One would think that being lost at sea in one ocean is very much like being lost at sea in any other ocean.  But there is a large difference between the Arctic and the Northern.  The Northern Ocean is considerably warmer.  Not warm by any means (about 45 degrees Fahrenheit), but warmer. 

Neik wondered if he was starting to get chilled.  If anything, the water felt warmer, although it was hard to tell.  Although it was summer, the sun had still not set, although it was hanging low over the horizon.  He must be very close to the north pole.  It was surprising that there wasn't ice floating in the water.  The ocean had become still, the wavelets mere ripples instead of yard high rollers.  Nothing disturbed the calm of the surface... or did it?

A dark shape was approaching from the direction of the sun.  Neik strained to see against the glare of the setting sun, but could only tell that it was not a boat.  He couldn't think of anything that was not a boat that would be helpful, but there was nothing that he could do.

In a few minutes, the shape had closed to within a hundred feet, and young Klass could see that it was a whale.  A very large whale.  Neik observed this with interest, since his shipmates had told him that whales were not necessarily a bad thing... although some of the smaller whales had teeth, and would take a fisherman's catch, if not the fisherman himself, were he to fall in the water.  This whale appeared to be of a larger type, so less likely to be interested in the boy as a snack.

It might not be interested in eating me, thought Neik as the whale headed straight for the sea chest on which he rode, but it might be curious, and knock him off the chest, and even drown him.

Abruptly, the whale surfaced, only feet from Neik, waves from the massive form rocking the chest.  Neik found himself face to eye with the whale.  The eyeball of the massive beast was larger than his head!  A massive rumble shook the water and air.  Was the whale trying to talk to him?

"Joorome asks if you are floating out here on purpose, or if you needed to get to land." a high pitch voice spoke from the other direction.  Neik turned his head, startled to hear anyone speaking.

"Who said that?" he didn't see anyone. "Am I going daft?"

"It's me, Amella.  I'm over here." the voice came again, from a slightly different direction than Neik had been looking.  "As far as you being daft... I wouldn't know about that."

Shifting his body around on the rocking chest, Neik was finally able to see who was addressing him.  It was... a very small person.  With wings.  Hovering a few feet away, over the water.  "Who.... what are you?"

Amella tittered. "I'm a water fairy, silly!  My name is Amella.  And that is my friend Joorome.  And he wants to know if you are adrift, or here on purpose."

Neik rubbed his eyes.  Amella appeared to be about six inches tall, and hovering using fluttering, butterfly like wings.  Her features were that of a pretty girl, and she appeared to be clothed in sea weed. "Er...  Pleased to meet you, Miss Amella.  Yes, I am here by misfortune.  My ship sank, and I think that I am the only one left alive."

Joorome blasted spray out of his vent hole, and grumbled another moan. "Jerome hasn't heard of any ship sinking around here for a while, but he says he would be happy to take you to land, if you want." Amella piped brightly.

Neik glanced from the fairy to the whale.  It stared back placidly with its huge eye. "Um... That would be very helpful, I would say.  That is, if he could do it without drowning me."

Another burbling grunt. "Oh, you've made him laugh." interpreted Amalla. "Why would he do that?  It would defeat the purpose of helping you.  If he wanted you to drown, he could have just left you here.  It’s entirely too far to land for you to swim, and there are no boats around."  Another moan. "Yes, and the water is very cold for people like you."

Neik considered this. "Well, yes then, thank you." He wondered was the whale would be able to do that would help.

As if in answer, the whale sank back under the water, and in a few moments Neik felt the sea chest rise up out of the water.  In moments, he found himself feet higher out of the water, the chest centered on the vast expanse of the whales back.  As they surged forward through the water, the Fairy alighted on the chest next to Neik.

​"Well, you can sit up now, if you like." she instructed. "You're not likely to upset your box with it sitting on Joorome's back.  It will take a while to reach where we're going."

"Where are we headed?" asked Neik. "Norway?  Iceland?"  He looked ahead, as if to see one of those lands.  But it seemed that they were headed north, and he knew of no land in that direction.

"Joorome says the land is called Evela by the people who live there." replied Amalla.

"Evala?  Is that where you come from?"

"Of course not silly!" the fairy giggled. "Fairies come from Neverland.  That is oh so much father, and in the other direction!" she waved of toward the south east.  "You're lucky that Joorome and I happened by.  Any other whale would have ignored you.  I'm the only fairy who comes this far out." she drew herself upright, proudly placing her little hand over her heart. "I am a scout!  The best there is!"

He didn't know what to say to this.  "Thank you then, Miss Amalla. I appreciate the courtesy.  My name is Neik Klass."

The tiny girl dimpled. "Nice to meet you, Neik Klass.  I would offer you something to eat, but I only have a few dewdrop cakes, and they wouldn't take care of your appetite, I am sure." she glanced in the direction they were going. "And I'm sure that you'll be able to get something on Evala.  Joorome seemed pretty certain of it."

Neik glanced in that direction.  A low shadow had appeared on the horizon.  It grew quickly at the whale's speed through the water.  The land appeared to be a dark, forested land, with a rocky beach.  Finally, a hundred yards from the shore, their forward motion stopped, and Joorome sank beneath them, leaving the chest rocking in the swell.

"That's as far as Joorome can take you." said Amella. "He can't go in the shallow water.  But he says the current should take you in to the beach in a little while, so you won't have to get in the water much."  Fluttering her little wings, the fairy flew in the direction of the whale, who had surfaced fifty feet to seaward. "Good luck Neik Klass!"  With a glimmer, she was gone.

