#TalkingAroundTruth

[ofbjoe]

Juxtaposition and Derivation (english version)

“Una and Leofric should be asleep now.” Astrid’s hushed voice is barely audible as she comes around the shabby house that saw Bren grow and goes to stand near the road. “No one’s coming.”

“Don’t say their name out loud.”  Eadwulf’s low growl rings behind him. “They’re traitors. They don’t deserve a name.” 

“Are you sure you don’t want to confront them before we end this, Bren?”  she asks. “For closure?” 

“The cart is over there,”  Bren says instead of anything that could be misinterpreted. “Wulf, a hand?” 

“Already on it.” 

They pull the creaking cart out of the shed and bring it to the front of the house to block the only entrance. The two boys step back, panting. At least, Bren is; physical effort never was his strong suit. 

He glances at Eadwulf looking towards his house, towards their last mission for the night. He is rubbing his hands and arms, and Bren is not sure if it’s because of the scars from Master Ikithon’s experiment a few days ago or if he remembers their… first stop of the night. It has been gruesome. 

Bren knows he must do it too, for the good of the Empire, but part of him wants to ask Eadwulf if it was difficult to watch his own flesh and blood die at his own hands. But he decides against it: there’s a trace of confusion and grief and anger in Eadwulf’s eyes, but when he notices Bren staring, it’s gone. 

“You ready?” 

Bren nods. “Yeah.”

His hand is shaking as he makes the flame appear. He closes his eyes, breathes in, breathes out. 

He is quick but methodical. First, the pile of firewood by the east wall. Second, the roof, covered in hay to make it burn quickly. Third, the windows and doors to block the exits.

The smoke starts to billow. Bren steps back, looking at his work. 

A strong hand squeezes his shoulder reassuringly. Another, more delicate, alights on his hip. 

“You made the right choice,”  Astrid says. 

“For the Empire,”  Eadwulf states. 

“For the Empire,”  he echoes. 

The flames are self-feeding now. It’s only a matter of time until—

-----

The roof is bright with flames and he hears more than he sees the first beam yield: the crack is covered by the muted roar of the flames, but the spurt of embers and burning hay it sends flying, rising towards the night sky like thousands and thousands of fireflies, captures his eyes and imagination. 

A vertigo. 

The day has been long helping his father with the crops, and every single muscle hurt, even those he didn’t realize he had. They’re a little short this month, and even though he would very much like to read a book, he knows they have to be frugal with the candles and they can’t read into the night anymore. Which explains Bren’s presence on the front step a few hours after sundown. It’s summer, fireflies’ season. A lazy and lovely and bored evening, looking up at the clear sky splashed with stars.

His mother joins him, sits beside him, and pats her laps. As the almost teenager he is, Bren hesitates, but lies down. She tangles a hand in his hair as they watch the sky in silence.  

“You see that one?”  she says pointing up. 

“The fireflies?” 

“No, silly! Farther away.” 

“The stars?” 

“That’s a planet, that one.” 

“Another place?” 

“Yeah,” she smiles. 

He hums, contemplates the possibilities. 

“And this,”  she adds mischievously, “this is the constellation of the Big Spoon.” 

“Don’t lie to me, mom. I’m too old for this…” 

“ And right next to it is the little spoon!” 

“MOM!” 

“ Not too old for that one, are you?”  she snickers before starting to hum a Zemnian lullaby, her voice, lilting but slightly off-key, drifting him to sleep. He takes her hand, presses a kiss on the back of it and closes his eyes. 

“We should move,” Astrid says. Bren blinks off the vertigo.

There’s shuffling inside the house by now. Panicked barks and yells as his parents realize the situation. Bren frowns. The hand on his shoulder squeezes. A delicate hand slips in his, and tugs. He follows without resistance. 

He looks at the house, at his own quarters upstairs now engulfed in flames. He can picture the door frame where, once a year, his father noted his growth with a small mark and where he himself once tried to do so with an already-adult and annoyed Frumpkin. That door frame must already be crushed by the beam by now. 

 There is a cat at the window, staring at him disapprovingly, calm as ever. 

Bren blinks. The cat is gone. 

Bren blinks a few more times. Was there a cat? He feels like there shouldn’t be a cat in there. He can’t remember why. 

He stops. 

He can’t remember why. 

Him. 

The screams start to pierce through his skull.

“Bren?”

Something in his mind starts to fissure.

-----

“ You asked to see me, Master Ikithon?” 

“Yes, yes I did, Bren. So, how did your little trip to Blumenthal go? Did you see your parents?”

“It went well, Master. They ah… They’re very thankful that I was offered the opportunity to serve the Empire. But ah… they seem worried about me that is.”

“You seem... troubled.”

“Do I?”

“You do. Does your family cause you worry?”

“Well, I miss my family and they miss me in kind. I haven’t been with them for Harvest Close for the third year in a row.”

