undergrounds | A Little Bit of Faith, Trust, and Pixie Dust [Closed]

Mags surveyed the two younger people carefully. Daryl was obviously uncomfortable, something she wouldn't have expected with a thief. And Annie's more than happily on his side, and that's good enough for her. Plus, Hillingdon had done great things for her granddaughter.

"Don't worry- I hardly see her lately it seems." She gives Annie a soft, pointed look. "She's usually with that fae lord boyfriend of hers."

"Gran, shush," Annie says, clearly embarrassed. "Daryl and I are just gonna grab my stuff. I'll come back tonight, I promise." She reaches out and touches his elbow. "C'mon. Love you, Gran."

Daryl flinched slightly, almost unnoticeably at the unexpected touch, covering it with a quick gulp and a jerky step toward Annie. He gave another nod to Mags as he began walking away, "Ma'am."

The entire way to the training room, Daryl kept his head down and his body as drawn in as he could, feeling like the old woman's eyes were on him. Once inside the room, he sucked in a heavy breath before speaking, "She uh... she don't like that fae you been hanging around with?"

"Be careful, Annzie," Mags calls after her granddaughter.

The training room looked like a home gym. There were weights and mirrors and a treadmill, as well as a few punching bags, one that even looked like a proper torso. Down the hall was actually a small wave pool for swimming. A few racks held training weapons, and it didn't take Annie long to locate her back-pack for such things. Instead fo training weapons, however, she put in a few real ones, including two iron knives in her boots.

"Finnick? No, she thinks he's absolutely charming. That's why she doesn't trust him." Why most people didn't. "She doesn't trust any fae, really." And with Annie's history, she had every reason not to trust much of anyone around her. The last thing Mags wanted was Annie getting hurt again. She'd already lost her son and daughter-in-law, and thought she'd lost Annie a few times, too. She didn't think she could handle such a loss again.

He grunted in lieu of a proper answer. Most fae made his hackles raise, so he was with her Grandma on that one. But it was Annie's life and her choices.

"Where these books of yours at?" he asked, starting to idly wander the gym set-up. It all looked pretty well used, but all to slick at the same time. The things money got people...

"Library," she said, gesturing for him to follow her down more halls towards another room of her house. IT wasn't a huge library, by any means. A small room that had been converted into one. Most of the books were fiction, only a few books on the supernatural.

"The best stuff is at Hillingdon," she explains. "But Gran has a few here."

Daryl 'mmmd' again, this time wandering closer to the shelves. He was much more interested in books. Fiction was nice sometimes, but he had a slight preference for non-fiction. Poetry and fables, folk lore, legends and texts that analysed their cultural significance. But fiction definitely wasn't terrible. A nice escape sometimes.

And hell, this was the kind of room that Daryl outright envied. Just being able to dedicate the space to owning that many of them and keeping them nice and being able to read them whenever you wanted? That was worth wasting time being envious for a moment.

Annie, luckily, knows exactly where the books she needs are. They're pulled out on a small table where she'd been looking over htem previously. Picking up and examining a few of them, she wound up placing two into her bag.

"I think we're good! So take me to this place."

Daryl reluctantly pulled himself away from the shelves, eyes lingering on them until he was out of the room. He made his way quickly out of the house and tried his best not to make it obvious what a relief it was to be back at his bike.

"Place is over in Brent," he explained. "Already talked to the kid's folks. They ain't been taken seriously by the normal authorities and are willing to keep quiet about what we do so long as we get their daughter back."

It had taken a bit to convince them he wasn't a danger, but their worry over their child had outweighed their caution when the police weren't giving them more than the usual runaway run-around.

Meanwhile, while Daryl is relieved to be back on his bike, Annie's more relieved just to be out of the house. She knows it's a nice place, really nice, and didn't often take people by. To a degree, she was uncomfortable with her own wealth, especially when it wasn't hers. Not really, anyway.

Back on the bike, Annie puts the helmet on and places her hands on Daryl's belt.

"And we'll get her back," Annie agrees. "Hopefully before tea."

"Ain't counting on it," Daryl muttered, trying to be realistic. He definitely thought the fae shit would give them a lead on where to start looking for the kid, but he didn't expect them to catch her that day. Kid had a couple days lead, after all.

------

The house they pulled up to was a modest semi-detached house in a clearly planned neighborhood of similar homes. Two stories, brick, large enough fenced garden for a tree and the small play house to fit without over-whelming the backyard space. Daryl pulled his bike around to the garage and, once they were off it, opened the thing up to pull it inside next to the car already sitting there.

"They said they'd leave it unlocked for when I got back," he explained, hand on the door to the garden. The family had clearly put a lot of faith in Daryl, who seemed (to them at least) to be the only one who believed them and weren't laughing behind their backs or accusing them of toking up, maybe getting drunk, and seeing things. "They uh... they caught me snooping. So they know what I am."

Fair warning that they were now fully aware of the supernatural element involved. Not just that Daryl thought they were telling the truth.

"That's handy," Annie says cautiously, following him out into the garden. Already she's pulling out one of her books and starting to page through it. This wasn't her usual shtick, but it's good to do something that involves putting herself in less danger. Finnick would approve, at least.

"Wait- you changed? In front of them?" That was always a super bad idea. but if their daughter was flying...

"No!" he immediately answered in a hushed, thoroughly offended whisper. If he'd had done that, they would have seen him naked. Ain't no one seeing him naked anytime soon.

