#I don't have a tag for Dame Cosmo and I'm upset

[fountainpenguin]

"If you wanna stay young, get both feet in it! 18 'til I die!" (x)

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6 years ago I posted this art on my blog, and now it's finally time to share the story that goes with it! New Origin of the Pixies chapter today!

Chapter 42 - “The Unicorn Years”

Read on FFN || Read on AO3

Start from Chapter 1

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Today's the day that Sanderson celebrates his adult wings… By which I mean it's the day that H.P. celebrates Sanderson's adult wings. I'm not getting ANY flashbacks to how Ambrosine treated H.P. when HE was young. Come say hello to the newest adult in the cloudlands (and party on)!

(First 1,000 words under the cut)

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The Unicorn Years

Autumn of the Murky Roots

I have to confess, it amused me how mortified Sanderson was to have his first real birthday party. He'd always been a difficult nut to crack. I knew of little that could fluster him. Of all the things to do it, it would be a birthday celebration. To my own surprise, I actually didn't mind the event… or the shifting of attention from me to him. Let him have his day. Things would be back to routine again soon enough.

"Are you still sore?" I asked when I fetched him from his apartment that morning. Hawkins and I had already started cooking breakfast in the other building. It wasn't like Sanderson to be late when it was his turn to help. Granted, at 159k myself, I'd been a loudmouthed rebel- but Sanderson? Nah. He was too dependable to bail on me without a two weeks' notice.

… Huh. I'd been 174,000 when I fled the Academy, jumping from Fairy World to Earth. I was over 491,500 when I came crawling back. And over 650,000 now, though Venus Eros had worked the best magic on my body that she could in an attempt to keep me youthful. How strange. A full 650k years of life experience under my belt, and sometimes I still felt only as mature as that sharp-tongued little "fairy" juvenile who dropped out of school. This body that I wore had been twisted up, dunked in the wash, scrubbed with bleach, and hung to dry again. I lived now on extremely borrowed time and Venus held my leash in the palm of her hand. That's not a favor I can ever repay. I am in her debt for the rest of my existence, and I suspect the rest of the pixie race is too. Which is just peachy. Love that for me.

"Incredibly sore, sir," Sanderson mumbled. He gripped my forearm with both hands, every step slow and wobbly as we made our way through the apartment hall. He'd put on fluffy snowflake socks that I didn't remember ever seeing him in before. No shoes. Still had his casual clothes on. His heels scraped along the thin carpet, scritching and scratching.

"It will pass."

Sanderson glanced over his shoulder at his new long, sweeping wings. I drank him in too. He's grown several inches taller than he'd been as a mere juvenile. Not quite as tall as I was, but getting closer. His wings now matched mine in length, though mine glittered transparent blue. His were tender, still smudged and milky-colored from the moulting. They reminded me in their haunting way of that afternoon nearly 160,000 years ago when Kalysta held him to her breast, nursing him until the flight casings cracked off his wings. He said, "The return to normalcy can't come soon enough, H.P.… I don't think I've ever ached this harsh in my life."

I trailed my eyes to his again. Sanderson, weak and winded, hadn't put on his shades. Those little lavender flecks looked just like mine. How strange. As a gyne, I was bulkier and more freckled than he was, but we shared every single one of our genes. We even shared the Ivorie brand cowlicks in our hair.

"That's only to be expected," I told him (in response to his complaint about the soreness). "You've just shed every pore on your body and put on several inches. The elasticity in your new skin isn't fully developed yet. Things will hurt more than you're used to. That goes for both inside and out. Be careful."

I didn't pressure him to help with breakfast, and especially not when he kept scratching off flakes of skin. His scalp had gotten the worst of it, so he kept pulling off little flakes from around his hair follicles. The younger pixies badgered him constantly about his new shape when he arrived at the pavilion. I had 320 of them now. 320 pixies who left me dripping with exhaustion and insanity every other day. Pregnancy had dealt a heavy blow to my once-youthful body, even though I didn't carry them the way that Fairy drakes did, but so far, Venus's medical intervention was winning. Hadn't died yet. And when we were in the pavilion and I sat across from Sanderson with my plate… it almost seemed a guarantee.

159,426 years.

Sanderson had his adult wings now. I'd known it was coming. Not the date, but I was just over 154,000 when I moulted into mine. He'd used less magic growing up than I did, aging more slowly because of it, but apart from that minor delay, our shedding patterns seemed nearly identical.

159,426. His inner organs, up until now the size of raisins in his tiny juvenile body, finally had room to grow. Exactly 500 years from now, he'd be fully fledged. Capable of reproducing… Well, if he were a Fairy, at least. I wasn't sure how things worked for pixies… I hadn't had Sanderson until I was almost 490k. Would his body draw the time out equally long? Or would there be third-generation pixies just a few centuries from now?

Three generations. My employees with offspring of their own. Yikes. Was I getting that old?

Bayard, holding little Featherstone (who scrambled over him), let out a whistle as Sanderson clumsily tried to push his new, longer legs between the picnic table and its bench. "Well, moulting sure acts fast. Your hips have already gotten wider, studmuffin."

"Have they?" Sanderson lifted his shirt and started to check himself over. I yanked it down down.

"Not here. Wait until you're alone."

"Yes, sir."

I contacted the Eroses during breakfast. Drk. Cupid answered my call, but he and his brothers had their hands full of work. That was fine by me. I was just glad a responsible adult - Drk. Ludell - poofed out in their place with his clipboard and wooden examination tools. Sanderson protested his probing, still wanting to eat his breakfast, but I held firm.

"Stay here and let him run his tests. You're the first adult pixie besides myself the Eros family has ever been able to observe. I need to get in contact with your Refract anyway. While I'm gone, show due respect to the Triplet of the Evening. He's overworked and underhyped."

Sanderson rolled his eyes, but that was the most youthful rebellion I saw from him.

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