Out in the wood, there's a band of small Faeries, if you walk unwary at night~ They're laughing and drinking, and soon you'll be thinking, that you'd come to join in their light~

The sun hit Sylvia in the eyes, and she squinted, raising her arm to shield herself instinctively.

“I… I’m on earth…” She gasped, rising unsteadily to her feet. “I made it back…”

Sylvia’s relationship with the planet earth was a complex one. The argument could be made that she was the only human being standing on its surface right now who had never been born there.

Before, she didn’t give much thought to the hustle and bustle of human society. It just wasn’t relevant to her. After all, she was a host back then. She had a home of her own, the Harem Hotel, and all the power she could dream of.

That was no longer the case. Now, she was just an ordinary human being, with no power to speak of whatsoever.

It was like she was seeing the entire planet with brand new eyes. She couldn’t help but smile at the thought.

“Wow… everything’s so pretty…”

Sylvia was standing in the middle of a field of flowers. The island was full of places like this one, and yet Sylvia knew that this was so much different.

She took a deep breath, and exhaled. The sweet air of the wilderness danced in her nostrils and made her swoon.

…Still. There would be time for appreciating nature and the planet later. Right now, she was looking for her target. She squeezed her gun tightly to her chest.

“It’s just a transformation,” she reminded herself. “Not a big deal. I do those all the time! If anything, I should be happy that Dakota gave me a little taste of power back!”

And yet, as she held the gun, she couldn’t help but see Nick’s face pop up in her mind. And then Mary’s disapproving expression.

She hesitated. And then she realized she was hesitating… and began to question herself.

“What’s the big idea?” She mumbled, kicking some grass. “Everybody else is transforming people, too. That’s the whole point of the challenge! It’s not like I can just back out of it or anything! So why do I feel so guilty?”

Even as she said that, though, Sylvia couldn’t get the images of all the people she’d transformed with her host powers out of her mind. She remembered Dani’s distress, and her own heartbreak at transforming Mimi into Marley, even though that had been a good thing in so many ways. She thought of how Holly’s exit transformation had made her so happy, then about how much happier she had been last night, when she and Nick had finally managed to be with each other the way they’d always wanted to before.

Sylvia had done that. She’d turned Holly into a cuck. Did she really think one night would make a difference there?

“…I really hope Holly isn’t the person I have to transform,” she muttered to herself, shaking her head. She didn’t know if she’d be able to handle it if the pixie-like girl was her target.

Now that she brought it up, though…

Sylvia looked around. She couldn’t see any traces of civilization at all.

“…Who IS my target?” She wondered.

The area was peaceful. A nice field of flowers surrounded by trees, with a trail leading down a slight slope. In that direction, she could hear the distant, soothing rush of the river. It was peaceful and relaxing.

But it wasn’t going to get her anywhere closer to completing her challenge.

Scowling, Sylvia bit her lip. This absolutely wasn’t what she signed up for. I bet this is more trickery on Dakota’s part! She probably put me down on some part of the planet with nobody around, and my target’s halfway on the other side of the earth! Just so I would lose the challenge!

Sylvia knew how much Dakota valued fairness. Nick might have been more suspicious of her, but as someone who had seen Dakota in action, Sylvia knew that regardless of how twisted she was, she wouldn’t make THIS lopsided of a challenge.

The audience wouldn’t care for it.

So the fact that those thoughts could even enter her mind was proof of how much Dakota’s disdain for Sylvia stuck with her. She held her chest and winced, feeling like throwing up.

“It’s okay…” She said, taking a few deep breaths. “It’ll be fine. The producers wouldn’t let her screw me over. My target has to be around here somewhere.”

With that in mind, though, even if Sylvia did come across her target, she would return to the original problem at hand.

Would she actually transform them?

Well, she’d cross that road when she came to it.

That’s when she heard voices coming in the distance. High, cheerful voices, a whole cluster of them! She knew instinctively that her target must be somewhere in that group!

