marorda
Oddball and author
The day was still young, the sun shone her first golden rays at the edge of the horizon and colored the sky orange. The fields and the forest were still shrouded in the morning fog, the moss and grass still coated in dew. Just a few days ago, a stranger had arrived at the edge of the forest where the clan resided, and the elves hadn’t seemed happy to see her. The stranger had seemed so familiar… they had the same brown hair and green eyes, a similar build… but the other elves had been very keen to keep her away from the stranger. However, her curiosity was strong, stronger than the attempts to keep the two apart. This was largely due to the fact Lhoris has hardly been around ever since the arrival. The others had told her he would make the woman go away. So… had he talked to her? Argued? Had they been fighting for all of those days? The young girl looked over her shoulder to the wagons and tents of the clan. She knew they weren’t sleeping. Elves never slept. But they did need their rest and were probably still deeply in their trance. The camp was shrouded in a serene calm. They wouldn’t notice if she’d sneak away, would they? She’d be back before anyone would notice she had left to see where Lhoris was, and to see if the strange lady was still there. On her bare feet she ran through the grass, down a slope, and hopped over the stones in the creek. If she listened quietly, she could already hear the two conversing in the distance. She slowed her pace from running to sneaking so they wouldn’t notice her and slowly crawled closer.
“You cannot deny me, Lhoris,” said the strange elf while she looked up at the older elf in front of her. “She has reached the age to start proper training. It is time I fulfill my duties.”
“If you truly valued your duties as much, Ae’sehir, you would never have left her with us. You should have stayed behind or taken her with you,” Lhoris answered coldly.
“I couldn’t do it back then, Lhoris. And you know it,” she replied. “You know me. I would have brought her in danger. Would have brought the both of us in danger. I wanted her to be safe until she was old enough.”
“You know the rules, Ae’sehir. You knew you were to late the moment you turned your back on us. She’s safe with us, and we can train her just as well as you claim you would. The child stays with us, won’t you, Nanaya?” Lhoris suddenly turned around and looked right at the young elf. Dammit! It was truly impossible to sneak up on him.
Nanaya shyly stepped away from behind a tree and looked at the two elves in front of her. Lhoris wasn’t her father, she knew that. But he had fulfilled that task for the last century and a half. Her real father passed away on a hunt even before she was born. And her mother… she had abandoned her shortly after her birth. That’s what she was always told. Lhoris had been appointed as her guardian, though raising children was generally everyone’s task. Nanaya looked at the strange elf again. Once again she noticed the similarities between the two of them. Although she was young, she wasn’t ignorant or even remotely stupid. It didn’t take her long to come to the conclusion this stranger was her mother. The way Lhoris and the stranger spoke of her certainly seemed to suggest it. But if it was true that her mother had abandoned her 150 years ago, as everyone always told her, why would she show up now? Lhoris addressed her as Ae’sehir, banished one. Was that because she had abandoned Nanaya? Or was that the reason why she was abandoned? So she could live a safer life as a child? The elves told her it was the first case, but this woman seemed to suggest it was the latter. Whom did she have to believe? Nanaya kept looking from the one elf to the other, the look on her face growing more and more confused.
“I… I don’t know…” she said with a shrug, some moments of silence later.
“You don’t know?” Lhoris tried his best not to shout at her. “We looked after you throughout your entire childhood, kept you safe, and now you don’t know whether you’d rather leave with an Ae’sehir or stay with your family?”
“But isn’t she my family too?” Nanaya retorted. Yet she winced and stepped back. This was wrong. You weren’t supposed to go against your elders, especially not your guardian.
“Don’t shout at her, Lhoris. Can’t you see she’s confused?” the female elf gently rested a hand on Lhoris’ arm.
“Don’t tell me what and what not to do!” Lhoris slapped her hand away and turned back to the woman. “We raised her while you were doing with whatever you spend the last century and a half doing.”
“And I fucking just told you why!” the woman shouted back. “Now I can teach her things you cannot even fathom. It is my duty to teach her the things I know.”
Nanaya put her hands over her ears and shut her eyes tightly. Why did they shout this much while they were standing right across of one another? With her right between them too! Why in the world was that necessary?
“Who said she even wants to know what you’ve got to teach, Ae’sehir?” Lhoris turned back to Nanaya. “Why don’t you tell this woman what training you’re going to follow?”
Nanaya pulled her hands away from her ears and opened her eyes. She looked away as her face turned read. “Why? So you can poke fun at me again?”
“This is not the moment to be wise, Nanaya,” Lhoris said calmly, in a voice she knew all too well.
“When I told you I wanted to become a bard, you shot me down saying that choice would lead to nothing but failure. When I said I wanted to be an archer you said my clumsiness would get me killed, and when I said I wanted to be a mage you said I wouldn’t have the patience,” Nanaya snapped at him and scoffed. “Now I’m considering to follow the path of the druid, but what’s your excuse this time? That I’m not responsible enough to keep a pet like the other druids?”
The female elf laughed heartily while Lhoris obviously tried to keep calm.
“Well, at least she inherited my personality,” she said laughing.
“That she has,” Lhoris stated. “Why did you think I wouldn’t allow her to follow in your footsteps? Once disgrace to the clan is already more than enough!”
“And that’s your excuse to crush a child’s hopes and dreams? That’s exactly what will lead to the clan’s downfall,” the woman said sharply.
“You have no right to say what we should or shouldn’t do within the clan. You’re no longer a part of it,” Lhoris said.
“And that also means I have no say in what happens to my own flesh and blood?” Now the woman’s voice also started showing traces of anger.
“Ae’sehir have no family,” Lhoris said. “She’s as much your flesh and blood as she’s ours. You should consider yourself lucky they send me just to talk to you instead of killing you the moment you showed your face. This whole situation we’ve got going on here is already more than Ae’sehir deserve.”
Nanaya silently stood by, listening to their arguing, and grimaced. Her thoughts went from one end to another. Irritation, curiosity, determination, confusion, everything in between and so much more. This elf was her mother, that much was obvious. After 150 years she had returned to teach her things she claimed the elves couldn’t. Nanaya was curious to hear what her mother had to say, but she didn’t understand why she had waited so long to return. Lhoris didn’t seem happy to see her mother had returned, and that probably was because her mother was Ae’sehir. But why was she? Did she even really want to know? Would she dare to risk Lhoris’ fury just to learn what her mother had to say? She thought she did, in dact she was quite sure. But still she was afraid what the others would say and think when they would undoubtedly figure out this had happened. She was already being disobedient, and for that she’d have to pay the price upon her return. Nanaya crossed her arms and sighed audibly, the strange grimace still on her face.
“Don’t you dare give us that look!” Lhoris now aimed his anger towards her instead of her mother. “That woman, that disgrace to our clan,” he yelled while pointing at her mother. “She is the reason you will not become a bard. Never! You will only follow in her footsteps and bring more disgrace upon us.”
Nanaya swallowed, the grimace on her face changing to a nervous fear while she stepped back towards the forest’s edge.
“Stay right here you!” Lhoris shouted in a tone Nanaya had never heard from him, one she couldn’t place other than knowing it didn’t sound good. She felt compelled to listen to Lhoris’ order and didn’t move another muscle.
“Listen closely, you ungrateful bitch,” Lhoris looked at her with eyes as sharp as daggers. “You can do three things right now. You walk back to the camp, forget what happened here and never mention it again. Then we might just forgive you. Stay, and I will drag you back once I’m done here. Or lastly, you consider following into your mother’s footsteps, as she so much wishes, but then you needn’t ever return to us. Go with her, and you too will be Ae’sehir.”
“May… could I…” Nanaya started softly, almost too afraid to speak another word and ask her question. “May I please speak to her in private for a moment? I’d like to hear her side of the story before I make my decision.”
“If you truly knew what the right decision would be, you would have already turned around and walked away,” Lhoris said eerily calm. “But since I apparently cannot change your mind, go right ahead.”
Nanaya uncertainly stepped forward and walked towards her mother. She glanced back over her shoulder and waited until Lhoris was outside of hearing distance.
“I don’t even know where to begin… there are so many things I want to ask you, so many things I’m no longer certain about,” Nanaya quietly confessed. She shook her head. All those questions, just one chance to ask them, and she didn’t even know what to ask first and what was better left unasked.
“I have all time in the world,” the woman smiled. “Although I don’t know how much time Lhoris will give us. Still, I’ll try my best to answer your questions.”
“Then…” Nanaya started, only to fall silent again. “Why did you abandon me? Why are you Ae’sehir? Did you become one because you abandoned me, or did you abandon me because you became one? And why did you return after so long? Why…”
“Easy there,” the woman chuckled. “I said I’d try my best to answer your questions, but I can still only answer one at the time, now can’t I?” She glanced at Lhoris, leaning against a tree at the edge. It was obvious he didn’t like what was going on one single bit. She glanced back at Nanaya and gestured her to sit down while she slumped down in the grass too, looking at a cloud passing by.
