“And I’m not his girlfriend. I just met him this morning, and was giving him a tour,” Alicia spoke firmly.
“Really? You just happen to be laying naked on top of him in a spring so that you can give him a tour? A tour of what?” Dewberry asked skeptically. “But you’re not his girlfriend?”
Alicia firmly pressed herself away from Kestrel in response, and looked angrily at the sprite.
“Are we going to get in the spring or not?” Jonson spoke, interrupting the brewing argument between the two females.
“Yes,” Kestrel responded gratefully, wanting to avoid upsetting Alicia. “I thought that as you got in the pool one by one, you would pass out, and then I could put you over on that ledge,” he pointed as a small sandy beach area to his left, “where you could safely lie in the water until we take everyone out.”
“And then you two could continue your ‘tour’,” Dewberry acerbically added.
“That’s a good plan,” Jonson said, working with Kestrel to cut off the obvious enmity between his fiance and Kestrel’s companion. “Dewberry, you go first,” he directed.
The female sprite obediently dropped down in front of Kestrel. “I know you’ll treat me well,” she murmured to Kestrel, “you did last time.” She leaned forward and surprised him by placing a kiss on his lips, both of her tiny dark blue lips fitting in the crease between his, then she dropped down into the water, and immediately fell into unconsciousness as Kestrel’s arms rose to support her.
He waded through the water to the sandy ledge, and gently deposited the sprite on the clean, soft sand, the shallow water lapping against the side of her body, then proceeded to assist the other sprites, one by one, as they likewise immersed themselves in the water and passed out. Kestrel gently laid each of then beside one another, a neat row of small blue bodies glistening in the sunlight and the water as they slept and reinvigorated.
“What exactly are you Kestrel?” Alicia’s voice sounded from behind him, and he turned to see that she was out of the water, back on land, where she had discerned her pile of clothing and was donning her apparel quickly. “Are you a human, an elf, or a warlock with mastery over sprites?”
He sighed, and sat down on the sandy shelf with the sprites, as Alicia came strolling around the edge of the water, and sat down cross-legged on the grass near him.
“I’m just an ordinary elf, who is trying to figure out some unusual circumstances,” he answered after a long moment’s pause.
“You’re hardly ordinary if Silvan is interested in you; you’re definitely not ordinary if sprites rely on you to babysit them while they sleep. You may not be ordinary if you fought off two elves to save me when you had no real reason to care about me,” the girl replied.
“Those don’t sound ordinary,” he agreed after a moment’s reflection, “but I’m me; those are just what’s going on around me,” he told her.
“How do you know and befriend sprites?” Alicia asked. “That doesn’t strike me as ordinary.”
“I met Dewberry here,” he answered, “right here at this pool. I was healing in the water when she came, and a wolf seized her. I rescued her and healed her in the water, and after we straightened things out, I think we have become friends, a little.”
“She kissed you, right there in front of her fiance. I think she was jealous a little when she thought I was your girlfriend,” Alicia answered.
Kestrel laughed. “No, she’s a princess of the sprites, and her fiance is a prince of the water imps. They’re royalty, hardly likely to be jealous of a big, ugly human-elf mess like me.”
“You’re not really ugly, I think,” Alicia told him. “Once I got used to you I thought you were sort of good looking, in a human kind of way, which I know doesn’t make sense.
“Where is this spring? Are we near your home?” she asked.
“This is a spring outside a village between Elmheng and Center trunk; I don’t know its name,” Kestrel replied.
“I’ve never heard of a spring with miraculous healing water; how did you know about it?” Alicia tried to pin him down.
“An old lady in the village told me about it,” he answered, unwilling to mention Kere’s name.
So you do have some discretion, he heard the goddess’s voice call softly. He looked around, but could not see and physical manifestation of her. Good for you; there may be hope for you after all, young elfling.
“What’s the matter?” Alicia asked, seeing his sudden distraction.
“Nothing. Just a fly buzzing around, I guess,” he said, baffled by the sudden intervention of the goddess in his life after weeks without evidence.
“What would happen if the water was drunk, or just poured over an wound?” Alicia asked speculatively, looking at Kestrel with a directness that unnerved him.
“I don’t know; I didn’t think about drinking it, but originally I thought I might just ask Dewberry to bring some of the water to me at your father’s apartment, when you were unconscious, before I knew she and her friends could carry us here,” Kestrel told her, sharing in her speculation about the medicinal use of the water.
At last she lapsed into silence, apparently thinking about the water, while Kestrel concluded that the sprites had probably been allowed to soak in the spring water long enough. He hadn’t thought to ask them how long was an appropriate bath, but he thought they had probably had enough to satisfy them.
He stood and began to transfer the sprites to the shore, one at a time, gently placing each on a patch of soft grass, conscious that Alicia was watching him, dressed as she was now, while he remained dripping nude. He had seen her unclothed earlier, he realized, but it felt unfair nonetheless. “Would you look somewhere else please?” he finally asked her as he went back to the water to pick up the fourth sprite, actually a water imp, Jonson’s sister.
“Of, of course,” she agreed in some embarrassment, and turned away. “How far is the village?” she asked a moment later.
“What village?” Kestrel asked in confusion.
“The closest village, the one you were at when you heard about this spring,” Alicia answered with a shortness to her tone that sounded more like the soulless woman he had started the morning with.
“The road to the village is back along the stream,” Kestrel gestured towards the water that flowed away from the source of the spring. “Follow the stream until it comes to the road, then take the road north towards the village. It’s not far.
“Why do you ask?” he voiced his curiosity.
“I thought I might go get a skin or a flask or a gourd or something so that we could take some of this water back to the city with us, for tonight,” she answered, in a gentler tone.
“Why? What are you doing tonight?” Kestrel asked, as he lifted the last sprite from the water.
Alicia looked at him, then looked away again hastily. “Oh, I just meant if our feet are tired from too much walking, or just for anything that might happen; nothing in particular,” she replied, but her words had a cadence of dishonesty to them, and Kestrel decided that whatever she planned to do, it was none of his business if she didn’t want to share it.
Before he could say anything further, Dewberry’s friend Reasion awoke. The blue sprite sat up and looked around with a slightly dazed look on her face. Reasion had a more androgynous figure than Dewberry, and cheeks that were merry little apples in shape, giving her a perpetual happy expression. Without a word of comment, Reasion flew through the air to retrieve a pile of clothes.
He woke Dewberry next.
“I feel wonderful!” she said with emphasis on each word, letting the sounds explode out of her mouth with delight. She stood and looked at her pile of clothes on the far side of the pool of water, then rose and flew through the air to where they were, and dressed herself.
Sensing that the time at the spring was coming to an end, Kestrel swam lazily across the pool of water and grabbed his own clothes, then carried them above his head as he waded back to where Alicia sat. He dressed as the other sprites and imps began to awaken, and within a half hour the whole group was dressed.