Chapter 155 – Circus then Dinner

"Common Alzi, you can do it. You just need to hold on with your right hand and reach forward. Ioelena will make sure I can catch you," Shimmer shouts up to me.

How did they convince me to come up here? I can fly why would I ever be hanging on for dear life? If I fall, I'm likely going down back first, so I can't even use my wings to save me. Stupid wives trying to get me hurt!

"My Lady, you are safe. Ioelena is well practiced in helping even Geta fall from that height safely," Aurora says, joining my wives in convincing me to do stupid things.

"Would this height even hurt Geta!" I shout.

"It could," Shimmer suggests.

I reach out with my left hand to the next bar. I grab it and find it a lot easier than I thought it would be. So, I start going through the rest, swinging around until I reach the end. I look nothing like the controlled mass of muscles Geta was, but I did it.

"What do I do now?" I ask them.

"You could just swing off and glide down," Ioelena says.

"Here, Alzi, I heat up the air and get an updraft for you to glide off," Shimmer offers. She brings a flame to life, and I give the idea a shot. My wings snap open, and the draft actually brings me up into the air a bit before I glide slowly to the ground again.

"That was the stupidest thing ever," I tell them.

"Oh, come on, it was a great show. I think we found something for Elora and Geta to do," Ioelena says. "Maybe add in Shimmer to make it easier, but have those two carry you across, then swing to launch you into the air. You would need to hold onto their legs or something, but I think it would be a great finish to a show. Watching your beautiful wings as you glide around. They do some jump to get off, and maybe you can dive into their arms?"

"Is this a circus show?" Shimmer says with a chuckle. "It would be fun for the wives but a little too much of a circus show for the rest of the nobles."

"Maybe. Pixies like to do that kind of thing. But us nobles are a lot more serious than that bunch," Ioelena says.

"Pixies?"

"Yes, tiny things. Like fairies, but love to play tricks and such. I have a bit of their blood in me, giving me my pink strips," Ioelena says.

"Tiny? How small, and how did that work out?" I ask her. I've heard about fairies, and I don't know how they would mate with anything other than fairies.

"As small as you are thinking about. My great how ever many it was grandmother gambled with them and won. That is all they passed down, and I would rather not think about it," Ioelena says. "So, what are we going to do next?"

"Hmm, none of us can throw a single thing that Geta can, so we will need to stick to acrobatic stuff," Shimmer says, walking around the items. "Anything that catches your eye, Alzi?"

"I don't know. We can just try them all, I guess. Never done them before," I say. Most of them have something to do with the upper body. Like pulling yourself over a wall or using a bar to climb up a wall with pegs. Things I could do by just flapping my wings, really.

It is nice to be able to use them again.

"My Lady, you really are not dressed for this activity," Aurora says. "The first one was not that bad, but some of these you really should have the proper outfit for."

"The corset will be fine for the top and just put a pair of shorts on for the bottom and take the skirt off," Shimmer says.

"Please hold still, Alzi. I am not as good at this as my daughter," Aurora says. "There we go."

In a second, my thighs were free for the sun to shine on. My tights were still on, but different shoes lay before me—the normal flats that they let me wear in the field. I slipped out of the heels and into the flats.

"Anything else?" I ask, hoping to get out of this stupid corset.

"You want out, I guess. Ok, my Lady," Aurora says. "But you won't have anything to support your breasts."

"That is fine," I tell her. She gives me a shirt and frees my chest from the terrible top.

"Shyla will have a project for tonight. Enjoy running around, my Lady," Aurora tells me, picking up the heels.

...

"How did I only complete two of these?" I ask. I didn't think running up the side of a wall would be this hard. I'm as tall as Geta and I have plenty of reach with my arms. Yet even trying to flap my wings to cheat I can't reach the edge. I had to fly up to the damn thing to meet up with Shimmer. Ioelena is too short to even have a chance at achieving it.

"Practice and endurance, Alzi. I only did two more than you, and I know I can't do any more than this," Shimmer says with a defeated chuckle. "There is a reason these are part of a show for Geta. Not everyone can do it, and certainly not all right after each other. She even goes from easy to hard. Two is an amazing start, I would say, especially when you made it up here anyway."

"Flight does make most of these useless," I mumble. "How do we get down?"

"You can just glide down silly."

"I know. I guess I was asking about you."

"Can my beautiful wife carry me?" Shimmer asks. "Please?"

"I can try," I sigh. It isn't too far down, and I'm just gliding.

"Thank you, my love," Shimmer says. "How do you want to hold me?"

"In my arms, I guess?" I say.

"Well, it is nice you don't want me hanging by your toes, my dear," Shimmer chuckles.

