Malrme'n
by J. Robertson

        The day that Malrme'n met Ayst was a day, for most people, like
any other day in the country northwest of Gulluins. But for Malrme'n, no two
days were exactly alike. Each passing day of her fifteen years had some
special significance. A few of them sad - like the day that her Grandmother had
died; a few of them filled with exceptional happiness - like the day when her
elder brother Feldn'r had been accepted at the university; but most of them
were filled with the simple enjoyments of a young life surrounded by romantic
forests and picturesque rural scenes. Malrime'n was no farmer's daughter,
though. Her father made his money in the city - enough to support the family
in a medium-sized house that had several generations earlier been the nucleus
of a medium-sized plantation. The reasons that Mr. Naluain gave for this kind
of life usually revolved around the old cliches of the corrupting influence of
urban life on children and the superiority for health reasons of clean country
air. Malrime'n had not been to the city enough times to know much about
corrupting influences, but she did agree that it was far better to be out in
the open where one can breathe. When she was not at the country school, she
spent her time reading famous works of prose and poetry, almost anything
that appealed to a thinking mind or an energetic soul. When the weather was
fair, she would carry her books in a little sack to some remote stream or
abandoned pasture to read in solitude, surrounded by the sounds of the birds.
In spring she would often go without shoes, and wade through chilly water and
clean sand to sit on a tiny island in the midst of a certain rivulet. When the
rain prevented her from journeying outdoors, she would sit in her room with
the window open, with only the thin metal screen to keep out the water. Thus
her eyes would enjoy the written word while her ears picked up the rythm of
the droplets on the screen, her skin felt the cool moisture of the breeze
through the window, and her nose soaked up the scent of wet plants outside.
        And yet to most people, the most fateful day (even though she did
not beleive in fate) of Malrme'n's young life seemed to begin like any other
ordinary day in spring. Father woke up before sunrise to head into town.
Mother often said that it wasn't natural for a man to commute such a distance,
but Father actually enjoyed the long ride every morning. It helped to remind
him that the world was not tiny. Mother woke Malrme'n and her younger brother
Dalroc and saw to it they were washed, dressed, and fed before sending them on
the considerable walk to the country school. Dalroc invariably found his
little gang of companions, and proceeded on all manner of harmless misceif on
the way to school. Malrme'n walked alone. The fact that Malrme'n was not a
popular girl bothered Mother more than it bothered Malrme'n. She was certainly
pretty enough to have attracted many admirers among the young men and many
friends among the young ladies, and she was not really what one could call
"shy". She simply didn't seem to care much for company, and appeared to take
little notice, one way or the other, of the social world she was not part of.
Mother saw to it that she wore the nicest of clothes - though she suspected
justifiably that if left to her own judgement Malrme'n would go to school
wearing clothes fit only (in Mother's opinion) for such things as housework
and walking alone in the backyard. Mother even tried making her go to a few
parties, but it was obvious that Malrme'n didn't enjoy these at all.
        But Ayst was another matter altogether. He was tall, thin, and
intense-looking. He family had just moved into the area, and he was new at
school. The first time Malrme'n saw him, she did not know what
to think of him. There was something about him that was unlike any of the
other young men, not about his looks as such but about the way he wore them.
The first time she HEARD him, when he introduced himself to the class, was
when she knew. As Ayst was not merely a newcomer, but had been an
exceptional student at his last school, and because the thought of
proceeding to teach the class the history of the Manultulian Wars was not
very tempting, the instructor had insisted that Ayst stand up and give a
lengthy talk about who he was, where he came from, and what he though. Ayst had
welcomed the opportunity to speak his mind, and stood before the class and
spoken, in textbook Stofonian, with a real Stof accent :
        "My name is Ayst Ibinstan. I live with my Grandmother because my
mother died when I was born and because my father was killed at sea when I was
small. Grandmother and I have moved here from Gulluins because of her health.
We are provided for by my late Grandfather's will, but I intend to find a job
here just as I had one in the City. I do not wish to live like a parasite on
my Grandmother. I enjoy the great writers, especially Kulstof and Alotan. My
favorite poet, however, is Dvrenocal, who wrote mostly in the Old Elorpal
language. I do not really think any of these writers knew much about
metaphysics, and thus I have decided to study philosophy in order to learn
the things that novels and poems can't teach. I will be looking forward to
going to the Imperial University at Gulluins next year...."
        Ayst went on while much of the class became bored and Malrme'n
began to melt. It was not merely the words, but the sense of life that they
conveyed across the room that excited Malrme'n. He WAS different from all the
overgrown farmboys and rural gentlemen she had ever met. He was a man of the
mind. He was a poet, a philosopher, a god that was too noble to be worshipped -
an idol that one aspires to sit equal with as the ultimate tribute.
