#▒▒ ⤧ THE TALES ARE LONG AND WINDING AND TRUE. THE KINDRED IS TRUTH. LITTLE LAMB WILL TELL YOU A STORY ( drabble )

[ladysunbite]

"Survival..." the word tasted familiar upon her tongue and warmed her lips into another covert smile, like a shared goblet of wine. How many times had she tried to explain to apa thunchultha the benefits of a less abrupt and selfish way of treating their neighbors. "I am glad you named my goal thusly, it shows a deep understanding." "It is my opinion that my kindred can exist side by side with yours, without overt cruelty. Many posses the level of intelligence that coax them to exchange, or at least take gently, what they could have extracted with violence. Bruxae and alps here take lovers they drink from for years. Katakans attach themselves to the trade of butchery or gallows, where there is a free access to the nourishment and shiny trinkets they crave equally," Orianna blinked, chasing another good example in her memory. "Of course, there is little reason wasted on plummards. Essentially, they are no more dangerous than a swarm of rats, and can be coaxed with a simple tune, promising enough food and a safe nook." "But I digress and talk about business where I ought to fill your mind with naught, but pleasure. Tsk, tsk you could think that I was a Nilfgaardian ambassador, not a citizen of Toussaint," behind the jest there was both apologies and the truth. The cultured vampiress considered herself of Toussaint, and its weaker inhabitants were her responsibility. The understanding came too late and bore its bloodied fruits for her stalling and denying the truth to herself. "Put this belt around you. It is a harness designed to carry young vampires who did not learn how to turn yet for long distances. Naturally, I've had to make yours a little bigger," Ciri's enthusiasm and openness pleased her beyound measure. Cold and distant as she often appeared, in her heart of hearts Orianna enjoyed the luxury of being kind and savoured the beauty of a sincere smile. Yet while both were struggling with clasping the belts around their waists, fingers stiff with cold and bulky gloves, irksome thoughts swarmed around Orianna's mind like a pack of nekkers, lured in by the quite moment. Beneath the warm cloak, richly adorned in furs, sun-eyed's hand found the bracelet at her wrist. The sigil of how abysmal the difference betwix them were. Even more than betwix humans and elves. Would their strife proceed in the same way - fear, misunderstanding and hatred that outlived those who felt in first, poisoned their offspring and the land itself? Their natures were like a sword, separating two bodies from an embrace.

"I was aware about your profession once you had crossed my doorstep. My kind even have a lullaby about witchers, a catchy, scary little tune composed to warn the fledglings." ironically, her human children loved the song and begged to be frightened again and again. "I also know that you do not kill sentiment creatures, sometimes in direct confrontation with your reputation as a reliable monster hunter, and the necessary means to have a roof over your head and food in your belly." as her duty required she had eyes everywhere, and those eyes brought her many tales. At first Orianna was distrustful of a princess of a rich kindgdom choosing a dangerous path of a witcher, but once her path winded through the duchy, it became clear that her choice of a calling was not dictate by fickleness or lust for pain. It was born of true mercy and compassion. It did not banish uneasiness from sun-eyed's mind though - as a creature who watched the tales time loved to tell the most with different players and different costumes yet the same ending, she was well-awake that good intentions oft pawed the road to the most terrible places. Maybe the proverbial sword betwix them was to protect both from the choices they would loath to make. "Ready for the reward of your good deeds?" that time the smile was not upon her lips, but flooded her very gaze - warm, accommodating, unclouded by anything but the thrilling amusement before them.

@fallesto

She attentively listened as the vampire spoke of the land, yet she had witnessed it firsthand during her travels and through the deeds she had accomplished. In her brief time here, she had achieved more than many knights, demonstrating the values and oaths that knights must uphold to become who they are. Perhaps it was an intrinsic part of her nature, or perhaps it stemmed from her training under experts; she could not definitively say. However, it was evident that her compassionate heart drove her to discern right from wrong, and she would never exploit anyone for her own gain.

"My aim is to assist others, though I am uncertain if our goals align. The very individuals I strive to protect are those you require for your survival, you and your kind." This statement was not intended as an affront; it was simply a reflection of reality. Ultimately, she was a vampire, and the humans she found so difficult to safeguard were the very ones she needed to sustain her life and maintain her power. This was a topic they had previously discussed, yet she preferred to avoid it, knowing that one day the inevitable would occur, and her weapons would be drawn against her friend. However, that day was not today.

"I'm not entirely sure that popcorn was meant for that purpose," she remarked, allowing a light laugh to escape her lips. It was refreshing to converse with a woman who genuinely listened. Indeed, they had shared enjoyable moments when they ventured to another realm through her portal, but now they had returned to their own world. Although it was not home, it felt remarkably close, with the air and scents being so much more pleasant that she felt an overwhelming desire never to leave her companion again.

"Are you aware of my profession?" she inquired, fully aware that she understood her line of work. She was a monster hunter, dedicated to tracking and eliminating creatures of the night. A significant aspect of her role involved documenting these encounters to ensure that knowledge was passed down to future generations. However, her kind was rare; the Diane breed of monster hunters was nearly extinct, leaving only a handful in existence. Consequently, the higher vampire had little to fear regarding the preservation of secrets, at least for the moment, unless this delicate alliance was jeopardized.

"I assure you, I will not document anything," she promised. Her word was her bond, and she required no further assurances. If she committed to a course of action, she would follow through. While she would refrain from recording her observations, should the higher vampire betray her or threaten the lives of innocents, she would be compelled to act, even if it meant resorting to lethal measures. It was a painful choice, but her mission was to safeguard the innocent, regardless of whether they were friend or foe.

"Understood." She covered her mouth with her gloved hands, stifling a small laugh. She had never anticipated a vampire would respond in such a manner, which amused her. As she stood there, she felt a sense of warmth and lightness, shaking off the chill. How many could claim to have experienced such a moment? Given the circumstances, she realized she would be the only one, and she intended to honor that experience, taking it with her to the grave. With a newfound sense of readiness, she prepared herself for the journey ahead.

[vf-thompson]

Book Review: Content Warning: Everything Will Fuck You Up and It Will be Your Fault

It seems odd that i'm sitting down to write a perfect review of a book that has, as far as a book can screw up a life, sent my own careening wildly off track.

My introduction to Emezi was the diabolical little YA spec fic Pet, which was assigned reading in my Transgender Literature class i took a few semesters ago. i was struggling with my academic workload, and admittedly only read pieces of that book, enough know what was going in class discussions, but shelved it to finish later. i did not realize at the time that i had one of the writer's other books in my possession already, a threatening little collection of poems that my best friend had gotten me for my birthday right before beginning the semester.

