The Fourth Chapter

Mikkel wasn't quite ready to let Lukas leave. There was still so much he didn't know about the life of fairies. When he wrote his novel, he needed to know where they came from, what purpose they served, how they managed to sustain themselves, why they were so allusive. "Lukas, perhaps you should stay a while longer," he suggested. The words were supposed to sound tender. Instead they were uneasy.

"I want flowers."

"I could bring flowers inside if you'd like! I'm a reasonable man."

Never in his life had Mikkel heard a creature wail as Lukas began to. His sobs could bring the hardest criminal to their knees. "Flowers," he said. "I want flowers, Mikkel," he wept. Mikkel hurriedly unlocked the window. As someone morally sound, this made his heart ache. But as a scientist, he still wasn't ready to release the fairy.

"If you leave, you won't be able to have good food anymore. No food."

Lukas' eyes widened. No food. No food. He recalled how difficult it was to obtain a beech nut, the sour taste of apples that weren't ripe, and the memories made him sick. "Food. Yes, food. Yes, Mikkel," he agreed. "Flowers. I want flowers."

"I thought you were going to stay here?"

Lukas pressed his face against the window, sighing. "Huh?"

"Stay. Here. Here is where we, you and I, are. We are here. The house."

"I want flowers," he said once again. Mikkel let out a noise of frustration. "If I let you go out to see the flowers, I would prefer to accompany you."

Lukas shrugged, tugged on the window lock, and said, "If?"

"If, as in perhaps. As in, I will open this door," he said, gripping the doorknob, "If I can touch your wing, for example."

The fairy didn't understand, but nodded when he saw the others hand on the doorknob. When Mikkel opened it and the fairy peered outside, Mikkel captured him very carefully, touched his wing, and released him. "If," he said simply. "If I open the door, I touch your wing."

Lukas muttered "if" as he buzzed around the field of flowers, smelling them with a soft smile. "The flower. Flowers. The flower is. Flowers are. The flower is white. The flower is red. The flowers are white. The flowers are red. The flowers are…" He began to hum as he buried his face into a petal. "The flowers are…"

"Beautiful," Mikkel suggested.

"Beautiful. Beautiful flowers. Flowers are beautiful. Flowers are light. Flowers are…" He stroked a petal, lulling to it with a soft, smooth voice. "They are…" In a sing song voice, he repeated, "Flowers are, flowers are," and Mikkel understood what he was saying. They were the lullaby he was making up. He didn't know how, but they were, and Lukas wasn't wrong.

"Lovely, soft, pretty, delicate, radiant," he listed off. Lukas clutched to the stem of a daisy, nuzzling a yellow petal. "Delicate. Radiant," he told the flower, swaying back and forth on it. "The flowers are radiant. The house is lovely. The… Mikkel is… green."

"Green?" Mikkel laughed, sitting down on a damp chair and looking out towards the sea. "Green. I have never been called green!"

He began humming again, but the tone was different. There were huffs and sighs, like a lament, and he repeated, "Mikkel is green. Mikkel is green. He is no flower." There was a faint smile on the fairies lips again. "He is no flower."

"Are you being cruel to me?"

"Being cruel to Mikkel," he said. "Mikkel is no flower."

"What am I?"

Lukas slid down a stem, hugging it tightly and not responding for a moment. "Mikkel. You… are?"

"Very good! You are. Continue!"

The fairy splashed into a puddle, making a mess of himself but not caring. "You are fire. Mikkel is fire. You are the fire." The man was no longer smiling, but watching curiously. He had stopped writing completely. "The fire?" He said quietly. "I am the fire?"

"The blanket and fire." His eyes narrowed as if he was thinking, then he said, "The…" He froze up, looked down, and was humming again. There was dirt on his legs all the way up to his thighs now. "Mikkel, the fire. The… " He whined, touching his head like he was trying to think of something. "The... " without warning, he slapped his own arm hard, raising a red welt. "The! The! The!"

"The burn. The pain," he said, wincing to prove his point. "Ah! The burn?"

"The blanket."

Mikkel was rubbing his head now. "The warmth?" Lukas stared at him, not responding. Mikkel set his notepad down, pretended to feel warmth from a fire, and pretended to shiver. "Warmth. And cold. Warm and cold. Fire is warm. Snow is cold."

"Warmth. The blanket is warmth? You are warmth."

The man stared at the other. Never in his life had he been called something so strange as "warmth". It sounded like a compliment. He personally considered warmth to be a good thing. "Why warmth?"

