Chapter Text
Timmy Turner was the most ten-year-old boy of all time. He was a small, awkward kid with buck teeth and a pink hat, and he lived in a cookie-cutter suburb—demographics skewed conservative—on the outskirts of Dimmsdale, California. He was a slacker already in the fifth grade, and he did not have any hobbies that would get him accepted into college. No scholarship, at least.
His home life was troubled at best. His parents had a barely veiled desire to return to their childfree life, and they ran the gauntlet from clueless to outright abusive. Usually, a mix of both. Today was one of those days. Timmy’s dad forced him to mow the lawn, except the guy at the hardware store didn’t sell him a lawnmower. He sold him a wolverine, and Timmy had to cut the grass with a wolverine. That went exactly as well as expected.
Timmy wrestled the wolverine back into its pen and dragged his black-and-blue body to his equally blue room. At least that was done now.
You see, as miserable as Timmy’s life was, it never got too miserable.
Because Timmy had the greatest secret in the world.
Timmy looked at the two goldfish plopped in a bowl way too small for goldfish at the side of his bed. The goldfish looked back at him, smiled, and suddenly there was a burst of colorful, sparkling powder.
And a second later, two diminutive fairies floated above him.
“Hi Timmy!” chirped the green-haired fairy. This one was Cosmo. He was fun.
“Aww, rough day, sport?” asked the pink-haired fairy. This one was Wanda. She was not fun.
Cosmo and Wanda were Timmy’s fairy godparents, and they granted his every wish (as long as they were in compliance with Da Rules).
“The hardware store sold dad a wild animal again,” huffed Timmy. Wanda waved her wand and healed him. “Last time it was the grizzly bear weedwhacker! This time it was a wolverine lawnmower! The Fish and Wildlife department have us on speed dial!”
“Wow, Timmy,” said Cosmo. “Sounds to me like you have a skill issue! I used to mow my lawn with a Cerberus!”
“There are no lawns in Fairyworld,” scoffed Wanda. She had a laptop computer in front of her, floating in the air with her.
“Well, you guys could’ve helped at any time,” Timmy said crossly. “What have you two been doing all day, anyway?”
“I’ve been making a scrapbook!” Cosmo said. “Wanda let me put on all the stickers!” He poofed the scrapbook into existence, opening the book and showing off a mess of colorful stickers.
“You did a great job, sweetie.” Wanda stared at the computer and scrunched her eyebrows.
Timmy was curious. He got behind Wanda and craned his neck up to see what she was doing. It’s not like it helped. She had a mess of nonsense code on a black screen. He couldn’t make heads nor tails out of it. “Are you programming?” he asked.
Wanda smiled at him. “Sure am, sport!”
“What are you making? A game?” He paused. “Why are you programming when you can use magic?”
“Some things are easier to do manually than magically, hon.”
“Programming is?”
“Yes.” Red text popped up. Error on line 567! It declared. Wanda scowled in frustration. “Remember what happened last time we magicked you up a video game? Besides, it’s good to learn new skills. I’ve always been interested in technology.”
“You’re interested in technology?”
She raised an eyebrow. “Yes, sport. You would know that if you ever bothered asking me about the things I like.”
Her snarky remark totally flew over Cosmo’s head. “Okay, Poindexter,” he said. “Let’s stop doing nerd stuff and have fun! With stickers! And wild animals!”
“Give me a minute. Let me figure out what I’m doing wrong.” She scratched her chin. “If only there was a Stack Overflow for fairies…”
“Nerd!” Cosmo bellowed, louder.
“Can you tell me about the game?” asked Timmy.
“Oh, sweetie, I’m not making a game…”
Why did Timmy ever suspect Wanda of doing something fun?
She teleported right beside him and showed him her screen. “This is Rune, a magical programming language! Everything in Fairyworld runs off Rune, from WandOS to our government to even Da Rules themselves!”
“Magic is programming?”
“Yep!” Wanda said enthusiastically. “Rune is based off the manual magic our fairy elders used to do before we had wands. If we didn’t have it, nothing in Fairyworld would work!”
“And fairy tech is compatible with laptops?”
“I mean, you’ll need at least sixteen gigs of RAM.”
At this point, Timmy was lost and no longer interested in the conversation. But Wanda was fired up. She continued yapping, her magenta eyes twinkling.
“Most fairies don’t know anything about computers because we use magic for everything,” Wanda bragged. “Only WandOS devs understand. And me! If I keep practicing, I’ll have a skill most other fairies don’t! Right now, I’m writing a simple script to automate some security updates for our wands. Ooh!” She clapped her hands together. “Humans don’t have any reason to learn Rune, but if you’re interested in programming, I can teach you some Python. Or C+! I like C+. That’s my favorite…”
“Blah, blah, blah-dee-blah,” said Cosmo, raising his voice to drown Wanda out. “Nobody cares about your boring nerd project. It’s time for fun. Make a wish, Timmy! Do it!”
“I’m with Cosmo,” said Timmy. “Nerd time is over.”
Wanda deflated. Closing her laptop, she poofed it away. “Wand security is important, Cosmo,” she said with a scowl. “It’s important to keep them updated. After all, with Yousei going around, who knows when they’ll exploit a zero-day vulnerability?”
