Sprite

It became a battle of wills between Neistah and Leane, a dance that neither of them was willing to relinquish. All through the harsh winter months, Leane blithely remained in the mutant village, charming the girls and the boys alike. She didn’t much care for clothes, and more often than not traipsed barefooted through the snow wrapped in her own blanket of springtime hair.

Neistah wouldn’t have stayed, otherwise. Leane flirted openly with the boys, any who were old enough to realize what she was doing, which was practically all of them, no matter what their age. She would have acted upon her desires, too, had Neistah not prevented her.

‘They don’t know your games,’ he spoke her, mind to mind, throwing her a quilted jacket to cover her nakedness.

‘All the more reason to show them.’ Leane smiled prettily, ignoring the jacket. She tossed her light green hair over her shoulders, baring the jewels it had hidden. ‘Or,’ she purred silently, ’I could just play them with you.’

Neistah was too much like her. He grinned, showing sharp teeth. ‘This game—or that. It’s all the same to me. Run.’ He leaned forward, all predator now, and Leane was the prey.

Eyes dancing with laughter, she ran lightly through the woods, leaving hardly a print in the freshly fallen snow. Neistah followed, just as light on his feet. He caught her at the frozen lake when she stopped suddenly, a frown crossing her delicate features.

‘What did you think would happen?’ he taunted, catching her around the waist and spinning her so that her hair settled like a veil around them both. ‘Winter has sealed the water away.’

‘I want to swim.’ Leane pouted.

‘Then you should have gone home,’ Neistah replied, although he did not release her. He kissed her lips, her throat, her breasts in quick succession.

‘But I want you, too,’ Leane sent.

‘You have me.’ Neistah lowered her to the ground and at last they left their marks in the pristine snow.

‘Frozen water,’ Leane remarked with awe, running her hands through the snow that lay atop the icy lake. Her hair was wet with it, stiff where it had refrozen, and her body, hotter than the air around it, glistened with moisture. ‘It’s cold.’ She shivered dramatically.

Neistah laughed out loud. “Put this on,” he said, tossing her the jacket he had, fortunately, picked up from where Leane had discarded it. “Even we are not totally immune to the extremes of this world.”

Leane wrinkled her nose. “There’s iron everywhere,” she complained. “In the cooking pots, in the knives they carry, even in their clothes. I touched a boy the other day and the buckle on his belt burned my hands.”

“That’s what you get for touching mortals,” Neistah scolded laughingly, although he immediately inspected both her hands. She must not have been too hurt by it; her hands were fine now.

“I wish you would come home.” Leane sighed, and laid her head on Neistah’s shoulder.

“I’ll take you there. You don’t have to put up with all this hardship,” Neistah offered.

Smiling, Leane replied, “It’s not all bad. Mortal boys are worth a burn or two.”

“Oh?” Neistah’s eyebrows rose, and he touched her long green hair. “Will you offer to weave one of them a garment for his body?” He kept his voice light, and vocal, so Leane would not ‘hear’ the outrage when he thought of her together with a mortal man.

She guessed it, anyway, and tripped merrily away from him, her laughter tinkling like broken ice behind her. “Perhaps,” she called back over her shoulder as she ran lightly across the snow. “Unless you would prefer to wear my weave.”

Neistah let her go, disturbed by her teasing. That was the problem. He didn’t want to be tied down, to Leane or to Lara either. Dallying with mortals was safe and entertaining, as long as he was the one doing the dallying.

Leane was waiting for him when he got back to the village. She had tucked her feet into a pair of soft, fur-lined boots, and deigned to wear pants underneath her heavy jacket. Her cheeks were red and her eyes sparkled with mischief. ‘If you can get past the smell,’ she sent, ‘these clothes are not so bad. I’m not cold anymore.’

‘You look like a human,’ Neistah responded, just to be contrary, but Leane smiled knowingly and did not take the bait.

She, with the help of several of the villagers, had hollowed out a small bedroom in the base of an oak tree and filled it with human treasures. Animal furs and soft skins lined her home which was just big enough for one—or two, if Leane so desired. All the village homes were like that, pieces carved out of nature, invisible to any but those who lived there. It was how they escaped detection from the hunters; it was how they survived.

