Almare - The White Mirror

Lorelei paused in mid-step. She lifted her head into the breeze and closed her eyes. The wind lifted her long, dark hair from her shoulders and swept it out behind her. There was the smallest hint of the cool, crisp edge to the air that only comes when autumn is not far away. Wind would be picking up steadily, but moving on to other areas of the Kingdoms as quickly as it would come to theirs. A natural storm was coming in from the east that would bring a fair amount of rain tomorrow, and perhaps the first noticeably cooler temperatures they had experienced since the end of spring. Lorelei sensed all this in one deep breath, and dismissed with her exhale. She had not stopped for a weather report. She had heard something.

A noise was coming from far off to her left. It was a continuous humming, and it sounded an awful lot like Virginia. Lorelei wondered what she was doing all the way out here in the middle of nowhere, and headed towards the place where she guessed Virginia was.

Virginia was indeed out there in the middle of nowhere, seated on the clouded force field with her arms wrapped around her legs and her chin buried in her knees. She was humming some ballad loudly and off-tune, and staring intently at the Kingdoms through a break in the cloud cover. Lorelei barely glanced at the scene below; she had seen it countless times before, but she understood what it must be like for Virginia. She's really just a small child, Lorelei thought, though not hotly. Yet she certainly doesn't act like she's hundreds of years younger than me...

Since Virginia looked deep in thought and Lorelei didn't want to startle her, she sat down silently and waited to be noticed. She didn't have to wait long. All of a sudden, Virginia's head snapped over to where Lorelei was sitting patiently and she gasped.

"Oh! I'm sorry, I didn't notice you were there!"

Lorelei smiled and shook her head. "It's all right."

Virginia still looked surprised that Lorelei had managed to sneak up behind her. She winced as she slowly stretched her legs out in front of her. She must have been sitting curled up for a long time. When she looked up, Virginia brushed a strand of hair out of her eyes and smiled too.

"I'm so glad you're here. I was taking a walk and I got a little bit turned around." Virginia paused, then laughed out loud. "Ha! 'Got a little bit turned around.' I was completely lost."

"That's easy to do out here," Lorelei grinned. "You should probably just stick around Welkin from now on."

"Did that Guardian send you looking for me?" Virginia asked with a hint of amusement.

"No," Lorelei answered honestly, "I was taking a short walk just like you; I haven't seen him at all this morning."

Virginia nodded and rubbed her eyes. She felt incredibly tired. How she was going to make it all the way back to the city was a mystery, so she thought that she had better start right away. As she climbed to her feet, Virginia gulped nervously and asked Lorelei, "You do know how to get back, right?"

"I hope so," Lorelei laughed.

Wolf paced anxiously outside the Guardian's home/prison. Patrick was sitting a few feet away, happily grabbing little handfuls of cloud and trying to shove them into his mouth before the mist escaped. Even though he was not having much luck with this game, he was enjoying it immensely.

Wolf, however, was not so relaxed. Virginia had been gone for at least two hours, probably more. It was hard to tell since he had been sleeping while she left. Perhaps she could have gone in the middle of the night. Then she could be anywhere by this time! Or maybe she hadn't just 'left'. Maybe she was kidnapped, or stolen or something! Oh, he just couldn't bear it if she was missing for much longer- the worrying was eating him away. Wolf ran a hand through his hair and then started biting his nails. But that was such a horribly un-wolflike thing to do that he stopped it immediately and paced faster.

No, he couldn't take it anymore. Wolf snatched up Patrick and was just about to stride boldly off into the fog when he ran smack into Virginia.

"My love!" Wolf cried in surprise and relief. He skillfully held onto Patrick with one arm and swept Virginia up in the other, kissing her intensely. When they parted, Virginia gave him a wide smile; she was pleased that he was so worried about her.

"Promise me you'll never again run off like that without telling me," Wolf chided, giving her a disapproving look.

"Yes," said Lorelei, coming up beside Virginia, with as straight a face as she could muster. "That really was rather naughty of you."

