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rainbowfic2013-05-24 01:02 pm
kay_brooke) wrote in rainbowfic2013-05-24 01:02 pm
Transparent #1, Yellow Submarine #6
Name: kay_brooke
Story: The Eighth Saimar
Colors: Transparent #1 (wind/breeze), Yellow Submarine #6 (I look at you all see the love there that’s sleeping while my guitar gently weeps)
Styles/Supplies: Canvas, Seed Beads
Word Count: 1,958
Rating/Warnings: PG-13; no standard warnings apply.
Summary: The worst day of Ailis's life.
Note: Constructive criticism is welcome, either through comments or PM.
Ailis killed her brother when she was fourteen.
Not Goronall. No, her youngest brother was at the time only eight, a chubby and sullen child who never wanted to play, not with his siblings, not with the other children in the village, not with anyone. He had been sickly when younger, and kept away from people who could pass him a cough, or any chill that could cause him a fever.
Ailis thought she was probably ungracious, to so prefer her other brother Bregan over Goronall, but she couldn’t help it. At twelve, Bregan was nearer her age, and they had grown up together, playing with each other, sharing toys and friends and secrets alike. Neither one of them even knew Goronall all that well, so sequestered as he had been from them most of his life. And now that he was healthier he made a poor playmate, always preferring to stay in his room alone, reading or drawing.
Goronall was supposed to be with them the day Bregan died. Ailis and Bregan had loudly made plans over breakfast to hike to Harn’s Hill, a rocky outcropping that overlooked the river. The spot had a breathtaking view, and Ailis and Bregan had often picnicked there before.
Just before they were to set out, however, Ailis’s mother cornered her.
“Take Gorry with you,” she said. “He needs the fresh air.” Goronall, sitting in a corner of the room with a book, sighed heavily.
“Why?” Ailis said. “He’s slow. It’ll take us all afternoon to get there. And all he does is complain.”
“You leave him out of everything,” her mother admonished. “All he wants to do is play with you.”
“I don’t wanna!” Goronall said from his corner. “It’s too hot outside.”
“See?” said Ailis. “He doesn’t even want to come.”
Her mother grabbed her arm before she could walk out the door. “Take him with you, or you can’t go.”
Ailis rolled her eyes, which her mother must have taken as assent, because she started trying to coax Goronall from the corner. “Come on, sweet, your brother and sister are taking you on a picnic.”
“No!” said Goronall. “I wanna read!”
“You can read later, Gorry.”
He stubbornly shook his head and bent back over his book. Ailis shifted impatiently from one foot to another, wondering how long her mother was going to continue this fight.
“Darling, please,” their mother cajoled. “The sunshine will do you good. You’ll get sick again if you stay inside all the time. You don’t want that, do you?”
Goronall looked up, his eyes narrowed in thought, and for one moment Ailis was sure he was going to agree, that she and Bregan would be stuck with the whiny little brat the rest of the day.
But then Goronall said, “I’ll read in the garden.”
“No, sweet, you’re going with Ailis and Bregan to Harn’s Hill,” said their mother, sounding a little desperate now.
“That’s too far away!” Goronall’s lower lip came out in a pout. Ailis hid a smirk. She knew her mother would give in any moment now. She couldn’t deny her precious youngest son anything.
This might yet be a Goronall-free day.
“Ailis will pull you in your little cart if you get tired.”
“I will not!”
But her mother ignored her, her eyes fixed on her son.
“I’m not a baby!” Goronall shrieked. His book fell from his lap to the floor, its pages ruffling before they stilled. “I don’t want to go in the cart! I don’t want to go on a picnic! I don’t want to go!”
“That’s settled then,” said Ailis, before her mother could come up with another pathetic argument. “Bregan’s waiting for me. We’ll be home in time for supper.” And then she was out the door and halfway across the the garden before her mother started shouting angrily at her. Ailis paid her no mind. She would probably be punished later, but at the moment she was determined to enjoy the cloudless sunny day.