She saw in him not merely that oft-talked-about "kindred spirit" that so
many seek out in their struggle through life, not merely the perfect male
counterpart to herself, not just a man who was what she was, but a man who
was what she wanted herself to be. Of course, she found him exceedingly
handsome and attractive like no other. Of course she wanted his body to
touch hers. Of course she wanted him in all the ways a carnal teenager can
want another carnal teenager. But that was only the effect and the symbol of
what she felt. The state of mind she wanted so to share with him was the
cause and the substance of it. For years she had heard girls talk about
boys, how they liked them, how they "loved" them, how they drove them crazy.
Malrme'n had never quite understood it, and had assumed that they must have
been making it up. To her, Romance was a high and mighty concept in the
books she read, and could not possibly be something that her silly
classmates could actually participate in. She certainly didn't see anything
worth loving in the boys at her school, even the ones that she had to admit
were physically attractive. Now, she was absolutely SURE that the girls had
been making it up. It was impossible that any of them could have ever felt
anything like this.
        As for Ayst, as his speech grew longer and longer he noticed that few
students were paying any attention to his discussion of his worldview, and
that even fewer understood it. In fact even the instructor seemed to have a
look on his face that said "hurry up and get it over with". Only one, a girl
seated slighly to his left, seemed to have her eyes fixed on him and her
mind eagerly digesting what he had to say. Wanting a living being to talk
to, he began to look at her as he spoke as if he were addressing her alone.
He smiled at her and she smiled back. At one point he winked. It was only
when she winked back that he realised that he was also looking at her
because he found her strangely alluring. Ayst had never had much luck with
females, though he had tried to get dates many times. He was sharing his
thoughts with her, and he didn't really care what anybody else might think
because nobody else was listening. He was imagining what she would look like
naked, and then thought that naked was what he felt like he was. But he
wanted her to see him, and he knew nobody else was looking. The more he looked
into hear deep, dark, eyes, the more he saw his reflection, and the more
beatiful she was to him. Her golden-brown hair fell lightly about her
shoulders, in contrast to the pent-up hair-do that was fashionable. Her dress
was soft and smooth, and made her skin appear even softer and smoother. He
could not help noticing her breasts beneath the cloth, nor could he resist
the action of following the shape of her leg inside the skirt down to where,
somewhere between the knee and ankle, her bare skin emerged. Her legs were
seemingly flawless, devoid of both hair and imperfections of the skin. If it
had been cooler, she would have been wearing hose, and he was glad for
this warm day. The ends of her toes, looking like little pink beans, protruded
out through her open-ended shoes. She flexed her foot slightly upward, and for
an instant he thought it was a signal to his eyes to return to her face again.
        As they stared into each other's eyes, Malrme'n wanted to tell him
what she felt, she wanted to quote every love poem she had read, she wanted
to sing every love song she had heard, but none of them would be enough. She
wanted to somehow tell him, but there were no words. The old poems were as
close as one could come. She hoped he would understand, and in his mind he
was hoping the same thing.
        When his speech was finished, Ayst sat down in at a desk opposite
Malrme'n, so they were facing each other. For the next hour, they had to
sit while the instructor explained the fine points of the economic policies of
Binalon the Great while the Tijilst were seiging Elos, and how these were
the model for those later intituted by Emporer Rostoff III in keeping
Olgapurj free of barbarians. Then there came time to change classes, and
Malrme'n knew that she had to speak to him, and during the time that she had
been waiting she had filled her mind with all manner of things to say that
would impress his mind and win his heart. But now she nearly forgot what to
do, but not completely, for she remembered something.... she could speak
Old Elorpal, or at least she had knew its grammar well enough. The
pronunciation would mostly likely be far from correct, but she was
determined to say something. She approached him as he was collecting his
notes to leave and said what she assumed was Old Elorpal for "Welcome to our
school. I am Malrme'n."
        "You are very lovely, Malrme'n, it is a pleasure to see that you
speak the language of Dvrenocal, even though with your accent it is hard to
tell if you are welcoming me to your school or to your wharf-rat." He spoke
in Gullenic, trying to fight back the urge to make love to her right there.
        Of course Malrme'n spoke Gullenic and Stofonian and, had also learned
Elosian from her own reading in addition to Old Elorpal, so that altogether she
could read and understand four languages, but was only sure of pronunciation in
two of them. What was impressive was the fact that Ayst spoke Gullenic so
fluently. His name and accent told her that his language background was
Stofonian - the Imperial language, the international language, the one language
spoken almost everywhere. It was natural that while living in Gulluins he
would have picked up some Gullenic, but he had apparently gone through the
effort to master it. He could apparently master anything as far as she knew.
The mere thought of it made her want to throw her arms around him. Instead they
had a conversation in several languages on their way to Mathematics class, where
they were instructed in Ordinff's method of area integration. By this time
each of them was well aware that the other felt the same way.