Virginia took her scolding with a bowed head to hide a grin. "Sorry."

"As you should be," Wolf said, handing her Patrick as a sort of peace offering.

Virginia reached out to take the baby, but paused as she did so because of the strange expression on Patrick's face. He had his eyes closed, and his lip was stuck out in a little pout, like he put it when he didn't quite understand something. His hands also were moving slowly together, as if he was trying to feel for something in the air. Then, suddenly, so fast that Virginia could hardly see what was happening, he clapped his hands together. But instead of a slap, Virginia heard an angry cry.

"Geroff a me! Geroff, or yule be surry, yu aweful lil' munster!"

Virginia screamed and stepped back in shock. Clutched in Patrick's hands was a tiny little man. This creature had pale, transparent wings attached to its back and a white beard that stretched all the way down to his middle. His garments were patched pieces of cloth that looked like they had been torn off some other, larger clothes. The relatively huge golden eyes were the most noticeable part of this entity, and they took up more than half of the man's little face.

Patrick had opened his eyes and was studying the winged creature intently. His tight grip did not waver for an instant, despite the man's hostile but muffled threats. Patrick simply clamped his hand more firmly over the thing's mouth. The baby did not seem at all surprised that the little man had suddenly appeared out of absolutely nothing in his hands, but Virginia, Wolf, and Lorelei certainly were.

"Cripes!" Wolf yelled. He didn't drop Patrick, which would have been Virginia's first response, but he did hold him and the creature as far away from his body as he possibly could.

Lorelei was white as the clouds. "That's a pixie," she gasped. "He's actually caught a pixie!"

"L' go a me, yu teribil imp!" the elf demanded furiously.

"Well, what are we going to do with it?" Virginia inquired, the beginnings of panic creeping into her mind. She didn't want her baby holding that thing. What if it bit him? It could have rabies...

"We should take it to the Guardian," Lorelei said, twisting her hands nervously.

"No, that's the last thing we should do," Wolf told her. "It could have one of those sensors on it. If it escaped, it could go tell the trolls about who's spying on them and exactly where he is. It could do that even if it didn't have a sensor on it. We can't take the chance."

"What are you talking about?" Virginia asked angrily. She really loathed it when people were talking between themselves in front of her about things she didn't understand.

"We don't have a choice," Lorelei explained, ignoring Virginia's question. "We can't let it go now, it already knows we're here. It would only be a matter of time before it found the Guardian. And anyway," Lorelei said, glancing at the pixie squirming in Patrick's hands, "It already knows there's a Seer here. Your son Saw that fairy. That's the only way he would be able to catch it when it was invisible."

Virginia shook her head. "No," she said. "You don't know what you're talking about. It was just a coincidence, that's all."

Lorelei looked at her and frowned. She knew that Virginia was only deceiving herself. She didn't want to accept the fact that her son was different, that he was always going to be different. But Lorelei knew, because she had seen it all before.

She took a deep breath and in one motion reached out and grabbed the struggling pixie from Patrick's hands. The baby immediately started to wail, like he had been cheated out of a favorite toy. Lorelei glanced down at the pixie. His face was a bright red and he glared at her with contempt.

"If yu be lettin' me go dis enstant, ten I'll be seeing if I can let yu off eesy," he said venomously. "Or else yu wunt be likin' wat I'm gonna do tu ya."

"Of course, sir," Lorelei said, wrapping her slender fingers tightly around the sprite's tiny body. "Come," she ordered Wolf and Virginia, and started for the door of the house.

"I really don't think-" Wolf started to protest.

"We won't show it to the Guardian yet," Lorelei interrupted without turning around or stopping. "I'm just going to take him into the building so that he can't escape if he gets out of our reach."

Wolf reluctantly followed, with Virginia walking behind him even more reluctantly. Patrick was still crying, but Virginia took him and shushed him gently.

