The Industrial Elf Ch. 06

He smiled sadly to her. "I am probably the last moon elf left on this earth, and even if there are others, I have been apart from them for too long to feel much kinship to them anymore."

He didn't know what he was expecting from her for saying this, but the tears that he saw made him feel worse.

"I'm sorry," he said, meaning it, "I didn't think that I'd cause you to feel bad. I just thought that you'd understand."

She sat with her face in her hands. "I do understand," she sobbed, "It reminds me that my happiness ends very soon, and I will be alone again."

He blinked at her. "I don't understand, Aksun. Donna loves you; it was plain to me the first time that I saw you both together in the same room. Why will this end?"

He got nothing out of her for some minutes, other than her quiet keening. He put his arm around her and brought his face near to her head. The soft kiss that he left there surprised him, but he went with it. He just wanted to learn what her trouble was. When she began, he had to listen closely.

"Both brother and sister are very old. He curses me constantly for taking his sister from him, though I've never done anything like that. All that I did was love her and help her with the work. He resents me for it, but without me, she would have died from the drudgery of taking care of a worthless snail like him long ago.

He was not born blind. They are far older than they look. Both are over a century now. Donna was afraid to grow old and die. She worries for me and thinks that she has to care for me."

Aksun sniffled and looked up. After a second, she threw her arms around him and wept for minutes more.

Her voice grew even softer. "He has never done a thing, never worked a day, and she has done everything for him, as her father did. As her mother would have, had she lived. When she first noticed that she was getting older, she was maybe twenty years and we had been together a year perhaps. It came to her that I did not age like her, and that we had only some time together before she grew old and died. It terrified her."

She sobbed again, "I knew this too, but we had many years ahead of us. Donna didn't agree. I did what I could, Elohan. My kind lives long and we live longer with a mate. I kept her young easily, but then her brother aged too after some years.

She begged me to help him. Though I got nothing from him but his hatred, I told Donna that I could keep only one truly young. To help him, I had to tie their lives together. I do not think that you can understand, but it can be that way. But once tied, both need the other to live. If one dies..."

She cried bitterly, "Both will pass at the same moment or soon after. I cannot change this, and he will pass very soon. I feel it."

He got nothing more from her for a long time. She cried so hard that it affected her control over herself. Though her legs didn't change, he saw a bit of a bulge along her back and knew that her long mane lay under there. Her arms grew a little longer and he could see the slight change in her skin tone. He just held her as she wept, rocking a little bit very slowly.

When her keening had petered out, he listened to her sobs and sniffles. When she realized what she looked like, she stopped suddenly and looked at him.

"It's alright, Aksun," he said, "I did call you lovely last night. I hope you don't think that I was lying. How long do you have left?"

"I don't know," she said quietly, "he has been very frail for some time, but now I think it will be very soon, days maybe. I feel almost no life in him when I am close. He is an empty shell who walks sometimes."

She pulled herself up on him a little. "There will not be this hotel business very soon now. Donna only talks of going on to ignore what will come. I cannot run it alone. I don't know how, and I have no wish to."

"What will you do then?"

She shook her head. "I don't know. I think then I will be back to eating what I can catch for myself."

She shuddered with a leftover sob, "I have been lucky. I had someone to love me for this time. But it hurts now." Elohan saw that in her, this was a physical pain as well as an emotion.

She looked at him, and he saw a little bitter humor there. "From the time that you came and she met you, Donna has been pushing me at you. We have fought over it. I can usually bend her will in an argument. Not with my mind, but if it is not important, I can argue her into giving up. But not for this.

She told me that she doesn't know why or how she knows it, but that I should show myself to you. She has a hope that you will take me with you, and that maybe you will care for me. I only say this to you because it is the truth. That is part of the reason that I came to you last night, because she was so stubborn about it."

He smiled, wanting to make her feel a little better, but also out of his own curiosity. "What was the rest of the reason?"

