The Last Satyr: The Company is Formed Part 1

When the boy got back down to Gold Creek, he deliberately looked for a place where the water ran close to the trail to school and there he cast out his fishing line. Now, when Rebecca came along, it would look like he just happened to be fishing there and they met up all accidental like. Yet his plan wasn't quite perfect.

His earlier thought of being invited to the girl’s birthday party had left him wondering if he’d already missed it. But, by and by, he hit upon a plan. He would lay here in wait for the girl after school and when she passed, ask, and find out.

Of course, girls' school wouldn’t be out for quite a while yet, so the boy threw out his hook with no worm on it as otherwise he’d have caught more fish than he could carry before she arrived and that would have been a waste of fish. So he just pretended to fish.

But pretending to fish means you don’t actually catch any and that can be pretty boring–especially when you know you’re not going to catch anything. It's like trying to tickle a stone to laughter or trying to keep Sith from telling on him. At last, with a sigh and a yawn, he gave it up and decided he should take a nap, as it seemed it would never be time for the elf girl to come by.

The air was utterly dead. There was not a breath stirring. It was the sleepiest of sleepy days. The drowsing murmur of the brook soothed the soul like the distant sound of the humming bees. A way off under the flaming sunshine, Satyr Hill lifted its rocky sides above a shimmering veil of rustling leaves, tinted with the dark green of even more distant tree-covered mountains. A few birds floated on lazy wings high in the air, though no other living thing was visible but some deer, and they were asleep. The boy’s mind longed to lull off and join them in slumber, but there was a chance he might oversleep and miss the elf girl, Rebecca, when she came by. Even awake with his eyes closed, she might walk by without him hearing her, for elf girls don’t make much, if any, noise. Why a whole pack of them could cheerfully pass without his knowing. Yet every member of the female herd would know he was there. Which didn’t mean they’d say anything to him in passing either, as they never had done so before. So the boy had to keep his eyes open for her if he was to see her.

With no fish hitting his line, the time continued to crawl by. With nothing else to do, the boy got out his flute and began to play. That reminded him he had promised to carve a flute for Ronthiel. So he set about in search of a good tree branch nearby for making a flute. Such a search took quite a while as the boy rejected several choices but, eventually, found one as good, or better, than any of his aunt’s broom handles. Using the saw tooth blade of his knife, he cut it off and got the finest edge he’d ever seen. Then he trimmed the bark off it with the carving tip of the blade and, when he finished–well–he had a stick with no bark on it.

But it was a good, fine stick. The boy had to stop there, for the blade of the huge knife was too big to carve any more of it. He’d have made it into a toothpick before he ever made it into a flute. He’d have to finish it later with another set of tools, but he certainly had a fine start and it would, indeed, be the finest flute he’d ever made.

For a while after that, the boy practiced throwing his knife and pegging it in a tree. He didn’t know if it was his satyr’s skill or the superb balance of the knife, but he stuck it in the tree every time. It was heavy enough, and sharp enough, to bury itself in pretty deep in the wood, too. The boy thought he might have dulled it some afterward and tested it on a blade of grass to see if it needed sharpening, but–no–it sliced it off clean. It was still as sharp as can be.

The boy went back to Gold Creek, but there was evidently still time left to kill. Eventually, he couldn’t stand it anymore, put a worm on his hook and pulled in a fish. He was gutting it out when along came a troop of elf girls coming back from school. There were four of them, Rebecca included. Of course, he was the “Invisible Boy” to them. They acted like he wasn’t even there. Lara Dune cast a glance at him, but Rebecca kept her eyes straight ahead. Though the other three whispered and giggled; he noticed Rebecca was the only one not talking.

“Hey, Rebecca!” he called to her. “You want to see something?”

The whole troop stopped.

“You mean your fish?” asked Lara Dune.

“Nope,” said the boy, “Something else.”

The pack wavered in curiosity. But it was short-lived. The group started ahead again, their giggling and whispering resumed. But one member of the herd sort of tarried. It was Rebecca.

“What have you got?” she wanted to know.

The boy got out his greatest treasure, a gold nugget from Gold Creek. He’d been saving it to give to the fairies, or maybe Old Joe. Holding it out for her to see, he said, “Look what I found.”

“That is nice,” she said, taking and looking at it. “What are you going to do with it?”

“I thought I’d let you have it.”

She eyed it, tempted, but unsure. She might just give it back.

“Please, Becky, won’t you take it?” he asked her. “You could make it into a front gold tooth.”

The elves could make wonderful things from gold–though they seldom looked for it.

“Why would you give me this?” she wanted to know.

“I figure it’s a birthday present. You being a new here, I figure I might have missed your birthday.”

“You did. I already had it.”

“Then consider it a late gift.”

“Giving a girl gold is kind of special, isn’t it?” she asked, still not accepting it. “What if I made it into a ring? Isn’t that what a boy gives when he wants to marry a girl?”