“Not everyone understands what it means to offer their life for their country. But is that all that bothers you?”

He thinks about telling Trent that he had just learnt about the death of his childhood cat, but decides against it: it is not something worthy of Master Ikithon’s time.

“One night, as they thought I was asleep, I overheard them talking about me. Father thought [REDACTED] and… and Mother, she said she… she [REDACTED].”

“Those sound like very dangerous and very unpatriotic thoughts.”

“And then, they [REDACTED].”

Master Ikithon stays quiet, his gaze so severe and intense Bren had to look down. His jaundiced hands are almost immobile on the table. The silence is almost deafening against his inner turmoil, but Ikithon seems to not even notice the heaviness of the air. Bren has to break it.

“I don’t understand I—They know the Empire is keeping us safe… How could they?”

That… that doesn’t seem like something his parents could think, could say, could do…

“Often, the enemy is closer than we think,” Ikithon says. “Traitors and revolutionaries often live inside the Empire they mooch off like leeches.”

“How could I be so blind? All my life I…”

“It is dreadful news, you must feel quite ashamed.” Ikithon leans over the table towards him, ever so slightly. “What do you plan to do about this?”

Bren feels the anger flare up.

“I will do what it takes to keep the Empire safe.”

Ikithon says nothing, but the beginning of a smirk makes its way to his lips. He leans back, calm as ever. 

“You seem tired. Sleep on it. Bring me Astrid as you get out.”

“Bren?” Astrid says. “ Are you alright?” 

He looks up.

Two silhouettes pounding on the window. 

-----

“A kitten!” 

“I found him hidden in the chicken pen,” his father says. “ His mother doesn’t seem to be around.” 

“Leofric, is it really—” 

“Can we keep him?”  Bren asks.

There’s a smug look on Leofric’s face as he turns to his wife. 

“You always worry Bren will grow up lonely without a brother or a sister. I think we can afford a cat, Una.” 

“Dad, you’re the best!” 

“I love you too, little bear.” 

“They’re inside…”  he mumbles.

“Yeah. That’s the point. Remember?”

-----

The muscles locked in place. 

The high-pitch whistle in the ears, overwhelming everything else. 

The cold, the void, the suffocation.

His parents’ screams. 

It starts as a whimper, a groan. It then bellows into a howl. 

A scream he can feel passing through in his own body.

A scream that will never leave him, that he will always hear when he closes his eyes.

He opens his mouth in a yowl without hearing himself.

“Pull yourself together!”  Eadwulf orders. “ Shit! You’re gonna wake up the whole Zemni Fields!”

“If Master Ikithon learns you got cold feet…” Astrid tries to hush him.

“We can’t let them burn! They’re… I…”

“Bren!”

“Don’t touch me!” 

“Bren! Stay!”

“Mom! Dad!”

“Bren, what are you doing!”

“Wulf, catch him! He’s gonna burn if he gets there!”

“Damn shit!” 

His mother’s very unsubtle ways of asking if anyone from the capital had caught his eye yet. The red of his ears when he tried, and failed, to convince her to drop it.

“Geh mir aus dem Weg, Wulf! Ich muss—!”

His parents laughing and kissing on the front porch after they thought Bren had gone to sleep, leaving their initials in the dust like teenagers.

“Verräter sind Verräter. Werd nicht weich.” 

“Bren, sei vernünftig—” 

“Ich sagte ‘fass mich nicht an! ’” 

The fear of the blade the first time he shaved. The steady hand of his father showing him the ropes. His mother’s peck on his cheek afterward.

“Ahh!”

“Astrid! Das war’s, du gehst nirgendwo hin, Kumpel.” 

A tall and dark shadow framed by reddish light. Fixed dark blue eyes, shining cold against the flames. Almost inhuman.

The fearful smile of his mother when his father managed to scare off a bear threatening to ravage their apple tree. 

Another loud thud. The house ablaze, looming, breathing out a splash of fireflies.

The joyful tear of his stoic father when Bren was accepted at the Soltryce Academy. 

The cracking sound of Wulf’s fists and shoulders.

“ Hide this necklace, don’t tell your mother,” Father says with a giddy smile, handing him a wooden beads and tiny quartz necklace he clearly made himself for her.

Astrid’s hissing behind him. The smell of burnt flesh.

The field and the work, the sweat on his weak back. The apple tart at the end of the day. 

The pounding on the door stops.

Magic tingling at the tip of his fingers. 

“Geh mir aus dem Weg! Ich muss—!” 

“Versuch es erst gar nicht, Bren.”

The world upside down. 

The taste of cold dirt smeared on his face. 

A human warmth and weight on his back. 

Wulf’s scars itching his neck.

The dark and thick smell of rose petals mingling with the smoke.

His eyelids grow heavy.

Nothingness.

Silence. 

The end of his life as he knew it.