The smoke rose from the cauldron of prophecy. The aged tooth fairy looked into the name which was floating there.

  Could it really be it? Could the fairy who was going to save them all, giving them the tooth of the Archdemon, the only child who didn’t have his teeth collected and so became an angry man-child, be… Mark?

  Mark was…

  Fiona, the chief tooth fairy, took a deep breath.

  Mark was a young and enthusiastic fairy. Nothing could stop him when he wanted something. There was little that he could and could not do.

  Rumor even had it that he sold bloody goblin teeth to the bck market.

  But could it really be the case? Could Mark really take the teeth of the Archdemon? The teeth the Archdemon was using to power his many weapons?

  Fiona didn’t know if Mark would or would not accept the quest. She knew only one thing:

  If Mark failed, the entire tribe of the tooth fairies was going to be disbanded. Their wings would disappear. Their magic would become a thing of the past.

  And not just that, but they would never, ever, be thought of as magical creatures by the many children who needed their help ever again.

  And Fiona was doing this for the children.

  Not for the benefits of having a health insurance, a multi-sport card and a paid yearly leave of a whole 30 days. Not at all!

  She nodded, took her baton, and then prepared herself to bash Mark’s head in until he agreed.

  Or died.

  In which case, Fiona was going to wash the cauldron of prophecy and chose the next hero!

  Read victim.

  ****

  Mark looked at his loot. This time, he had struck it big. There was an ogre in the goblin tribe. There were all the goblins. Trying to guess under which cup the small pebble which Mark was hiding in his hair was.

  “There two cups!” One of the brighter goblins began.

  Mark nodded.

  “Here!” The goblin pointed at the left cup. Mark nodded, showed that there was nothing under the cup, and then pced the cup back down.

  “No, here!” another goblin said, as the one who had guessed first was taking out his own tooth with the pliers Mark had id to the side.

  He should honestly take pity on the poor creatures. After all, they were pying for a single deer haunch. Something Mark had bought from a safe and preserve store. Or better known as: a store which dealt with mana printed goods.

  The meat was not going to taste good. Of that much, Mark was certain.

  But that didn’t worry him. No, he was just a tooth fairy with a quota. These goblins needed to give him their teeth. He needed to be on the winning side.

  Or it would be trine duty again.

  If there was one thing which Mark hated, then that.

  “This!” The ogre, bless his soul, still had one tooth left. Mark didn’t know how the being was capable of speaking with so many heavy losses to his name, but that didn’t mean that he was giving up.

  Mark decided to finally show some mercy. He lifted the cup, and there it was, the pebble!

  The goblins began to dance around the ogre.

  But Mark was still the vilin of the story.

  For the ogre had no teeth left to chew the meat with. And so, the meat would go to the goblins.

  But before that, Mark thought to himself, as he stood up and then went to the pile with the teeth, he was going to visit his sunshine.

  ****

  The rain had turned the port city of Mirstone in a cesspit of pork perfume and muddy streets.

  There was little that bothered Mark more than that.

  His sunshine, as he liked to call “the gnome”, was probably thinking about switching towns. The gnome, as people called him, was no gnome.

  Just a very short man.

  Not a dwarf either, Mark knew. Just someone who had not won the lottery of growth.

  Mark liked the man. Even more so because his sunshine always liked to make him pancakes when he came to visit.

  That is to say, when Mark begged them of Anthony.

  The door was unlocked, as always. The pancake was sizzling on the pan as if Anthony knew that Mark was going to be coming by.

  The fairy left his heavy, and bloody, sack next to the door. Then he flew to the highchair which Anthony had made for him, and he sat by the table.

  “The same old trick with the pebble, eh, Mark?” Anthony asked. His dimples were on full dispy. Oh, Mark thought, if only the man was shorter…

  “Yes! But I gave the meat this time!” It wasn’t often that Mark did that. Most days, he didn’t want to give the meat. Most days, he gave it to the wolf packs, which sometimes came to his defense.

  But that was not to say that he enjoyed the process of feeding wild animals.

  After all, they became too friendly to fairies, and they, in turn, got their teeth without so much as blinking.

  It was a very cutthroat world, the job of being a tooth fairy.

  So much so that Mark didn’t even think that he should tell his fairy overseer, Fiona, that he was meeting with Anthony in secret.

  “Good on you! We will make a good citizen out of you yet!” Anthony said, as he flipped the pancake.

  Oh, the scent of batter, of butter and milk, eggs and vanil! That was what brought Mark to this small hut at the outskirts of this muddy port town, time and time again!

  Even when he knew that the neighbor upstairs was just waiting for him to leave just so that she could dump her waste bucket on top of his head.

  Just because she knew that he liked Anthony, and she, cruel witch that she was, didn’t like the fact that two men could be in love.