Neistah refused to stay in the human village, although he spent most of his days there since Leane had come, keeping an eye on her. Valin had left the same day he’d brought her, and hadn’t been back since. Typical, thought Neistah, for his father to stir up trouble and then vanish. Leane was—distracting. Neistah hadn’t decided if he was glad or angry that she had appeared. If she would only return home and await him there, it would make his life much simpler.

The human changelings did not know what to make of Leane. She was everything they were not—uninhibited, exotic, mysterious. They wanted her, even the girls. Because of Leane, the changelings were beginning to believe there really were such things as sprites. That was dangerous, for all of them. Some humans remembered the old legends. Old man Hanan had been one such human, and had nearly cost Neistah his freedom. Leane’s iron burn disturbed him more than he was willing to admit. Had the human boy noticed? Did he understand what it meant? Neistah had always relied on his speed and his wit to save him from any undue exposure to iron. And, truthfully, the mixed stuff didn’t affect him as badly as pure iron, although it was bad enough. If the humans ever realized his kind’s weakness to that earth-metal, it could be disastrous.

They had an audience. Pup had come into the camp in the interim while Neistah and Leane had been at the lake. Pup, the first of ‘Neistah’s Sprites,’ prided himself on his hardiness, even in the dead of winter. His main concession to the weather was a pair of deerskin boots and a long jacket slit up to back to leave room for his stubby tail. He had a stranger with him, an older boy, who stared at Neistah with wide eyes. Leane regarded the newcomer with interest.

“Sorry to interrupt,” Pup said, correctly interpreting the situation. “This new changeling says he knows you.”

Neistah stared at the new boy, listening with more than just his ears. Will. The boy’s name was Will. In his mind was a fuzzy picture of himself as a boy, a deserted street, a hunter—and Neistah. “You’re from Datro,” Neistah remembered correctly. “The kid with the fur who didn’t want to leave his mother. You changed your mind.”

Will’s face reddened. “Circumstances changed. I remembered you. I hoped—I wanted to find you again. You offered to help me once.”

Pup grimaced. Even though he was a few years younger than Will, he had the edge of experience and seemed much older than the city boy. “It’s a wonder he made it this far. He’d been wandering around for days, calling out for ‘Pup,’ until some of the others heard him and got word to me. By the time I found him, he was half-frozen and babbling. His fur saved his life.” Pup, with Will’s resigned permission, pushed aside the older boy’s jacket to reveal the thick fur on his chest.

“How did you know to call for Pup?”

Will glanced at Pup, who answered for him. “A girl. A human girl I met last summer. She helped me get away from some hunters, and she asked my name. For him, it turns out.” Pup grinned.

Impulsively, Will reached out to Neistah. “I want to join you,” he said, putting a hand on Neistah’s bare arm. “I want to be a sprite, too.”

It was Pup’s turn to redden. “I—ah—told him a little about us, since he already knew most of it.”

Leane glided over to the new boy, who was taller than she was. She wrapped her arms around Will’s other arm and looked him up and down slowly. “Oh, I think this one will make a very good sprite, don’t you agree, Neistah?”

Neistah frowned. “He’ll do,” he said, coming to a decision. “But not here. Come, Pup, Will.” Abruptly he turned and sprinted for the woods. After a few second’s hesitation, during which Will apologetically extricated his arm from Leane’s embrace, Pup and Will followed. Leane stamped her booted foot.

“Wait, wait!” Breathless from running, Will called out. “Was she—he stared hard at Neistah who stood frozen a few feet in front of him. Was she a real sprite?”

In a flash, Neistah was by Will’s side, startling the boy into stepping backwards. “What do you mean?” he asked in a soft, almost teasing tone.

Will gulped. “Well, Pup here, and some of the others I’ve met, they don’t look like you, exactly. But she—does.”

“And how is that?” Neistah’s voice sounded entirely reasonable, but Will caught the threat behind it. Pup paused, too, and waited to hear Will’s answer.