He watched her face and saw her indecision as he looked at those cat's eyes with their thin, almost closed-down slits from the bright sunshine. She wanted to hold up her palms in a helpless gesture, and then did it anyway, knowing that she probably looked absurd doing that in this natural form of hers.

"I came out of curiosity at first and to have peace between her and I."

She looked at the concern written all over his face. Her eyes went to his blonde hair and she reached to touch his long ear, feeling a little comfort from it. "Once I saw you like that, I stayed out of wonder."

She reached toward his chest and placed her hand there. "I have never felt this from any of them but her. You are not afraid, and you would not hurt me." He watched her eyes open wide in surprise and then she looked up. Elohan reached for her and pulled her to him, knowing what she'd felt.

"Don't say anything Aksun, not a word. I come to things very slowly, and all of this has confused me from last night. I don't even know what to think anymore, but I know that I like you. I can tell that you're frightened to have to consider being alone again. But if it comes to that, then I think I can help. I don't think I really want to go on traveling alone anymore."

She wasn't sure of anything anymore either, so she put her arms around him because it made her feel better. Aksun was very surprised at what she'd felt. She wanted to ask him many things, but she didn't dare and she always had the thought of Donna and her impending grief. They were like this for quite a while until he drew back.

She looked at him uncertainly, and he looked back at her with the same expression, but he did reach for her and to her surprise, he kissed her very softly for a moment. Aksun remembered what she now looked like and her eyebrows shot up. "Why did you do that, when I am here like this?"

He looked at her and his arms would only let her draw back so far. "I'm very confused, Aksun. I want to make you feel better. If you'd like me to, I can stay for a while, maybe as long as a month so that you have time to decide. If it's what you want, I can take you with me. Even I get tired of being alone out on the road. I kissed you because I wanted to."

She shook her head, "But ... I am like this. I am ..."

He interrupted her before she fell over or something. "Beautiful, yes," he nodded and almost laughed at her expression then.

He looked down, "Don't ask, alright? I can tell that you're really confused and it would be nice if I could just explain it to you, but I can't. I just know that it's how I see you."

He laughed, and it made her smile. "Humans have always looked at us and made such noise about us being beautiful to them. None of us ever paid much attention to it. We all think that there's something about us that seems to blind them somehow. But it's different to me when you say it, because as different as we are from each other, we both seem to be able to feel from each other and I can tell that you don't have this thing -- whatever it is -- that humans have about us. We seem to be able to see each other clearly. So just accept it from me."

He looked at the landscape around them. "I don't know anything anymore than you do," he said with a shrug, "but I don't even want to think about you scratching out a life all alone here after what you had with Donna.

Look around you. There aren't even any chicken coops - no chickens anymore, and you can't survive on rabbits. They don't provide enough nutrition by themselves. You could fill yourself up until you couldn't move and you'd still starve. Besides, it's hard on the rabbits."

They sat together in silence for a while. She couldn't take not knowing and so she asked. "You would take me with you?"

He nodded, "Yes. Don't even ask me if I'd take care of you. I will, Aksun. I look something like them and I have trouble now and then. It would be harder for you. Your best chance would be to live in one of their cities, but even then, sooner or later, they'd catch you. And they're not all stupid. They have much deadlier things than what they hunted you with before."

This was harder than ever for her. "Why, Elohan?"

He drew a breath. "If it's this way, what you said will happen, I think that you'll need somebody to care for you then. I guess that I'm volunteering. I was in the same place as you are now long ago. By our nature, elves are quiet in our grief. Somehow I think that you'll need me to be there for you then. I already see you as friends, both of you. I won't leave you out here alone. I'd much rather take you with me.

Once you get past some of it, we can see what you want as we travel to where I'm going. You're welcome to come along if you wish. I just don't want you to be all alone here."

It made Aksun feel a little better. "But what happens when we get to where you must go? If there are none left for you, you will be all alone too."

She waited for an answer from him but nothing came.

