An Elf On Earth

Chapter one: Getting used to the change.

It had been until late at night that I had waited to see if John came back from the 'hospital' he was headed for to have his arm healed. But he did not return before my tiredness overtook me and I went to the room with the flimsy crates I had helped him move and lay down to sleep.

While my worries kept me half awake, I heard the door's lock click and several footsteps inside. "Daisia... you still awake?" His voice whispered and I sat upright on the mattress and called back. "Yeah, I tried to get some rest, but I was a little worried your trip to the healers took so long. How did they heal your arm?" While I said that, I still wore the clothes he had loaned me, sleeping in these pants was nowhere near comfortable so I rose to my feet and left the room.

When I noticed John's arm, it was wrapped in a thick white hard sort of, armor? He looked awkward with it and his arm was stuck in an uncomfortable position and suspended in a rag of thin cloth.

"What did those healers do to you? That doesn't look anywhere near useful after healing?" I replied and he gave a slight laugh at my question.

"Sit down for a moment, do you drink? You know alcohol?" He asked and I gave him a weird look. "Why wouldn't I drink, and alcohol is no problem. My village had a steady flow of a wine exporter running his trade by our village so we had enough wine most of the times." I replied and he gave a quick glance. "Right fantasy world... Quick question. More law here being alcohol only after twenty one years of age... are you? I don't want to be responsible for getting a minor drunk. Just to be sure..." He seemed a little awkward about that. Then again I guess asking a girl her age is a difficult thing everywhere and me being an elf doesn't make it any easier for him from the looks of it.

"Yeah... seventy-four so I'm pretty sure I'm of 'drinking age' then." I replied and John dropped something he had picked from a cabinet. A metallic clank rang through the room and he turned with a look of disbelief in his eyes.

"You've gotta be shitting me... you're seventy-four...? That makes you... no, John bad... don't say it... she's an elf of course she looks young..." He replied and began to talk to himself for a moment before he returned to the sofa with two metal tubes.

"Sorry I don't have wine, I do have cold beers..." He said while handing me one of the tubes. He pulled back the lid on top of his a little and the scent of beer filled my nostrils as a bit of the foam burst forth from the top of the tube, before he punched a large hole in it with the lid he had lifted.

At my confused gazes he offered to help me with mine and explained how to open it, which went surprisingly easy. It was like I had a small cooled metal keg of beer in hand with a tool build onto it for opening the plug and you seem to drink it like that.

With a swig I tried it and the taste was similar to the expensive beer my teacher had bought occasionally years ago. "Well... you seem to have a lot to learn. I realized that much with the entire bathroom thing." John began to talk and gave some simple explanations, but with most things I had to ask more to even comprehend the entire thing he was trying to explain. For example he started with the healers he had visited.

"They don't heal your wounds immediately. We simply can't do that here. I was already amazed when you softly spoke a few words and a glow enveloped your hands and you sealed those cuts so easily. We don't have healing magic like that. Instead, we have medicine. We can help the body heal on its own, but that's all. So my broken arm had to be set. I have stitches under this cast to seal the wound where the bone stuck from it, and the cast helps the bones heal properly over time." His explanations there were simple enough.

"So do they also give you potions to help it heal faster?" I simply asked as soon as I thought of it, and he shook his head. "No unfortunately not. Medicine here is only able to give a few pills that can help your body recover from certain illnesses but most injuries you need to heal on your own. Broken bones you have some additional things but mostly when a limb needs to be fixed like a sprain of something broken, you just have it fixed in a safe position to help it heal properly." He remained calm but I felt uneasy. This world clearly had a completely different way they worked.