It sat on my shelf patiently, biding its time, dreaming its sick little dreams, until i needed it.

i can't tell you how the explosion happened, only that it did. Call it a gas leak, maybe. Entropy did as entropy does. i was separated, overnight, from everything smelling and tasting of home, born on Christian hands and pagan winds into the wild to be taught the true ways of the world. Apotheosis knocked for the third time in my heathen life, and this time i let the sonuvab!tch inside at last to make herself at home.

i found myself in a hotel room, on the other side of a bombing, stranded. This book was in my hands, had made it instinctively into my bag as i escaped the slithering fire that consumed my house and my life. i read the title, read the author's name, realized i had heard the name before. i ached for familiarity, and opened the book.

Everything was inside waiting for me inside, as Emezi warned. i blundered into the bloody-berry red thickets of their serpentine prose, joining them in their dirty, dismal trek up the Holy Mountain. i found, immediately, in their words, a kindred spirit, crimson as my own sin-stained soul. i can only be frankly honest: the poems in this collection seemed to resonate with my own life and its events to a degree that is uncanny, almost abject. The second poem, "christening", tore me open, and i understood, feverishly, wrongly: i too could speak the truth.

i took to my notebook, trying to put my frayed and desperate grief into words, grief at my sudden exile from Eden, using Emezi's words as model. i crafted my own imitative poems in the key of confession and launched them into the sky like a rocket, hoping to explain away the pain with meter and meaning. But like our viperous little narrator, the ouroboros sharing their tale with us, i swallowed myself with my own words, burned up in my own stomach acid, vomited myself out somewhere worse than before. My confessions did not cleanse me; they branded me Barabbas. My attempt to reach for the sky left me falling back towards earth, landing in a black muddy river, washing up somewhere by Bethlehem with venom in my eyes. As the book warns at the top, the urge to explain can often only make things worse when you see the world wrong.

It has since taken me five months to finish a book that is 45 pages long. i can't blame the book. It told me its mission on the front cover, warned me as well as a book can. It told me what was waiting inside: Everything, undiluted, unadulterated. This book blew my mind in the worst kind of way, which is of course the best way, which is of course the only way. Books are here to challenge us, to change the way we see. There is nothing comforting or safe about the work here, blowing past trigger warnings in a way that no edged-out Netflix comedian could hope to touch.

If you can handle it, allow Emezi to take a scalpel to your life, as they did mine. Inside you will find ruminations and meditations on what it means to be a pagan, to be spirit, to be of any faith or no faith, to be less than a man and more than a god and to do-se-do around the black heart of a dying, diseased brain. Big thanks to the bitch who bought it for my birthday, who read it and decided i should too. She's never let me down with a recommendation, and i'm happy to say this book continues that trend. It has been a campfire to sit beside in one of the darkest periods of my life, throwing shadows of hope against the wall even as the cave threatens to collapse down on top of us all.

[twiinmasks]

I love you.

I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU.

     This existence is so boring, so meaningless. What are the fleshings? So transient, so brief. Without you, I would be alone. Don’t leave me. Don’t leave me. Please don’t leave me.

     Do you want the world? I’LL SWALLOW IT WHOLE AND GIVE IT TO YOU. Do you want them dead? I’LL KILL THEM ALL AND THEN MYSELF IF YOU WANT IT. Do you want silence? I’LL RIP OUT MY TONGUE AND OFFER IT TO YOU. Don’t leave. 

     ( I love you. )

     Stupid fleshling words aren’t enough or you. Nothing is enough for you. Love? Who cares for love! DEVOTION! OBSESSION! INEBRIATION! That is what you are to me. Tell me what you want -- anything you want! I’ll get it for you. I’ll do it for you. Anything. ANYTHING. Don’t leave. 

     Is this what love is? No, surely not, for what the fleshlings name “love” is far less than what I have for you. You are more than perfection. You are something higher. The moon and stars weep that you are no longer with them! That you shine so bright and so soft and so white! Look how the grass and flowers bow at your feet! How the wind stills to hear your voice! 

     ( Don’t look at the wind or the flowers or the grass. Look at me. They could never love you like I do. Don’t leave me. Don’t leave me. I love you. )

     My Lamb -- sweet Lamb. Small and precious and strong. The arch of your back is delicate and stauncher than that of mountain ranges. The curve of your collar is fragile and sharper than winter. The blue of your eyes is deep and colder than black water. All these fleshlings think they love you, but they do not SEE you! Do not KNOW you! 

     Lamb, my Lamb -- my being craves you! I scream at the sky and howl at the clouds for your love. Do not look towards the fleshlings! Look towards me! I writhe in the air and pound the earth and drown in tears! Look at me. LOOK AT ME! Love me. Love me. Don’t leave. Don’t leave. I love you. Don’t leave me. 

     I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU. Lamb, won’t you love me too? What should I do? Anything -- name anything. It’s yours, it’s yours, it’s yours -- as am I. As am I. As am I. Please don’t leave.

[the-fae-folk]

It's almost Valentine's Day! Will you please tell us a romantic story about a Faerie Prince and a Human Girl?

