The mages talked excitedly to one another. They thought they would be able to extract as much pixie dust as they wanted from the hundreds of fairies they captured. Not to mention collecting the bounty on the fairy "infestation" the nearby village was suffering.

  Nevermind that the humans were the ones clearing land and encroaching on the fairy forest.

  As Bette Middler sang, "Oh industry, whatever will become of me?" I had no hopes for charity, faith, or even hope.

  I can hear the tingling of the other fairies in their jars. We travel for a day on a wagon. The mages talk to some Constable Harper and depart with their reward.

  I'm not idle, however. I keep moving and bouncing off the walls of the ceramic jar, wasting energy, and building up my hunger. Except my hunger does not grow. I'm feeding myself off the conjured collar around me. {Chemical Awareness}, being a perception Skill, still works and while the collar feels and looks like metal, it is made of magic. I will eventually be able to break it, but I have no idea if they will recast the spell or how long it will take.

  Two days after they left the village, the mage's wagon is ambushed by what I can only believe were bandits. I heard arrows flying, horses whinnying, soldiers shouting, mages casting. People crying, war cries, fire, and thunder. I heard a hinge go off and pots breaking. The whole wagon jerks and falls to the side. A wheel or axle broke.

  I hope it wasn't some mute elf looking for crystal currency.

  "Grab them fairies! Each of them is worth their weight in gold!" A gruff male voice said.

  The combat dies down. Which means that people were dying down. Dying. And down because dead people fall prone.

  Unless they are un-dead. Like the ghosts of the mage next to me.

  "I see who you are now," the ghost of magister Sundamar Quigeiros laments next to me.

  I stare at him and roll my eyes. I can't speak because of the fucking collar.

  "Moon-Bound Matriarch, I'm sorry. I did mother Yznera a great disservice. I was blinded by greed."

  And by the way, he shrank to fit inside the jar. Quite convenient, these ghosts. I just need to remind myself to not cross the streams.

  I guess I could communicate by sign language. And I just happen to know the sign language of the Fulgen elven rangers.

   I signal to him. I repeat some signs and after a few minutes, two things happened. One, someone picked up my jar, and two, the ghost finally understands what I'm saying.

   He signals back.

   I point at him.

  He moans in anguish. "I'm sorry, Matriarch," Sundamar wails.

   I signal.

  The ghost goes away and returns after some time. "They are bandits. Somehow they learned we captured the fairies and are now taking them to their wagon. Ours broke an axle during the fight."

  

  "Water?"

  

  "Do you mean the water fairy with wings?"

  

  He goes away and returns a few minutes later.

  "I found her jar. She is sad but unhurt."

  

  "You want me to keep track of her whereabouts?"

  

  Sundamar stayed nearby, going to check on Nenandil every now and then. He reported that we were all loaded in the wagon, and no fairies died during the raid. Those whose jars broke were put in empty jars or together with other fairies. Then the wagon moved.

  We traveled for two months. The bandits offered us some food but I ignored it. I need to stay hungry. I kept eating the magic of the collar but it still didn't break. Not feeling the connection to Nenandil was maddening. I swore that the world would burn and I would extinguish the human species if Nenandil didn't return to me.

  Our jars were unloaded and we stayed in a dark warehouse for two days. Some human merchant, fat and well-dressed, came, inspected the jars, and gave us food. Sundamar stayed with me reporting what was happening outside all the time, as well as keeping an eye on Nenandil.

  A mage came and examined each one of us. He cast a spell that reinforced our collars - at least mine - and set the control of our very beings to him.

  We were eventually moved to glass boxes and put on display in a luxurious shop. I could see rich people dressed in fancy togs and with too much gold for their good browsing. I could also see the sad and dismayed fairies in their boxes all around the shop. Including Nenandil and the Queen.

  Which were the first ones to be sold? Liveried knights with what could only be another, human, Queen bought both the fairy Queen and Nenandil. The money to pay for the two was brought in a chest. A veritable chest of gold. I send Sundamar with Nenandil with orders to come back and report to me twice a day.