“I can summarize the first three questions, but it’s… complicated. The truth is, it’s a little bit of both. Your father was Esari, and the others weren’t happy when I brought him with me. ‘An elf with no clan is never good news’. He told me stories of his travels, about the wonderful things he had seen when he chose to leave his clan behind. From that moment on I just knew I would never learn as much as he knew if I would stay with the clan forever. There is so much knowledge in the world outside of the Caravan, Nanaya. There are so many things they would or could never teach us. I was willing to leave the clan and see the world, together with your father. Two Esari, inseparable in a world immensely bigger than I had ever even dreamed. The Se’liël weren’t happy to hear of my plans and threatened to declare me Ae’sehir if I would leave. And I just didn’t know if I were willing to take that risk…” she paused to give Nanaya the chance to let this new information sink in, and to let her own mind drift off to memories of long ago.
“So what happened next?” Nanaya asked. “Why did you choose to leave if you weren’t sure if it was worth it?”
“I have never entirely made that choice on my own,” her mother sighed and shook her head. “I knew what I was going to do, and decided I would take that chance. After all, I’m still a bard. Gathering knowledge and learning more about the world around us are things every bard should value. Everyone should learn to look beyond the boundaries of one’s own culture. But then… then I learned I was with child. The Telraimyr aren’t heartless, thankfully. Especially after your father died during a hunt, they knew it wouldn’t be right to send me off, alone into the world. They let me stay until you were born. And almost right after… they forced me to make the hardest choice I had to make in my entire life.” Tears welled up in her eyes, and the look on the elf’s face betrayed it almost hurt too much to continue speaking.
“I had to abandon you and leave, or take you with me, forcing a baby to live as Ae’sehir along with me. How could I do that to an innocent child? The world outside the Caravan was, and still is, too dangerous for a single mother with a babe or a little child. You would’ve never known any kind of security. We would always have had to run, to wander around and hope everything would be alright. We could have gotten captured and sold as slaves, we could have been killed. All those insecurities, all those dangers, that was something I didn’t want to do to you. So I left on my own. But I swore to all the gods and every single member in the clan, that one day when you’d be old enough, I would come back to see if you would be able to forgive me. That’s all. I ask for your forgiveness, and if you want, I’d give you the opportunity to leave with me. To share my knowledge, and to do what any mother should.”
“So… then they lied to me? When they said you abandoned me, it was a lie?” Nanaya asked softly. With these three questions answered she already thought to know so much more than what she had always been told.
“I left you with them to keep you safe,” her mother laughed for a moment. “But it was never my intention to leave you forever. Is that what they always told you?”
“More or less,” Nanaya nodded lightly. “Or at least they’ve always only told me half the truth. They told me you abandoned me after my birth, that you fled from the clan and would never come back.”
“But they never told you why, did they?” she asked.
“They just said you were egoistic, that you put your own desires above the needs of the clan,” Nanaya said, citing the words the Se’liël always told her. When she was a little girl, she used to ask a lot about her parents. After all, for a child it could be difficult to understand why other kids her age did have a mommy and a daddy and she didn’t. After repeatedly getting the same answer, she had just accepted the idea that her father was dead and her mother didn’t want her. She had stopped asking questions.
“They always kept the truth from you in an attempt to make sure you wouldn’t want to come with me on the day I’d come back,” her mother concluded sadly. “And that’s also why Lhoris tried so hard to keep me away from the Caravan.”
“And why they very specifically forbade me from coming here to see who this “stranger in our midst” was?” Nanaya asked.
“They did what now?” her mother sounded surprised.
“When they saw someone approaching, they told me to stay in the camp,” Nanaya said. “But they only told me. The only explanation I was given was that I wouldn’t want to see it anyway. Lhoris stayed away for so long I got curious.”
“You went against orders from the Se’liël because you were curious?” her mother frowned the way a mother would.
“Well, and worried!” Nanaya defended. “What if something bad had happened?”
“I am not judging you, sweetie,” her mother laughed. “It’s just comical to see how much we’re alike despite the fact we have never even met.”
“But that can change, right?” Nanaya asked. “There’s got to be a way for the rest of the family to take you back. Can’t you pretend to be pregnant again, and then stay with us and teach me everything? Everything will be alright!”
“Sweet child…” her mother smiled and placed a hand on Nanaya’s. “You know that’s not how it works. I have made my choices, and I’ve got the Se’liël against me. They would rather kill me that take me back into their arms.”
“But then… if I really want to learn, which I do…” Nanaya doubted. “Then I would have to leave. And I’m too scared to do so. I mean I’ve never seen Lhoris this angry before. He’s furious. But on the other hand I really want to hear what you could teach me, and I’ve wanted to become a bard since I was little. But they never let me and they never will. So if I want to… I need to stand up for myself, right? Take a leap of fate.”
“That’s a choice that’s yours to make, not mine,” her mother smiled. “If you want to come with me, you’re more than welcome, but if you’d rather stay with your family, I’d understand also. I will not force you into anything.”
“Hm…” Nanaya thought very deeply and made the same grimace as before. “How mad will they be if I choose to leave?”
“Very,” her mother admitted. “You heard what Lhoris said, didn’t you? One disgrace to the clan is more than enough. If you were to come with me, they will treat you just the way Lhoris treated me.”
“And I don’t like that,” Nanaya sighed. “Not in the slightest.” Her mind briefly wandered to Myalae, her best friend. The thought of her hating her because she wanted to follow her dreams stung.
“Then I presume you’d rather stay here?” her mother asked softly.
“I… I don’t know. I just don’t know it anymore,” Nanaya pulled her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around it. She bit the inside of her cheek hard, until a metallic taste filled her mouth. “I’m curious about what you could teach me. All the things the other elves know nothing about. But… I’m just a child, and they did raise me,” she summed up. “It would feel like betrayal to leave, but they will never give me a chance to find my own way. Every choice I’ve made up until now was shot down for one reason or another. Maybe I should just go, but I’m way too scared to just walk up to Lhoris and say that right into his face.” She quickly looked over her shoulder to the older elf. His patience was growing thin, and his face betrayed a furious storm was about to break loose.
“Then sleep on it for one more night,” her mother smiled and stroked Nanaya’s hair. “Think about it, get some rest, and see tomorrow if you have made your choice.”
“Well?” Lhoris said impatiently when Nanaya returned to him. “Have you made your choice yet?” Everything in his tone and posture made clear he was not happy with the arrival of Nanaya’s mother, and even less with the fact the two of them had spoken. The young elf silently shook her head and tried dashing past him, but Lhoris grabbed her arm tightly.
“You still don’t know whether you’d rather leave with an Ae’sehir than to stay with your own blood?” he hissed. “I would have expected you to be wiser, child.”
“But she is my blood also,” Nanaya retorted. “I just need to meditate and sort out my thoughts. This all has confused me.”
“What will the Elders say when they learn what happened here?” Lhoris asked. “Have you even tought about that? And to even consider leaving with an Ae’sehir… do you have any clue what kind of disgrace that brings? You’d better pray they will forgive you for your disobedience.”
Nanaya rolled her eyes, hoping Lhoris wouldn’t see. It was always the same thing. The clan above everything else, even your own dreams and wishes. Especially your own dreams and wishes. All those rules and restrictions had gotten more and more on her nerves recently, with all her dreams being laughed at. Perhaps it was just puberty, but by now it no longer surprised her that her mother had once chosen to leave. If Nanaya was being very honest with herself, she couldn’t quite care less what the Elders would say. She wanted to find her own way in life. But to take the step and actually leave… was that a good idea? What if things wouldn’t work out?
“Don’t stand around there looking stupid!” Lhoris yelled at her. “Back to the clan you.”
And just like he said he would, he harshly dragged her back by her arm.
“Say you’re sorry!”Ilrune Telraimyr, head of the clan, demanded. Nanaya sat amidst a large circle of elves, shivering. Tears ran down her cheeks. After Lhoris had told them all what happened, they had given her the silent treatment all day. Complete ignoring. Nobody had looked at her nor spoken to her, as if she were invisible. Now that night had fallen, they had finally decided on her fate. Besides being banished, the Shaming was probably the worst punishment an elf could get, especially when they were this young. The elves in the circle shouted at her. Insults, everything they disliked about her, every mistake she had ever made. And they would only stop when she did what Ilrune asked of her; if she’d say she was sorry and beg for forgiveness. And even then there was no guarantee they would ever truly forgive her. Nanaya’s wet eyes scanned the crowd, looking for just one friendly face. One person not shouting at her. Her eyes couldn’t find one, but she did notice at least one missing person. Myalae was nowhere to be seen. That brought her some relief. As she had thought before, she’d hate to see her friend angry at her, she couldn’t stand the idea of her best friend hating her forever. Words got through to her again. As long as she’d keep sitting there and remain silent, the shouting and insulting would only get worse.
“Doomed to fail in her life.”
“A disgrace upon the clan.”
“Had anyone really expected something else from the daughter of an Ae’sehir and an Esari?”
“She should have been banished alongside her mother long ago.”
“Useless.”
“Never did anything right.”
Just some of the words burning into her mind. Nanaya clasped her hands over her ears and shrunk even further. Yes, she was sorry she had upset them so much. This was exactly what she had been so afraid of and it was exactly what she had been trying to avoid. But could they really blame her for being curious to her mother’s side of the story? She started shaking even worse and couldn’t stop crying.
“I’m starting to think she’s not sorry at all.” Taenya, one of the elves judging the situation and also Myalae’s mother, graciously walked over and grabbed Nanaya’s chin. Her icy blue eyes stared deeply into Nanaya’s green eyes.