Greetings, Human Child. Perhaps it is a little late, being the new morning of the day after the Feast of St. Valentine. But we have a story to tell you. It is a story which tells of romance, as you have asked us for. However, it is also a tale of other things as well. Most stories end with love, a Happily Ever After if you must. But not this tale. Here we shall begin with love.They were the unlikeliest pair you would ever find. A mortal girl who lived in the house of those who were not her family. A slave girl she was, for in that time and that place it was common for man to view his fellows as something to be bought and sold, a thing rather than a person. But while she labored every day for those who would never care for her welfare, another lived in a golden world with those who cared only for him as an object to display, a golden prize, a treasure which must not be lost or wasted. A golden cage, however nicely furnished, is still a cage.Some meetings happen by pure chance, though they may seem to be ordained by Heaven. They came across one another for the first time during a local festival. He had come to play disguised among the humans, for it was his only escape. She, of course, was forced to serve the guests as they ate and drank and made merry. They met beneath the old willow tree.She did not know him for the princeling he was, yet recognized within him a kindred spirit. She saw more clearly than most when she looked into his eyes; there was a bird trapped fluttering within a gilded cage, wishing for blue skies where it can only find fool’s gold.So they left. That is all there was to it. They did not try to change the world, for it was not within their power. Some would call them cowards for running away. But sometimes all you can do is run and hope that there may be another day when maybe you can stop running and simply live.So they ran together and found a distant place of trees and sea and rocky cliffs. There they made a home and together they lived.Perhaps you might wonder how two from different worlds can love one another, but it is not so strange. At the beginning they only knew that the other was trapped, as they were. But as time grew on they learned the differences and circumstances of each other’s worlds. They grew to appreciate the talents of the other that they did not possess, and they learned to grow from one another as two good friends must.After a long while their friendship changed and became another kind of love. One filled with passion, yes, but it was more intimate than that. It was a love born of understanding another person. For when you know someone truly, even if they are your greatest enemy, you cannot help but love them in a way.Our tale could end there, on a distant cliff by the sea, far from the warmer lands from which the slave girl, now a free woman, had first come. It could end with their first child; a babe with hair white as her father’s was, and her skin dark as ebony, like her mother’s.But their love was stronger than a happily ever after could ever bear. For love is not simple and not sweet, it is one of the most powerful forces in the world, and its will cannot be denied. But the shape of a destiny born of love will never look how you would imagine it to be. It is a harsh road filled with harsh truths about the world, and there are times where you will falter and wonder if love is truly worth all the pain you face.They came one day, the entourage of Fae. Fineries draped upon their bodies as they came riding upon steeds which were almost, but not quite, horses. For sometimes, when a little bird escapes its cage, there are those who try to return it to its captivity. In many cases this is for the bird’s own good, for the cage will protect it from the world in which it has not learned to live. But other times… it is a prison which will kill the heart of the one inside of it. They wished to retrieve their stray princeling and return him home to his mother and his father. To his seven sisters and his twelve brothers. To his home amidst the great glaciers and frozen wastes, to the deep caves where his kin resided in the dark amidst the cold glinting treasures of their homes. To his little birdcage.But she stood forth, she who was once a slave, she who had been beaten but not broken. She who was kind in spite of cruelty, who was gentle in spite of bitterness, who was loving in spite of all the world had given her to choke upon.She stood forth before the Faerie Court; and to their eyes she was not foolish or weak, but a Queen of incredible power. Mortal she was, yet they feared her for reasons they could not understand, for she looked at them and knew them so well that she could have given their true names as she looked into their very hearts. So they departed from there.Three days passed before their return. With them came the ruler of the Faerie Court, a powerful Queen. For only a Queen can match the power of another Queen, they are always the most powerful pieces upon the board. She was none other than the Grandmother of the princeling. Young and beautiful she appeared, and far older than most she truly was. Upon the surface she was perfect in all ways. Yet her heart was black, broken, and colder than ice.They bargained. In this the stories are true, for there must be a bargain of a kind, a risk in the adventure, a chance that something might go terribly wrong or viciously right. While the princeling held his child close, while he desperately wished that her world might not be torn apart, his love bargained for his freedom.At long last an agreement was made and sealed with three droplets of red blood. A caged bird could fly free, but not to her arms. Any other human would do, as long as it was not her. The Princeling could be free from the world which was slowly breaking his heart, if only his love would agree to never speak to him until the day that Truth was shattered and Death itself was reversed.A terrible bargain; and the princeling cried out that he would rather bear his cage than be separated from the one he loved. But it was too late. The bargain could not be undone once agreed upon. And their family was broken apart.Yet love endured. How could it not? For love is the mover of all in this tale. The road we must take is not the road we wish for. And as the Princeling set out upon his journey he could think of nothing but his child and his love, his heart free at last from the chains that had bound it. The pain he felt at being forced to leave his family did not hold him back, but lifted him. With every step he found the strength to move forward, to grow…because of his love.The Faerie Queen looked at the woman who had freed the princeling’s heart and knew that she could not let her wander free, for she was far too dangerous. So she took the woman who had once been a simple slave girl and put her in a new prison. A prison of ice and glass. A mirror in which the Queen could gaze every day and ask after her own beauty, reveling in the pain she had managed to inflict on those who dared defy her, confident in her own superiority in all ways.But what, you might ask, happened to the child? As cruel as the Queen was, she would not harm a mere babe, especially not one of her own line. So she took it upon herself to raise the girl. It was not an easy childhood, filled with hard work and much that was painful. Yet it was not a bad childhood either. Despite everything, the Queen did grow to love the little girl.From far away the wandering princeling waited. Listening to tales whispered on the wind, looking at the sights the waves had seen, and thinking always of his wife and daughter, the princeling sought to find something that would help him find a way back to those whom he loved.That was how he came upon the seed. It was a tiny thing, hardly worth the notice others might have paid it. But the woman who offered it to him said that it was very old and very powerful. It was said to grow into a tree that would bear only a single apple in all of its life, an apple that could grant wishes made in the name of love. So he bought it and traveled back to the cliff where he had been parted from his family, and there he planted the seed in the midst of a grove…and he waited.Here we shall end our telling. But as we are certain you have guessed, the tale itself does not end here. For stories never really end. They move into new stories, growing ever in the telling of them. Love is not easy, but while its burdens are heavy, it gives you the strength to bear those burdens. For Love is about growing, just as a tree or a child grows. Just as a caged bird can find its wings and grow strong, as a slave girl can become a Queen to rival the Faeries.Perhaps we shall return to this tale again…a tale of romance…but also a tale of so much more. A tale of family, of love, of suffering, of separation. A tale of kindness and freedom, but also of captivity and cruelty.

[youve-cath-to-be-kitten-me]

CAAAAAAAAAATH 350 followers congrats lovely I am so happy for you!!!! And a new writing blog!!! So awesome 😊 Can I please have 💐 ✏️ 👑 😍 🍭 🦄? I love you so much darling 💛💛💛💛💛

EMMMMMMMMMMMMM MY LOVE THANK YOU SO MUCH ❤️

💐 - Name Aesthetic - Em

Cartwheels / laughing so hard you can’t breathe / fizzy drinks / taking off tinted sunglasses and seeing everything a different color / going to Disneyworld for the first time / trying to eat a popsicle before it melts all over your hands / running straight into your best friend’s arms

✏️ - Snippet from one of my WIPs

It’s a sad song… It’s a sad tale… It’s a tragedy. It’s a sad song… But we sing it anyway.

Jeremy Knox’s voice can move mountains; that is, until he meets Jean Moreau. From then on, Jeremy longs to move him instead. But the changing winds carry his melodies down below…

… six feet under, down below.