“She—ah—her ears, her fingers are webbed and . . .” Will trailed off. “I guess she has a similar mutation to yours.”

“Similar,” Neistah agreed, never acknowledging that it was a mutation. “Does it matter?”

Wordlessly, Will shook his head.

“If you want to be a sprite like Pup,” Neistah stressed, “the first thing you need to learn is not to cry out in the forest. Sprites are silent. Pup will teach you to be silent. The second thing you need to learn is—don’t come looking for me.” He gave Pup a reproachful look. “If I want to, I’ll find you.”

Will nodded, and they started off again, only stopping when Will, shivering despite his insulating layer of fur, was too weary to go on. Pup, under Neistah’s watching eye, showed Will how to build a shelter from the elements, how to find water, and how to hunt. All in all, Neistah was gone from Leane for two weeks. When he judged that Will was ready to join a village, he bade Pup to take him to Earl’s village rather than to the one where Leane had made her home. “Find out who you are,” he said in farewell. Will had shed the clothing he’d brought from Datro, keeping only a few sharp knives and his knapsack. He proudly wore a deerskin jacket, not one that he’d made himself, but that would come one day, and boots that made hardly a whisper on the frozen ground. In the spring, he would wear only shorts, like the other sprites. Neistah promised to visit him then, to see how he had improved. Will grinned, and followed Pup to his new home.

If Leane had not been here, Neistah would have gone home himself, to while away the remaining winter months in warmth and comfort. Lara awaited him, and once upon a time, so did Leane. He would have enjoyed sporting with them, and with any other fair maiden who offered. But Leane was here and he couldn’t leave her.

When he got to the village, he went directly to Leane’s tree. Clever humans, using the land without marring it—there might be hope for them yet. ‘Leane!’ he called silently. None of the other villagers had spotted him yet. ‘Leane!’

A tickling giggle caressed his mind as he stooped low to enter Leane’s place. Her emerald eyes gazed steadily at him over the writhing form of the youth who currently hovered above her. ‘Yes, Neistah?’ she asked in amusement.

It was their way. Unless and until a male sprite accepted a female’s garment woven of her own bright hair, there was no such thing as faithfulness. Neistah knew that. He couldn’t begrudge her. It was Leane’s own way of making him jealous, and it was working. She thought to drive him home, to her arms, to tame him to her hand. The human in her arms was merely a distraction. She smiled at Neistah.

Neistah turned on his heel and walked away. Let Leane stay among these humans she seemed to enjoy so much. He was no longer her guardian. She could stay here, or she could go. A wicked grin crossed Neistah’s face. There were plenty of human girls who would be happy to welcome him. Plenty. Neistah headed back to the forest. But first, he would pay a visit to lovely Lara. She knew better than to push him. Neistah found a red flower marking the nearest gate. He wondered how long it would be before Leane realized he had gone home without her.

Not long, it turned out. Valin, once he heard that Neistah was back, returned to the mortal lands to bring Leane home. By that time, the damage was done. It was springtime on earth, and thanks to Leane, there were now changeling girl sprites as well as boys. Neistah planned to return soon after, bidding farewell to Lara and his mother. He saw Leane in her lake, and she swam to him readily, smiling prettily as he swam lazily around her.

‘You’re going back?’ she asked him, flexing her back in a silent invitation.

‘I am,’ Neistah replied, interested in spite of himself. ‘Don’t follow.’

Leane laughed her tinkling laugh. ‘I’m already bored with the mortal world. You’re welcome to it. I’ll wait for you right here where it’s much more fun.’

‘You’re not angry with me?’

‘Should I be? I wanted you to come home, and you did.’ Leane managed to sigh even though she was underwater. ‘I’ll just have to wait until you are ready to choose one of us. In the meantime . . .’ She swam closer. ‘You’re here, and I’m here.’

There was that. Neistah postponed his journey back to the mortal world for another hour or so. Leane was a lovely distraction. So was Lara. But he was anxious to get back to the mortal world for a number of reasons. One, a big one, was that Leane had rekindled his interest in human women. Since he was not committed yet, he was free, and he intended to take advantage of it.