Chapter: New Friend

                “You gotta be still,” Laina said to the flower fairy she was trying to draw.

                “I am being as still as I can,” he replied, trying to hold his pose.

                Laina continued drawing. It was nice and sunny out, a perfect day to sit outside during recess.

                A shadow fell across her sketchpad. She looked over her shoulder to see a small boy with orange hair and pointy ears.

                The elf looked surprised. “Can you see me?” He asked.

                Laina nodded.

                “Really? Cool!” He grinned.

                She checked to see that no one else was around before speaking to him. “Um… Are you�"?”

                “My name’s Momo. But my real name is Moeta. What’s your name?” He said all at once.

                “Um…” She paused. “I’m Laina. My nickname is Lainey, though.”

                The flower fairy interrupted them. “Laina, I thought you were going to draw a picture of me.”

                “Oh.” she looked back and forth between the fairy and the boy.

                “If you’re busy, I’ll just be going. See you later.” The fairy said.

                “Okay.” She replied. The fairy flew off, and Laina turned back to Moeta. There were a lot of questions she had.

                “Are there anymore humans who can see me like you can?” The boy asked.

                “No, it’s just me. And no one’s ever believed me about it.”

                Moeta frowned. “Oh, that’s too bad.” His frown disappeared. “How about we be friends?” He extended his arm towards her.

                “Okay.” As Laina was reaching to shake Moeta’s hand, he firmly grasped her forearm instead. She decided to return the gesture the same way.

                He let go of her arm. “Now we’re friends!” He smiled.

                “You said your name is Momo?” Laina asked.

                “Yup!”

                “I was wondering. What kind of fae are you? I’ve never seen one of you before.”

                “I’m a fire elf.”

                The bell rang for recess to end, and all of the students started going back inside.

                “I gotta go,” Laina said. “But I’ll be back out in a few hours. Do you wanna play then?”

                “Yeah. I’ll wait for you by the tree with the big stone.” He said.

 

                When Laina finally got out of school, she headed around to the playground where Moeta said he would be waiting, and there he was sitting on the moss-covered stone beneath the blooming mimosa tree. The girl looked around furtively, making sure no humans were paying attention, and waved to her new friend. As soon as Moeta spotted her, he ran over as quickly as his legs would carry him.

                “Lainey!” He shouted.

                She just smiled, motioning for him to follow.

                “Oh, yeah. I’m invisible.”

                The two friends headed up the sidewalk towards the mountain and made their way to a steep gravel road. There were no other pedestrians around, and cars came and went less frequently.

                “Hey, this is the way I came!” Moeta said. “So where are we going?”

                “I’m going back to the Home,” Laina said. “I gotta go straight back before I can go off playing again.”

                “So your family lives on the mountain?”

                Laina shook her head. “I don’t have a family. I’m an orphan.”

                “Oh…”

                “But Pastor Nick and his family take care of me and the other kids at the Home. So it’s kinda like a family.” She explained.

                Moeta’s stomach growled loudly. He stopped. “I forgot about lunch.”

                “I’ve got something.” Laina started rustling through her book bag.  “Here. You can have my pack of crackers and juice. I had a big lunch anyway.” She handed them to Moeta.

                “Wow. Thanks!” He looked at the juice box and plastic packaging. “Uh, what is this?”

                “I’ll show you.” Laina opened the crackers and stuck the straw in the juice box and handed it back to him. “Just don’t squeeze the juice hard ‘cause�"“

                “Ah!” A bit of juice squirted onto Moeta’s face. He pointed the straw into his mouth and started squeezing again.

                “You’re supposed to suck on it.” Laina explained.

                “Ohh…”

               

                When they reached their destination, Laina went inside briefly to get a few things. Then, with a couple of old tote bags in hand, she led Moeta out behind the church and into the forest. She had a perfect spot for drawing without being bothered by anyone.

                “What’s in the bags?” Moeta asked as they neared a clearing in the woods.

                “It’s a cloth to sit on and some drawing supplies.” Laina answered, setting them down on the patch of grass. She pulled out an old table cloth from one of the bags and spread it out on the ground. The late afternoon sun filtered through the trees above them.

                Moeta took off his boots and sat down on the checkered cloth. It had many stains and a few patched up holes. He watched as Laina took out her drawing pad and then a clear box filled with various colored pencils. Laina took all of them out of the box and spread them out on the cloth so she could choose from them more easily.

                Moeta picked up the empty box. “Is this some kind of glass?”

                Laina shook her head. “Nope. It’s made of plastic.”

                “It’s so light.” He marveled.

                Laina giggled, taking the box back and setting it to the side. She had all her supplies laid out and ready.

                “Are you ready to draw me?” Moeta asked while sitting back down.

                “Yup.” Laina picked up her drawing pad. “Just get real comfortable. I can’t draw you if you move a whole lot.”

                Moeta crossed his legs in front of himself. “Am I allowed to talk?”

                “Sure.” Laina replied. She picked up a regular pencil first. “Are you ready?”

                “Uh huh.”

                Laina started sketching, looking back and forth from Moeta to her pad.