~ Description for Someone I Have Always Known (a Jerejean Hadestown AU)

👑 - Book Quote Blog Rate

Harry Potter -

It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live / I solemnly swear I am up to no good / Happiness can be found in the darkest of times if one only remembers to turn on the light / No need to call me sir, Professor / You’re just as sane as I am / After all this time? Always

Six of Crows -

No mourners, no funerals / The heart is an arrow. It demands to land true / The water hears and understands. The ice does not forgive / You’re better than waffles, Matthias Helvar / This action will have no echo / I don’t know! Maybe I liked your stupid face

Red White and Royal Blue -

History, huh? Bet we could make some / I love him on purpose / Sometimes you just jump and hope it’s not a cliff / But the truth is, also, simply this: love is indomitable / You are, he says, the absolute worst idea I’ve ever had / Never tell me the odds

The Song of Achilles -

Philtatos — most beloved / I would know him in death, at the end of the world / Name one hero who was happy. You can’t / And perhaps it is the greater grief, after all, to be left on earth when another is gone / We were like gods at the dawning of the world / I am made of memories

All For The Game -

Hope was a dangerous, disquieting thing, but he thought perhaps he liked it / I’m not a hallucination. You are a pipe dream / Thank you, you were amazing / This king’s ruled long enough — it’s time to tear his castle down / They were worth every cut and bruise and scream / It sounded like a dream, it tasted like damnation

Anne of Green Gables -

Kindred spirits are not so sparse as I used to think / Dear old world, she murmured, you are very lovely and I am glad to be alive in you / Tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it.. yet / It’s delightful when your imaginations come true, isn’t it? / The world calls them its singers and poets and artists and storytellers; but they are just people who never forgot the way to fairyland / Do you think amethysts can be the souls of good violets?

Little Women -

I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to steer my ship / I’ve got the key to my castle in the air, but whether I can unlock the door remains to be seen / Let us be elegant or die! / Don’t try to make me grow up before my time / Be comforted, dear soul! There is always light behind the clouds / Life and love are very precious when both are in full bloom

😍 - Blog Compliment

Em you are such a darling!! We talk all the time, and I’m always so happy to hear from you!! Whether it’s planning a hypothetical trip to Disney or screaming about the Try Guys, we have so much fun together! You are so kind and such an overall lovely person and I’m so glad to be your friend! ❤️

🍭 - Favorite Interaction

I could never choose one, but I love exchanging pictures of food we’ve made!! (Even If it makes me hungry at inopportune times)

🦄 - Personalized Bouquet of Flowers

Sunflowers (adoration and loyalty), Magnolias (love of nature), and daisies (innocence) wrapped up in a pale pink ribbon

[halethkickass]

Too Long a Winter (reposted with permission from Clotho)

I found this wonderful fic on http://clotho123.tripod.com/mainlist1/winter.htm and the author kindly gave me permission to share it here on Tumblr. The story is phenomenally well-written and the characterization is excellent. I especially appreciate the dynamic between Maedhros and Maglor, which is far less sentimental and much more in line with how I tend to head-canon them than that of most fics I have read. The story is told from the perspective of a human warrior dwelling in Himring, which lends an interesting viewpoint to the elves we are used to seeing through the eyes of a somewhat removed historian.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Himring is not a good place for old men.  Often I think of riding south again, to the Estolad where there are fewer cold winds to piece my aching bones and no long stone stairs to climb.  Yet to leave would mean never again to see the morning sun on silver stone, or turn a corner at night to see a solitary lamp shine on the carved street before me, or watch the magic the Strangers work as they coax flowers to grow on rock itself.  

It does help me having lodgings in the summit halls.  Himring is steep: in the town that lies beneath the peak a paved courtyard will prove to be the roof of the house below, nor is it rare to walk down long stairs and find yourself upon a deep balcony.  All space is used for dwellings, although all dwellings will be filled only at the height of siege.  Himring was built as a place of refuge as well as a stronghold; it has been full enough these last years.  It is fortunate my duties can be discharged with goodwill on the summit where the High Hall rises in the silver rock.  My mind goes often to the past now, recalling more clearly than for many years, the wonder I felt to see how so much if the city had been cut from the rock as it stood, the very contours of the stone summit kept alive.  Yet Himring is no hidden city, it stands proud as an eagle upon a crag, keeping watch on the lands below. 

The Midwinter festival would have been well attended even in the better times before the peace was broken; now the High Hall will be full indeed.  It is one thing they have learned from us, the great feast of fire at the year’s darkest point, and they celebrate it much as we do, even if some of the older ones like to recall the days when there were no seasons.  We have no tales even of that time, so such stories mark more deeply how much they differ.

 The green boughs are another of traditions they have borrowed although I recall from my gathering days that they practice it differently, each bough chosen with care, seldom more than two from one tree or bush and from some none at all.  “Trees,” one said to me once, “ can spare a limb if chosen right, indeed are often the better for it, but why would anyone wish to leave a tree limbless?”  The gathered braches look strangely fitting in the High Hall, for the rock-cut columns are carved as tree trunks, not all alike but trees of all kinds: oak and birch, beech, ash and pine.  With the evergreen boughs in place it will be a strange kind of forest in which we sit to feast. 

As I turned to leave the half-prepared hall I heard my name spoken sharply.  A little too sharply in truth, my sight is thankfully still good enough, but not so my hearing and I guessed I must have failed to hear at least one call.  That is not fortunate with this speaker.

 “Lord Makalaurë,” I greeted him.  He insists on being addressed by the High form of his name, although everyone calls him Maglor outside his hearing.

“Headman Hallach.”  I still hold the title of Headman for the Edain of Himring although Berach my nephew leads them in war.  He was out of the citadel of course; with fighting so constant he is rarely here.  “We have had word my brothers in the south will not be joining us for the feasting,” Lord Maglor continued, “so that will lessen the amount of accommodation that you will need to find.”  

“We could have housed them,” I said, “but it is better to know beforehand.”  Our word ‘inhuman’ is an old one, from the times before we came to these lands, it carries a meaning of something that is uncanny, disturbing.  It is held impolite to use it of Elves but it is seldom far from my mind when speaking to this one.  Like most of his kind he is handsome with black hair and winged brows that highlight the mobility of his features; still he is unsettling, even to one like myself who has lived amongst the Strangers for most of my life.  I cannot put it better than to say it is as though he is constantly listening to a tune that only he can hear, and thinks the less of others for being deaf to it.  In fairness, these days I unsettle him too, for he is one of those who are disturbed to the point of disgust by mortal aging although he would feel it beneath him to lessen his courtesy.  

“Do you know when my brother is expected back?” he asked.

“No more than you, although I am sure he will be in time for the feasting.”

“Of course,” he said.  “But I would wish to see him earlier.  Erestor does not know when he will return either.  It is inconsiderate.”  It was an unfair complaint, as he must have known.  A survey of territories, half visit, half scouting expedition, could not be completed to set times and his brother never dawdled not even with snow falling every day upon the hills.  We would always vary those chosen to ride with the lord of Himring, for no-one was expect to make two such exhausting rides in succession.  Knowing it unlikely that Lord Maglor’s temper would improve during the feasting time I found myself regretting we would not be joined by the twin lords who would have provided some leavening.  The absence of Lord Caranthir was less regrettable as no-one would count on his presence to prevent family arguments.  

