Into Taleria

Chapter Five

Kate sat upright with a start and scraped the hair back from her face as the sound of the bedroom door opening woke her from a light doze.

An elf stepped into the room. Well, of course it was an elf what else would it be? But it wasn't Aduil, Lindolir, or one of the guards. It was an erell—an elf maiden—Kate hadn't seen before, with sleek, shiny red hair tied back in intricate braids, big, bright anime eyes and a light dusting of freckles across her nose. Holding a silver tray laden with dishes, she paused just past the doorway and regarded Kate with a curious stare before she nodded slightly and moved further into the room, leaving the door open to the watchful eyes of the guards behind her.

That was a little unsettling, so Kate focused on the erell instead, though that wasn't much better. She seemed to watch Kate with a wary gaze out of the corner of her eye as she passed on her way to the table, and again as she headed back to the door.

Kate called out a soft thanks just as the erell slipped out of the room, closing the door behind her with only a quick backward glance. It didn't matter that she wouldn't be able to understand—there was no excuse to be rude to the wait-staff. Even if they were rudely staring at you.

What was that about, anyway? Did she really look that strange? It was true, of course, that the Meadowood elves tended to be reclusive, but they had to have seen humans before. She really shouldn't be that much of a spectacle. Besides, apart from the ethereal beauty they all seemed to share, and the pointy ears, she didn't look that different from them.

Maybe it was the clothes, she reflected as she made her way to the table to inspect the tray, blue jeans and a Nirvana t-shirt were pretty out of place here.

The dishes the elf had left behind were of a simple, yet lyrical design. Nature themed, Kate noted with a smile, though if she had given it any thought, she would have expected nothing less. A large plate with delicate vines painted around the rim held a heap of salad at the center, and a couple of heavenly smelling rolls sat on a smaller, similarly decorated plate, with a few of pats of butter in a tiny bowl off to the side. Next to the plates stood a glass, quite a bit fancier than the one she had been using before, with a delicate stem and curvy lines etched into the bowl like vines reaching for the sun. The fading light falling through the windows glinted off the glass, landing on a set of shiny silver cutlery cleverly shaped to look like twigs and leaves twisted and molded into use as knives and forks.

It was almost too lovely to use, Kate thought, but her grumbling stomach firmly disagreed.

And it looked like something safe to eat. With the exception of various vegetables, sausages and waybread which she remembered from the stories, she had no idea what they ate in this world and it occurred to her that, with her likely vast difference in physiology, she might not be able to process the same things elves could. They were immortal, after all—to age and disease, anyway—so for all Kate knew, they could eat things like hemlock and poison ivy and just think it a nice snack. Those greens were definitely lettuce, though, and the vegetables were recognisable, so she figured they were probably a safe bet, and settled in to eat.

She was a bit disappointed by the visible lack of any dressing on or around the salad and worried it might be bland as she took a small, experimental bite, but the surprising burst of flavor was anything but. The taste wasn't so different from any salad she could find back home, with carrots and radishes and sweet-peas in the pod, but it was so much more rich and full, the flawless mingling of flavors amplified to a delectable degree. As she greedily gobbled it up, glad there was no one there to see her, Kate half wondered if the elves had even bothered to invent salad dressing when they already had this perfection to work with.

With the way it was described in the books, Kate had always imagined elven food would be good, but this was something else. Even the rolls were a treat. More than a treat, actually, warm and soft and perfectly flakey, they must have been fresh from the oven, and with the delightfully salty butter melting into every little crevice, ohhh! If Kate was ever to be sentenced to execution—and as she was apparently a prisoner for some reason, that didn't seem completely outside the realm of possibility, though probably unlikely—she might be cool with it if she could have more of those rolls as her last meal.