11. A Short Reunion
A Short Reunion
In the Grove of Elders, the enchanter takes a last bow before turning and walking further into the festival grounds. Both children and their guardians laugh and clap as she disappears into the thickening crowd.
Quickly, parents gather up their children, and the crowd quickly dwindles to nothing as new spectacles capture their attention. Zixxes’ three siblings turn to him, clearly every excited as well as extremely overstimulated. There is just so much more to see in this forest than could ever have been seen in the Grimshale Highlands, more to do than can ever be done.
Brinnin clamps his hand around three of Zixxes’ fingers and tugs.
“Sweets? You said there were sweets!”
Zixxes feels his eyes widen very slightly in what he can only describe as trepidation. He had really hoped that they had forgotten his words in the excitement of the show. But really, had he ever been so lucky?
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| Brinnin Aldouree Ai Created Image |
“Yes, there were sweets, and maybe there will be sweets again later. However, you chose to watch the performance over getting the sweets.” Zixxes watches his brother’s brow begin to crumble and he knows this is not going over well, but still he pushes through.
“Remember what we are learning about choice and consequence, Brinnin. You had two choices before you, and by choosing one, the other is lost to you.”
Brinnin’s face crumples further and he releases his brother's fingers to fold his arms over this tiny chest in defiance. “I want sweets.”
“I also want sweets, but we will not have any now. Perhaps we’ll find some later.”
“We’re gonna go and find sweets?” Brinnin crows, hearing only what he wants to of Zixxes’ speech.
Zixxes Rolls his eyes, a thing he tries not to do often as he was told that it is a childish response and he is no child. However, when dealing with children, it is better to know when you are beat by their logic if it keeps the peace.
“Yes,” he says with a strained kind of patience. “We can get sweets. But first we must find the person we have come here to meet. So if you want to get sweets quickly, I will need your help.”
“I want sweets quickly!” the boy shouts as he slaps his small hand into his brother's outstretched one.
“Wonderful,” Zixxes says as he swings his brother on to his back once more and instructs the boy to hold tight. He looks at the twins whose gazes had ping-ponged back and forth while Brinnin negotiated with Zixxes. He holds out his hands to his youngest siblings.
“Hands?” he says.
“Hands!” they say in chorus as they plop their hands in his.
“All right, Clan, the first step to getting sweets is to find our missing person. Keep your scouting eyes sharp!”
The arms around his neck tighten as Brinnin pushes himself up to see over Zixxes’ head, now more determined than anyone else to complete this mission that had sweets at the end.
The crew of siblings wandered for less than a minute before Zixxes’ eyes caught on someone staring at him. He stuttered to a stop, causing Brinnin, who had been boosting himself up high over Zixxes’s shoulders, to tumble forward with a yelp and a laugh, obscuring his view for a moment of the woman glaring at him.
Zixxes’ eldest sister stands leaned up against a tree with her arms crossed tightly to her chest. She towers easily over many of those around her at just over seven feet tall, her height the only physical manifestation of their Goliath heritage. Everything else about her was from their father: two dark brown eyes, brown skin and hair, sharply pointed ears. She wears her long, curly hair slicked back on the scalp with three curly buns secured to the back of her head. Her green and black armor glints in the sun and on the left pauldrum, Zixxes can see the Aldouree Family Crest engraved. |
| Larn & Beros Aldouree Ai Created Image |
On one hip she has a light crossbow, and on the other are secured two handaxes.
Of all of the Aldouree siblings to meet him for this task, why had they sent Thana?
Though she is still nearly 100 feet away, Zixxes can see her eyebrows shift lower over her eyes and her head tilt minutely to one side. The message she is sending is clear: he had kept her waiting too long. And though the two siblings are not at all close, Zixxes knows that one does not keep Thana PeaceRazer Aldouree waiting, for any reason.
It only takes seconds, but Zixxes readjusts Brinnin on his back and squeezes the twin’s hands in comfort before moving toward his sister. He makes sure that his expression is flat and stoic, it is the only way he knows how to deal with his older siblings.
“You’re late,” is the first thing his sister says once Zixxes is in earshot. He nearly stumbles to a stop again. Her voice is soft, almost calm. It is the most dangerous tone he knows from her.
Zixxes nods his head down in a small sign of respect, aiming his gaze at her weapons as he schools his expression and nerves once more.