Sylvia clutched her gun tightly and turned, waiting to see what would be in store. If those people came to see her, well… she’d need to fire fast before they noticed anything was wrong.

“Huh? Who’s that? There’s a strange lady in the middle of the field!”

Sylvia’s eyes widened and she turned in the direction of the path.

When she saw who was standing there, the whole world stopped for a brief moment.

There were three people. Three very little people.

Three children.

The first one she laid eyes on was a boy wearing shorts and a t-shirt. He had brown hair and brown eyes, and a timid expression on his chubby little cheeks. There was a girl next to him, who looked even shyer. She had blonde hair down her back and was wearing a light pink sundress, and her brown eyes reflected how startled she was.

But it was the third child that got her attention. The other girl. A tomboyish sort, wearing a black dress over a white shirt. She had short, chopped black hair and bright blue eyes, and a suspicious glare on her face. She stepped up in front of the other two and held her arms up defensively.

The glow covering her body showed just who she was- Sylvia’s target.

“No way…” Sylvia breathed, shaking her head slowly in disbelief. “It can’t be… she wouldn’t!”

“Who are you?” Dakota demanded. “Are you one of the teenagers in the older camp?”

“Dakota, let’s just go!” The blonde girl urged her friend. That must have been Gina. Which meant the timid boy had to be…

“Wait, I’m not anybody suspicious!” Sylvia held up her hands.

Dakota glared at her. “You’re holding a gun,” she said.

“This? Oh, this is just a toy. See?” Sylvia waved the ray gun around like it was nothing. “No big deal! Can you, um… tell me, what are your names?”

She already knew. But she still felt the need to make their acquaintance.

This whole thing was just so surreal.

Nick shook his head. “My dad said that I shouldn’t tell my name to strangers,” he said quietly.

“Well, that’s fine!” Sylvia chirped. “I can tell you MY name then! That way, we won’t be strangers, right?”

“…Maybe, but you’re still kind of strange.”

Gina giggled and Dakota smirked. Sylvia tried to just laugh it off.

“So who are you?” Dakota demanded.

“My name is Sylvia River!” Sylvia introduced herself with a bow.

The three kids gasped.

“Huh!?” Gina sputtered.

“Wait, um…” Nick glanced over his shoulder, back towards the river.

“That’s the name of the river in camp,” Dakota said, narrowing her eyes into a suspicious glare again. “What’s the big idea?”

Ah, crap. Shit! I fucked up! Sylvia screamed internally. But she kept her smile restrained and calm and even, even as Dakota snapped at her.

“That’s because…”

Think, you bitch! Think!

“…Because I’m the faerie of the river!” Sylvia declared, coming up with the most fanciful lie she could.

Damn it. Why is it so hard to use my brain?!

Being confronted by her creator, even a pint-sized version of her, would do that.

The kids all stared at her, and Sylvia knew her goose was cooked.

Then, Dakota’s face lit up.

“Really!? A real faerie!? You mean it?!” She asked, her eyes shining with delight.

Sylvia blinked. “…Yes. Really.”

That’s right. These kids are 12.

They would fall for a whole hell of a lot.

“…I’m not sure about this,” Nick said, still staring at Sylvia with suspicion. Which was honestly a reasonable response to anyone who said that they were a faerie, so Sylvia couldn’t exactly blame him for that.

But she could prove it… more or less.

“Shall I show it to you, my friends?” She declared with a mischievous smile. “Behold! My… um… faerie transmogrification beam!”

Gina frowned. “That, um… it looks like a ray gun…”

“She’s not a faerie, she’s an alien!” Nick accused.

“No I’m not!” Sylvia protested.

“No, I know you are!” Nick said, shaking his head. “My mom is an alien! Only, um, my dad said that she’s a legal one, so it doesn’t count!”

Gina nodded in agreement. “Yeah! Yeah!”

