It's my turn to go before the Table of ancients. We got this opportunity only once a century, starting our third century. On my bicentennial, I watched my packmates go before the five current ancients and be judged.

Each had presented their accomplishments of the last fifty years, and each had received a promotion or a stagnation decree. Promotion would lead to incorporation within the ranks of the active fairy community and the ability to transition freely between worlds - known as being "given wings". Stagnation would result in the candidate remaining in the Otherworld for the next 99 years, having to come up with a brand new set of skills or accomplishments to present.

Now, it was my turn.

This particular Table of ancients was particularly devious, so attaining a promotion from them would require accomplishments beyond what had been brought to the Table in millennia past.

I'd put all my eggs in one basket, as it were. The past fifty years, I'd been working under one of the best mentors our clan had to offer. He's not quite an ancient, but he's only two millennia away from it, which is the closest anyone from our clan has been in a long time.

He'd been noted for his ability to keep up with humans. It was a rare thing, for a fairy to be able to devote enough time and energy to maintain a connection with the human world for too long. His specialty was single-span trickery.

Sure, any fairy could flit in and out of the human world every few centuries and throw a wrench into kingdom building or ritual progressions. Not just anyone was capable of participating as fully with a single human throughout their life to cause chaos so intensely and in such a miniscule amount of time. Keeping up with one human for 80 years was a full-time job, with plenty overtime recently with the rise of "technology". My mentor specialized in this specific brand of accomplishment, and so I was expected to follow suit.

I found it near impossible to focus my attention on a single human, but I had naturally gravitated towards the rise of "online" humans. These bionic people tended to act as one person, with generalized activities that could be predicted and manipulated as we did with single persons in centuries before. It was still a brand new methodology, so I was sure it would impress the ancients.

My mentor and I had been studying the rise and development of "online" trickery, and had found the perfect accomplishment to present. It had really only come about overnight, relatively speaking. A bit of procrastination had really paid off. For the last 40 years, I had been working on implementing black zones that would move about and block communications of all kinds - radio, satellite, and most recently, localized WiFi connectivity. Between my mentor and I, we had successfully single-handedly interfered with thousands of personal interactions and several hundred business deals - even securing a few high-profile government outages for our presentation. It wasn't kingdom-destroying, but it was just impactful enough to warrant including on my presentation.

In the last 10 years, however, I noted a less damaging option - though still incredibly devious - which was favorable style with the current Table. It was a bit of a rush job, but I believed in it and my mentor believed in me. It was beautiful in its simplicity. It was effective in that it self-replicated among the humans and persisted for years. It had affected nearly the entire bionic human population in some way or another.

They had even given it a name, which, for an un-winged fairy to have their accomplishment named by humans, it was a big deal. You can actually see it for yourself and then petition the Table on my behalf. Check it out here.

https://youtu.be/Aq5WXmQQooo?si=JWxzUTMe_oWA6y04

I know I'll be winged. I can't wait.

_____

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