Ald had told Elvisat countless times that the morning light woke up with Kali’s bickering around the house. But nobody had warned Gleur.
Through the halls of the subterranean abode Kali wandered. She had never seen a house that, past the entry door had only stairs that led downwards instead of upwards. Subterranean dwellings were harder to build, one had to pay to remove all the dirt and rock that got on the way, and most Felsians couldn’t be bothered to afford it. Yet Kali was unaware of it, as she was unaware of the fact that Gleur had never taken care of a sister or brother, that everything he had ever worked for had been for himself and this place. She didn’t know who the paintings that adorned the long halls depicted, or why the rooms seemed tiny compared to those same halls.
Kali didn’t know that Gleur lived in a shrine for all his siblings in arms lost to the misshapen, in a mausoleum of souls and faces. She wandered the halls of dead stares that connected the fragmented home of the sage. The rooms were spread apart, none connected directly to each other.
“Sir Gleur, it's hour to wake up! Sir Gleur, up up! "She howled through the halls.
And, lying on the sorry futon inside his austere room, Gleur received the new day with a curse: “Damn the child.”
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Gleur’s kitchen was humble for some, and gloom for Kali. It lacked color, besides that of the dark wood planks and beams that covered and supported walls and roof, or the red polished stone of the floor. He had a burnerstand, a boring one, composed of a slab of stone that supported a sheet of metal with runes engraved on it. ALd had some of Kali’s drawings hung on the wall, Gleur had stains of humidity. Ald had a couple of carefully forged chairs with floral patterns for them to sit on. Gleur had sober, squared wooden ones, functional and nothing more.
Ald had luscious, fresh fruits for breakfast. Gleur had runny hardboiled eggs and steamed tubers, with not one spice to be seen on the platter.
“If you don’t eat now, you will go hungry until lunch. Do you understand?" Gleur said, arms crossed, unsure on how to address Kali.
“This looks ugly!”
Galú watched Kali’s dish from atop the cupboard, like an eagle stalking a prey. His only deterrant to not swoop down and steal a piece or two of the meal was Gleur’s stern stare.
“Sister, please, it is good for you and tastes…” Gleur searched his mind for a word adequate for the situation. Amazing was too much, it didn’t serve the truth. Bland was too blunt, it didn’t serve the purpose of the sentence. Maybe… “Soft. It’s a soft taste.”
“I want something sweet,” Kali said, pouting , hands curled into fists and arms extended downwards.
“Don’t try me, child. I am not Ald nor Elvisat. I am a Sage of Felsia and you will respect me as such. Be grateful and eat your breakfast, Ald wants me to teach you a few things until he comes form his trip."
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“I will tell him! I will tell him what you give me to eat,” Kali said, crossing her arms and slouching on her chair.
“It’s a good meal, lass. Please, eat before Galú comes down and scoops it,” he said, pointing at the parrot-beaked raven.
“No!”
Gleur scratched his stubble and stood from his chair. With two deft steps he circumvented the table and loomed over Kali. “Eat your meal, Kali,” he ordered drily.
Kali shook he rhead in defiance. Galú flew over them and headed straight out of the room.
Gleur picked the child form the neck of her shirt and lifter her as if Kali weighted less than one of the potatoes used to make her meal.
“Put me down!” Kali said, clawing at Gleur’s arm, at his skin that had been scarred by true claws in the past, and that was too thick to worry about the nails of a child. Kali kicked and screamed as Gleur carried her out of the kitchen an into the hall.
“Do you want your picture to hang in these halls , Kali?” GLeur asked.
“Put me down!”
“These are my brothers, my sisters that died in the battlefield. In these images lives the last figment of them that exists outside of the memories of we who loved them.
Kali didn’t care, and kept struggling to get free. “Ald wants me to train you in combat so you don’t end like them.” Gleur lifted Kali in front of the dimly lit picture of a felsian woman. “Hailora, forever thirty-two years old. Got decapitated by a beast with retractile claws on its tail. Do you want to end up like her?”
Kali calmed down and asked the most important question to her. “What’s decapitated?”
Gleur let Kali down, put a hand on her shoulder and crouched to look her in the eyes. “Her head got separated from her body, the claws of the beast cut through her neck like a knife through a sausage.
Kali swallowed, looked up at the painting. “Her…neck?”
Glerus slid his middle finger through Kali’s skin, at the height where the misshapen had mortally wounded Hailora. “Through there, Kali.”
“And could they glue the head back into the body.”
Gleur broke in a hearty laughter. “You insolent brat, that was a good one, that…” And then he noticed Kali’s worried stare. “Ah, it was a genuine question. Sorry, Kali.”
“Could they?” she insisted, with eyes that fostered both hope and terror.
“No, that cannot be done. They cut off your head and you die, there is no way around it.”
Kali embraced Gleur while trembling “I don’t want to die, Sir Gleur!”
Gleur patted the girl’s back. “There, there, nobody here will cut your head off. But if you ever go out the walls, there are horrible monsters roaming there. So you need to be prepared to face and survive them.”
Kali nodded, still visibly scared, but she didn’t do it out of agreement. Why would she go out? Felsia was good. Felsia was safe. In Felsia nobody got dece… depacica… their head cut off. If a woman almost the age of Ald couldn’t survive, she had no chance.
Then, in a moment of strange realization, Kali's eyes opened wider. “The river is outside the walls! Ald is fishing there!”
Gleur’s stare softened and he let Kali go, towering over her once again, because what he had to say was better said with the authority height provided. Lies were more believable that way. “I have seen Ald fight, I have seen Ald take care of wounded companions in the field. You don’t need to fear for Ald’s safety, Kali, for he is what monsters fear in the darkness of the night. Your caretaker is not only smart and kind, but a capable fighter. This is hall for my dead friends. The sort of place a picture of Ald will never occupy, see.” He concluded with a soft smile and tousled Kali’s red hair. “But I could hang yours if you don’t eat and train well. That’s why Ald asked me to train you. Those walls are not eternal, nor the monsters are always outside. And besides…” Gleur noticed a figure of a sister standing in the furthest corner, enveloped by the shadows so endemic of that dusty place. She was smiling a shining white. “…some haunt you forever.”
Then, ignoring Unkindness, he led Kali back to the kitchen, hoping she would finally sink teeth into her breakfast and be ready for some training.