Remembrance
previously, Karra
As she trotted off, she waved, and her friends waved back. She was about to cross the periphery when she remembered something and said, “Hey! When I return, I might bring my mother! When I tell her about it, I want to have a name to all this.”
…
Together, they said, “Grove Hospes!”
…
I’ll return one day. The Grove Hospes, huh?
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Lepius
now
He managed a couple more steps back into the newly christened ‘Grove Hospes’ before he collapsed.
Rosemary leapt over with a shout, then held him up and brushed his face. One hand traced the lines of his bark all the way up to his forehead. He was burning. And with the other, she held him upright as best she could, for he was listing like an old tree about to fall over.
“Lepius. Lepius, my sapling. Are you alright?”
Now that Karra had left and they were alone, it was almost as if someone had jammed the watermills turning in his head, keeping him talking and smiling. And suddenly, he couldn’t bother walking. He couldn’t bother smiling or talking, or doing anything else, and all he wanted to do was go back in bed and curl up.
“Bed… I want to go to bed…”
“You’ve just woken up, haven’t you?”
He slurred, “Still… still tired…”
“Okay. Okay, let’s get you to bed, my sap…”
Even if it felt as if each step took every muscle in him, the stairs passed him by as if he had his eyes closed. It all felt like a dream. He felt adrift, floating on the surface of the deepest lake, with nothing around him, and he didn’t mind that. It was something simpler he wanted around him – a bed, and the silence to fill the rest.
When the grass blankets appeared under his hands, he collapsed onto the bed.
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Rosemary
She stared down at him for a few minutes.
He was not asleep, she could tell, those shallow breaths and that tenseness to his shoulders, unchanged since he was a sapling who tried to break his curfew by feigning his snores. She stood for a while, debating whether to open her mouth or not.
In the end, she did, “Lepius… are you feeling alright, my dear?”
“Mmm… yes…” and the blankets muffled his voice, “some quiet, please…”
She layered him with another blanket and said, “Alright, then. I’ll be downstairs, or just give me a call if you need something. I love you.”
“I love you too.”
When she closed the door behind her, she rested her head upon it for a moment, just to listen to herself breathe.
How quiet the grove was.
Now that Karra had gone, it was as if she had taken all the chatter away with her, and now with Lepius asleep too, the Hospes felt twice as empty. Why had she made the Hospes so big? How small she felt now, alone, like an ant that had wandered into a cavern without a torch named Lepius to make the world a little brighter. The hallway, stretching around the circumference of the trunk, looked so far away.
She forced herself off the door, then downstairs.
The main room was quiet. It was large, and she had only noticed now how tall Lepius had made the ceilings, almost four times her height. She had placed chairs here and there, and a table in the middle. Spaced throughout the walls were windows, sections of wood Lepius had coloured transparent when he built it, and so at least the sunlight found some way in.
It would remind her that this cavern was not the entire world.
She found herself at the table, sitting cross-legged. Karra had only sat here last night, laughing, making her laugh.
But in this silence, without Karra to fill it… just the thought of laughter brought them back. Her ghosts.
Andura… how you would have loved this… it’s all my fault, and I’m so sorry, my sapling…I failed… I failed so badly…
She blinked and imagined Andura in front of her. Her hair, the golden of fall leaves that clashed so dearly with Lepius’, swaying back and forth as she chatted to no end with Karra. No doubt the poor girl would’ve been overwhelmed with Andura. And behind them, Pellen would be balancing a tray of oats and berrycakes, giggling along whatever tangent Andura found herself blundering through. Then there would be Manon smiling in the corner, carving the scene out in wood.
A bird chattered by the window, and she blinked. They were gone.
Rosemary leaned over and rested her forehead on the table. With every breath she took, in and out, she always had to focus her mana, maintaining this body of hers. Slender, tall, a coat of oak, the Rosemary that Karra knew. But… for a moment, she just wanted to rest, just like Lepius did, she wanted to lie down and let her mind drift off, beyond this world that her family had left.
She thought of the words those hooded mages had said… the names they had called her.
Aberration… unnatural witch…
She had told Karra last night that it was nature mana. But it wasn’t. It was spirit magic, magic of the ancient dryads, and once again… thinking about lying to her new friend made her want to rest. She didn’t want to entertain the thought any further.
I’m too… tired. Maybe Lepius is right. We both need some rest…
She reached out to the ceiling with a hand, and it began to dissolve.
There was no gasping fear, no shuddering from her like in that clearing yesterday. Her grove was safe. Lepius was safe, asleep. There was no one here, no one to harm Lepius, and so perhaps, just for a moment, she could assume her true body.
She let it all go, all the breathing and concentrating. There was no need for focus.
Just… this once.
Her spirit tore open from within the bark holding it in chains.
