This is YOCG entry for:
My name is Aurealia Natlandia Baggs. 178 years ago, I was born in a small hillside hamlet outside what is now Innsbruk, Austria. I am a Tyrolean gnome and enjoy all the special quirks and abilities of my race.
I have made my current home with a very special family here in New Mexico. Lovely bunch of Cuckoos who know what fun and games really means. We share a love of potion making, spell weaving and moon loving. Oma has found us a fixer upper and we, my friend and roommate Apriliano and I, are enjoying helping to fix this Halloween House into a great snuggle to live in. During the winter months it is our hope to build a proper Gnome home and begin to entertain the surrounding fae, of which there are many.
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| Halloween House |
Oma and the Cuckoos have a very close relationship with the fairy folk both in the house and her gardens, also the large sprite colony nearby and as well as a small band of trolls that live under their home. For humans they are quite accommodating and welcoming to those of us who are small and magically abled. Oma is also friends of friends like the very famous author Nichola Battiliana of Ontario, Canada. It is one of my great pleasures in life to own one of Knickertwist's signed copies of Fairy Magic. I keep it close at all times to use as a guide. Apriliano my roommate and I never would have met if it had not been for The Angry Gnome's landlord, April, also close with Gnoma Linda as she is called in Arkansas. So many of my treasured potion and magical working items are from Oma's dear friend Lady Cecelia Laudanum, world known Elvin translator who lives in the wilds of Wales. UK. So you see, it is a collaboration at the very roots of our living arrangements and our lives that makes all this work so seamlessly.
I have been told that many of you were interested in the the bloody axe that is stored in the attic. Oma had a giggle with all of you when she suggested that I might be charged with murder. It wasn't murder at all. And that axe has never been used for foul play, unless you are from South America and are a Cocona.
I am a skilled potion maker. Many of my drafts and brews are used extensively in the fae communities of the world. I love to and am known for trying new and unique ingredients in my drafts. I believe that it is all my trials and tests with new ingredients that have made me sought after and well known. And because of my luck in the world of the fae, the human world has also started to hear of me and my success. And so I have also been consulted by pharmacutical companies after successful potions have been around awhile and gotten good results.
One of the new found ingredients is from the Cocona fruit which is only grown in a small section of South America, most notably Peru. Once the juice of this plum like fruit has been distilled with some secret ingredients, I know that I have the best potion for mending a broken heart.
It was during my purchase of a large crop of Cocona that I had a misadventure with the human world. Many of the humans that have contacted me have been what I think you refer to as "snake oil salesmen". These people are looking for magic in a bottle. But not the magic that comes from the bottle if you get my drift. They want a "magic" slim down potion, a fast healing balm, a get out of trouble brew, which I could probably come away with but won't. My potions are only for the believers. And so that is how I got into a sticky wicket with my "bloody axe" and accusations of misdeeds.
I was on a buying trip in Peru and was being pursued by a particularly unwelcome company man who had been instructed by his employers to get me to sign a deal with them for a diet aid. The precise language was if I couldn't be convinced then either I wasn't to come home or he wasn't. And he was to strike a deal, no matter what.
After much whining and dining, cajoling and begging, this offensive character finally got the message that I wasn't going along with his grift. He threatened me but I just laughed at him and went to my meeting with the head grower of the essential ingredient in my latest potion for healing of hearts.
When I reached my meeting, the Cocona fruit grower told me someone else had bought his entire crop yield and that I was out of luck. I was completely taken aback. After all, I had been promised this product and I had worked on this arrangement for 6 months. The most troubling part was that I had assured Queen Mab herself that I would have the potion delivered to her by midsummer's night. Now I would have to break a promise. I was furious, livid and loud.
I lost my cool and began to yell at the grower. That is when he confessed to me who had bought the Cocona fruit. The company man was behind this mess but for a slightly higher price to cover his inconvenience, the grower was willing to sell me the fruit. Even though the thought of paying a higher price for something that I had already struck a deal for galled me, I agreed and took possession of the fruit right then and there. I left Peru later that night.
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| ripe Cocona fruit |
After getting the product back to my home, I began processing the fruit, which requires smashing of the fruit with a heavy club or axe. The blood red color of the fruit is what you see on the handle and head of the axe. As a matter of fact, you don't ever want to get any of the juice of this particular fruit on your skin, it tends to stain it for quite some time. But this ingredient is the special quality needed to set the potion on it's course.
As it happens, when their man did not return after our trip to South America, the shady company sent the police to investigate. When they found the "bloody axe" in my possession, it became a regular CSI scene right in my own home. I was taken into custody for suspecion of foul play and detained at a very nasty lock up situation in county jail. Of course, once the forensics came back negative for blood, they were forced to let me go. Cocona fruit juice and blood don't have any shared components.
But I am very glad they didn't make me take a lie detector test, as I might have had to admit that I did know where their man was...or should I say wasn't any longer.
My name is Aurealia Natlandia Baggs, I am a magical creature and I do admit to having a very nasty temper.
Thank you all so very much for stopping by to help us celebrate Ms. Magaly's 4th year of Witches in Fiction. As always it is a pleasure to participate in such a wonderful event and to "play" at writing with some real authors. If you have a chance go and see what wonderful stories, crafts and fun can be had at Magaly's Pagan Culture here.
