Sprite
Chapter 27

Neistah lounged half-submerged in the secluded lake, watching his cavorting changelings with a critical eye. Somewhere, still far off, more of his changelings were making their way steadily towards him, and—Neistah frowned. They weren’t alone.

He flipped over in the shallow water and with a flick of his wrist propelled himself into the deep center of the lake. He needed to swim, to think. Damn that Valin! What was he doing with those changelings? The boys weren’t stupid. Already, they half-believed Neistah wasn’t human. What would they think after seeing Valin?

Neistah swam in tight circles, absently aware that his young charges in the water above had noticed his disappearance and were casting about for him anxiously. Despite his annoyance at his father, Neistah suddenly grinned. It would do them good to see how the game was really played. He shot up in between the boys, rising up out of the water and grabbing first one, then another by the ankles and yanking them under. Their startled screams made him laugh.

“You see?” he said, relenting as two of the five boys choked and sputtered. “Keep the hunters guessing. Don’t let them see you until it’s too late.” He grinned at them, and squeezed water out of his dark hair, exposing his neck webbing for all to see.

This crop of changelings was new, in the forest for barely more than a year. Most of them had been rescued or aided by his changelings, ‘Neistah’s Sprites,’ they called themselves. Now all of these newcomers wanted to become sprites, too. They’d grown their hair long and taken to wearing only shorts, like Neistah. Autumn’s arrival had not deterred these changeling sprites, nor had the frigid lake waters. Neistah had stumbled upon the five boys practicing holding their breaths underwater—trying to be like a real sprite. Like Neistah.

His changelings roved from one end of the vast forest to the other in small bands, calling themselves sprites and determined to follow in his footsteps. Foolish children. However, Neistah could not just leave them to their fate. He kept his inner ear attuned to their movements and every now and then, as he did today, he would give some of them tips on how to survive the hunters. Was it his fault if those survival tips consisted mainly of ways to bedevil the hunters? It worked, didn’t it?

Now the boys stared at him, round-eyed. They had never seen Neistah play his tricks before. He laughed again, and melted underneath the water. The boys nervously grouped together, but Neistah disappeared into the deeper water again, surfacing after much too long to be humanly comfortable. He probably had frightened them, and if so, then well and good. What they attempted to do here was dangerous.

“Wait for me!” One of the boys, the smallest of their group, waved at him. The boy took an audible breath and disappeared under the water much as Neistah had done. He only made it for about a minute, and a fraction of the distance Neistah had traveled, but he emerged from the water with a triumphant smile, and waved again.

Neistah’s eyebrows rose. It was an impressive distance, for a human.

One by one, the five young changelings all swam out to the middle of the lake where Neistah waited. No, they did not have the sense to be frightened. “Not like that, like this.” Neistah demonstrated his method of swimming, arms close to his body. Of course, the human boys had no webbing to catch and guide the water, but they tried, anyway. Neistah could tell they were getting tired, and the water was much too cold for prolonged exposure—for a human. He towed them by two’s and three’s back to shore, and bade them build a fire for warmth. Out here, in the middle of nowhere, they would be safe enough. Neistah could sense no hunters, nothing except—

Another group of his young followers was still heading this way, and Valin was with them. “Remove traces of the fire when you leave,” he told the boys. “No more swimming until spring. Practice moving silently in the forest.”

“But sprites are supposed to swim!” the youngest boy, the first who had dared to swim after Neistah, protested.

Neistah stared at the boy. “In the spring,” he repeated, putting a little mental nudge behind his words. The boy nodded earnestly. So did the others. Neistah left them to clean up the area, knowing they would leave no trace for hunters to replace.

Neistah moved quietly through the woods, and waited in the crook of a tree, Valin’s favorite trick, for the band of changeling sprites to pass below. He sucked in his breath when he realized not only Valin, but another of his people as well, traveled with the band. Both sprites looked up as they passed below the tree, and Neistah gasped out loud as the linen hood fell back, exposing Leane’s grass-green hair.

That made his changelings look up, too. Neistah jumped down into their midst.