                Moeta stayed as still as he possibly could with the exception of his mouth. “How did you get the ability to see fae and speak to them.” He asked.

                Laina shrugged, but didn’t pause her sketching. “I dunno. I could see them ever since I can remember. Maybe I was just born with it.” Then she asked, “So how did you get here? Where are you from?”

                “I’m from the City of Fire. It’s actually not that far from here. You just go through this little cave…”

                “Don’t move your hand, please.” Laina interrupted.

                “Oops. Sorry.” He put it back.

                “What’s your city like? Is it in the mountains?” Laina picked up an orange pencil.

                “No, it’s in the desert. Which is weird. I looked at a map and there aren’t any forests anywhere near the city. I think that cave I went through is a magic portal.”

                Laina put her pencil down. “A magic portal? Hmm…” She picked up red next. “I guess that would explain it, ‘cause there aren’t any deserts near here either.”

                “That has to be it then!”

                “Momo! You just moved. A lot.”

                Moeta sat back down. “Oops…”

                Laina sighed. “It’s okay. I got the sketching done. Now I just gotta focus on the colors. So I guess you can move a little.” She changed the red for a royal violet.

                Moeta re-crossed his legs. “You should come back with me.” He suggested. “I bet I could show you a lot of cool stuff.”

                “Hmm… I don’t think that would be a good idea,” Laina said, looking at her drawing. “The people at the Home get worried when I wander off for too long.”

                “Then I’ll just have to bring something for you when I come back tomorrow.”

                Laina’s eyes lit up. “You can come back tomorrow?”

                “Yeah!”

                Laina grinned widely.

               

                The two kept taking while Laina drew. He told her about his brothers and sister, and she told him about Pastor Nick and his family. They told each other their favorite colors and complained about school. When Laina finally finished, the sun was almost behind the mountain.

                “Let me see!” Moeta moved to sit beside Laina. She showed him the finished product. “Cool!”

                “When you come back, I can give you a copy of it if you want.” Laina offered.

                “Okay! I’ll bring something back for you tomorrow, too.” Moeta promised.

                Since tomorrow was Saturday, Laina asked Moeta to meet her in the clearing the next morning. They parted ways. Moeta headed up the mountain, and Lain went back down.

               

                That evening after dinner, Laina went to Pastor Nick’s office. She knocked on the door.

                “Come in.” He answered.

                “Excuse me, Pastor. Could I get a copy made of my drawing? It’s for a friend.”

                The pastor smiled. “Of course!” He asked as he took her drawing to the copy machine. “Who’s your friend?” He continued after studying the drawing of the boy briefly.

                Laina pressed a finger to the corner of her mouth. “Somebody I met at school today.”

                “How nice!” Pastor Nick handed both copies back. “I’m glad you made a friend.”

                “Me too.”

Reviews

[Cailean]

Similar to last chapter in my comments. "Yeah" and "Cool!" are somewhat "anachronistic" unless you sort out where Moeta may have picked them up before. If his behaviour or usage *is* unusual for his kind, Laina may remark on it, but then you are *done* and you don't have to come back to that ever again.

Voice can be tricky, however. Once you nail it (and it may require you to write more of the story and go back to edit it!) it will give a great deal of identity to your characters in very few words. But yeah, once I wrote a piece involving an old, grizzled American war veteran. Half way through, he sounded like some sort of tree-hugging hippie and he *continued* to sound like that until the end of the piece. One of my mentees (that probably shouldn't be a word - someone I was mentoring) said "You lost the voice AND YOU NEVER GOT IT BACK!" - she was dead right!

So, y'know, I'm not immune to this mistake either. It often takes the most work to work out an appropriate voice for each character - it's a lot about what sort of words they use and the way they use them. Have a read of some of your favourite characters in books - you'll notice as well as doing cool stuff, they generally have a certain voice where you pretty much have an idea of what they'll say next and what they'll sound like. If it's done well, you don't even realize there's a change in the way they're written, they're just in your head as they are.

Playing around with different ways of speaking is tremendous fun as well. I wrote a piece where one character kept switching from first person to third person constantly. He was not remotely human or mortal so it made a lot of sense and I feel like it added to him as a character. Well, as much as possible when said character is a tentacled elder god, after all.

Oh, oh! Just noticed this, must mention. One thing, Laina ("Lainey") just starts chatting with Moeta like it ain't no thang. She is quite used to seeing fairies and interacting with them. This may be something that Moeta notices and is surprised by. It seems like this is unusual. This would be particularly cool if we find that Laina is unusual for a human (which she seems to be) and Moeta is unusual for an elf (because perhaps his fascination with humans?) which has lead to this "meeting cute"

[Woolliza]

Thank you so much! I am still just in the developmental stages of finding voices for these characters. And it's a bit harder for me to write children. I'm also piecing this story together bit by bit. I don't have all the details worked out yet!

[Cailean]

Children are indeed trickier to write at least as an adult! What's more, writing *for* children is harder still, so at least you don't have to worry on that score :)

[Woolliza]

I did a couple of "interviews" with the main characters as children, and I think I have a better grasp on their voices now.