Ralph and the Pixie

‘There is no need to explain this matter to me,’ Pran told him. ‘You forget, I know this family, and their problems.’

Ralph made a helpless gesture.

‘I just can’t help feeling responsible, somehow.’

To his surprise, Pran laughed at this. To Ralph’s consternation, he said, ‘I have noticed that when things happen around you, you have a habit of making yourself responsible. My friend, I’m afraid I can’t think of you without remembering a time when you first came to live at my home, when you discovered a fledgling beneath the oak near to the barn. Such birds cast out their weakest, and you repeatedly picked the creature from the ground and replaced it in its nest, until the poor thing finally expired, as it was fated to do.’

‘If that’s a failing,’ Ralph replied defensively, ‘then it’s one I don’t intend giving up.’

‘Yes,’ Pran replied to Ralph’s incomprehension, thinking of the way the big Human had instinctively responded to Nevana’s need, seeing as Ralph could not that it could lead to future entanglements with the Elf girl, ‘I can see that.’