The Industrial Elf

**This was written a few years ago and I'm only doing a little tidying up here and there. If you think about it, you can see a little of the creature in "The Dream of the Unlikely Princess" in this. I was halfway through this when I realized it. ~shrug~ O_<

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By mid-morning, he was ready to stop for a while. He'd done everything at a fairly slow and careful pace and worked from a list, replacing filters and a few gaskets as well as the fluids. He supposed that he could have done it all in a day, but he had the time and it felt good to be off the road for a while. Now mostly, he wanted to clean up the old camper. For right now though, he wanted to get the kinks out of his back.

He stood at the sink and filled it. All there was here was cold water pumped right from the stream, but he didn't mind. He brought a bar of soap from the camper and looked around before taking off his hat and shirt. He was just about done in a few minutes and after rinsing the last of the soap from his armpits, he stuck his head into the sink and then thought about whether he cared enough to be careful to keep his work jeans from getting too wet. The nerves in his thighs told him that he'd left that decision a bit late, so he just lifted his head out of the water, still bent over a bit to wipe his face with his hands.

It was then that he heard the quiet gasp from behind him.

He looked up at the old mirror and saw the two women there. Aggie wore a broad smile and held the handle of a small cooler, and Donna's mouth was open for some reason. He thought about it quickly and decided that Aggie would have told her about his ears by now anyway. He stood up and turned, wiping the bit of water from his chest, and trying not to let any more of it get to the waistband of his jeans. Donna looked as though she was about to jump at the motion.

Her eyes were open wide, and Jack felt a little embarrassed, though he didn't know why. He wasn't shy about the way that he looked, he was only careful not to let most people see his ears. He'd worked among people enough to have lost his awkwardness around them. He realized then that he should have brought a towel.

He smiled, "Hi."

Donna looked as though she had nothing for that, until Aggie nudged her, "I think that you had something that you wanted to say to Jack," she said as a reminder, "at least, that is what you told me."

Donna's face instantly turned scarlet as she remembered. She sounded small and very concerned. "Jack, do you have a minute?"

"Sure," he said with a small grin, "that's why I'm standing here looking foolish. What's on your mind, Donna?"

Donna looked a bit worried and upset. Aggie just looked amused today. He decided that it was a good look for her.

"I'm sorry that we disturbed you..."

He shook his head. "I was just washing up. Please stop looking like you've interrupted something important."

Donna took a breath. "I wanted to talk to you and apologize for last night. I didn't know that you were there until Aggie told me after. We're very sorry that we disturbed you, and-"

He held up his hand with a smile, "I see no need for apologies here, other than I ought to perhaps apologize to you. I won't go there again without asking first."

He looked at them, "Don't feel bad here. I already knew enough to guess at your relationship and I assure you that I don't care if that's what you're looking so uncomfortable about. Forget it, Donna. There's no issue here, other than that I'm very sorry if you feel bad in any way."

"Thank you," Donna said, looking relieved. "But you don't have to ask. Aggie said that it was beautiful to watch. I'm sorry that I didn't get to see it. I really wish that I could have." She looked a bit sad and still embarrassed.

"There's nothing much to see," he said, "I was only praying. As long as you don't interrupt me, I don't even think that I'd mind all that much. You can watch if you want to. There's nothing to it, just me kneeling, pretty much." He shrugged as he reached for his shirt.

"Aggie is here to guide you around." Donna looked at the sidecar rig a little apprehensively, but she decided that it wasn't that formidable-looking, since she was now looking at it at ground level. He'd unloaded it hours before. "Is it hard to use?"

He shook his head after putting on his Stetson, "You just have to be aware of the sidecar if you plan to turn right suddenly, since the wheel there can lift then. But once you're used to it, there's no problem. I could probably have you in it and ride around the yard with the sidecar in the air the whole time, but I doubt that it would be very enjoyable as a first ride for you. If you want later, I can give you a ride around and even teach you how to drive it."

"I was wondering about what you said earlier." Donna said. "Maybe this would be a good way to show guests around out here, I don't know. I do know that we have to do something." she said.

