Completed Old Dreams and the Sea

[Garrod Arlette]

"If only all the caught were so lucky," he thought aloud. "To be loosed from the hook that snagged them," his eye watched the ripple that worked across the water. Saw the fin slip neath the murk.

What are you hungry for, then?

He gave a wistful smile, and shrugged as he eased down, a knee still pressed into the muck, an elbow rest against the other, raised as it was. He curled in on himself, wrapped his right arm around the top of his knee, as if to hide his face in the crook there betwixt forearm and bicep, as his left hand stayed pressed into the earth.

"Conversation," he seemed to croak.

Elinyra Derwinthir

 

[Elinyra Derwinthir]

The fish was gone, and the pond turned smooth as a looking glass lit by a hundred tiny blinking lanterns - fireflies floating up lazily from the tall grass at the water's edge. Something about the coordinated patterns of their lights was comforting - almost hypnotic - but she gave Garrod her full attention despite the mesmerizing display.

"Indeed." Elinyra set aside the fishing pole and sat cross-legged next to him, her gaze shifting to the glimmering stars above until he spoke again.

"Tell me then, what's on your mind?"

Garrod Arlette

 

[Garrod Arlette]

He smirked as she settled down onto his rear, his left knee folded beneath him as he went on, hugging his right.

"You," he said, matter of fact. He ast a sidelong glance in the druid's direction. "Been travelin together on near two months," he smirked, and shook his head. "Hardly know a thing about you, save well, what you carry," he said the last part with a weight he did not intend. "Though I suppose we are even in that regard," his eye flit back to the pond. Sullen and green, it watched as the fireflies buzzed about the air. Mirrored in the pond's water.

Something blooped into the water.

"But I don't mean... well, I mean to know more about you," he said. "Healer, druid," he smirked. "Angler too, apparently,"

Perhaps it was a curiosity brought on by the tenderness of their shared fate. Cursed as they were. Each knew something of the other, that like few and far were those others who also knew.

Garrod could name the number on one hand. Even with the addition of William.

He shook his head. Hearing it all in the air. He felt silly. "Suppose I could've just asked," he muttered to himself.

 

[Elinyra Derwinthir]

"About me?" she mumbled in genuine surprise. During those months aboard the boat, she'd never asked the other passengers about their business, and likewise they had not asked the elf about hers. She'd become accustomed to the privacy - loneliness by any other name. It was a burden she'd willingly carried on her shoulders since the day she left her home empty but for dusty memories.

"I used to be part of one of the oldest Circles in the Falwood... though I've been a member of two different Circles, technically. I was trained mainly as an Ovate - a healer, yes, but also a conduit between ourselves and the spirits all around us. It was my calling, or so I thought, when I graduated to that grade eleven years ago.

"And that's pretty well what I did before I left. What is it the captain said that one time.. ah, yes: that we elves just get drunk on wine and dance all night while singing to trees? Something like that."

She shrugged and chuckled at the thought; not that it was terribly far off sometimes.

"Anything in particular you wanted to know? Or perhaps you'd care to swap tales?"

Garrod Arlette

 

[Garrod Arlette]

Garrod laughed along with the small memory she had shared. His arm loosed some from about his knees.

"Spose he's met one or two that took to wine and dancing," he shrugged. "Then again, who doesn't enjoy a dance once the good drink starts flowing," he smiled at her, and looked on. "What was your life like," he could not help but wonder, voice almost sheepish, "In the Falwood, in the circles?" he smiled softly. Curious. He didn't know much about elves. Well, not any who stuck to the woodlands. Or, well, shared much about their culture.

Suppose he never did ask them, when he had worked jobs with them. Such was the mercenary way. The hunter's way. Relations were brief. Only kept as long as they were needed, or as long as they were useful.

No. Not every hunter. Just him.

That's right, Oh Bearer Mine, he could hear Belephus whisper. Just so much as you can use, and make useful. A selfish, bitter heart, hungry, just as mine. Not so different, you and I.

He pushed the thought away. Tightened his arms around his knee again, raised his other leg up to turtle further into the comfort of his own flesh. His bones.

He was not like Belephus.

Elinyra Derwinthir

 

[Elinyra Derwinthir]

"It was..." she paused to consider how best to answer his question, but found herself caught somewhere between deep sadness and joy as she thought of happier times bygone. She sighed.

"Have you ever felt that you were part of something greater than yourself? A pattern that you fit into? Like a tree that stands on its own in a forest but is never alone?" She studied him as she asked, trying to discern what such questions might mean to a mercenary.

"That is what it is to be part of a Circle. To know where your spirit and heart belong. To find the meaning and wisdom of the world we live in. To celebrate life and love, when times are peaceful."

"My life was simple. Blessed, by many accounts. The high druids took care of the plants and animals, the cad’nweren protected us and gathered our food, the bards kept our sacred songs and stories. Not to say that there weren't sad times or disagreements - but compared to the constant strife of the world behind the Wood, it was near paradise."

