In hiding
Quietly waiting for the right time to strike
The witch will pay.

"Oh my god, these are delicious," said Ellix from @E.X.I.L.E, LLC., stuffing cookies into his mouth. "What are they? Salted caramel?"

"Don't eat them all!," I said, swatting his hand away. "Remember you need to save them for the marketing director, or the CEO, or the board or whatever." 

Ellix took his hand away, but kept staring greedily at the basket.

"The witch really does magic in the kitchen," I said. "They say they taste like your heart's greatest desire, whatever that is. In a cookie. All the students LOVE them. You used to be able to get them at the Spoonbender, but there have been supply chain issues."

Ellix looked at me pleadingly. 

"Just one more? I'm sure there's enough for the rest of the team. I mean, they only really need one each, right?"

"Your call. You're the one who said they needed a sample."

Ellix pulled one more out of the bag and looked at it closely. "What are these little chunks? Kinda meaty?"

"Uh..." I scrambled. "The witch uses all kinds of natural ingredients. She forages them herself out in the woods. Nuts... berries, stuff like that."

Ellix was finishing the cookie already. Being careful to leave no crumbs.

"Well with these in our care packages, we're bound to see our satisfaction ratings surge," he said. "I'm sure they'll want to start including them right away."

"I'll let you sort out the details with the witch. I'm not looking for a piece of the action. I'll give you the map to her house in the woods, and you can just owe me one."

"Like, bring you a batch every time we get a shipment?"

"I, uh... no, that's ok. I'm kinda cookied out."

"Now, you boys just make yourselves comfortable," said the witch.

It didn't take much to convince the senior Boggart from the Unseelie Nationalist Union to meet the witch. Somewhere between "gain powerful weapons of fairy destruction" and "the most delicious cookies in the world," he was hooked. He and his pair of lumpy green bull Boggarts sat at the island counter in the witch's kitchen.

The kitchen was as intoxicating as it was repulsive. A great stone hearth with a roaring fire, counters built on top of stacks of ham and pancakes and giant oozing sticks of butter. Great posts of candy cane holding up a ceiling of moldy chocolate bark. She had a stainless industrial grade refrigerator, an avocado green KitchenAid, an air fryer, a microwave, and an Instapot. Small mummified bodies of indeterminate origin hung from the spidery rafters.

The witch served up three big tumblers of milk. No doubt stolen in the eldritch fashion. I could smell the nutmeg and cinnamon from where I stood.

"You drink that up and get cozy. Then we then we can talk business."

The Boggarts looked at each other for a moment, shrugged, then messily gurgled down their three tall glasses.

It was barely a moment until they all fell off their stools with heavy thuds.

The witch looked them over greedily.

That was my cue to wait outside. The witch and I had texted before we arrived and worked out a deal. Those cookies weren't going to make themselves, and I didn't want to stick around and watch how the dough got made.

CAPTURED!

The Unseelie Nationalist Union is known to be a bit ruthless, but I had no idea they'd resort to salt -- even in wartime.

I'd been making steady progress across the no man's land between the forces, when suddenly my trusty war snail Claveringi cried out in pain. Ok, actually it wasn't "suddenly" but more of a long slow build up to a piercing wail.

The salt trap had been dyed to look like the forest floor. By the time I realized it was a trap I flitted up -- only to be caught in a net, set across the pair of logs we'd been passing through. An obvious kill-zone I should have noticed if it weren't for the fog of war.

"Aye! And who is this fine little missy?"

"She don't look like a Green Man. Or even a Brownie."

"Just whose side are you on?" barked the most senior Boggart. "Identify yerself."

"I am Blue Malva, a Huntler, traveling across this forest to meet the witch yonder."

"The Witch Yonder? Never heard of her!"

"Her name's not 'Yonder,' you cretin. She meant 'over there' or 'aways away.'"

"What are you, the vocabulary fairy now?"

"QUIET you blokes! What witch be this, little missy?" asked the senior Boggart.

It seemed I might have a bargaining chip. But would the witch be up for it?

"She's a mighty powerful witch, boys. Maybe you'd like to meet her?"

THE FAIRY WARS

I discovered that the reason the trip to the witch's cookie hut was so hazardous was on account of the war.

As I might have mentioned, the political climate in Fairyland is pretty unstable, with all kinds of aggressive factions vying for power. Now it's spilling over into this world, which is not only in total violation of the Magic Kingdom Accords, but bound to get pretty dangerous for everybody if it doesn't cool down.

Back home, the Selkie Secessionists have taken the seas, completely isolating the island that the Green Man Liberation Front calls home. So the GMLF have been passing through this dimension as a bridge to supply their forces on the mainland, but troops from Unseelie Nationalist Union and scouts from Brownie Troop 106 have met them here. And it's all happening in Psyhigh's back yard.