“I don’t speak nerd, Wanda.” Cosmo thumbed his ear. “Who’s Yousei? Is he someone I should know about?”
Wanda’s jaw dropped. “How do you not know about Yousei?” she sputtered. “We literally watched it on Fairy News last night! You know, Yousei? The fairy hacker or hackers on the loose who’ve been attacking the Big Wand lately? The hacker who’s been taking credit for the Whishing scams, the WanDDoS attacks? The very important threat? Cosmo, do you comprehend information, or has the jelly in your brain liquified further?”
“Oh, I tune out until I see monster trucks.”
“Question.” Timmy raised his hand. “If the Big Wand is being attacked, does that mean you won’t be able to grant my wishes?”
“Don’t worry about it, sweetie.” Wanda gave him a tight-lipped smile. She was clearly still hurt, but she was good at hiding it through her body language. “Our end user wands are more vulnerable, but the Big Wand itself is protected with a highly secure proprietary encryption algorithm. The hacker will never in a million years be able to crack it. Maybe a million and one years, but definitely not now! Every godkid’s wishes are safe.”
“Cool,” said Timmy. “Then I don’t care about the hacker, either!”
“We let the woman speak too long,” said Cosmo. “Wish! Wish! Wish! Wish!”
At that moment, an owl flew in through the window. Perching on the sill, it opened its beak and hacked up a pile of letters.
“Ooh! Mail time!” Cosmo pulled a mouse out of his front pocket and gave it to the owl. “Thank you. Your tip, good sir.”
The owl hooted in appreciation and flew off. Cosmo dove into the pile, making snow angels in the letters. “I love mail time!”
“Can’t wait to pay this month’s mana bill.” Wanda caught the letters as Cosmo threw them around, going through them with a cursory glance. She received a purple letter with a heart sticker sealing it. Crinkling her nose, she tore it in half. “There’s never anything goo…”
“Wanda!” Cosmo popped out of the pile, triumphantly holding a letter above his head. “Look! Look at this!”
“Uh… what’ve you got there, honey?” She floated to her husband’s side, eyes widening as she read the name on the return address.
Timmy leaned over and joined them. “Professor Clary… Pari… Sattari?” he sounded out the syllables. “Uh, who?”
“It’s my papa!” Cosmo exclaimed. “He finally wrote me! It only took…” He counted on his fingers. “… Ten thousand years, but I knew he would write me eventually!”
Wanda gave Timmy a look. “Timmy, emergency meeting,” she said, waving her wand and poofing them into the backyard.
Timmy folded his arms. “Wanda, what’s the big deal?” he asked.
“The big deal is Cosmo’s dad!” she hissed. “Clary Pari Sattari is a jerk of the nth degree!”
“You say that about Mama Cosma.”
“Cosmo’s dad is way worse!” Wanda snapped. “He’s the sort of father who, uh, went out to get some milk, if you catch my drift.”
“He’s a deadbeat?”
“Yes!” She nodded emphatically. “Cosmo is not the type to entertain the idea his father didn’t want him. If he opens that letter, it’ll probably just be Clary asking for money. That’s what my deadbeat mom does to me! I want to protect Cosmo’s naïveté. If Clary rejects him again, it’ll crush him.”
“Huh? Letter? I already read it!” Cosmo poofed beside them, waving Clary’s now opened letter. “Timmy! Wanda! Check it out! ‘Dear Cosmo. How have you been? Currently, I’m in Ireland studying fairy history. Right now, I’m excavating the Green Isle, which only becomes visible every seven years. Since this is a massive undertaking, I need a research assistant. Therefore, I would like to graciously extend an invitation to you, my son, to join me for the project. Please reply at your earliest convenience. Sincerely, Clary, Fairyworld-Renowned Arfaeologist. P.S. Bringing Wanda is mandatory.”
Wanda rolled her eyes. “Now the quack’s involving me in his shenanigans.”
“Have I ever told you about papa, Timmy?” Cosmo bounced up and down in midair. “He’s super cool and smart, and he knows everything about fairy history. He’s a professor of Arfaeology, and…”
“And he’s a snake who never has good intentions,” Wanda huffed. “What’s he doing on the Green Isle of all places?”
“The what?” asked Timmy.
“It’s an old milifairy base,” she explained. “It was decommissioned thousands of years ago! There’s nothing left but obsolete magitech and fairy junk. It’s not worth seeing.”
“… And even though papa hasn’t talked to me in millennia, I know he loves me just as much as mama, and…”
“I don’t care about boring history stuff,” said Timmy. “But… Ireland? And a mysterious place that only appears once every seven years?”
“Don’t you dare,” hissed Wanda through clenched teeth.
“Wellll… I could go to school tomorrow. Orrrr… I could take a super cool vacation to Ireland.” Timmy grinned mischievously. “Wish time, Cosmo.”
He had his wand at the ready. “Shoot!”
“Cosmo, Wanda, I wish we joined Clary’s expedition at the Green Isle!”
“Yay!” squealed Cosmo as he waved his wand.
“You have a permanent black mark on your soul,” snarled Wanda, but she obliged (she didn’t have a choice).
That is how the trio left the mundanity of Dimmsdale behind and ended up on the foggy shores of the Green Isle.
