Robyn rubbed her eyes from the bright light, as she suddenly found herself along with Oberon and Titania, standing in front of a very large modern home, sitting on a piece of lakefront property. It was one of those new trendy looking pieces of architecture, with hard angles, lots of glass and white marble, and even had an infinity pool despite already being right next to the lake that gave Lakepoint its name. "Why are we at Jay Duncan's place!?" Robyn exclaimed in surprise, as she recognized her surroundings.
Jon hadn't talked to Jay in years, but had kinda sorta low key kept up with his old classmate via social media, mostly out of a growing jealousy. Where Jon felt like he'd ran into failure after disappointment after graduation, Jay had really come into his own after high school. The former scrawny dweeb had taken advantage of the campus gym early on in college, and finally filled out while at the same time growing out of his awkward phase, getting a handle on his acne problem and learning to dress himself better with the aid of his first girlfriend. More importantly though, he'd developed a real talent for computing apparently, going on to co-found one of those tech startups with his college roommates that apparently became a run away success. Jon hadn't entirely understood what X-Change did, but by the time Jon was starting his ill-fated teaching career, his old fellow nerd was running a billion dollar company and basically the biggest success of their graduating class.
While on the one hand Jon had felt he should be happy for Jay, considering the two had been casual friends if not super close, but really seeing Jay soar had just stung. I mean, Jay was even more of a dorky loser than I was! Why did that guy get all the success, wealth, respect and a hot wife to boot? Jay had married the gorgeous sort of woman that wouldn't have given him the time of day back in highschool, a yoga teacher/minor fitness influencer called Rachel, and Robyn knew the two of them had just moved back to Lakepoint with their daughter after Jay took a big buyout for his company, based on all the gossip Linda kept sending her. They'd built this fancy new mansion right on the lake, one of a number of new developments that had arisen over the last several decades.
Oberon started walking up the long drive, the fairy family having teleported in past the ornate gate and fence of the property, and explained as he walked, "well, we're going to need somewhere to live, and this seems adequate. This is actually a good lesson for you Robyn. When you're setting up shop in the human realm, the easiest thing is just take the roles of some existing mortals, rather than go through all the bother of setting up a life out of whole cloth. Getting all those constantly changing human details right is just too much tedious work, better to just usurp an existing position."
Robyn's eyes widened, "so you're going to take Jay's identity?" She might have been a bit jealous of Jay, but she didn't want anything bad to happen to the guy.
The Fairy Queen shook her head and patted her daughter's arm as they neared the big garage that held the Duncan's car collection, "not quite, little one, we're taking their roles not their lives. If you're only using it for a short time, taking the guise of a particular human can be expedient, but remembering all the nettlesome details of their lives can trip you up. We'll essentially be taking their roles as 'that rich new family who just moved to town' and use that as a base of operations. Ooh, we do need to get our human glamours on though!"
Just before they arrived at the doorstep of the Duncan mansion, Titania and Oberon both shimmered, changing appearance. It was a slight change, particularly for Oberon who just lost his wings and rounded his ears, while Titania also changed the color of her hair from periwinkle to vibrant red, though it was still incredibly long, wild and glossy. Her nearly magical proportions also persisted, and she still wore anachronistic clothing, but she was suddenly plausibly a human. "Go ahead and hide your wings and change your hair, Robyn," Titania instructed.
Robyn was about to protest she didn't know how to do that, when she realized she did know how to do that. She couldn't explain it, but in the same way she instinctively knew how to move her wings, she realized she could do what her mother had asked and almost reflexively she spread a little magic over her self and changed her celadon hair to the same shade of red as her mother's, rounded her ears and hid her wings. She immediately realized it hadn't actually gotten rid of her wings or even the points of her ears, as she could still flap the former and wiggle the tips of the latter, but it had made them invisible and intangible.
Oberon knocked sharply on the door and after a few moments, it slowly opened partway to reveal a guarded and confused looking Rachel Duncan. She was a quite attractive 35 year old woman with shoulder length blonde hair currently up in a pony, and dressed at the moment for a work out. Her skin had a healthy tan, though not one of those tacky spray-on ones, and a rather pretty face. She wore a pair of tight dark red yoga pants and a matching sports bra, with a smart watch on her wrist, designer sunglasses on top of her head, diamond stud earrings, and a pair of pink Nikes. Robyn could remember being jealous, as Jon, of how hot a wife Jay had landed, but, now, as pretty as Rachel was Robyn couldn't help but feel she paled standing next to Titania.
"Hello..." the Duncan matriarch began in a guarded tone, obviously concerned at the fact the gate hadn't buzzed before her new arrivals on the door step. She may have been about to tell them to get off her property when Titania snapped her fingers and Rachel's eyes glazed over, letting the door fully swing open.
"Right, summon your husband and daughter then," Titania imperiously commanded in a serious tone, far different from the doting way she talked to Robyn, "we haven't got all day."
"At once, mistress," Rachel agreed before dashing off into her house while the fairy family made their way inside. Robyn looked around and repressed the urge to whistle at the nice sitting room they'd stepped into, with that austere looking modern furniture that probably cost enough to make Robyn's eyes water. The whole area seemed very open plan, and she could see a massive kitchen through one archway and a home theater in the other direction; Jon's whole apartment could have fit in just the sitting room, and that was only a small fraction of Jay's place.
After a moment Rachel returned with her family in tow, both of whom looked confused until they reached the fairies and a snap from Oberon had their eyes similarly glazed. Jay looked about how Robyn remembered him from their twenty year high school reunion a few years ago, the quintessential handsome goose from an ugly duckling. He was the same age as Jon, but had stayed in much better shape, having had the money for a personal trainer to keep him on track, and wore a fitted white tee shirt under a loose open white oxford, and a pair of nice jeans. The only sign the tech entrepreneur was entering his 40s was a tiny bit of premature greying of his temples, but honestly Jay was kind of pulling it off, giving him a certain distinguished quality.
The last person was their teenage daughter, Skylar Duncan. Luckily for her, Skylar seemed to favor her mother more than her father, and didn't seem to have inherited Jay's awkward teenage phase. Her wavy brown hair was glossy, and currently tied up in a casual pony with a pink scrunchie, and she wore a loose off the shoulder concert tee shirt from Liliana Venti's recent Ages tour, that showed one black bra strap, and a pair of short shorts. She was cute, but Robyn couldn't help comparing the other girl to herself like she'd done with their mothers. For some reason she felt a strange trill of pride to know that her own chest was bigger and perkier, her butt rounder, her waist trimmer, her face prettier, etc. It was ridiculous, she'd only looked like she currently did for a very short time and been a guy before that, but for some reason knowing she was the more attractive girl in the room mattered to her and made her instinctively smirk from the feeling of superiority it gave her. (Little did she know, fairies were by their nature rather vain creatures and she was no exception; there was a reason Tinker Bell had been so resentful of Wendy, after all).
"Right, well," Oberon began instructing the enchanted Duncans, "I am, oh let's see what's a human name? I am Oliver Goodfellow and this is my wife Tania Goodfellow and our daughter Robyn Goodfellow, and this is now our house. We'll be taking over and the three of you will be our servants for the duration of our stay, understood?"
"Of course, master." Jay happily agreed.
"Good," Titania said before pointing at Rachel, "then, you, come with me and you," she now pointed at Skylar, "go with my daughter and help her get settled." Titania and Oberon began to walk off with a charmed Jay and Rachel while Skylar walked up to Robyn and said, "are you ready to go see your room, mistress?"
