Elf Salon ~ featured elf
The Elf Salon spotlights different elves from the Gallery and tells the stories of my encounters with them. It will be updated periodically, so please check back the next time you're in the neighborhood. The Salon is now featuring:
Findruinna
Fire-keeper
I find myself standing in the palatial entrance way of a very rich home — a mansion, at the least, judging from the size of its foyer. The decor is richly impressive — marble floors and columns, enormously high ceiling, and an enormous, elegant spiraling staircase. There are many mirrors, some beautiful and distinctive sculptural art pieces and a gilding — pretty much everywhere. The effect of so much gold and reflected light is dazzling. The decorative style seems somehow both very old and relatively modern at the same time. If I were to makeup a name for it, I might call it something like "medieval deco."
Before I have a chance to do more than glance around, she appears at the top of the staircase and begins to flow down to me. She is wearing some kind of fluttering, golden gown that matches the decor of the place.
Immediately I feel her sense of barely leashed exuberance. Judging from appearances, she is in mid-adolescence, perhaps 14 or 15 years old. Her signature quality is one of sparkling effervescence.
She seems to know and even to be expecting me. She interrupts my self-introduction, saying impatiently, "Yes, yes, yes, I know. I know all about it." She continues to cut me off and laughingly leads me through some doors at one side of the hall into a small, richly appointed parlor.
"I know why you’re here," she is saying. "Just wait. I’ll show you." She waves me into a chair and excitedly hands me a small metal pyramid that is sitting on a table in front of it. She lites on another chair and watches expectantly.
Not knowing what else to do, I examine the pyramid she has handed me. It is intricately fashioned from some kind of metal. The metal is treated in some way that marbles it with rich, shimmering, iridescent color — red, and copper and blue. It reminds me a little of a pair of titanium earrings I once had. This metal is much thicker and heavier than those earrings, however. It is crafted in an unusual way, so that the edges of each of the four sides do not meet cleanly, but curve around each other in an ornate flame-like design. It is exquisite but I have no idea what to make of it. I look back at Findruinna with my questions.
She happily takes the pyramid from me, and flutters her hands about it too rapidly for me to catch what she is doing. Like a puzzle-box, it opens but in a most peculiar way. It opens along an invisible diagonal line. The bottom half of the diagonal remains whole and solid, while the top half separates into three parts, like a flower unfolding its petals. She turns the box so that I can see into the opening. Inside there trembles a small golden flame.
"I know. I know. Don’t worry, I’ll show you," she says again, excited and happy, forestalling my questions.
She sets the open pyramid-box back down on the carved wood table and carefully reaches into it. She withdraws her hand and holds it out so that I can see the golden flame dancing on her palm. She moves her palm close to her face and watches as the flame glides to and fro upon her hand. She murmurs softly to it, caressing it gently with one finger of her other hand, as if fondling a tiny pet.
She looks at me again and laughs. "It’s the Flameheart." she says breathlessly, and forestalls me again with ,"Wait. Just wait and see."
She turns and tosses the flame — the Flameheart — towards the back of the room, where it lands on a large square mat — rather like a fireproof exercise mat — that has been laid out on the floor.
At once the flame grows larger, stretching until it is as tall as she is. As it grows, its gold color diffuses into a pale yellow-white at the edges, with a heart of deep blue-violet at its center. She stands next to it on the mat. "Watch," she commands, as she steps into the enlarged flame. It surrounds her completely, a dainty golden figure enveloped by pale gold light and then — she disappears.
I jump to my feet, not knowing which way to turn, afraid to take my eyes off the flame. I open my mouth to call out to her when she reappears in the center of the flame, calmly stepping out of it as she opens her eyes and smiles radiantly at me. "I’ve just been to your world, to a place called 'New York'," she announces proudly. "It’s raining there."
She shakes a few droplets of rain from her hair and laughs delightedly — a warm melodious sound — at my expression. Then she holds out her hand and the flame obediently shrinks to its small size and leaps back to her palm. She carefully places it back in the pyramid-box and closes it, gesturing for me to sit once more.
Findruinna explains that the Flameheart is part of her heritage — a kind of magical family treasure. She comes from a well-known family of magic-workers and "fire keepers." She has been learning how to use the Flameheart to travel between the worlds. Through the flame, she can travel to anyplace where there is fire. "That’s an awful lot of places," she says with a laugh.
Somewhat dazedly, I agree that it must be. She laughs again, and goes on to tell me that she used to visit me in my studio. When I wonder how she happened to find me, she somewhat sheepishly admits that it was a result of unauthorized — and potentially dangerous — experimentation with the Flameheart. She was taught that it was always necessary to have a clear destination in mind when using the Flameheart, but she wanted to see what would happen if she traveled without one, just letting the Flameheart take her where it would. She ended up in my basement, and returned several times to watch me from the flame of a candle that I often lit when I worked.
"You don’t do that anymore," she says sounding disappointed. "Why not?"
I explain that I have a new young cat — a kitten really — who can’t yet be trusted around an open flame. This doesn’t seem to make much of an impression on Findruinna, and I find myself promising to light a candle for her when I go home.
I ask how she knew that I was coming to visit her, and she says that she didn’t know, but she always hoped I would. She says she knows the Flameheart must have had some reason for bringing her to me, so she guessed I would find my way to her when the time was right.
I thank her for talking to me and showing me the Flameheart. I promise again that I will light a candle for her and invite her to visit me any time.