“You know what happens if you won’t say you’re sorry, don’t you?” she asked sharply.
Nanaya nodded weakly. If she could make any sound, she’d try to say something, but she just couldn’t. She was too exhausted and just wanted to rest so she could clear her mind, a chance they didn’t want to give her.
“Then say it!” Taenya slapped Nanaya’s face, yanked her up and pushed her towards Ilrune. “Say it right now.”
For a short moment, all the elves fell silent, waiting for what the young elf would say. Nanaya was still shuddering. Her voice wavered. With her head held low she glanced up at the old elf in front of her.
“I…” she started quietly. Then she hesitated. Enough. She had had more than enough of this all. “I’m only sorry for not being sorry that I’ve spoken to my mother and listened to her side of the story. I never will be. I regret I upset you, but I am NOT sorry.”
The silence that followed was deafening. Nobody even dared to make a single sound that would break the silence of the night. After what felt like hours, Ilrune tapped his fingers together.
“Right then,” he said slowly. “So that’s how it is.”
His tone and the eerie calm sent an ice cold shudder down Nanaya’s spine. He said nothing. All he did was looking around the circle and make brief eye contact with the other Elders and the Se’liël. Nanaya held her head low and her eyes cast to the ground, waiting the impending judgement.
“Then leave,” Ilrune’s voice was loud and clear. “You will no longer, or ever again, carry the name of the Telraimyr. From this moment on, you are Ae’sehir. You are no longer welcome in your midst, so leave immediately.”
“Can I still grab some things?” Nanaya dared to ask softly.
“Things?” Taenya scoffed. “Ae’sehir have nothing and nobody. Leave!”
Nanaya winced. The “title” stung in ways she couldn’t put into words. With Taenya’s last words to her echoing in her mind, Nanaya fled from the circle. Elves quickly stepped aside to let her pass. She didn’t watch where she was going. Branches hit her in her face, but she could hardly feel the pain. She rushed down the slope and through the creek, blindly heading to where she had seen her mother and Lhoris speak earlier. She was in the fields already by the time she dared to look around again. Was she still there? What if Lhoris had chased her away? Where would Nanaya have to go then? She squinted, seeing a fire in the distance. Nanaya ran towards it, hoping it was her mother and not a complete stranger. Relief overcame her when she spotted a familiar silhouette near the fire, a figure that was humming a familiar tune.
“Mama?” Nanaya asked carefully, still not entirely certain, and not at all knowing how to address the lady at the fire. The humming stopped, and the silhouette turned to face her.
“Do you already know what you’re going to do?” she asked.
Nanaya stepped closer and fell down in the grass.
“I didn’t want to say sorry…” she mumbled before bursting into tears again.
“Oh you poor thing… so they…” her mother mumbled while kneeling down next to her and stroking her hair. “I could hear the shouting all the way here and was just praying it wasn’t what I thought it was.”
“Well, it was,” Nanaya pushed herself up, dried her eyes and stared into the flames.
“What did you tell them?” her mother asked with a hint of mischievous curiosity.
“That I was only sorry for not being sorry I had talked to you,” Nanaya kept staring into the flames with an empty gaze. She didn’t want to talk. She only wanted to rest and forget. Her mother laughed.
“That sounds like something I could have said when I was your age,” she told. “Maybe that’s what angered them the most. You remind them too much of me, and they can’t stand that.”
Then she too fell silent for a moment and stared into the flames beside her daughter.
“Still I hadn’t expected them to do this,” she sighed. “Yes, I had expected them to throw you out if you were to choose to come with me, but to first put you through a Shaming and then cast you aside in the midst of the night?” she shook her head. “Although they were also willing to banish a newborn, so maybe I shouldn’t be as surprised. Maybe they’re more heartless than I thought.”
“Now what?” Nanaya asked after a few moments of silence. “Where will we go? What will I learn? How should I call you?”
“We’ll go wherever the roads lead and the winds take us. And if the roads stop and the winds stop blowing, we’ll create our own way,” her mother said. “We don’t plan, we’ll see wherever our journeys take us. And on our way I will teach you the things I know. Everything a bard should know; playing an instrument, singing, the weaving of stories, how to make friends in the right places, getting out of trouble, and so much more. There are an endless amount of things to learn and know, Nanaya. There’s so much knowledge in the world. Stories about heroes and kings, of monsters and wars, all sorts of things the clan would never teach you because it has nothing to do with their culture. And to answer your last question… for both our safety it would be wise not to address me as your mother if there’s anyone around to hear you. In those cases, just call me your mentor, or call me by my name: Ashara. You know… let’s be more precise. Whenever someone doesn’t call me by my name, refer to me as your mentor. If they do call me by my name, choose whichever of the two you like.”
“You make it sound like being a bard is one of the most dangerous things in the world,” Nanaya dared to give a small smile again.
“Because it just might be,” Ashara admitted. “You make enemies from time to time. People won’t always agree with you or the friends you make, occasionally you insult the wrong person. It honestly depends on what you do as a bard and how you put your talents to use. I have… a certain reputation. And it just depends on whomever you ask whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing.”
“That’s the first thing I’m going to have to remember, isn’t it?” Nanaya grinned.
“That would be a wise idea,” her mother nodded. She took a closer look at her daughter and how she had arrived at the fire.
“Didn’t you take anything with you?” she asked.
“I wasn’t allowed to,” Nanaya’s voice grew soft again. “Taenya said Ae’sehir have nothing and sent me away like this.” She gestured at herself. Her only possessions were the clothes she was wearing. Ashara pursed her lips, shook her head, and clicked her tongue. She then gestured at her sleeping bag. “Then lay down there,” she said with a small smile. “You could use some rest. Tomorrow we’ll go to the nearest village and see if we can get you the necessities.”
“Thank you,” Nanaya said while she slowly made her way to the sleeping bag. The moment she laid down on it, she sank away in a deep and dreamless trance.
“Mom?” Nanaya’s voice echoed in the darkness. “Mom, where are you?”
Ashara had said not to call her mother when there were others around, but in this darkness there was nothing or nobody to be seen. She couldn’t see at all and shivered in the cold. Where was the warmth and the fire? And really, where was Ashara? “Mom, where are you?”
Nanaya had only just found her mother, and didn’t intend to lose her right away. For a moment she thought she could hear a sad sigh behind her. It didn’t sound like her mother or anyone she knew at all, but still she turned around. Nothing. Just what seemed to be a shadow stirring in the darkness. It was already gone before she had even had the chance to blink. Nanaya shook her head. She was too old to be afraid of the dark, but this was different.
“Mom?” she tried once more. Still there came no answer. She started to walk. Her footsteps sounded hollow, as if she was standing in a large and empty room. Was there a door anywhere? A window? At least then she would be able to see something. She kept on walking and walking, searching for a wall, a door, anything that could get her out of the darkness.
She shot up on the field where she had camped the night before. Nanaya let out a sigh of relief, glad this was all just a strange nightmare. So much had happened the day before, it was no surprise it would turn into a haunting one way or another. Nanaya chuckled and pushed herself up. It was still really cold for the time of the year. At least it was colder than the day before. Apparently Ashara had already broken up the camp. Seeing how the clouds were dark and the grass felt clammy it made no more than sense. To have the rain soak the few belongings that they had was not a good idea. She wiped her hands dry on her shirt, rolled the sleeping bag together and picked up the lantern Ashara had seemingly left behind. With those few things on her she crossed the field to look for her mother. She couldn’t be that far, right?
----
Myalae had hardly spoken a word the last couple of days. She had only been thirty years older than Nanaya, not even three years compared to humans. Part of her understood the younger elf. They had been best friends, both wanting to explore the world, maybe see more than the clan would offer. And she knew how unfair it was… she would never get in the same amount of trouble if she were to wish to see the world. Myalae had always thought so. But now that her friend had been banished a few days ago, she was no longer so certain of it all. The elf had felt forced to keep her thoughts to herself and focus on other things, like her studies. Wanting to be a bard required a lot of reading.
“Don’t let them see you’re hurt, don’t let them see you miss her,” Myalae told herself. “The clan considers her Ae’sehir. We have to pretend like she’s never been a part of us, forget she ever even existed.” Another voice in her mind protested. They had been friends. Best friends for most of their life. How could she just pretend to have forgotten, pretend the girl didn’t exist? She sighed as she looked at the pages of the old and large book on her lap. Her fingers stroked the pages, past the written lines while she tried to remember the names of people and places. Myalae’s lips moved without making a sound while she read the words and memorized. Halfway through one of the sentences, her breath stopped. She felt the unmistakable feeling of someone watching her. As she turned around, however, there was nobody to be seen. She shook her head. Must have been her imagination.
