2. Blanched

"Thunk" 

Spluttering, flailing, Maggie fell out of the twin bed, landing hard on her ass and bad wing. Dark, hot, red, horrible agony. She righted herself, disoriented, and lifted onto her hands and knees, gasping and blinking against tears that nearly blinded her as they streamed down her cheeks. Bile surged up her throat and she swallowed hard against it, lowering herself slowly to the floor, pressing her cheek against the welcome cool of the beautifully worn ancient stone tile floor.  

"Please". She whispered hoarsely, a prayer for help or release to any passing deity or spirit in a generous mood, at this point Maggie wasn't picky. "PLEASE."

 

It was Time that took notice and leaned in to sit with Maggie as she suffered against the rushing current of pain in her battle wound, and the waves of whiskey regret. Gently, quietly, minutes moved by, unmarked by a clock, but measured in Maggie's wheezing breathes. Slowly, with Time, the pain lessened. Time moved on, and Maggie remained on the floor, trying to build the will to stand and put on her guard's uniform, to face another day. 

-------- 

It was an aggressively hot day, spiked with the promise of sunburn to the fair, heatstroke to the active, and sweat stains to literally every living speck that dared move under the relentless glowing sun. Jym hopefully and uselessly wiped his sweating neck with his sweating hand and flew on, racing North towards the rising mid-morning sun, already wilting the late May greenery that streaked below him. He hummed lower, wings starting to complain at the distance and speed. There'd be comfort from the sun's relentless burn under the canopy of lush, fresh foliage below, but navigating the labyrinthian world of branches, stems, leaves, and predators would only slow him more than the exhausting weight of the sun's heat. 

 He'd chucked his cheap black suit jacket aside miles ago, the faded strap of his brown leather satchel was biting against his shoulder to the point that he wondered if he was bleeding, and his shirt was hopelessly drenched with sweat. None of it mattered. Speed was everything. Time was everything. He lowered his head, glossy, unruly indigo blue hair siphoning the sun's angry heat like a funnel, and sending rivulets of sweat down his face, into his eyes, stupid, stinging, irritating and slowing him down.  

Glancing down to check the course of the Happy Slappy River, Jym adjusted his direction a hair. Rainbow Troll Village was below somewhere down there by the wide sandy wedge of flood plain, so maybe three and a half four more miles more to go. Would they move the body? Start collecting evidence without him?? Surely not with a telegraph sent directly from the head office. But still, these country folk had wildly independent thoughts on policing. No matter how hard he flew, it seemed Time was against him today. 

-------------------- 

Khaki wool, long pants, long sleeves, smart white cummerbund, sharply braided red velvet at the shoulder, absolutely absurd hat of feathers, glitter, and paper mache' flowers that screamed "This is ceremonial, anyone who boldly dares to try to actually fight crime, or an angry cat, or dust bunnies while wearing this nonsense will immediately be overcome, and if not, just in case, they would glance in a mirror and die of shame... also heatstroke, either way, fatal! and foolish!". It was a stupid uniform, but the crease of the armpits was the worst. Maggie shrugged, trying in vain to dislodge a determined clump of thick gathered fabric from between her chest and arm. It saw her intent and doubled down in itchiness and cling. She could only assume the king had a vicious sense of humor to select such uniforms for the guard in a swamp the was humid thirteen months of the year, and hot all twelve. Maggie colorfully cursed under her breath. 

Everyone wants to look at something terrible, very few want to see it, but curiosity has a powerful draw. Maggie glanced behind her and watched the medical tech fairies in white coveralls working around the little crater in the soft earth, dainty sheet-covered remains in the center. She knew who it was the moment she'd arrived on site that day, word travels with venomous speed in a community of around 1200 generally bored fairy souls, and this wasn't the typical gossip of "Mabel was flirting with Lark's husband AGAIN at the market" or "I swear to gods I hate the new color of Fern's wings, so tacky, who told her hot pink and chartreuse were a good idea??!" No. This was the crown prince's young beautiful fiancée, very very dead at the foot of a gigantic ancient pine. Judging by the bits of her that were splattered here and there in an impressive radius, she'd fallen from the near the top. It would have taken a considerable velocity to wreak such havoc, fairies were sturdily built, springy and resilient. 

