Sprite

Will made plans to leave the following morning after promising Roselle yet again that he would be back to work on their new house as soon as he could.

“Go.” She shooed him away with a wry smile. “It’s important.”

Will chose two other trusted changelings to accompany him, but not Jordy or Adam. “They’ll be expecting us to have mutations,” he explained. He asked Breyan, thinking that the sprite, who could pass for a mutant, might be more useful, but Breyan immediately declined. Will hardened his expression, glancing quickly from Breyan to Norah.

Norah’s face reddened. It wasn’t what Will thought. Breyan had to return to faerie. She wondered if she should say something, when Breyan shook his head a fraction. -He is jealous of us. We need to stay away from him. He has touched faerie, and the closer he is to any of us, the more enamoured he becomes. We do him no kindness by continuously reminding him of what he can never have. It is not his fault. He can’t help himself.-

In the background, Neistah snickered audibly as he eavesdropped on Breyan’s silent comment.

-It has nothing to do with his trying to separate you from Norah, then, and you refused him out of your boundless kindness.-

Breyan grinned. -That, too,- he sent. -Let the mortal believe I am jealous.-

-Aren’t you?-

Breyan laughed, drawing surprised glances from the mortals nearby, and drew Norah with him to the early morning solitude of Leane’s pond.

Will left after conferring one last time with Jim, Neistah and Adam, who was trying to become more involved in decision-making. Breyan was not invited to participate, not that that stopped him from listening in anyway. On Neistah’s advice, Will sent a runner ahead to make contact with Pup and set up a meetingplace.

Norah sighed and rested her head against Breyan’s shoulder. “I wish there was something I could do.”

He waggled his brows. “Like what?” he asked with a quick grin.

Neistah joined them at the edge of the pond and together they watched Andy frolic in the water with Leane and Lara. “We could always follow Will and watch what happens,” he suggested.

“I thought we had to keep away from him,” Norah said petulantly, still only half-believing Will could be in any way affected by her in particular. “And doesn’t Breyan have to return to faerie?”

“I do,” Breyan agreed. “But not yet. The Lady requests my presence here. We have time to play.” He waggled his eyebrows again, and Norah blushed.

She grabbed Neistah’s arm, drawing him aside, and whispered, “Will Breyan be safe?” Breyan felt the influence of even a small amount of mortal iron, as she had seen for herself when they crossed Hanan’s boundary.

“Safe? No.” Neistah laughed softly. “But he will not go back, now that Anais has released him to you. No more than Lara will without me.” He patted her hand. “Do you want to see what happens with Pup and the new changelings?”

“Of course I do,” Norah replied. “But--,”

“Then let’s do it.” Neistah rose fluidly to his feet, followed by Breyan and a heartbeat later by Norah too. -We go as the Lady wills,- he sent to the two remaining sprites in the pond.

They slipped away from the house, leaving Leane and Lara to inform the humans of their whereabouts later. Norah followed the two sprites as they swiftly but carefully picked their way through the woods on a parallel route to the one Will had taken, keeping well away from the perceptive scouts. Breyan stuck to Norah and steadied her when she would have fallen, brushing aside vines and branches before they could scratch her exposed skin. He and Neistah skipped through the overgrown paths as if they were no obstacle at all.

Finally, over a day’s journey away, Neistah raised a hand and indicated a small, still lake half overgrown with weeds. Water glistened invitingly from the far side, and all three sprites sighed with relief.

-You go in. I’ll be back shortly,- Neistah sent, moving out of view almost immediately. Norah suspected he had done it to give her and Breyan some privacy.

“Let’s not waste it, then,” Breyan whispered in her ear. His hands already ghosted over her faerie gown, sliding it from her shoulders. Together, they ran the last few steps into the water and disappeared without a ripple.

Tsking softly, Neistah stepped back into sight and hung Norah’s distinctive gown over a convenient branch before slipping away again.

Minutes later, several mutants filed by the lake on the weed-choked side. One faltered as he glimpsed something shiny across the lake, but he kept on walking. They had an appointment to keep. He steered his companions away from the lake before anyone else noticed the fluttery piece of cloth and decided to investigate.

Will met Pup’s group as planned, and they made the exchange. Will’s group got two of the Datro plants, while the newest mutant ‘village’ would take in Will’s two changeling scouts to help teach the Datro mutants how to hunt and track in the forest.

Will had no intention of bringing the two mutant boys back to Hanan’s compound. He seriously considered taking them to Earl’s village. The old man would make sure they did no harm, and even if they did, he could pack up his entire village and move it before these boys could betray them to the hunters from Datro, if that’s what they intended to do. Ostensibly, Will wasn’t supposed to be aware of their secret agenda. Pup hoped, with time and enough exposure to the reality of their situation, these Datro mutants would choose to remain in the forest. Will was reserving judgment.