An icy cold wind blew through the forest, much colder than the wind had to be this time of the year. It generally seemed to be colder. Myalae pulled her cloak around her and stared at the pages again. She couldn’t read anymore, not after having heard the whisper in the wind. A voice, vague and far away, maybe more than just one voice. She hadn’t heard the actual words, but the tone made her feel sick. Her stomach pulled itself together. From the corner of her eyes she looked at the other elves. They didn’t notice anything, or at least they didn’t show it. The horses, however, now that was another story. They whinnied nervously and pulled the ropes with which they were tied to the trees. Myalae listened to the trees and the other sounds of nature… only to notice everything had fallen silent. No crickets in the grass, no chittering and twittering of birds in the trees. Everything seemed to hold its breath. From the corner of her eyes, she could see something stirring in the shadows. It was gone as she blinked, disappeared into another shadow. Again she could feel it. Eyes burning in her back. Myalae shuddered and stood up. It didn’t feel right to sit so close to the trees anymore. She walked into the clearing and sat down against one of the wheels of a chart and pressed the book close to her chest. Her breathing had quickened, and she noticed she was trembling lightly. Myalae took a deep breath and closed her eyes for a short, light meditation. She had to push those feelings away. There was nothing. It was her imagination. And even if there really was something, the charms would protect them against evil. It had to be an extremely powerful and equally evil force to get past that. Not impossible, just highly unlikely.
The first deaths had occurred before night had even fallen. The first two were children, holding each other tightly, a terrified look on their faces. They didn’t have any injuries, showed no traces of poisoning. Their lifelight seemed to have blown out like a candle’s flame. Another was one of the Se’liël, whose remains could best be described as if it had been torn to pieces by a wild animal. What made them suspect it was not an actual animal was the complete lack of traces. Even the best hunters of the Telraimyr couldn’t find anything at all. Now that darkness had fallen, everyone stuck closely together. There were more patrols, they were more alert, there were more fires. Myalae had crawled into one of the wagons for the night, but she couldn’t mediate nor sleep. Every time, right before she doezed off, she was sure to hear that whisper, the voice in the wind between the trees, just not audible enough to hear properly. She too slow and deep breaths and stared at the clouds her breath made. Cold. Colder than it should be. Every sound seemed so much louder than normal. All her senses worked overtime. There still were no sounds that she was supposed to hear during the night. Just the hushes whispers of the patrols, the wind between the trees, and the breaking of twigs under footsteps. The first the best unexpected sound would for sure make her jump up and scream at the top of her lungs. That, or she’d freeze in fear. Myalae closed her eyes and kept breathing. In the morning they’d have a funeral for the three deceased, and she couldn’t afford to sit there looking like she was half an undead. Slowly she sank away at last, with in her mind the soft humming of an all too familiar tune. She wasn’t sure if it came from her memories, or whether it was a sound from outside the wagon, but by now she was too tired to even pay it any mind.
The relative peace was disturbed just before sunrise by a terrifying scream from inside the woods.
“The shadows! It’s in the shadows!”
Another voice simply screamed various pleads before suddenly being silenced. Too suddenly. Myalae swallowed hard and shivered again. She too had seen something in the shadows, but had simply deemed it imagination. Even when the horses had noticed too. And animals never lied. She hesitantly looked at the elves around her. Should she tell them? Should she confirm she too had seen something even before the first people had died? She opened her mouth to say something, but her words never left her throat. From the corner of her eye she once again saw movement in the shadows. Was it the thing? Was it one of the scouts who had escaped? The bushes rustled. A scout with a terrified look on his face, all too similar to the looks of the dead children, stumbled towards them.
“Flee!” he called to nobody in particular. “Whatever it is, it’s coming. It’s in the sha-…”
His sentence was interrupted by a dark shapeless being appearing with an inhuman and frightening scream. It washed over him. Fiery, burning eyes stared around the clearing. Unseeing eyes looking for its next prey. The creature swirled and swooped, making the flame in its lantern dance. The temperature fell further and further until everyone was shivering. The air pressed heavily down upon them. Whatever this creature was, it was much stronger than the charms could stop, and that meant bad news. The more terrified people seemed to become, the more the atmosphere seemed to change, as if this creature carried an aura of despair. Anger, fear, pain. Myalae put a hand on her chest and felt her heart racing, as if it tried to break free. Tears burned behind her eyes. A quick look around her told her others felt something similar, but nobody felt it as bad as she did. The pain was nearly unbearable, but it seemed strangely familiar, as if she had felt it before. She knew it. She recognized it. Pain, insecurity, fear. It burned in her soul, so hot it drove away the cold. Again the creature screamed. More elves died out of sheer fright. With those terrified looks they fell down to the earth and remained motionless. How many were there still left? Myalae guessed that of the seventy elves she knew, less than half of them were still alive now. Eyes of fire, burning with hatred, stared into the souls of the survivors. The anger, the fear, the pain… it choked Myalae, didn’t only squeeze her throat shut put also seemed to enclose her heart with an ice cold grasp, squeezing it together slowly. Would anyone even live to see another day, or was this the end of them all? For a moment the relieved thought Nanaya had been cast away just in time crossed Myalae’s mind. The way it had happened had been horrible, and she hadn’t been able to watch, to see her friend hurt, but at least it meant she wasn’t with them now, at the mercy of this thing. She was safe now, miles away from here and together with her mother.
Something in the creature seemed to change. The flame in the lantern increased for a brief moment, before it seemed to die out together with the initial hatred. The monstrous creature haunting them took on a clearer shape. The glowing eyes made place for a pair of green eyes, looking at them full of fear. All color drained from Myalae’s face. What had Taenya done that night after the Shaming? Myalae had seen her mother leave, but didn’t think too much of it. As far as she knew, her mother just went out for a walk to clear her mind. But what if… she went somewhere else? That empty look in her eyes, the fear on her face, the traces of tears still on her cheeks… and especially that dark red stain covering almost her entire stomach…
“Where is my mother?” though the hatred seemed to have faded, the voice still sounded sharp. The creature looked at them, awaiting an answer that didn’t come. Myalae tried her very best to step towards the girl. Her legs felt as if they were made of lead. Hesitantly, she reached out a hand to the being in front of her. The fear they seemed to share overcame her.
“Myalae? Have you seen her?”
Myalae froze and swallowed a few times, but she couldn’t utter a single sound. She shook her head and glanced over her shoulder for a moment. It was her fault. Everything was her fault. All the pain, everyone who had died…. If she hadn’t done anything that night….
“Done what?”
Myalae rapidly turned around. She was inside her head. The creature that once had been her friend was inside her head. Were her thoughts still her own or were they this shade’s?
“Myalae, what are you talking about?”
Myalae sighed. Whether she’d tell or not, she could figure out the truth soon enough. Myalae didn’t know what was more painful: seeing the shade of her friend, or the fact she didn’t seem to realize she was dead, that she didn’t seem to know what she had become. A Silaric, the wrathful soul of a deceased child who wouldn’t rest until the cause of the hatred was gone. And the girl had some good reasons to hate most of them.
“Silaric…” Nanaya’s shade repeated the word slowly as she dropped her head. It was as if she only noticed the bloody stain now, as well as the blood on her hands. “Oh.”
The green eyes faded again and made place for the burning eyes once more, the being changing back into its monstrous state.
“Why?” howled the being with a voice that shook the trees. It got even colder than before. Despair seemed to grow stronger than the hatred. “WHY?”
Tears ran down Myalae’s cheeks, no longer capable of distinguishing her own thoughts and feelings from Silaric-Nanaya’s. She rubbed her temples and closed her eyes.
“Nanaya, please… leave my mind,” she said softly. “Please…”
“Don’t you understand me?” hollered the Silaric. Although she still responded to her name, every trace of Nanaya had faded away. “Why wasn’t I allowed to live anymore? I left, didn’t I? Why? WHY?”
Myalae sank to her knees, shuddering, feeling how she was slowly starting to lose herself. This Silaric was more than Nanaya alone, it had to be. Nanaya alone could never carry so much hatred inside her soul.
“Now we understand each other.” The Silaric extended a shadowy tendril and closed itself around hear heart. For a few seconds, Myalae’s entire world turned to darkness. All her thoughts and feelings were drowned out by the dark. It soothed her, gave her those few seconds she needed to sort her thoughts out. Now they understood each other indeed. The Silaric, Nanaya, she. Myalae stood up and turned around to the elves behind her.
“Would you do the same thing to me if I wanted to explore the world? No, you wouldn’t, right?” her voice was cold as eyes. “You’d simply let me go and welcome me back into your arms whenever I’d return. But Nanaya… no, she had to be banished because you banished her mother too. And as if that wasn’t enough yet…” she stared at the dark stain on Nanaya’s shirt before turning to gaze at Taenya. “You had to murder her. She and her mother both.”
“You,” Nanaya also turned to Taenya with the same sharpness at Myalae. This time the tables had turned. It was her green eyes staring hatefully in Taenya’s now frightful blue eyes. Now it was Taenya sitting on the ground, hunched together and terrified, knowing there was no escape. She grabbed Taenya’s chin in an iron grip and forced the elf to look at her.
“You could tell me you’re sorry,” Silaric-Nanaya spoke slowly, ‘but I know you don’t mean it. You would do it again, given the chance.”
“But let me tell you a little secret: that won’t happen,” Myalae slowly approached as well. “Have you any idea what’s waiting for you?”
“P-please…” tears rolled down Taenya’s cheeks. “I don’t know what you are, but let my girl go. Please let my little girl go.”
“Why?” both girls asked in unison.