“How did you do that! We didn’t even see you!”

“We brought your friends! Are they your friends? They said they were your friends.”

“Look, Neistah! They’re sprites, like you!”

The boys’ excited questions died as they realized Neistah was not listening. Instead, he and the two other sprites stared at each other without saying a word. The silence went on for an uncomfortably long time.

“Leane,” Neistah finally said, in a flat voice. “Why did you come?”

The boys exchanged relieved glances. Neistah did know these people.

Leane tossed her light green hair back, glad to be out of the confining hood. She pursed her lips, unhappy that Neistah had decided to address her out loud. But she answered him the same way. “Why, to take you home, of course. It’s autumn.”

The boys stared.

Valin shrugged his shoulders. “She followed me,” he said. “You were late. She was worried.”

Neistah glared at him, and again there was a period of silence, with all three of the sprites glaring at each other. Finally, Neistah turned away. “Do what you want,” he muttered, glancing at the confused changelings who stood still, uncertain of what they should do. Neistah sighed, and motioned for them to continue.

Leane shed her cumbersome cloak, handing it off to one of the boys to carry, as she ran forward to link her arm with Neistah’s. ‘I hate these human clothes,’ she complained, mind to mind. Neistah ignored her, although he did not remove his arm from hers.

Neistah could hear the questions in the minds of his changelings. Foremost in their minds, after their awe of Leane in all her glory, was the dawning suspicion that neither Valin nor Leane, and by extension, Neistah, were human at all. Neistah scowled. They were messing up his game. He looked up. Valin was smiling in self-satisfaction. What was he up to?

Hidden mutant villages were scattered throughout the forest. Neistah led them all to the nearest one, the one where his five young charges had returned to after their practice swim in the nearby lake. The damage was already done. Valin and Leane had both been seen by the humans. They might as well live with the consequences.

Valin looked about, clearly impressed, while Leane wiped at the dirt which clung to her bare feet now that they had finally stopped. There was little to see.

“Did you teach them this, Neistah?” Valin asked aloud, for the sake of their young companions. Slowly, some of the villagers came out from the trees once they recognized Neistah and the boys. There were no houses to speak of. Tucked behind bushes, or built into the very trees themselves, the mutants had fashioned homes that could be abandoned with little effort, and rebuilt elsewhere just as easily. They were hard to spot unless one knew what to look for. Yet, for all that, the village thrived. Women went about their daily chores, drawing water from the nearby lake, washing in hidden streams, and preparing meals not far away from the places where they slept, all sheltered by the green forest. Even their steps were light, and their clothing, except for the changeling sprites who wore only shorts even in the cool fall, was functional and blended in with the surrounding foliage.

Leane picked at her scratchy linen shirt as she eyed the soft doeskin jackets some of the other women wore, and glanced reproachfully at Valin, who smiled and shrugged. This village was nothing like the ones he remembered.

Neistah shook his head. ‘No,’ he sent. ‘They learned how to do this themselves. It’s how they survive out here.’

“They know you.” Valin made it a statement. So far, none of the older mutants had approached their group, although several of the younger ones had, including the group from the lake. These crowded around Neistah and the returning changelings, shooting out questions without waiting for the answers.

“Did you rescue them?” One asked. His hair was still damp from the lake. His eyes traveled up and up to Valin’s face, riveted by the older man’s striking violet eyes. “You’re big,” he said.

“Not exactly,” Vincent, one of the boys who had found Valin and Leane, replied. “We found them in the forest. They were looking for Neistah.”

The first boy glanced back at Valin, and then at Leane, as she sat on the ground, still wiping at her feet. His eyes widened as he took in their similarities. “They’re sprites,” he breathed.

“Yeah.” Vincent nodded.

“She’s a girl!” The boy pointed at Leane, who, by this time, had a crowd of little mutant girls surrounding her, as well as some of the older women.

Vincent nodded again. The women and several of the girls had coaxed Leane to her feet and now led her away, through an opening in the foliage, to one of the hidden houses. He watched her go, as did Neistah.