"Just stand there, and I'll do it," I huff out. One hand under Shimmer's knees and the other on her back and pick her up. My wings unfurl, and I jump off the side. Her hands wrap around my neck, pushing the collar against my skin.

We hit the ground a bit harder than I'm used to, but my knees hold, and I set the tall woman down.

"Do you want to do a short dinner after the bath or the real dinner right now?" Shimmer asks, looking towards the sunset over the horizon.

"Now is fine," I say. "I'm not used to feeling hungry."

"Alright. Ioelena, do you want to join us?" Shimmer asks. "We can switch up the room and do it in mine. I'm still on the second floor, so there are fewer steps for everyone."

"I'll go let the kitchen know," Shimmer's maid says, bowing out of our little group.

"I'll lead the way then," Shimmer says.

"Should we bathe with magic first?" Ioelena asks. "I think dinner would be better if we didn't smell all our sweat. We may not be looking like we took a dip in a pond like Geta, but we did do some work."

"Yay, that would be nice," I say.

"I can help you, my Ladies," Aurora says. A wave of mana, and she cleans us up.

"Ready now?" Shimmer asks us.

"Yes," Ioelena says. I give Shimmer a nod, and we head back to the house.

The group follows Shimmer up through the massive yard and through the halls. She takes us to a different set of stairs than I normally take and we head up to the second floor and then her room.

Shimmer's walls were painted orange, like she told me before. A small bookshelf and chair in the corner were the only real difference between her room and mine outside of the color. Shimmer quickly found a seat at her table, letting Ioelena and me sit down and begin the wait for the food.

Shimmer's maid comes up soon with the standard cart and passes out the food. We all place the useless napkins in our laps, though Ioelena is smaller in the chest, so maybe the napkin could catch a few scraps for her. But with how careful we are forced to eat with all the rules, the odds of us dropping anything are low.

The food is standard. The big difference between each meal seems to be where they get the meat from and the seasoning for all the food. It does well keeping it fresh despite the similar look each night.

Shimmer takes a bite and lets us begin the dinner.

"Ioelena, did you have a lot of pixies on your family's land?" Shimmer asks Ioelena. Ioelena gives her a pause before looking at me and starting. I guess Shimmer already knows this?

"Yes, our family rules over a large part of the forest that doesn't have all the monsters in it. Instead, pixies and fairies and a small group of dryads live. We have a few small towns and the city we live in. But most of it is keeping the forest free from bloodshed. The pixies are obsessed with playing tricks on the other groups and themselves really. Always stirring up trouble but rarely drawing blood. The worst was when they made the fairies think the left was right and the right was left. They couldn't fly straight for a week. Had one fly at me after spending the week trying to get out of the forest and to my family. Saw a bit of my pink hair and just started screaming," Ioelena says. "Pixies are great with magic but terrible neighbors. I don't know how their society is still standing with all the crap they do to each other. No matter what happens they just laugh it off and promise to do worse back. I didn't get to talk with the fairies much; they really didn't like my pink hair. My sisters would handle them normally. Dryads would handle the pixies themselves and didn't reach out much."

"What is the difference between a fairy and a pixie?" I ask Ioelena.

"The normal joke is to check if you still have your underwear. If you do, you're talking to a fairy; otherwise, it is a pixie," Ioelena says. "Really is just a small difference in wings and the type of affinity they normally get. Fairy magic is generally based on miracles. Pixies tricks. We would always guess based on their hair color. Fairies are normally golden, while pixies are pink. Fairies aren't happy with the small differences, always doing their best to separate themselves from their trickster cousins. So be careful with them. It is an easy way to make them mad at you. Pixies don't care; they'll just tease you about the mistake for a bit, then try to get you to trip or something."

"Seems a bit tiring to work with that constantly," I say. I wonder if I tired Mommy out with all my little tricks? I wasn't very good at it. She normally found out about it quickly, I think, but just let it happen to make me laugh.

"You get used to it. Eventually, you start to expect what the pixies will do, and the fairies are easy to handle. They just have a lot of issues to deal with. But both provide a lot of materials for potions and if you can get one to talk about magic, you can learn a lot. They are happy we keep a good border for them so they don't have to fight monsters as much," Ioelena explains. "We get knowledge and materials, they get safety. A good trade, we both think."

"Don't they need to fight to get strong?"

"No, they are magical beings, so they grow stronger naturally. Most believe it is the Goddess of Nature that is helping them grow, but they refuse to tell us."

"Are there other magical beings?" I ask them.

"True dragons, monsters, true phoenixes, and likely some sea creatures and the such. Not many that are willing to interact with us," Shimmer says. "Dragons and phoenixes don't like to work with us. We all used to hunt them too much, I guess. Fluvis would know more about the sea creatures. But pixies and fairies are the few that actually interact with non-magical beings in a friendly manner."