“I was on time,” he manages to say when he looks up at her again, there is only the slightest shake to his voice. “We have been here for nearly an hour. The young ones got distracted by—”
“You were supposed to bring them straight to me.” She speaks over him, not in a rush as though she is trying to override his words, but slowly, as though it doesn’t really matter what he is saying at all. “I have things to do today, and your negligence is affecting my schedule. I was supposed to bring the kids to Faelyrn’s forty minutes ago. You have wasted my entire morning.”
He takes a breath to steady himself, the natural intimidation his sister’s appearance caused in him giving way to irritation and anger. Still, he would not show it.
“I am sorry that I wasted some of your time. You did not make clear where we were to meet.”
“It was in the message that was sent to you. Can you not read?” She raises an eyebrow and tone in false pity, and Zixxes knows that if he continues engaging with her it will not end well… for him.
He simply nods once more to his sister and bends down, releasing Brinnin’s arms from around his neck and standing the young boy in front of him along with both of the twins.
“Mission success, Clan,” he says to his youngest siblings, ignoring the scoffing sound from above their collective heads. “Now you guys are going to have a good time with Father and our siblings. You will be good.”
“You're coming with us, right?” Brinnin asks; the laughing smile falls off of his face slightly.
“No. No, cub. I will come for you in a week after the festival. For now you are going to go with sister Thana and she has promised to get you sweets.”
Brinnin, who had looked as though he were about to cry, immediately swivels to look up at his sister with a wide grin returned to his face.
“Sweets? Zixxes says you're going to get us sweets!”
Zixxes glances up for only half a second to see the glare that is being leveled at him from his sister. Her arms unfurl themselves from around her chest and rest on the axes on her hip. Zixxes immediately glances back down.
The older boy places a hand each on Larn’s and Bero’s heads, brushes the hair back and kisses them each on the forehead.
He does the same to Brinnin, but instead of pulling away, he places his hands on the five-year-old’s shoulders.
“When I am gone, you are the keeper of your siblings. What does that mean?”
“I take care of the clan,” he says without hesitation.
“You take care of the clan,” Zixxes repeats with an approving nod and smile. “That’s my clever boy.”
Zixxes gives the boy’s shoulders a firm squeeze before standing and meeting the heat of his eldest sister’s glare. There is a certain level of fear that infuses his blood when he looks at her, but mostly it is his anger and maybe a little bit of the hatred that he never wants to acknowledge. For with all of the bad blood between them, they are still clan.
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| Thana PeaceRazer Aldouree Ai Created Image |
“Enjoy your festival,” he says in farewell before turning and walking away.
He's not more than five steps gone before he hears his youngest siblings begin to cry and yell after him.
“Brother will be back,” he hears Brinnin’s voice rising over the wailing of the twins, but his little voice wobbles and cracks with his own tears. “We must be good… and he will come back… and we can have sweets...”
With the last word, Brinnin breaks as well, not being able to hold up as he watches his brother walk away.
Zixxes turns briefly as he hears Thana command the children to be silent. Brinnin is crying but has both the twins wrapped up in his arms where they are sobbing inconsolably. Brinnin makes eye contact with Zixxes and takes a step forward with the twins in tow, but Thana grabs the back of his shirt to keep him in place.
Keeper, Zixxes mouths to his brother. The younger boy holds his siblings a little tighter and nods through hiccuping sobs.
“Oh, come on!” Thana says, finally losing her patience. She scoops two of the children into one of her arms and the remaining child into the other before turning and storming off in a different direction.
Zixxes continues his own course of exit from the Groove of Elders. He does not turn back again, no matter how they call for him. He knows he can’t; he does not have the strength for it.
Once he is out of the clearing, he takes refuge behind a tree to give himself space to breathe.
He is shaking.
He hates this place. Loathes it with every fiber of his being.
Hates that even with his eyes closed he can hear the sounds of people and laughter, when in the highlands he called home the only sounds of joy are when a strong wind blows through the laughing grass creating an illusion of joy.
Hates the carefree atmosphere of the festival when in the highlands survival is all that matters.
Hates how the trees and the forests make space for the people here, when in the highlands the land is so hard and it wants you to fail.
Everything about Embryveil reminds him of the vast gulf between the way he was raised and the eldest Aldouree children. Reminds him that he is not one of them, blood or no.
He prays to the goddess Kuliak that his youngest siblings do not abandon their home on the shores of Lake Ceru with him for the splendor of this tree paradise.
His shaking does not stop for a long time.
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