“Losing your little girl is just a part of the pain you’ll have to carry into eternity. The true realization still needs to come, doesn’t it? The realization all of this is your fault,” the creature that had bound itself to the souls of the girls detached itself, hovering close to Taenya’s face. It spoke with not only its own voice, but also with both girls’. “If you hadn’t murdered this child, your little girl would have been alive, just like the most part of your clan. But now… now they’re mine. They’re all mine!” Taenya stifled another cry and reached out her hands to her daughter.
“I’m sorry.”
“Too late,” the Silaric laughed darkly. “It is much too late for that.”
Darkness like a moonless night surrounded them, and one more time the gruesome, terrifying scream could be heard. A scream that shook the trees, one in the voices of all who had died.
“You cannot deny me, Lhoris,” said the strange elf while she looked up at the older elf in front of her. “She has reached the age to start proper training. It is time I fulfill my duties.”
“If you truly valued your duties as much, Ae’sehir, you would never have left her with us. You should have stayed behind or taken her with you,” Lhoris answered coldly.
“I couldn’t do it back then, Lhoris. And you know it,” she replied. “You know me. I would have brought her in danger. Would have brought the both of us in danger. I wanted her to be safe until she was old enough.”
“You know the rules, Ae’sehir. You knew you were to late the moment you turned your back on us. She’s safe with us, and we can train her just as well as you claim you would. The child stays with us, won’t you, Nanaya?” Lhoris suddenly turned around and looked right at the young elf. Dammit! It was truly impossible to sneak up on him.
Nanaya shyly stepped away from behind a tree and looked at the two elves in front of her. Lhoris wasn’t her father, she knew that. But he had fulfilled that task for the last century and a half. Her real father passed away on a hunt even before she was born. And her mother… she had abandoned her shortly after her birth. That’s what she was always told. Lhoris had been appointed as her guardian, though raising children was generally everyone’s task. Nanaya looked at the strange elf again. Once again she noticed the similarities between the two of them. Although she was young, she wasn’t ignorant or even remotely stupid. It didn’t take her long to come to the conclusion this stranger was her mother. The way Lhoris and the stranger spoke of her certainly seemed to suggest it. But if it was true that her mother had abandoned her 150 years ago, as everyone always told her, why would she show up now? Lhoris addressed her as Ae’sehir, banished one. Was that because she had abandoned Nanaya? Or was that the reason why she was abandoned? So she could live a safer life as a child? The elves told her it was the first case, but this woman seemed to suggest it was the latter. Whom did she have to believe? Nanaya kept looking from the one elf to the other, the look on her face growing more and more confused.
“I… I don’t know…” she said with a shrug, some moments of silence later.
“You don’t know?” Lhoris tried his best not to shout at her. “We looked after you throughout your entire childhood, kept you safe, and now you don’t know whether you’d rather leave with an Ae’sehir or stay with your family?”
“But isn’t she my family too?” Nanaya retorted. Yet she winced and stepped back. This was wrong. You weren’t supposed to go against your elders, especially not your guardian.
“Don’t shout at her, Lhoris. Can’t you see she’s confused?” the female elf gently rested a hand on Lhoris’ arm.
“Don’t tell me what and what not to do!” Lhoris slapped her hand away and turned back to the woman. “We raised her while you were doing with whatever you spend the last century and a half doing.”
“And I fucking just told you why!” the woman shouted back. “Now I can teach her things you cannot even fathom. It is my duty to teach her the things I know.”
Nanaya put her hands over her ears and shut her eyes tightly. Why did they shout this much while they were standing right across of one another? With her right between them too! Why in the world was that necessary?
“Who said she even wants to know what you’ve got to teach, Ae’sehir?” Lhoris turned back to Nanaya. “Why don’t you tell this woman what training you’re going to follow?”
Nanaya pulled her hands away from her ears and opened her eyes. She looked away as her face turned read. “Why? So you can poke fun at me again?”
“This is not the moment to be wise, Nanaya,” Lhoris said calmly, in a voice she knew all too well.
“When I told you I wanted to become a bard, you shot me down saying that choice would lead to nothing but failure. When I said I wanted to be an archer you said my clumsiness would get me killed, and when I said I wanted to be a mage you said I wouldn’t have the patience,” Nanaya snapped at him and scoffed. “Now I’m considering to follow the path of the druid, but what’s your excuse this time? That I’m not responsible enough to keep a pet like the other druids?”
The female elf laughed heartily while Lhoris obviously tried to keep calm.
“Well, at least she inherited my personality,” she said laughing.
“That she has,” Lhoris stated. “Why did you think I wouldn’t allow her to follow in your footsteps? Once disgrace to the clan is already more than enough!”
“And that’s your excuse to crush a child’s hopes and dreams? That’s exactly what will lead to the clan’s downfall,” the woman said sharply.
“You have no right to say what we should or shouldn’t do within the clan. You’re no longer a part of it,” Lhoris said.
“And that also means I have no say in what happens to my own flesh and blood?” Now the woman’s voice also started showing traces of anger.
“Ae’sehir have no family,” Lhoris said. “She’s as much your flesh and blood as she’s ours. You should consider yourself lucky they send me just to talk to you instead of killing you the moment you showed your face. This whole situation we’ve got going on here is already more than Ae’sehir deserve.”
Nanaya silently stood by, listening to their arguing, and grimaced. Her thoughts went from one end to another. Irritation, curiosity, determination, confusion, everything in between and so much more. This elf was her mother, that much was obvious. After 150 years she had returned to teach her things she claimed the elves couldn’t. Nanaya was curious to hear what her mother had to say, but she didn’t understand why she had waited so long to return. Lhoris didn’t seem happy to see her mother had returned, and that probably was because her mother was Ae’sehir. But why was she? Did she even really want to know? Would she dare to risk Lhoris’ fury just to learn what her mother had to say? She thought she did, in dact she was quite sure. But still she was afraid what the others would say and think when they would undoubtedly figure out this had happened. She was already being disobedient, and for that she’d have to pay the price upon her return. Nanaya crossed her arms and sighed audibly, the strange grimace still on her face.
“Don’t you dare give us that look!” Lhoris now aimed his anger towards her instead of her mother. “That woman, that disgrace to our clan,” he yelled while pointing at her mother. “She is the reason you will not become a bard. Never! You will only follow in her footsteps and bring more disgrace upon us.”
Nanaya swallowed, the grimace on her face changing to a nervous fear while she stepped back towards the forest’s edge.
“Stay right here you!” Lhoris shouted in a tone Nanaya had never heard from him, one she couldn’t place other than knowing it didn’t sound good. She felt compelled to listen to Lhoris’ order and didn’t move another muscle.
“Listen closely, you ungrateful bitch,” Lhoris looked at her with eyes as sharp as daggers. “You can do three things right now. You walk back to the camp, forget what happened here and never mention it again. Then we might just forgive you. Stay, and I will drag you back once I’m done here. Or lastly, you consider following into your mother’s footsteps, as she so much wishes, but then you needn’t ever return to us. Go with her, and you too will be Ae’sehir.”
“May… could I…” Nanaya started softly, almost too afraid to speak another word and ask her question. “May I please speak to her in private for a moment? I’d like to hear her side of the story before I make my decision.”
“If you truly knew what the right decision would be, you would have already turned around and walked away,” Lhoris said eerily calm. “But since I apparently cannot change your mind, go right ahead.”
Nanaya uncertainly stepped forward and walked towards her mother. She glanced back over her shoulder and waited until Lhoris was outside of hearing distance.
“I don’t even know where to begin… there are so many things I want to ask you, so many things I’m no longer certain about,” Nanaya quietly confessed. She shook her head. All those questions, just one chance to ask them, and she didn’t even know what to ask first and what was better left unasked.
“I have all time in the world,” the woman smiled. “Although I don’t know how much time Lhoris will give us. Still, I’ll try my best to answer your questions.”
“Then…” Nanaya started, only to fall silent again. “Why did you abandon me? Why are you Ae’sehir? Did you become one because you abandoned me, or did you abandon me because you became one? And why did you return after so long? Why…”
“Easy there,” the woman chuckled. “I said I’d try my best to answer your questions, but I can still only answer one at the time, now can’t I?” She glanced at Lhoris, leaning against a tree at the edge. It was obvious he didn’t like what was going on one single bit. She glanced back at Nanaya and gestured her to sit down while she slumped down in the grass too, looking at a cloud passing by.
“I can summarize the first three questions, but it’s… complicated. The truth is, it’s a little bit of both. Your father was Esari, and the others weren’t happy when I brought him with me. ‘An elf with no clan is never good news’. He told me stories of his travels, about the wonderful things he had seen when he chose to leave his clan behind. From that moment on I just knew I would never learn as much as he knew if I would stay with the clan forever. There is so much knowledge in the world outside of the Caravan, Nanaya. There are so many things they would or could never teach us. I was willing to leave the clan and see the world, together with your father. Two Esari, inseparable in a world immensely bigger than I had ever even dreamed. The Se’liël weren’t happy to hear of my plans and threatened to declare me Ae’sehir if I would leave. And I just didn’t know if I were willing to take that risk…” she paused to give Nanaya the chance to let this new information sink in, and to let her own mind drift off to memories of long ago.
“So what happened next?” Nanaya asked. “Why did you choose to leave if you weren’t sure if it was worth it?”