We parted politely.  With so much else lost it is petty to regret that the great reverse has led to Lord Maglor being permanently at Himring, but it does nothing to make the mood easier.

~~~

The Feast was much needed.  Enough time has passed since the great reverse that the remembrance is no longer a dark cloud on the spirits, at least for mortals; but still the presence of war seems nearer, the mood at Himring darker, than in the days when I first came here from the south.  Perhaps that is only an old man talking, but certainly both peoples thronged to the gathering, eager to forget the wars awhile.

The Strangers are masters of light, although I have never known one who feared the dark, and the light in the High Hall was rich and golden.  Mead and wines from the south flowed freely, although some of my kindred preferred their ale, and there was no shortage of meat and pastry.  Their feasts, however, are not for the belly alone; there was much song and music, dancing, laughter and re-telling of tales.  A hall full Elves singing in harmony is not to be forgotten, it almost makes me understand that odd tale that the world was created by a song.  By long custom the songs and tales at the Midwinter feast are of good cheer, it is a time to look forward and to hope.

It was the third evening when Lord Maglor took the harp.  No, in fact he had taken it on the first two evenings also, but only for a brief light song, the third evening was the time that mattered.  I had heard him sing many times, and what they say of him is not too great praise, indeed it falls short as all words must.  A singer to draw the stars from the skies and turn back the moon in its course, a singer to make stones dance and streams stand still, despair laugh for joy and gladness weep like rain.  Not that he unleashed his full power every time he sang, that third night was the first time that Midwinter.

He sang in the High Tongue, as he always does which makes his power to move Men the more remarkable.  Few of us have mastered more of that tongue than a few words and commonly used phrases, such as war cries, and in that I am no different.  Yet what he sang was a lament as plainly as the night is dark.  The grief wailed in the strings and wept in words beyond my understanding, and through my tears I saw the whole hall was weeping, Men and Elves alike, weeping silently, some with faces hidden by a cloak fold, or buried in their hands or arms.  Erestor, the castellan, seemed completely overwhelmed, nor was he the only one among the elf kind.  Recalling the scene now it seems to me that the ones we call Flame-eyed, who have dwelt in the West, made up the greatest part of those who had abandoned themselves completely to grief, yet in light of how deeply moved my own senses were I cannot swear my memory is true.

After the song ended, as the nameless mourning at last released its spell, my eyes cleared enough to see the only one who seemed unmoved.  Maedhros sat upright and tearless in his accustomed place at the high table, only his face was locked in an intense stillness which showed to one who had dwelt in Himring many years how hard he had bitten down to hide all feeling.  He sat with his right elbow resting on the table, forearm upraised so the light fell on the marvellously worked copper sheath that covered it almost entirely.  With the copper circlet on his russet hair he looked every bit the King of the West March his followers call him.

“Remarkable as always,” he said in the cool even tone that spoke of steel control.  “Could do with a little taughtening in the central section still, you are capable of better rhythms.”

Maglor’s expression hardened and as they met each other’s eyes it seemed the winter outside entered the room.  In that moment they looked very much alike, and no fool would have mistaken either of them for young.

“You take a pride in it, brother, do you not,” Maglor said at last in a tone smooth as gold.  “You think you are the better that old loyalties, true duties, have been ripped from you and burned to cinders.”

Maedhros’s voice was cold as snow upon the high peaks, “If to spellcraft tears at time of festival is loyalty, Maglor, then I will not disagree.”  Spellcraft was close to being insult, the word was not used of things natural.  “Well, tears it must be for this night.  Bron, give us a song of your people.”

The young harper thus commanded was one of the followers of Bor only lately taken service with Lord Maglor.  It seemed to me hard to give him such a command and I wondered if he would be able to obey, but it seemed he took it with pride, as a young brave might accept the most dangerous post in battle.  I doubt if any in the hall paid much heed to his song though.

The next day I cornered Castellan Erestor.  Although he is one of the Flame-eyed who have dwelt in the West he seems less far removed from our kind than many Elves.

“What,” I said “was that about?  What was that song?”

“The song?”  said Erestor.  He seemed to consider for a long time.  I waited.  Elves cannot be rushed.  “The song was a lament for their father.  For Fëanor.”

“For Fëanor?”  I had heard tales, but only fragments.  Fëanor was dead before the first Men came to Beleriand from the east.  Maedhros speaks of him very rarely, and then in the calm tone he might use for a passing acquaintance, dead long ago.  “A lament was a poor choice for a feast, but is that all?”

“No,” said Erestor.  “The lament praised his skill, and his courage against the creatures of Morgoth, but it praised also his steadfastness in upholding what was due to him, his intolerance of weakness or those that followed with half a heart.”

“I begin to see, I think.  That could seem reproach to his brother, for letting the kingship pass from their house.”  I knew that much of their history.  

“It was a more than reproach, and not for the first time.  Lord Maglor has seldom agreed with his brother’s choices.”

“Yet he remains at Himring.”

“Whilst Lothlann is in enemy hands he will remain, I think.”  A mortal would probably have sighed at this point.  “You do not need to be told it makes matters difficult, Hallach.  At least when all the brothers are present Maglor and Celegorm spend half their time quarrelling with one another.”

After we had parted I spent some time thinking over this, and all the other things known of the king and his next brother.  I had come to Himring, following the tradition of my house, with a head full of tales.  Not all were reliable, or true at all, and of those which were true I knew only a small part.  But I had heard truly that Maglor the Singer was of all the East lords the most likely to be found riding or fighting with his brother Maedhros Left-hand.  I had thought that meant they must be close friends; it is more like the old saying ‘keep your enemy close in sight.’

True, that is not entirely fair, but the years have shown me Elves are not as unlike us as the first meetings make all Men think, so it should not have surprised me that where brothers are closest in age the divisions are bitterest.  So it is with myself and my nearest brother, although we are brothers still and would not hesitate to unite against any outside challenge.  How far this ran true with the Elf lords is hard to say, certainly the divisions between them made my own with my brother seem nothing at all.  I knew at least that Lord Maglor did not spend time with his brother Maedhros for the pleasure of shared company.

~~~

Two days later they walked in while I was listing the new recruits from my southern kindred in one of the summit chambers, one with walls painted so you seem to look out on scenes of moonlight.  It was still being made when I first came here, and I recall my surprise to see the Lord of Himring himself working on one of the painted scenes, completing the figure of an owl with the lightest of brush strokes.  He laughed at my expression and told me, “The need to create is never far from any Noldo.  I cannot claim my skill is remarkable, but it suffices.”  