  Even if one of them was a fairy, and the other a very short man.

  Whose job was to bake cakes, and make pancakes for tooth fairies, when said fairies came to visit.

  “Don’t count on it!” Mark said, as he prepared to eat his fill of the pancakes.

  Anthony chuckled, depositing the pancake on a pte. Soon, there was another pancake on the pan. It was a nice pan; Anthony couldn’t help but think.

  Nice and cast-iron. Perfect to distribute the heat evenly.

  The batter began its song on the heated pan. The pte found a new home in front of Mark. Soon, the lovely pancake got wed with blueberry jam.

  Curled up in a holy union of sweetness and love.

  Then he cut it up in three parts, so Mark could eat his fill.

  “You know,” Mark began, as he began to eat. Some of the jam got on his fingers, but he didn’t mind. This was a love song. The proof that Anthony liked him well enough to invite him in his home. “I can get you a better home.”

  There it was, the proposal. Even if it were just a ptonic thing, Mark didn’t think that he would say no to having Anthony in his house for the rest of his life.

  After all, Anthony came with pancakes and a symbiosis with all fairies.

  Not to mention that Anthony was the best Bck Market dealer that was on this side of the Bck Sea.

  “Oh, Mark,” Anthony flipped the pancake. Mark looked at it for just a second. Perfectly golden. Just like he remembered all of Anthony’s pancakes being.

  He had known the man everyone called a gnome for the past twenty years. And in that time, the man had not aged. Or, dare Mark even think it, even gotten a pancake burned.

  “You know that I don’t do stuff like that. I am too old,” Anthony had always said that. So, as if Mark had to take that answer at face value.

  It wasn’t so, as if Mark didn’t want them to be together. It was more like Anthony had shot him down time and time again.

  “You know,” Mark continued, as another pancake made its journey towards his pte. “One of these days, you will say yes.”

  It was a promise. A promise that Mark had first made back in his youth. When he had gone to Anthony and had collected a single pearly-white tooth.

  But now, as he thought about it all, Anthony had been an adult.

  Which was strange. Most adults didn’t have their teeth collected.

  Unless their teeth were steeped with mana and the Bck Market could sell them to a mage or someone who didn’t think much about the ws of nature or basic human rights.

  “Do you have strawberry jam?” Mark asked.

  Anthony smiled a coy smile, took out a jar with a preserve he had made himself, with the strawberries which Mark had gotten him with his illegal goods’ money, and now, he was willing to share.

  “Mark,” Anthony began, as he slowly walked towards the table. “Fiona is here and waiting for you.”

  That made Mark sigh. He didn’t want to speak with his overseer. It was the same old thing with her.

  If he had not taken the time to be more mindful, or if he had not paid his taxes, then he would be getting a chewing up, of that much, he was sure.

  “What does she want?” Mark asked, as Anthony curled up a heavy pancake with the strawberry jam. The desire to call Anthony honey was there, but Mark didn’t dare say the word.

  For it meant commitment. It meant more than he was allowed to say.

  And that was not something Anthony was going to allow him to say.

  “You are to go through seven mountains, then through seven kes, and, stly, through seven Valleys…”

  “The Archdemon quest, eh?” Everyone knew that there was only one man who lived in such a ridiculously estranged pce.

  The Archdemon was someone who had hidden his teeth from the world. Had not let any tooth fairies get them. And now, there were rumors that he grew his hordes from the teeth.

  “Never fear,” Anthony pced a finger on Mark’s tiny shoulder. Oh, how Mark wished to bathe in the soft embrace that Anthony would have offered, once. But now, after that dreadful night in November during the year of the Taurus, there were no more embraces in the cards for Mark.

  He knew it deep in his bones. Knew it better than he knew his name. Oh, why did he have to get drunk?

  “I will come with you!”

  That was a ray of light, as far as Mark was concerned. At the very least, he would get an unending supply of pancakes!

  “Now, do go and speak with Fiona. There will be more pancakes waiting for you when you come back!”

  Mark sighed. It seemed that he would need to be subjected to Fiona’s cigarette breath and evil eye stare.

  It wasn’t easy, being different. It was even harder being open about it.

  But Mark didn’t despair!

  For, if he could just strike it big, get enough money to turn Anthony into a fairy by getting some fairy dust from some wizard who was higher than a kite, then his life would turn to a better and brighter future!

  One where he would wake up to soft, twinkling brown eyes and a cheeky smile every morning.

  A life with a purpose.

  It never occurred to him, however, that Anthony had never agreed to become a fairy.

  Not even during that dreadful November night when the rain turned the fairy dust into dirt in Mark’s pocket.

  ****

  Fiona was smoking a cigar and was wearing bck and white. Which was to say, that she looked every inch the mafia boss.

