Sole Wolfess and Kid
© 2022 by M. Mitch Marmel and Walter Reimer

(The Sole Wolfess and Aedith ‘Sunny’ Winterbough are courtesy of E.O. Costello. Thanks!)
Thumbnail art by  tegerio, color by  marmelmm

Part Seven.


Being the subject of several ballads myself over the years, I can tell you that balladeers can certainly write some rubbish. However, there was this one ballad that I heard once (not about me), that included the line ‘An Elf-warrior in her wrath / Armor flashing in the starlight.’

I don’t know who the balladeer’s model for that line was, but she couldn’t hold a candle to an Elf-mother who’s just been roused from a sound sleep by some ringtailed idiot trying to get into the room she’s sharing with her daughter.

[Note appended to manuscript: "If they made enough noise to rouse even you from a sound sleep -- and I've heard you snore -- they are going to get what they deserve."]

[Note appended to manuscript: “Shaddap.”]

The wards that I had placed on the window frame were a fairly cunning sort. If an intruder attempted to get in, the spell was designed to make their paws and feet stick immovably to the frame while awakening me. I conjured a small globe of magic-light and walked over to the window as Aedith woke up. “Is that a bad fur, Mommy?”

“Maybe,” I said, looking the fellow over before pulling his hood off. Sure enough, another bandit; he chattered angrily at me as I smirked at him. I had no idea what he was saying, but it very likely wasn’t complimentary. His Elf-mind was very well blocked. “I think he’s a bad fur,” I concluded, “because anyone who’d try to sneak through a window while furs are sleeping can’t be good, can he?” Sunny caught my wink in the light of the magic-globe, and she giggled.

“Well, well, what to do? Should we spank him for being naughty?” I asked.

Aedith rubbed her eyes, yawned, and said, “[Little Toy] never spanks us.”

“Oh?”

“Uh-uh. She has us put our noses in a circle in the corner, and we mustn’t move.” She thought for a moment. “Brother Sixth gets spanked though, but he’s older.”

“Hm. Well, this fellow’s a grownup.”

“Uh-huh.” She grinned, getting into the spirit of the thing. “And Seelie grownups don’t sneak in through windows.”

“So, what do you think?” I asked her.

Aedith made a great show of thinking, a paw to her chin and her ears gone flat against her head, but her tail wagged. “I think you should spank him, Mommy.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s a grownup, and grownups should know better.”

That’s my smart girl.

“You want to see some magic?” She nodded, and I ran a fingertip along the wood of the window frame, formulated a bit of Gramarye, then poked one corner sharply.

“Ahhhhhh!” the bandit said as he, still glued to the frame, spun around a few times before slowing and coming to a halt, this time facing out. I grabbed his tail, yanked it, and the tail hit the top of the wooden frame, where it stuck fast.

He started chattering again, but this time with a lot less bravado and a lot more apprehension. Perfect. “Aedith.”

“Yes, Mommy?”

I crouched down. “I need you to do something for me,” I said as I tugged my jumpsuit’s belt free.

“What?”

“I need you to step outside and find a guard. We’ll give this fellow to them.”

“Aren’t you going to spank him?” she asked.

I nodded. “But I don’t want you to see. Now, go get a guard,” and my brave girl gave me a nuzzle and slipped out of the room.

“You need to be taught manners,” I told the trapped bandit. I doubled the belt over and uttered a cantrip that stiffened it into a serviceable paddle. “I think five of the best is all I have time for, so I’d best make them count.” I chuckled, and he looked back at me with a wild surmise. “I would say that this will hurt me more than it hurts you, but Elves Don’t Lie.”

I will state that I gave him exactly five before I heard Aedith returning, and I will add that I put my back into each one.

Quite satisfying.

Sunny had come back with two guards, who took the sobbing red panda away after I broke the ward. “Did you spank him, Mommy?” she asked as we got ready to go back to sleep.

“Yes, I did, because he was naughty,” I said, “and you said that grownups should know better.”


***


After the stress of being awakened in such an impolite manner in the middle of the night, it was only Elfly and fair that we slept in, and breakfast was a little closer to lunch than sunrise.

While we were finishing a final cup of tea, Kung entered with Princess Meigui, who smiled as we both bowed respectfully to her. She returned the gesture and said, “My Honored Father wishes to give you his thanks for ensnaring one of the Unseelie bandits last night.”

I smiled. “It was no problem. I could help your guards question him - ?”