She shook her head and looked at the horizon with an expression that he interpreted to be determination, "I will not leave you."

She looked at him, "If you care about me like this, I will not leave you alone either. I have decided. But if there are still some of your kind there? They will not want me, I think."

"So what, Aksun? What do I need them for if they are like that? I wouldn't care what they want then. My kind has never left our friends before, if that has changed, I'd rather not be there."

She was about to offer another consideration, but he stopped her. "Listen. You have a rough time ahead of you. It will be bad for me and really bad for you. I just want you to know that you're not alone. I'll help if I can. I think I know what you were about to say. The answer is 'I don't know', Aksun. If it makes you feel a little better, I think that you're so beautiful, but none of that matters anyway for now. You need to face what will come. That's all there is to it."

---------------

That night, he walked to the stream again. He never knew when his travels would take him near a little place like this where he could worship. He could be alone with his thoughts any time, but he knew that he'd only have the moon full for another day before it waned again. He stopped suddenly. He could feel someone there ahead of him. The sense settled out for him quickly, and he knew who it was. It didn't matter. Donna had told him that he didn't need to ask anymore.

He neared the stream and knew that they were in the rushes. "If you are here to watch what I do," he said softly," you may as well be comfortable." They stepped out of the rushes a few seconds later. It caused him to smile, Donna looked like a young girl who needed to hold her friend's hand for courage.

He set down his dagger, removed his clothes, and began to bathe. They watched him, but said nothing. He knelt and placed his forehead against the earth, beginning the opening prayers in the old speech. He was a little bit louder this time for their benefit. He didn't mind. Donna began to cry a little, and Aksun held her as they watched.

This time, Elohan thought of his life again and where his travels had brought him. From time to time his tears ran again, but tonight it wasn't the usual torrents. He was pleased to do this for them and thought of their predicament.

Whether it was the time of the moon, or the time of year, or because of his spirit, he didn't know, but for some reason, the little place began to fill with the soft light of many fireflies. He heard Donna gasp and begin to sob.

If they were here in other circumstances, he'd have been quick to point out to them that there could be different reasons for the appearance of the insects. He knew that sometimes they sought a mate, the females flashing from the leaves of plants in response to the searching flickers of the flying males.

He knew just as well that in some places, there were females of a different type, who flashed to attract a firefly male and once he was close and hopeful, they ate him, being called 'femme fatale' fireflies. He didn't know the reason here, but he was happy that she liked it.

He began to voice his hope for Donna in Elvish, that she could be free of this and continue to live for the one who loved her so. He prayed out loud that if this couldn't be, that she would not suffer in her time of passing. Donna knew nothing of what he'd prayed, she only loved to hear his words in his beautiful language.

He ended it finally with his closing prayers expressing hopes for peace among all the clans of elves and men. They came to stand near to him when he stood up.

Donna hugged him tightly. "Aggie told me," she said through her tears. "I thought that you might be an elf, but I didn't think that there were any anymore. I used to read about elves as a girl. I'm so happy." She burst into tears.

He held her gently and kissed the top of her head, "Peace live in your heart and the moon and the stars watch over you, friend," he said, "It is an ancient greeting and blessing among us."

Donna cried even louder.

"I do not understand," Aksun said, "To me, you are wondrous and so beautiful to see, but I still don't know what an elf is."

He smiled, "Someone who has to hide his long ears, Aksun."

"No," Donna said, "That's not right." She lifted her head and stepped back. "Elves are a different creature from man," she said, "they're older and have been here a lot longer than man has, Aggie. I've never seen one before now, but from everything that I've read, they're magical."

"Don't get too caught up in what you've read," he said with a smile as he reached for her hair. After a moment of gentle struggle, he brought his hand back and showed her the little beetle in his hand which flashed the little organs in its abdomen. He tossed it into the air.

"And don't give me the credit for these little ones. But before you grow disappointed in me..."

