wait. I guess you still have a couple more decades to worry about that.”

Mei stared blankly at her friends for a few seconds then casually got up and began to stretch herself out.

“You should consider either spending less time with Zera or start putting some effort into building up your body as she does.”

Aslan took three steps back and her wings perked up, ready to take flight at any moment.

“M-Mei”

“I hope you picked up her resilience as well as you picked up her recklessness.”