  Her charge was pink-haired and green-eyed, just like her. He looked rugged, that Mark. Which was a surprise, one which Fiona didn’t know was a welcomed one or not, that he pyed for the team he did.

  But that wasn’t something she cared much about. No, Fiona was a fairy with a mission. And as such, she was more than willing to ruin his future.

  “You are to go…”

  “Yeah, yeah, mountains, valleys, kes,” he had gotten the order wrong, that Mark. Fiona still didn’t correct him. If nothing else, he was going to be the one who came back crying about how life was unfair.

  “Will you or won’t you go?” Fiona asked. It was not in her nature to ask, but this time, she felt that it was needed.

  Out of politeness, if nothing else.

  Her baton was at her feet. She knew what was to be done if this fairy refused.

  Just like how the other 999 had refused her.

  Didn’t they see, Fiona couldn’t help but think, that she was more important than them all? That she, as the party leader and great overseer, was the personification of Order in these turbulent times?

  “I will. I rather like my skull in the shape it is now,” Mark countered, narrowing his eyes. “But you, fair dy,” she wasn’t fair, Mark couldn’t help but think then.

  He paused. Did she or did she not have her mental powers pendant on her?

  “Go on,” the slight curl of her lips told him that she did. His brain was not the safe pce he had once thought it to be. He nodded.

  “You are a hag,” if he was going to die, then so be it. He didn’t think much about that one. He had lost all chances with Anthony. Had done the unthinkable and had tried to turn him into a fairy without him knowing it.

  No.

  If Mark survived, he vowed to himself that he was going to romance Anthony. To make him want to become a fairy with him.

  Instead of making him cry by calling him short.

  Not that Mark had meant any insult by it. His wording was as followed:

  “You are already short! Why not get some wings for it?”

  They had been the same age. How was Mark to know that everyone bullied small and cute Anthony for his ck of height?

  “And all hags, as is the tradition, are evil,” the fact that she was also a fairy didn’t help matters any. “But, dear dy,” she wasn’t a dy. Mark forced the thought out of his mind. She had them, the tooth fairies, in her iron grip. There was nothing to be done about it all. “I will embark on this quest for the glory of the fairy realms!”

  He had to stop himself from saying something snarky like: and may God smite you for sending me off against the Archdemon.

  It was not to be spoken out loud.

  Besides, being the hero came with certain perks.

  “Your system will activate in a couple of hours,” Fiona pced her cigar in the ashtray. Something that was so out of pce in Anthony’s basement, where the Yule decoration was lying in a corner, all bright and colorful.

  Even the plush reindeer which Mark had bought him just st year was looking at them. Or, at least, was positioned so, as if it were looking at them.

  “And will I also get a cultivation path?” Mark was already putting together a pn.

  But that was not something Fiona cared for. Nor did Mark thought that she could help him, even if she did care.

  Her shriveled heart, Mark knew, for he had seen more than one fairy being hit over the head with her baton, didn’t have it in to help anyone but her.

  The Dread Lady, as everyone called her, was not to be trifled with.

  Mark was not going to try his luck.

  “No. That is a cheat,” and it really was. Mark couldn’t argue with that one. “Now, I am leaving.”

  Fiona rose from her chair so as if it were a throne. Mark bowed his head.

  One day, he dared to hope they would all get a new overseer. And when that day came, they would all be happier.

  One day…

  ****

  Mark flew back to the main part of the house. There was a mountain of pancakes before his highchair, but he didn’t have any desire to dive in and eat.

  Sure, the pancakes might even be able to calm him down, but that wasn’t what he wanted out of life. No, he wanted a pn.

  “You know, you have two routes before you,” Anthony’s soft voice came from the stove. He was still toiling away, baking the pancakes. “You can go in there, pliers bzing, and fight the Archdemon. Or… you can be nice.”

  Mark blinked.

  Be nice?

  The Archdemon didn't want any niceties! He wanted eternal power, an army which could be considered more numerous than the ants in an ant hill, and of course, to take over the world!

  “What does the Archdemon ck?” But that didn’t mean that he was not going to listen to Anthony. The man was as close to him as if he were his soulmate.

  That was something that Mark didn’t want to forget.

  “Well, there are a couple of things you have to consider first. He is a ruler,” that was an obvious point, but Mark didn’t utter anything. He just listened as Anthony flipped yet another pancake. “Sure, he wants to take over the world, but as things stand now, he might lose his own nds. There are the giants coming from the Drake Mountains, driven by the drakes and dragons which give the mountains their name, into the valley where the Doom Empire spans.”

  Mark nodded. That was something everyone with a map could have told him.

  “They wish to get the territory of the Archdemon for themselves. The Archdemon is using his own teeth to drive them away. That should tell you everything you need to know.”

