"Common Misconceptions" by Lauren Christine

Two tall elves stood in the doorway of a building marked ‘Fantastical Tours’.

  The female; distinguished from the male only by her figure and dress, and slightly more feminine face (they both had unbound waist length white-blonde hair) inspected the fingernails of a long fingered delicate hand.  Her clean shaven male companion shifted back and forth on the balls of his boot-shod feet.  They both appeared to be waiting for someone.  The female looked to the man and her lips started to form words, but she stopped her self from saying them; breaking off her thought with an expression of disgust.  Suddenly, a loud raucous noise broke the silence.  The noise seemed out of place in the wood, empty of everything but the building.

  The male elf grimaced.  The female didn’t look any less pleased.  Two people who were clearly humans came stomping up to the building.  Both elves winced at the loud foot falls.  The male muttered to his companion: “I was told that all humans walk that loudly; they can’t help it.”

  One of the people was a fat man in a button down shirt with large, bright Hawaiian flowers printed on it, while his friend wore a tee shirt saying: The Crab Shack!! and a camera around his neck.

  The female elf walked over to the man with the camera.  She gestured to a sign reading:

Welcome to Fantastical Tours!

Rules are as follows:

                       NO food or drinks 

                       NO loud or otherwise obnoxious noises

                       NO cameras.

Enjoy your visit!

The man looked annoyed and elbowed his friend.

   “Look ‘ere Gil!  No cameras!  Maggie made me swear I’d bring back pichers!  I’m ‘aposed to bring back pichers for Maggie!”

  “’Ere now Pete, I don’t think she’ll mind all ‘at much.”

  The two men sat there grumbling in their un-harmonic human voices.

  The female elf spoke.

 “Follow me, and we’ll begin.”

  The male opened the doors to the building and the female walked in leading the tourists. 

There was a hallway with sets of doors marked, 1, 2, 3 and so on.  The female led them over to the door marked ‘1’.  She opened it, and the two men peered under her arm to get a good look inside.  There were a bunch of small people in little suits singing and clapping happily.

  “’Ere looky there!!  Isa bunch of elves!  Maggie ‘ill want pichers of this!!”  The one named Pete who had had his camera confinscated by the female elf.  She winced.

  “No.  Those are not elves.  Those are brownies.  Elves are tall and graceful,”  she corrected.

  “No they ‘ent!  They’s look like that!”  Gil protested, waving his arms; making his belly jiggle which made his Hawaiian flowers wiggle also. 

  “We most certainty do not look like that,” the male elf said, highly insulted. 

   “Aww, you ‘ent an elf!”  Pete protested.

   “I should think that I would know what I ‘am’,” the male elf said, whose name was Dryiencel.

   “Santa’s little helpers are elves!  And don’t know Santa’s helper look like you,” Gil said, feeling very clever.

  The female elf whose name was Lycenders rubbed her temples with her white fingers.

  “Nicholas, er, ‘Santa’ is the elf, his,” Lycenders winced at the phrasing, “little helpers… are brownies.” 

  “We in Faerie don’t tend to associate with humans, and frankly, Nicholas is a disgrace to most elves,” Dryiencel said, self-consciously brushing a hand against his own flat stomach.  Elves are a vain race; very conscious of their appearances.

  “Fairies don’t ‘associate’ with humans, eh?”  Pete drawled.  “Well whadda bout the Tooth Fairy? Eh? Eh?  Whadda bout her?” He elbowed Gil who grinned his support.

  “What can we say?” Lycenders remarked dryly, “There are odd balls in every race.”

  Gil and Pete looked at each other stupidly. 

  “Moving on,” Dryiencel said in a coolly annoyed manner that was typical of elves.

  “To continue the torture,” Lycenders added, though not loud enough for the humans to hear.

    They came to door 4, skipping doors 2 and 3.  Lycenders opened it, and the two humans peered in.  Tiny little lights on wings flitted about. 

  “FAIRIES!!”  Gil hollered.

  “No, those are pixies,” Dryiencel informed them.

  “Tinker-Bell was that size, and Peter-Pan called HER a fairy,” Pete said, feeling as clever as Gil had with his ‘Santa’s-little-helpers’ reference.

  “Peter-Pan lied,” Lycenders snapped, and slammed the door.

  The next room the came to was marked ‘5’.  Dryiencel opened it.  Inside there were wrinkled creatures muttering to themselves and combing each-others long stringy hair.

  “What are them thingies?”  Pete wanted to know.

  “They are Gnomes,” Lycenders said, glad that they didn’t have an opinion of this race.

  “Nuh-Uh!  No they ‘ent!  Gnomes are cute little fellers who carry around fishing poles!” Gil screeched.

  Neither Lycenders nor Dryiencel bothered to reply. 

  “I believe it is time for you to leave,” Dryiencel told them. 

  “But!”

  “What!”

  “WHY?”

    The two humans were shoved out the door by two sets of long fingered hands; back into their world.

  The elves went back out side and stood in the door-way. 

  “I hate tour duty,” Dryiencel muttered to Lycenders who replied,

  “So do I. Incentive to behave at the next Gathering, I suppose.”

  Dryiencel nodded glumly.

  The trees whispered again, and another set of humans walked up to the woods. 

  “At least these are the last ones for a good hundred years or so,” Dryiencel said, with a bit of hopeful lilt in his voice.

  The humans that approached were silent as they came up to the pair of elves.  Lycenders gestured to the sign again, but there was no need too.  Neither of these two wore cameras.  Dryiencel opened the doors, and the pair followed Lycenders into the hall and over to the door marked ‘1’.  Lycenders opened it and the two looked in with wide eyes.

  “Brownies!”  The child whispered to the older girl holding her hand, who nodded in awe.

  Dryiencel smiled at Lycenders who smiled back. 

“You can always tell which humans read.”