Sole Wolfess and Kid
© 2021 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 Nine.



My eyes narrowed at the Guard.

“Would I have come all this way if I wasn’t?” I asked.

Very slowly, he raised one eyebrow, and the crowd immediately quieted.

“Have you come from a place called Elfhame?” he asked, taking up the challenge.

Battle was joined.

“Would it surprise you if I told you the number of Gates I used?”

“Will you please come with me?” Nice of him to use ‘please.’

“Where are we going?”

“Will you interrupt our worship?” the Priestess interjected, her striped tail swishing back and forth. She was a tigress, but white fur where there weren’t black stripes. Behind her, I could see the crowd looking on.

The Guard bowed slightly. “Do I look like I have bad manners?”

She smiled. “May I tell your parents that they raised you right?” To me she asked, “Are you this girl’s mother?”

I glanced down at Aedith and smiled. “Isn’t it obvious?” I asked, because even though I did not give birth to her, I’m the only mother she’s known.

Elves Don’t Lie, and wet-nurses don’t count.

“Have you come from Elfhame?” the Guard asked again, only slightly differently. Stretching the Rules, but not exactly breaking them.

“Has someone told you we’d be coming?” I asked, and his eyes widened slightly.

“Would you like to come inside?” the Priestess asked.

I opened my mouth, but paused as Aedith tugged at my sleeve. I looked down at her and she asked, “Can I get a drink of water?”

The Guard and the Priestess and I all looked at each other.

They nodded, and I scooped my giggling little girl up to give her a nuzzle. “Yes, of course you can,” I said. A goat in the crowd laughed, rang a gong that he’d produced from his Elfintory, and the crowd cheered Aedith as the winner of the Question Game. I put Sunny down as the Priestess came forward and the dancing resumed.

I never used to play Questions much when I was at Artemisiaford, but the game dates back to the Long Ago and all Elves know it. I’ve seen an entire intersection full of traffic in Persoc Tor come to a complete stop when two ant-cart drivers started Questions to decide who had the right of way. I never played it with the Master, mainly because he’d lose in a heartbeat and just get pissier.

[Note appended to manuscript: “Are you afraid you’d lose, wolfess?”]

[Note appended to manuscript: “Are you sure of that, Master?”]

[Twenty-seven subsequent pages of manuscript discarded, which proves something or other.]

The Priestess bowed – not to me, but to Aedith. “My name’s Olivia Rainwater,” the tigress said.

My daughter curtsied very nicely. “My name’s Aedith Winterbough.”

“That’s a very pretty name,” Olivia said, and she glanced at me.

“Missy Sage,” I said. No, I didn’t curtsy. “Her mother and guardian.”

“Would you like to come inside, Ma’am?” she asked.

I smiled and took Aedith’s paw. “We will,” I said, “but I doubt we can stay very long,” and I gave the Guard a look. For his part, the canine smiled as graciously as he could, and the crowd made a path for us to the doors of the temple, several in the crowd bowing as we passed. One mel, an otter, was giving me and Aedith a curious look.

I took note.

The interior of the Temple was quite – well, open, with high walls punctured by many windows and oriented to catch the rays of the rising and setting sun. The glass in the windows was tinted and pieced together to depict the bounty that the Brilliant Light bestowed on the people of Eastness. The whole place was built to draw the eyes upward, and the overall effect was quite beautiful.

Olivia smiled as Aedith and I looked up. “Yes, it’s very nice,” she said, “but it doesn’t hold a candle to what it used to be before the Ospreys, so I’m told.”

I nodded. “The last time I was in Eastness, my squire visited this place, or what was left of it,” I said as Aedith scampered over to one of the many pools of multicolored light cast by the high windows and started wandering around the sanctuary.

[Note appended to manuscript: “’Squire,’ pfui. When will you stop rubbing my nose in that, pissy wolfess?”]

[Note appended to manuscript: “When your nose gets smaller, pissy roebuck.”]

“I think that you have honored your predecessors to the best of your ability, and that’s commendable,” I added.

The tigress smiled. “And your daughter?”

I smiled, my tail wagging slightly. “Born here, in Eastness.” I pitched my voice lower, so my daughter couldn’t hear. “Her parents were dying, and so was she. I’m the only mother she’s ever known.”