  Whenever one fairy was sold, the same mage that came to the warehouse would pass a command word to the buyer, and that would be used to control the fairy.

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  The other fairies were sold first. Mages rushed the next day to buy the pixes and sylphs. Their own pixie dust factories. I could only dread the torment they would be subjected to when they didn't meet an arbitrary quota the mage set.

  The naiads and dryads were sold next. Turns out they could be taken away from their heart-trees, but to them, it felt like murdering a baby on the mother's bosom. With their umbilical cord. That much cruel.

  Finally, a couple dozen brownies along with one or other fairy that didn't catch the nobility's fancy, including Neep and I.

  The jewelry merchant should've learned about "Market Saturation". Because no other noble came to buy a fairy. Our prices started to drop.

  Nenandil was placed in the Queen's chambers. Or should I say, Empress, since this was the Zaemisan Empire's capital, Zaemishitlan? The palace had a ward against the undead, so Sundamar just watched her being taken inside and the Queen bragging about having two fairy Queens in her private chambers. After that, I told him to stay with me while we waited for either someone to buy me or the collar's magic falter.

  One week without a single fairy transforming into gold and we were put on sale. Actually, we were sent on consignment to another merchant in another district of the city. There the fairies were sold to the middle-class, merchants, and artisans. The brownies were sold to people that wanted someone to clean their house but didn't want to afford a maid. After all, we would work for stale bread instead of coin.

  Or they would. I would be hopeless to clean up a human house.

  The third day of the fairy bargain bin brought her. Wide caramel eyes, auburn hair, freckles in her round lollipop face. A button nose for that added cuteness. I would learn later her name was Laila, no surname. She glued to the glass of my display case and stared at me as if she was about to open it and eat me. The girl should be nine or eight years old by Earth's standards.

  "I want her, daddy! The one with the silver hair!"

  The girl's father scowled. "That ugly thing? It looks like an old lady that baked for too long under the sun. It is all wrinkled! No. let's buy another house fairy."

  Laila did what little spoiled girls do best. She stomped her feet and pouted. "NO! I want this one. She'll be called twinkle!"

  My name on my status didn't change. After some back-and-forth, Laila bent her father over and she bought me. The girl squealed when she took me out of the box.

  "Ah! twinkle - I won't deign to capitalize that. Not a given name - we're going to be best friends!"

  She squeezed me close to her chest while her father paid a ridiculous amount for me. What a waste of money. He learned the command word but I knew that I couldn't use it. The spell didn't have that glaring loophole.

  "So, will that bug bite me?' Laila's father asked the shopkeeper.

  "No, sir. The collar around her neck gives you complete control over her. You can even command her to stand still and starve to death. Keep in mind that fairies can go a long time without food but we recommend feeding them at least every third day."

  Completely bullshit. Any creature will starve to death being fed every third day. That merchant was just eager to dump his merchandise. But Laila's father fell for it.

  "That fairy doesn't even have a level. What's wrong with her?"

  "That's because she's a baby fairy. Once she cleans your house for the first time, she'll gain Exp and level up."

  "And does she clean the whole house?"

  "Of course. Those house fairies are nocturnal. While you sleep, she'll clean the house."

  "And won't it attack us while we sleep?"

  "You just need to give them an order. Right now they can't even speak."

  Laila heard the shopkeeper. "I want her to talk to me! I want her to be my friend! Daddy, say the magic word."

  "Not here, please. They say that once these fairies start to talk, they get annoying really quick."

  "You are lying!" Laila blew a raspberry at the merchant.

  "Well, if you have any doubts, we'll be here to answer them," The shopkeeper lied blatantly. I saw the shop as it was set up. This was just a front to dump the fairies, he'll move away after we are all gone.

  But that was irrelevant. I couldn't do anything. Laila took me back home on foot. On the way, she stopped by a seamstress to get me measured and have some clothes made for me. Yeah, first big mistake. Doobie was a brownie bastardization. You don't give clothes to brownies. The very idea made me feel offended. I should be weaving my own clothes. Well, not that I had any choice.