“Well! It’s not a gold ring–at least not yet, anyway. I just thought girls like gold,” he said.

“We do, but we only take it from the men we love.”

“Does that mean you don’t want it?”

“Does that mean you still want to give it to me?”

“I asked you first.”

“A girl always wants a gold ring. So if I make a ring of it and wear it, what do I tell the other girls if they ask where I got it?”

“Anything you want, I guess,” the boy said. “You could always say you found it.”

“Is that what you want me to tell them? Or would you like me to tell them I got it from you?”

“You can tell them whatever you want.”

“If I tell them I got it from you, they’ll say you’re in love with me,” she said.

“I guess they can say that. I said you can tell them whatever you want.”

“I’d want to tell them the truth if they ask.”

“Well! It’s a late birthday present. That’s true enough.”

“But are you in love with me?”

“Well!” the boy replied as he suddenly got to itching and scratching everywhere uncomfortably. “You know that’s–uh–I mean–uh, I have seen uglier girls.”

She handed him back the nugget.

“Not the right words,” she said and started for home.

“Hey! Wait!” he called and caught up with her. “What are the right words?”

“If I have to tell you, it doesn’t count.”

He ran alongside her for a moment, not knowing exactly how to proceed. Then he said hesitatingly:

“Becky, I–I don’t care for anybody but you!”

No reply. She kept walking, but her ear had turned.

Encouraged, he tried more.

“I think it’s your eyes that done it to me,” he said. “They’re so deep I feel like I could just drown in them!”

The words just came out of him and Rebecca stopped then and looked at him.

“You like my eyes?”

The boy noticed how quickly she put the brakes on. He’d said something right. But what?

“Why! Sure! Hasn’t anybody ever told you about them?”

“Told me what about them?”

“Just that they seem like they can see right through me, like you could tell if I was lying to you if I did so. So, of course, I doesn’t dare.”

“What else about me?”

“Well! I can tell your personality is sweet as a summer strawberry,” he said, “on account of you have reddish blonde hair.”

“I thought that was a sign of being quick to anger?”

“Oh! No! I can tell you’d never do that! That’s why I offered you this hunk of gold instead of to those other girls because on account I could tell you were special.”

“Do you think I’m beautiful?”

“There’s nobody more beautiful than you!”

“Nobody?” she asked.

“You’re the prettiest girl in the whole school!”

“Really?” she said.

“Would I lie?”

Oops! That was a pretty stupid thing to say. The boy had a well-known reputation for his accomplishments as a first-rate liar. If anybody could take pride in that recognition, he could.

But, evidently, the girl was so new she wasn’t aware yet of this talent of his.

“I mean I can’t lie to you,” he said, correcting himself, “on account of your eyes would see through me and could tell if I did.”

“Okay,” she said. “I’ll take your nugget. But this doesn’t mean I love you.”

“Does it mean you like me?”

“Yes. It means that.”

The boy went away happy with that. His prancing steps were like notes in a song, each one carrying the melody of his newfound confidence. He felt like a dancer, swaying to the rhythm of his success, his mood harmonizing with the song of the forest. The path before him clear in the knowledge of the art of seduction stretched like an unwritten first chapter:

A Man falls in love through his eyes. A Woman falls in love through her ears.

It wasn’t the gold she wanted. It was the compliment. The gold just sealed it. They wear gold jewelry for the compliments of others that notice.

Of course, the boy would have to be careful, now that he had the hang of it. A satyr comes by flattery naturally. It was in his nature, although he didn’t know that yet. But he now suspected he had actually made a bit of a mess of it back there. He shouldn’t have told her she was beautiful. That was a bit of overdoing it. He’d have to be more tactful next time–like he’d been with Leradien.

You need to catch a girl by surprise when you compliment her and say the unexpected. He’d done that with Leradien when he told her she had beautiful eyes. Now that was unexpected. The rest of her face was stunningly gorgeous, but her ruby red eyes seemed crazed and filled with the madness and malice of the insane and could stop a man’s heart in his tracks. The last thing she ever expected was to hear she had beautiful eyes, and it struck her profoundly to be so told. After that, when she looked at him, her eyes really were, indeed, beautiful–more penetrating, more beguiling, and more provocative than before. So the compliment had its effect. He figured it was what stopped her from capturing him; him taking her so unawares at the time. If he’d said she was beautiful, it would have had no effect at all. She already knew that. There was no surprise there.

He’d gotten lucky with Rebecca. Evidently, she didn’t know she was beautiful, no elf boy ever having said such a thing to her before. So he’d said the unexpected. But now that she knew he thought she was beautiful, she also knew she could take him for granted. He would have to change that, and he would. Until she consented to be his, he’d never tell her she was beautiful again. She’d have to earn it.

He headed home whistling with another skill mastered, the path ahead seemed to shimmer with endless possibilities. The sun cast long shadows on the forest floor, as if nature itself was setting the stage for tonight's promised adventure with Leradien.

And quite an adventure it would prove to be.