A moment later, he was pulling his shoulders in on himself and muttering, "But they saw me when I wasn't human and chased me off before I could finish my look-see. So I cam back - human - and told them I wanted to help them find their daughter. They were suspicious, so I..." he cleared his throat and mumbled the last bit: "told 'em I was the bobcat they saw."

It had convinced them, since there was no way anyone else had known what they'd seen in the back yard. And even if they'd told someone, there was no way a complete stranger, an obvious American at that, would have known. It helped that they were desperate for answers of any kind.

"Just... just be gentle with 'em, okay?" Daryl asked of her, keeping his head turned away as he opened the door to the garden. "If they ask questions, keep yer answers short and simple and polite. They'll accept it if you say you can't get into details about what you're doin'."

The garden was spacious, even for a London home. A rare find to have one that could hold a fully grown tree still have plenty of room to run around and even host a small patio tea if desired. Still tiny, but not so tiny that it was only a garden in name. In the far corner opposite the garage, was the kid's playhouse. Daryl pointed to it, "the weird shit I couldn't suss out's over in there. I'm gonna tell her parents we're here so they know we ain't here to rob 'em."

"sorry, sorry!" Annie said hastily, turning her face away from Daryl. "I just- never mind." she was being stupid. Anyway it was better to focus on the task at hand.

setting her bag down, Annie took in the small yard. It was beautiful, as small as it was. but there was certainly some magic going on. "you do that- I'm going to look at the house." The little play one. It was tucked away enough that it would be the perfect play spot, something she would have loved as a child.

Surveying the area around it, it didn't look dangerous but Annie kept her guard up. Peering in the Windows she saw that it was a well-used house, chairs and a table set up for a child's tea party. But she didn't enter. Instead, she went back to her book, paging through it right outside the play door.

Daryl left her to it, heading for the back door.

The inside of the play house was surprisingly pristine for all that it had been left alone several days. Not an iota of dust or debris seemed to cover anything and the dishes set out for the tea party looked like they'd just been put on the table. Not visible from her position, but would be once she entered - if she entered - was an actual fairy fort of leaves and twigs built in the upper corner of the tiny house, on a shelf. Something a little bigger than mouse-sized. It could easily be confused for a bird's nest by anyone who didn't know what they were looking for.

While Daryl's off, Annie's paging through her book, looking for information on fae that prefer children, or home settings. When nothing seems to really stick out at her, she looks over her shoulder through the window of the little house again. There's something about that place...

"Daryl?" She calls, hoping he can hear her. "I'm going to look inside the play house." Cautiously, she pulls open the door, even at her 5 feet nothing height, crouching to get a better look inside.

While the weather outside is seasonally chilly, inside the play house it's pleasantly warm and decidedly summery. Nothing else out of the ordinary seemed to be going on just yet, however.

Odd. Very odd, given the April chill outside. There's something up in this playhouse, without a doubt. Annie looks at the tea set- there's no dust, nothing, they couldn't have been put out very long ago. Set for two- the child, and a friend. Gingerly, Annie pulled out one of the chairs and took a seat, looking around the house from that perspective.

There's a nest in the corner, she can see it from here. And if she were a child... Cautiously, she makes her way over to it, and a few steps from it, she realizes exactly what it is. "DARYL!" She calls again, over her shoulder. "I've found something!"

Unfortunately for her, it was not Daryl's voice that answered her. It was, instead, a very tiny voice from the nest, going "Shhhhhh! Not so loud! Use your inside voice!"

Annie gaps, slapping both hands over her mouth.

"Oh! Oh, goodness, I'm so sorry- hello?" She peers towards the fort. "I'm not here to hurt you. I'm looking for a friend." More or less.

The tiny voice gave a derisive snort before an equally tiny head popped out of the 'nest' looking very much like a bird, complete with beak and a spray of feathers where hair would be. But that was about all the similarities it had to one. It otherwise looked like something of a cross between a human and an insect, with spindly limbs, pointed, oddly-sectioned joints, and three sets of dragon fly wings that buzzed with annoyance.

"Well you came looking in the wrong place. I'm not your friend. I'd remember if I was."

Alright, the fae isn't exactly wrong.

"No, no, not for you." Not exactly. "for a little girl. She lives in the house that this garden belongs to. Have you seen her?" Fae, at least, can't lie.

"This garden belongs to me. I claimed it," the pixie-folk stated quite smartly, condescending to Annie in no small measure. "I only allow the humans to remain here because Lady Kayla throws the loveliest tea parties. If they've told you otherwise, I'll have to kick them out."

Annie didn't think that was how it worked, but she let it go. Same with the condesencion, as she was hardly the first fae for Annie to run into, and given how small she looked, it was hard to take her seriously at face-value.

"Well, it just so happens that I'm, ah, that I'm looking for Lady Kayla. I'm her friend, and we were supposed to play today." Hopefully the fae would tell her where she was. Or how exactly she'd flown off, though she was reasonably sure the fae was responsible for the flying child.

"Well, she's not here," the fae answered, chirping it's answer out as it stood up and shuffled around it's little fort. "She went off on an errand for me and won't be back until..." the fae stopped to think, then gave a sharp shrug, "until she's back! You'll just have to wait."

An errand. She was getting somewhere. "Did she? What sort of errand?" Annie looks at the fae with innocent eyes.

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