Title: Autumn Days
Fandom: Flower Fairies - Cicely Mary Barker
Rating: G
Length: 493 words
Summary: Blackberries juicy
For staining of lips;
And scarlet, O scarlet
The Wild Rose Hips! (C. M. Barker, The Song of the Rose Hip Fairy).

The Blackberry fairy walks lightly through the bramble thicket, careful to make no sound that will alert her quarry. Many of the fairies love her berries, and she’s happy to share them, but most pick the ones that hang on the outside of the bushes, trying to avoid the prickles. They don’t always succeed, and then Blackberry laughs and laughs to see proud Bluebell or solemn Nightshade with torn clothes and scratched hands.

Someone, though, has been deliberately picking berries from deep within the brambles. Blackberry can make a good guess as to who it is - there aren’t many fairies who could slip so easily through thorny branches, or who would even think to do it - but she wants to catch them red-handed. So she slips from leaf to branch, silent as a wisp of mist.

Suddenly, the branches ahead rustle and sway as if in a wind - but the day is completely calm, without even the hint of a breeze. Blackberry grins and speeds up, but she’s too late. By the time she reaches the spot, there’s no-one there. A flash of red however, catches her eye as she looks up. Carefully, she untangles the long scarf from the prickles it’s caught on, then skips towards the edge of the brambles, giggling. The scarf’s owner will be long gone, and she’s the swifter flier of the pair, but Blackberry knows where to find her. Spreading her wings, she leaps into the air.

A few minutes later, she flutters down to the hedge top, and grins at the fairy who’s perched there on a rose stem, singing. Unwinding the scarf - the same colour as the scarlet rose hips that surround them - from her hand, she dangles it in front of her friend.

“Did you misplace this?” she asks, laughter in her voice.

Rose Hip laughs too as she reaches out to take it. “Thank you, I was wondering where it had got to.”

Blackberry grabs the outstretched hand, pointing to the reddish-purple stains. “You know exactly where it was! Where you lost it after taking my berries.”

“It got caught, and I knew you’d get me if I stopped to untangle it,” Rose Hip acknowledges as she ties the scarf round her dark hair. “I still win, though!”

“No you don’t, you lost your scarf, I knew it was you,” Blackberry argues.

“But I got away with a berry!” her friend counters.

Blackberry grins at her. “Never mind who won, what shall we do today?”

Rose Hip frowns for a second, considering, then her eyes light up and she springs to her feet. “Come with me!”

In a second, they’re both aloft, whispering to each other and laughing together as they fly through the crisp autumn air. Winter is swift approaching, when most of the fairies will hide away to sleep until spring; but for now, there is sunshine, and laughter, and dark blackberries and red rose hips.