  We arrived at Laila's home and she took me to play. The house wasn't big but wasn't a hovel. The walls had plaster and were painted white with some wood paneling. Downstairs was the workshop and store of Laila's father, a milliner for middle-class women. I got a glimpse of what went for hat fashion these days. Wide-brimmed in front.

  I became her best doll. Until she tried to feed me mud pies. I slapped the spoon. She got angry and beat me. Thankfully I had HP to spare, with her slaps doing one to three damage. She grew bored once I didn't react and went away.

  See, sixty-something Luck and I end up with an abusive spoiled girl.

  She came back and shoved me in a birdcage. I think I could open the latch but her father came with a strong wire and pliers and twisted the damned thing. I sat on the cage with a dead elven magister by my side.

  That's when the woman appeared.

  She was wandering the house whenever nobody was in the main room. It was the ghost of a human woman and she had purple handprints on her neck. I'd bet ten gold pieces it was Laila's mother.

  I made signals to the dead mage.

  

  "Understood, Matriarch. Who goes there?" He asked out loud.

  "What? Can you see me?" The woman's ghost asked, confused.

  "Well, yes I can. We are both dead. And the fairy can talk to us."

   I sent to him when he looked my way.

  "Who are you?" He asked.

  "My name is not important. I was the mistress of the owner of this house. One day, I grow tired of Frederiksen's abuse and decided to move on. He didn't like it and staged for his wife to find us in bed. She strangled me and was sold as a criminal slave."

   I gestured to the elven mage.

  "How long did that happen?"

  "I'm not sure. The young lady was a baby. I've been wandering this house ever since."

  I'm glad nobody took the bet. Not the mother but the mistress the mother murdered. That explains a lot about Laila's behavior. She grew up without a mother. Mistress's ghost wasn't strong enough to manifest physical effects or create blight.

  Night fell and the next day, the milliner was angry at me.

  "You stupid fairy, why didn't you clean up this house?"

  I didn't answer. I was feeling down, worried about Nenandil in the Empress' hands. He took the cage and shook, forcing me to grab the wires to avoid being rattled around.

  "Answer me, why didn't you clean the house? Why did I pay a year's profits on you?"

  Because your daughter is a spoiled brat, I'd answer if I could. But he just kept screaming at me, angry because I wasn't reacting.

  Laila forced him to stop his rampage and listen to her.

  "Daddy, the fairy can't speak if you don't give her the command word."

  He paused to think for a while - and I'm the one with a pea for a brain - and finally said the command word and gave an order. "I command you to talk, fairy. Why didn't you clean up the house?"

  I felt the compulsion to talk and answer, but I clamped down and resisted. The collar on my neck burned and shone but I resisted and endured the pain. Finally, a message came.

  

  Ego test... successful. You resisted a magical compulsion.

  For resisting a command, the collar of compulsion burned you. You lost 3 HP. (base 100 x 0.75 magic resistance x0.6 magic devourer x 0.03 fire resistance.

  I grinned. He got angry and repeated the command word, saying "Speak!'

  "No," I replied.

  "No? Why didn't you clean the house."

  I shrugged, "How am I supposed to do so from inside the cage?"

  He repeated the command word and gave an order. "You are forbidden to run away."

  That day, he didn't let Laila play with me. I didn't care.

  Then when night came, he removed the wire from the cage and gave another order. "Clean the house during the night."

  I nodded vehemently.

  They went to sleep and the mistress's ghost appeared again.

  He forgot to cancel the order to talk. And I too two more small burns to break free. I took both ghosts with me. Once outside, I sat on the roof of a tall building and watched Alya and Sylvis play in the sky, painting the world a pale green.

  "Sundamar, did you learn the command word?" I asked the dead mage.

  "Yes, Matriarch," The elf ghost answered.

  I stood up. "Good. Let's find ourselves a graveyard."