He raised his hand, and other tiny lights began to glow all around them. "For you both," he said, as his friends turned slowly to stare at the wondrous tiny pinpoints of light floating slowly. "Do not try to catch them. If your hand closes over even one, they will all go out."

Donna turned back to him and her fingers traced the lines of his tears. "She told me everything, Elohan. I don't know how much longer I've got. I feel like it's not very long inside of me now. But I'm so happy that I got to know you. Can you fix me? Can you make it so that I live a little longer?"

She saw his face, and her smile faltered for a second. "It's alright. I'm happy anyway."

"I can't undo this," he said sadly, "as much as I'd want to do it for you. I have prayed for it just now and I will continue. Unless I am wrong, I can only help to ease your passing and if there is pain, I will take it from you so that you feel nothing of it if I am nearby."

She nodded her thanks and then pulled Aksun to him by her hand. "I know that you meant what you said to Aggie. Please help her after I'm gone. She has a huge heart, and I know that you have one as well. Take care of each other."

Aksun began to cry, shaking her head. She held on to both of them.

Donna looked from one to the other. "I've never been anywhere on this earth but this little place, and it's been dead for all of that time, but I know that the world isn't all as lousy and miserable as this or the garbage little towns on either side of it. Please show her that all of mankind isn't like this. You both have to hide things from us, but if you can, and anything happens between you, she needs to see it from you often. I can already see some of it in your eyes, both of you, another thing I can be happy about."

She kissed them both and turned to go.

Aksun wailed and reached for her, but Donna shook her head. "I'm only going to bed, Aggie. I don't know how long I have, but I want to be alone for a little while tonight before you come to bed. Stay with him for a while so that I can have this time. I'll be alright."

When they were alone, Aksun stood there with her eyes downcast, sobbing quietly. He couldn't bear it and pulled her to him. Her long arms reached around him and she pulled him tightly and cried.

"I don't know what to do," she said looking up, "Donna told me that I should try to please you, but I have only been with a male once before, and --"

He stopped her with his kiss. After a moment, she sighed and groaned softly. He pulled back and they looked at each other's tears. "The first thing that you should do, Aksun, is forget about pleasing me. I don't know what will happen, but it's not the big issue. Think for a minute.

I know what Donna is saying. She hopes that it will ease the pain of her passing when that happens, but I know that nothing can do that. I know enough about you already for that. For now, just be here with me and give Donna the time that she wants. Then go to her to give her comfort.

She's only saying this for that reason, and also, she hopes that if you do this, it will be like some kind of payment to me for taking you along with me."

He smiled at her, "It's a payment that's not necessary, because I already care about you enough for me to do that, and you must know it yourself. Just calm down."

She looked down at his chest and the tattoos there. She lifted one hand and began to trace one of them with a fingertip, "These aren't a part of you. They were put here after you were made. Do they have meaning?"

He nodded, "Yes, every one has a meaning, Aksun. That one is a charm to protect me in battle if battle cannot be avoided. There are others on me, some of them are to make me desirable to female elves. Some are to keep my purpose noble. There are quite a few, most of them cannot be seen. Here."

Aksun saw the silvery glow of the one that she'd traced. She stepped back and stared at him. He had many that she'd never seen on him the night before and during the day. She stepped forward again and held him while he let them fade. "I am learning what Donna said. She told me the whole time in the kitchen after we came back that you are magical because of what you are. I see some of this."

He chuckled and she looked up. "What is magical here? I do these things which are normal for my kind and we do not call them magical. I did nothing just now but let you see the marks in the moonlight, where they were made on me, where they are only able to be seen. The hidden ones, I cannot show to you in the daylight. Magic is only something that another does not or cannot understand. If you know how, it can be called magic if you wish to use the word as a name for a power that exists on this world. Elves can use it.

But you have your own magic, Aksun. You can change your shape if you wish, and I'm sure that you can do more than this if you kept Donna young."

He kissed her again for a moment. "You are magical to me. You are a wondrous person and so lovely."