Reflections: Forwards



Again, Laerhen found herself within the comforting embrace of her cloak, curled beside a crackling fire and listening to the snoring of men. But unlike the warm accommodations this was fire was thin and guttering, biting autumn winds stirred at her hair, and the snores were those of familiar men. 

"We are on the move again. I will not consider what I would have done if my brother had decided to abandon me here in this village and strike off on his quest alone. We have found too little time to speak but he seems to prefer it this way. His eyes are on the sky, on the distance, or on the earth chasing after the things he fears will find him and those he fears he will not find. How I wish he would turn back. Rhaug and Megorin could do this on their own." 

Mostly familiar. One of the prone figures stirred anxiously in his sleep. She could see the sheen of perspiration flash on his face in the dim cast of the firelight. Hear the half-formed words she were glad he could not complete. Watch him toss and turn. It was a wound she could not mend. If she wished to? 

"The unpleasant surplus of time has resulted in that Rhaug and I have spoken more together. He is withdrawn still, clinging tight to his armour. I see the chinks and slide my blade through. I wish I were like Celonlinn, I can never be as direct and commanding as her. I lost my patience and pressed him, I even wrung him by the ear like I had seen her do to grown men who did not listen. I embarrassed myself." 

Her lips parted in a sigh as she inspected her handiwork. Megorin's cutting board was scarred deeply from use and her quill depressed into these pitfalls. The written words were marred with splotches of ink or unsightly slips of the hand. Laerhen raised her eyes to the sky, her dark locks infused with watery midnight glow cast down by the stars. This was what it was like to camp under the open sky as her brother does. 

"I met him again the day after that. Any cause I felt for embarrassment was gone. He was a sodden wreck, stinking of sour sweat and stained with his own barf when I found him. He had drunk himself to oblivion. I wanted to insult him for the sore sight he made but what could I do but also pity him? I am a healer. I nursed him to betterment. But there was no need for me to be kind about it. Still our conversation eased, with time. He lifted his armour willingly, this time, and told me of his troubles. The pain he carries in him, the thoughts of ending it forever. I listened, because he needed to speak. Then, I let slip my own doubts, my shortcomings. At the end of the afternoon we laughed together, I saw him smile and be merry for the first time since I met him. Perhaps it was the first time I did after he met me, too. I am not willing to say we made friends, but perhaps there is hope in him." 

Laerhen gazed at the trajectory of the moon, reasonably convinced she had stayed up for longer than her turn to keep watch demanded. If the celestial bodies did not tell her so, then her drooping eyelids did. She looked down and put the quill to paper one more time. 

"I will not tolerate Gelldûr's silence for much longer. He, too, needs to speak. I will listen. Celonlinn would have made him talk. I shall do the same, but my own way. He needs me. If he needs me to join him on this foolish journey, so be it. I will not make more attempts to dissuade him. Even if the company we must share is dubious at best." 

She blew gently on the ink and fixed her eyes on the muttering, half-slumbering form that disturbed the quiet of the midnight fireside. It was impossible not to listen.

Sleep would not come easily.