Lokke and Keye

I sat back on my haunches and flipped my white hair backwards over my shoulder. I could smell the water of that pool, and if I just got closer, I'd find it for sure.

I crept up the dirt path, the dark soil moist between my fingers as I crawled. I could smell the leaves, the rott of the earth. But I knew it wasn't real earth. We were elves, and we lived in the boughs of a great tree. The earth we grew up thinking was land was not land at all; it was just the gathered and mustered rott and decay of leaves, branches and bones. When I found that out, I was very disappointed, unlike the rest of my kin who were content to live above everyone else in the world.

I put a hand forward and pushed some shrubbery aside, scooting slowly into the small trees that grew in this above-the-world forest. I left the path and stayed in the shadows and leaves, hidden there like a camouflaged wild cat. And I saw the pool ahead of me.

It must have been an ancient pool, its well waters forgotten by the people I knew. Or it was so sacred that no one shared its location, for it wasn't on any map I knew of. A stone arch and well ensconced the flowing and bubbling blue waters that glowed with fairy magick. And in that well there danced a satyr.

I hated satyrs. When I was a child, just a bit younger than now, a satyr tricked me into questing for him. Unbeknownst to me, this particular satyr was hated by the Council that governed my people. I didn't find this tidbit out until almost too late; walking along the road I was met by a captain of the guard who, in a very scolding voice, told me I now had to redeem myself in the eyes of aforementioned Council or risk their ire for the rest of my life.

When they asked me to poison the satyr, I agreed, full of fear. It was only later that I questioned the whole situation; if we were supposed to be kind, loving elves of the forest, beloved of our moon goddess...why were we poisoning people? Even worse, why did we ask this of our children?

No matter. I hated satyrs now as much as I hated the Council. And this satyr was dancing in a wellspring belonging to my people. My patriotism, it comes and goes. And right now it was in full bloom.

I had to think about what to do. This satyr was no easy victim to a child like myself. I slid back down the path quietly, resting at the bottom of the hill the path led up. In a bower of branches I lay back and stared at the high and far away forest ceiling. The canopy I grew up under allowed limited light to get through; how all this greenery survived I didn't know and didn't want to know. I was a druid, or was supposed to be. But I had no care for these trees, this forest. It was a place to be and live, and I didn't see that I had many choices just then. But I didn't have to love it or understand it.

There was a rustling sound to my left. Someone was coming. I didn't move. As hunters, we elves passed each other often in this forest. I felt it was too crowded, there were too many of us, even if I could go days without seeing anyone. When we did meet, we rarely exchanged greetings.

Frustrated at my anger and helplessness over the satyr, I watched as a male elf, a man, came from the shadows and disappeared nearby. Then he came out again and disappeared again.

A rogue. I didn't like rogues. With their hidden blades and shadow stepping ways, I knew deep down I was probably jealous of them. I didn't hate them enough to hiss at this man and warn him away from my bower. But I eyeballed him just the same, daring him to challenge me first!

He did not. In and out of the shadows he stepped, with no care to me. He knew I was there, that much I could tell. But I was nothing to him. In a world like ours, with villages tumbled so close together you went to bed in one and fell out of bed into another, you'd think we elves would have some great sense of community. If we did, though, I had missed it. No one notices a druid who isn't a druid at all. No one cared how many rabbits I killed, how many deer or frogs I picked off at random with my staff or the blade I insisted on carrying. And this rogue didn't notice me either.

Lazily, I picked up a particularly biting burr from the hedge I was sitting in. I put it in the palm of one hand, and with the forefinger of the other flicked it and sent it flying to where the rogue likely was. The burr disappeared into shadow and I sighed and started back up the path.

Suddenly, there was a tap on my shoulder. I froze in place, in an awkward crawling position.

"Was that really necessary?" a man's voice asked.

It had to be the rogue. Damned rogues...

"Yes," I said.

Slowly, I turned around to face him. And it was indeed the same rogue I had been watching. He held on the flat of his hand my burr. Guess the dart had found its target after all. I gulped, not knowing how to handle this situation. Social skills were not my strength.

"This belongs to you?"

I nodded, deciding to put my chin up and have the best of it. Maybe he would want to fight over this little thing. Maybe not. But someone was noticing me, and it was somehow thrilling and exciting, though dangerous. Perhaps it was the danger that made it a thrill. I don't know. I only knew then that I wanted him to keep talking to me. That loneliness was suddenly a cold chill in my bones, and his very presence was pushing it back.

"Yes, that's mine."

I plucked the burr from his palm, hiding my wince as it bit with its spikes into my hand. I smiled in spite of the irritating sting. And the rogue eyed me cautiously.

"Why are you throwing burrs at strangers as they pass by, little one," he said carefully.

