It had been a long, long time.

The stars washed from the east one by one, deferring to Sol's greater glory. The far shore of the lake revealed itself as a faint, misty bank studded with black volcanic boulders, far across the glassy silence.

Too long.

He'd been sitting there for hours, watching familiar stars in unfamiliar alignments, seeing Luna rise and trail its haunting beauty across the water, then set. He could hear wild turkeys somewhere under the white oaks, squirrels and fowl darting about and chattering. Strange sounds, to his ears; high and musical and alien. A breeze too light to stir anything else set aspen leaves atremble, hinting at dawn.

It was good to see it again.

The cities had changed, their skylines speaking of immense technological leaps. Graveyards had multiplied, spread, and then been forgotten, hiding grief untold beneath mounds of crumbling marble and stone.

But this... the land, the sun, and the sky... they hadn't changed at all.

The star called Sol burned its way over the peaks of the Sierra Nevada, flooding the lake with its own reflection, turning the water into a quivering mirror of amber and blue. Unbearable magnificence. The aspens were still now, leafy crowns translucent in the rays of summer dawn. It was going to be a warm day.

A faint sound jarred him out of his reverie; something that didn't quite fit in with the ambient murmurs around him. He scanned the near shore, staying very still. His armor's semi-chameleon abilities and mottled shade from a nearby tree helped him blend into the surroundings, but the game would be up very quickly if he moved.

Nothing. No movement. He listened, but the noise had been very faint, and the aspen leaves were fluttering again, their gentle murmuring enough to drown softer noises.

They stilled, and he heard it again; a faint rustle, out of rhythm with the wind.

Again, and this time he saw it; a flicker of movement in the trees to the left. Something darted from trunk to trunk, then vanished.

He waited, a little apprehensive. His kind had not always been welcome here, and the little natives often wielded destructive powers rather out of proportion with their size. It was entirely possible that one of them was stalking him now, armed with a dangerous projectile weapon.

He considered vacating the area, but curiosity got the better of him. Besides, it might just be a deer, or even one of those fleet little jackrabbit creatures. Though he rather hoped not.

His patience was eventually rewarded with a muffled squeal. The brush rattled and a pair of Terran cubs tumbled out, not five paces away. He held his breath, delighted. On top of the fact that it was a rare chance to observe native young, the two were evidently playing some type of game. One laughed, covered her eyes and began to count; the other dashed to find a hiding place.

To his surprise, the hiding cub chose a hollow in plain sight, but he saw what she was about when she flattened in the short grass and lay still. Both cubs wore clothing of a mottled straw-like color which blended perfectly with the summer foliage, and she almost melted from sight before his eyes.

The fact that she was employing a camouflage method very similar to his amused him. Like his own race, Terrans tended to see movement first and shapes afterward. Hence, motionless objects often escaped notice entirely, however large or obvious they might be otherwise.

Their age also worked to his advantage. Mature specimens might have been less absorbed by their own antics and more aware of their surroundings. But such perceptiveness would have spoiled his observations, so he did not hold the cubs' single-mindedness against them. Not in the least.

He was able to watch several rounds of the game, as the cubs never seemed to tire of switching off; hiding and seeking, finding and chasing. The chases were brief, since the pursued usually tripped or laughed herself out of breath long before she was tired of running. His limbs grew sore from the rigid stillness, but he wouldn't have moved for this world or another, forgetting himself in the fascination of watching another species in action.

Until one of the cubs chose the rock mound beside him for a hiding place, curling up literally in the shadow of his arm. He caught his breath in disbelief, amazed that she hadn't seen him -- but she was giggling quietly, completely unaware of the presence looming over her. He directed his gaze to the rock beside her, aware that Terrans could sometimes sense intense observation through some mechanism mysterious even to them.

The other cub gradually zeroed in on the spot, moving from crushed grass to disturbed leaves to scuffs on the dry rock mosses until she finally spied her playmate with a triumphant shout.

The hiding cub leaped up to run, lost her footing, and would have tumbled off the rock mound to the hard ground below had he not caught her, quicker than thought, in one of his massive, clawed hands.

He blinked, astonished at his own dexterity, and even more at the realization that he was actually holding an alien cub in his hands. He expected fear, but they only looked up at him wide-eyed; the one from his palm, the other from atop the rocks. Perhaps they were too young to remember...

It occurred to him that it might be for the best if he frightened them both. There were certain of his kind who had few qualms about taking Terran young for the exotic pet market, or worse. That was how all the trouble had started...

But such poachers of sentient life forms did not generally reveal themselves to their prey, he reminded himself. In the event these cubs were ever stalked, a past fright probably would not help them much.

Besides, he couldn't bring himself to do it, to induce fear into faces that were now only innocently surprised. He set the cub in his palm on the rock mound, ever so gently; her fellow reached out and touched his hand curiously, tiny fingers brushing delicately across his clawtips.

Perhaps they were too young to have learned that he was either an impossibility or a threat. Perhaps their fondness for small furry mammals rendered him, a larger look-alike, harmless in their eyes. Perhaps he was merely a benign djinn to them, a wanderer from some favorite bedtime story; a protective force rarely visible but always present, whose manifestation was no cause for alarm. Just as, to him, they were marvelous little personifications of grace and beauty.

Satisfied with their own observations, the cubs returned to their game without missing a beat. The moment was over.

Later, he might record the event empirically; noting heights, weights, approximate ages, behavior paradigms. There would be time for considering all that later. He already knew what he was going to enter in his log.

Here, in this quiet, little-known meadow, hidden from the eyes of all but a few, in the moments somewhere between dawn and noontime, dreaming and waking, living and being...

...Here, in this place, there be fairies.

-The End

Here There Be Fairies @ Tripleguess 2005. Readers may freely reproduce and archive copies for noncommercial use.

http://www.made4usa.com/rev/stories/original/heretherebefairies.html

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