Holy shit. Holy SHIT. Bravo. Wow. I'm in shock that you just did that. Genuinely amazing from start to finish.

Thanks! I'm glad you liked it. The stories I always read as I child about brownies painted them as often apathetic, but occasionally heroic and goodhearted faeries when it came down to it. I thought a modern faery story from the perspective of a news article might be fun!

Friends and fellow contributors to Cornerblock Weekly, thank you once again for your time. I come to you all today to tell you a story, and to address a problem within our otherwise splendid community.

I am a house brownie. I find this important to mention, only for the convenience of the wise and just sprites that have written to me, complaining of my only mentioning this fact after my previous article, and how it does not address my own personal biases before the article is read, therefore diluting the transparency of the whole paper. To that I say, you make a good point.

To the gnomes and the squirrel that brought those mushrooms around this side of the river last week, you have my gratitude and the gratitude of my fellow urban dwellers.

Most days I simply watch my Family.

Humans are strange beings. They lumber clumsily from chamber to massive chamber, their movements imprecise and unfocused.

Most of the humans in this fortress are like that, at any rate. I am lucky to have so much cover in the form of their discarded barrel-sized mugs and empty soda cans.

Shivering at the thought of the day the Family buys another cat, I watch silently from an inconspicuous hole in the wall behind the top of a couch in the living room. The man who has invaded our home carries a large tool (the Father has called one of them a crowbar), and the black mask over his face makes his eyes and forehead almost look like a pale djinn beginning to form in the gloom.

It does not take time to realize that he has done this sort of thing before. His movements are swift, his pauses absolute, his groping silent.

And then there's a quiet "thump-thump-thump" above us.

Now, I have lived in this fortress a very short time (a meager 60 years), but I have already witnessed three robberies. In two cases, the robbers simply took some valuable things and left without any incident. In the other, the masked man had heard footsteps above and fled.

This man was not like that man.

I watched in horror as the dark shadow swept behind a wall adjacent to the stairway. It stood there, tensed like a panther. I could see his eyes. There was a desperate light in them. A hunger. Something else I couldn't really identify, but something that filled me with an oddly vague sense of dread.

When Kate came down the stairs, it was only two seconds before the intruder had his crowbar to her neck and a knife pressed into her back. At this particular moment I was too stunned to act. It was as if I were watching a horror film I had no part of, no presence in.

But, maddeningly, living around a Family has its' consequences for a brownie. And soon, my eyes were on Kate's face, her eyes. Kate was 13, mature for her age but still just a child, not truly scarred by the chaotic and violent potential of humanity.

When she screamed, I snapped out of my stupor and let out a little squeak of terror. A scream like that in this situation, in my near 600 years of life, has nearly always led to the death of the victim, at the moment of the scream or afterward.

I had to do something. I could hear the creaking of bedsprings high above, groaning like great tree trunks and giant coils of aluminum.

If the Parents came down, there would be a confrontation. The fact that the intruder had only clapped his hand onto Kate's mouth was a miracle in of itself. Obviously thinking quickly, he pulled her backwards, into the shadows.

Well, what would have been the shadows for a human. I, of course, could still see him perfectly. And I could hear the Father tramping down the hallway above us and down the stairs.

"you do everything I tell you to or the knife is going through your kidney. Do you understand? Just nod. Just nod."

The whisper was like a wasp sting. The words were hushed, so quiet they are almost nothing, but the "s" sounds he made whistled through the chilled air like light beams.

And so there was light. Father had flipped the light switch.

And now we come to the point which the problem intersects the story.

Many of the older brownies and sprites, as well as the Council of the Old Wood are rather upset about what I did in those following moments. However, I must maintain that, while there are many bad humans in this world, the belief that fae should leave humans to Death when they come for them (regardless of their natures) is absurd. I am not sorry.

Of course, it doesn't take a lot to distract a human when you're small and spindly, and have a general idea where their eyes and ears and nostrils are. It helps to have great balance.

The Family never saw me. At least, the Father and Mother never saw me. All they found were a disoriented and terrified Kate, running from the man screaming and slapping himself for seemingly no reason. The Father had him down on his chest in a moment, and in a moment I was gone. I barely bothered to watch as the flashing lights appeared outside a time later. I had done what I wished to do. I did what many would wish me not to do.

I do not feel bad for saving Kate, and I welcome any free discussion on the methods of determining whether your human is kind enough to protect, as well as those who do not believe any are worth protecting. My discussion column shall be open from the 4th to the 7th, and replies shall be made on all counts that following issue. Let us decide upon the Human Dilemma as a block, and perhaps the rest of the known lands will follow.