Though try as she might, she couldn’t quite shake her anger. Why did her mother insist on trying to make her spend time with Goronall? She didn’t like him and he didn’t like her. It was that simple.
She found Bregan waiting for her at the head of the trail, his arms clasped tightly around his body, his skin pimpled in gooseflesh. “Where did that wind come from?” he asked. “It was so warm a moment ago.”
She hadn’t even noticed a wind, so distracted she was by her anger. Feeling a little ashamed, she said, “I don’t feel anything.”
“Strange,” said Bregan. “It was just there.”
“Let’s get started,” said Ailis, “or we won’t get there until late.”
The walk to Harn’s Hill was pleasant. They stopped a few times to chase frogs and climb the trees with low-hanging branches, so that it was a little past noon when they reached the top of the hill, sweaty and starving. Ailis laid down the basket she had brought, removing apples, bread, and cheese. Very simple fare, but filling, and they ate happily, looking out over the river. In the distance they could just about see the cluster of buildings that was the nearby city of Kairn.
“I wish there was a little of that wind now,” said Bregan. He had sat, as he usually did, with his feet hanging over the side of the hill’s cliff edge. Though grassy and gently sloped on one side, on the other side Harn’s Hill cut off abruptly into a sheer drop straight down into the river. Stories had it that once, when giants had roamed the forest, they had cut the hill in half to make room for a great road. But the giants had died out soon after, and what was left of the road had flooded and become the river bed.
Bregan was right, Ailis reflected. A good breeze would be nice. Just as she thought it, one came up, rather more forceful than she had imagined. She shivered, though not from the sudden chill. There was something...strange about the wind. Something wrong.
“We should leave,” she said, her heart beginning to beat harder from fear. Bregan stood and turned toward her, but then his eyes widened at something behind her. She turned to look, her teeth clenching at the sight of Goronall, red-faced and puffing, breasting the top of the hill.
“What in all the spirits are you doing here?” Ailis snapped. Around her, the air grew chiller. “Did you follow us?”
“Mother said I had to!” Goronall wailed, and Ailis realized the wetness on his cheeks was not sweat, but tears. This somehow made her even angrier. How could this sodden, pathetic brat be her brother? He was just a sick, weak baby. He always had been and he always would be. She remembered a physician who’d come once and proclaimed Goronall would not live long enough to outgrow his cradle.
But he had. And wouldn’t it have been easier on everyone if he hadn’t? He’d stolen the attention of Ailis’s mother, made her other children second in her eyes. He’d been given everything he wanted his entire life, his every selfish whim catered to, and now he was trying to take away all that remained good in her life: her freedom, her carefree days, the relationship she shared with Bregan and no one else. He was trying to insert himself into their lives, like he belonged there.
“I don’t know if I can walk all the way back,” he was saying. “I tried and tried to call for you, but you never noticed me!”
“Why would we want to notice you?” Ailis yelled. Her words were immediately ripped away by the wind, which had grown quite strong.
Goronall took a step back, blinking owlishly at her in surprise, then completed the move by tripping over a rock and landing on his backside. His loud, exaggerated cries filled the air.
The contempt that flowed through her was so overwhelming that all Ailis could do was stand there and shake, her hands clenched into tight, painful fists.
“Ailis, stop,” came Bregan’s voice behind her, soft and scared.
“What?” she snarled, whirling to face him. Did he presume to lecture her? He didn’t like Goronall any more than she did. They had talked about it before. “Just leave me alone!”
And with those words came a roaring gust of wind, so strong that it knocked Ailis forward onto her knees. She looked up just in time to see Bregan, his arms wheeling and his face full of terror, tip backwards over the cliff.
“Bregan!” she screamed, launching to her feet and scrambling across the grass, but it was too late. She barely stopped herself from going over the cliff after him, falling to her knees at the edge, hoping Bregan had somehow managed to grab on to something to stop his fall. But when she peered over the edge there was nothing. Just the river sparking below, and the air, still and warm once more.
She didn’t move for a long time, staring down at the river as if Bregan might still pop up, laughing at his near escape.
