"Bluebonnet?" whispered Quinn. "Are you around?"
A pinpoint of light appeared and expanded to palm size.
"Hi, Quinn!" said Bluebonnet, with a smile.
"Hey!" said Quinn. "You know my buddy Davion, right?" Bluebonnet nodded, smiling and squinting. "He’s hoping some of you fairies can teach him what you know about space and lightning and stuff." He turned to Davion. "Right?"
"Right," said Davion. "I’m told that your kind knows much about mathematics, physics, and computation."
Bluebonnet just nodded, still smiling.
"Can you teach me?" asked Davion.
Bluebonnet held up one finger, then turned and flew away.
"Was that a 'no'?" asked Davion.
"I think that was a 'wait here'," said Quinn.
"Oh. Okay."
They waited. After a few moments, Bluebonnet reappeared alongside another of the star folk. This one looked like an ordinary man, with no butterfly wings or other odd features. He had beige skin and almond eyes, rare for someone from the kingdom. He wore the silks of a minister from some ancient empire, long ago and far away.
"I am Lao," he said.
He smiled at Davion.
"I will be your teacher."
"Thank you," said Davion. "I appreciate anything you can teach me."
Lao looked at Quinn. "You too?"
"Oh no," said Quinn. "Noooo. Davion taught me arithmetic. That experience taught me that it’s the most math I want to know."
Lao smiled and nodded. Bluebonnet waved to Quinn and beckoned him to follow. They wandered off into the wood.
"Allow me to introduce my assistants," said Lao.
Six more star folk appeared around him.
One resembled a flying serpent — like a dragon, but with colorful feathered wings rather than bat-like.
Another looked like a humanoid coyote.
A third looked like a humanoid made out of water.
A winged rabbit, an onyx woman with rainbow colors surrounding her, and a smiling cat rounded out the group.
"Hello," said a nervous Davion.
"Watch!" said Lao.
Lao’s six assistants surrounded him in a hexagonal formation. Their pixelated avatars faded, replaced by rotating polyhedrons of light. The geometric figures produced spirals from their vertices, spirals with touched those of the others and interfered with them. The interference produced patterns of fractal shapes and colors unlike anything Davion had seen. Lao’s center shell began to pulse without a pattern.
Davion stared at the display for a couple of minutes, fascinated at its ever-changing nature. He found himself staring at the pulsating center, but still aware of the fractals around it. He furrowed his brow, staring in fascination. "I don’t understand," he said.
He paused for a moment, fixated.
"And yet… I do."