Around her, the floor gleamed as if polished. If someone had been outside, they would have seen every branch of the Hospes fluttering, all at once. The roots underneath trembled. Birdsong stopped as their singers all turned to look at the Hospes, and emerging from the windows now was a radiance that the sunlight fled from, completely outshined. The birds felt a wave of energy pass, and began to hear the song.
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The song of their homes, far across the continent to which they had migrated from this season. Thousands of birds, singing at once. They would return soon, but here arrived a little taste of it.
They twittered back, to receive the mana. Home.
Rosemary dissolved into the Hospes.
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Lepius
He sunk deeper into the bed.
If he could’ve gone deeper than the wood of his cot, he would’ve. There was something pulling him down, strapping on anchors to his limbs and letting them sink down and down until they rested at the bottom of it all. Next to the ashes of his family. He was shivering, and so lifted up the blanket to cover up the bit of bark that was exposed to air.
He only just managed it.
And then he thought of how easy it would all be to simply drift off and not wake up, to close his eyes so they wouldn’t have to see the ghosts of Andura, Mother, Father, the hundreds of dryads in his village.
But then, Rosemary…
He had promised himself, hadn’t he? Never to leave her alone, never to make her cry. It had been so quick to leave his mouth earlier, when she was drifting away and dying. But not now. As he toyed with the promise in his mind now, it seemed smaller, less real. Along with all of his other thoughts, it had gotten sucked down.
Down and down, emptying away into the cavernous mouth of the darkness.
The Voice giggled. “That’s right. Empty yourself into me, into the dark. Let it fill you, sapling.”
No. No, no.
He jerked at its appearance and screamed, tossing the blankets away. It laughed again, and the cackle bounced off the walls of his skull, filling the space in between his ears like thunder, as if there was nothing in his head to dampen it.
It called out again: “That’s right. You are nothing, just a mould for ?>X/! to fit.”
What… what did it just say?
That word it had tried to say… it sounded like the biggest bee was buzzing next to his ear, filling it with nonsense. Was the Voice making the sound on purpose?
The Voice continued. “Oh, come on. ?>X/!. ?>X/! It’s still functioning?”
Lepius then felt the urge to clap his hands to his ears. It was similar to the instincts of prey, now aware of the predator stalking through the bushes, and whatever instinct it was had full reign over his muscles. Every atom in him shied away from that word, that name.
"?>X/!. ?>X/ !?>X/!. ?>X/!"
He grabbed his ears and writhed on the bed. The Voice repeated that name, again and again, louder each time, and now the buzzing was the only thing he could hear, so he screamed out into the real world, hoping to catch onto his voice and anchor himself.
“Leave me be, Voice! Aaargh!”
Two hands gripped him. They were soft and warm, and for a second, he almost murmured: Andura?
“Lepius. Lepius. It’s a nightmare, my sapling, wake up!”
Oh. Rosemary. As the Voice faded away, he opened his eyes and realized that he was on the floor, his sheets tangled around him. Rosemary knelt by his side, his arms imprisoned by her own. He whimpered and tried to pull himself closer to her, to fight back against the current, against the riptide pulling back out to the empty maw of the darkness, but he could will no movement from his arms.
“Rose… Rosie… I don’t… what was that word, what was… why.. why is it all happening to me now… I’m too tired for this, can you understand?”
She patted his cheeks, “Too tired for what, my sapling?”
He tried to wave a hand, but neither of them obeyed his command. “All of this. I… I want to rest. For a long time.”
“You’ve already had the whole night. And… and you were just resting, a moment ago. Maybe rest isn’t what you need, Lepius.”
His mana flared to life at her words, wrapping itself around him, coaxing him to take her hand and get up. It shined a path onto the corridor for him, no doubt leading downstairs, into the sunlight.
But was it any match for the greedy, devouring maw below him?
Bit by bit, it got sucked in. There was nothing the darkness couldn’t consume, how fire consumed wood, how black pigments consumed white. His hand, about to rise, now fell to the floor. Everything was cold on him, the floor, the air, even Rosemary’s touches – it all felt as if he was only present to see and hear, and not do anything else. Not to live or talk.
Just like… when he had lost control. With the gold man.
“I’m… I’m too tired, Rosemary. I can’t… I don’t want to do anything. Just let me in bed.”
Rosemary, after a sigh, stood up. But she did not move away, and instead remained standing over him, casting him further into shadow, and it was only after a minute or so that she started to speak.
“No. I understand what you went through. Because I loved them as much as you did, Lepius. I was there the moment Andura was born, the moment you focused mana for the first time, your birthdays.”
She turned and closed the open door, even if there was no one here to peek through and eavesdrop. Habits, he supposed.
“You are tired. And you must be feeling all sorts of horrible things, angry things-”
“No. I’m just… I don’t feel anything. I just want to sleep. I’m not sad, I’m not angry. I just want to sleep.”