“I have never entirely made that choice on my own,” her mother sighed and shook her head. “I knew what I was going to do, and decided I would take that chance. After all, I’m still a bard. Gathering knowledge and learning more about the world around us are things every bard should value. Everyone should learn to look beyond the boundaries of one’s own culture. But then… then I learned I was with child. The Telraimyr aren’t heartless, thankfully. Especially after your father died during a hunt, they knew it wouldn’t be right to send me off, alone into the world. They let me stay until you were born. And almost right after… they forced me to make the hardest choice I had to make in my entire life.” Tears welled up in her eyes, and the look on the elf’s face betrayed it almost hurt too much to continue speaking.
“I had to abandon you and leave, or take you with me, forcing a baby to live as Ae’sehir along with me. How could I do that to an innocent child? The world outside the Caravan was, and still is, too dangerous for a single mother with a babe or a little child. You would’ve never known any kind of security. We would always have had to run, to wander around and hope everything would be alright. We could have gotten captured and sold as slaves, we could have been killed. All those insecurities, all those dangers, that was something I didn’t want to do to you. So I left on my own. But I swore to all the gods and every single member in the clan, that one day when you’d be old enough, I would come back to see if you would be able to forgive me. That’s all. I ask for your forgiveness, and if you want, I’d give you the opportunity to leave with me. To share my knowledge, and to do what any mother should.”
“So… then they lied to me? When they said you abandoned me, it was a lie?” Nanaya asked softly. With these three questions answered she already thought to know so much more than what she had always been told.
“I left you with them to keep you safe,” her mother laughed for a moment. “But it was never my intention to leave you forever. Is that what they always told you?”
“More or less,” Nanaya nodded lightly. “Or at least they’ve always only told me half the truth. They told me you abandoned me after my birth, that you fled from the clan and would never come back.”
“But they never told you why, did they?” she asked.
“They just said you were egoistic, that you put your own desires above the needs of the clan,” Nanaya said, citing the words the Se’liël always told her. When she was a little girl, she used to ask a lot about her parents. After all, for a child it could be difficult to understand why other kids her age did have a mommy and a daddy and she didn’t. After repeatedly getting the same answer, she had just accepted the idea that her father was dead and her mother didn’t want her. She had stopped asking questions.
“They always kept the truth from you in an attempt to make sure you wouldn’t want to come with me on the day I’d come back,” her mother concluded sadly. “And that’s also why Lhoris tried so hard to keep me away from the Caravan.”
“And why they very specifically forbade me from coming here to see who this “stranger in our midst” was?” Nanaya asked.
“They did what now?” her mother sounded surprised.
“When they saw someone approaching, they told me to stay in the camp,” Nanaya said. “But they only told me. The only explanation I was given was that I wouldn’t want to see it anyway. Lhoris stayed away for so long I got curious.”
“You went against orders from the Se’liël because you were curious?” her mother frowned the way a mother would.
“Well, and worried!” Nanaya defended. “What if something bad had happened?”
“I am not judging you, sweetie,” her mother laughed. “It’s just comical to see how much we’re alike despite the fact we have never even met.”
“But that can change, right?” Nanaya asked. “There’s got to be a way for the rest of the family to take you back. Can’t you pretend to be pregnant again, and then stay with us and teach me everything? Everything will be alright!”
“Sweet child…” her mother smiled and placed a hand on Nanaya’s. “You know that’s not how it works. I have made my choices, and I’ve got the Se’liël against me. They would rather kill me that take me back into their arms.”
“But then… if I really want to learn, which I do…” Nanaya doubted. “Then I would have to leave. And I’m too scared to do so. I mean I’ve never seen Lhoris this angry before. He’s furious. But on the other hand I really want to hear what you could teach me, and I’ve wanted to become a bard since I was little. But they never let me and they never will. So if I want to… I need to stand up for myself, right? Take a leap of fate.”
“That’s a choice that’s yours to make, not mine,” her mother smiled. “If you want to come with me, you’re more than welcome, but if you’d rather stay with your family, I’d understand also. I will not force you into anything.”
“Hm…” Nanaya thought very deeply and made the same grimace as before. “How mad will they be if I choose to leave?”
“Very,” her mother admitted. “You heard what Lhoris said, didn’t you? One disgrace to the clan is more than enough. If you were to come with me, they will treat you just the way Lhoris treated me.”
“And I don’t like that,” Nanaya sighed. “Not in the slightest.” Her mind briefly wandered to Myalae, her best friend. The thought of her hating her because she wanted to follow her dreams stung.
“Then I presume you’d rather stay here?” her mother asked softly.
“I… I don’t know. I just don’t know it anymore,” Nanaya pulled her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around it. She bit the inside of her cheek hard, until a metallic taste filled her mouth. “I’m curious about what you could teach me. All the things the other elves know nothing about. But… I’m just a child, and they did raise me,” she summed up. “It would feel like betrayal to leave, but they will never give me a chance to find my own way. Every choice I’ve made up until now was shot down for one reason or another. Maybe I should just go, but I’m way too scared to just walk up to Lhoris and say that right into his face.” She quickly looked over her shoulder to the older elf. His patience was growing thin, and his face betrayed a furious storm was about to break loose.
“Then sleep on it for one more night,” her mother smiled and stroked Nanaya’s hair. “Think about it, get some rest, and see tomorrow if you have made your choice.”
“Well?” Lhoris said impatiently when Nanaya returned to him. “Have you made your choice yet?” Everything in his tone and posture made clear he was not happy with the arrival of Nanaya’s mother, and even less with the fact the two of them had spoken. The young elf silently shook her head and tried dashing past him, but Lhoris grabbed her arm tightly.
“You still don’t know whether you’d rather leave with an Ae’sehir than to stay with your own blood?” he hissed. “I would have expected you to be wiser, child.”
“But she is my blood also,” Nanaya retorted. “I just need to meditate and sort out my thoughts. This all has confused me.”
“What will the Elders say when they learn what happened here?” Lhoris asked. “Have you even tought about that? And to even consider leaving with an Ae’sehir… do you have any clue what kind of disgrace that brings? You’d better pray they will forgive you for your disobedience.”
Nanaya rolled her eyes, hoping Lhoris wouldn’t see. It was always the same thing. The clan above everything else, even your own dreams and wishes. Especially your own dreams and wishes. All those rules and restrictions had gotten more and more on her nerves recently, with all her dreams being laughed at. Perhaps it was just puberty, but by now it no longer surprised her that her mother had once chosen to leave. If Nanaya was being very honest with herself, she couldn’t quite care less what the Elders would say. She wanted to find her own way in life. But to take the step and actually leave… was that a good idea? What if things wouldn’t work out?
“Don’t stand around there looking stupid!” Lhoris yelled at her. “Back to the clan you.”
And just like he said he would, he harshly dragged her back by her arm.
“Say you’re sorry!”Ilrune Telraimyr, head of the clan, demanded. Nanaya sat amidst a large circle of elves, shivering. Tears ran down her cheeks. After Lhoris had told them all what happened, they had given her the silent treatment all day. Complete ignoring. Nobody had looked at her nor spoken to her, as if she were invisible. Now that night had fallen, they had finally decided on her fate. Besides being banished, the Shaming was probably the worst punishment an elf could get, especially when they were this young. The elves in the circle shouted at her. Insults, everything they disliked about her, every mistake she had ever made. And they would only stop when she did what Ilrune asked of her; if she’d say she was sorry and beg for forgiveness. And even then there was no guarantee they would ever truly forgive her. Nanaya’s wet eyes scanned the crowd, looking for just one friendly face. One person not shouting at her. Her eyes couldn’t find one, but she did notice at least one missing person. Myalae was nowhere to be seen. That brought her some relief. As she had thought before, she’d hate to see her friend angry at her, she couldn’t stand the idea of her best friend hating her forever. Words got through to her again. As long as she’d keep sitting there and remain silent, the shouting and insulting would only get worse.
“Doomed to fail in her life.”
“A disgrace upon the clan.”
“Had anyone really expected something else from the daughter of an Ae’sehir and an Esari?”
“She should have been banished alongside her mother long ago.”
“Useless.”
“Never did anything right.”
Just some of the words burning into her mind. Nanaya clasped her hands over her ears and shrunk even further. Yes, she was sorry she had upset them so much. This was exactly what she had been so afraid of and it was exactly what she had been trying to avoid. But could they really blame her for being curious to her mother’s side of the story? She started shaking even worse and couldn’t stop crying.
“I’m starting to think she’s not sorry at all.” Taenya, one of the elves judging the situation and also Myalae’s mother, graciously walked over and grabbed Nanaya’s chin. Her icy blue eyes stared deeply into Nanaya’s green eyes.
“You know what happens if you won’t say you’re sorry, don’t you?” she asked sharply.
Nanaya nodded weakly. If she could make any sound, she’d try to say something, but she just couldn’t. She was too exhausted and just wanted to rest so she could clear her mind, a chance they didn’t want to give her.
“Then say it!” Taenya slapped Nanaya’s face, yanked her up and pushed her towards Ilrune. “Say it right now.”
For a short moment, all the elves fell silent, waiting for what the young elf would say. Nanaya was still shuddering. Her voice wavered. With her head held low she glanced up at the old elf in front of her.
