Ignore it.

Leave it.

[i]Focus[/i].

If Needle had learned anything in his time crawling through the Blight, up spouts and drains and fluttering beneath shingles and sewers, it was focus. Focus was what set him apart from the others, that simple, raw ability to grind down the insect brain that half-twitched at every new stimulus. Pixies were amazing little creatures, adaptable in the extreme, brains hardwired for survival and propagation whether it be as the servant of a Seelie Lord or as a member of one of the Blight swarms, tumbling masses of near feral little vermin. The kind that Needle had crawled and fucked and fought and screamed his way free from, laughing the whole time. Because it was funny, all so goddamn funny—the lowest of the low, and still they found ways to thrive. Collect them by the dozen and a hundred more would pop up, bred and born in the cracks and crannies and forgotten places of the city.

But the lizard brain, that little grasshopper-fly impulse to flick to the side when motion came, do crawl and hide or descend on anything that looked vaguely edible... that was Needle's real nemesis. He had to focus, he had to think, he had [i]plans[/i] and he couldn't let himself get distracted by mushroomelfsickratbirdloosedoor--
His teeth grit together and he growled, leaning down and gripping his thigh with sharp, thin fingers until tiny pinpricks of blood welled. The pain was a catalyst, something to block out the kneejerk need to [i]react[/i]. No one got ahead by reacting—the future belonged to those who built it.

And if Needle didn't plan to build anything, you couldn't kill a troll with a Needle. Sometimes the world needed a little push down the drain.
Not that the pixie did—leaping from rooftop to rooftop, little leather-clad feet pounding shingles and wood, crawling and skittering like a beast one moment only to push off and run like a man, he took an impossible leap and sailed down a pipe, a wide grin showing white little teeth as he felt the wind tug at his wings and hair. It was here that his lizard brain had purpose, that instinct took over—fallingfallingfallingduckrollpushoffdodgefootclimbbootjump--

Enough time to indulge it gave him room to play later, and he would need it as he finally came back to himself, the feeling of Granny's gnarled, rotted bark beneath his fingers.

All fae loved the old tree, but pixies more than most. In it's gnarled branches they tittered and laughed and rutted, in it's rotted core they burrowed and festered with it. Like termites they bored through it but with an almost unconscious level of respect, a quietly retained semblance of the order of things that Needle frankly lacked. As he climbed the tree, legs and knees and hands working with all the dexterity and strength of an expert climber, he worked spider-like into one of the many knots and pushed his way through the dark warrens within. Scent and sound waited on the other side, food and laughter and finally light--

Pulling himself from one of the many cracks in the ceiling, he let himself hang for a moment as he watched the goings on below. The air was thick and warm in here, and heartening—if Needle didn't frequent the Hole, he at least understood the appeal. Easy to lose yourself, feel for a minute as if you were your own instead of a part of the Blight.

But Needle was good at finding lost things, and as his eyes flicked around the room he couldn't help but notice the multitude of hoods. But the hood he was looking for—of course she would wear a hood, she was being looked for, she'd be discreet—only one of them was slipping away from the crowd, being led by the bartender to the back rooms. Only one of them was particularly small, walked like a female, smelled like glam even through the crowd--

“Daaaahling.” He whispered to himself with a wide grin, crawling across the ceiling of the Hole upside down. If he barely made it in before the door closed, the battering of a wing was nothing compared to his glee at having found her before they did. Even as he watched her crack open her little case and start cooking, his lips pulled back into a grin from ear to pointed ear.

“They were right, you know.” He called down after a minute of watching her work—she was good, he could tell that from the moment he saw her crack her implements. Letting go of the ceiling he righted himself in midair, half-floating, half-falling until he hovered with gently batting wings across the table from her, one hand on his hip and his long, leather-covered legs hanging below him. With an impish smile on his lips, he hovered a little closer.

“You make purple look good. Now tell me, precious, what would you give me to save your life?”