L. Fairy Wings - Part 2

Trying hard not to yawn Wallace son of Chris son of Albersnatch son
of Olafson son of blind King Dragonswort slung his ever present leather
satchel across his shoulder, hugged his tiny gnome sized briefcase to
his chest, clambered off the bus and narrowly avoided being kicked in
the head by a careless passer by.

"Sorry mate." The young man shouted down as he continued briskly
along the pavement.

"Whatever." Wallace mumbled, already distracted by the girl in the
short skirt stepping over him as she disembarked the bus.

He waited for a break in the flow of people before dashing across to
the grass verge as fast as his little legs would carry him and
proceeding towards the base of the massive tower. He passed swiftly
through security into the clamorous marble reception hall, dashed round
the outside keeping to the marked little-people lane, through a staff
door and into the peace and quiet of the engineers cafeteria.

Langton Smith was there, the only human technician working the
tower, he was sitting with Brian son of Prince Ewan the unusually tall,
Jim son of Vladimere son of Vladimere son of King Vladimere the Sober,
Bronwyn Clowdstalker, and Kevin son of Bruce son of Proudlance son of
Coldfire son of Voordenbaker adopted son of Brimshine son of
Hammershackle son of Mad Prince Anglerot. It was tradition for Gnomic
males to trace their ancestry back to royalty in their names, for
official purposes Wallace was simply known as Wallace Clockwinder. Not
so long ago it would have been necessary to greet everybody in the room
individually with their complete names and a great insult if the entire
lineage of each gnome was not remembered in full. In these modern times
a routine first name introduction was considered sufficient.

"Morning Wallace."

"Morning Kevin."

"Morning Wallace."

"Morning Jim."

"Morning Wallace."

"Morning Bronwyn,."

"Morning Wallace."

"Morning Brian, morning Langton."

"Hi."

Wallace poured himself a cup of coffee and clambered into a
highchair to join the others round the table, he yawned.

"Long night was it?" Asked Bronwyn with a chiding look.

Wallace did not answer but looked instead at Jim and nodded

"Shame." Said Langton.

Wallace turned, immediately curious.

Kevin explained. "Afraid you drew the short straw mate." He said,
trying hard not to laugh. "You got the Nymph."

"Oh you're bloody joking. How did that happen?"

Brian answered. "Langton can't do it because it's a low room, Jim's
spending all day calibrating the Longitude curve, we've got four hooks
coming in so me and Bronwyn will be spending the morning up on the top
ring which just leaves you and Kevin, and Kevin got her last time."

"Why can't Langton or Kevin reset the curve? Then Jim could deal
with her."

"Because you were late" said Jim, "and I wasn't."

Wallace sighed. "What's the problem?" He asked.

"Poor dear can't operate her weight compensation panel." Sneered
Bronwyn sarcastically.

"Well she can bloody wait." He said, testing the temperature of the
coffee with his lips.

They continued to sit and talk about other things, the news, TV,
football and perennial hopes for pay rises until one by one everybody
had gone apart from Wallace and Jim.

"What you got for me then?" Said Jim as Bronwyn and Brian left the
room.

Wallace removed a plastic bag from his satchel and tossed it across
to Jim who picked it up and upended its contents on the table.

"Five frog tongues," said Wallace, "two toad."

Jim examined the catch, laying each tongue out straight and picking
each up in turn, sniffing them and touching the bulbous, adhesive end
to his lips.

"Not bad." He said. "I'll give you the usual twenty five a piece for
the frog but I can only give you ten for the toad."

"Okay."

Jim looked up, surprised there was no argument. "You are tired
aren't you."

"I've got something else to show you."

"What?" Asked Jim, curious.

"Take a look." Wallace said and he lifted the miniature briefcase
from his lap where it had been safely stowed all morning, and placed it
on the table.

"What is it?"

Wallace flicked both brass locks open and raised the lid of the case
so as to obscure Jim's view. Jim hopped down from his highchair, dashed
under the table and re-emerged adjacent to Wallace who, resisting a
dramatic flourish, carefully removed a layer of folded newspaper from
the briefcase.

"Fuck!" Jim Exclaimed.

Inside the briefcase, laying face down on another layer of newspaper
was a perfectly formed three inch high person with four delicate,
golden wings.

"It's a bloody fairy Wal'." Said Jim under his breath. He looked
straight at the other gnome. "How in hell did you catch it?"

"Found it."

"You're kidding?"

Wallace shook his head.

"Bloody hell." He reached out to touch it but Wallace grabbed his
wrist.

"Careful!"

"It's alright, I only want to see it from the front."

Wallace nodded okay and Jim gently pinched the fairy's ankles
between his thumb and forefinger.

"It is dead isn't it?"

"Yeah."

Jim gingerly lifted the tiny limp creature till it was dangling
upside down and carefully laid it back down, the other way up, on its
newspaper bed.

The fairy was clothed in some kind of animal fur dress that had
ridden up and bunched around her waste revealing two pale, slender
legs. A thick mane of cropped, silver hair had gathered round her head
like a distressed halo and obscured one of her two blue eyes that
stared vacantly upwards. Her mouth hung open revealing two rows of
yellowed, pointed teeth, there was a slight dribble of saliva across
her chin. The four wings were each about as long as the fairy was tall
and composed of an exquisite golden filigree (which neither gnome dared
touch for fear it would crumble into dust at the slightest brush of
their fingers) that fused into an ivory white bone joint extruding from
between the fairy's shoulder blades.

Suddenly worried Jim said. "Christ! It didn't bite you did it?"

"No, it was dead when I found it."

"Good." He muttered. "They carry all sorts of diseases."

Wallace used the tip of his pencil to lift up the fairy's hand, it
was perfectly formed with four impossibly thin fingers and an opposable
thumb, each with a long, pointed, dirt caked nail.

"What do you think killed it?"

"Don't know." Said Wallace. "Slug pellet maybe, it's fairly young
and it seems unharmed."

Jim nodded his head affecting a knowledge of the subject he did not
have.

"Well?" said Wallace.

"Well what?"

"How much can you give me for it?"

"Ah!"