  Mark scratched himself behind the head.

  “Do you mean that he is using the teeth as mana stones, instead of as a material for a phyctery?” That was unheard of.

  No Archdemon had ever done such a thing!

  “The Lord Asmodeos needs an industrial level box with painkillers for his massive headache and an understanding therapist,” Anthony said with a wink. “Or so the merchants in the Bck Market say.”

  The beginning of Anthony’s pn was beginning to unravel in front of Mark’s eyes, but he still let the man continue.

  “Then there are the elves of the kes, who, even though they had besieged the Dread Keep more than once, still refuse to go somewhere else.”

  Mark nodded.

  “So, you wish for me to make a union between the fairies, the giants, and the elves?”

  Mark turned around, but instead of a blinding smile, he just saw Anthony shook his head.

  “No. The fairies, despite their size,” Anthony made a pause, sending an apologetic look to Mark so, as if he wanted to soften his words. “Are great farmers.”

  Mark blinked. Great farmers? That was not something that fairies were really known for.

  “We grow our food,” Mark countered, as he tried to look for the traces of a joke being pyed on him, but only seeing soft brown eyes begging him for forgiveness. “But that doesn’t mean that we are going to grow the Archdemon’s food.”

  “No, I suppose not,” Anthony turned around. The fsh of pink caught his vision from the corner of his eyes. He looked to see that Mark had nded on his shoulder.

  A thunder fshed outside, but the two just looked each other in the eyes.

  “But if we do,” Mark began, as he patted Anthony’s shoulder. Once, twice, and then smiled. “What do you think we can get out of it?”

  Anthony blinked. Did Mark really think that they had a chance?

  “Well,” Anthony was hesitant. This was going to be a promise between them. They were going to embark on a quest which might see them dead.

  But that didn’t mean that they were not going to try. That Fiona was going to send goons after them, just because they had chosen to run.

  “The demons need to eat. Do you think that there are too many people who farm in the nds of the Archdemons?”

  It was a valid question. Mark nodded.

  “But will some vegetables and fruit be enough?” Mark had his doubts. After all, if the demons didn’t think that they would survive, then they would just go and get the vegetables and the fruit from the nearest farm.

  Burning the homestead and butchering the locals.

  “The Archdemon is immortal,” Anthony countered. “And do you know what that means?”

  Mark gave the question some good old pondering.

  Immortal.

  If he were immortal and had a fancy head ornament, then he would want to keep it until the end of time. Because that was what it meant to be an immortal, right?

  But what if that was not an option? What if immortality was a curse? What if the fancy head ornament was something that could not be taken just like that?

  “I would like to remain the Archdemon until the end of time,” Mark said, as he luxuriated in Anthony’s warmth.

  “Yes, you would. But do you think that there aren’t enough necromancers who can rise through the ranks?” The human asked. The fairy rubbed his nose. A habit he had taken to when he had been young and thought nothing of it.

  “So, how does the Archdemon stay an Archdemon for the rest of his very long, and stressed, life?” Because, even if Mark and Anthony managed to provide the Archdemon with a solution, it wouldn’t be a permanent one.

  “Currently, the only thing which the demons use to farm their nds is the ard,” that was something that had fallen out of fashion in the human realms. “And their soil is mostly cy.”

  “Which is good for pottery,” Mark said, not knowing where Anthony was going with it.

  “Yes, but the ard scratches. If you have a good, moist soil, that is enough. But the demons have cy soil, Mark.”

  Mark nodded. Then he blinked.

  “Are you telling me that the demons are raiding our nds just because they don’t have a mold plow?”

  Anthony flipped the pancake in the pan, nodding.

  “And if we give them the plow, will they stop, do you think?”

  Anthony nodded once more.

  “Peace will be won with fat cattle and turnips,” the human said, letting out a chuckle at the end. “Would you like to join me on this quest?”

  “But why do you want to do Fiona’s bidding?” They were friends, but that didn’t mean that Anthony owed him anything.

  The brunette looked at pink hair framing green eyes.

  “Because I care,” but Anthony would never speak out loud about whom he cared.

  For he had a bag with magical dust which would turn Mark into a human. A short one, but a human one, nevertheless.

  Wasn’t it funny that they both wanted to change the other? That both of them didn’t care about the other’s love for their own nature.

  And yet, could still be happy and loving. Soft and kind.

  It was the nature of all doomed lovers, the Universe thought to itself, to make mistakes.

  And so, both human and fairy began to plot on how and when they will sprinkle the dust over the other’s head.

  Not caring about the fact that they didn't need any dust. The only thing they needed was a deeper understanding of the other’s nature.

  It was only then that they would sprinkle the dust.

  To turn into something that met in the middle. As was the nature of all soulmates.