12-29-2019, 09:12 AM
Almeroc and Ell: Chapter 1
The cold dampness of the earth and the things that crawl and wriggle beneath pulled in Ell from his deep sleep. He laid there for a minute or so, dazed, his head throbbing where a bump was left by the stone he fell on. Something on his right knee rubbed behind his other leg with the texture of a hardtack. Bending his knee in an attempt to finally stand up, a stinging pain mixed with soreness at once unfurled from the pink and black-encrusted layer of exposed dermis on Ell's knee and gripped his leg. Tears began to well in his eyes as he whined in pain. Moonlight breaks past the shadowed Dunskol Mountains in the east, brightening the morning fog with deep orange light. Ell used the stone he fell on to prop himself up carefully. He was alone, save for the creatures that made it seem as if this forest was one breathing giant. The blurry red and orange tones of the forest shifted with every movement of some insect or animal and conversed with itself in birdsongs and the gentle trickling of far-off running rivulets. This giant was idle and pensive, very much different than those who inhabit those mountains in the east. And just like Ell would be, were he to find himself in those mountains, he was deep in the belly of this giant, his unfamiliar bearings allowing him no easy way out. The scatter of dead leaves and turned mud inferred to Ell that the city of Thenosia trailed that way, but, after last night, he was not going back there. So, he limped southwards down the wooded alley between the great city of Thenosia and the home of the giant tribes.
Rheum crusted his eyes, which he wiped away with his sooted brown linen sleeve, along with his fresh tears and snot. The idea of how alone he was hung over him with the swaying thick pitch black branches of the aulper trees. What would he do without Myge or Nehdir or any of the other older kids he knew as his family? His stomach rumbled as he wished Nehdir or Ollo were here. They could hunt with ease, almost pluck from thin air, maybe a fat mosset to skewer over a nice warm fire. A noontide breeze gusted through the trees with an inhospitable bitterness, causing Ell to draw in his arms from his sweater’s oversized sleeves and hug his chest. The only consolation the forest offered him was the sweet yet slightly spiced fragrance that the aulpers emit from their sap.
"Myge," Ell called as he continued straight. He expected nothing more than his echoes; his calls for who he has grown to consider a mother stemmed more from disoriented despair rather than the hope that she was hiding, along with the other waifs, behind one of the many aulper trees. And so many aulpers there were. They appeared innumerable, disappearing far into a mist gold and thick as honey. It was as if a scattered row of trees were caught between two mirrors that endlessly reflected each other into obscurity. Occasionally, a moss-ridden boulder or a small hill disrupted the illusion and helped Ell in marking his surroundings, or, at least, his pretending to know where he was. No matter if he knows he travels south, he was still not sure how long he would be walking before he might need to part from his path to hunt or avoid someone or something. I have to learn to hunt now, the thought sank into him. I have to learn to start a fire. Nehdir is gone. I have to learn to cook the meat and gather plants and herbs. I have to know which are safe to eat. I have to learn to wash my clothes like Myge always did. I have to...
Ell slowed his limping pace. The woods shimmered behind a wall of tears he wanted to let collapse. Maybe it would wash away this impression of a bad dream complemented by the forest's mistiness, his aching head, and waking drowsiness. His breaths grew heavier as his pace grew slower. He paused in his footsteps. Lips quivering, nostrils flaring, he looked around. Trees. Bushes. A boulder. A rotting log. It was all the same for hundreds of leagues. Ell began walking again with a quickened pace, but he began to backtrack more often. A rotting log. Trees. A boulder. Bushes. "Myge!" Ell began to scream, running now. Bushes. A boulder. A tangle of brambles. Trees. "Myge!" Tears streaming down his face, sobbing, Ell slid down onto his palms and knees into leaves and mud. Harshly reminded of his wounded knee, pain shot through his leg and he fell hard on his side and wailed.
Even though his group took care of him, the level of freedom he had under their guidance still distanced him from the fact that he was only seven. Now, he felt seven years old more than ever. He missed Maswin’s foul jokes, and though he hardly ever understood them, it was the scornful reaction it roused from Myge that was more of the punchline.
He missed joking and playing with Faydri, who was only two years older than him, and listening to her sister Lillyn retell the stories she would read at the library the two used to live by. The sisters joined their group a year ago after running away from their mother. Lillyn said their mother was a Korfeldian who tried to sacrifice her to the Moon-God, Ilyeh. Ell had heard stories of these fanatics and how they practiced human sacrifice. The cult of Korfeld that Lillyn's mother was a member of distort the teachings of Ilyeh's unnamed prophet from ages ago, known as the Kalvyr. Ell would wonder how a being as nurturing as Ilyeh would have worshippers so willing to harm their own kin in His name. They can't be His, he once thought. Today, amid a golden afternoon sky, storms that swirl across His reddened face comprise an eternal grimace, evident of His struggle in keeping the people of Eune fed and well. Deep hues of orange moonlight shone upon the aulper limbs and left the hanging moss with its tinge as the day traveled westward.
Ell curled up on his left side upon a rather large stick, too taken by distress to care, and began to close his eyes as his sobs softened. Whatever bloomed from the black soil of his unconsciousness was watered by his tears.