She helped Aggie climb into the sidecar and thought that it looked as though it might be fun as she walked to the rear doors to open them, wondering how he'd get it turned around with all of the old equipment in the way. To her surprise, he just started it and backed out easily. "It comes with reverse gear," he grinned. They drove off into the rough and she watched them cross the stream slowly before she walked back to the house.

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An hour and a half later, they'd seen the town and all of the mines and were parked at the top of a bluff overlooking some of the plain below. A while earlier, he'd seen rabbits all over the place and asked her if she thought that she and Donna would like rabbit for dinner. Aggie had laughed a little at him.

"I can catch them without much trouble at night," she said, "but I have to be the way that I am and I will not do that in the daytime. I haven't had rabbit in so long, and never cooked. I left that behind me when we came back to live in the house. Donna knows how to cook them."

He opened the trunk of the sidecar and pulled out his bow, "Then you need to have rabbit for dinner."

It took him little time before he had three. Aggie was astounded and laughed a little nervously, "I have done it all of this time the hard way."

"Why are you looking so, I don't know, perplexed?" he asked.

She looked at him, "If one of the men who hunted me had used this, I'd have been dead long ago, I think."

"No," he said, "They'd still have had to be close enough and good enough to have done it in one shot. The surprise is only good for one time, like anything else."

Aggie reached into the sidecar and pulled out the small cooler that she'd brought along, "Donna made us lunch," she said, pulling out two cans of cola as well as a bottle of water with sandwiches wrapped in waxed paper, "She likes how we seem to be able to talk now. She was very surprised last night when I told her of our meeting at the stream, especially when I told her that we'd seen each other as we are."

When the sandwiches were finished, he smoothed out the waxed paper and dressed out the rabbits, placing the meat into the paper and rolling it up a little before putting the bundle inside the cooler. Then he washed his hands with the water.

"Thank you for agreeing to come along like this," he said, "I'm enjoying it."

She grinned and nodded, "I am too. I see now that she has always been right, that I should enjoy things when I have the chance. But I think that it took someone like you to get me to do that," she said as she looked off at the horizon.

"If you don't mind me asking," he said. "how did it begin between you?"

Aggie smirked, "It began as strangely as anything else for me here. I do not belong here. I was sent here to die in exile. I can never go back. The first time that I saw a human, he was frightened of me and his next thought was to kill me. I was quicker."

"I tried to stay hidden, hunting little things as I could to eat and sometimes stealing to stay alive. It was a big day for me if I could steal a chicken. Then they all tried to hunt me for it, not knowing that I am no fox."

She looked very sad as she looked off into the distance, "But I am very hard to hunt. It took a while for them to give it up. I killed any dogs which came close to me out of stupidity, two of the men for the same reason, and then I had plenty of dogs to eat for a little while. I kept the bodies in the coolness of one of the mines. I hated to eat that, but it was better than eating the men. I only tried that once and I couldn't. I would rather eat sand."

"Instead of leaving me alone, they hunted me even more. I had to kill now and then if I had no way out. It caused a panic among them. The humans are too stupid to leave well enough alone. There was always one who thought that he could hunt me and wished to try so that he felt himself to be a bigger male among them. I tried to stay hidden, but sometimes ...." Aggie looked down, "I never wanted to harm any of them."

She sighed, "I grew tired and felt worse every day. At least I knew why this world was chosen for my punishment then. I lay in the water and the weeds behind Donna's home one night and cried. I felt so alone and it had already gone on for a few years of the time here. She came to me wondering who wept there. She was running away from her home for her own reasons and she found me. I knew that someone was coming and I prepared to kill whoever it was.

But she only wanted to help and tried to comfort me. I was surprised. I had never seen one of them so beautiful. As I began to feel better, she began to weep from her own unhappiness. I led her away to a safer place, and then we began to care for each other, since none cared about us."

