Fairy garden

The tea is perfect today—sun-warmed, steeped just right, and sweet enough to make your teeth ache. You smile as you set the cup down for a moment beside you on the mossy stone table, watching the breeze play with the vines overhead.

Slrrrp.

You blink. That wasn’t you.

Slrrrrrrrrp.

You lean forward.

There, hanging precariously over the edge of your teacup, is a fairy—small, red-haired, and clearly not shy about helping herself. She’s leaning so far in that her hips are the only part still outside the cup, her legs kicking gently behind her in the air. Her wings twitch occasionally, glinting in the sunlight, but she’s too busy drinking to fly.

Her body is half-submerged, and you can see the tea level dropping with every comically loud slurp.

She drains it.

Slrrrrrp... pop. She smacks her lips, satisfied.

Then she tries to pull herself back out. And doesn’t move.

A soft gurgle comes from inside the cup.

Her belly is huge. Ballooned-out round, like she swallowed a water droplet the size of a peach. It presses snug against the inner curve of the teacup, her hips wedged firmly against the rim. The once-delicate lines of her figure are stretched into a perfect, shiny globe of fullness. Her braid has gotten wet at the tip, stuck to her side, and her wings twitch uselessly as she grunts and kicks.

Still stuck.

You can’t stop the chuckle that slips out.

“Alright, tea thief,” you say, amused, reaching down. “Let’s get you out of there.”

You gently pinch her ankles and lift her upward. With a soft shloooop, she slides out, her belly wobbling like jelly as you place her carefully on the nearest flower.

The pink flower dips under her weight, swaying as she plops down and leans back, hands resting on the great dome of her stomach. It gurgles softly, a proud, happy sound, and jiggles with every tiny breath she takes.

Her braid, tied neatly with what looks like a strip of leaf-vein, droops over her shoulder as she glares up at you.

“Thanks, I guess,” she mutters, arms crossed. “Forget you saw anything.”

You raise a brow, glancing pointedly at the round swell of her belly, which shifts and creaks faintly as it settles into the curve of the flower.

She clears her throat. “Ahem. Anyway. I’m here to welcome you, officially. As the new owner of the fairy garden.”

Her voice is huffy, but her belly gurgles cheerfully beneath her.

“Our kind have been protected by your family for generations,” she continues, lightly kicking her legs over the edge of the petal. “Your grandmother left it all to you. Which includes... dealing with us.”

She pats her own belly with a soft pomf. It jiggles like a pudding.

“Fair warning—sweets are sort of a... problem for fairies.”

You nod slowly, already wondering just how many sugar cubes you’ll go through this summer.