But there had been no escape. Bregan was gone, dead, his broken body already carried away by the river. Ailis buried her face in the grass at the edge of the cliff.
Soft footsteps to her left, then Goronall’s voice. “You killed him.”
For a moment she wanted nothing more than to shove him over the cliff too, but she didn’t have the energy. “I didn’t,” she said weakly. She knew it was a lie. That unnaturally strong wind had blown him over, true, but she knew that she had somehow caused it. There were stories about that, too, that once there had been people with frightening powers over nature, and that their blood still flowed through some of the families in the area. But Ailis knew they weren’t just stories. In Kairn they even had a name for such people: Jasmara. And to be one was punishable by death.
“You did,” Goronall insisted. He took a few steps back from the cliff and watched her, his eyes wide. “You made that wind and you killed him.”
Something inside Ailis broke. “I didn’t mean to,” she sobbed. “I didn’t even know.” She fisted tufts of grass in each hand, wondering if she would ever have the will to stand again.
Goronall knelt delicately down beside her, his eyes still fearful. “Please don’t kill me, too.”
Ailis wept harder. “No,” she blubbered. “No, of course I would never do that, Goronall. I’m so sorry! I’m sorry!” She threw her arms around her remaining brother, the one she had thought she hated only a short time ago, the one who had made her angry enough to murder, no matter how unintentional it was. And she knew she loved him. She would do anything for him, protect him, whatever he needed, as penance for her ill thoughts and deeds.
Goronall returned the embrace. “I won’t tell anyone, I promise,” he said. Young and sheltered as he was, he too had heard stories of the Jasmara and what happened to them. “We’ll say Bregan just tripped.”
It wasn’t over. It was far from over. Ailis knew that, and a part of her knew it would be best for everyone if she just stayed on Harn’s Hill forever, until she starved to death and her body rotted and her bones collapsed. But a larger part of her intended to keep her pledge to protect Goronall.
“Come on,” she said, sniffling. “We need to tell Mother and Father what happened.”
kay_brookeStory: The Eighth Saimar
Colors: Transparent #1 (wind/breeze), Yellow Submarine #6 (I look at you all see the love there that’s sleeping while my guitar gently weeps)
Styles/Supplies: Canvas, Seed Beads
Word Count: 1,958
Rating/Warnings: PG-13; no standard warnings apply.
Summary: The worst day of Ailis's life.
Note: Constructive criticism is welcome, either through comments or PM.
Ailis killed her brother when she was fourteen.
Not Goronall. No, her youngest brother was at the time only eight, a chubby and sullen child who never wanted to play, not with his siblings, not with the other children in the village, not with anyone. He had been sickly when younger, and kept away from people who could pass him a cough, or any chill that could cause him a fever.
Ailis thought she was probably ungracious, to so prefer her other brother Bregan over Goronall, but she couldn’t help it. At twelve, Bregan was nearer her age, and they had grown up together, playing with each other, sharing toys and friends and secrets alike. Neither one of them even knew Goronall all that well, so sequestered as he had been from them most of his life. And now that he was healthier he made a poor playmate, always preferring to stay in his room alone, reading or drawing.
Goronall was supposed to be with them the day Bregan died. Ailis and Bregan had loudly made plans over breakfast to hike to Harn’s Hill, a rocky outcropping that overlooked the river. The spot had a breathtaking view, and Ailis and Bregan had often picnicked there before.
Just before they were to set out, however, Ailis’s mother cornered her.
“Take Gorry with you,” she said. “He needs the fresh air.” Goronall, sitting in a corner of the room with a book, sighed heavily.
“Why?” Ailis said. “He’s slow. It’ll take us all afternoon to get there. And all he does is complain.”
“You leave him out of everything,” her mother admonished. “All he wants to do is play with you.”
“I don’t wanna!” Goronall said from his corner. “It’s too hot outside.”
“See?” said Ailis. “He doesn’t even want to come.”
Her mother grabbed her arm before she could walk out the door. “Take him with you, or you can’t go.”
Ailis rolled her eyes, which her mother must have taken as assent, because she started trying to coax Goronall from the corner. “Come on, sweet, your brother and sister are taking you on a picnic.”
