Keith woke with a start once again, blinking groggily as some firefly thing darted away from him. What in the hell? Why couldn't he get a decent sleep? He was going to need it, what with the long trek ahead of him. It had to be the crazy dreams...he couldn't remember what they actually were, but he knew they were confusing and terrifying. Something had to be going on, this had to be a hallucination...but he couldn't think how that would be.
It wasn't anything like peyote, he'd had some of that from the Mexican in his gang. That had been plenty strange, but it was all awake...this dream stuff was something else entirely. He'd never heard of skunk-stink giving you crazy dreams, but then he wasn't about to make any bets about man-sized skunk-spirit things. Grumbling and cursing to himself, he turned over and tried to go back to sleep. He'd need everything he could get for this...
The little fairy looked around the great grassland from her perch in the branches of this solitary little tree. This was nice enough country, with some berry bushes here and there and plenty of clover blossoms she could suck the nectar from. But it didn't have everything she needed. Berries and nectar were good, but it would be nice to be somewhere with more variety in its food, and much more importantly, there didn't seem to be any other fairies to play or mate with! She was a bit lonely, more than ready for either activity, as long as she could be with someone. Besides, she was at the age where she ought to be having children of her own with some healthy, attractive young male. She smiled giddily at the thought as her hand brushed idly across her-
Keith gasped in shock as he...as she returned to this other body. She could feel her hand on her...gah! God! She yanked it away, bumping it on the underside of her breasts in the process and setting them in motion. This other creature, the fairy that inhabited this body when he was awake, what was she doing? She was like no woman he'd ever seen, not even that one in the brothel in Reno...to be doing this right out in the open?
Keith thought back to the creature's eyes when he'd seen her first...bright and lively, but not intelligent...he wasn't no philosopher, but he could tell a man from a beast at the very least. She must be driven by instinct, like a damn monkey, and it wasn't too hard to guess what instinct had just come up in her brain. But Keith sure as hell didn't want any part of that, none of it!
But what could she do about it? Looking around she found that she was perched in the tree, with her real body dozing at its base. If she was stuck as this fairy-thing while she was asleep, the obvious way to take care of it was to wake her real body up, but that was exactly what he didn't need right now. And even if that weren't true, how the hell was she supposed to stop this from happening? She had to stop it from happening...if something happened to her real body while this was still going on, what would become of her? Would she be stuck like this?
And in any case how was she supposed to get down from this tree!? It wasn't hardly twenty feet high, but at three inches tall it was like standing on the lip of a canyon and peering in. She couldn't use these wings as she didn't know how, so if she fell...she'd just have to not fall. Don't fall, don't fall, don't...
Owing at least as much to the strangeness of her situation as to the sheer height, panic overtook her. She scrambled back away from the edge of the branch she was resting on, only to find herself tipping right over the other edge.
Erica sighed as she helped to haul the trussed-up bandits through the woods towards where Samuel thought the nearest logging camp was. All this time-travel stuff was so confusing, trying to think of what would or wouldn't cause a problem...of course, reality didn't seem to be shy about letting them know when things were going "wrong," but not much help with knowing beforehand. It was like the whole universe was trying to...trying to keep them...on task?
She blinked. What if she'd been coming at this from the wrong angle? What if she couldn't change history, not because interfering too much would break it, but because not interfering would? What if she and Nikki being here was already a part of history? After all, the storm had only threatened them when they were going to bring Keith in, which was how things didn't go. But the rest of his gang...she remembered, sort of, that that was part of the story, that everybody else was captured (and presumably hung, but she'd never bothered to find out,) but Keith had escaped. And Samuel had only been threatened by those strange accidents when he wasn't with them...did that mean he was supposed to be with them? Maybe the whole reason they had wound up here in the first place was to play the parts they were meant to play...
She wasn't sure she really liked the idea. After all, who wanted to be stuck in some predetermined track? But it wasn't like she was being forced to do things she didn't want to...everything she'd done here she had decided of her own will. Being urged by the universe to do what she would have done anyway was annoying, but ultimately not so terrible. And on the bright side, this view, if it was correct, meant that she wasn't wrecking anything. And if it was only try to make things go how things ought to go, not prevent her from screwing something up in her own past, maybe that meant that Keith wasn't her ancestor after all...maybe? She hoped.