His voice was so deep it rang like a bell in my soul that had never been rung before. The vibrations were shivers on my skin and I worried my knees were rattling. I stared at him, at his white hair, slightly purpled skin. I wondered who he was, where he was from. Men his age didn't usually stay in the forest; elves of any worth seemed to leave as soon as they were old enough to survive passage beyond the great tree.

He raised an eyebrow and seemed to flush slightly. And I realized an answer was expected, and I'd been ogling him.

"To see if any of my burrs come back," I said with all the wit I could muster.

It was a weak answer, but I knew that if I acted like it was the right one, used the right tone and right inflection, he'd be the one feeling silly.

The stranger raised an eyebrow and nodded, then began to move off. He was leaving! And the loneliness of this great dark wood was slipping back over me like a blanket or a cold breeze. I wanted to grab his arm and make him turn back. What could I say?

"Do you hate satyrs?" I tried, desperate.

He bit.

Turning back to me, he tilted his head to one side.

"Don't we all?"

If only I'd known that when I was younger!

"Well, I'd like one dead. A particular one. But, I am just a girl, a druid at that. I am not so good at killing."

I smiled a very winning smile and scuffed the forest floor shyly with one toe, playing the part of the young and innocent girl. And he seemed to fall for it.

Me? I was an excellent killer, and I knew it. But druids weren't supposed to appreciate the sound of rabbits squealing as they passed to the next life, or know the nuances of a frog's last flip as a knife sliced his gut open. These things I knew, but also had to hide.

Turning back to me fully, he made the world a brighter place and I thought maybe we'd been caught in a beam of sunlight. I was warm, tingly as I beckoned him to follow me. And follow he did. He too hadn't known of this path or this well. And he was seemingly impressed to be led there by a child like myself.

I say child loosely, for I was a young woman. I was ready to spread my wings, and, with him tucked so close beside me like a hunter, I was ready to spread more than just wings. I was panting, but he thought it was from the effort.

Soon, we were back at the top of the hill, and I showed him where I had hidden to watch the satyr. Wordless, we spoke, and he made it clear he would kill this satyr -- for me...

My heart lurched in my chest. And I had never felt my heart before, beyond the blood rushing in my ears when the rage to kill was on me. Now my heart was constricted, pounding hard and making it hard to breath. I watched, mouth opening and closing like a fish as he stealthily disappeared into shadows. Moments later, he was surprising the red furred satyr with a blade in the belly and a snarl on his lips.

The way his mouth curled, his lips twisting above his short beard and goatee. The glow in his yellow eyes as he stabbed and stabbed. Two blades he produced -- not one blade but two! And the satyr stood no chance. Soon the well water ran red with his blood. It would be purified in time, that's how our wells worked. But for now it was crimson.

I came from the trees to stare at this man I had discovered -- who had discovered me. My mouth was slack as I took in his battle stance, his chest still heaving from this fight. Specks of blood were in his white hair, flecked on his pale skin. He glared angrily at the satyr's corpse but remained immobile while I gawked.

He was a killer. He was someone like I wanted to be. He didn't pray before every battle and call upon an absent power for the strength to take a life. He killed, straight up, blades and swords and battle and blood. His knives cut to the bone and to the gut, and he spilled heart's blood so readily.

The world changed. That bell was ringing madly, shaking and shattering my entire world. I looked down at my staff, sitting in my hand all passive and pretty. Then I tossed it away, into the trees. Slowly, the stranger turned to face me, breathing deeply now to calm and control his battle fury. He stepped out of the pool and came to stand before me, almost too close.

"My name," he said quietly, "is Lokke. And I am a rogue."

I drew myself up to try and be as tall as him, but I was still a good head smaller. I finally closed my mouth and looked from one of his eyes to the other. I kept saying my name in my head, Mooncrow, say Mooncrow.

But I couldn't.

"My name," I said in one of the boldest voices I had ever used.

"My name is Keye. And I am a killer."

He wouldn't know who I was before he stepped out of shadows and into my world. He wouldn't ever peg me as a druid, see me as someone who used magick. He wouldn't know my dissatisfaction and unhappiness with everything I was being taught and who I was becoming. Because now I was going to be someone new, the person I had been struggling to be.

And he would accept me, or not. Either way, I was this new person, the better for having thrown a burr into his realm.

Lokke nodded at me, his eyes seeming to search mine as earnestly as mine searched his.

I forgot to breathe. I forgot to blink. I listened to that bell, tolling for the druid that had died -- but ringing in the new life I had just discovered.

Who had I been before him? I was already forgetting. And he was everything, now. Who I was with him, after him, was all that mattered now.

He was a lock, though. Was I really his key?