This is nicely written and told. The story is endearing, although I don’t really get the fantasy background. What exactly is this therapy meant for? We get something about the cure being able to morph for a short while into an animal, but we don’t really get what’s the point, nor how fairies happen to live in this word, not what the “Great Reconvergence” is.

I think you could write a perfectly acceptable story just letting all those things out. It feels sort of extraneous or gratuitous.

Also, why all these references to Shakespeare?

Over all, a very pleasant read, even though it conjures up some questions we never find the answers to.

This story made me want to read it twice, which is kind of a plus but also kind of a minus.

I love the idea. It's simple, fantastical, yet it's so easy to believe for a world where fairies exist.

But I felt I had to read again to get a better idea of the scene, and of Daisy. I would have liked more description of what she looked like, given that she's the most exotic part of the story. If nothing else, a reference to her size would have been nice somewhere earlier than the last paragraph.

Further to this, the opening is a bit of a struggle. You describe some plants, drop names of two things we don't know anything about (the reconvergence and King Oberon) that never come up again, tell us something that Daisy is not, and then describe the neighborhood... I get what you're going for, to set a meandering, almost real-life tone to the story, but it's just not very hooking, for me. I think there's a punchier way to establish our main character, her job, and then the casual, could-be-anywhere setting could come in later.

But still, a touching story. Thanks for the read!

This is a nice little peek at an alternate reality that I would like to see expanded, with more examples of human interaction with the Fae at various practical and friendly levels, and rather more of that uncanny feeling that comes with true fairy tales. I can’t expect you to pack all that into this small space. A decent job, author.

I’m impressed by the amount of worldbuilding you’ve managed to include in this piece, Writer. I particularly liked Daisy’s aside regarding the streetlights and shouting kids - implying that much of the city (and, perhaps, the world) is not nearly so pleasant an environment, and that the Great Reconvergence (of the world of the fae and our world, no?) may not have been entirely seamless.

The story is inelegant in places - I think the descriptions of the card tricks ran a little long, for example - but overall, this is a delightful piece. I get a real sense of how Daisy and Horatio are the highlight of each other’s weeks. Despite the contrived circumstance of their meetings, they feel like they’re old friends, and I think that’s wonderful.

I agree with >>Miller Minus in that I wouldn’t mind having a bit more description for Daisy - my version having a sunny blonde bob, pupilless emerald eyes, and translucent green wings likely differs from yours (it may be a moot point, given that she’s a shapeshifter, but it would still be nice to know what she looked like on that particular evening). Though, I will disagree on one point - from the moment Daisy perched on the back of the lawn chair with a spray of fairy dust, I figured she was somewhere between 3-4 inches tall. Having her involve herself in a trick by sitting on a deck of cards was a nice touch, too.

Random thought - is the fact that she studied terrestrial zoology the reason she can turn herself and others into animals? Had she studied botany, would she turn into plants instead?

I wouldn’t mind spending a lot more time in this plane of existence, Writer. This is a neat concept, and I think you can get a lot more mileage out of it than a single minific, should you choose to do so.

Thanks, folks!

And congrats to our other medalists!

As soon as I saw the prompt here, my mind went to poker, a high stakes game with the fate of the world being decided by powerful alien beings and an old human card sharp who would cheat the aliens out of destroying the planet or something. But I've never been very good at poker, and that idea sounded like it'd probably take more than 750 words to tell. So I switched gears, made it smaller, decided on a magical creature entranced by an old man doing card tricks, and went from there.

It could definitely use some expansion--in order to touch on the prompt, I had to invent this idea of a Fae social worker making her last call of the week, but the 'how's and 'why's of Fae social workers had to get swept under the rug in order to focus on the scene itself. More physical description, too--put a rose bush along the side of the house, for instance, so Daisy can fly past it and notice how the blossoms have grown to be about the same size as her or something. But yeah, this could shape up into a nice little piece for some of the short story markets out there...

Thanks again!
Mike

I like the idea that a practitioner of real magic is so entertained by sleight of hand. I can't really say much about this. It was just sweet and fun. There's not much conflict to it, and it's just another routine meeting for both of them. I do feel in the dark about the background to it: the whole Great Reconvergence, and why Daisy is doing this job. It feels more like she's required to, for some reason, but I can't fathom what that is. I wonder if it was even worth mentioning that. Just let the reader assume things have always been this way, and what do you lose? Implying there was some big change makes the reader want to know why and what it was like before. It's almost too subtle in saying what Daisy is. It might be more effective if you treated it the same as horror or comedy, where you have to keep turning up the dial. At first, she sounds human, but after a little while, we get that she has wings and uses magic. Keep escalating things. Make her viewpoint see this human world as the alien thing it is to her.

But as is, you've got me really liking both characters and the way each one's magic is perceived by the other.

Well done, and you're going up top for now.

This did remain at the top of my ballot, and just from the subject matter and narrative tone, there was never any doubt in my mind that Augie had to be the author.

>>Miller Minus
>>GroaningGreyAgony
>>Icenrose
>>Pascoite
>>Monokeras

In case anyone:

Wants to check out what I ended up doing with this story, it's one of the stories up now on the Aurora Wolf website.

Mike