On the other hand, though, if Sam was supposed to be with them apparently on pain of death, what would happen when they returned home? She couldn't bear to think of going back only for him to be killed! And anyway, if they were only here to play their part in this capture, why did they have to stay here a week? What could possibly happen five days from now that was so important? Yet that was what the note from Nikki's mom had said, and that must mean they had to stay here through the week before they'd get to go home...she wished one of those portals would open up and take them back, but it was like outside of modern Hedgeton, they only showed up where and when they were "supposed" to...
The little fairy had fluttered back into the air after she'd somehow fallen onto the big creature down below, who was making lots of unpleasant noises about the whole thing and trying to go back to sleep. No matter, a little fall like that couldn't hurt a creature as small as her. She could not, of course, have explained why that was, but she knew that, like any other creature her size, a mere twelve-foot fall would only disorient her. She looked around again at the area where she'd found herself, the place with no fairies and only the one tree...she wished she could find a nicer place, even though the berries here were nice.
As if in answer, she heard a sort of rushing-air noise and turned to look. There was something like a crack in the sky not far away, glowing gently. She flitted over to it and peered into it. It was another place, it was - a kind of a forest, though it didn't look quite wild enough, with the trimmed grass and orderly-placed trees. But she could see plants for berries and other kinds of fruit, and better yet, she could see other fairies! A couple dozen of them, all gently illuminated in their own colors, like her and her pink light that matched her pink hair. This was the place for her! She darted into the portal without a second thought.
Yes, this was a better place. She eagerly zoomed over towards the little fairy gathering around one of the larger trees. She laughed as she flew close by some other females, playful twanging their antennae as she passed. Angle up, loop around, twirl a few times in place...she wanted to attract attention, and she did. A young male about her age, pleasantly built with powder-blue dragonfly wings that matched his hair and a handsome face, approached her, and they hovered on level with each other. She looked at him, and he looked at her, and she attacked, grabbing his head and mashing her lips into his with animal ferocity. He took hold of her and returned the favor...
Suddenly Keith was aware again, and confused by what was going on. Something was pressed against her face, something was in her mouth...
"GAH! HOLY MOTHER OF...!" she yelped as she realized what was going on, though most of what came out was a resonant muffled noise around the point where her mouth met his. This kid was kissing her - or was it that the fairy had started kissin' him? Her perky breasts were pressed against his firm chest, and she could feel something pressing against her leg...God! She pulled away, squirming and scrambling to get out of his grasp, only to realize that she was in mid-air. Wings disused, she plummeted to the ground, the wind momentarily knocked out of her, while the confused fairy-boy looked on from above.
Getting up and dusting herself off (and twitching when she accidentally brushed her hands across her breasts in the process,) Keith looked around. What the hell? This was somewhere entirely different! Her real body was nowhere in sight, and this park or orchard or whatever was wasn't anything like the grassy plains she was sleeping on! She whirled around to see a portal like the one the fairy had come out of. That damn bug must've flown her through into here! She broke into a run, slogging her way through the grass towards the portal and wishing that she knew how to use these wings.
She ran for all she was worth. She had to get there, before this door closed itself like the last one! What would happen if she couldn't get back to her real body? Would she ever wake up again, or would she be stuck as this? She couldn't live like this! It was bad enough now, but what if...if she lived as this fairy long enough, would those instincts...start to bleed through? She had to get there, she had to get through before it...before it...
...it vanished. It was gone.
And suddenly she felt different...this body was less alien to her now. It still felt weird, she still knew it wasn't the right one, but she could communicate with it now, she could move her wings and...
"H-hey, are you okay?" came a voice behind her. She turned to see the fairy-boy descending to the grass next to her. She giggled. "Uh-huh!" she said.
Wait, what? She...she felt different...felt playful and energetic...no! No, this was all wrong! She wasn't supposed to be like this! And she...she wanted him, she wanted to mate with him again and again and have babies with him, have dozens of little fairy children...she knew it was wrong, she knew this shouldn't be happening, but she couldn't not want it.
Somehow or other...it was like the two had merged. Intellectually she was present, an intelligence (if not an especially stellar one) in this body that had seemed devoid of one before. But the emotions and the desires belonged to the fairy id that had inhabited this body before. Now the two were one, a complete person, as this other fairy seemed to be, as humans were. But the desires were stronger than anything she had experienced as a human...
...and both Keith the human and this fairy instinct...were used to getting what they desired. No matter what she thought about the matter, she wanted this and could not deny herself. She stepped closer to him, took his head in her hands, and pulled him into a second kiss.