Between the work and my hardness of hearing I was not aware of their approach until they had already entered.  As a young man I would have been abashed and slipped away, but being no longer young stayed at the table.  Since they were arguing in the High Tongue it was impossible to tell what they were saying in any case.

Lord Maglor does not shout.  Family meetings have been known to make the castle walls shake, but most of the yelling is done by Celegorm and Caranthir, although Maedhros can raise his voice loud enough when he wishes.  Maglor makes his arguments with level quiet.  It does not do him any good: he never wins.  Although there is nothing at all amusing about the lord of Lothlann in his moods of cold attack, he does make me think at times at times of a pair of young dogs I once owned.  The smaller of the two would attack the other over and over, without any warning; he never won the battles but he kept it up in the constant hope that one day he would win after all.

Whilst my mind had been running on that as my mind often runs on these days, the quarrel seemed to be reaching some kind of high point.  I have seen Maglor in battle and his face as he skewered the orcs of the enemy had not seemed any less pleasant.  I could not understand the words he was using, but took their meaning as clearly as the meaning of his lament in the great hall.  Maedhros’s answer was short and very ugly.  Again I could not understand the words, nor I am sure did Maglor, but that was unneeded.  

Elves do not have curse words.  The need for them is something they seem to have discovered only in these lands.  Most of those who feel that need use words they have learned from us.  I have heard Lord Curufin use the dwarf tongue at times, although with that speech it is possible that what sounds like a curse may be merely ‘Good Morning.’  I have never heard Maedhros use mannish curse words, nor have I ever known him lose control.  He had not used the Black Speech lightly.

I looked at Maglor and felt sure he had been shaken although he tried to cover it.  Maedhros took advantage to follow through with two or three short, cold sentences in the High Tongue.  Maglor’s reply was sharp, but he sounded wrong-footed, and after a brief, savage final exchange he flung out of the room.

Maedhros did not attempt to ignore my presence, instead he took a flagon and poured half a cup of wine for me and some into a second cup for himself.

“I would not have chosen for you to hear that, Hallach, but I do not suppose it surprised you.”

“I cannot say I understood what passed, my lord,”

“You may not have known the words, but you understood enough.”

Even Elves, even the Flame-eyed, have been known to speak of something unsettling about the presence of Maedhros of the East March.  It is not the same quality possessed by his brother; perhaps it is not so much any quality that differs from others of his kind as that he possesses their qualities more intensely, or that there is in him less of a barrier between the world and the thing Elves call the spirit.  There is a force about most of the Flame-eyed like a high wind or a river in spate, but with Maedhros it is like facing into the wind directly instead of being in the lee of a wall, or seeing a flame that is naked rather than one held in a horn lantern.  

I have served him most of my life and followed him into battle even when none thought that we could win.  And the old, I have learned, do not feel awe easily “He has never forgiven you for yielding the kingdom,” I said.

“That is part of it, although we were not on the most easy of terms before.”  His tone was matter-of-fact.  “Maglor would not even like to be king.  He is like our father in that way, the duties of kingship would take time from the works where his heart truly lies, and he would resent that.  No, the injury is to his pride and there is small healing there.”

He drained the cup.  “There was a time,” he said, “when fighting with my brothers was invigorating.  Like a day’s hard riding or a successful skirmish.  Now it grows wearisome, the more so because I fear for them.  They may lose us the war yet.”

We are used to thinking of the Strangers as changeless, and as my limbs ache more and more and my hearing fails I cannot but envy them, ever young as they are, forever straight of back and free in movement.  It does not do to dwell on the envy, some of my kin have been eaten up with bitterness as they grow older and that does no good to anyone.  I have looked at them and have seen only the constants, now for the first time I wondered if there have been changes.  Lord Maglor was never on friendly terms with his brother; I could not say if there have been changes beyond what would be expected from his being so continually at Himring.  Maedhros the king, has he changed?  Am I right to think there are more times of cold control, such as he showed his brother in the hall?

“Perhaps we should retake Lothlann before Thargelion,” I said.  The plans for recapture of the lost lands are still in an early stage and known only to a few, it had not been settled which lands to retake first.  

Maedhros laughed, with genuine amusement.  “No, strategy had better not be determined by which of my brothers is most annoying at present, tempting though it is.  Which is taken first must depend on the Naugrim; we will need their aid to retake Thargelion.  If I cannot convince them to give it until we can show them victories then we must retake Lothlann first, but it would be easier to take Lothlann if we already have Thargelion.”  His voice took on a wry tone as he added, “Whichever we take first Maglor and Caranthir will quarrel violently.”

Whichever we took would be a hard campaign, with Dorthonion in enemy hands.  He spoke as if there was no doubt of victory, but it is the task of a leader to show confidence.  

“It must be soon, with or without the Naugrim” he went on “We cannot afford to leave Morgoth with the upper hand for long.  I will go to Belegost.”  Although he still spoke calmly I recalled that we cannot expect Angband to rest quiet now the Siege is broken.  Himring is strong, but Angband is stronger and the alliance among the elf-kind is vulnerable.  For the first time I was glad of my mortal age, and the thought that I would most likely not see what lay ahead.  He would see it.

“I will fetch the latest maps, and Castellan Erestor if he can be found,” I said, “we can work on possible plans for a while.”  Inwardly I resigned myself to loss of sleep, no elf ever remembers how much more of it we need.

The maps are kept in a chamber painted as a glade in springtime.  I lingered for a while after I had found the ones wanted, and hoped that when spring came indeed it would bring promise of the victories that all within these walls would need.

Endnote: Just to say there is canon evidence (admittedly slight) for Maedhros being styled king, and also for the retaking of Lothlann and Thargelion

Source: http://clotho123.tripod.com/mainlist1/winter.htm

[twiinmasks]

I love you. ( II. ) / ( I. ) / complete.

Wolf, my thoughts of you are ..

[twiinmasks]

♡ + the pale man

KNOW DEATH / OPEN

The clearing is washed white with moonlight. Pale grass ripples in the wind and leaves whisper secrets long since lost from the ears of men. 

“Lamb,” rumbles Wolf -- a dark cloud of ink, terrible and obscene, flickering from the very air like the dark thoughts of innocent men. “My Lamb. Tell the Kindred a story.” 

And Lamb, in her purity, bleached in white paler than any fresh snow, alights into the clearing, quick and fleeting as the hopes of men. Her hooves drift over the grass, and they brown and wilt and shrivel away from her touch. Yet, when she steps away, they rise up again -- brave and true when the Arrow is not near. 

“Very well,” sighs Lamb, voice morose and chilling, a hiss against an exposed neck. “The Kindred bids you to approach, Wolf.” 

