"What?" asked Aubrey, too shocked to even switch back to English.

The orcs were getting closer. Aubrey couldn't see them but she could hear them.

Victor opened fire. In response Ollie and Hak-Kun joined him. There was a howl of pain. From the sound of things one of them hit something.

"Keep doing that!" yelled the English-speaking voice, "You're halfway there."

Aubrey shot at the black mass she had been aiming at, and hit a tree.

"How are you doing that?" asked the voice. It was growing more distant.

Victor grabbed his other rifle and fired again. There was a squeal from the orc, and the English-speaking voice screamed, followed by the dull thud.

"Help! Help! Come get me out of here!"

The boys ran over. Apparently they had better night vision than Aubrey because she couldn't see a thing. She stayed where she was. There was no sense in risking hurting herself.

"Where are you?" asked Hak-Kun.

All he could see was the two orc bodies.

"In the, ahem, in the, you know," said the voice.

"We really don't," said Ollie.

"The bird cage, alright? In the birdcage. On the backpack."

One of the dead orcs had an enormous, over-stuffed backpack. On one side of it hung a low quality copper birdcage.

Hak-Kun went to open the door to the cage.

"It's locked," he observed. "We need to find the key."

"To this flimsy thing?" said Victor. "Watch this."

He grasped the bars with his hands and bent several at once. Something fluttered out of the cage.

"You saved my life!" said the fluttering thing. "Those orcs said they were going to eat me, and that's one of the few things I'm willing to take an orc at his word on."

"You're welcome," said Hak-Kun. "I think the orcs were actually coming to kill us."

"Oh that's exactly what they were doing."

"So there you go. We were really just defending ourselves," said Hak-Kun "You're welcome all the same."

"No. No I'm pretty sure now I owe you four a life debt! I cannot allow this debt to go unrepaid!" insisted the voice. "I have decided only this moment that I always repay my debts. For now."

"Sure," said Aubrey, not sounding at all impressed.

"Aren't you interested in hearing all the amazing ways having a pixie as your new best friend can benefit your life?"

"I'm a little more interested in knowing how you speak English," said Aubrey. "Do you travel between dimensions?"

"What? No. What do you think I am? I'm a pixie."

"Then how do you speak our language?"

"Oh that. I speak every language at once. Which really, when you think about it, means I speak no language at all. That's deep."

"So you understand what we're saying?" asked Ollie.

"I can see this guy is the smart one."

"Well that's perfect," said Hak-Kun. "This could deal with our language barrier problem. Do you think you could translate for us?"

"You don't want me to do that," said the pixie.

"Why not?" asked Hak-Kun.

"Because I would have to mistranslate what you said to nefarious ends."

"No you wouldn't," said Aubrey.

"You don't understand. I'm a pixie. I'm physically made out of chaos. It is my fundamental nature to create mischief. I don't know if it is even possible for me to properly translate for someone. They very concept of me doing so is really funny. It's like 9/10th of the way to a real killer joke."

"You could at least try," said Aubrey.

"Yeah, but would you ever be able to trust me?"

"I guess not."

"I can help you in better ways, you don't even know."

"I don't think I want your help anymore," said Aubrey. "Not after what you just explained."

"Oh, well pixie help isn't the kind of help where it's optional or where you have any say in it whatsoever, so..."

"Could you take my turn at watch?" asked Victor.

"Absolutely!" said the pixie, touching his nose and pointing to Victor.

"If you did take his turn, would you just stand by and let us get murdered if you thought it would be funny?"

"If it would be funny huh?" mused the pixie.

"Okay, nevermind," said Victor.

"Really it's fine," said Aubrey. "The most helpful thing you could do would be leave us alone."

"Well now that's borderline rude," said the pixie. "And as your new best friend I feel like it's my responsibility to warn you that it's a really bad idea to be rude to a pixie. It's a lifetime's worth of a bad idea."

"Okay do you think you could repay this life debt in a way that will decrease, rather than increase, our chances of dying?" asked Aubrey.

"I mean I could..."

"Will you?"

"That does sound thematically appropriate," said the pixie. "But no promises. While I always repay my debts I never keep my promises. Except when I do."

"You know what?" said Aubrey. "I'm going to sleep. It's your watch Victor. The pixie can keep you company."

"Oh. I. Am. The. Best. At keeping people company," announced the pixie, flying over to victor.

Aubrey collapsed into her bedroll. This whole pixie business was a problem for Future Aubrey. Aubrey sure didn't envy her.

* * *

The next morning Aubrey cursed Past Aubrey under her breath for sticking her with this pixie problem.

"He could help us find food," offered Ollie.

"He'll find stuff that makes us sick," said Aubrey.

The kids were packing up their 'camp', which really just meant rolling up their bedrolls and repacking their backpacks. They still hadn't thought of a legitimately useful thing the pixie could do for them that Aubrey wasn't able to shoot down.

The pixie's name, it turned out, was Daffodil. He told them all this several times. Indeed he never seemed to shut up.

"He could get us money then," tried Victor.

"He'll steal it from someone powerful and leave clues leading back to us, come on," said Aubrey, a little at the end of her rope with this exercise.

"What if he just scouts ahead for us?" asked Hak-Kun.

"He'll lie about what he sees," said Aubrey.

"You know," Daffodil told Aubrey, flying over so he hovered just beside her head, "you're really good at this. You'd make a great pixie."

At least in the light of morning Aubrey could finally see what this damn thing looked like. True to form Daffodil appeared to be a androgynous elfin man with violet, blue and turquoise butterfly wings. He wore a well fitted tunic which, if it wasn't made from a leaf, was cut to look like it was.

"I think the best course of action is just to leave the pixie to his own devices," said Aubrey, ignoring him.

"That is always the best course of action," agreed Daffodil. "See, this is why we're best friends."

Aubrey didn't take the bait.