"Thisis so cool.  Are you going to start ariot?  There hasn't been a riot since...forever!  Actually, I don't even knowwhat a riot is, but it always sounds so exciting when mum and dad talk aboutthe rioting hordes in the old days." Muggy's voice raced to keep up with the speed of her movements.  She weaved in and out of her older brother'srapidly moving legs, dodging body pops, complicated high kicks andexaggerated Irish dancing feet flicks.

Herbrother, Badoo, tried his best to ignore her. Younger siblings, they were nothing but trouble.  It wouldn't be so bad, but Muggy was theyoungest pixling in his family and seemed to think she had to look out forhim.  But Badoo was fed up of Muggyalways getting under his feet.  Hispaggle had a thing to do and it just had to be done.  He'd been practising his steps and he didn'twant to get it wrong.  Now Muggy wasthreatening to bolas his feet from under him with her gyrations aroundhim.  Badoo kicked her unceremoniouslyout of his way and she bounced off several other pixies before landing in thefountain with a frog sized splash. 

Muggyblew water out of her mouth like a water spout as she doggy paddled to the edgeof the fountain.  She briefly glanced upat the shadow of the looming cathedral before scrabbling over the lip of thefountain.  As Muggy dangled upside downfor a brief moment before leaping to the ground she saw a tufted ear ooze upout of the granite paving next to the fountain. Her already bulging eyes bulged further. As the hell hound's body emerged piece-meal, manticorae and othergrotesqueries seeped up through the stones and took corporeal form. Muggyshrieked with pure delight.

Fromhis vantage point on the roof of the cathedral Rufus watched the actionbelow.  Young pixies always wanderedround in paggles but this was different. They milled seemingly aimlessly by the fountain in the main square.  Their eighteen centimetre high bodies werecovered in images like nothing Rufus had ever seen before.  He blinked to zoom in closer.  Their pink and orange tinged skin was coveredin a series of chunky white ticks; interlocked letters, a y interlocked with anes and an el; stylized crocodiles and words he did not know the meanings of inelaborate fonts.  These letters andimages covered their bodies so fully that he could scarcely see the originalpixie tones beneath them. 

UnderRufus' watchful eye the milling paggle of pixies began to create an intricateformation which he realised was specifically designed to distract.  Distraction was not the usual method ofmischief engaged in by pixies.  Who orwhat did they want to distract in particular? The effect of all those letters whirling en masse made his head spintill he forced himself to look away momentarily.

Thismass gathering of pixies made the quartz in Gargoyle Rufus' system fizz like hewas being acid etched.  The familiartingle had served him well throughout history. It never failed him.  A millenniumago it had warned him of things to come when Faetaera's very existence wasthreatened.  He did not like theimplication of the crackle emanating through his column.  Rufus relayed the information through toheadquarters.

Thetwins were almost immediately beside him, one on either side, their fingersresting lightly on each of his ears. Janelle and Benelle were never far from each other.  The further apart they drifted the more theyseemed like two halves rather than a whole. They spoke simultaneously, asalways.  "This doesn't look too goodRuf."

Rufus'gravelly voice rumbled with agitation. "You're not wrong there. Will you employ the pixie containment net?"

Thedouble echo of the twins was like a sigh. "Not sure it will hold them. What have we got, about sixty in total down there?"

"Icount sixty three and a quarter. Someone's got a younger sibling down there."

"Whodo you suppose they're trying to distract?"  Both twins were leaning forward as theyobserved the paggle below.  "Couldbe us."

"True."Now that he knew not to look directly into the distraction pattern, Rufus didnot shift his gaze from its edge which was growing more complicated with eachmoment.

"Bettertry the net then."  The twinsdeployed the net.  "See you aroundRuf."

Theywere no longer there, their voices just a linger in the air.

Downin the square all hell broke loose. Rufus considered helping the twins but they were old hands at dealingwith mayhem so he stayed put.  When, fora brief moment, the denizens of hell pushed through the outer edges of thepixies' distraction pattern he was about to fly into the breach.  But the twins pooled their resources,snapping off disjointed limbs and claws, clamping snarling jaws.  In a whirlwind of motion they did what itwould take an entire cohort of foot patrol an hour to do.  Rufus wondered, not for the first time, whereLarell had recruited the pair from.  Twinentities were never seen within city limits. It took no less than four nets toget the paggle under control and the visitors from hell back where theybelonged.  Larell would have to startrecruiting to enlarge the force even more. J and B were an exceptional team. If only the Citadel's security had more of them.  This kind of altercation only proved things weregetting worse.

Rufusliked the quiet life.  When you'd livedas long as he had you saw a good many things and there came a time when youhankered for a bit of peace.  He wasn'tsure he could take another big event like the War to End All Wars.  He sighed and began to de-stone.  Larell would want to review his vision linkwith him directly.  It was time for a bigrethink.

AsRufus made his slow but measured way along the roof tops to his meeting withLarell he felt the old stone in him crunch and crumble in a new way that warnedof an end to all things.  It wasn’t thathe feared his own end coming.  Instead itwas the end of all things he felt saddened by. For his Queen to strive so hard to keep their world from drifting apartonly for it to be happening again.  Wasthis an inevitability?  He longed for theknowledge of the ancients.