“Shut up, you guys!” Dakota exclaimed, stomping her foot. “You’re ruining everything! Faeries aren’t aliens! They’re just creatures from another world, who appear with shining lights in the sky, usually in the wilderness, who abduct people who are by themselves, leaving behind circles in the ground! And then the people they abduct get taken to a bright place, and then are sent back to earth with only faint memories of being taken! They’re not the same thing at all!”

Gina and Nick looked at each other.

“Um,” Nick tried, “are you sure that faeries and aliens aren’t-”

“Stop ruining it!” Dakota wailed. “You’re going to make her go away!”

She turned to Sylvia and gazed up at her with an adoring gleam in her eyes. She clasped her hands together in prayer. “Please please please don’t go away! I’ll be good, I promise! My friends are dummies, they don’t know anything!”

“I know that we shouldn’t just believe a strange woman in the forest when she claims that she’s a faerie, especially when she’s holding a gun!” Nick said firmly. “She could be one of those ‘child molassesers’ Gina’s mom is always warning us about!”

“I don’t wanna be molassesed!” Gina wailed.

Dakota looked like she was on the verge of tears. She wrapped her arms around Sylvia’s waist and held her tightly, like if she gave the woman a chance to breathe then she would disappear.

Sylvia just stood there with a blissful smile on her face. Dakota’s hugging me… she’s really hugging me!

“Please don’t listen to them…” Dakota wailed. “They don’t mean it!” She turned to Nick and Gina with fury in her eyes. “You guys! If you don’t believe in a faerie then they’ll go away, and won’t grant you any wishes!”

Sylvia’s heart sank in her chest. “Wait… wishes?”

“Uh-huh!” Dakota nodded eagerly. “All the stories say that if you’re very very good, when you meet a faerie, they’ll grant all your wishes! They’ll take you to a magical land where you get all the good food and friends you want, and everyone’s nice and happy! You can do that, right?” Her eyes glazed over with hope as she gazed up at Sylvia. “My mom will be nice to me in the faerie world, right? She’ll bake me cookies and watch movies with me? And read me stories at bedtime?”

Sylvia felt her heart crack. She was supposed to inflict a horrendous, twisted, degenerate transformation on this poor girl?

“Dakota…” Sylvia had no idea Dakota was like this as a little girl. How twisted had she become, that she was forcing Sylvia to subject her innocent, child self to the horrors of the Harem Hotel?

“You know my name!? I knew it! You ARE a faerie!”

Whoops. Way to go.

“Th-that’s right!” Sylvia nodded. “With my faerie magic, I have determined everyone’s names!” She turned and pointed to Nick. “You’re Nick, isn’t that right?”

Nick’s eyes widened. “What?! How!?”

Sylvia was a little surprised too. Apparently, her Pet Name transformation didn’t apply to the past version of Nick. That was good. Otherwise, things would have gotten really awkward.

“Ooh! What about me?” Gina’s mood had turned on a dime, and now she was excited. “Do you know my name!?”

“Is it… Gina?”

“WOW!”

“Gina, of course she knows your name, I said it earlier!” Nick pointed out. He was the only one who hadn’t swallowed the faerie story.

“Fine, since Nick is being such a buttface, can you prove that you’re a faerie?” Dakota asked, looking hopefully up at Sylvia. “I know! Use your faerie magic on me, to turn me into a faerie, too!”

Sylvia winced. “Um… okay, I can do that…”

She stepped back, and pointed the gun at Dakota. This was it! The perfect opportunity to transform Dakota. The little girl was even asking for it! Just turn her into a faerie, and she’d be done. Simple! The audience probably wouldn’t like it, and Dakota, her Dakota, definitely wouldn’t. But it would still be a transformation, and thus, not an auto-loss, right?

…Right?

She could do that… right?

“But it’s only going to be temporary, alright?” She added.

Dakota frowned. “…Really?”

“Of course!” Sylvia declared. “I may have faerie magic, but it’s not acceptable for a faerie to alter the mortal world too severely! This will just be a demonstration!”

