IWUAaDNW: Party 5.10

Olivia giggled.

“Go on, then! Fly, my pretty!”

Whys whistled, wiggled out of her tunic, then started fluttering toward the academy. The tower had to stand over three hundred feet into the sky, a distance that looked monumental to something the size of a pixie. I produced an image of the little pixie as it made its way first to the Academy, then up along the wall of the tallest tower, using its eyesight and a bit of creativity to show it in third person.

“This is so convenient,” Karjn remarked with a small grin. “We really need to spread those pixies of yours all around. I think I’ll make that our next priority… I mean, if you’re okay with it, Taylor.”

I had a nearby pixie trill and bob vertically in agreement. I was fine with it—so long as I got what I needed from her, that is.

“While you’re doing that, I’ll do my best to get you that slicer you wanted,” she added.

Thank you.

Whys kept climbing, but it was obvious my pixie was much, much tougher than this little guy; my pixie had basically beelined straight to the tower top, but Whys seemed to be having trouble before it even got a third of the way up. It started using both its wings and arms to push itself up, grabbing outcroppings in the bricks with its tiny claws and making wheezing whistles of effort. But for all its struggling, it never stopped staring determinedly at its target with a stubborn obstinacy I would never expect from my contracted minion.

The wind rose. Whys’ claw slipped off the brick wall and it tumbled dizzyingly through the air for several moments before it caught itself and returned to the tower, where it gripped a brick with its entire body and rode it out.

“Go! Go!” Naïa chanted while bouncing lightly. I was mentally cheering for it, too.

Karjn’s fists were twitching. She bit her lower lip.

After taking a few moments to breathe, the little pixie gave a trill of effort and resumed its climb, this time pushing mostly with its wings. It fluttered up, up, up… then had to take another stop with about a quarter of the way left.

“Come on, just a little more…”

“Yeah!” Naïa agreed. “Keep going!”

Karjn’s grin froze, and she cleared her throat with a little flush on her cheeks.

Finally, though, the pixie made it to the roof of the academy’s tallest tower, at which point it stood on the parapet of the broken window, flexed its tiny arms up and gave a victorious chime that made me wince.