“I…” she started quietly. Then she hesitated. Enough. She had had more than enough of this all. “I’m only sorry for not being sorry that I’ve spoken to my mother and listened to her side of the story. I never will be. I regret I upset you, but I am NOT sorry.”
The silence that followed was deafening. Nobody even dared to make a single sound that would break the silence of the night. After what felt like hours, Ilrune tapped his fingers together.
“Right then,” he said slowly. “So that’s how it is.”
His tone and the eerie calm sent an ice cold shudder down Nanaya’s spine. He said nothing. All he did was looking around the circle and make brief eye contact with the other Elders and the Se’liël. Nanaya held her head low and her eyes cast to the ground, waiting the impending judgement.
“Then leave,” Ilrune’s voice was loud and clear. “You will no longer, or ever again, carry the name of the Telraimyr. From this moment on, you are Ae’sehir. You are no longer welcome in your midst, so leave immediately.”
“Can I still grab some things?” Nanaya dared to ask softly.
“Things?” Taenya scoffed. “Ae’sehir have nothing and nobody. Leave!”
Nanaya winced. The “title” stung in ways she couldn’t put into words. With Taenya’s last words to her echoing in her mind, Nanaya fled from the circle. Elves quickly stepped aside to let her pass. She didn’t watch where she was going. Branches hit her in her face, but she could hardly feel the pain. She rushed down the slope and through the creek, blindly heading to where she had seen her mother and Lhoris speak earlier. She was in the fields already by the time she dared to look around again. Was she still there? What if Lhoris had chased her away? Where would Nanaya have to go then? She squinted, seeing a fire in the distance. Nanaya ran towards it, hoping it was her mother and not a complete stranger. Relief overcame her when she spotted a familiar silhouette near the fire, a figure that was humming a familiar tune.
“Mama?” Nanaya asked carefully, still not entirely certain, and not at all knowing how to address the lady at the fire. The humming stopped, and the silhouette turned to face her.
“Do you already know what you’re going to do?” she asked.
Nanaya stepped closer and fell down in the grass.
“I didn’t want to say sorry…” she mumbled before bursting into tears again.
“Oh you poor thing… so they…” her mother mumbled while kneeling down next to her and stroking her hair. “I could hear the shouting all the way here and was just praying it wasn’t what I thought it was.”
“Well, it was,” Nanaya pushed herself up, dried her eyes and stared into the flames.
“What did you tell them?” her mother asked with a hint of mischievous curiosity.
“That I was only sorry for not being sorry I had talked to you,” Nanaya kept staring into the flames with an empty gaze. She didn’t want to talk. She only wanted to rest and forget. Her mother laughed.
“That sounds like something I could have said when I was your age,” she told. “Maybe that’s what angered them the most. You remind them too much of me, and they can’t stand that.”
Then she too fell silent for a moment and stared into the flames beside her daughter.
“Still I hadn’t expected them to do this,” she sighed. “Yes, I had expected them to throw you out if you were to choose to come with me, but to first put you through a Shaming and then cast you aside in the midst of the night?” she shook her head. “Although they were also willing to banish a newborn, so maybe I shouldn’t be as surprised. Maybe they’re more heartless than I thought.”
“Now what?” Nanaya asked after a few moments of silence. “Where will we go? What will I learn? How should I call you?”
“We’ll go wherever the roads lead and the winds take us. And if the roads stop and the winds stop blowing, we’ll create our own way,” her mother said. “We don’t plan, we’ll see wherever our journeys take us. And on our way I will teach you the things I know. Everything a bard should know; playing an instrument, singing, the weaving of stories, how to make friends in the right places, getting out of trouble, and so much more. There are an endless amount of things to learn and know, Nanaya. There’s so much knowledge in the world. Stories about heroes and kings, of monsters and wars, all sorts of things the clan would never teach you because it has nothing to do with their culture. And to answer your last question… for both our safety it would be wise not to address me as your mother if there’s anyone around to hear you. In those cases, just call me your mentor, or call me by my name: Ashara. You know… let’s be more precise. Whenever someone doesn’t call me by my name, refer to me as your mentor. If they do call me by my name, choose whichever of the two you like.”
“You make it sound like being a bard is one of the most dangerous things in the world,” Nanaya dared to give a small smile again.
“Because it just might be,” Ashara admitted. “You make enemies from time to time. People won’t always agree with you or the friends you make, occasionally you insult the wrong person. It honestly depends on what you do as a bard and how you put your talents to use. I have… a certain reputation. And it just depends on whomever you ask whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing.”
“That’s the first thing I’m going to have to remember, isn’t it?” Nanaya grinned.
“That would be a wise idea,” her mother nodded. She took a closer look at her daughter and how she had arrived at the fire.
“Didn’t you take anything with you?” she asked.
“I wasn’t allowed to,” Nanaya’s voice grew soft again. “Taenya said Ae’sehir have nothing and sent me away like this.” She gestured at herself. Her only possessions were the clothes she was wearing. Ashara pursed her lips, shook her head, and clicked her tongue. She then gestured at her sleeping bag. “Then lay down there,” she said with a small smile. “You could use some rest. Tomorrow we’ll go to the nearest village and see if we can get you the necessities.”
“Thank you,” Nanaya said while she slowly made her way to the sleeping bag. The moment she laid down on it, she sank away in a deep and dreamless trance.
“Mom?” Nanaya’s voice echoed in the darkness. “Mom, where are you?”
Ashara had said not to call her mother when there were others around, but in this darkness there was nothing or nobody to be seen. She couldn’t see at all and shivered in the cold. Where was the warmth and the fire? And really, where was Ashara? “Mom, where are you?”
Nanaya had only just found her mother, and didn’t intend to lose her right away. For a moment she thought she could hear a sad sigh behind her. It didn’t sound like her mother or anyone she knew at all, but still she turned around. Nothing. Just what seemed to be a shadow stirring in the darkness. It was already gone before she had even had the chance to blink. Nanaya shook her head. She was too old to be afraid of the dark, but this was different.
“Mom?” she tried once more. Still there came no answer. She started to walk. Her footsteps sounded hollow, as if she was standing in a large and empty room. Was there a door anywhere? A window? At least then she would be able to see something. She kept on walking and walking, searching for a wall, a door, anything that could get her out of the darkness.
She shot up on the field where she had camped the night before. Nanaya let out a sigh of relief, glad this was all just a strange nightmare. So much had happened the day before, it was no surprise it would turn into a haunting one way or another. Nanaya chuckled and pushed herself up. It was still really cold for the time of the year. At least it was colder than the day before. Apparently Ashara had already broken up the camp. Seeing how the clouds were dark and the grass felt clammy it made no more than sense. To have the rain soak the few belongings that they had was not a good idea. She wiped her hands dry on her shirt, rolled the sleeping bag together and picked up the lantern Ashara had seemingly left behind. With those few things on her she crossed the field to look for her mother. She couldn’t be that far, right?
----
Myalae had hardly spoken a word the last couple of days. She had only been thirty years older than Nanaya, not even three years compared to humans. Part of her understood the younger elf. They had been best friends, both wanting to explore the world, maybe see more than the clan would offer. And she knew how unfair it was… she would never get in the same amount of trouble if she were to wish to see the world. Myalae had always thought so. But now that her friend had been banished a few days ago, she was no longer so certain of it all. The elf had felt forced to keep her thoughts to herself and focus on other things, like her studies. Wanting to be a bard required a lot of reading.
“Don’t let them see you’re hurt, don’t let them see you miss her,” Myalae told herself. “The clan considers her Ae’sehir. We have to pretend like she’s never been a part of us, forget she ever even existed.” Another voice in her mind protested. They had been friends. Best friends for most of their life. How could she just pretend to have forgotten, pretend the girl didn’t exist? She sighed as she looked at the pages of the old and large book on her lap. Her fingers stroked the pages, past the written lines while she tried to remember the names of people and places. Myalae’s lips moved without making a sound while she read the words and memorized. Halfway through one of the sentences, her breath stopped. She felt the unmistakable feeling of someone watching her. As she turned around, however, there was nobody to be seen. She shook her head. Must have been her imagination.
An icy cold wind blew through the forest, much colder than the wind had to be this time of the year. It generally seemed to be colder. Myalae pulled her cloak around her and stared at the pages again. She couldn’t read anymore, not after having heard the whisper in the wind. A voice, vague and far away, maybe more than just one voice. She hadn’t heard the actual words, but the tone made her feel sick. Her stomach pulled itself together. From the corner of her eyes she looked at the other elves. They didn’t notice anything, or at least they didn’t show it. The horses, however, now that was another story. They whinnied nervously and pulled the ropes with which they were tied to the trees. Myalae listened to the trees and the other sounds of nature… only to notice everything had fallen silent. No crickets in the grass, no chittering and twittering of birds in the trees. Everything seemed to hold its breath. From the corner of her eyes, she could see something stirring in the shadows. It was gone as she blinked, disappeared into another shadow. Again she could feel it. Eyes burning in her back. Myalae shuddered and stood up. It didn’t feel right to sit so close to the trees anymore. She walked into the clearing and sat down against one of the wheels of a chart and pressed the book close to her chest. Her breathing had quickened, and she noticed she was trembling lightly. Myalae took a deep breath and closed her eyes for a short, light meditation. She had to push those feelings away. There was nothing. It was her imagination. And even if there really was something, the charms would protect them against evil. It had to be an extremely powerful and equally evil force to get past that. Not impossible, just highly unlikely.
