Willow's End - Jera Skyspear
Elvish words/phrases linked to Glossary OR hover mouse to see translation.
Curious Correspondence part seven

There were no other patrons in the inn's common room when Jera and Ashe appeared after kicking mud from their boots and dusting off a bit. The hearth's warmth radiated out into the room and so did delicious smells from the kitchen. Ashe looked about and waved a hand to one of the inn's workers. There were two. They'd been cleaning and polishing, generally making work where there had been none.

"I don't know about you, but I'm hungry, love. Shall we get some of that stew?"

Rather flatly, Jera replied, "Smells good. Yes." She was obviously distracted, looking about but not entirely present. Ashe tilted his head at her, but then pointed to a table near the hearth and they proceeded there. He pulled out a chair for her as he asked the server for two bowls of the stew and two mugs of tea.

Jera sat and brushed again at her skirts then turned to glance at the server before watching Ashe as he stood the muslin parcel against the wall.

"It's a beautiful thing, that bow." Ashe took his seat and nodded thanks to the server promptly delivering their meal.

"It is... and it was beautiful to watch them at contests and such."

Before the server got away, Ashe asked for some fresh bread to go with the stew, then looked over at Jera. "Them? You recognized it at once, didn't you."

"I feared that I might recognize it even more."

He frowned while stirring the stew with his spoon. "Why should you fear that?"

Jera rose again and picked up the bow. She shuffled the muslin to a heap on the floor and rested the stave on its tip. She gripped the riser with her right hand, in the way the archer would, and tilted the bow slightly to the left. Looking at it in her hand, she commented, "Tursarin... was left-handed."

Ashe had been able to read the name upon the bow and saw from wear above the riser that it was a left-handed weapon, but Jera seemed to make more of it than that. "Who was Tursarin?" Food now forgotten, he wondered about the full significance of this bow.

She stared at the carved symbol now framed by her grip. "He was in the contingent that went down to the dwarf complex... to guard our council delegation... beneath Raumo Korda." She paused with the memory then continued more quietly, "...in the company of my brother. I was in fact afraid for a moment that this was his, though it speaks the same truth."

"Ah, I see. I'm sorry. To have come all this way, and to be reminded of old sorrow twice-fold..."

"Two sorrows, but one... one I have long hidden away under hope."

"You still had hopes your brother was alive somewhere?"

Jera sat again, using the bow as support to do so. She then laid it down upon the floor in the heap of muslin and looked at the thing while she sipped her tea. "More at... denying he was surely gone. This bow, so far away from Tursarin's possession, tells me the end of the tale I did not see. One I suspected, but one I would not wholly believe." She glanced up and whispered, "Amin onooro... ho silma uquelle..." Yes, she had known her brother was gone, but had not fully accepted it. She swallowed and looked down to stir in the stew. "Though I have given myself a hundred reasons this cannot be so."

Ashe nodded, "I'm sorry, love. I wish I could shoulder some of the grief for you."

She looked up, eyes filled with tears which had not yet spilled over. "Your company does that... and you know something of this grief. I have just been slow to acknowledge it?"

"Yarrow is alive, but yes... in many ways he is dead to me." Now he stirred idly in the stew until he scowled, "This is wrong." He reached out to take her hand. "It is past... We should move on."

Jera slipped her hand into his and closed her eyes. With a weak smile, she nodded. "So it is. So we should." She felt Ashe squeeze her hand gently, "He would not want you to grieve, I think." After a thoughtful moment, he glanced again at the bow, "What will you do with it? Do you have any skill with the bow?"

She looked down again with him, "I have a bit, but not much practice in my trade, of course." Once more she slipped from her chair and picked up the bundle of muslin. After shaking it out, she stood the bow on its tip again to rewrap it. "Not sure what to do with this, though if I keep it, I'll replace the missing silver in the clan mark."

While she wound the muslin around the longbow, Ashe caught sight of something floating to the floor from within the layers of the cloth. "What was that?"

"What was what?"

"That..." he pointed at the piece of parchment now partially tucked under Jera's dusty boot.

She looked down and arched a brow while Ashe bent from his seated position to pick up the paper. Setting the bow once more against the wall, Jera returned to her chair and accepted the parchment he now handed to her. She sat back to unfold it and furrowed her brow as she tried to decipher the writing there on two pages.

Ashe wondered aloud, "Was that the other paper Vosper mentioned?"

"Yes..." she offered, while she scanned the pages, or tried to. "Yes, it must be, and I dare say he was not told of its entire contents. I can't read all of it myself." She then handed the papers to Ashe.

