Bradley the baker.

with all the other incentives for Bjorn's future happiness in the reserve, there was a single person who, more than any other brought Bjorn fully back to his old self. A young and playful elf, named Bradley. Bjorn could never forget the day Korok came excitedly to him to announce that he’d found the best cook for the settlement. When he first set eyes on the lively, little, brick red gnome he knew this was one very special elf. A cook and baker of the finest talents, he was a Kellon Elf whose father had died in a cave in and whose mother had been killed when he was quite young, by Kensen pirates while she was out in the fields taking Bradley for a picnic. Bradley’s mother had hidden him in the crags of the rocks before the Kensen caught up to her. He lay there alone for days, and was near death when Eek hunters stumbled across him in the rocks. Knowing they could not take him back to the Kellon who would kill an infant with out mother and father, as was tradition with these rugged elves, they carried him instead to the summer meetings and gave him to the Queen Mother of the Elosian. The Elosian took in orphaned elves regularly, no matter what sort they were, raising them and placing them with families who had no children. 1

Bradley, though bigger and far stronger than his Elosian playmates had become a favorite of everyone in the Elosian community where he was raised and living there he had become a very different sort of fellow. Where Kellon were usually silent, preferring to communicate with telepathy developed through many generations of silent labor in the mines, making only grunts and mono syllable speech when necessary, Bradley sang and played games like any Elosian child. He took to writing poetry at a very young age. He was an excellent poet and talked in rhyme much of the time. From a very early age, Bradley had followed his father off to work each day, cutting moss sod which the Elosians used to carpet their trails and dress their homes in. The Elosians lived in huge fungus clusters, which were naturally carved out by a gigantic snow white moles living beneath the soil in the Spinea. When these fungi were surrounded by the moss, which burrowed into the pliable skin, they became living creatures, filled with roots which fed on the shell of the fungi and, through a commensalism, produced flowering specimens which defied the imagination with their beauty. The men folk provided this necessary service to keep their homes protected from the freezing weather of the highest reaches of the Spinea Mountains, where they lived in seclusion. Bradley, carried more sod moss than any grown Elos Elf and would have gladly gone on doing so, had his mother not shown him how to bake cakes one afternoon.2

A natural in the kitchen, Bradley soon abandoned his father’s business to work in the kitchen. He became not only a fine baker and cook, but could paint with dyes made from butterfly wings collected each fall before the butterflies burrowed into the soil and wrapped themselves in silk for winter hibernation. The young elves, assigned this task would bring home bags filled with red, yellow, blue and violet butterfly wings from which the powder was soaked off in hot water cauldrons by the women folk. Then, the silk, spun by the butterflies, after they shed their wings, was extracted from the burrows, abandoned by their creators when the butterflies emerged each spring, and the chrysalises were unwound, the thread woven into silk cloth and the dyes used to color them. Bradley however used this dye mixed with a fine sweet sap to create icing for his cakes and pastries. While his pastries were highly favored by the elves, they were also sold in market place, as a novelty which soon had customers coming from all over the realm. 3

Bradley had taken a job in the camps, during the war and had there met Korok. The little Elf was a favorite of the Eek for his sprightly demeanor and his talent with food. Korok and he had become fast friends and it wasn’t hard for Korok to encourage him to come to the settlement to bake and cook for the Rangers. He was given a complete kitchen and turned out the finest breads, pastries and his prized apple dumplings, which the apple orchards near by provided the tastiest fruits for. 4

Enamored by Bradley, Bjorn spent his days with his new friend and they became inseparable. Bradley taught Bjorn to bake and to make Bjorn’s favorite apple dumplings. Bjorn put in young apple trees, adding to those already growing about his home, determined to grow the finest apples in Atoz. He also planted young vines and heavy crops of grapes were soon growing thick in his vineyard. These were used to make wine and with the addition of a distillery, excellent brandy made of grapes, apples and pears. Many nights were spent over good food and enough wine and brandy to keep everyone in good spirits, with Bradley always the merriest of the lot. 5

The children all loved him and the women brought him enough fresh garden vegetables, eggs from their rookeries and fruits and berries from the orchards and fields to keep him well stocked for his excellent dinners he provided in the ever present festival atmosphere that typified life in the settlement. Bjorn and Korok were a hit with the ladies and Bradley was their ever present third, entertaining the children with his antics while they squired their mothers about the settlement the envy of all the rest of the rangers. 6