toothycat | Time flies when you're having fun...

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Tom danced for the elves, and was perfectly happy. The magic of the elven music had taken him completely, his whole self devoted to the passion of the dance. Tom span and twisted, leapt high and tapped out patterns foreign to all here in this wonder-filled country under the hill. Delighted faces came in and out of focus all around him - narrow, elegant, with green almond-shaped eyes; the partners switched, one after another; the music at times filled the hall, at others fell so silent that, it almost seemed, it sounded in Tom's head alone.

He no longer felt surprise at the wonders that surrounded him, the famed arts and magics of the elves, ever-changing as water. A moment ago they wore tight green silks, and now they were clad in something pink with frills; a blink - and the pink turns a brilliant white; glance away for a second, and the frills become leafy golden lace. The decorations of the hall wavered; the rich drapings on the walls would fade out and appear once more; the tables and chairs lived a life of their own. Tom danced on carpet, on straw mats, on bare stone. Sometimes, pausing to refresh himself, he would discover wine and forest berries on the tables; sometimes - game and heather ale; sometimes - fresh spring water and wrinkled mushrooms, nevertheless also insanely delicious.

Tom paid little heed to the gastronomical delights; he danced, and was ready to carry on dancing all night until morning. Several times beautiful partners would take Tom aside to distant, hidden alcoves and give themselves to him, joyfully and without hesitation - true daughters of nature. But these moments, filled with living desire and delight, flew by like the wind, and once more Tom would rejoin the circle of dancers - or dance alone, to the approving exclamations of the hosts, under the watchful gaze of their slanted emerald eyes. Or brown. Or amber, vertical slits. The elves were ever-changing, and Tom ceased to pay attention to such trifles. He danced. It was not for nothing that he, Tom, was considered the best dancer in the whole county! Let the elves, too, see how a mortal could dance! And besides, Tom loved to dance, more than anything else in the world. Tom danced, and time flew by unnoticed.

"Is that him?", the young elf asked the old.

"Yes, Your Highness. That is the man himself, Tom-Who-Dances-For-Everyone, our very own wonder. He has been dancing here in this hall for over four hundred years."

"Incredible!" The elf who had been addressed as Highness tilted his head in wonder. "I'd always thought that tales of humans, if not entirely fantastical, were at the very least filled with imprecisions and exaggeration. But it seems there is yet room in our world for miracles! Just think, four hundred years!"

"Four hundred and twenty two, to be quite precise", the old elf confirmed.

"I can hardly believe it. Two dynasties have come and gone; the castle was taken by orcs, freed by the gnomes, gifted to the Dragonlords, changed hands time and time again - for half a century it even served as quarters to a succubi infantry battalion... and through it all, this human danced and danced. No sleep, no food, no rest!"

"That is not actually quite true", the old elf hastened to clarify once more. "He does occasionally eat, every seventy years or so. And he doesn't just break for food. If the family legends are true, Tom the Dancer may well be my own great-great-great-grandfather. Where else would my blue eyes have come from? Even during the last war - the allied forces would not have been able to liberate this castle so easily had the succubus commander not been occupied with Tom at the time... for the third day straight. When she was dragged from the alcove, she barely put up any resistance - she just hiccuped and kept trying to lick the guards' boots."

"That's just an old soldiers' tale", the young elf laughed. "Pure propaganda."

"No", the old one objected. "My father fought in that battle, he is a living witness."

"Well, perhaps, perhaps", the young one reluctantly conceded. "But then it is even more wondrous. How has he kept going all these... how long did you say, four hundred and twenty years?"

"Four hundred and twenty-two. Ever since the day he suddenly appeared in the middle of the royal ball and offered to show everyone how they dance in the human world. Of course, we don't know how old he was at that time. It is quite possible that he's lived that long again. Or more. He has barely changed over the centuries - he could as easily be a thousand years old, or three thousand."

"Madness!" The yound elf whistled, forgetting, in the moment, his noble manners. "I thought humans lived barely longer than elves. Seventy years, eighty, maybe a hundred at the most. But three thousand..."