That took some of the guilt off of her back. A temporary transformation was something she could work with.

She squeezed her finger around the trigger, and shot the small girl.

Dakota transformed. Her black dress and white blouse turned into midnight-colored dress that covered her body, and tiny faerie wings sprouted out of her back. She gasped in amazement as the light around her faded, and twirled in the flowerbed.

“Wow! You did it! You did it!” She cheered with glee. “I’m a faerie! I have wings and everything!”

“Can you fly!?” Gina asked in amazement. “That’s so cool!”

“Sorry, but you need faerie magic to fly,” Sylvia said. “I can’t give you any of that. Just the appearance.”

The truth was, she didn’t want to risk giving Dakota wings, because of what she feared might happen if someone else saw them. Even if the transformation was only a temporary one.

…It was going to be a temporary one… right?

But Dakota looked so happy…

No, wait, I can’t! Sylvia chastised herself. Transforming her is bad! Transforming someone against her will… that’s bad, like Mary said!

Then again… it wasn’t exactly against her will, was it?

Dakota wanted to be a faerie.

Would it be so wrong if Sylvia just… left things the way they were.

“Can you play with us?” Dakota asked hopefully, looking up at Sylvia with those same pleading blue eyes. Eyes that, in the present, were a cold, golden glare.

Sylvia’s heart couldn’t resist. The little Dakota in front of her reminded her too much of her own adorable daughter for her to ever have a chance of that.

“Sure thing!” She nodded eagerly. “What would you like to play?”

“We came to the flower field because we can play tag here without the adults bothering us,” Nick said. “Camp’s fun, but it’s so… they always want us to do stuff, and it’s not always fun! We can have way more fun on our own.”

“Yeah, tag is so fun!” Gina said.

Sylvia looked over at Dakota, who was staring at her with hopeful glee.

Dakota wanted to play tag with her. No, not only did she want to, she was practically **** to do it!

That right there brought tears to Sylvia’s eyes.

“Okay! Works for me!” Sylvia clapped her hands together. “Let’s play tag!”

“Great! Then you’re it!” Dakota smacked her hand against Sylvia’s leg, then turned and ran the other way, laughing her head off.

Apparently, even back then she could be a bit of a brat.

“No! That’s no fair!” Dakota stomped her feet and crossed her arms over her chest. “You didn’t tag me! You didn’t!”

“B-but… I did…” Gina protested weakly.

“No, no, no!” Dakota was practically in tears as she shook her head from side to side. “You didn’t! Right, Nick!?”

“Err…” Nick glanced between Dakota and Gina. Dakota’s fierce, **** stare and Gina’s resigned gaze fought each other in his heart. What was he supposed to say here? He was pretty sure Gina had managed to tag her out, but he didn’t see it close enough to say for certain.

And Dakota was starting to get angry. He hated when she got angry.

“I didn’t get out!” Dakota wailed, starting to hyperventilate. “It’s not fair! Gina, you’re just a cheater! A cheating cheater!”

“I-I didn’t cheat!” Gina was tearing up herself, now.

That’s when Sylvia stepped in.

“Now, now, let’s not fight about this!” She said, inserting herself between the two girls. “Dakota, Gina thinks she tagged you. But you say she didn’t, is that right?”

“She didn’t!” Dakota said firmly. “I’m way faster than her. Right, Nick?”

Nick swallowed and nodded.

“See? Nick agrees with me! So she couldn’t have tagged me!”

“But I did!” Gina exclaimed. “Right on your wing! I just brushed it, but I definitely touched it!”

Dakota looked over her shoulder. Her wings fluttered gently in the wind.

She scowled.

“That… wings don’t count!” She exclaimed, stomping her foot. “New rule! Wings don’t count!”

“Dakota, you can’t just make new rules!” Nick protested.

“Yes I can! I can make whatever rules I want, because I’m the faerie queen!”

Sylvia frowned. Technically, wouldn’t that be her?

But the last thing she wanted to do was upset the other girl.

