Faerie Dust

The short, blond haired boy perched up on the rooftop of the red brick school, staring down intently at the dark haired beauty before his bright blue eyes. An old, worn leather book occupied her tiny hands and Pehpennas wondered what it was that she was reading as he took out a wooden pipe, shoving it between his lips.

He was always wondering what she was reading.

But the quaint, intimate (at least on Pephennas' part) moment was soon shattered by other voices. Pephennas looked on, confused. His mortal was never the object of anyone else's attention.

At the sound of their exclamations, the girl looked up to the roof of the school before flitting her eyes to the left. The leprechaun's breath hitched in his throat, causing him to choke a bit on the smoke coming from his pipe. For a second, he imagined that her eyes had locked with his, that she had seen him, noticed him.

But she wouldn't see him. She never did.

He was too much of a coward to let that happen.



At the sound of her name being called, Maeve Finley looked up, dark eyes going wide when she saw the group of boys loping towards her. She shut the book fast, cradling it against her chest as she tensed.

"Oi, Finny! What'cha readin' o'er there?"

Maeve kept her lips pursed tight, and held the book even tighter.

"Nuthin'."

The ginger smiled a lopsided grin. "Aw, c'mon love. No need to be so antisocial now."

The two other boys laughed as the redhead ripped the book from Maeve's grasp, tearing the frail old cover right off.

Maeve gasped, scrambling to pick it up as tears stung at her eyes.

"Fir Darrig? What the hell is a Fir Darrig? These fairy tales? Oh Finny," her tormentor smiled a malicious grin, kicking the cover away. "When are you gonna get yer head outta the clouds?"

"Fuck you."

The smile dropped.

"What was that?"



Pephennas couldn't handle it anymore. He jumped from the rooftop, landing as gracefully and silently as a cat, and pocketed his pipe. With a snap of his fingers, the ginger in the rugby jacket tripped up while standing completely still, smashing his nose into the pavement.

His cronies laughed.

"What the hell was that, mate?"

"Trippin' o'er your own two feet, are yah?"

The playful mocking allowed a red faced Pephennas to get close enough to the ginger to pull the back of his jacket over his head and push him back down to the ground.

The two cronies looked around with eyes wide, finally realizing that something wasn't right.

Too late.

Pephennas snapped his fingers, cracking their skulls together with a smirk.

It didn't take another moment for the three goons to straighten themselves out and make a break for it.

When they were far enough away, Pephennas snapped one last time, unwinding the laces of their running shoes and intertwining them with each other.

He tried not to give off a hearty laugh that might give him away, but when he turned back to look and see how his maiden was fairing, she was staring right at him in a way that made him feel uncomfortable. Like she could see him.

"Where the bloody hell did you come from? And what the hell was that?"

Pephennas could feel the color drain from his face before it felt like his cheeks were on fire. Not from anger, but from embarrassment. He didn't- couldn't- say anything for the longest time as he was entranced by her dark gaze.

How could he have gotten so careless?

"Oi! I'm talkin' to you!"

Oh, the leprechaun was very well aware of that fact. So instead of speaking, which he was sure he wouldn't be able to do properly in front of her, he picked up the mangled pages of the book and the cover, carefully stuffing the insides back where they belonged before handing it back over to the girl.

"I- I reckon you dropped this," he managed

The girl stared at Pephennas for a second in disbelief, and his heart hammered. He would have loved to receive a kiss as a token of her gratitude, but he ultimately decided it might have been a bit early to ask for that.

After a few long seconds without breathing and fearing he'd pass out from the lack of oxygen, the girl finally took the book, holding it close. Pephennas let out a loud sigh of relief.

"What's your name?"

Pephennas' eyes widened.

"I- uh..."

"Niall?"

The dark haired beauty took a second to look down at her book, and Pephennas took the chance to make a break for it.



When Maeve looked back up, the blond boy- Niall?- was gone. She blinked, dumbstruck, before pushing the long dark strands of hair from her freckled face, looking down at her book. Suddenly, her eyes widened, and she opened it- the pages were again firmly attached to the spine, as if Rory never even touched it.

She didn't want to believe her eyes when she saw him appear before her, pulling Rory's varsity jacket over his head. Maeve had hoped she had missed something, been too caught up mourning the destruction of her book to notice the blond sneaking up around the boys. But the three boys didn't seem to see him as he tormented and laughed at them. And then there was the way he snapped his fingers and they tripped over their own feet, and then the book.

Maeve Finley gulped, looking back up to where the boy stood just moments ago, hoping what she had just experienced was a dream.

She flipped through the pages, searching for the creature Rory had been laughing at just moments ago.

Fir Darrig. A shy, reclusive creature with an uncanny knack for mischief. It is said that they love to play tricks on the more fortunate and take pity on those less so.

Maeve scrunched her nose, looking at the drawing. The boy she encountered didn't wear a little cap on his head, he didn't have long bushy red sideburns and a pointy nose and he certainly didn't wear tight leggings. He was normal. Normal clothing, normal hair, good looks, perfectly normal.

She looked around again.

No. It just couldn't be true.