She snapped open her fan and used it cover what I thought was a demure smile as Kung’s jowls shook in a silent chuckle. “You must not trouble yourself with that. My Honored Father has told me that the Gate shall open tomorrow morning, so you and your daughter should rest. We will provide you with food and drink for your journey.”

I still had the supplies that Nippy had given me in my Elfintory, but it was only prudent to make sure that there was enough. “Thank you,” I said. Another exchange of bows, and the Princess got to her feet and padded out.

Kung said, “The teachers in music and dance approached me earlier, in regard to the young wolfess.”

“Oh?” I asked.

“They would think it fit that she attend their classes this day,” the ancient canine said, and Aedith’s face lit up with a wide grin as her tail started wagging furiously.

“How can I refuse?” I asked, seeing her reaction.

Breakfast had been late, and after getting cleaned up we only had time for a snack before I went with Aedith to the guqin class. She seemed to be getting more practiced with it, if the smiles from her classmates were any indication, and that carried over to the dance class.

At some point the teacher asked Aedith to share some of the songs and dances from her native land, and I caught myself asking Fuma to please let the song not be any of the barracks-room ditties that the Master knows, or the roebucks have taught Sixth. Fortunately, my daughter instead sang a few of the nursery rhymes she’d been taught, like The Seven Stars and Seven Does, and with Kung translating, the other children were eventually singing along:

“Seven stars there are :: Bright lamps in darkened sky
One for the hearth :: Heat for food and warmth
Two for the home :: Snug weather-shield
Three for the doe :: Ruler of home and family
Four for the buck :: Soil-tiller, molder of wood
Five for the fawn :: Without whom home is empty
Six for the field :: Belly-filling grain, persimmons sweet
Seven for the land :: Elfhame, home of the Fair Folk.”

“Home of the Fair Folk?” Kung asked me.

I shrugged. “Their tradition holds that the Elves first awakened in Elfhame, and worshiped the stars in the Very Long Ago.”

He nodded a few times, pondering what I said. “I was not alive at the time, and these are matters about which I can have no opinion,” he finally declared. “My task is to teach, and to inculcate virtue where a fertile field may be found.”

“I wish that we could stay longer,” I said, “but my quest draws me elsewhere, and my daughter needs to see the land of her birth. But,” and I smiled, “I’ll remember what you’ve told me, Master Kung.”

“That is half of what a teacher may wish for,” Kung said, “the other half being that the student take my precepts to heart, and strive to practice virtue.” He gave me a quiet smile.

Dinner was a quiet affair, after which we went to bed early. Fortunately, none of the wahs who were under Cloverfield’s malign influence tried to bother us again.

After breakfast, we were escorted to the Gate by Marquis Hu and Master Kung. “May your journey be safe, and the Gates lead you,” Kung said as a few servants came forward with securely-wrapped parcels containing food for our travels. We thanked them both again before I took Aedith’s paw.

We stepped through, and ended up on a mountain road, under a leaden overcast sky, with dry leaves rustling and skittering across the road, wafted by an errant breeze. Judging by the temperature, the mountain was a rather high one, and both Aedith and I wrapped our cloaks a bit tighter around ourselves. I looked over the side of the road and saw a few farms lower down, with farmers tending flocks of feral sheep and goats.

I cast about for the Gate, and was rewarded with a flash about a mile further up the road. “It’s in that direction,” I told Aedith.

“Okay,” my smart and brave girl said, “let’s go.” So, paw in paw, we started off.

The road curved to the left around a crag as it rose to the mountain’s summit, and as we came around the spur, we saw that we were no longer the only people on the road. Two men, one canine and the other feline, were seated beside a gnarled and weather-blasted tree. They were dressed in homespun breeches and shirts, with fur-lined vests and boots. They wore strange hats that resembled, if nothing else, small round kettles with flattened rims perhaps two fingers wide.

The feline was tugging on one of his boots, trying to remove it, and as we got closer I heard him sigh, “Nothing is to be done.” He flopped over on his back, a vision of complete hopelessness.

“Don’t be like that,” the canine chided. “He’ll be here; all we have to do is wait.”

“But we’ve been waiting so long,” the cat whined.

“I’ll ask this person,” the canine said, and he got to his feet and walked forward. “Good morning, young wolfess.”

“Good morning.”

“Have you, by chance, passed a tall – “

“He’s short,” the feline interjected.

