II.
Once an ancient crown had been lost to the woods and now lay grown through with roots and vines and feathered with soft moss.
After a thousand years, the gold had tarnished and the opals had cracked.
In the summer, fairy foxglove entwined with the crown's elegant curves, and in winter, snowflakes danced on its pointed tips.
Many searched through the glens to find it, but unfortunately for them, the thistle fairies got to it first.
They crawled over the crown with glee, scraping their long, needle-sharp teeth on the gold and polishing the opals to a shine with their shimmering, incandescent wings. For they wanted the crown to be found.
A traveler stumbled upon the crown first and picked it up with awe, brushing off the moss and holly berries and setting it upon his head with delight. He didn't notice the tiny thistle fairies perched all over the crown.
The attack came swiftly. The thistle fairies detached in a wave from the crown and flew at the traveler's face and neck, sinking their teeth into his veins and drinking hungrily.
Many underestimated these monstrous little green creatures with their faces as sharp as the tines of forks.
In a few swift minutes, the traveler's blood was drained and his body rotted into the ground among the mushrooms and moss.
Next, a farmer picked up the crown and met the same fate.
Then a knight tried his hand and found that thistle fairies' teeth could sink straight through silver-plated armor.
Finally, a lonesome exiled king found the crown and wearily tried it on to remember his glory days.
When the thistle fairies attacked and pierced their teeth into the jelly of his eyes, he did not fight.
He simply opened his mouth and invited them to dive into the dark depths of his throat.
The monstrous creatures could not resist, flying into his mouth and down into his lungs and ribs to feast.
But when the king clamped his mouth shut, they could not escape.
He died with his blood sucked clean from the inside out.
The thistle fairies died from suffocation as the corpse deflated around them.