“No!” said Goronall. “I wanna read!”
“You can read later, Gorry.”
He stubbornly shook his head and bent back over his book. Ailis shifted impatiently from one foot to another, wondering how long her mother was going to continue this fight.
“Darling, please,” their mother cajoled. “The sunshine will do you good. You’ll get sick again if you stay inside all the time. You don’t want that, do you?”
Goronall looked up, his eyes narrowed in thought, and for one moment Ailis was sure he was going to agree, that she and Bregan would be stuck with the whiny little brat the rest of the day.
But then Goronall said, “I’ll read in the garden.”
“No, sweet, you’re going with Ailis and Bregan to Harn’s Hill,” said their mother, sounding a little desperate now.
“That’s too far away!” Goronall’s lower lip came out in a pout. Ailis hid a smirk. She knew her mother would give in any moment now. She couldn’t deny her precious youngest son anything.
This might yet be a Goronall-free day.
“Ailis will pull you in your little cart if you get tired.”
“I will not!”
But her mother ignored her, her eyes fixed on her son.
“I’m not a baby!” Goronall shrieked. His book fell from his lap to the floor, its pages ruffling before they stilled. “I don’t want to go in the cart! I don’t want to go on a picnic! I don’t want to go!”
“That’s settled then,” said Ailis, before her mother could come up with another pathetic argument. “Bregan’s waiting for me. We’ll be home in time for supper.” And then she was out the door and halfway across the the garden before her mother started shouting angrily at her. Ailis paid her no mind. She would probably be punished later, but at the moment she was determined to enjoy the cloudless sunny day.
Though try as she might, she couldn’t quite shake her anger. Why did her mother insist on trying to make her spend time with Goronall? She didn’t like him and he didn’t like her. It was that simple.
She found Bregan waiting for her at the head of the trail, his arms clasped tightly around his body, his skin pimpled in gooseflesh. “Where did that wind come from?” he asked. “It was so warm a moment ago.”
She hadn’t even noticed a wind, so distracted she was by her anger. Feeling a little ashamed, she said, “I don’t feel anything.”
“Strange,” said Bregan. “It was just there.”
“Let’s get started,” said Ailis, “or we won’t get there until late.”
The walk to Harn’s Hill was pleasant. They stopped a few times to chase frogs and climb the trees with low-hanging branches, so that it was a little past noon when they reached the top of the hill, sweaty and starving. Ailis laid down the basket she had brought, removing apples, bread, and cheese. Very simple fare, but filling, and they ate happily, looking out over the river. In the distance they could just about see the cluster of buildings that was the nearby city of Kairn.
“I wish there was a little of that wind now,” said Bregan. He had sat, as he usually did, with his feet hanging over the side of the hill’s cliff edge. Though grassy and gently sloped on one side, on the other side Harn’s Hill cut off abruptly into a sheer drop straight down into the river. Stories had it that once, when giants had roamed the forest, they had cut the hill in half to make room for a great road. But the giants had died out soon after, and what was left of the road had flooded and become the river bed.
Bregan was right, Ailis reflected. A good breeze would be nice. Just as she thought it, one came up, rather more forceful than she had imagined. She shivered, though not from the sudden chill. There was something...strange about the wind. Something wrong.
“We should leave,” she said, her heart beginning to beat harder from fear. Bregan stood and turned toward her, but then his eyes widened at something behind her. She turned to look, her teeth clenching at the sight of Goronall, red-faced and puffing, breasting the top of the hill.
“What in all the spirits are you doing here?” Ailis snapped. Around her, the air grew chiller. “Did you follow us?”
“Mother said I had to!” Goronall wailed, and Ailis realized the wetness on his cheeks was not sweat, but tears. This somehow made her even angrier. How could this sodden, pathetic brat be her brother? He was just a sick, weak baby. He always had been and he always would be. She remembered a physician who’d come once and proclaimed Goronall would not live long enough to outgrow his cradle.
