Talyndre Ama'thas

Songs that Voices Never Share

Dusk rolled over into nightfall, and a lone hunter strode through the ashen forest, head bowed and back straight, his hand curled against the smooth, hard shoulder of a sturdy, young gelding. The dark horse made not a sound, save for the steady huffs of breath gradually growing visible in the cool, evening air, and the steady grind of each of their footfalls in the dead leaves through which they walked. The hunter, likewise, moved in a seeming silence that was really only skin-deep.

Brittle bones left behind. That’s what they were. At one time, he knew, they were bright and golden, flecked with red, like those that had thrived out in the gilded acres of Eversong for as far back as he could remember. But everything dies, one way or another- even things meant to last. You need only venture far enough south to see it for yourself. The Blackened Wood, burned in desperation by her own people, like Tol Barad’s forests, left to the kindness of scavengers and rot, were just pieces of inevitability. Like he was.

It wasn’t that he… didn’t. When it came to her…he liked being there, a fixture in a life and a place that at one time would have seemed beyond imagining. Somewhere to return to… dare he even say ‘home’. But there was a discrepancy there, between what he could get used to and what he was really capable of giving back. He knew it the moment those words left her trembling lips- like a prayer to some benevolent, false god- and his own flowed like ice in his veins.

There was a story down in the tiny village of Amberglen, off the western coast of Quel’thalas, that still cropped up even as the decades flowed into a century and more. A local girl, barely through her ninth summer, with wheat-coloured curls that bounced around her sweet face; a strange, quiet boy, around the same age, come to stay with a family who’d welcomed him out of the goodness of their hearts.

It began as a chance meeting, one sun-dappled afternoon beneath the trees. Set just apart from where the other children enjoyed bare feet in the soft grass, past where even a few stragglers lingered, marked ‘out’ on the outskirts of the small clearing. The little girl, not yet grown into her ears, slumped sleepily against the warm bark of an old willow. Dark circles ringed her eyes, her ever-present pigtails sagging like the rest of her as she curled up under the swaying green.

At some point, the utter stillness the boy fought to maintain failed, just a snap of a twig, a rustle of leaves, and he was given away to the weary gaze peering up into the tree. Coppery locks, a few days past washing, hung in his face, veiling the surprise that registered there when he saw her smile.

A few weeks passed before she saw him again, with dirt-stained knees and scrawny arms, brushing willow tendrils from his shoulder. He darted into the brush as soon as he knew he was found, leaving nothing but silence and her pounding heart in his wake.

History didn’t recall his name, just as hers was still hotly debated among the elders of the period in Amberglen. But neither really mattered to the story. What mattered most were the gifts. A smooth, sea-worn stone with a hole in its centre, left at the foot of the willow, where he’d easily find it. There one day, and gone the next, like all the rest to come; a slice of toffee, or a piece of charcoal, a worn set of jacks wrapped in a pretty scrap of cloth… even one of her own ribbons, in soft, buttery yellow. They said she’d worn it for a week straight just to make sure it smelled of her hair.

The weeks went by in this strange, silent game, until there came a day when something changed. She came to check, as she always did, either up in the tree or listening close in the nearby bush, only to find him standing beneath the willow- a ribbon tied neatly around one wrist.

They were fast friends, and though he spoke little, he listened well, offering what insights a lonely, little boy could. It troubled him, for instance, that her neighbour’s dog was left to bark all night, keeping her awake for hours, and leaving her exhausted when it came time for her morning chores. She was fine, she insisted, even as she rubbed her eyes and stifled a yawn. He’d just laughed, fumbling with that knotted band of yellow, while inside something else came undone.

Oh but he loved it. That’s what they said, the ones who claimed to have witnessed the act. That he was cackling like a satyr as he hauled the butchered creature out to the woods, a pocket knife clutched madly in his bloody, child’s fingers.

Of course, no one had actually seen it happen. In the dead of night, silence came for the offending animal and made shockingly precise work of ensuring a good night’s sleep. No one but the little girl knew for sure what must have occurred when she found the dog’s lifeless body laid out just for her, its throat cut and fur bloodied, perched like so many trinkets left there before. An act of friendship, of something like love, gone so very wrong.

She’d never seen him again, once it came to light. A mess of tears and horrified babbling ran back into the village, and a grubby waif with stained hands was soon lead away. He was swiftly sent back to the City, to the Matrons who’d cared for him before, and would again, who knew he meant well, but that it was just too soon. He hadn’t been ready, after everything that had happened… but he would be, they swore. In time, he would learn.

Had he? Sure he’d adapted, through the years. There’d been countless families since the one in Amberglen, after all. Countless rooms filled with borrowed sheets and toys he’d never played with. Just as many dinner tables where he’d waited and watched for how they wanted him to sit- to smile, to speak, or be silent. The latter-most was easiest, and always would be, he’d realised early on. Just as it was easiest never to know another little girl with wheat-coloured curls, or otherwise.

Easier then, to let things be. There’d be no more questions he couldn’t really answer. No more words or telltale disappointment written on her face. They’d keep each other’s secrets, he knew… just as he knew he couldn’t grant her any more of his. He’d taken things as far as he dared, and further… and in the end they were treading too close to the edge, that indelicate seam between the colours and sounds that she deserved, and the grey silence that came after.

The scent of decay and moldering wilds filled his nostrils, carried on biting sea air that cared little for how it clung to the skin and wore on the buildings scattered about the island. Skittering legs and whistling winds funneled through the skeleton trees- an ever-present chorus sung in whispers that spoke of ‘cutting ties’ and ‘what was best’. Like the steady crunch that followed him everywhere as he walked alongside his equine companion, there was a certain calm to be had in it. Soothing, stirring, feigning silence in a way that made him smile.

                                                        “I won’t stop loving you.”

                                                                                     “You need to.”