The canine seemed to flinch and half-turned. “Let’s not start that again. He’s taller than me.”

“No, he’s not. He’s shorter than you.”

The canine huffed. “Vali, we always have this argument.”

“We do?” The feline, Vali, looked a bit nonplussed before taking off his bowl-shaped hat and rapping on his skull with his knuckles. Not like a Mephitist would, with their Benedictio Interphalangeal. “My memory’s so poor, Estri.”

“Never mind,” Estri said tolerantly as he smiled at us. “Have you seen a buck on this road? Perhaps passed him along your way?”

“I’m sorry, but I haven’t passed a buck today,” I replied.

[Note appended to manuscript: “That’s a bad joke, wolfess.”]

“I’m hungry,” Vali suddenly remarked.

“If you should see him on your way down the mountain,” Estri resumed with a glare at his companion, “his name is Godot. Could you tell him that we’re waiting for him?”

“We’ve been waiting a long time,” Vali supplied.

“I will,” I assured him.

“Thank you.” Estri turned back to Vali.

The Gate was set into the cliff face near the pair of complainers, and as it began to come alive, my ears swiveled to catch Vali say, “Maybe I’ll just hang myself.”

“That rope’s too short,” Estri said.

I shook my head as Aedith and I stepped through. That was a bit absurd.

We stepped through, and the Gate closed behind us.

Well! This was certainly a change! Warm and sunny, and Aedith’s mood, predictably, lifted as we looked around. I thought I recognized the place, but the first time I was here, the marker for the Gate was at the edge of a stinking swamp, with a network of winding trails that more often than not ended in morasses.

No weird music, so I knew we weren’t there. No need to stop up our ears.

Still, the weather looked sunny, with fleecy clouds overhead. From the angle of the sun, it was earlier in the afternoon than it had been on the glacier, and I looked down at Aedith. “The next Gate’s not very far away. Do you want to rest a while, or go for a walk?”

“Let’s walk!” she said happily. She put her paw in mine, and off we went.

After a short while, we stopped at a small clearing where several paths intersected, and I took out the food and drink Nippy had given me from my Elfintory. The twice-baked bread took a little work for Aedith, but the feral chicken was very well-received. The contents of the stoneware bottle were tea with honey. Oddly, the bottle was magicked on the inside to keep the tea cool.

Odd, but refreshing.

After our meal, we set about finding the right path, and the Sun was somewhere in the afternoon, maybe sometime around the third hour, when we emerged from the forest to see a stele poking up out of a broad and grassy meadow.

Aedith gave a laugh and started running toward it, but to my relief she veered away and started to run around and roll in the grass as I stood and watched.

I smiled, watching her fondly before I sighed. Aside from the fur color, I could have been her, if things had been different.

Well . . .

I can’t turn time back and start over.

[Note appended to manuscript: “Why not?”]

[Note appended to manuscript: “Regs, love. You know how Colonel Grey gets.”]

But I can make sure that my daughter is raised with a loving family and friends around her.

She came running up to me and I crouched, giving her a big hug. “We’re almost there, Aedith,” I said.

“Really?”

“Yes.” I stood and extended a paw. She took it and we headed over to the stele. I pointed at the inscription on the weathered stone. “Can you tell me what it says?” I asked.

Don’t look at me like that. Of course she’s being taught to read, both Standard Elvish and Elfhamian. She can speak both fairly well, although she’s very young and sometimes gets them mixed up.

The little wolfess gazed up at the stele. “Um . . . ‘L-Lords’ . . . um . . . ‘of’ . . . “ She blinked and then her ears dipped and she glanced back at me.

“The last word is ‘Eastness,’” I said, and she grinned and repeated the word. “And this is a special gate.”

“It is?”

I nodded and pointed at the arrow. “You have to be up in the air to go through this Gate.” I grinned and took my robe off. “Do you want to fly with me, my daughter?” and I manifested my wings.

Aedith squealed happily and almost jumped into my arms after I stashed my robe in my Elfintory. I made sure she was holding onto me and I gathered myself for a leap. “Ready?”

“Yes!”

“Here – we – go!” and I jumped as my wings swept down, propelling us both into the air.

It felt good to be flying, and as a treat for both of us I gained altitude and circled the meadow so she could see the forest we had just come through before I steered us down to the Gate.

As soon as my toes touched the top of the stele, there was the bright flash I recalled, and . . .

“Eala!” we both exclaimed.





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