Larrikan eventually works his way out from between sleeping pixies. Not all the pixies are sleeping, and some are actively patrolling around the nest. Larrikan watches and tries to get the worst of the gore out of his fur.
One of the patrolling pixies swoops over to Larrikan and says, “Come meet the Queen.”
Larrikan nods, is dosed with another liberal application of pixie dust, and flown over to the Queen.
The pixie Queen is not what Larrikan expected. All the other pixies are virtually identical. The Queen is not. She is twice the size of the rest of the pixies, has extra wings, and is enormously swollen at the midsection. Larrikan soon figures out she is hugely pregnant.
Larrikan is put down in front of the Queen. He bows deeply, for a long moment, hoping it is correct.
It seems to be, because the queen says, “Come here, fox.”
When he does, she reaches down and scoops him up into a crushing embrace. As she is currently more than twice his size, this is a serious issue. Apparently the queen knows blue is not a good color for a fox and loosens her grip a bit. She says, “Sing to me and the eggs, fox, just for us.”
Larrikan nods, catching his breath, and begins to sing to the pixie queen, low and softly, just for her.
The song Larrikan picks is the story of the founding of the Swift Folk clan. It tells how the Clan-Mother fled an attack on her old clan’s caravan, and how she hid in the wastelands while her people were hunted and killed. Occasionally, another would escape, and she would gather them together for safety. The Clan-Mother hid outside the raider camp and heard their plans to catch her and the other escapees. They raiders would release a young fox and follow them to the escaped foxes’ camp.
The Clan-Mother made a different plan. When the bait-fox was released, the free foxes captured it, and hid. A runner led the raiders on a wild goose chase while the rest of the free foxes attacked the raiders camp by stealth. They took back their own caravans, freed all the slaves, set all the raiders’ horses free, and fled into the forest.
The runner led the raiders to the free foxes’ now abandoned camp, shouting for everyone to hide. Putting on a burst of speed, the runner lost the raiders, leaving only an empty camp to search.
The Swift Folk then moved far away, leaving their bad luck and starting over in a new place. The Clan-Mother stood to found the new clan, and it was good.