Maggie shuddered despite the heat and tried to distract herself. A fly the size of her fist was buzzing busily just to her left. It landed, stilled, buzzed up into the air again, landed again. A second, even larger fly bobbed in to join it. As Maggie casually watched their mindless work, both flies lifted into the air for a second and she saw what it was they were feasting on. Horror sheeted down her spine, it was flesh, it was part of poor Nell. The perimeter they'd been set to guard as the trained techs worked their grim task was clearly not large enough. Maggie gagged, coughed, the world lurched violently, and careened up to meet her face, or possibly it was her face that plummeted towards the dew damp turf. She came to and saw Mira's eyes, wide with concern, not an inch from hers.  

"You ok, kid?" Mira, at 28, was in fact two years younger than Maggie, but she was also a head taller, and outranked her significantly on the Palace Guard both in rank and experience.  

"Yea, yea. Uh. Mira, watch where you walk, someone needs to tell the techs we set up the perimeter too close." Maggie pushed herself up off the ground and pointed, not looking, towards the remains of Nell. She could hear the flies buzzing, louder now, there were likely more. A wave of nausea crashed over her. 

Mira's large almond shaped cyan colored eyes went round with understanding as she saw what Maggie was indicating with a shaking finger. "Well shit." She said, her voice low and steady. And then glanced up to the top of the tree that towered almost out of sight above them. "Well. Shit." She said again, clearly doing the same loose calculations on terminal velocity Maggie had pondered minutes before. "Yep, I'll go tell the techs. You need something? Water, a sandwich?" 

Maggie hoisted herself to her feet with a speed and desperation that surprised them both. The mention of food was the nail in the coffin, she was going to puke, and there was no good place to do it. Out here away from the village there were no toilets, and now it seemed there were bits of Nell everywhere. She waved a hand frantically at Mira as she put her head down and sprinted away, trying to put as much distance as she could between that tragedy and herself.  

----------- 

Flowers and fairies go together like peanut butter and bananas, movie theater popcorn and that delicious butter syrup stuff that was clearly designed by the gods as a gift to movie goers. Fairies live in the lushest lands, thrive where the flowers thrive, suffer where things won't grow, and have excellent attendance at all their weekly garden club meetings. Flowers grow best where happy fairies dwell, and when a fairy dies, they mourn the loss by turning white at the site of a death. The fairies called it Blanching. The greater the sadness, the suddenness, the violence, the more flowers will blanche. If a beloved but elderly grandfather passes gently into the great beyond after a full and happy life, surrounded by family and friends, perhaps just the cut flowers in the vase on the nightstand will turn white. After the worst, bloodiest battle of the fairy war two years ago, when some ten thousand fairies died in a matter of hours, the blanching stretched more than a hundred miles, clear across the country, to the main city. No one had ever seen anything like it before. Grieving mothers went out to pick the white flowers, to dry or press into books, a small memento of what they lost for a foolish cause.  

Blanching only lasts for as long as it takes the fairy body to disappear, losing light, color, and mass until it is just a hazy cloud of shimmer, and then nothing, three days generally, though a particularly corpulent fairy can take up to five days to haze away. When the colors come back to the flowers they're often new, the colors of the fairy that has died, for a season or two before returning to their natural shades. Large hospitals in the city often have gardens that will change with technicolor rapidity, and flower shops and hospitals are rarely located on the same street.  

As Jym flew, his eyes caught a spark of white on the horizon, the closer he got, the larger it grew, until almost the entire world was painted in whites and early spring green. His eyes widened in surprise. It was a remarkably large blanche radius for just one death. His suspicions deepened. "That. Bastard." He hissed. He had no precise idea where the crime scene was, but he'd be at it any moment now. On impulse he flew low at a flash of silver, a small clear pool of water nestled amongst rolling hills. He was disgusting with sweat. No matter how pressed for time he was, he couldn't show up like this. Thank god he'd thought to bring a change of clothes. He landed lightly on the shore and tucked his wings, stripped off his shirt and pants, and dove into the water, it felt miraculously cool against his sun cooked back. He could feel his neck was sunburned, and the strap of his bag had indeed worked the skin on his shoulder into a massive blister. He allowed himself thirty seconds to cool off, scrubbed the water through his indigo blue hair, and hoisted himself back on shore.  

He was just buttoning up his fresh white shirt when he ears flicked towards an oddly dissonant sound against the pleasant hum of honey bees and tinkling birdsong. In an instant his wings shot back up and he was flying up over the little hill towards the noise, was...someone retching? He spotted a petite fairy in the glade below, she was doubled over, hands on knees, heartily tossing her cookies into an unfortunate cluster of white daffodils. 

