A heron stands at the edge of a pond for an hour and strikes once, and an autumn-court eladrin stands the same way, long-necked and narrow as a ladder at six feet. The hands are long and slender and never still, and the fingertips are stained the violet-black of oak gall ink.
On the orchard road above Cirrane, late in October, a farmer named Ivo Pell sets a cut pear on the top of a split-rail post and steps back to the cider crates, where the naturalist is already crouched. The sun is low and amber. Between two maples, the eladrin appears without any sound of walking. Its coat is plum, patched at the elbows. Its hair is long and copper with a few silver strands, and leaf-gold freckles run along the cheekbones. Around one wrist sits a ring of braided pear stems, worn smooth as a stirrup. It looks at the pear and does not touch it. A faint, courteous smile stays on its face the whole time.
The rule on this road is that the giver names the price before the fruit is handled. If the eladrin names it first, the farmer owes double. Pell says, "A dry cellar through the winter." The eladrin inclines its head, as if it has heard a generous offer and means to answer it in kind, and counters: the last row of trees left unpicked for the birds, and the windfalls too. Pell agrees. Only then does a long hand reach out and take the pear. Pears are what it eats, along with honey bread, mushrooms and dew, and it will refuse a plain apple left on the same post. Travelers on the old road often take it for a county surveyor because of the ink and the patched coat, and they greet it politely. It never corrects them.
The road has changed since the last visit. Where there were eleven pear posts between Cirrane and the lantern-lit landing at Avosk, only four remain, since the rest were pulled for a grain shed. The eladrin walks farther between bargains now and looks, if anything, a little wistful. Pell's wife, Ilse, says only that you do not thank it, because thanks counts as a debt. The eladrin goes back between the maples. On the rail where it stood is a smear of ink in the shape of a hand, eleven inches across, and rain does not lift it before spring.
- Classification
- Fey humanoid of seasonal courts
- Habitat
- Meadow edges, old roads, orchard hollows
- Danger
- Minimal
- Size
- 6 ft, narrow and long-limbed
- Activity
- Seasonal
- Realm
- Four seasonal fae courts
- Binomial
- Sylvanus mutabilis
- Diet
- Pears, honey bread, mushrooms, dew
- Temperament
- Courteous, gracious, bargain-minded