Neik gazed at the forbidding landscape as the chest drifted slowly closer to the shore of Evela.  The heavy evergreen forest came right up to the shore, with only a narrow boundary of gravelly beach separating the last trees from the water.  The debris from the waves wasn't much higher than the gentle waves against the shore, which told Neik that tide was probably in at the moment.

The sea chest finally bumped against the gravel of the bottom, coming to rest about ten feet out from the edge of the water.  Neik considered jumping, but then reconsidered when he thought of the cold water.  Instead, he waited, and after a time, saw that the tide had turned, as was going out, leaving the chest behind.  As he waited for the sea to retreat, he studied the forest.

As ominous as it had seemed from a distance, the forest didn't seem all that bad up close.  The trees were primarily spruce, pine, and hemlock, with a few leafy birch mixed in, but the wood wasn’t particularly dense or forbidding.  Low lying shrubs filled in the gaps between the trees, promising Neik a difficult march to travel up from the shore.

Eventually, the sea retreated, leaving Neik’s makeshift raft on the pebbled beach.  Groaning slightly as he slid off the chest, Neik opened the lid on the chest to see what he had been traveling on.

The lid of the chest flipped open to reveal sacks of salted herring, the salty dried fish tied in ten pound bags of oiled sail cloth.  The sight of the oily treasure caused Neik’s stomach to rumble in a reminder that he hadn’t eaten in a day or two.  Pulling one of the bags from the chest, he untied the cord holding the cloth closed and grabbed one of the salty slabs of fish.

Chewing on the meat of the herring, Neik considered his resources.  There was no telling how long he might need the herring before finding other food or rescue, so he would have to preserve the chest. He also considered moving the chest further up the beach, but it was a large chest, and he would have to empty it to be able to drag it any distance. Instead, he wedged a few larger stones on the down slope side of the chest in the hope that the next high tide would not wash it away.

Taking one of the sacks out of the chest, and closing the lid to preserve the remainder from any weather, Neik plunged into the forest.  As he had guessed, the tangle of brambles blocking easy progress and grabbing at the oilskin trews covering his legs.  He noticed as he struggled through the canes that they were blackberry, although not yet in fruit.  It was apparent that there was food to be had here, so he wouldn’t have to depend entirely on the fish.

A dozen yards into the forest, the trees began to grow larger, and the ground cover thinned, leaving a heavy carpet of pine needles and dead wood as the only cover between the trunks.  An occasional call of a bird was the only sound to break the hushed silence that had replaced the swish of the ocean surf.

Trekking through the woods, the young man glanced around, trying to notice any memorable trees that he could use as land marks, should he ever need to return to his landing place.  Unfortunately, the boles of each tree seemed like every other, and Neik was unsure that he would be able to retrace his path.  The occasional clearing provided some variation, but one clearing was much like another.  The direction of the sun wasn’t much help either, since this land was so far north that the sun never set, and south was more a matter of opinion than fact.

Neik had continued in this manner for an hour or so, covering two or three miles in what he hoped was a generally straight direction when he emerged into another clearing.  However, this one was different, since it was a plowed field.  A small house of trimmed logs lay on the far side of the field.

Being careful not to trample the garden, Neik walked down the rows of potatoes, cabbage, and other vegetables to approach the house. “Hello!  Is there anyone there?”

​“I am here, man.” A voice called from behind him.  “I’ll thank you for not stepping on my crops.  What is it you want?”

Neik whirled around to see a small person standing on the tree line to one side of where Neik had entered the clearing.  This person held a short bow, an arrow strung, although not aimed at Neik.  “Pardon sir, I was crew on a ship that went down in the sea.  I was fortunate to have been on a chest of ship’s stores that washed ashore near here.”

The small bowman stared at Neik for a few moments before returning the arrow to the neat quiver slung over his shoulder. “Sorry lad.  I thought you might be one of those rambunctious young men from the village.  It’s not close… about 30 miles from here, but they sometimes come this far for mischief.  I am Bernard.”

As the Bernard approached, Neik studied him closely.  Although he was obviously older than Neik, Bernard was only a little over five feet tall.  He was dressed in homespun wool and leather boots.  Bernard wore a brimless, floppy hat on his head, long dark hair streaming to his shoulders.  His ears peaked through the hair… and they were slightly pointed.

“You’re an elf!” exclaimed Neik.  He’d heard of such things, although it was always folk tales, and never from someone’s direct observation.

“I am not!” exclaimed Bernard hotly, moving to draw an arrow back out of his quiver. “I am Bernard.”  He paused, considering this statement. “But then, if you are a castaway, you don’t know what that is, do you?”

Neik shook his head mutely. “I meant no offense, good sir.  I saw your ears, and I mistook you for an elf from the old tales.”

Bernard put the arrow away again.  “Apology accepted, lad, and no harm done.  Come in my cabin and we will have some tea, and I will explain.” He led the way into the small cabin and motioned Neik to a rough bench.  “I said that I am Bernard.  Perhaps I should have said that I am a Bernard.”  He paused as he built up a fire in a small brick oven, and then poured water from a jug into a small pot of metal.  “A Bernard is a person with one parent elvish, as you suggested, and the other human, like yourself.”

Neik considered this explanation.  “I would guess that the term ‘half elf’ would be inappropriate.”

Bernard slowly removed two cups from a shelf, and set them on a table near the bench. “You would be correct.  Bernard is polite.  That other term is insulting, and I thank you not to use it.” He waved away Neik’s apology.  “I do not blame you.  You don’t know better.”