Fate

"What happens now?" asked Woost.

"Nothing," said the faerie, landing on the pillow next to the infant's head. "Now we wait. And make plans. And hope for the best. Nothing can happen until the child comes of age, anyway, not now that she is bonded and sealed. And humans age so frustratingly slowly. So we have time."

There was a long silence, as faerie and elemental alike watched the infant sleep. It was finally Woost whose voice broke the stillness.

"Strange how something so small and fragile and... mortal can be so wound up in the threads of Fate that extraordinary measures such as these must be taken in order to protect it," he said.

"Such has always been the case, my friend," the faerie replied. "Fate has always been influenced most heavily by the finite and the measurable. It's almost ironic that it's that very mutability upon which it seems to rely."