But he had. And wouldn’t it have been easier on everyone if he hadn’t? He’d stolen the attention of Ailis’s mother, made her other children second in her eyes. He’d been given everything he wanted his entire life, his every selfish whim catered to, and now he was trying to take away all that remained good in her life: her freedom, her carefree days, the relationship she shared with Bregan and no one else. He was trying to insert himself into their lives, like he belonged there.
“I don’t know if I can walk all the way back,” he was saying. “I tried and tried to call for you, but you never noticed me!”
“Why would we want to notice you?” Ailis yelled. Her words were immediately ripped away by the wind, which had grown quite strong.
Goronall took a step back, blinking owlishly at her in surprise, then completed the move by tripping over a rock and landing on his backside. His loud, exaggerated cries filled the air.
The contempt that flowed through her was so overwhelming that all Ailis could do was stand there and shake, her hands clenched into tight, painful fists.
“Ailis, stop,” came Bregan’s voice behind her, soft and scared.
“What?” she snarled, whirling to face him. Did he presume to lecture her? He didn’t like Goronall any more than she did. They had talked about it before. “Just leave me alone!”
And with those words came a roaring gust of wind, so strong that it knocked Ailis forward onto her knees. She looked up just in time to see Bregan, his arms wheeling and his face full of terror, tip backwards over the cliff.
“Bregan!” she screamed, launching to her feet and scrambling across the grass, but it was too late. She barely stopped herself from going over the cliff after him, falling to her knees at the edge, hoping Bregan had somehow managed to grab on to something to stop his fall. But when she peered over the edge there was nothing. Just the river sparking below, and the air, still and warm once more.
She didn’t move for a long time, staring down at the river as if Bregan might still pop up, laughing at his near escape.
But there had been no escape. Bregan was gone, dead, his broken body already carried away by the river. Ailis buried her face in the grass at the edge of the cliff.
Soft footsteps to her left, then Goronall’s voice. “You killed him.”
For a moment she wanted nothing more than to shove him over the cliff too, but she didn’t have the energy. “I didn’t,” she said weakly. She knew it was a lie. That unnaturally strong wind had blown him over, true, but she knew that she had somehow caused it. There were stories about that, too, that once there had been people with frightening powers over nature, and that their blood still flowed through some of the families in the area. But Ailis knew they weren’t just stories. In Kairn they even had a name for such people: Jasmara. And to be one was punishable by death.
“You did,” Goronall insisted. He took a few steps back from the cliff and watched her, his eyes wide. “You made that wind and you killed him.”
Something inside Ailis broke. “I didn’t mean to,” she sobbed. “I didn’t even know.” She fisted tufts of grass in each hand, wondering if she would ever have the will to stand again.
Goronall knelt delicately down beside her, his eyes still fearful. “Please don’t kill me, too.”
Ailis wept harder. “No,” she blubbered. “No, of course I would never do that, Goronall. I’m so sorry! I’m sorry!” She threw her arms around her remaining brother, the one she had thought she hated only a short time ago, the one who had made her angry enough to murder, no matter how unintentional it was. And she knew she loved him. She would do anything for him, protect him, whatever he needed, as penance for her ill thoughts and deeds.
Goronall returned the embrace. “I won’t tell anyone, I promise,” he said. Young and sheltered as he was, he too had heard stories of the Jasmara and what happened to them. “We’ll say Bregan just tripped.”
It wasn’t over. It was far from over. Ailis knew that, and a part of her knew it would be best for everyone if she just stayed on Harn’s Hill forever, until she starved to death and her body rotted and her bones collapsed. But a larger part of her intended to keep her pledge to protect Goronall.
“Come on,” she said, sniffling. “We need to tell Mother and Father what happened.”
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I love the emotions here too--Ailis goes from resentful to scared all in one swoop without it feeling unnatural or jarring.
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Poor Ailis, though. That's going to haunt her for the rest of her life. I like that Goronall supported her in the end, despite everything else.
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Poor kids.
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Thanks for reading!
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Though I can't help but wonder if, without a visible body, Bregan is really dead...
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Thank you for reading!