A cold front blew in a couple weeks later. Niles tried to convince Ashton to wear a jacket out in the garden, but the faerie only side-eyed him and inched away when he suggested it, so Niles didn't push. Ashton was still too weak and thin to manage his body heat properly, so their garden visits inevitably became shorter.

They had just come in from a morning garden visit, and Niles had immediately bundled Ashton up in a blanket and placed him in his hammock. The faerie was shivering from the cold, so he almost seemed grateful for Niles' handling.

Lucy, meanwhile, was very aggressively pushing herself into the side of Niles' neck to try to warm up. Niles was busy texting their parents, who had asked how they were doing with the cold snap, so he couldn't cup his hands around Lucy to warm her up like he usually did. She was so annoyed by this that she lay down on his shoulder to kick at his neck with both tiny feet, trying to express her displeasure and get his attention.

Niles ignored her as he texted, but he eventually addressed her.

"Knock it off and come down here," he said, patting the desk in front of him. "I'm texting Mom. She and Dad want a picture."

Lucy perked up at that and finally stopped kicking him, opening her wings to drop down on the desk below.

She struck a pose, and Niles laughed at her cheekiness, snapping a couple of pictures for their parents. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched as Ashton slipped out of his hammock to creep up to them and stare at the phone. The faerie watched, fascinated, as Lucy posed again, and her still image appeared on the screen.

"What is that?" he asked, pointing at the photo. 

Niles was surprised that Ashton was initiating the conversation, but he angled the phone toward the faerie anyway, reversing the camera so that Ashton could see himself. The faerie jumped back a bit before edging closer to the phone and watching his image grow bigger.

"It's a camera," Niles explained. "You use it to record moving or still images of things. It captures a single moment in time so that you can look back at the pictures and remember good times."

"Is it... magic?" Ashton wanted to know.

"Eh, human magic, I guess," Lucy chimed in. "I don't really get how it works, either."

"Do the versions of us on the screen feel anything?" Ashton asked next.

Niles tried not to laugh. "Umm, no," he answered. "It looks like you, but it isn't part of you. It's not a real person. You know, like the movies on the TV."

Ashton looked very confused. "I don't get it at all," he admitted.

"That's ok," Niles assured him. "It's like drawing a picture, but the phone does it for you. Here, let me show you some pictures."

He opened his gallery and scrolled through the photos, starting with the one he had just taken of Lucy. Ashton stared at it for a long moment, looking up every so often to stare at Lucy, as if comparing her with the photo on the screen.

"Oh, hey, show him a picture of Mom and Dad," Lucy suggested excitedly.

"Oh, yeah!" Niles agreed. He quickly scrolled through his phone and stopped on a photo, angling the screen towards Ashton again.

It was one of Niles' favorite family photos. In it, Lucy was perched on his shoulder, but she looked like she was about to fall off from laughing too much. Niles was grinning so hard that his eyes were practically closed, and their mom was eyeing them both with exasperation. Their dad was the only one paying attention to the camera, staring directly at it and beaming, one arm wrapped around their mom's shoulders.

Ashton's eyes widened, and he laid a small hand on the image of Niles in wonder. "These are your parents?" he asked.

Niles nodded. "Yeah, my mom and my dad." 

Is this a good time to ask Ashton about his clan? he wondered. Would he open up about his family if I told him about mine first?

Ashton squinted at the picture. "Are you sure this is your dad?" he wanted to know. "You don't look anything like him."

Niles laughed at Ashton's bluntness, and Lucy took to explain.

"Nah, that's his dad alright. Niles just looks exactly like his mom is all," Lucy said. "Who do you look more like?"

"My dad," Ashton said absentmindedly, distracted by the photo of Niles, Lucy, and their parents.

Niles and Lucy exchanged a glance. Ashton looked like a water sprite, so did that mean he got his sprite blood from his father? Niles was just about to ask when his question was cut short by his phone going off.

Niles looked down at the screen and laughed. "Mom says you need to eat healthier," he told Lucy. "She says your skin is looking dull and your eyes aren't clear."

"Oh, come on!" Lucy exclaimed, offended. "How can she tell that I've been eating junk just from a picture?"

She leaned over Niles' fingers to look at the screen. "Just tell her that it's bad lighting," she suggested.

Niles scoffed. "Like she'll believe that. She knows that all you eat is fried human food."

"Because it's the best," Lucy insisted.