“How about this?” She suggested. “How about if I be it?”

“No, it’s not fair if you’re it!” Dakota snapped. “You’ll just tag me because you’re taller and faster! It’s not fair! …I don’t want to play anymore! This game is stupid!”

Dakota turned around and stormed off in tears, running through the flowers.

Nick sighed and hung his head.

“I should probably go after her,” he said to the other two, but Sylvia stopped him.

“No, I should do it,” she said gently. “It’s for the best. You two just stay here, okay?”

She didn’t know what she could possibly say to make Dakota feel better. Her creator had a temper even back then.

But she knew that she needed to do something. She didn’t want Dakota to wreck her relationship with Nick and Gina in any timeline.

Besides… Dakota seemed to respond to her.

Luckily, the glow of being the target made it easy for Sylvia to track her down. She walked through the forest and found Dakota crouched on the riverbank, hugging her knees to her chest and sobbing into the water.

“Waaaah… UWAAAAAH!” She wailed, and Sylvia felt like crying herself.

She looked so ****. So innocent. Fragile in a way that Sylvia had never seen her before.

“Hey… what’s the matter?”

Dakota jumped. She gazed up at Sylvia with wide eyes and started to tremble.

“S-Sylvia…” She sniffled. “I’m sorry for crying into your river…”

“My what-? Oh! My river! Yeah, no, don’t worry about that,” Sylvia said, sitting down next to Dakota. “I’m just worried about you. Is everything alright? You really ran off there.”

“Because it wasn’t fair,” Dakota pouted. “It’s never fair. Nick always takes Gina’s side. He never takes my side.”

“Come on, I’m sure he doesn’t always take Gina’s side,” Sylvia said.

“He does! Always! At least, when it’s the important stuff, anyway! Because he’s such a big dummy!” Dakota snapped.

“Well… he’s definitely a dummy, I’ll agree with you on that one,” Sylvia nodded, suppressing her smile. She didn’t want to come off as making fun of the other girl. “But I think it’s pretty clear that he cares about you, doesn’t he?”

Dakota mumbled. “…So what? He cares about her, too.”

“Is… is he not allowed to care about more than one person?” Sylvia asked, frowning.

“He can! But… he should care about me most! We’ve been together since birth! I… he’s my whole world… my family…” Dakota peered down at her reflection in the river. “But he likes Gina more than me…”

“I’m sure that’s not true,” Sylvia said gently. “You should have seen how worried about you he was! He doesn’t like making you upset, any more than you like being upset!”

“I know he doesn’t, I just… it’s not fair!” Dakota wailed. “This… it’s supposed to be a special day! I met a real faerie! An actual faerie! All my wishes are supposed to come true, so why am I still so upset?! Why isn’t everything going the way I want it?!”

“Dakota… I don’t think even the faeries are capable of doing something like that,” Sylvia informed her, knowing even as she said that, that she was taking a risk. “You can’t just make everything go your way, you know.”

“…But you can, right?”

Dakota raised her head and stared determinedly at Sylvia.

“You can do it, right? You can grant wishes! All faeries can grant wishes! So… with that gun! You can make Nick like me most, can’t you? More than Gina! That’s what I want! That’s my wish!”

“This, that’s…” Sylvia looked down at the gun, just now remembering she was still holding onto it. “Dakota, that-that’s wrong. You can’t just make him fall in love with you.”

“Why not?!” Dakota screamed, kicking her feet on the water. “I love him most, so he has to love me most! That’s how this works!”

“Because… you want him to be happy, don’t you?” Sylvia asked. “You can’t just… make someone happy, even with a transformation.”

“Why not? If you can make him love me, then you can make him happy about it, right?” Dakota stubbornly rejected Sylvia’s appeal to basic common decency.

Sylvia was having a bit of a problem getting through here.

“Because… that’s not the right thing to do,” she said, thinking back to everything Mary and the others had told her. “Even if you use magic to make someone happy, that’s still not right. You can’t make him love you. There’s not any magic that can do that, not really. If you really want him to be happy… then loving you has to be his choice. Not yours.”

