Unexpectedly I seemed to have arrived first to the café. I looked longingly at the outdoor tables. It was a nice sunny spring day. A perfect day to sit outdoors in the sun after a long and dark winter but I knew that she would object. Reluctantly I went indoors and sat down. My friend preferred to avoid direct sunlight.



“Would you please show me your ID!” The waitress wasn’t going to just give me the cold beer that I so much longed for.

I tried to look bored as I handed her my ID card although I cannot deny that I felt slightly nervous as she inspected it. She was clearly suspicious but finally she gave up and nodded. Apparently it was a good fake. Sure enough she had every reason to be suspicious, only she had no idea how much my real age deviated from the 22 years the card claimed me to be. I drank alcoholic beverages thousands of years before she was even born.



I had just taken the first sip of the cold beer when Indindra arrived. She stilled preferred to dress in black. These days her hair was cut in a short hairstyle that covered her surgically altered ear tips.



“I’m sorry, there was a traffic jam,” she said and kissed my cheeks in a very human fashion. When she took of her large sunglasses I could see that her yellow eyes as usual were rimmed with thick layers of black eyeliner. “That looks good,” she said with a look on my beer and ordered the same when the waitress arrived at our table.



“She asked to see my ID card but she didn’t even blink when you wanted the same as me,” I said perhaps somewhat offended.

“What do you expect when you dress like a human teenager,” she answered. “At least you have not only dressed the right century but even the right decade for once. Besides, I’m at least 40 years older than you, I believe,” she said as if those 40 years would make any difference to the thousands of years that we had walked the earth.

“I went to a shop and bought the same clothes that a mannequin was wearing. Do you really mean that adult humans change clothing style according to their age? ”



She just smiled and shrugged her shoulders before she changed to the subject that we had met to talk about. “I read your book in one sitting. It made me remember the bad old times and realize how strange it is that you and I sit her as old friends.”

“The old times were not only bad,” I protested. “My happiest moments all occurred during the first century of my life.”

She pouted with her mouth in a very human fashion. I have never figured out if Indie have learned and practiced to imitate human gestures or if all the time she spends with humans makes her unconsciously take after them. She even blinks almost as often as a human.

“Maybe the old times were a bit better for Light elves than for Dark elves,” she said.
I was in deep water here and tried to think of something to say to mitigate the path the discussion seemed to be going. The old quarrel was not something I wished to sink deeper into today. But before I said something she started to speak again.



“I suppose it was not only the Light elves’ fault. We had a bad king who led us on a hopeless path, but we did suffer hard for centuries after the wars.”

I nodded to acknowledge what she had said. After all the years that I had hated Dark elves it had been difficult to realize that also the Light elves were at fault. Our race had been cruel to them. It was not until both populations had dwindled to only remnants of what we had once been and many of the old ones had gone that we had started to cooperate to keep both of our races from total extinction. Today my best friend was not only a Dark elf but we were both sitting among humans pretending to be humans too. In the old days that would have been extremely humiliating. Both Light elves and Dark elves had considered themselves too much superior to humans to sink so low as to pretend to be one of them. How wrong we had been. The humans had multiplied, built cities, communicated with each other across the planet while we lived like refuges in small colonies deep in the forest when we didn’t try to pass as humans in the human society. Our old magic was nothing compared to human technology.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I was insensitive considering that I have just read your book. In the old times they were all alive, your brother, your wife and your daughter. Of course you must miss them.”

I nodded. “’The years that have passed have not made me miss them any less. I even miss Roe, although I didn’t know her for a very long time and I hated her at first. Thorundur never regretted his choice and was the happiest elf that ever walked the earth. Not even when the signs of aging started to show did he have any regrets or fears. Although few elves have lived so short time as he did, I have never seen an elf so full of life.”



Suddenly Indie pushed me hard. “Wake up, you cannot freeze among humans. That freaks them out.”

I hadn’t realized that I had “frozen” as Indie calls it. But of course she was right. We do that sometimes. It’s like meditation. I had lost myself in thoughts of the old times while my body had become completely still and my eyes stirring without blinking at something far away.

“Are you still into archeology?” I asked her knowing that Indie had taken some university archeology courses and even worked as a volunteer at some excavations.

“Paleontology, not archeology,” she corrected me. “And no, that was several years ago under another human identity. I lost interest when it was apparent that all the bones that we had worshipped as dragon remnants were dinosaurs. There were never any dragons. I’m taking courses in astronomy now.”

