The shuttle kissed the face of the planet with a soft hum. The ramp lowered to the grass, and four short figures descended, the warm afternoon sun glistening off their moonsteel armor.
Immediately, the trees parted before them as a stampede of long legs and pointy ears rushed into the field.
“Colonel Phrónēsis!” cried the elven king. He ran ahead of his people like the tip of a spear. “My good friend, it has been far too long since your kind last graced our world!”
The figures tore off their helmets, beards filling their armor suits like waterfalls of wool. “Hail! Claudius an’ denizens o’ ter wood!” the colonel said while knocking on his breastplate in salute. But the welcoming elven lord wrapped his wiry arms around the dwarf. Phrónēsis burned red but returned the gesture.
“Have you come bearing gifts as you did last time?” Claudius asked with a smile. His face shone yellow in the rays of the sun. “You know you promised!”
Phrónēsis laughed. “Aye, an’ yeh not one ter lemme ferget, tha’s fer sure. Now, put out yer hand, an’ close yer eyes!”
Claudius quickly did so and waited until he felt something cool pressed against his open palm. He gasped, already jittering with excitement. “Is it . . . is it . . . ?”
“Yeh can open ’em now, m’lord!” Phrónēsis said. “Well? Watcha think, eh?”
When Claudius flung his eyes open, his mouth dropped like a hatch. “A dragoncrystal from the asteroid belt of the Seventh Sun! Oh, how could you!”
“T’wasn’t easy, let me tell yeh! Not wit’ the fiery serpents on the prowl an’ all. But the lads an’ I managed. Now, what abou’ yer end o’ the bargain, eh, Claud? What abou’ summa that famous ol’ elfgin!”
“Of course!” Claudius flicked his hand in the breeze, and a merry gathering of elves staggered forth with metal barrels that gave a hollow slosh from within. With the colonel’s nod, they boarded the shuttle and came back out with chocolate-covered dwarftzels in hand.
“A treat fer the workin’ class,” Phrónēsis said with a wink.
Claudius held the crystal up, squinting with a smile brighter than the sun. “I shall place this in my crown. A sign to all that the dwarf will always have a place at the elf’s table!”
Phrónēsis grinned widely. “Well, we be runnin’ a tight schedule. A few more del’veries in the outer rim—dark elves, always keepin’ ter ’emselves—but we be back in time fer supper . . . we are invited, aren’t we?”
“Aren’t you ever!” Claudius gave a shrill laugh.
The colonel nodded to his three companions, and they returned to the shuttle, hurling wave after wave down the rising ramp. The thrusters roared to life, and the shuttle lifted off the ground.
Claudius waved a temporary farewell as the dwarves vanished into the clouds. His smile vanished too when he noticed the cameras aimed at him from across the field. Cameras armed by reporters from the Cretin News Network, Never Bias Company, and Faux News.
“Gods of Light,” Claudius muttered grimly. “Preserve us!”
Meanwhile on Earth . . .
“ . . . a high of seventy today with a 12 percent chance of rain.”
“Thank you, Weatherman,” said the barbie-faced reporter, swiveling in her seat to meet the new camera angle. “We have breaking news that the bearded little peoples have invaded the native fairy planet Goldleaf!”
Gasps could be heard in the studio.
“Our crew will now play the footage . . .
“As you can see, a little peoples spacefighter aggressively lands on an innocent meadow. Then an army of vertically challenged gunmen storm the whole planet.
“The fairy king leads a peaceful resistance out of the trees and heroically throws himself at the little people army. But the little people put what our military experts believe to be ‘a bomb and a deadly weapon’ in the king’s hand, holding him hostage, and they are now probably making extreme demands.
“The fairies are coerced into giving the little peoples their entire planet’s water supply in barrels. This could dry up all the streams—oh, just think of all the poor, stranded river nymphs!
“The little peoples then make several violent, anti-fairy gestures as they board their spacefighter before blasting off, drowning the fairies in poisonous fuel exhaust. We have a health expert who claims that there might be a chance that the chemicals possibly released in those fumes could maybe cause numerous health problems for the fairies perhaps some millennia from now.
“Let’s go to one of our reporters on the ground. Parker? How do things look down there?”
“Suzie, the little peoples have impolitely fired the first shot, and the fairies seem to be pleasantly preparing their last supper before they all become refugees, but—oh, wait! They’re coming back! Look! The little peoples are coming! The little peoples are coming!”
The camera zoomed in on a shuttle as it sunk into the field.
“Excuse me! Little peoples! Little peoples!” The camera chased the reporter across the field, closing in on Colonel Phrónēsis who turned around, a rifle caressed in his stubby arms.
“Whoops!” the cameraman could be heard saying. The screen fell face first to the ground, now a cockeyed view of a clumsy pair of sneakers.
The screen cut back to a stunned barbie face in the newsroom. “And the bearded little peoples have just shot our cameraman . . .”
This story was a writing exercise based on the following prompt: Elves and dwarves have actually been friends for millennia, but the media on Earth has depicted otherwise.