The boys were nice enough, and had true mutations, although both were as clumsy in the forest as any new escapee from Datro. Ronald was tall and fairly old for a mutant at eighteen. Unlike Will, who exhibited a surfeit of hair, Ronald was completely hairless. It was a harmless mutation as far as it went; lots of people went bald. But Ronald had never grown hair, which marked him as a mutant and virtually ostracized him from civilized company. The other boy, Philip, had strange eyes that didn’t focus when he looked at you, but he could see well enough, from what he said. They both followed Will sullenly, exchanging furtive glances when they thought Will wasn’t looking.

Pup led the two changelings Will had brought back towards the mutant’s encampment. They were two of his own, as it turned out, although neither lad acknowledged him with more than a nod. He skirted wide around the small lake where Norah and, he supposed, Breyan swam, wondering what had brought them back this way after he had specifically warned them to stay away.

There was a hum of excitement in the camp as Pup reappeared along with two more forest mutants. Pup paid no attention as one of the Datro mutants slipped away, no doubt intending to report the incident to his contacts in Datro. Neistah followed the boy, prepared to intervene rather than let Pup’s plans be exposed, but he need not have worried. After floundering on barely marked trails for more than an hour, the Datro boy gave up and made his way back to the encampment. Pup, whose sharp eyes immediately noted his return, made no remark on it.

Neistah grinned to himself and made his own way back to the lake where he had left the other two sprites. Pup had become a shrewd judge of people. He hoped Will was able to manage his two mutants as well.

Norah had donned her multicolored gown again by the time Neistah returned and now sat demurely under the tree where Neistah had thoughtfully hung it. -You were gone a long time,- she said accusingly. -Did you find them?-

-All is going according to plan. The exchange has been made,- Neistah replied with an easy smile. -Do you prefer to follow Pup now, or Will?-

-Pup—I want to make sure he’s all right.-

-As you wish.-

Norah glanced suspiciously at her sprite father. He laughed silently and went to swim.

For three days the sprites watched as Pup’s two changeling scouts insinuated themselves into the daily life of the mutant village, teaching the boys how to hunt and how to use their various mutations to their advantage. They answered questions without giving anything away, cleverly fielding attempts to get them to reveal the location of others like themselves. “We’re Sprites,” they said proudly, as if their uniform, or lack of one, did not speak clearly of that already. Pup explained that the Sprites were mutants just like them who had become attuned to the forest.

The mutant who had attempted to contact Datro finally managed to slip away unnoticed by anyone but Pup and the three hidden sprites.

-Let’s follow him!- Breyan suggested, bored after three days of doing nothing except watching Norah moon over Pup.

This time, the boy found his way to a fair-sized river and, digging a half-hidden rowboat out of the bushes, he made his way upstream. Quietly, the three sprites entered the water and followed his boat, curious to see where he would go.

Eventually the river joined up with Datro’s larger river, and the boy carefully maneuvered his boat into the wider river, heading steadily towards Datro. He stopped soon after the two rivers merged, at a spot which looked like it had seen some activity in the past. Burnt logs and a semi-permanent campsite indicated this was an established landing, although it looked deserted at the moment.

-This is fun,- Norah sent, right before Breyan sent, -Shall I pull him from the boat?-

-That would defeat the purpose of finding out who he came to meet,- Neistah sent, the voice of reason for a change. -But you can knock the boat over.-

Breyan didn’t wait; he arrowed ahead, bumping the boat severely from the bottom until it rocked violently and flipped on its side, spilling the frightened mutant boy into the shallows. Breyan swam away just as quickly, and all three sprites hovered underwater near the far bank of the river, watching to see what the boy would do.

He was shaken, but no stranger to water. He got his feet under him and pulled the half-submerged rowboat as far onto the shore as he could get it before collapsing himself, and staring shakily across the now placid river.

Waves of amusement came from both Neistah and Breyan, and Norah could imagine how much trouble they must have gotten into together in their youth. It was a sobering thought that both her father and her lover were the same age. -What does it matter?- Breyan sent, brushing against her in the water. -We are always this way.- He kissed her forehead, pushing her swirling red hair away from her face in order to do so. -You will be too.-

Their attention was distracted by the young mutant, who scrabbled under some rocks, then went over to one of the piles of half-burnt logs. Moments later flames sprang up. He fed the fire more wood until it was going fairly strong, then lay down next to it and went to sleep.

-Well, this is boring,- Breyan commented. -Should we wake him up?-

-No, let him be. The fire is a signal.- Neistah lazily swam upriver a short way, searching and finding himself some dinner. The other two sprites followed suit.

Pup had also noticed when the Datro boy left camp. He easily followed the glaring trail the boy had left to the riverbank, noting where he had dragged a boat into the water. Tucked into the crook of a tree, hidden, but not to him, was Norah’s bright gown. So the sprites were involved. Pup gathered up the soft folds of cloth and stuffed it inside the pack he had slung over his shoulder for game. Breyan should have known better than to leave such an obvious sign, he told himself. Pup could have just hidden her gown more securely rather than taken it away with him, but he didn’t think of that until he was halfway back to the village.