Now her attention turned to the forms and colors of all the flowers and herbs around her. Knowing that she would come here often in the future, she directly started looking for something to aid her with her most pressing need. What could help her to prevent getting pregnant, the men around were too common and too lustful that she wanted to interact with them more on equal grounds. They could run around ignoring the effects of their actions where women had to bear the results.
More on smell than any other indication, her attention was pulled to a small purple flower in the grass. She had seen it before; it had quite some potential but was shunned by witches. The reason was that its sap was what she was after. But exposing the sap to air, quickly reduced it to nothing special. She had to come up with a plan for it. That oil still in her pocket could possibly do the trick, if she could enclose the sap in it before it was wasted.
Her bag was opened, and some drops of oil were put on a small wooden plank. She cut the flower loose, pushed a drop of sap from its stem and let it emerge in the oil. It worked well enough, but not more than an extra small drop could be squeezed from the flower. For her potion, she would need more than that. She started looking around for more of these flowers. There had to be more than one, but there wasn't another one in sight.
"Stop with that you lump!" said a voice from near her feet. "Don't you cut that flower and just throw it carelessly away. Take better care of these things that are dear to me."
Searching for the source of the sound Charlotte's gaze fell on a small figure flying close to her leg. "Pardon me, I really need their sap," was her response, could she argue with the thing? Isabel had warned her quite sternly about interacting with fairies, but she had not encountered them before. Was that from the same book as her dislike of masturbation?
"There are better ways to get to it than that. You could pull the sap and still allow for them to live. It's not that hard when knowing how to do the trick."
Charlotte pondered on that. "It would surely involve being little like you." After that statement, her perspective on the world suddenly started shifting down. She lost hold of her plank, but it did not tumble or fell very far. Then, everything went dark.
She was struggling to get out from under the heavy black sheets that were pushing her down. It was not difficult, but the sheets were big. After a while, she climbed into the sunlight again. The big stems of plants first puzzled her, but she soon could tell that she saw grass and flowers growing high above her head. Naked, she walked around looking for the fairy that had shrunk her a moment ago. The flapping of big butterfly wings warned her of her near landing.
Standing before her was a roughly girl shaped figure. It had small flat breasts and a somewhat alien looking face with pointy ears. There were hardly any round forms on the fairy in stark contrast to Charlotte's own body. Though she was naked, it looked totally normal, just like with the animals. There were relatively huge butterfly wings attached to her back extending way above her head. Even being small, she had to use wings that were relatively much larger than a bird needed. But the wings looked gorgeous from up close, in stark contrast to the rather plain figure attached to it.
"Hello, my name is Charlotte, thank you to allow me to still gather the sap after wasting such a nice flower." There were hurt feelings here that needed addressing.
"You may call me Lilah as my siblings do," was the answer she got. Charlotte had trouble reading any emotion from the fairy. "Can you climb onto the plank, so that we can move on," was the strange advice that the fairy had for her.
She saw her wooden board lying nearby and walked towards it. She needed to lift herself up onto it by her arms and managed to scramble up on top of it. The moment she wanted to stand up the wood quivered and started to rise from the grass like an invisible hand had scooped it up. The fairly flew before her to a different part of the meadow. A few more of these mysterious flowers grew here. After landing, Charlotte let herself slide from her plank and walked to the stem of one of them.
"Put both hands flat on it, move them up and down. Pull your hands towards you breathing in real sharp, a drop will then emerge." Charlotte followed the instructions and soon had a big bowl of liquid hanging between her hands. She was almost blown away by the power that emitted from it. The whole surface of the drop was brimming from a reaction with the air around her. She hurried back to the plank and was suddenly lifted by her arms with fairy hands. With a swoop, she landed on the wood. She quickly let the liquid fall in the oil that was on it.
The oil closed over the drop and the reaction stopped. Charlotte stood still for a moment letting the effect from the sap wear off a bit. She felt aroused and felt some rejuvenation, the second effect she needed for the potion. She needed her organs to keep their state even in the presence of male sperm. This was really going to work.
Moving back to the same plant made the fairy react. "That plant gave its part, move on towards the next." That was correct. It would need enough sap to survive, and there were more of these flowers here.
After fetching four more drops from different flowers, Charlotte was exhausted with climbing and flying around. She sat down on the side of the board. Then she saw a mouse moving past her, it stopped a moment to look at her and then went on it's way again.
She addressed the fairy that landed besides her. "The animals seem to leave us at peace; they could harm us though when we are this small."
Lilah thought about it. "Most creatures will know better than to hurt our kind. Some birds of prey sometimes try it, but they learn."
Charlotte could not think what she could do against the claws of an incoming falcon if it would think of her as a snack. However, the fairy probably had something to defend itself with. She let her back fall down on the wood looking upwards to the trees high above her. But her thoughts were disturbed by voices from the other side of the meadow.
"Who would leave their clothes lying around like that? Look, it is from a woman. It's a skirt and a blouse. Even the underclothes are lying under it. Everything is only black, what a shame, colored clothes are much nicer." A young female voice was cheerfully drifting over the grass. But the subject made Charlotte stand up somewhat concerned. Lilah was watching too.
Two persons were standing by her clothes; it was the young woman in the nice clothes from this morning, and with her was the young lord Patrick from the carriage. "I think this is a splendid idea, you should leave your clothes here too," was the remark from Patrick.
"You would wish that? No, thank you, I like my clothes on me and..." She was stopped by the man kissing her, but she broke that soon after. She ran from him but it was not that quick or very far. "I am a prudent woman; keep your hands from my bust." But that was clearly a taunt. She was smiling brightly. Patrick made a leap towards her that she dodged. "Oh help me; I am being chased by my Lordship." She ran away, but was caught very quickly. They fell, but as they landed, a ripping noise sounded over the grass. A bit of a struggle was heard, but they did not talk again through their heavy breathing.
Charlotte could not see them through the high grass but had a fairly good notion what was going on next to her on the meadow. The fairy smiled and asked, "Shall we have a look at those two humans there? Or don't you think it's prudent sneaking up on them."
"Are you that interested? This is what humans often do, not much can stop them at it. Besides, what is your age that you could not have experienced it before?"
The fairy looked puzzled and frowned. "Some hundred years have passed by since I woke. I sometimes take the pleasure watching people mate." The creature sounded mildly interested but not that concerned. "It seems like they have stopped."
Quicker than Charlotte had thought, the two young people were lying away from each other. One thing was sure to her, Patrick had relieved himself and the woman had not. "Oh no, you tore up my clothes," sounded her voice accusingly. Followed by, "and I feel dirty." This clearly had not pleased the maiden, and the man had no answer to it being out of energy.