Rosemery huffed, then yanked on one of his arms, “You need to get out of bed. Please. All this sleeping and dreaming is not good for you.”
“No, Rosemary. I just wanna… I just wanna sleep.”
“You are going to get up, now.”
And suddenly, the watermill in his head, the one that kept him thinking and talking, began to spin again. But it was spinning backwards, against the flow of the water, and the mechanisms within were all going haywire. Water poured out from the levees of the river, and splashed onto the mud. It was all spilling out of him now, from this current too strong for the river, all the black bile and emotions he had kept back since the morning.
“Just let me GO! Let me SLEEP! Curse you, go away, you annoying woman!”
She dropped his arm. When she looked down at him, through those round eyes gathering tears in the corners, the watermill ground to a halt. Everything stopped. He even stopped sinking, just for a moment, the realization of what he had just said buoying him up to reality and giving him one cursed breath.
She turned and fled. Lepius fell back on the floor, his sheets a mess around him, wanting to sleep and wake up, all to realise it was a dream.
He had already broken his promise. He had made her cry.
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Rosemary
She sat at the edge of the clearing, her chin on her knees.
To the grass, she said, “I’m such a failure.”
What was she thinking, barging into his room like that and demanding anything from him? The poor sapling had just gone through hell. Maybe sleeping was his way of healing, getting better one dream after another, and she had just stomped in and tracked mud all over his recovery. She had been an annoying woman.
The birds twittered at her. No doubt they were nodding along and saying, “Indeed, you are an annoyance.”
A few fluttered down to her and chirped a note or two, as if they wanted to say something. It must’ve been her mana. Only now, after merging with the Hospes, did she felt… better, her skin cozy instead of unfamiliar, all the organs finding themselves in the right place without a touch of thought from her. She didn’t need to focus much to maintain her body now.
That was a good thing, until she realised the only other thing on her mind was Lepius.
“I’m sorry, birdies. I have no song to sing for you today.”
And so they fluttered away.
She ran a hand through her hair and sighed over all that had happened. Lepius had looked… normal, a little tired, bags under his eyes, but she thought that today was going to be a good day, a day where they went out picking berries and talked under the stars together. Maybe they would talk about Andura, and he would forgive her.
But did she even deserve forgiveness?
Failure.
She punched the ground, again and again, imagining her face in the soil, imagining Andura on the floor, bleeding out because she could not kill the gold-plated man in one strike. It was all her failure. She should have aimed her spike of wood better, shouldn’t have let him near Andura in the first place.
When she leant back, puffing, her hand was a messy pulp. She reformed it in a second.
Andura… Pellen, Manon…
If she could tear her soul open to release all the memories of them and bring them back to this world, happy and healthy, she would’ve. She would’ve yanked the gates open the moment they arrived on the other side. But her soul came with no handles. And she would never see the true them again, not in every plane of complexity they had once arrived with.
Her tears plopped onto the ground.
Plink. Plink. Plink.
And they heralded Lepius’ arrival.
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Karra
When sun was halfway up, she saw her camp in the distance.
Bovine mothers chased after their children, the calves squealing as they pumped their little legs. Gatherers pulled up grass, handful after handful. At the gate entrance, she could spy out the glittering armour of the few bovines who acted as guards, although they shifted around and avoided touching the swords at their belts at all.
No one came to greet her.
She hung her head as she lumbered past the other bovines. There were few who had caught sight of her, and were now whispering behind their hands, no doubt wondering about one thing: she hadn’t returned with any grass.
It was her only job. Get some grass, and come back.
At the sight of their giggles, all her skip in her step faded. “Silly Karra,” she already heard echoing in her head, “can’t even gather grass right. Calves half her age can do it. She must’ve gotten lucky throughout the night.”
She did. And now Lepius and Rosemary took centre stage in her imagination, and as she strolled past a gaggle of mothers who gave her disapproving looks, she daydreamed. Everything was in it. There was Lepius’ smile, Rosemary’s laugh, all the tales they shared over that sunstone.
And those echoes faded, just a little.
Lepius had called her a friend. No one had ever done that before. She stopped, then stood still for a bit, letting the dreams stew within her and carry her to the truth she, for once, didn’t have to be asleep for. And she began to smile.
“That’s right,” she said to the air around her, to her daydreams, “I’m a friend. Of a great healer who can clear wounds with just a flick, and a cooler nature mage who destroyed a forest!”
The mothers stopped tittering and stared as her as she continued, “They called me Karra! Not Silly Karra! Karra, Karra ‘Grass’ Meadow! And I’m their friend!”
She couldn’t crush the smile on her face even if she tried. The world was already brighter than yesterday, the air fresher and the grass underhoof softer. She heard a familiar voice, like sweetened oats, and her smile widened.
“Karra! Oh, my dear Karra!”
Yes, the world was much brighter today, was it not?