Except for the external political forces always seeking to spread their influence, to control what they didn't understand. Except for an unexpected attack one autumn night.

Elinyra felt a warm spot on her cheek. She turned away to catch the solitary tear that had slipped halfway down her face onto her muddy sleeve.

Garrod Arlette

 

[Garrod Arlette]

He tried to imagine what she described. Thought of all the great and proud trees he had seen in all his ventures. His head laid down against the earth, his eyes cast up to those branches that swayed and churned in against the sky. Like so many veins. So many webs.

Small moments in his life. Echoes across his years. Only green flame flickered up in the dark.

No. He could not quite feel that feeling. To be more than himself. He had been more. Not much more, but. A Rose. Black with Red and Blue, Gold and White. A band. Small as they were. Him but one of five, and their five added to others. Till come the green flames.

He raised his hand to rub at the old silvered scar that run long across his neck. Just below his jaw. Could feel the cold run of steel against his skin. Had his roots been severed from his forest?

"Yeah," he said, voice adrift on a distant dream. His eye looked ot hers.

That is what it is to be part of a Circle...

She described a life, not so different from his own. Least, not in truth. Details were different. But weren't they always.

He heard the longing in her voice. The want. Saw the tear shimmer down her moonlit trace. A face that came kissed by fire flies that flit near one moment, and drifted away the next.

"It sounds like it was beautiful, Elinyra," he said softly, pulled his eye away from her and set it out onto the black mirror surface of the pond. And all the light that danced there on it. "Couldn't quite get to feeling like a tree," he played, voice nervous, near tight. "But," he let in a long, cool breath. "I did feel... something akin to it, I think," he let his legs down. "That feeling of being connected,"

Elinyra Derwinthir

 

[Elinyra Derwinthir]

"That it was," she whispered distantly. Elinyra could see his own pain bleeding into his voice, in the sorrowful depth of his gaze; but she also saw him unwinding, little by little, in his stance and in his expression. The healing power of shared experience and shared pain.

She turned to stare out at the pond with him, momentarily lost in her own reflections. "I think that's what each of us truly yearns for, in the end: to feel connected to our souls, our gods, our homelands, each other. Though great harm has come from connections forged in hatred and pain, great burdens have been lifted and even greater wonders created through those of heart and spirit.

"My mentor used to say that whatever has the power to create armies also has the power to build temples."

Elinyra wasn't sure if such words meant anything in this land, nor in the lands far across the horizon. Garrod's bravery, William's kindness, even Ahgrak's misplaced but well-intentioned protectiveness of those aboard his vessel - they all made her believe so.

That feeling of being connected,

"Tell me about it," she implored in a gentle voice, hoping not to pry too deeply into his personal turmoil.

Garrod Arlette

 

[Garrod Arlette]

Tell me about it, came the gentle supplication.

Garrod let out a long breath. He laughed. Small. The sound wistful.

"Right," he said. His eye narrowed some, and he suddenly wanted to curl up behind his knees again. To hide, as if that would be easier. But he kept his legs laxed, his posture, upright. "Suppose, well," his voice drifted some. "I did say, I wanted to know you," he reasoned aloud. His eye looked away, like a fish hooked, trying to break away. "And it's only fair that I... do the same," he added.

But didn't seem to willing. Not on the surface. But he had brought the conversation here, hadn't he? Meandered about the idea of connection. His fingers dug into the soil, scrunched the wet dirt into a clump in his palm. He looked to her. A quirk on his lip. A look in his eye that wanted to say more, but a lump in his throat that kept him from spilling forward that truth.

But you are just as greedy as me, Oh Bearer Mine, the old green flame whispered. Holding your secrets.

Elinyra Derwinthir

 

[Elinyra Derwinthir]

She could tell by his reaction that she'd asked too much of him. She stayed quiet for a moment, placing a hand on his.

"No - it's all right. You don't have to tell me anything more. I understand that some things are just too painful to speak of." In fact, she was sure she didn't understand whatever it was that was going through his mind right now, only that they each had their own troubles.

She moved to pull her hand away with a quiet sigh. She had hardly divulged everything about her own past; it hardly mattered now, at any rate.

Garrod Arlette

 

[Garrod Arlette]

Her touch came gentle. Soft and warm. Yet it brought his eye full upon her. It had the cold iron walls he was so quick to hide behind crack. Her fingers like the brave roots of so many trees, searching for new substance. Sustenance.

While they gave much the same. Opened a channel, small as it was, a break, that let the nourishment flow past the barrier he'd raised.

He hadn't known how much he wanted to be touched, until it happened. How much he wanted her to ask. She moved her hand away, he felt it slipping from his. He reached to grab for it, firm, but gentle if he caught it.

"I, I remembered my old band, my party of adventurers," he seemed to spit out. Felt his throat tighten, and felt the run of cold steel across his neck.

