The first real rain after Spring and on the edge of summer triples the green overnight. The earth seems to sigh out a long held breath, finally warmed after the cold dark of winter, and breathes out a stunning wealth of green. On cue, the butterflies, birds, and all manner of critters come alive, and the once quiet garden is bursting with life. A seasonal party dances under the treetops.
In the lush shadows, where afternoon sunlight creeps in with delicate golden puddles of light, Dren the Dear Deer elf bounds from each sunny spot to the next. Her turquoise vest a blur of colour, her bustle fluttering behind her as she kicks and prances her way about the flowers with delicate precision. The music of the garden, baby birds squawking, leaves fluttering, the wind scraping the rose bush branches against each other, a low whine of fat bumblebees laden with pollen, a cacophony of sound reaches Dren’s doe like ears as pure music.
She hums and twirls, energized by the magic of summer on the cusp. Her black nose twitches, catching the last scent of lilacs, now heavy and thick with the overly sweet scent of late blooms fading. Dren bobs her head and leaps over a stone, dizzy with the delight of it all. Gazing up at the treetops as they seem to mirror her movements, swaying, branches outstretched as she reaches back with her arms, hugging the world around her in an open embrace, pure love of the earth and its magic energizing her.
A sound, a call, heard amidst the music of the garden, caught on the wind, carried on the tail of a robin, drifts down as a gentle reminder, tickling her horns with the whisper of power. The season of the fae court and her duties quiets her tapping feet. She listens, calls out in a musical tone humans will wonder at, birds will admire, answering the summons.
Tomorrow there’ll be time for order and purpose, but for the moment Dren is as wild and free as the non-fae deer kin who meander through the garden delicately chewing hostas.
Aulis told me a most peculiar story, how once he met a mysterious figure in the woods. Features hidden by a long cloak and shadowy hood, who asked of him “a small, inconsequential favour, a tiny deed” the aged voice quavered, ”hardly anything at all. To perhaps, if you would be so kind as to assist a fellow traveler, reach into that crevice of that tree, see there, almost invisible to the eye…and find, retrieve….return to me, a lost item. Return to me…”
There was no reason to not help, and this particular elf I have come to realize is the trusting sort, a good fellow who would not hesitate to lend a helping hand. Who would not look past the surface and wonder, as you and I might, about reasons why, and what, and consequences, even motives. What does an elf know of motives?
He would just assist, if it was at all possible, this inherent kindness as much a part of the nature of Aulis as his pointed ears.
So he reached in, fearless, with the advantages of a nimble fingered elf, where the old man could not fit his gnarled hands and pulled free a small, fabric wrapped bundle with nothing more than an old stone…or…he paused there in his story and seemed to search his memories…squinting at the past…
“Or..was it a magnificent stone…gleaming bright with rainbow fire inside…I blinked against the shine, it stung my eyes…but no..no, of course not…could not be, it was just an old gray stone, sentimental value the old stranger said…tucking it away in the folds of his robes….just an old stone…”
His voice trailed off, remembering…perhaps wondering…a faint expression of uncertainty clouding his eyes.
The little squirrel on his hat fidgeted, chittering in the slightly impatient tsking tones of squirrels everywhere, distracting Aulis from memories of a moment long past.
Aulis shook his head, grinned at me, firmly back in the present and tapped his walking stick onto the ground, gemstones winking and flashing in the sunlight.
“I was offered this magnificent wand in return! A wand…a wand? Oh I did laugh, a wand to him, a magnificent staff for me. It was peculiar…..” He trailed off. “It did not seem a very fair bargain for such an easy task…an old gray stone is not much… but he did insist and..look how it gleams here…and just here as well.”
Aulis sighed happily.
“We’ve been on many adventures, this old wand and I..and, of course Chymes here,” He reached up carefully, with much affection, rubbed the cheek of the impossibly…surely magically…small squirrel who perched upon his cap, listening intently to Aulis’ every word.
“Why we met just after…what a day that was, the stranger and the stone, the wand and my lovely new friend! What a day! The beginning of so many adventures. So proud of my new walking stick I could not take my eyes from it, nearly walked into some blackberry brambles and would have too! Were it not for Chymes here.”
They gazed at each other, the squirrel Chymes and Aulis the elf, seeming to understand one another.
A funny little squirrel…the timing was strange too…I stared hard at the unusually minuscule creature…wondering.
It’s head snapped up, instantly on alert, tail vibrating, it leapt from Aulis’ hat with natural grace and the ease of familiarity to land on the walking stick…the wand in reality I recalled…it stared at me…
There was a moment….the niggling curiosity about Aulis’ encounter tickled my brain with maddening intensity, a question tried to form, begged to be answered, an itch I could not scratch, an idea I could not put voice to, like a dream it threatened to fade away completely if my attention wavered for even a moment. I dared not blink.
Chymes and I, gazes locked…a ridiculous stand off of sorts….and yet…
Aulis laughed, distracting me, the questions looming, the itch, the curiosity, faded away…a bubble popped, tension released. I let it go.
It seemed…wisest, and leaned forward as once more Aulis began another story.
“I met a dragon once you know…trapped under a waterfall, poor thing…..”
