The fairy that Cassandra had seen earlier gave Cassandra a very puzzled look. Like she didn't understand the meaning of her question.
"What do you mean, "how did this happen"?" the fairy asked after a few moments as she handed Cassandra an outfit that practically matched the flower petal dress that the fairy was wearing.
"Just as I said," Cassandra spoke, "How did this happen? I was human when I crashed onto this island."
"Yes, I know you crashed," the fairy nodded, "I could feel your magic as you arrived. So I moved to get ready."
That only made more questions run through Cassandra's head.
"Get ready?"
"For your arrival," the fairy explained.
"I don't understand... you... you were waiting for me?" Cassandra wondered.
"Not really waiting, but I knew you had arrived on the island and felt it important to be presentable for guests," the fairy replied, "and you are a beautiful guest, and I am very pleased to meat you."
"So how did I become a fairy?" Cassandra asked, trying to get to the bottom of things, "I was still human when I entered the oasis to bathe... was it the oasis? Did it transform me? Did you transform me?"
The other fairy gave Cassandra a puzzled look again.
"YOU transformed yourself," the fairy said plainly, "why are you responding like there was something else to this?"
"But the oasis! You! I've never had magic before! I've lived my whole life without ever thinking magic was even real!" Cassandra spoke again, her voice edging on panic.
It was at this point the fairy seemed to catch on to something.
"I see... you're descended Off Islanders," the fairy stated.
"Huh?"
The fairy then gestured around, "this island here... this is Avalon. Home island to the fairy race and people. A magical island that covers only a few small square miles... yet seems to extend as large as the plains of Siberia in the human world."
"How could it do that?" Cassandra interrupted.
"Magic always has its paradoxes," the fairy answered, "Avalon breathes fairy magic itself, almost like it is alive with magic. It allows us to live here. It breaks the laws of space and time as they are known to human scientists... shoot, human ships could never find Avalon. Not without some spell casting of their own."
"So how did I end up here?" Cassandra asked, "did the pool just use its magic on me?"
"No, Avalon did not transform you," the fairy replied, "our magic is strongest here, but it comes from us as individuals. Thus since most fairies are here, Avalon gains its magic from us, and us from it. It's like a big interconnected circle... but the island couldn't transform you. It does not have a mind that could will magic to transform you. All that Avalon could do is detect if you were human or not. If human, you would have sailed on a curve that would take you around Avalon and your instruments would have not registered any change in direction... but any fairy that Avalon's magic feels approaching Avalon, its wards go down, and apparently since you do not know your heritage, when you passed through Avalon's wards and crashed."
"Huh? What do you mean, "my heritage"?" Cassandra asked.
"You're a fairy," the fairy answered, "from the moment you were born you were a fairy."
"I don't remember having butterfly wings all my life," Cassandra pointed out.
"Of course you don't, you are descended from Off Islanders," the fairy nodded.
"What does that mean?"
"We fairies have only one gender, dear, we are all female," the fairy explained, "now it isn't so bad. We don't age and many do find loves among our own kind... but we are capable of marrying and procreating with humans. It takes a bit of magic to hide what we are, but to many fairies, it's worth it. They leave Avalon and marry the human they've come to love. We then largely lose contact with them. They usually stay with their husbands till they die of old age... and then all too often, that fairy dies of a broken heart without the one she loves... all its magic leaves her and she dies."
You watched as the fairy shed a tear.
"But these stories aren't entirely sad," the fairy answered, "as commonly fairy children are born to these unions... now, they look human when born because the mother is in human disguise, and if the mother never teaches the child fairy magic, the child lives out its life as a human... and sometimes this cycle goes through generations. The children of fairies and humans grow up and have children of their own. And they have children. Each following generation are fairies. Many merely do not know it. As you did not know it."
Cassandra only blinked.
"But when you crashed onto Avalon, I felt your power, and I'm sure on some level you felt your own magic speaking to you in a way... or felt some longing or attraction to magical things," the fairy explained, "when you bathed in the oasis, you joined the interconnected circles of our magic and Avalon's magic and when it activated the fairy magic that was always part of you... you grew your wings and transformed."