As Subtle as Amanda's Battle Axe

I am a huge fan of subtlety. Don’t let Amanda tell you otherwise. She’s my sister, so she doesn’t actually know a thing about me. Sisters are absolutely wretched judges of character. Really, she seems to think that I am some sort of irresponsible, immature gad-about who hasn’t a care in the world simply because I don’t take an interest in the family business…

I feel as though I have digressed. I was talking about subtlety. I am subtle, when I need to be. In fact, being a very open, social, convivial sort of person is part of my cunningly subtle plan. No one suspects the friendly, joking one of having deep thoughts.

So let us investigate a hypothetical situation. Let us pretend that a certain half-faerie noncombatant is making preparations to move to America to spend some quality time with his niece while his sister and brother-in-law are out of town. Let’s say that this delightful fellow has purchased a ticket and is all set to leave in a couple of days when he is approached by a panicked individual wearing a very obvious black trench coat and gloves and a hideous hat. Subtle, he is not.

So this chap is trying to get our hypothetical uninvolved civilian’s attention in a very obvious manner. Our hero tries to ignore him, but he doesn’t take no for an answer and approaches.

It turns out that Mr. Obvious is wearing his very secretive coat, gloves, and hat to cover all of his very faerie-esque tattoos covering his arms and face. It also turns out that he has heard through a friend of a friend of an acquaintance’s brother’s boss’s sister’s husband that said neutral fellow is in the habit of helping faeries who are on the run from their own government to assimilate into human society.

Let’s just pretend that this might be somewhere close to the truth. Did he have to ask for help right before I was going to leave the country?

That is, did this hypothetical illegal crosser have to show up right as our hypothetical half-faerie completely unvolved citizen of Britain was about to create a branch of his legitimate, human business in an entirley new country and take a break from his complete, utterly, and entirely hypothetical and nonexistent interactions with the faerie race? Really?

Apparently so. Well, first thing’s first. This unfortunate chap’s going to have to learn how to dress properly to blend in here. Subtlety, friend. Subtlety…