Chapter 2

Oliver:

I woke with the sun, and stretched on the soft moss. Refreshed, I found that I was not alone. Standing at the edge of the dell, watching me, was an Elven princess.

“Good morning, Oliver.”

“Good...” yawn “morning ... excuse me ... Aster.”

She laughed her tinkling laugh. “Come with me, and we’ll bathe.”

Tell me; you’re naked in a clearing in a wood, and there’s an absolutely gorgeous woman who looks in her twenties, also naked, and she suggests bathing. What do you do? Bearing in mind I’m not in the first flush of youth, even if I still have the desire. Well, I can tell you that I picked up my clothes, followed her out of the dell, down a slope, to the stream. Actually, to a somewhat deeper pool below a little waterfall. You might (if you’re familiar with streams in midland Britain most of the year) expect that the dip might be like a cold shock. Actually, it was cool, not cold, and very refreshing.

I expected to be cold out of the water, you know, bit of breeze on wet skin? No. And I dried off much quicker than I would have expected. Actually, I stood there and said to my companion, “How do I get dry?”

A giggle – really? Yes! “I think you’ll find you are dry. You are a friend of the wood, and the wood will look after you.”

Okay, so I was dry. I dressed, a little distracted as my companion did so also. Remember my dream? Okay. No jagged edge to the skirt, but certainly shades of green. A skirt just short of her knees, dark green. A tunic, spring green. Loose enough to be demure, but not to conceal her beauty.

“How would you like to travel?” I asked her.

“What would you usually do?”

“Bus, train, or walk. The walk would be about three hours.”

We took the bus. Since she left the decision to me, and since she wanted to experience human life, we rode the bus. “You do this often?” she asked, perplexed.

“If I want to get somewhere quicker than walking, yes.”

“It’s noisy, and it smells.” She didn’t mention the vibration of the tired diesel engine.

“It is, and that’s a characteristic of human life. Noise, and smells. Sorry!”

“But you live with this?”

“Yes. I avoid as much of the noise as possible, and I spend as much time as I can in parks. There’s a garden near my flat where I can sit whenever I like, too.”

“I see.”

We got off the bus, and I led the way through a small ‘local nature reserve’. Once, it’d been Victorian houses, but it had been compulsorily purchased with the intention of building a school, and the houses demolished. The school never happened, and the site became overgrown, and inhabited by a wide range of creatures. I don’t know how it came about, but it was taken over by a conservation group, tidied up, and turned into a pleasant green space. As we made our way up the short slope, a bird – a blackcap – trilled in the shrubbery next to the path. Aster trilled back, and a small greyish-brown bird, with a black ‘cap’, emerged from the greenery and perched on her outstretched hand. I swear she held a conversation with the little creature. Not that I could understand it. At length, as it seemed, their conversation finished and with a chirp the bird returned to the foliage. We continued on our way.

My apartment, single bedroom, is upstairs in a large, stone-built, Victorian house, subdivided in the seventies. It’s well enough equipped, with a small kitchen, large living room, bedroom and bathroom. Gas central heating, but a solid-fuel stove which is enjoyable when the weather is dull and miserable. I had salad makings in the fridge, and having had no breakfast, thought a meal, brunch, just the thing.

“What do you eat, Aster? Is there anything you can’t eat?”

“No. I’m not used to eating much meat, you understand, but there isn’t anything I must not have.”

I hadn’t seen anything among the foods at the celebration which appeared to contain meat, and I’d wondered if the folk were vegetarian or even vegan. It seemed that Aster, at least, was not. I investigated the refrigerator.

“What is that?” I jumped, not having heard Aster follow me into the kitchen.

“This? A refrigerator. A machine for keeping things cool.” I pulled out the salad drawer and placed it on the counter. Potato salad, coleslaw, both bought. I could make them myself, but it’s hardly worth the effort for just me. Ham, cheese, smoked fish. I closed the door. I washed lettuce, tomato, cucumber, spring onions. Fetched mayonnaise out of the fridge. Took plates, cutlery, into the living room and placed them on the table, then the lettuce into a bowl, and the other items with it. Remembered the salad tongs, which I hadn’t used for years.

