Pumuckl and the Staff by chrissystriped

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Pumuckl and the Staff

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Meister Eder looked up from his work when the door opened. A man with copper hair and an impressive beard came in. He was tall, his head almost touching the ceiling.

“I have a thing to repair here”, he said in a dialect that sounded almost but not quite right for Munich. “I wondered, if you might be able to help.”

Eder threw a look at the boat swing that had stopped swinging — a sign that Pumuckl was interested and up to God knew what.

“What do you have?”

The man put the three sticks he’d had tucked under his arm on Eder’s workbench. He could see now that it were three pieces of a staff, about two meters in length, if it were whole. It was white, the head intricately carved.

“Pumuckl”, he hissed, when a few strands of the man’s shoulder-length hair lifted up.

“Can you make it whole again?”, the man asked, seemingly oblivious to the kobold’s antics.

Eder looked at the pieces critically. The wood was cracked cleanly, there seemed to be no fissures down the length of the staff.

“I can try, but it’ll never be as sturdy as before”, he warned. “You might not want to trust it with your weight.” He put a firm hand on top of one of the pieces before Pumuckl could roll it off the workbench.

“That’s alright. It has… you might say a spiritual worth. When can you finish it?”

“I’ll have it done by next week, Herr…”

“Aule, just Aule.”

A high wail could be heard from on top of a cabinet and a bunch of boards fell over, clattering loudly.

“I’ll be back next week.” Aule left to the sound of things falling over.

“Pumuckl, stop it!” Eder snapped and tried to catch the kobold who was jumping around the workshop furiously. “No! He must not come back!”, he screeched. “The traitor. He’ll destroy everything!”

Eder finally got hold of him before he could turn the workshop into complete chaos. “Come on, Pumuckl. He’s done nothing to you.”

“Oh, he has. He left me! He abandoned me!”

Eder shook his head. “Let’s go upstairs. I’ll make you chocolate pudding.”

Pumuckl seemed to calm down as soon as he was out of the workshop and ignored Aule’s staff pointedly for the rest of he week.

Eder wondered what was up with it, but he didn’t ask. Pumuckl never answered questions about the time before he’d come to him, Eder didn’t know, if it was because he didn’t remember or if he wanted to forget it.

He looked towards the return of Aule with apprehension. He’d often seen Pumuckl furious, but usually he knew the reason, however silly it seemed to him.

 

Pumuckl was eerily silent and that worried Eder more than a tantrum. Aule let his hand run over the length of the staff. The places where it had been broken where still visible, but he didn’t complain.

“I hear, you have a kobold living with you?”, he said so matter of factly that Eder had said yes, before he could think twice about it. “Is he here right now?”

“I don’t know. He’s only visible when I’m alone with him. I’m sorry, but he’s angry with you for some reason.”

Aule chuckled. “Oh, I’m not surprised about that. Curumo”, he said, letting his eyes roam about the room. “Come on, talk to me.” He leaned the staff against the workbench and took a step back. “This is yours again, if you want it, Curumo.”

“His name is Pumuckl”, Eder said, realising that the strange word must be a name. “Maybe you are looking for someone else? This staff seems too big for him.”

“Maybe. But it is his." Aule continued to look around for a sign that he'd been heard. "I convinced the other Valar, you can come home. You don’t know how long I’ve worked for this. I’m sorry, if you felt abandoned.”

The silence was deafening. Finally, Aule sighed.

“I’ll leave it here, for him. I’ll pay you for your work, of course.”

Eder tried to refuse the money. If this staff indeed belonged to his Pumuckl, he did not want to be paid for it, but Aule insisted. Before he left, he said: “Any time, Curumo — or Pumuckl, if you wish. Your exile is over.”

 

Pumuckl stood at the window and watched Aule walk across the yard when he became visible again.

“He’s from your past”, Eder said and it was not a question.

“Yes”, Pumuckl said softly.

“Do you want to go with him?”

Eder felt a tug at his heart at the thought of Pumuckl leaving him. He’d gotten used to the kobold over the years and it would be very lonely without him. Pumuckl looked at him, then at his bed and the boat swing, before his eyes locked on the staff.

“No, not yet.”, he said. “Put it away, Meister Eder. Here is my home.”

Eder felt a warmth in his chest when Pumuckl jumped on his shoulder.

“Let’s go out”, he said after he’d put the staff away in the back of his closet. He did not know what it was he’d been chosen over, but he felt like celebrating.