"There is one theory, actually..." the old elf spoke slowly. "Since visitors from other worlds do not completely belong to our space and time, they interact with it more freely than do we. For them, our world is a little... mmm, subjective. In this way one might explain why the majority of demons, leprechauns, dragons and other aliens control powerful magics, inaccessible to us, simple eves. They are neither, strictly speaking, mages nor immortal. They unwittingly become both when they enter a world with a set of laws and a frame of reference to which they are not bound."

"So if I were, for instance, to be thrown into the world of the dragons - I too would become a great mage?" the young one asked excitedly.

"If Your Highness were to travel to the world of the dragons, you would promptly be eaten", the old elf smiled politely. "And as I said, it is merely a theory."

"Excuse me", a voice came from behind the young elf's back as someone gently touched his sleeve. "My throat is very dry, and for some reason there is neither water nor wine on the tables just now. Please, where might I find something to drink?"

The elf spun around, his eyes wide as saucers. Tom the Dancer stood before him, having broken off his dance and made it all the way around the hall, looking in all the jugs to find them empty, before anyone noticed. The young noble's retinue stood slack-jawed all around, gawping at the living legend.

"Uhhh...." The elf took a step back and glanced around helplessly. He had arrived here at this castle - that had become his property last week after a particularly lucky hand at cards - but an hour ago, and had not yet had time to take stock. Somewhere, of course, there must be water, and indeed wine cellars, left by the previous owners - but how to get to the cellars? And where was the castellan with the keys? He was there just a moment ago...

Tom waited patiently; he was thirsty. Before his indifferent, ice-blue eyes, the count felt uncomfortable. It is not every day that four history-filled centuries stand full height before you and tug your sleeve.
The old elf came to his rescue.

"That way", he pointed confidently towards the kitchen, where the cook that had come along from the count's own household was already clanging the newly unpacked pans. "Through there you are bound to find water, wine, ale - whatever you desire!"

"From the bottom of my heart I thank you." Tom gave an archaic bow, and rapidly retired in the direction indicated.

The elves stared at each other.

"The last time anything passed his lips was seventy years ago?", the young elf asked.

"No, barely half a century." The old one scratched his head. "My father told me that after parting with the lady captain, Tom drank a good pint of ale before he resumed his dance. Of course, one pint in fourty-eight years... one can see how his throat might be dry."

A woman's scream came from the kitchen, and a terrified cook emerged, running.

"There!", she shouted, pointing dumbly behind her. "I din't do nuffink! And he... And he..."

"What happened?", the old elf asked threateningly.

"I din't do nuffink!", the cook shouted once more. "'e said 'e wanted grub! And wine! An' I said, I said I dun't have eight hands, I said, or time to feed all the idlers, I said, and if he was that 'ungry, I said, then he could wait five minutes, and make 'isself useful while he was at it, I said, 'cus I need 'elp too, I dun' 'ave eight hands, I said already, and he took the knife, right, and he sat down, and he stared at it, right sorrowful, like, and then... oh, my lord, oh gods, and the beard, the beard, I wilna set a foot there no more, I dinna do nuffink, I dinna know him, I never seen him, I ain't to blame, don' kill me, it's him, it's all him hisself, the poor sod, I ain't to blame!"

Tom cursed the treachery of the pointy-eared race. He ought to have, should have guessed right away that all pleasure must have a price! And there it was, the payment. The dirty brown spiral of the potato peel curled slowly from the knife. The rough, incompetently cleaned spuds dully slapped into the panful of murky water. Minute streched after eternally long minute, and the monotonous, wearying work had no end.

Tom blinked; over the last few years, it had become harder and harder to see the dark spots of the potato eyes. His own eyes teared, his eternally bent back was agony; his hands shook and could barely hold the knife. The beer, promised to him a thousand years ago, never came; the accursed elves had abandoned him here, alone, and he would die in this meaningless cell, at this meaningless work, for his naivete and trust, and until he breathed his last he would pick over these eternal potatoes that never got any fewer in number however much he whittled at them with the knife, gods but he was tired...

Barely minutes passed as, disturbed by the cook's incomprehensible ranting, the young count ran into the kitchen, accompanied by a pair of stout servants. Tom was no longer there. All that remained of the great dancer was a dried skeleton, whitened by time, still holding a knife in one hand, and a half-peeled spud in the other; two more, fully prepared, lay abandoned in the pan.