The first deaths had occurred before night had even fallen. The first two were children, holding each other tightly, a terrified look on their faces. They didn’t have any injuries, showed no traces of poisoning. Their lifelight seemed to have blown out like a candle’s flame. Another was one of the Se’liël, whose remains could best be described as if it had been torn to pieces by a wild animal. What made them suspect it was not an actual animal was the complete lack of traces. Even the best hunters of the Telraimyr couldn’t find anything at all. Now that darkness had fallen, everyone stuck closely together. There were more patrols, they were more alert, there were more fires. Myalae had crawled into one of the wagons for the night, but she couldn’t mediate nor sleep. Every time, right before she doezed off, she was sure to hear that whisper, the voice in the wind between the trees, just not audible enough to hear properly. She too slow and deep breaths and stared at the clouds her breath made. Cold. Colder than it should be. Every sound seemed so much louder than normal. All her senses worked overtime. There still were no sounds that she was supposed to hear during the night. Just the hushes whispers of the patrols, the wind between the trees, and the breaking of twigs under footsteps. The first the best unexpected sound would for sure make her jump up and scream at the top of her lungs. That, or she’d freeze in fear. Myalae closed her eyes and kept breathing. In the morning they’d have a funeral for the three deceased, and she couldn’t afford to sit there looking like she was half an undead. Slowly she sank away at last, with in her mind the soft humming of an all too familiar tune. She wasn’t sure if it came from her memories, or whether it was a sound from outside the wagon, but by now she was too tired to even pay it any mind.
The relative peace was disturbed just before sunrise by a terrifying scream from inside the woods.
“The shadows! It’s in the shadows!”
Another voice simply screamed various pleads before suddenly being silenced. Too suddenly. Myalae swallowed hard and shivered again. She too had seen something in the shadows, but had simply deemed it imagination. Even when the horses had noticed too. And animals never lied. She hesitantly looked at the elves around her. Should she tell them? Should she confirm she too had seen something even before the first people had died? She opened her mouth to say something, but her words never left her throat. From the corner of her eye she once again saw movement in the shadows. Was it the thing? Was it one of the scouts who had escaped? The bushes rustled. A scout with a terrified look on his face, all too similar to the looks of the dead children, stumbled towards them.
“Flee!” he called to nobody in particular. “Whatever it is, it’s coming. It’s in the sha-…”
His sentence was interrupted by a dark shapeless being appearing with an inhuman and frightening scream. It washed over him. Fiery, burning eyes stared around the clearing. Unseeing eyes looking for its next prey. The creature swirled and swooped, making the flame in its lantern dance. The temperature fell further and further until everyone was shivering. The air pressed heavily down upon them. Whatever this creature was, it was much stronger than the charms could stop, and that meant bad news. The more terrified people seemed to become, the more the atmosphere seemed to change, as if this creature carried an aura of despair. Anger, fear, pain. Myalae put a hand on her chest and felt her heart racing, as if it tried to break free. Tears burned behind her eyes. A quick look around her told her others felt something similar, but nobody felt it as bad as she did. The pain was nearly unbearable, but it seemed strangely familiar, as if she had felt it before. She knew it. She recognized it. Pain, insecurity, fear. It burned in her soul, so hot it drove away the cold. Again the creature screamed. More elves died out of sheer fright. With those terrified looks they fell down to the earth and remained motionless. How many were there still left? Myalae guessed that of the seventy elves she knew, less than half of them were still alive now. Eyes of fire, burning with hatred, stared into the souls of the survivors. The anger, the fear, the pain… it choked Myalae, didn’t only squeeze her throat shut put also seemed to enclose her heart with an ice cold grasp, squeezing it together slowly. Would anyone even live to see another day, or was this the end of them all? For a moment the relieved thought Nanaya had been cast away just in time crossed Myalae’s mind. The way it had happened had been horrible, and she hadn’t been able to watch, to see her friend hurt, but at least it meant she wasn’t with them now, at the mercy of this thing. She was safe now, miles away from here and together with her mother.
Something in the creature seemed to change. The flame in the lantern increased for a brief moment, before it seemed to die out together with the initial hatred. The monstrous creature haunting them took on a clearer shape. The glowing eyes made place for a pair of green eyes, looking at them full of fear. All color drained from Myalae’s face. What had Taenya done that night after the Shaming? Myalae had seen her mother leave, but didn’t think too much of it. As far as she knew, her mother just went out for a walk to clear her mind. But what if… she went somewhere else? That empty look in her eyes, the fear on her face, the traces of tears still on her cheeks… and especially that dark red stain covering almost her entire stomach…
“Where is my mother?” though the hatred seemed to have faded, the voice still sounded sharp. The creature looked at them, awaiting an answer that didn’t come. Myalae tried her very best to step towards the girl. Her legs felt as if they were made of lead. Hesitantly, she reached out a hand to the being in front of her. The fear they seemed to share overcame her.
“Myalae? Have you seen her?”
Myalae froze and swallowed a few times, but she couldn’t utter a single sound. She shook her head and glanced over her shoulder for a moment. It was her fault. Everything was her fault. All the pain, everyone who had died…. If she hadn’t done anything that night….
“Done what?”
Myalae rapidly turned around. She was inside her head. The creature that once had been her friend was inside her head. Were her thoughts still her own or were they this shade’s?
“Myalae, what are you talking about?”
Myalae sighed. Whether she’d tell or not, she could figure out the truth soon enough. Myalae didn’t know what was more painful: seeing the shade of her friend, or the fact she didn’t seem to realize she was dead, that she didn’t seem to know what she had become. A Silaric, the wrathful soul of a deceased child who wouldn’t rest until the cause of the hatred was gone. And the girl had some good reasons to hate most of them.
“Silaric…” Nanaya’s shade repeated the word slowly as she dropped her head. It was as if she only noticed the bloody stain now, as well as the blood on her hands. “Oh.”
The green eyes faded again and made place for the burning eyes once more, the being changing back into its monstrous state.
“Why?” howled the being with a voice that shook the trees. It got even colder than before. Despair seemed to grow stronger than the hatred. “WHY?”
Tears ran down Myalae’s cheeks, no longer capable of distinguishing her own thoughts and feelings from Silaric-Nanaya’s. She rubbed her temples and closed her eyes.
“Nanaya, please… leave my mind,” she said softly. “Please…”
“Don’t you understand me?” hollered the Silaric. Although she still responded to her name, every trace of Nanaya had faded away. “Why wasn’t I allowed to live anymore? I left, didn’t I? Why? WHY?”
Myalae sank to her knees, shuddering, feeling how she was slowly starting to lose herself. This Silaric was more than Nanaya alone, it had to be. Nanaya alone could never carry so much hatred inside her soul.
“Now we understand each other.” The Silaric extended a shadowy tendril and closed itself around hear heart. For a few seconds, Myalae’s entire world turned to darkness. All her thoughts and feelings were drowned out by the dark. It soothed her, gave her those few seconds she needed to sort her thoughts out. Now they understood each other indeed. The Silaric, Nanaya, she. Myalae stood up and turned around to the elves behind her.
“Would you do the same thing to me if I wanted to explore the world? No, you wouldn’t, right?” her voice was cold as eyes. “You’d simply let me go and welcome me back into your arms whenever I’d return. But Nanaya… no, she had to be banished because you banished her mother too. And as if that wasn’t enough yet…” she stared at the dark stain on Nanaya’s shirt before turning to gaze at Taenya. “You had to murder her. She and her mother both.”
“You,” Nanaya also turned to Taenya with the same sharpness at Myalae. This time the tables had turned. It was her green eyes staring hatefully in Taenya’s now frightful blue eyes. Now it was Taenya sitting on the ground, hunched together and terrified, knowing there was no escape. She grabbed Taenya’s chin in an iron grip and forced the elf to look at her.
“You could tell me you’re sorry,” Silaric-Nanaya spoke slowly, ‘but I know you don’t mean it. You would do it again, given the chance.”
“But let me tell you a little secret: that won’t happen,” Myalae slowly approached as well. “Have you any idea what’s waiting for you?”
“P-please…” tears rolled down Taenya’s cheeks. “I don’t know what you are, but let my girl go. Please let my little girl go.”
“Why?” both girls asked in unison.
“Losing your little girl is just a part of the pain you’ll have to carry into eternity. The true realization still needs to come, doesn’t it? The realization all of this is your fault,” the creature that had bound itself to the souls of the girls detached itself, hovering close to Taenya’s face. It spoke with not only its own voice, but also with both girls’. “If you hadn’t murdered this child, your little girl would have been alive, just like the most part of your clan. But now… now they’re mine. They’re all mine!” Taenya stifled another cry and reached out her hands to her daughter.
“I’m sorry.”
“Too late,” the Silaric laughed darkly. “It is much too late for that.”
Darkness like a moonless night surrounded them, and one more time the gruesome, terrifying scream could be heard. A scream that shook the trees, one in the voices of all who had died.