"Why? Why. Warmth is," he stopped talking and just sighed heavily, but a joyful sigh, like someone relaxing in their bed. Whether it was a compliment or an insult, Mikkel smiled and said, "Thank you."

The fairy flew over to him, landing on his knee. Muddy footprints stained his slacks. Lukas didn't seem to notice, and if he did, he didn't care. "I don't think it is very good to be so messy," Mikkel stated. The other looked at him strangely, not understanding what it meant to be messy. When Mikkel tried to brush the dirt off of his knee, Lukas thought he understood. He tried to wipe off the half-dried mud, but it only made his hands dirty. "Mikkel," he said. "Clean. I want clean. The clean."

"I want to clean. More specifically, I want to clean myself. Or you could say I want to wash myself."

"I want to clean. I want to wash myself," he repeated. Mikkel nodded and took him inside as soon as the grey clouds grew darker. It looked as though it would rain again. Mikkel couldn't say he was disappointed by the weather. It was more reason to keep the fairy.

"Washing is very simple. You remove your clothing and wash. Well," The man looked Lukas over. "You are wearing clothing, aren't you? Or is this how you naturally occur?"

For emphasis, Mikkel took off his suspenders. "Clothing," he told him. "Are you wearing clothing?"

The fairy reached for his neck, dug his fingertips around what looked like a piece of grass wrapped around it, and pulled. When the green blade began to lift, it made a disgusting sound, like tape being removed from something soft. Like something slick and sticky. Lukas' face looked pained and he stopped. "No, Mikkel."

Mikkel held onto the fairies back, pulled him forward, and examined his neck with a microscope. "This might sting," he said, pulling on the grass blade with his silver forceps, watching what reminded him of a human nail being removed, and seemingly just as painful, painful enough that as soon as he realized that the grass-like wrappings on the creatures body were part of him, he stopped.

"My God," he whispered, excitedly taking notes in his journal. The fairy doesn't wear clothing, but has an outer layer of plant life for protection. Upon removal, it is painful for the fairy and similar to the removal of a human nail. It is unknown whether or not the plant comes from within the fairy or has grown onto it.

Lukas rubbed his neck, kicking the forceps away and yelling, "You are the burn!"

"Oh, right! I'm sorry, Lukas. I'm sorry!"

I'm sorry, the fairy thought. Staying angry was challenging when Mikkel was saying those words. "Yes, you are sorry," the fairy sassed. Mikkel smiled in relief. Having the fairy on his side was crucial for proper development. "Yes, yes, of course! Now, what were we doing?"

"Clean."

"Cleaning! I recall. You do not undress, I suppose, but you should wash well. First, we boil water." He refilled the kettle and put it on the stove. Once it was boiling, he poured it into a china bowl. "We have to wait for the water to cool for a moment. It is too hot right now!" Mikkel blew on the steaming water, and Lukas followed along, though he wasn't as effective as the man was. When the water was cooler, Mikkel said, "Finally, you get into the water."

Lukas got in, relaxing in the warm water. "Good," he murmured, dunking his head under and bobbing up again with a bright red face. "The water is warm, Mikkel."

"Fantastic! Now, in the water, you may relax as much as you want, but you must wash yourself everywhere with the soap," he said. There was a sliver of soap on the side of the bowl and Mikkel cut a tiny rag for him. "Tell me when you finish. I don't suppose you want privacy?"

The fairy didn't reply, not understanding again. The man picked up a book, opened it, and used it to cover Lukas like a screen. "Yes? Or," he removed it, "No?"

"Yes."

Mikkel propped up the book again and made himself scarce. He made use of this time, organizing his notes and writing down theories. Currently, he wasn't sure what he was doing during this study. There was no clear end, and he didn't feel comfortable with this. Again he feared making a connection. When will I have learned enough? He asked himself. He recalled the questions he'd thought of earlier and wrote them down.

1.Where do fairies come from?

2.What purpose do they serve, if any?

3.Why do they hide?

4.How do they sustain themselves in the wild?

He tapped the dull pencil on the desk, looking over the four questions. He had so many more, but he told himself he'd limit it. He gave himself ten empty lines to fill, and that was all.

5.How do they reproduce?

6.Is their anatomy equivalent to human anatomy?

7.Do they have the ability to feel a large range of emotions?

8.Do they mourn their dead?

9.What do they have to offer culturally?

10.Do they, as told in popular folklore, possess magic?

Each question needed to be answered. Once that was done, he vowed to release Lukas.