I couldn’t help but wonder if her interest in astronomy could have something to do with the myths about our origin. According to both Light and Dark elf mythology the first elves on earth came from the sky, perhaps from a planet far away. That is why we don’t age like other living beings do. With all the developments in human knowledge and their explorations of the space our myths seem more and more unrealistic to me. Just like the dragons turned out to be old dinosaur remnants I am convinced that the myth of our origin will turn out to be nothing more than a myth. But I could be wrong and I didn’t share these thoughts with Indie. Maybe her new interest didn’t even have anything to do with our myths after all.



“I believe that Eric was lucky to get off so lightly,” she said. “In the elven realm his punishment would have been hard. Instead he ran away with his bride and became king in her country after her brothers had mysteriously died.”

I agreed. “His punishment would probably have been very hard also in the human realm hadn’t he escaped. But after all, I’m not sure he was that bad. Alexander was gone when his father the king died. It wasn’t Eric’s fault that fairytales about how Dark elves kidnapped Alexander with the help of Eric was spread. In those fairy tales Alexander was rescued by Aliendre. When Thorundur told me his and Roe’s story I knew the truth of what had happened. It was actually Roe who started it all by giving a love potion to Aliendre, but she never knew about the consequences.”

Indie nodded. “I agree, Eric was not bad, why wouldn’t he reach for the crown under the circumstances? I’m nevertheless glad that you changed my name in the book.” She smiled.



I couldn’t help but smile. As the story was written I believe that Eric was one of the bad guys in it, at least semi-bad, but Indie obviously thought differently. “Are you never afraid that you will lose your immortality like Aliendre and Thorundur did? “ I said although we had talked about this many times before.



“No, I have never really lost my heart to a human, I’m probably immune,” she said and smiled. “Isn’t this one of the mysteries that we never understood and that must be related to magic somehow? Why do elves who fall in love with immortals lose eternal life? Obviously this is not a myth as Aliendre and Thorundur were proof of it.”

“Maybe it could be related to the old marriage ritual?” I suggested. “For both humans and elves the ritual involved an exchange of blood?”



“Could be, but I don’t really think so. I think it was magic related to true love. Magic is real after all.”

It surprised me to hear Indie talk about true love. She was not usually very romantic. For a while she looked thoughtful and then she continued. “Maybe the magic of true love shortens the telomeres?”

“Telomeres? I have no idea what you’re talking about Indie?”

“Telomeres are regions in the end of chromosomes. It is believed that shortening of the telomeres might have something to do with aging.”

I had heard about DNA and chromosomes but still had no idea what Indie was talking about. It was so typical of her to try to combine our old myths and magic with something that she had picked up in the human word. Her fake human identities were almost always university students.

“When I read your book I actually shed a tear when the shield maiden, Sigrid, died in battle.” Indie said. “It was thanks to her that Alexander got his crown and Aliendre became his queen. I know I shouldn’t cry for someone who died honorably in battle, but I did.”

I felt flattered by her words. She has adapted more to the human world than any elf I know but deep down she is still the warrior who has been raised to believe that death in battle should be something honorable. I had never truly been a warrior and have always felt that war is a terrible waste of lives.

“Her burial mound is still visited by tourist.” Indie said. “The name of the mound is of course all wrong. They have forgotten that the real name is, the Shield Maiden’s Hill, and named it after a king who lived much, much later. But it’s still there.”

“Did you know that there was a mound for Thorundur and Roe? Their children built it together with my family. It is also still there, deep in the forest where they lived. Their forest is still more or less untouched by humans and their burial mound is kept clear from trees and bushes. Every year on the day that they died someone puts fresh flowers on the hill.”

Indie actually gaped when I told her this. It had been my secret during all the years. I put flowers on the mound every year, but I was not the only one to do so and it was not me who kept their mound free from vegetation. Sometimes I could feel a presence near the hill but I had never seen anyone.

Indie stared at me with her yellow eyes “Do you think..? “

I nodded. “There must be descendants who have kept the tradition alive.”





Indie put the book on the table, my book that would be officially released tomorrow. The story about Alexander and Aliendre had been told for so many years before it had been forgotten by humans. It had not been forgotten by the elves. We had many sad songs about the tragic and short life of Aliendre. Aliendre was known as the only elf that had chosen love before eternal life, but she was not the only one. There had been another elf who had also chosen love before eternity but since he was not royal and his chosen one not a princess his story had been hidden and forgotten as something shameful by the elves. Finally I had told the whole story about my brother, Thorundur, who had loved Roe of the Forest people.