"Elina," a voice gently cooed, “Elina,” the
brunette figure of her mother knelt by her, holding a giggling Violet in her
hands.”I am back, Elina." Her mother shook her awake gently. Elina's eyes
fluttered open.
“Oh,
hey," Elina started to spring to her feet but her left arm was pained at
the sudden movement. She slowly stood up.
“If you are
ready to go I will take you back to the house now." Her mother kindly
said.
"Yeah,
thanks," Elina grabbed her backpack.
When her mom's car pulled up to Rayna's house, Elina
tenderly kissed Violet's head in the back seat, next to where she sat. Elina
quietly got out because her sister was asleep. Her mother got out of the
driver's seat and met Elina outside the car.
“Be
careful, have fun, I love you," her mother said planting a kiss on her
forehead just the way she'd done to her sister a moment before. "Do not
forget to brush your teeth, and mind your manners."
Elina
nodded, "Love you too." She ran up to the porch where Beccie sat.
Mrs. Ridley got back in her car and backed out of the driveway, thinking how
much Elina had matured since the last time she'd seen her.
On the porch Beccie floated to her feet. She was about to go
in but Elina's right hand grabbed her arm first. "You're not going to tell
Rayna, are you?" Elina pleaded.
"No,
it's your secret to keep or share," Beccie replied. Elina was about to
head in as Beccie added, "Your mom doesn't know."
She didn't need to add more, she'd
changed Mrs. Ridley's memory of the fairy. So that she remembered the fairy
with a different hair cut, and slightly different shaped face. She even now
thought she'd seen brown eyes instead of Elina's sparkling green eyes.
Inside Rayna's house Elina was relieved her secret was safe,
but she was very hungry for dinner. Once it was bedtime she wasn't tired at
all. She'd spent too much of the day sleeping. So she snuck out to the backyard
for a little skateboarding.
Rayna had had a long day, training the other girls, but she
also was having trouble sleeping. Instead she went to her private study. The
study looked like most every other study, every the walls were covered with
books. There were even a couple more bookcases in the center of the room. In
place of what was usually would be a heavy wooden desk, was a small square table
and a comfy chair. Rayna sat in the chair holding a large book. The cover read,
“The Biology of Mythological Creatures,” it was written by a Dr. Andrea Hunter.
It was almost completely disregarded by scientists and doctors, but Rayna
trusted the author. Dr. Hunter was a personal acquaintance. She, long before
becoming a doctor, was member of Girl Power member herself. After spending
years with Girl Power, meeting all sorts of people and creatures, she became a
doctor and studied all she could to learn about how best to doctor different
creatures.
Rayna had
pulled out this book because, the whole business of Elina, her clumsiness and
her accident proneness, had worried the lady. She flipped to the chapter on
“Fairy Anatomy”. Dr. Hunter began with the anatomy of a full fairy, especially
as it related to their ability to fly. After all that was the most
distinguishing feature of a fairy in contrast to human anatomy, their ability
to fly, produced simply by their wing power.
It read, “The
most distinctive characteristic of fairies, their wings, is a recessive gene.
Meaning a human and a fairy cannot reproduce a child with wings. However, two
half-fairies have the genes to have a child with wings. While the probability
of this is 1 in 4, it is unheard of simply because there are so few
half-fairies to have children together.
“Fairies have a very distinctive
bone structure. Much like that of a bird’s, their bones are actually hollow
with thin supports running across them. This creates a stronger, more durable
bone than that of a human bone. Necessary for them to survive crash landings,
especially while learning how to fly. The bones are no lighter than that of a
human’s, and contain all the same functions for life.
“One deformity that is common
amongst half-fairies is in the bone structure. One aspect of human DNA and
fairy DNA is that the genetic code for bones doesn’t combine well. Often it
leave the half-fairy with extra delicate bones that are hollow without the
supports running across. They seem to still have all the same functions of life
and this difference cannot be seen on an x-ray. This also causes them to weigh
less than the average human or fairy.
“With that said, the easiest and
most effective way to diagnose this condition is to take a person’s body mass
and height, and determine what the weight should be. A human’s bones make up 15
percent of a person’s weight. A half-fairy’s bones are often only about 8 to 12
percent of their body weight. Meaning a grown adult human who weighs 200 pounds
has bones that weight 30 pounds. A full grown half-fairy with this bone
condition having the same height and body mass could only weigh between 186 to
194 pounds. The rare case has been
reported that a half-fairy’s skeleton only weighs 6 percent of their body
weight.
“I would suggest that all
half-fairy’s take calcium supplements to fortify the bone mass they do have.
Also they should avoid high impact sports, as their bones are more easily
broken than those of a full fairy or human.”
Rayna found this article very
informative, but it also concerned her. Elina was very accident prone, and had
just come back that morning with a “sprain”. There was always the possibility
she had broken it and didn’t even know. As Rayna was responsible for her
wellbeing at the moment she decided she would have to watch Elina and look at
her arm later, when the girl wasn’t so guarded.
