Life With A Werewolf

How Khied Lost His Beard part 2 - When Love is Blind

          Falkurk’s footsteps felt lighter than air. He twirled as he came to his resting spot with a giant grin on his face. His father, Graffur, watched Falkurk come to his spot with a characteristic snarl. Graffur was an older gnome, with a beard that reached almost down to his knees. His face was permanently scowled below his red pointed hat. “Who touched you, varmint?”

          Falkurk blinked and stepped back and turned to his dad. “I was out with,”

          “I saw who you were out with,” He snarled. “Whole damn community saw who you were out with. Cracked Faenie.”

          Falkurk sputtered for a moment. “She’s not cracked!”

          “Hush your shouting! You’ll wake up the meaties.”

          Falkurk and his father had a spot below the bedroom window of twin ten-year-old boys. The twins had hit that rambunctious age, the one where boys are known to break things like us lawn gnomes for little to no reason at all. Humans of that age, especially boys, are dangerous to us lawn gnomes. Imagine the terror of not being able to move while a human boy is holding a hammer or a club above your head and preparing to smash you in to pieces!

          “Dad,” Falkurk said in a hushed growl, “She’s right about one thing. We don’t belong out here! Always fighting dragons and dodging children. Waiting for the day when the humans tire of us and sell us off in one great yard sale or just throw us out. Then we have to sneak into another thrift store. Then it’s more turf wars, more struggles. Why can’t we live inside? Be safe for a while?”

          “Bah,” Graffur rolled his eyes, “be like them? Stressing and worrying all the time over this and that? Fretting until you fret yourself into a grave? We’re lawn gnomes, Falkurk. This is the lot we’ve been given in life. Sure, they maybe little terrors young, but they take care of us, and we take care of them. What you’re talking about is madness.”

          “If you just listen to her, you’ll see Faenie makes a lot of sense.”

          “And I know you’re full of more crap than those meaties. You shan’t be seeing that gnome no more. She’s fillin yer noggin with cracked ideas. It’ll get you killed Falkurk. Or worse!”

          Falkurk clenched his fists, and turned, snarling into the night. It was dark now, and at least no one could see his anger. His snarls. “You’re a good gnome,” Graffur said to him. “But our place is here. We need the outdoors. We don’t need roofs and bills. We need sunshine and wind. We can’t go inside. It just isn’t right.”

          The warnings of his father rang through Falkurk’s head. But parental warnings can never stand against a young love sprouting through a young heart. It hasn’t had the harsh winds and freezing rain of reality to temper it yet. This is why gnomes wait so long to get hitched, sometimes as long as fifty years or more. We want to ensure a love bleeds true, and not just burn hot for a season. Falkurk felt he didn’t have that long. What he had was the look of a lass named Faenie and a desire to do whatever she wanted to be hers as quick as possible.

          So, it was no surprise that warnings be damned Falkurk spent the next evening sitting in the back yard of Ms. Smythe’s house, staring through her window, with Faenie leaning against him. “I like coming out here at nights,” she whispered to him. “I like watching her. I enjoy wondering what they’re doing. They got all sorts of things inside. She has this box that talks to her and shows her plays. She’s got a machine to play her music. It would be nice to have those things.”

          Falkurk gripped the ground, grass beginning to tear in his fist. “If we had that, then we wouldn’t hear the dragons when they attack. We wouldn’t hear the humans before they come home. Imagine us listening to music and the damn kids come by with their hammers and clubs. We’d all be smashed to bits!”

          “You’re so cute when you’re daft, you know that,” Faenie smirked. “We wouldn’t have to worry about any of that if we were inside. We could play music all night long! All day, too. No need for hidin no more. No need for keeping vigil against the dragons. No need for nothin but sunshine all day, and all night too with their magic light.”

          “But Faenie, it does us no good.” Falkurk turned to look at her. “We’re out here. They’re in there. Why, it takes great effort and magic to even talk to them! How are we going to convince them to just swap places?”

          “When the day comes,” Faenie said, “they won’t have a choice.”

          “What do you mean?”

          “I can’t tell you yet.” Faenie whispered. “I’ve got a few things to setup first. Do you trust me?”

          “You know I do Faenie. I just have no idea of what you want.”

          “What I want,” Faenie said, “Is for you to hold me tonight. And tomorrow night. And perhaps the night after that. And the one after that.” She snuggled in close while he held her. They whispered to each other sweetie things. What it might be like to live in a house instead of on a lawn. What might the humans be doing inside. How many things could they honestly fit inside the house anyway? The strange and cute language of young passion that takes on the in-jokes of in-jokes of all young cuddlers wishing to be lifelong lovers.

          When he returned to his spot, Graffur snarled at him, “You be forgettin something tonight?”

          “No,” Falkurk said, then his eyes lit up. “Oh crap! The Vigil!”

          “Aye, the dragon’s vigil. You forgot it. I covered your watch. Tonight. Do it again, and you’re losing one of your gold rings.”

          Falkurk touched his beard. His two gold rings that he worked so hard to earn. “Won’t happen again, don’t worry.”

          “Good! Neither will you be seeing that cracked Faenie anymore.”

          “That will happen again. You can’t stop me, you have no cause to.”

          “She ain’t right, son. She’s seeking to upset the natural order. To crack the world like a stone egg! Can’t you see? Be reasonable, Falkurk!”

          Young passion is not reasonable. It is why us gnomes take so long before declaring our love. Before going further than simple hugging and hand holding and whispering. Cause young passion burns bright like a white hot. It takes time for that love to burn down into love. Time that Falkurk was not sure he had.

          As he waited there that morning, Faenie’s words rang through his head, much like they did many years after. “You’re cute when you’re daft… Do you trust me?” At that moment, he had no idea why, but he did. That was the most dangerous thing of all. After all it’s blind trust untempered by experience that causes the greatest disasters.