“Oh, Flic, I almost did it again.”
“Did what again, my lord?”
“Took advantage of Chelle in my dream.”
“You mean you nearly bedded her?”
Borel splashed cool water on his face and took up a towel and dried. “Yes. I nearly bedded her, there in a field of flowers.”
“Sounds fitting,” said Flic.
One eyebrow arched, Borel looked at the Sprite.
Flic said, “To deflower her among the flowers.”
Borel snorted and stumbled back to the bed and flopped down and said, “Ah, Flic, you don’t understand.”
“Don’t understand what?”
“Courtship.”
“Pish!” exclaimed the Sprite. “I don’t know what it is with you humans. Dillydallying about as you do and calling it courtship. It’s just a waste. We Fey… or at least we Sprites, we make love to see if we fall in love. If not, then it is just a pleasurable liaison, whereas if we do find our truelove, then we’ve lost no time dancing about and hemming and hawing and such.”
Borel shook his head. “But, Flic, we humans engage in courtship to get to know one another, to see if we have common interests and common dreams, to see if there is something about the other that draws or repels. In other words, to see if we are compatible in likes and dislikes, in desires and loathings, in longings and aversions, in interests and tediums.”
“Again I say: Pish! There’s plenty of time to discover that afterward,” said Flic.
“Tell me, my wee friend,” said Borel, “just how long do your trueloves last?”
“Oh, sometimes whole days, other times weeks-”
“Days? Weeks?” said Borel. “And you call it true love?”
“You didn’t let me finish, my prince,” said Flic. “Fleurette and I, we both think our love will last for years upon years, if not forever.”
“Fleurette?”
“Oh, didn’t I tell you about her?”
“No.”
“Well. I met the most wonderful Sprite: Fleurette. She is splendid, and we are deeply in love. But I told her that I was on a quest, and that just as soon as it is done, then I would return.”
“And you met her… when?”
“Oh, yesterday. Out in the fields. I told you where I was going. Don’t you remember?”
“And you are deeply in love, you say?”
“Oh, yes. Deeply.”
Borel broke into chuckles, and Flic huffed in vexation. “Well, I am!” declared the Sprite.
Borel’s chuckles turned to laughter, but he waved a hand of apology even as he was guffawing.
Flic turned his back and crossed his arms, the three long, thick hairs yet in his grip and dangling down from the top of the bedpost to nearly touch the floor. “Well then, Monsieur Scoffer, just maybe I won’t tell you what else happened last night,” he announced, his nose in the air, the Sprite quite miffed.
Borel finally mastered his laughter, and soberly he said, “Ah, Flic, I am sorry. I think I was laughing to relieve the stress of my near-violation of Chelle. Will you forgive me?”
“Humph,” snorted Flic, still facing away. “I told you you should go ahead and bed her, dream or no dream. It would allay the strain.”
“Ah, but, my friend, though by your lights we humans may be pixilated, we are not Fey, and so-”
Flic broke out in laughter and turned around to face Borel. “Pixilated?”
Borel smiled. “Daft. Mad, crazy, foolish, stupid for carrying on courtships.”
Flic nodded. “You are.” Then he sighed and added, “But I suppose that’s a penalty for being human.”
“Or a reward,” said Borel.
“Well then I’m glad I’m Fey,” said Flic.
“I will not hold that against you,” said Borel, grinning. Then he sobered and said, “I hope you harbor no ill will because I laughed at your ways.”
Flic said, “Aah, I cannot hold a grudge ’gainst you, my lord.”
“Flic, my lad, I think you cannot hold a grudge against anyone.”
“Oh, no, my lord. There you are wrong, for I can and do have hard feelings toward those Trolls and Goblins who captured me.”
“Ah, then, the exception to the rule,” said Borel, grinning.
“I suppose,” said Flic.
“By the bye,” said Borel, “what were you screaming when you came in through the window, and why in Faery are you grasping those, those-what are they-four-foot-long hairs?”
Flic’s face lit up and back and forth he waved the hand holding the hairs, causing sinuous ripples to undulate down the strands. “He did it by having an Elf weave three of the Pooka’s tail hairs into an Elf-made rope.”
“What are you talking about? Who did what?”
“That king of the Keltoi, the one who prevailed over a Pooka. He had an Elf weave three Pooka hairs into a rope and then used the rope-perhaps to fashion a harness, though I don’t exactly remember that part-anyway, he used the rope in some manner to make the creature submit. You see, I remembered the legend at last.”
Borel’s eyes widened in hope. “And you think we can do the same?”
“Indeed, my lord, and you can master the Pooka, for these are hairs from his tail.” Of a sudden, Flic’s countenance sank, and he glumly said, “But I don’t think there is an Elf hereabout, and we don’t have an Elf-made rope.”
“Wait. Wait,” said Borel. “Those are hairs from the Pooka’s tail? Our Pooka?”
“Oh, yes. Last night my sweet Fleurette upon hearing of our quest told me where the Pooka might be, though she wouldn’t go there herself. Pookas terrify her, you see, and so she simply keeps away from them. But I went, and there he was. And as the Pooka was rampaging about some poor crofter’s stead, his tail brushed against one of the old splintery posts of the fence he was tearing down, and some of it wedged in a split-rather like the Gnome’s beard, you see, only this was a jagged notch, rather than a crack-and when the Pooka galloped away, there they were, three long hairs. Anyway, the moment I saw them, then I remembered the tale of the king and how he mastered the Pooka.”
Enthused, Borel leapt up from the bed and began throwing his clothes on. “And you think this might actually work?”
“Well, I suppose you could say they were given freely, which I think adds to the power, but as I say, if we had an Elf and an Elf-made rope-”
“A moment, Flic. Are you saying we need a rope into which to weave the three Pooka hairs?”
“Oui. Wasn’t I clear about that?”
“I thought maybe you were saying we only needed to braid the trio together as a rope unto themselves.”
“Oh, non. The Elf who told me the tale said the king used an Elf-made rope and had an Elf weave the three hairs within that rope.”
“Ah, I see.”
“But, my lord, as I say, we have no Elf-made rope nor an Elf to weave the hairs within.”
As Borel donned his socks he said, “Ah, Flic, you are one of the Fey-surely as good as an Elf-and as for a rope, we have one that is Gnome-made. I think that will certainly do.”
“Really?”
“Really.” He pulled on his boots and stood and lightly stamped to settle his feet within.
“But I don’t know ought of how to make a harness,” said Flic, “if that’s how it was done.”
“Don’t worry,” said Borel, sliding his silk shirt over his head. “I do.”
“Well, whatever the harness, you have to deceive the Pooka just to get it on. And it has to be one that will make him submit, and I think you must make him submit immediately, else he will ride you to death.”
“The simplest submission harness is a jaw rope, and one of those should cause the Pooka to yield,” said Borel, buckling on his leather jacket. “I think I can slip it in and over in less than a wink, can I get him to open his mouth.”
“Jaw rope?”
“Oui. In the lower part of the jaw of a horse there is a gap between the nipping front teeth and the grinders aft-it’s where the bit rides-and if I can slip a simple noose into that breach and ’round his lower jaw, I’ll have him.”
“But this is a Pooka, my lord, a Dark Fey, even a Demon, and certainly a shapeshifter. It might not have a gap where an ordinary horse would. Or it might shift shape into that of the Bogleman, and simply bite through the rope.”