“Let’s have some lunch,” I suggested, “then there’s a garden nearby I think you’ll enjoy. What would you like to drink? I have water, lemonade, herbal teas...”

“Water, please.”

I fetched glasses and bottled water. “There is tap water, but you’d probably not like it very much.”

“Oh?”

“Let’s just say that it’s not just out of a mountain stream.”

We ate our lunch. Aster seemed to manage my cutlery quite well, though perhaps not as confidently as to suggest familiarity. Afterwards, I washed up, watched by my guest, keeping up a discussion on the reuse of utensils as opposed to the use of leaves. She was accustomed to leaves or wooden plates, and fingers plus a knife.

“I don’t understand,” she began, slowly, “why you put up with the noise, the smell, all the hard, dead stuff. You’ve got those few plants outside the window, and seeds for birds, but not many other people have bothered.”

I shrugged. “To explain needs several hundred years of history. I suppose the main reason is greed – greed on the part of people with power over others. Clever, inventive people have found ways of making things much faster than an individual artisan. Clothes, tools, machines to harvest food. Machines to carry people much faster than a horse, without the need to care for the animal, machines to fly in the air,” I sighed, “and machines and tools to kill other people. Society is pretty messed up, f’sure. Most people are only interested in living comfortably, eating as much as they want, having ‘fun’. We ... society ... has lost touch with nature, with peace and well-being. With some exceptions, of course.”

“Like yourself.”

I shrugged again. “There are some who take things even more seriously than I do. I’m getting old, and it all feels a little beyond anything I can do.” Having finished my salad, I stood and fetched a bowl of fruit. Her eyes widened at the variety, and she pointed at a small, hairy, dark fruit.

“What’s that?”

“That? It’s a Kiwi fruit. Comes from China, originally, and it’s grown in New Zealand, I believe. One thing about the machines we have is that we can have food from the other side of the world. Like to try it?”

She nodded, and I fetched a knife and tea-spoon.

“I usually cut it in half, and scoop out the flesh inside,” I told her, and put a small plate in front of her while removing the large one. For myself, I chose an apple, and bit into it.

Aster, though, produced her own knife from somewhere, and it wasn’t like mine. It looked much more like something one might fight with. It cut cleanly through the slightly tough outer skin of the fruit, and she did as I suggested and scooped out the inside.

“Wonderful!” she sighed.

All that was left to do was a little washing-up.

A short walk from my little flat, there is a similar house, undivided, with a large garden. Said garden, to the untutored eye might be considered unkempt, but to an ecologist or nature enthusiast, it’s seen as providing diverse habitats to creatures other than humans.

The door was opened by Ellen, a young lady I’d met a couple of times before. She smiled. “Oliver! Lovely to see you. Who’s your friend?”

“Oh, Ellen – lovely to see you too. This is Niyulnos. Aster for short.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “Niyulnos? But...” she broke off and took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. She gave a little jerky bow to my companion. “Princess – you are very welcome here.” The name was clearly known to her.

“Ellen; there is no need for formality, please. ‘Aster’ will do nicely. Oliver tells me you have a lovely garden.”

“We think so. Won’t you come in?” She stepped back, and I ushered Aster inside. “Go on through,” she added. “Would you like some refreshment?”

“We’ve just eaten,” Aster smiled, “but thank you.”

“In that case, let’s just go to the garden.” Ellen led the way, which took us through a lounge with French windows. They let us into the large, luxuriant garden. To the right, by the kitchen door, was a very orderly and tidy vegetable garden. In front a ‘meadow’, with a bird-feeding station where it could be watched from in the house. This was a fancy feeding station, with a tall pole, a cone a few feet from the bottom to baffle a squirrel or a rat, and moveable arms suspending a selection of feeders containing different types of seed, suet nibbles, a cage for bird-cake. On the post, a dish with a fine mesh bottom for ground-feeding birds, and one with water.