"Oh, now she's sent a picture of soup," Niles commented. "She says it's what she made for her and dad tonight. And she's mad that we don't visit them. She says she would cook for us if we were actually there more often."

"Wait, I want to send a voice message," Lucy interrupted, climbing over Niles' fingers. She leaned towards the phone as Niles pressed the record button.

"Mom, you live, like, a million hours away," she pointed out. "And we're the ones who always visit you! Why don't you and dad come up here for a change?"

Niles hit send.

They waited for a bit. Ashton still looked confused about the photos, so Niles held his phone out for Lucy to swipe through more pictures. She moved through them pretty quickly, but she stopped on a picture of the two of them at a lake with a woodlands faerie.

"This is Mara," Lucy confided. She gazed at the picture of the dark-haired, serious-looking woodlands with nothing but adoration in her usually mischievous eyes. "We've been dating for three months. Her clan was invited to the ECoLF Conference earlier this year for the spring session. She was their representative. That's how we met." Lucy was quiet for a moment before adding softly, "I miss her."

Niles patted her gently. "Well then, go visit her," he suggested. "I won't stop you." Lucy opened her mouth to respond, but then Niles' phone pinged again.

"Nope," he said, reading the message aloud for the two faeries. "Mom says that Dad says it's too cold to visit us."

"We're just two states north of them!" Lucy grouched. "The temperature isn't that different. Geez, they're so lazy."

"They're also getting older," Niles reminded her. "We can't expect them to always make the drive up here."

"Then they can fly," Lucy argued.

"How about you fly?" Niles retorted, poking her forehead.

"Yeah, maybe if they don't want to see me until next year," Lucy said, laughing. "I can probably make it down there by then."

***

Ashton was quiet as he watched the human and pixie bicker with each other. Lucy had told him that she grew up with Niles, but he was still surprised to hear her call his parents "mom" and "dad."

"Lucy," he began slowly. "How old were you when you started living with humans?"

Lucy scratched her head. "I don't know, maybe ten?"

"No, that's not right," Niles argued. "Cause we just celebrated your 25th year with us, remember? You were eight. I was turning six."

"Oh, that's right," Lucy nodded. "Time's a little weird now that I've passed the geant. Everything feels slow now." She looked at Ashton. "Anyway, how old are you, Ashton?"

"I'm 25 summers," he said, and Niles nodded. "Ah, you're a summer faerie," he said. "Lucy's a spring."

Ashton looked at the pixie, who was now hanging upside down from Niles' fingers.

"I'm 33 springs," she offered. "Though I hit the geant at 27, so I don't know why I still bother counting. Must be a side effect from living with humans. Niles is 31. He hasn't gone through the geant, though."

Niles rolled his eyes at Lucy's dumb little comment. "And I never will go through the geant, Luce," he reminded her. "That's a faerie thing, remember?"

Lucy finally righted herself and pouted. "I'm sure I can come up with some sort of spell to make you live as long as me," she exclaimed. "I don't want my baby brother to get old and gray before I do."

Niles raised his eyebrows. "You're too bad at magic to do that," he pointed out. Lucy let out an outraged squeak, but Niles ignored her and turned to Ashton instead. "Have you gone through the geant yet, Ash?" he wanted to know.

Ashton shook his head. Most faeries in his clan didn't slow down their aging until they were in their late twenties or early thirties. He probably still had a few years to go.

"Ah, you can get a hokla after you pass the geant, right?" Lucy suddenly asked, eyes gleaming.

Ashton was a bit speechless, and he looked to Niles for help answering. Niles just shrugged and went back to paying attention to Lucy, who was now climbing and twisting between his fingers. He had to keep moving his hands for her so she wouldn't fall.

"I guess," he finally answered quietly.

They didn't talk about it anymore, but Ashton was in low spirits for the rest of the day. He had only fleetingly thought about hoklas growing up, as he was too busy with daily clan affairs. All woodlands expected to find their hokla one day, and Ashton was no different, not giving it a second thought and figuring he'd meet them eventually. But now that he was flightless and lost among humans... he'd never make it back home, let alone be able to build a life with someone. And even if he did make it back to the mother tree... what woodlands would want a hokla who was stuck on the ground?

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A/N: I explain what all these italicized words mean in the next couple of extras, so don't freak out if you're hecka confused.

Thanks for reading! Feel free to comment and see you in the next part!