When they got in the house, Lorelei led them to a different room with cupboards and a sink, all transparent, of course. She reached onto a shelf and pulled down a glass jar (actually it probably wasn't glass, but just looked like it), and unceremoniously dumped the pixie inside. She screwed the lid on tightly and took a sharp knife from a drawer. As she violently poked air holes in the lid with little regard to the panicking fairy, Lorelei swept her other hand over the counter top. Instantly two plates, two cups, a bottle, and a bowl appeared. The plates were heaped high with all kinds of food that gave off the most wonderful aroma. The bowl was full of a less-appetizing yellow mush which Patrick looked at hungrily. The other containers held cold milk.

"Here," Lorelei motioned toward the food. "It's about time you ate something."

Virginia didn't waste a second, and Wolf looked almost ready to cry. He sat Patrick down on the counter, handed him the bowl of mush, and dug in with his hands. Virginia didn't even think of telling him to use a fork. She was so hungry, and the food seemed like the best meal she had ever tasted. Patrick put his whole face in the bowl and licked it clean.

Only when they finished the last crumb did any of them thank Lorelei, but she didn't seem to mind. Virginia asked how she had made the food appear out of nowhere.

"It was already there," Lorelei replied nonchalantly. "I only made it visible."

"HOW DARE YU!" the pixie screamed for the eighth time in five minutes. "How dare yu kep me in 'ere! Yu don' be-leeve me, but yull pay fir dis!"

Virginia and Wolf sighed at the same time. "What should we do with him?" Virginia asked.

A hint of a smile tugged at the corners of Lorelei's mouth, but she managed to suppress the grin. "Well," she said. "We could interrogate him."

Virginia thought about that. "Yes..." she said finally. "Of course. He could tell us about the troll army's plans."

"I ain't gonna tell ya nothin'!"

"We could change that," Lorelei declared. She approached the fairy's jar menacingly. The poor creature pressed his body against the farthest wall, bending his delicate wings.

"Leev me a lone," he croaked.

"What's your name?" Lorelei demanded in a silky voice.

The pixie gulped. "Nicholas."

Virginia raised an eyebrow. She was surprised that this all but ordinary being had such a normal name.

"So, Nicholas," Lorelei continued, "Do you have anything you'd like to tell us? About the troll regiment, I mean."

"No," Nicholas answered forcefully. "I don'."

"Really?" Lorelei exclaimed in mock surprise. "I'm sure there's something. After all, a smart, fast, tremendously capable pixie like yourself must have been let in on some interesting secrets about their plans. No?"

"'Fraid not," Nicholas replied with just as much sarcasm.

"Why would you be keeping anything from us?" Lorelei went on without so much as a pause. "Those trolls, they're not your friends. They're just using you. Don't you realize that?" She began to pace back and forth in front of the fairy's prison, but never for an instant lifted her dark eyes from his golden ones.

"Yur messin' wif my mind," Nicholas accused proudly. "But I ain't fallin' for it."

"Oh, Nicholas," Lorelei shook her head in shame. "You're right. Of course those trolls and all the other pixies are on your side. I'm sorry. But then," she paused, and stopped pacing, "But then, why are your eyes still golden?"

Nicholas blinked. He blinked, and then he blinked again, and then he started blinking his eyes so rapidly that they closed entirely and he covered his face with his hands.

"Surely a pixie as old as you are would have black eyes by now?"

"Tey wudn't giv 'em to me," he whispered miserably. "Da last time, wen Reelish... wen 'e was muurdered. I was ter, in da aaple orcherd. I saw it, da Qeeny, she kill 'em all! An I didn' do nothin'. I didn' go fir 'elp. So tey won' giv me my eyes. I hav to be an out cast fir da rest o' me life. No one ever reespect a gold'n eye."

Lorelei let him cry for a minute. Then she bent down so that she could be at his eye level. Nicholas lifted his huge, apparently cursed golden eyes out of his hands and met her gaze.

"Wouldn't you like something... better?"

He said nothing, just dried his tears. And then, slowly, he nodded.

Lorelei sat back and smiled. "I thought so."