Tick Tock Tick

Tick tock went the clock. Tick tock. Talea rubbed her temples. Tick tock. She'd agreed to take a look at a mansion in the woods, built as the headquarters of hunting parties the owner hosted. Tick tock. The clock itself as a large grandfather clock facing the main portal. Tick tock. Perfect during the day to synchronize pocket watches before a hunt. Tick tock. At night, it was driving Talea up the walls. Tick tock.

The lady of the house had asked her to investigate why nobody wanted to stay an entire night—herself included. Tick tock. Talea was starting to suspect it was all the blasted clock's fault. Tick tock. There was nothing magical about the place. Tick. No creatures lived in it, either. Tock. It was just an empty mansion in the middle of a forest. Tick. She had searched every room, attic to cellars and then the attic again, just to find nothing at all. Tick. Not even cats, mice, owls, or minks, which, admittedly, struck her as odd. Tick. Odd enough she still kept one hand on her dagger the entire time. Ti-ti-ti. Come to think of it, she'd also noticed the empty surroundings of the mansion, devoid of plants other than nettles and thistles. Ti-ti. There was something going on. Ti. It gave her the creeps.

Silence.

Sudden silence made her snap to full attention. The grandfather clock had stopped. As quietly as she could, she snuck back to the entrance hall. She paused atop the wide staircase leading down to the mansion's main portal. Dried peas littered the entirety of the steps. She clutched the rune stone in her left hand tighter. It'd be a pain to return the power to it, but right now, she was glad to be able to see in the dark. She could have broken her neck slipping on these peas in the dark. As it was, she grabbed a broom from a nearby closet, sweeping the stairs as she descended.

The entrance hall had been defaced. Whitewash on the polished dark wood floor spelled "Be gone! Devils walk these halls!"

Talea cocked an eyebrow. The letters were far too neat and there was not a single careless drop of whitewash anywhere. No devils she knew would be so cleanly or neat. None would use peas as weapons, either. This was something else. Not human, though, as humans also were far messier and much, much noisier in their tricks.

"Alright, show yourself! Or selves!" Talea called out. She sidestepped the warning to have a look at the clock. As she'd suspected, it had been stopped by someone pulling one of the weights all the way down. All she had to do to get it going again was wind it.

Tick tock.

"Look, I haven't come to evict you, exactly," she called out again. Tick tock. So, maybe, restarting the clock had been a mistake. It annoyed her already. "You're pixies, right? Or elfs? Kobolds? What do you call yourselves? I know you're just the right size, about a hand of my comically gigantic kind tall. You don't want to hurt anyone or anything, unless they hurt you first and endanger your family, your community. So, please, let's parley. I can offer peace, no peas." She covered her eyes. The last sentence had slipped out against her better judgment. And behind her, the clock ticked along merrily.

When she opened her eyes again, there was a huddled group of about a hundred tiny people standing on the other side of the whitewash warning. One removed his cloth cap as he stepped forward. "We meant no disrespect," he said. "You see, this has always been our home. Our village. For hundreds of years. Yet recently, the clearing we called home was leveled and this gigantic house was built. Miss, we have never lived anywhere else, we don't know any other place. The forest is vast and dangerous. So we thought if we made you giants believe it was haunted and taken over by devils, we could live here. See, we even kept it clean."

Talea nodded slowly. She crouched down and repeated the gesture for the elfs to see better. "I think I can help. I'll go to see people in the morning. After I slept," she added sternly. "Maybe I can work out a compromise. Would you want to leave if I can't?"

"Oh, no, miss, this is our home."

Talea sighed. It was the answer she'd expected, yet also dreaded. "I'll see what I can do."

The next night, Talea returned to pick up a brave elf who was willing to serve as an ambassador to the human lord and lady of the house. It took her several days and threats against the humans to get negotiations going. Longer still to get both sides to compromise. But in the end, humans and elfs were satisfied.

The elfs would stay. They would stop playing tricks on the humans and remove the thistles and nettles they'd planted so other plants could grow in the yard. The humans would make room for the elfs and allow them a share of the food they brought in. Cleaning would be shared between elfs and humans. And absolutely no elf was to be harmed intentionally, every. Talea had repeated this point to the servants as well as the nobility several times.

The elfs wouldn't hurt the humans out of spite. Not as long as the compromise was being upheld.

But, just to be sure, Talea made sure that some of the friends she had in the forest would tell her if it didn't. She promised to return on that day and make peace for good. The elfs and humans seemed to have understood the threat, waving her off as she returned to the road.