Landing hard, and immediately striding towards her he tucked his wings. "What the HELL are you doing?!" He growled.  

She looked up at him, eyes watering, mint green skin tinted sickly towards an unpleasant shade of pea soup. "Practicing my chainsaw juggling act." She snarled, before bending over to gag again. "Jackass." She panted, not looking at him. 

He rolled his eyes. She must be Palace Guard, he recognized the faded khaki wool pants, though she'd stripped her jacket and shirt off and was wearing just a white tank top on top. She was holding her ceremonial shako in one hand and every now and then would swirl it around her head to fend off the giant fuscia butterflies that were dive-bombing her, clearly displeased that she was vomiting on their mating ground.  

Obviously, she was insane. Jym took a deep breath and tried again, speaking slowly through gritted teeth. "Why. Are you. PUKING ON A CRIME SCENE?!????" 

"Hobby of mine." She said caustically, finally straightening and wiping her eyes with the back of an arm. She turned to him, massive emerald green eyes slanted down with suspicion and irritation to him up and down.  

"Who the hell are you, and why are you all wet." She swatted at another butterfly, making solid contact and sending it spiraling towards the water. It barely righted itself before going in. 

"Who the hell are you, aside from an idiot who defaces an active crime scene." He snarled back. 

The little fairy grunted and, ignoring him, walked down to the shore of the pond to splash water on her face. Jym released his wings back out and clicked them impatiently. He did not have time for this shit. 

Hearing the noise, she turned back to look at him, arching a dark green eyebrow thoughtfully.  

"Where is the body, and who is your commanding officer so I can report you for gross, and I mean gross, negligence in the performance of your duties." 

The mint green fairy blinked at him and smiled coldly to reveal neat, white, slightly pointed teeth. "Oh. You are a jackass, aren't you. My duty is at the moment to keep gawkers away from the location of the deceased, so actually, I think I'll be doing quite a jolly job of it by telling you to kindly, fuck off." She strode towards him, hands balling into little fists. "Unless that is, you want to tell me who you are, why you're so interested in seeing the body, and WHY you're all wet." 

She was only a foot from him now. Eyes sparking with anger, feet planted, she smelled like stale whisky, vomit, and lilacs. It was an odd combination. She barely came up to his shoulder, what she planning to do, fight him?! Definitely insane. 

Rolling his eyes again, he took a step back from the she-devil, reached in his pocket, and pulled out his badge. 'Captain Jym Smith, Central Fairy Intelligence. Identify yourself or I will have you arrested for interfering in an active investigation." 

Taking a step towards him, she closed the space he'd just created. He tensed. "My apologies, Captain."  she pronounced the title like a curse word and he noticed she had a fairly heavy city accent, not the lilting cadence of a North Swamp fairy. "Private Magpie Brooke, sir."  She pulled off a sharp salute, her face bland but her eyes still dangerous slits.  

"Fly me to the crime scene, Private." Jym said coldly, "and I'll be having a word with your Captain." He turned away from her about to take off. 

"No." She said, her pointed ears lowering sharply. 

"Excuse me." He turned back, amazed at her cheek. 

"I can't fly." She said bitterly. 

Jym realized suddenly that her wings had been out this whole time. She hadn't tucked them, and now that he looked closely, he could see the ragged hole near the top of her left one. He felt her watching him as he stared at her disfigurement, and he quickly looked away, furious to feel himself blushing. So, what then, they'd have to walk?! 

Thankfully, another fairy guard flitted down next to Private Brooke. Lithe, and tall, she towered over the mint fairy. Glancing over at the sweating, ill looking girl, concern in her eyes, she straightened then gazed at him impassively. A cop's look. She was in full uniform, though a trickle of sweat beaded down her magenta skin from forehead to long graceful neck. He noted the lieutenant's stripes on her sleeve.  

"Can I help you?" She asked, pleasant but formal. 

"Captain Jym Smith. Central Fairy Intelligence. Where. Is . THE CRIME SCENE." Jym had all but run out of patience. Backwoods hillbilly police force, gods knew how their techs were muddling the evidence handling even as these two wasted his time. 

"Yes sir." The lieutenant nodded neatly. " It's just over this hill, sir, at the foot of the largest pine tree. If you follow this path, it'll take you straight there. 

Jym glared at them both and immediately launched and flying her indicated direction. He'd grab his bag later.