And Wolf snakes forward, his trail of smoke bleak and infinite. What souls hid within the thin smoke of his body? Where did they go? Or perhaps his body is great and bottomless, made to look flat by its sheer blackness. Perhaps, if one is to reach into it, one would fall in and never return. 

“Once, there was a man,” whispers Lamb, blue eyes bright and pale as the moon. “This man was called the pale old man. All things met this man.” 

“All things?” Wolf repeats eagerly.

“All things,” Lamb agrees reverently. “Yet, the pale old man had no friends. In fact, all things feared this man, and he was very lonely.” 

“Lonely?” Wolf repeats, ears flattening. “He meets so many but none do him kindness?” 

“Indeed,” says Lamb, “for all the things that feared this man were living things, and living things do so fear all things -- the Kindred knows.” 

Wolf growls his displeasure. “Stupid living things! Clever, they call themselves, but do such intelligent things tremble at the mere sight of a pale old man?” 

“Indeed,” says Lamb again. “The pale old man thought so himself. And he was angry -- so angry. And so sad and lonely. And cold. So cold.” 

Lamb pauses for a moment, voice hushing into something less than a whisper, and despite the wind blowing in the clearing, her fur stills, and the glow in her eyes seems to flatten. So cold.

“So what did this pale old man do, Lamb?” Wolf eggs her, apparently not noticing her state, and she melts back into motion like water might thaw. 

“The pale old man took a hatchet,” says Lamb, voice faraway. “It was a special hatchet for a special pale old man, for when he took it, he cleaved himself in two, but he did not die. Instead, he was split into two parts.” 

“Why, little Lamb?” Wolf asks, voice filled with wonder. “Why would a pale old man do this?” 

“A pale old man would do this so he could always have that which he lacked: a friend.” 

“A friend?” 

“Indeed.” 

“And this man, little Lamb -- this pale old man! Who was he?” 

“No one,” replies Lamb. She looks up and over her shoulder, then, and considers you closely. 

“Ah hah,” Wolf nods in understanding, and he too considers you with a wide smile and smoking drool. “Yes, yes, I understand ... everyone.” 

[twiinmasks]

MARKAL MOREAU.

or: the first in a short series of fleshlings. 

It was a gloomy sort of day. The sky was overcast, and the clouds were heavy and gray. The air felt muggy and suffocating, as if the world was holding its breath. There was a distinct stench of smoke from some nearby camp. 

Alistair Moreau and his wife, Bella, huddled closer together beneath the sad rag they called their tent, shying away from the impending storm. The blanket is propped on crudely chiseled sticks of wood stuck weakly into the dirt, and the back was dominated by a cliff face, shielding them from view from those above (or, at least, that was what Alistair said). They dared not light a fire (and they had little idea how to create one anyway), but a few paces east there was a river that seemed clean enough to drink from. They did not have any hunting experience, but they were able to pay what little baubles they were able to escape their estate with to traders and vendors, scraping together what resources they could before the armies moved in to the towns and ravaged the farm lands. It could be worse. They could be dead. The Moreaus counted their blessings. 

Somewhere from the back of the tent was a shrill, frustrated sob, and Bella Moreau immediately whipped around and crawled back to join her young son, barely six, dressed in tatters that used to positively shine with their vibrancy not too long ago (how long had it been, anyway? Bella could not remember). 

“Baby, sweet baby,” said Bella as she picked up her son. She could feel his spine through his thin clothes, and his cheeks had long since lost their fat. His usual clear blue eyes now were cloudy, watery, and beginning to sink into his face. Despite Alistair and Bella’s best attempts to keep Markal fed and watered before themselves, their time in exile was beginning to painfully show in their only son. 

“What’s wrong? You must be quiet for mommy, now -- please, dearest. Sh ... sh ...” Bella rocked the boy back and forth as he struggled in her embrace, complaining about nightmares, and how he was cold, and he was hungry, and he wanted something to eat --

“I know baby, I know,” Bella kept herself from sobbing into her son’s stringy hair. “Soon, dearest, soon -- I promise. But right now, we must be quiet ...” 

“I can hear him from out here, Bella,” Alistair’s voice called from the entrance of the tent. It was strained and irritated -- patience worn thin by lack of sustenance and sleep. 

“I know, Alistair,” Bella said over her shoulder. “He’s hungry.” 

“Aren’t we all.” 

“I want to go home,” Markal sniffed into Bella’s chest. “I want to see Nugget.” 

The aforementioned Nugget was a large, black dog with large blue eyes and larger teeth. When the Moreaus adopted him, he was, indeed, a nugget -- small and precious, particularly to Markal -- but as time passed, the only one he seemed to loyally remain by was Markal. To everyone else, he remained stoic, uncaring, or even aggressive. He was a bit of a terror to the housemaids, but to the Moreaus, he was a godsend -- an extra barrier of protection for their boy. His ambivalence to his boy’s parents was forgiven upon the mutual agreement that they both protect the boy at all costs. 

“We’ll see Nugget soon, dearest,” Bella ran a soothing hand over Markal’s head. “Soon. But you must be quiet now if you want to see him. Can you be quiet?” 

Markal gave a shaky nod before curling up further in his mother’s lap. Bella murmured soothing words and soft songs to him, promising that soon their dear Markal could see their brave Nugget again. 

In truth, Bella doubted Nugget survived the invasion of their estate when they fled, but how was she to say this to her son? 

When the boy had at last fallen again into fitful sleep, Bella placed him on the small pile of rags they had gathered and rejoined her husband at the entrance of the tent. 

“You’re shivering,” Bella observed somberly, placing a hand on her husband’s shuddering shoulder. 

He shrugged her off. “I’m fine.” 

A wet, painful sounding cough betrayed him. Alistair ends over himself and made strangled retching sounds into his lap, although there was nothing from his stomach to throw up. Perhaps it was just as well -- they could not afford to waste food, at this point. 

“You should go inside and get some rest, dear,” Bella tried to insist, but Alistair waved her off. 

“I’m just not as young as I used to be,” Alistair tried to write it off. “Don’t worry, Bella. Stay with Markal. A boy needs his mother.” 

Bella paused for a moment, looking over her husband. His beard had long grown out scruffy and wild, and his usually immaculately kept hair (she always joked that he cared about his own hair than she her own) was now in complete disarray. There were bags underneath his eyes and his cheeks looked nothing short of sunken. Dirt stained his neck and was caught underneath his nails, and there was a defeated, tired bow to his spine that was so inherently uncharacteristic and opposite of the proud and confident stance that he used to have that Bella wondered if she was looking at her husband, at all. She felt her heart constrict and her stomach sink with something inexplicable. 