Olivia gave me a rueful look. “Many people were sickly then, and many died. My own mother was one of them, and I was hidden to keep the Osprey’s eye from spying me.”

“So you thrive in the sunlight, like she does?” Aedith had sat down in one collection of colors, tracing the features of a farm family celebrating their harvest.

The tigress nodded. “Pure white or pure black fur seems to be favored by the Brilliant Light. Not always, of course; Elves do marry, and will at times go far afield to find husbands or wives. As soon as my father was certain of my Calling, he dyed my fur and kept me hidden as much as he could.” She gave a melancholy sigh. “In many ways, the reconstruction of our faith is slower than the rebuilding that went on after the Fall of the Aerie. There was great rejoicing when the Wolf Queen struck the Osprey down.”

I kept my expression solemn, and my Elf-mind firmly shielded. I hadn’t been the one to do that, but as the Master told me not very long ago, I was the hero that Eastness had needed at the time.

Priestess Rainwater was still talking. “The process is slow, but we’re finding a few that were in Service at the time, and had been teaching others.” She was looking at Aedith as she spoke, so she missed my ear-flick when I thought of Nippy and the ermine femme’s use of the word.

Hmm.

The tigress turned and looked past me at the Guard. “Are you still here, sir?”

He bowed. “Yes, Ma’am.” He straightened up and looked at me expectantly.

Yes, it was time. “I have been sent by the Master of Elfhame, Westersloe Winterbough, the Fifth of His Name. The State Council had been told to expect me to help lead a delegation from Eastness to Elfhame.” I glanced at Sunny, who was smiling happily while sitting in a pool of sunlight. “Please let them know I’m here.”

He nodded. “I will, Ma’am,” and he turned on one heel and walked out of the Temple.

I said to the tigress, “I apologize for disrupting your service.”

She cheerfully waved this off. “When the weather’s good, the noon service is usually held outdoors, so it’s no imposition.” We all swiveled our ears at an arpeggio of beautifully tuned bells somewhere above us, and she asked, “Would you and Aedith like some lunch?”

I glanced over at Aedith, whose tail was wagging as she looked back at me, and I chuckled. “We’d be honored.”


***


Lunch was very tasty, and as we ate the Guard came back with his sergeant and a member of Eastness’ State Council, the elected government of the city. I recognized her; she was the slightly tubby mare who had been leading the Council during my second visit.

She obviously recognized me as well. “Sergeant Sage,” she said, “I’m Patricia Furrow, with the Council. I’m very happy to see you again.”

“Thank you,” I said after I had swallowed what I had been eating. Unlike some furs I know, I have good table manners.

[Note appended to manuscript: “Apart from the drooling.”]

[Note appended to manuscript: “Shaddap.”]

“I don’t mean to interrupt your lunch – “ the mare began, but the tigress waved the protest off with a paw.

“You’re not interrupting, Patricia. Please, join us, won’t you?”

“Thank you.” The mare said with a smile, and a couple attendants brought a seat for her.

“Are you planning on staying very long?” Furrow asked after we’d been eating.

I glanced at Aedith, who had both ears aimed at me and her tail wagging. I smiled at the mare and replied, “A few days, I judge; as long as it takes for the Council to assemble and equip their delegation. I didn’t really have the chance to see the city, and I know Aedith would love to see somewhere new.” My daughter nodded gleefully.

That got me thinking. Aedith was wearing traveling clothes, of course, but she needed something else. Preferably something new and pretty, and I knew just the place.

That is, if it hadn’t wandered off. I recalled what Tali said about DelFurrio’s, that it would show up when it felt that we needed it, which I recall thinking was very Elf-ly of it. I was certain that the two femmes who ran the shop would enjoy seeing us, and enjoy the business.

And Priestess Rainwater would probably want to talk to Aedith. Probably religious instruction, which was understandable.

I didn’t mind that, really; I wasn’t here to cause a stir or make a noise or anything like that. I was on a mission, and I had to remember that. ‘To learn true humility,’ as I had put it back in Elfhame, and if it meant staying in the wings while my daughter was center stage, so be it.

It seemed to be what Fuma wanted.

But it wouldn’t be Elf-ly of me to deny my daughter an opportunity to see more of the Shining Land. So far she’d seen a few places that even I’d never seen before.

“Do you have post-ball here?” Aedith asked, and my ears went straight down.






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