"We couldn't speak to each other, but we did our best, and I learned her way of speaking. Donna's mother died giving life to Tony. He is her younger brother as he has told you. From her, I learned of her father, who had arranged a pairing for her -- a marriage, they call it. But the man was one whom she had already rejected out of his cruelty to her. The man had offered her father much money and land in exchange. When she tried to refuse, her father beat her for it and she ran as soon as she could.

Hearing this from the only one who had ever tried to comfort me, I killed them both as they searched for her. This was after the mines were closed. I threw the bodies down the shaft of the gold mine, since it is the deepest one here. They dig deepest for gold, the humans. They are greedy by their nature."

She drank a little and looked down a bit self-consciously, "I see a picture in your mind of two females together. I see that you think that Donna and I are like that. It has happened sometimes, but I do not think that it is what you have in your mind. We have been so close as friends for so long, and sometimes we would, ..."

She shook her head, "But not very often and not anymore, I think."

She smiled in a bit of wonder at herself, "Look at me, Jack. I could not even talk much with you two days ago and did not want to. Now look what I have told you of myself."

"Well," he smiled, "I don't mind. I'm happy just to talk with you. My name isn't really Jack. It's only a name that I use most often when I have to deal with people. My name is Elohan."

She tried it, and he nodded. "Then you should know that Donna calls me Aggie so that we have a name that people might use as well. My name is Aksun." She reached over and pulled them together and as he looked at her, thinking to smile, she kissed him.

He was rather surprised.

"I did it to say that I am sorry," she said. Now he was really confused.

"I am happy to have found you," she said. "I want to tell you something that I think that I said that was wrong to say to you last night. I said that I was prepared to kill you if you had shown me the fear which I expected to see. I think that I said it in self-defense. I said it out of my own fear at finding one who could be so unafraid of me so close to them. I am sorry for that. I shouldn't have said it at all. I think that for the first time, I have found one here who could kill me quite easily if he had the will. It is a little frightening."

He shook his head. "I noticed it and I didn't argue, did I? Maybe I could. Maybe I couldn't. I don't think it matters. Before I could have the will, I'd need to have the reason. By the time that I'd figured out the reason with which to summon the will..." He shrugged.

"Donna and I think that you are so beautiful, but we now wonder about you all the time."

He looked at her, "You wonder? About what?"

She chuckled, "Well, you are so mysterious to us, and --"

He'd taken a sip of his cola and her comment had caused some of it to go down the wrong pipe. He choked a little and spluttered, "Mysterious. Me?"

Aksun nodded and he chuckled, "You're both looking too deep, I think. I'm pretty much what the world wants to see. I'm just a guy named Jack who's traveling. There's more to me, I guess, but that's all anyone needs to know, really."

"We wish to know more," she said, "You aren't like anyone we've ever seen, and your nice ears there under your cowboy hat are just the tip of your mystery to us. Donna's pretty mouth fell open wide when I told her that you aren't human, and after I laughed at her until I cried, I had to admit that I didn't know what you are any more than she did then. She says that she knows now, but I still don't understand.

You say that you're traveling, but you do not say where you are going or why. I told her that I saw a little of your sadness last night, and now we are perplexed between us. We want to know what happened to you, but we don't dare to ask it plainly for fear that it would hurt you more, and above all, we don't want to offend you."

He made no answer for a moment, looking at the horizon. Then he turned to smile at her. "I'm not offended."

She slid her hand into his, hoping to offer encouragement to him by the gesture. He looked at her hand and stroked it with his thumb once. He took a long breath and then let it out.

"I still don't feel like talking about it much," he said, "but I can offer you a little bit, since I think that you could understand it more than anyone.

I'm traveling, Aksun. I'm traveling in a meandering way to a final destination. I don't know where it is, exactly, but I think it lies in the Canadian Rockies far to the north of here. That's where I feel that I'm being drawn to. It's not a strong pull on me anymore, but it's there. I have nowhere else to go now.

Once there were many of us, some in Asia, and a lot more in Europe. We're different than men, and not really the same at all. Though we had many peaceful dealings with them, sooner or later it all turned sour every time, and so we gave up and moved to the west across the ocean, a few at a time. I didn't know it, but there are different kinds of us, just as there are of humans. I don't know why it never came to me, but it didn't. I was born here.