Dakota clamped her hands over her ears. “NO! I don’t wanna hear that! Stupid faerie! I hate you! I hate you! You’re just… you’re just dumb and mean! You’re a liar! A dumb, mean liar! You don’t know anything! She can love me! She can! So do it already, you stupid dumb faerie!”

“Dakota, I can’t make him- wait, did you just say ‘she’?” Sylvia hadn’t misheard that, had she? Then… had Dakota misspoke?

She looked at the dark-haired girl, and saw the despair lining her face.

“Dakota…”

“Just do it already…” She pleaded, slumping over in defeat. “Teach me how… I want it… you can do it, right? The magic that can make someone love me? Please… I don’t care if it’s bad… I just… I just want her to love me like his family does…”

Sylvia gasped. “Oh, Dakota…” She held the small child tightly as Dakota cried into her shoulder.

“Why doesn’t she love me?” Dakota sobbed. “I’m trying my best… I know I get mad… and I know I eat too much… but I try not to be selfish and ask her for toys or anything like that, like the other girls do… I just want her to be my mommy… if Nick’s mommy can love him… why can’t mine? Nick doesn’t like me most… my mom doesn’t want me… it’s because I’m a meanie, right? That’s why nobody loves me… because I’m a bad girl…”

“Dakota, stop there’s nothing unlovable about you at all,” Sylvia assured her, holding her tightly. “You’re wrong about that! You’re a great girl. Nick will realize that sooner or later, I promise. Sure, he likes Gina too, but how often does he get to see her? Only at camp, right?”

Dakota nodded somberly. “…Mhmm…”

“But he sees you all the time, right?”

“…Yeah…”

“So maybe the reason it seems like he’s taking his side is because he’s being nice, since she doesn’t get to spend as much time with her as he does with you. Doesn’t that make sense?”

When she put it like that, Dakota couldn’t really deny it.

“Yeah…” She nodded. “Yeah, maybe…”

“I told you, as a faerie, I can grant your wishes, right?” Sylvia said softly. “Well… I can’t make Nick love you. And I can’t make her love you. But I can give you a special blessing, alright? Something precious I received myself, when I was a little girl. And I promise that it will absolutely make your best wishes come true.”

Dakota’s eyes widened. Her tears had dried, leaving only amazement and wonder. “…Really?”

“Really,” Sylvia nodded firmly.

She leaned forward and planted her lips on Dakota’s forehead.

“I love you,” she told the little girl. “Just the way you are.”

Dakota started to cry again. But they were happy tears this time. She cried and cried as Sylvia held her, until she was all cried out.

“Okay, let’s get up,” Sylvia said, helping Dakota to her feet. “Come on, we need to get you back to Nick and Gina, alright? They’ve gotta be worried sick about you.”

“Okay…” Dakota nodded sadly.

Sylvia smiled and tapped her on the cheek. “Come on, it’s going to be okay. You have my blessing, right? It’ll keep you safe, no matter what. But… I will have to do one thing.”

Dakota sighed. “Are you going to take my wings away?” She asked in resignation, already knowing the answer.

Sylvia frowned. “…I’m afraid so,” she said. She pointed the gun at Dakota and pulled the trigger. The light faded, and Dakota returned to how she was before. Just an ordinary human.

“Now you run along,” Sylvia urged her. “Faeries can only stay in the mortal realm so long, remember? And tell those two I said today was the most fun playing with my friends I ever had!”

“Okay!” Dakota nodded fiercely. She turned and up the bank. Then, she stopped, and turned back towards Sylvia.

Her smile lit up the entire field.

“Sylvia, thank you so much!” She called to the former host. “I love you, too!”

That was all Sylvia ever wanted to hear. It didn’t matter that she’d undone the transformation, or that she might fail this challenge.

Dakota had given her something that not even her future self would be able to take away.