The pump of his heart, had him remember the coldness that was so slow and undoubtable. He had faced his own death.

And Belephus had saved him from it.

"We, I..." he was lost in the memory, he smirked as his eye welled with tears. "I felt," he shook his head, and pulled his hand back to him. His right hand, scarred and cut and so different from his left. The hand that bore his demon. "I felt, my roots," he said with a laugh, though it was a cold thing.

Elinyra Derwinthir

 

[Elinyra Derwinthir]

Elinyra relaxed her hand into Garrod's grasp as he spoke with the bitterness of one staring into the abyss beyond. The way he spoke of his past comrades, she had little doubt what he saw there: a deep, profound loss. She held his hand in return, as if she could guide him back from the edge of oblivion that still seemed to linger in his mind.

She wasn't quite sure why it seemed so important to her at this moment. Her mind had drifted away to happier times. Now it snapped back to the sobriety of the present. To words that seemed to flutter just out of her reach now that she needed them.

She followed his gaze to the supernatural scars on his hand. Sadly, a thing she was certain was beyond her capabilities to heal.

"Your companions were your roots?"


Garrod Arlette

 

[Garrod Arlette]

"The closest thing to them," he confessed. His eye traced up her hand. Followed the line of her arm, the well of her nape and the round her chin and look of her lips.

"I," his eye fell back to her hand. "I don't think of them often," he added. A warm sorrow there in his voice. "The memory of them," he seemed to search for the right words. "It is like my roots were ripped out from under me, and turned upside down," his hand loosed about hers. HIs breath calmed.

Tears had fallen down the right side of his face. Only now that the whirl of feeling settled, he let out a long breath. "I don't feel like I made much sense," he said with a laugh.

Elinyra Derwinthir

 

[Elinyra Derwinthir]

Edited: Moving onto other projects, so this will be my wrap-up post. Great thread, thank you for participating!

---

Elinyra remembered watching the new-fallen snow drop from the tree branches as she walked along with her mentor on a cold winter day, a question stuck in her young mind.

"When Kalithiel passed away, you said she was one root among many that would continue to grow into eternity. What did you mean by that?" Elinyra had asked, breaking the deep hush of the winter wood.

The venerable high druid had turned to her with a bright smile and a sparkle of story in her eyes.

"Because we are all roots, dear student. We are all roots of the tree of life, and it grows because of what we add to it. It withers when we take away from it. When one root dies, another grows in its place, but each is connected to one life. We are one."

Although Elinyra recalled the comfort those words had brought then, she couldn't relate to them now. Seeing how Garrod was looking at her - how she thought he was looking at her - made her remember someone. A root she could no longer find, no matter how deeply she dug. For a brief moment, she wanted to relent to the way the memories of him made her feel. To see him again. To feel his touch again. To entertain a notion that couldn't be.

Instead she averted her gaze with a sigh.

"Sometimes it may be best to forget," she said, although her words stung somewhere in her chest.

Perhaps she wasn't making sense either. She yawned. Looking up at the dark velvet sky, she realized it had grown quite late in the course of their conversation. Weariness had a way of clouding the mind and drawing strange dancing shapes in the shadows.

"I apologize... my thoughts are meandering a bit. I think I might be a bit tired.

"I'm going to head back to my camp and turn in for the night. I do hope we can continue this conversation another time, when we are both more refreshed. Get some rest, and I will try to do the same. Goodnight."

Elinyra stood and brushed herself off before heading off for her camp by the shore.

---

She slept fitfully for what remained of the night and awakened to the pale grey of a foggy morning. Huddling in her cloak against the brisk sea breeze, she walked along the beach until she came to a rocky outcropping. At its eroded crest she silently stared off at the horizon - not Westwards, towards her longtime home, but rather East, as if something was pulling her in that direction.

Dreams are strange things. Playful, chaotic, abstract spectres that haunt the somnolent mind. Rare is the dream that entertains the consciousness for more than a short while; rarer still are those touched by the threads of destiny. Among nightmares of shadows and an old wound, Elinyra had dreamt of an ancient myth - of the boy Gwion who was bestowed great knowledge, hunted by a wrathful god, and ultimately born anew with another name. She felt the weaving of fate, but she could only wonder what it meant.

Garrod Arlette

 

[Garrod Arlette]

How pained she looked. How tender. A rawness that he felt in his own flesh. As if his own chest came open to welcome her in.

Yet long as the moment between them had felt, it was snatched up with the suddenness of life. What was there or could have been, plucked out. Like firefly snatched betwixt a swallow's beak. Long before any false light could burn.

Sounds of adjustments, corrections, and a dismissal.

"Goodnight," he returned. Cleared his throat, and wiped off the wetness that had struck across his face. Sat in the darkness and stillness of the pond a long moment after, and watched the fire bugs dance their waltz across the dark.

Forgetting, came a cruel and wicked hiss. Is the luxury of those who can still remember, Oh Bearer Mine.