The one who was our princess loved me, and I loved her, though we couldn't be open about it then. She left to seek out others, trying to get them to move west again, since humans had followed us here. Many of the clans had already gone."

Elohan stretched out his legs and drank a bit more. "I was left to lead our clan. She promised me that when she returned, she would make me king and become my queen, since I was royal enough for it. We were young, but we could both lead. None of that mattered to me, Aksun. I loved her. But she never returned. She was killed a year after. We didn't know anything about it, but after a time, the others wanted to go west, and I let them go, deciding to stay and wait for her."

He looked at the horizon again, "I waited a long time. One day, I met a human girl, and over a little time, she had my heart and we loved. But humans live for only a short time, and when she died, I felt worse. More time passed, and then a female arrived from the south. We found each other by accident, and from her I learned that my princess had died hundreds of years before. She was sent to find us so that we would know of it. She found only me.

But she said such pretty things to me about the moon and the stars and loving me that I gave my heart to her. We loved for a time and then traveled west, looking for her people."

He smiled, "We even managed to find them after some adventure. But once she was back among her own kind, her feelings for me faded. I had a dream once in our old tree where I was born that we had young between us, her and I. But it didn't happen, and I still don't know why."

He finished his drink and set the can down. "So I gave her my heart, and after finding someone else for her own, she gave me her camper. That was three years ago and I've been traveling ever since. Her people wanted me to stay, but they only wanted me to teach them what I knew. There were more than a few females there who I could see wanted me, but I have wanted nothing from that clan ever since.

I guess that is one of the differences between our clans. When one of us gives their heart, it is forever. When one of them does that, I don't know what that means."

Aksun felt some of the sadness in him and hugged him tightly. "What will happen if you find the place that you seek?"

He shrugged, "I don't know. If they even still live there, they would have chosen another one to lead them long ago. I'm fine with that. I don't care at all. But I don't know if they'd accept me anymore. So much has changed for us. And now, even if they're still there, I have no hope inside of me anymore. I may find that they were there once, and have moved again. It is such a weak pull that I feel now. I may get there and find that they're all dead. It wouldn't surprise me. Nothing surprises me anymore. I'm just like you, Aksun. I'm the only one of my kind."

He laughed a little bitterly, "I am royal of a clan which I believe is long dead. I came into my own as an adult all alone. I am far stronger than most of my kind, wiser because of what I have been through. But it's bought me nothing. If I find that my kind is all gone from the earth, what then? I guess I'd live there alone until I pass myself. A fitting end to an empty life."

Aksun looked at him sadly. "I'm very sorry again. I wish now that I hadn't said anything, Elohan, but, if you don't mind. What are you? What was it that the other clan wanted to learn from you? If I don't ask you this now, I'm afraid that I'll never find the nerve to ask you again. I see how it all saddens you." She hugged him tightly for a minute and then took his hand.

She found him feeling a little angry with himself. "They wanted to learn something which their kind has forgotten over all of the centuries. Mine has not ever forgotten it, and since I was alone for so long, I learned and found new ways to work it."

He laughed quietly, "Maybe I did that out of boredom, I don't know anymore."

He picked up his empty soda can and she stared as it left his hand, floating upward and away from him. She heard him snort quietly and when she looked, she saw his smirk. "What I learned," he said in a self-depreciating way. He looked around and saw an old powerline nearby. It ran to a deserted old house not far off, but he could feel that the line was live to the point where it had been disconnected long before.

The can was crushed together and began to spin there in the air, collapsing into itself a little more until it resembled a silver ball. When he closed his eyes, the ball began to glow. When he opened them again, Aksun jumped at the sound of the explosion.

"I suppose that I could make a living performing magic at the birthday parties of human children," he said, knowing that she wouldn't understand his bitterness.

Elohan just looked sad. He took off his hat and she looked at the long ears there. For a moment, they reminded her of her own when she was in her natural shape. They had the same form, though his were longer.