“Girls can be sprites?” The boy sounded incredulous.

Neistah laughed. “Why not?” he said, answering the question that was in all their minds. “These are my—family. Valin,” Neistah indicated his father, who leaned, slender as a green sapling, against an oak tree, and pointed the way the women had gone. “And Leane.”

“But—her hair is green! Really green,” the boy amended. Neistah himself had hints of green in his black hair, but nothing like the spring green of Leane’s. “And his is—like fire!”

Neistah found it funny that the main difference these mutants would replace was in the unusual hair color of the other sprites. His own dark hair apparently was not so different, if you overlooked the green tint.

“What happened to your face?” The young boy who had braved the lake and Neistah’s differences now braved Valin, who towered above him.

Valin squatted down so he could speak with the boy. “Someone cut it,” he said, placing his hand on the boy’s head.

“One of the hunters? How did you get away?”

Valin smiled briefly. “It was a long time ago, and no, it wasn’t a hunter. It was my friend.”

Neistah quickly thought at him, ’Is that true?’ But Valin did not deign to reply mind to mind.

“Oh, what happened to your friend?” The boy wanted to know. So did Neistah.

“I killed him,” Valin said matter-of-factly. “He wasn’t the friend I thought him to be.” He gave Neistah a significant look.

The boy patted Valin’s scarred face. “I’m sorry,” he said, meaning it. “Your friend shouldn’t have done that.”

Valin caught Neistah’s amused glance. Point taken. Now is not then. These people were not those. Well, they would see. He smiled at the boy. “Thank you,” he said. “Gary, isn’t it? You’re a good friend, aren’t you?”

Gary nodded earnestly. “I would never hurt you,” he insisted. “Are you a real sprite, like Neistah? Do you know how to swim? I like to swim!”

“A real sprite? I suppose I am,” Valin said slowly. He had gained quite an audience by now. “I don’t mind swimming.”

Neistah snorted.

Leane returned, dressed in soft leathers with leather slippers covering her delicate feet. Her hair was braided and wrapped around her head in the fashion of the older women, but it only served to draw attention to the startling beauty of her face. Next to Leane, the human women faded into insignificance. The boys who had been crowding around Valin, pestering him with questions, now flocked to Leane. The men, none older than thirty, followed Leane with their eyes until Neistah scowled, and came to stand beside her. Leane’s smile lit the clearing.

“You’re a sprite like Neistah?” Del, another of the boys in Gary’s group, asked boldly.

Leane dimpled. “A sprite, but not—precisely—like Neistah,” she replied, laughing softly.

“She’s a girl. She’s going to teach us how to be sprites too!” One of the young changeling girls spoke up. She had blond hair, raggedly cut to shoulder length, and her flaw was easy enough to see. An extra set of ears, set back from the first pair and slightly elongated. It gave her the look of fins, if one hadn’t had the real thing to compare it to.

‘You plan to stay, then?’ Neistah sent silently to Leane.

She gave him an arch look. ‘Until you return home with me,’ she sent back.

‘Valin, take her back.’ Neistah pleaded with his father, only half joking.

‘I don’t need Valin. I can create my own way back,’ Leane sent, while at the same time murmuring something pleasant to the little girls at her feet.

A pulse of alarm shot through Neistah. ‘No! No blood can be spilled. Valin, what have you told her?’

‘As I said, she followed me. She watched while I created the gate.’

Leane looked from one to the other. ‘What is the matter?’ she asked.

‘Leane, you cannot make a gate by spilling your blood.’ Neistah scowled at his father. ’He knows better. It’s bad, for us, and for these people. When you are ready to go home, I will take you to a gate. Agreed?’

Leane inclined her head. ‘When you are ready to go home with me, then I will let you take me to a gate. Agreed.’

Valin laughed again. “Who wants to show me this lake of yours?” he asked the crowd in general. Most of the boys and a few of the girls volunteered, and Valin strode off, like a pied piper among them.

‘You will not like mortal winter,’ Neistah warned Leane, when they had gone.

‘Then take me home,’ Leane replied, implacable.