Ralph and the Pixie

At last, Haloch stirred. Clearing his throat and blinking, the older Elf sat up, brushed straw from his blankets and clothing, and observed his son staring outside through the door.

‘Is it the real world not to your liking?’ he asked, sardonically.

‘I hate it,’ Mraan replied automatically. ‘Nothing about it makes any sense.’

Haloch smiled humourlessly. ‘Oh, it makes sense. Just not to our way of thinking.’

‘If not ours, then whose?’ Mraan asked irritably.

‘Not whose,’ his father replied, getting stiffly to his feet. ‘Its own. Nature’s.’

Mraan was not accustomed to thinking in terms beyond that of the world of Elves, and his father’s words made him feel diminished. In the past few days, he had grown accustomed to the mistaken perception that the world was no longer theirs. Until now, it had never occurred to him that the world had never been theirs. It was an uncomfortable feeling, suddenly seeing oneself as a usurper that had been put out of what he had only assumed to be his own home. This feeling was doubly ugly, in that it forced him to look anew at his own people with a baleful eye, and he was left to wonder at the incredible selfishness and stupidity of a people that had created circumstances that unwitting people like himself would have to bear the cost of.