I've been able to avoid soldiers on both sides by sticking to the shadows and creeping under logs. It makes for slow going, and sometimes I come so near their camps I hear things.

"We'll tear the heads off those rotten Brownies and roast them on spits!"

"Wait till the magic artillery gets here...."

"Drown them in butter! Drown them in cream!"

As a Huntler, it won't go well for me if I get captured by either side.

Ellix didn't have a management position at @E.X.I.L.E, LLC, so wasn't able to officially sign off on the witch's cookies promo idea. But Ellix suggested that if I dropped off a sample at E.X.I.L.E HQ maybe something could happen.

As I mentioned, the witch's hut is hard to get to. It's in a challenging location. Not just because of the treacherous cliffs and impenetrable bracken, but because of all the flesh eating and soul sucking horror creatures.

But I am not afraid! Back in Fairyland my family were Huntlers, and the Huntlers protect the paths, and I learned to ride snails and handle a fairy blunderbuss at a very young age.

I am sure I will have no trouble making a cookie run. Wish me luck!

Been spending some time after school playing ping pong with Ellix from @E.X.I.L.E, LLC.

“Game point,” I say again, but not gloatingly.

There’s a reason I’m captain of the ping pong team. It’s pretty hard to match the speed I flit around at.

Ellix has been a bit down. E.X.I.L.E hasn’t been getting the traction it hoped for. Apparently there’s a lot of competition in the authoritarian control niche these days.

“It’s just hard to differentiate yourself in the market. You have to have a value prop that really stands out,” Ellix said.

I think the care packages are a nice touch.

“Yeah, the market research said the ‘stern mother’ approach was ripe for disruption, but we’re not really seeing that yet,” Ellix said.

Which is why Ellix has all this free time for ping pong.

"There's those cookies that the witch makes. In the forest," I said. "Everybody loves them, but she's hard to get to. Challenging location. But if you started including them in your care packages..."

Ellix is sweaty. But my idea has merit.

"Your serve," I say.

We laugh at your ignorance, @Blue Malva. We are not like that. If you think so, you are clearly mistaken. Our only goal in this dimension is to help the PHS students thrive. If you think we are harsh, you should see the E.X.I.L.E, LLC from B5-AMN86. We may rule this school, but we still care about every individual student. In fact, we send out care packages every month. It may say it is from your parental guardian, but in truth, it is from us.

Also, @Blue Malva, our company name (E.X.I.L.E, LLC) is a creative decision that our marketing director Jeremy (he has since retired) apparently thought was a good idea. As you might know, once a company name is submitted to the IACND (Intergalactic Association Of Company Name Decisions) it cannot be changed. If you would like to form an official complaint about this, please direct it to their official email, concerns@iacnd.org. We are not able to disclose what our name stands for at this time, but we will let you know when this changes.

To prove these statements (as we care about being truthful) we will be opening a Q&A. Send in any burning questions you have about anything, such as:
-Why we are affiliated with this school
-What we do
-When meetings are held (By the way, we don't have them)
-Where our headquarters is
-Who we are
-Any other questions
We hope you take advantage of this offer.

-E.X.I.L.E, LLC
"We are trustworthy."

(P.S. We would be happy to send an E.X.I.L.E, LLC representative to play a game of ping pong with you. One of our reps, Ellix, quite likes it.)

One of the things I was happy to get away from in Fairyland were all the factions and evil super groups competing for power. The Unseelie Nationalist Union, Brownie Troop 106, Sons of L.O.G.O.S., The Green Man Liberation Front. Sometimes you don't feel safe going to the fairy marketplace or out for fairy ramen.

I thought that Earth was better than that. Or at least that the superhero groups and secret spy agencies were enough to keep the evil supervillain groups in check.

But now there are those creepy posters for @E.X.I.L.E, LLC all over campus. Ugh! What does it even stand for? And is the last E just on its own and not an abbreviation? But E is not even a word!

If people start going to their meetings and all dressing alike I am going to need to challenge them to a game of ping pong to settle this in a civilized fashion.

We did not put you in your place for a while, to see how you reacted. You waited for us to catch you. And waited. And waited. We did catch you, but we decided not to take action. We are kind like that, aren't we? We will give you one more warning, child. Do not go behind the prophet's back. Do not go behind our back. Never ever again. Let us make this clear. We are not like our (beloved) counterpart, @GROTTO G.S.M. INC. They love the school, they love you. We rule this school. We rule you. If you do not heed this last warning, well...


The consequences will be dire.


-E.X.I.L.E, LLC
"Do not underestimate us."