![\"\"](\"http:\/\/ecx.images-amazon.com\/images\/I\/81zDjxNManL._SL1200_.jpg\")
<\/a><\/div>\nBruno watched Sarah run through the grass while still carrying the backpacks, and wondered why she had so much energy when he had none.\u00a0<\/span>Could Roberto have been right? Could she be draining my energy and using it for herself? Although if she is, she can\u2019t possibly know it\u2026maybe she needs training.<\/i>\u00a0Although he didn\u2019t know how Elfy girls got their training in magic, much less how a Human girl would get any.<\/span>
Bruno knew that girl and boy Elfys were sent away to separate schools at the age of twelve. Bruno himself had been held back and home-schooled by his parents, not for being slow, but rather because they hadn\u2019t trusted the school system. Bruno had never been sent to a segregated, all-boy Elfy school until he turned sixteen. That was right after his parents had died in a fiery aircar crash, after he\u2019d become a ward of the state.<\/span>
Many Elfys used magic frivolously, almost as if it was going out of style, and they didn\u2019t want to use technology. Yet his people had aircars, while Sarah\u2019s realm, the Human-Earth Realm, didn\u2019t. Elfys would use toasters, light rail, and buses, when they wouldn\u2019t use electricity to heat their homes (why pay for electricity if the magic was free?) and only used modern plumbing for elaborate, sybaritic layouts. He wondered if the Humans had those, too. He simply hadn\u2019t had enough time on Sarah\u2019s Earth\u2026he needed to know more!<\/span>
If the Elfy High Council was going to just send him out, why allow him to be so woefully unprepared? This was just silly!<\/span>
Bruno rubbed at his head, and frowned. He felt a headache coming on; surely, this meant he should stop thinking so hard. He vowed to ask as many questions of Roberto, providing Roberto found them anytime soon (wherever they were), as he needed in order to make the headache go away.<\/span>
This avowal immediately made him feel better.<\/span>
But he still had no idea where he was. He didn\u2019t recognize anything, except green grass, yet he had the oddest feeling. He wasn\u2019t sure, but he thought they somehow had made it back to the Elfy Realm after all, and the not-knowing made him dizzy.<\/span>
Sarah had stopped and appeared to be weaving on her feet. Bruno jogged the equivalent of three city blocks to get to her, hoping she\u2019d not fall before he made it.<\/span>
\u201cBruno, I feel\u2026sick,\u201d she gasped when he was only a few steps away. He sprinted toward her and turned her around; her greenish-white face was alarming. He told her to let the packs fall, then gently helped Sarah lay down on the ground.<\/span>
\u201cWill you two help me? I need a pillow for Sarah,\u201d he asked the backpacks. Before he could feel too silly about asking backpacks, of all things, for help, a fluffy white pillow appeared in the air by his right hand. Maybe the packs had more power here for some reason? Bruno reached out and caught it before it hit the ground. \u201cThanks,\u201d he said over his shoulder to the backpacks, as it never hurt to be polite.<\/span>
He went to Sarah, knelt on the grass, and put the pillow under her head.<\/span>
He started stroking her long, black hair, just to soothe her. He remembered, distantly, that his mother had used to do the same thing when he was a wee small Elfy and ill from eating some herb he wasn\u2019t supposed to\u2026anyway, he stroked. He talked, mostly nonsense, and tried not to think about the two of them in the middle of nowhere, one very ill and one mildly so. After all, considering Sarah\u2019s sudden illness and his own headache and dizziness, wasn\u2019t it more likely than not that they\u2019d both been exposed to something? He wasn\u2019t a completely stupid Elfy.<\/span>
\u201cSarah, hold on,\u201d he said as he continued to stroke her hair. \u201cSomehow, Roberto will come. I know he will!\u201d<\/span>
\u201cWhy are you so sure, Jonny-wonny?\u201d<\/span>
\u201cPlease don\u2019t call me Jonny-wonny, Sarah, or I\u2019ll start calling you Daisy again,\u201d he threatened, smiling to take the edge off his very real threat.<\/span>
\u201cAll right\u2026Bruno,\u201d she gasped, and tried to smile. It was a feeble thing, like to her real smile as a tiny birthday candle on a cupcake was to a candelabrum.<\/span>
\u201cDon\u2019t try to talk, Sarah,\u201d he soothed, and continued to stroke her hair. This was very like petting a cat, he mused. Except Sarah didn\u2019t claw when she was done with the petting.<\/span>
He tried not to panic, but he had no way to treat her illness, and no way to get her any help. He felt completely useless, as he had no healing magic\u2026very few did outside of the clerical orders, and even Roberto himself had very little.<\/span>
He propped the backpacks behind him and asked them to stay put. They did. Then he fell asleep, her cradled on his lap (with the pillow between) and his arms around her. Lost on a sea of too-green grass, with no way out in sight.<\/span>
<\/p>\n~~~<\/div>\n
An Elfy On The Loose<\/a><\/i>\u00a0would make a great gift for anyone — adult, young adult, or older child. Check it out for YOUR holiday gift-giving!<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"My holiday parade continues today with another fellow Twilight Times author,\u00a0\u00a0Barb Caffrey. Like fantasies? Like mysteries? Like comedy? Put ’em together and you have\u00a0Barb Caffrey‘s\u00a0An Elfy On The Loose. Bruno is a young Elfy, a creature from another dimension, and he’s been dumped into our dimension with little to no preparation. While here, he encounters […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[595,596,598,26,597,556,118],"class_list":["post-4035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-author-interviews","tag-barb-caffrey","tag-book-recommendations","tag-christmas","tag-fantasy","tag-gift-ideas","tag-holiday-parade","tag-holidays"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christineamsden.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christineamsden.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christineamsden.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christineamsden.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christineamsden.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4035"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/christineamsden.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4035\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4038,"href":"https:\/\/christineamsden.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4035\/revisions\/4038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christineamsden.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christineamsden.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christineamsden.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}