“Come inside, dear,” she tried to coax him. “We should all be resting. It will rain soon. You might catch a cold -- or make that cough worse.” 

Alistair shook his head. “One of us has to keep watch, and you’ve been walking all day.” 

“No more than you have.” 

“Bella, please,” Alistair turned to her, his pale eyes practically begging. “Let a man do this one thing for his wife, at least. Allow me this.” 

He looks so small, so pathetic, so exhausted, that Bella could do nothing but agree -- what else was she to do? She gave a small nod before pressing her lips onto his (they were chapped and tasted like dried blood, but she didn’t care; he was warm and alive and here, and they would get through this somehow -- they had to) and retreating back into the tent. She stretched herself out on the cold stone before curling protectively around Markal and forced herself to close her eyes and enter fitful sleep. 

Markal woke from cold. 

Despite his mother’s body circled around his, he still felt the unforgiving chill of the night settling into his bones. He considered waking his mother up, but was smart enough to know that there would be nothing more she could do than what she was already doing. Instead, he snuggled closer to her and attempted to still his shivering. 

It had rained at some point in the evening. Water was seeping through the canopy and dripping onto the stone floor, at at times a cold drop would splash onto Markal’s cheek. After a time, he gave up trying to wipe them off as they came. 

It is some time later that he noticed a shadow passing over the top of the tent. It was long and smokey, but at the same time almost liquid, and as it drifted past, Markal heard an ominous rumbling. Was it going to rain again? 

Markal rose carefully, as to not jostle his mother, and tottered outside to join his father at the entrance, wondering if he saw the same thing Markal had. He found his father sleeping, with his chin to his chest and his arms crossed. Markal raised a hand to shake his shoulder when a voice stopped him. 

“I would not, pup.” 

Markal just about jumped out of his own skin. He glanced around but sees no one. When he returned to looking at his father, however, two specters had appeared inches from Markal’s fingers. He hastily took back his hand. 

One was small and white, with a black mask, while the other one was long and black, with a white mask and long teeth. He was giant, with wide blue eyes, and as Markal continued to stare, the black one’s mouth split into a large grin. 

“Aren’t you afraid, fleshling?” the black one asked him. 

Markal shook his head. The black one tilted his head in apparent confusion. 

“Oh? A surprise for such a small one. What is your name, pup?” 

“Markal Moreau, third to --” 

“I asked for name,” the black one cut the boy off with a sharp sweep of his tail, apparently displeased, “not your meaningless title.” 

“Why do you not fear me, Markal Moreau?” the white one intervened before Markal could pout and say that his title wasn’t worthless, and his father was one of the best lords in all of --

“Am I supposed to be scared of you?” 

The black one’s head tilted further -- so far, in fact, that he turned his head completely upside down, with his chin to the sky and his ears pointed to the dirt. 

“Ha ha,” he said, voice soft and perhaps the slightest bit ponderous, “no, I suppose not.” 

He untwisted his head and does something akin to a bow, with his head dipping forward and his tail sweeping forward as if it was an arm. 

“I am the Kindred, pup! Behold, my GLORY!” 

And the black one opened his maw wide and howled, blue and white light spilling from inside him and blinding poor Markal Moreau for a moment. But not only that -- no, far from that -- but Markal heard distant ringing, the rush of wind, and the faint cries of women. His hair stood on end, and he felt something tremble deep in his gut -- a foreign, unfamiliar feeling that heralded something reaching into his core and squeezing. 

But as soon as the feeling came, it passed, and the camp was thrown into darkness once more. Markal blinked to scare off the stars in his vision. 

Then he clapped. 

“Wow!” he said in that trademark way only a child can say things in -- genuine, jubilant, and amazed. “That was so amazing! Can you do that again?” 

“Hush, pup,” the white one brought one of her three fingers to her mask where her mouth might be. “You might wake your father.” 

“Oh, right,” Markal immediately quieted. He glanced at his father, who was still sitting with his arms crossed and his chin on his chest. He was surprised his father had not woken up already. 

“What’s your name?” Markal turned back to the white one, who tilted her head.

“I just told you.” 

“You did?” 

The black one shook his head in disdain. “Fleshlings never listen.” 

“I’m sorry!” Markal cried out, truly guilty. “Please, tell me your name again.”

“I am the Kindred, pup,” the white one inclined her head while the black one snorted. Markal blinked. 

“I thought that was his name,” Markal pointed at the black one. The white one pointed to the black one and said in turn, “That is me.” 

“And that is me,” the black one gestured his tail towards the white one. Markal shook his head. 

“Okay, you’re both the Kindred?” 

“Both? No, I am the Kindred,” said the black one. 

“I am the Kindred,” agreed the white one. “There is only one Kindred.” 

“Oh.” 

Markal watched the Kindred with vague confusion. There were clearly two of them in front of him, and they both had their own voices and thoughts, so why were they insisting they were two different things? 

At last, the black one sighed and said, “If it is easier on the fleshling, you may call me Wolf.” 

“And you may call me Lamb.” 

“Oh, thank you!” Markal’s expression lit up with pleasure. “That makes it much easier.” Then he asked, “But, why are you here?” 

Lamb and Wolf glanced at each other. 

“The Kindred is here to speak to your father,” Lamb finally said. 

“Oh. Should I wake him up?” 

“There is no need, pup. The Kindred has spoken to him already.” 

“Oh, okay.”

There was a lapse in the conversation before Wolf said, “Go to sleep, pup. The night is young and you are cold.” 

And, indeed, Markal shivered at a breeze that blew through the ravine. 

“Go back to your mother, pup. She will worry about you.” 

“Okay,” Markal nodded obediently. As he walked towards the entrance of his tent, however, he turned and asked, “Will I see you again?” 

They stared at him before Lamb said, “Yes, of course, pup. You will see us again.” 

“We’re friends, right?” 

“Friends,” Lamb repeated the word meditatively. “Yes, of course. The Kindred and Markal Moreau are friends. The Kindred will be whatever you need it to be.” 

Markal grinned, then, waved, and departed inside his tent. 

He woke to his mother’s wails. 

It shattering the early morning like a hammer would to glass. Markal shot up from his sleeping position and scrambled outside. 

“Mother?” he called, panicked, and found his mother cradling his father. His worn head was resting along her chest, his shoulders against her abdomen, and his stomach awkwardly splayed across her lap. She was sobbing profusely, her tears and shuddering gasps sending out puffs of steam in the cool dawn air. 

“Mother?” Markal asked again, quieter this time, as he approached. “What’s wrong? What’s wrong with father? Why are you holding him like that?” 

Bela Moreau could only shake her head and wail into her husband’s hair.