~
“George, wake up!”
George grumbled to himself at the sound of his sister’s voice. Lacey was becoming such an old grouch and a pain in his backside. Why couldn’t she just let him sleep?
“George! Wake up!”
He felt the hard nudge against his back and grumbled in annoyance. If he got one wish this Christmas, it would be for his sister to find herself a boyfriend, and hopefully, that would give her something else to concentrate on other than him.
“George!”
Her shrill-like voice echoed within his mind. He didn’t think he’d had that much to drink the night before, but maybe he was wrong. He’d had a good time, and that usually involved drinking a lot.
“George!”
“Could you please keep it down – my head is about to start pounding… And I think I might have licked a bat somewhere along the way because my tongue is…” George grumbled.
“Your head is certainly going to be pounding when Miriam gets through with you!”
That snapped George’s brain to attention. Miriam was his godmother — well, everybody’s godmother really — as the head of the faeries, she was godmother to one and all, and you didn’t want to get on the wrong side of Miriam.
George pushed his upper body away from the mattress and eyed sister with suspicion. She didn’t look as if she was messing with him.
“What does that mean?” George’s mind raced. He was trying to think three steps ahead of his sister and all the mischievous qualities that she possessed in abundance.
He was also trying to think of what he’d got up to the night before that would have the fairy godmother frothing at the mouth.
“She wants to see you.” His sister delivered that remark with a certain amount of glee in her eyes, and he knew that she wasn’t kidding. “I told you that your wicked ways would come to her attention, and now they have. Now, you’re in trouble.”
George groaned inwardly and outwardly. He face planted the pillow and groaned once more at the thought of having to go to see Miriam.
The woman had a certain quality about her that said; don’t mess with me. Nobody did. Because, above all else, she was the fairy godmother.
That woman could give a She-Demon a run for her money, and she probably had.
“Well, don’t just lie there — get up!”
Lacey yanked the pillow from beneath his face, and he groaned again as his nose hit the mattress. He was sure he heard it click.
“I’m sure that she can chew out my backside in an hour or two…”
“Now! She wants to see you now!” Lacey cut him off at the pass.
Miriam had summoned her brother, and she was going to make sure that he got there, and pronto. On the plus side — she couldn’t wait to find out just how much trouble George had got himself into this time.
George knew one thing. His sister was in her element because she’d been proven right. He had to face the music. And his sister wouldn’t give up and let him sleep until he did.
~
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~
“Well, George, what do you have to say for yourself?” Miriam asked with clipped tones as she sat behind her desk and looked as Regal as he thought possible.
She also arched just one eyebrow at him — he hated that – it somehow made him feel guilty even when he wasn’t, which, in all fairness wasn’t that often.
“If I knew what the problem was then maybe I…” George started to deflect his shortcomings — because he knew he had so many — but when her other eyebrow started to rise up toward her hairline, he sighed inwardly and shut up.
“Just because I’m getting on in years, George doesn’t mean I don’t remember being your age. We can all be a little wild at times…” She offered him a withering stare, and George somehow didn’t think that she was going to offer to throw a party for him.
The idea of the fairy godmother being wild didn’t quite sit well with him, but then, the idea of her being young once was something of a stretch as well.
“I wouldn’t say wild exactly…” He grimaced when she reached for a stack of papers and decided that it was better to shut up.
“A complaint from a wolf shifting alpha about you harassing his pack — including chasing a she-wolf into a river so she could get away from your magic…”
“Okay, that one was…” He tried to remember it.
“A complaint from a bear shifter that you deliberately sent a swarm of bees after his bear…”
“I remember that one, the bear…” George stopped talking and smiling when she offered him a glare and rapidly moved on with a snap of paperwork down on her desk.
“A complaint from a witch,” she stopped and lifted her gaze from the paperwork to eye him with a hard stare. George swallowed a good portion of his tongue. “You deliberately messed with one of her spells that caused a catastrophic chain of events to occur…” George grimaced again.
“In my defense…”
“Oh, you have a defense?” It wasn’t even the way that she said it, but the way that her steely gaze bore into his very soul that made him change stance and his tune.
“I know this sounds bad…”
“Bad? Hmm…” She left it there, but she did continue to glare at him until George cleared his throat. “You seem to be lacking in direction…”
“I wouldn’t say…”
“Let me rephrase that. I have decided to give you a task to do…”
“That’s very…”
“Isn’t it?” She snapped back. George shut his mouth, bit his tongue, and took his medicine. “Glad to see that you’re on my wavelength.”
“Can I ask what the task is?” George grimaced inwardly.
He didn’t want to know what the task was. He didn’t want the task.
“Your task — this Christmas — is to give fate a little helping hand,” she offered back with a sweet smile, that he knew wasn’t sweet at all, and probably not even a smile, but some well planned out attack on his subconscious.
“Fate?” George swallowed again.
“Yes, George, fate.”
“I hate to ask…”
“Then shall I tell you?”
There was dead silence in the room. George stared at the fairy godmother, and she glared back at him expectantly.
Tick – tick – tick – he could hear the grandfather clock ticking within his mind, and his heart picked up the beat.
“About that stack…” He lifted his hand and motioned to the paperwork upon her desk.
Miriam looked down and registered surprise. Then she flicked her hand and the paperwork shot of the desk into the bin.
“Consider in taken care of,” Miriam said as she laced her fingers together in front of her on the desk and leaned in slightly. George swallowed again.
“That’s very…”
“Isn’t it? George, I know that people of your age like to party hard, let their hair down, flit from one romantic engagement to another…”
“Engagement!” George swallowed a bigger portion of his tongue that time.
“Sow his wild oats…”
“Fairy godmother…” George squirmed in place. He really didn’t want to talk about his love life or lack of it with her.
Geez, anyone but her. It just seemed so wrong that nothing could make it right.
“But going through life, drunk, debauched, and meaningless only leads to one thing…”
“Happiness?” George offered and immediately followed it up with a grimace when one of her eyes took to squinting, and her top lip twitched.
“It’s time that you learned the meaning of true love…” She offered, and George’s heart tried to escape through his ribs.
“Please tell me I’m not going to be the Christmas fairy…” George closed his eyes and gritted his teeth.
He didn’t want to be the Christmas fairy. Traditionally that role went to a female, and he thought that it still should.
“Yes, George — you’re the Christmas fairy.” The sound of glee in her voice forced his eyelids open just so that he could see the look on her face. Yes, glee.
“But…” He pleaded.
“I know you’re going to do your very best. That’s all, George. Thank you for coming,” Miriam dismissed him.
George didn’t move. It could have been something to do with the fact that his feet felt like they were encased in concrete — or, the fact that his stomach had a large boulder inside of it.
She waved a dismissive hand in his direction, and that made his feet start to work. He shuffled towards the door.
“And, George, Happy Christmas.” Miriam grinned.
George muttered something under his breath as he eyed the Christmas tree in the corner of her room with disdain. There on top was the Christmas fairy of old, a female fairy. George groaned.