The first page was in English, or nearly so. Terribly scrawling handwriting briefly summarized conclusions about the bow as it had been described, agreeing that it was elven make, and focusing on the carved symbol likely signifying lightning. It was clearly these points which had been relayed to Vosper, ultimately jarring his memory and prompting him to find Jera.

The author, presumably Gatsmith's elf friend, identified himself only as a half-elf trying to live peacefully in this world. He indicated this was difficult for him, therefore, he wanted no mention of his name nor his whereabouts. He would give what else he knew only in his father's tongue to be read by whomever received the bow. He was willing to provide lore or history as he thought might belong to the thing, but he would not invite trouble by linking himself to it.

Jera and Ashe both found the second page to be more perfected script, at least what they could see of the ghostly pale letters. It was just a terribly old looking page or damaged, perhaps sunbleached, though strangely mottled. It would require a bit of deciphering to make out the blurred hand.

Ashe stared intently at the writing. "It's fading. Must have been written some time ago." Then he handed the papers back to her, "A mystery within a mystery."

Jera folded the leaves of parchment and put them away in a pouch pocket."I'll have to work at it later." She sighed and gazed around the common room then back to Ashe. "What I want now... is to go home. I want to have stew and tea and your company... and home. And I'd rather not take days to get there."

He nodded, "Alright. I can summon the Road, but we best do it only after we clear the edge of town. No sense causing an uproar." The current of Jera's mood had changed and Ashe flowed with it. At last he tried a spoonful of stew. "Mmmm, this is good."

She took her own taste and only then realized how hungry she was too. She nodded. "We've been watched rather closely as it is. I think perhaps, yes, we should be quite a bit out of town, yet before the swamps. The horses will appreciate--- Wait... We're fairly close to the sea. Care to view sunrise on the water?"

Ashevathallion grinned as he tore the bread in half and handed one half to her. "It depends on the company."

Jera teased, "What sort of company had you in mind?" She grinned and took the offered bread, letting her fingertips brush his.

He let his touch linger as well, "Yours, and only yours, through all the sunrises of our lives."

"Then to the eastern shore with us for the next sunrise and we shall see what happens on each new and bright morning thereafter?"

"Aye," he smiled, "From home."

A thought crossed Jera's mind and put a quirky smile on her face as she tilted her head at Ashe.

"What?" he grinned, waiting to hear what she was thinking.

"Dagaz, my brother's name, is the rune for day or dawn. I think he'd like this plan."

"Ah, tis fitting then." Ashe attacked his stew with gusto, knowing the faster they ate, the sooner they could head for the shore.

~~~~~

Thus Ashe and Jera spent one more night away from Camelot. They traveled from Thetford further east, finding a small inn and tavern reasonably near the shoreline, so they could be at the water's edge before first light. Along the way there, Jera again fell silent for a good while, but then as they looked down the road toward the eastern horizon, she spoke once more. "Ashevathallion, would you tell me a tale?"

"Any particular tale you would like to hear, my lady?"

She had been thinking, likely too much, but something had finally occurred to her. She found something to perhaps explain why this bow, this reminder of the past, had gripped her so thoroughly. Ashe himself had pointed out that it was wrong to dwell on these things. It was true. It changed nothing. So why was she doing it?

"I have lived so long among the Children of the Flame, that I near forgot the subtlety of Stars. I've sung my heart and soul alone for so many years, that I near forgot how it once was to have the strength of other voices with me." Jera reined in her horse and stopped. Ashe paused with her, watching the last of the day's light chase gentle breezes through her hair.

Jera turned her head to really look at him. She saw a thin shadow of sunset play along the scar upon the line of his jaw, then her eyes drifted up to lock his gaze. "Tell me a tale to remind me who I am, who we the First Born are, and how we may choose to be. I have been listening, but not taking to heart again what I once felt without question."

Ashe looked at her thoughtfully, then shifted and stepped his horse sideways to get closer. He reached to brush a glistening tear from her cheek. "Then a tale you shall have... and I know just the one." Slowly he drew back his hand, but his gaze did not leave her, even as he tugged the reins to prompt his horse to move forward. He watched with a growing grin as Jera tilted her head at him and urged her horse as well.

"In the days after the Creator made the world and all that dwelt upon it..." Ashe began. His voice was soothing already. While he continued, Jera soon recognized the tale and he was right, it was just the one she needed to hear. He told how Sorrow came to the world, how Joy came then to balance it, and how choice was available to all, whether to live in sorrow or in joy or a balance of both. Myth or no, there was great truth in it and Jera let it soak into her heart.

~~~

Two tall riders and their tall horses walked the short way from the inn and stood upon a flat stretch of the eastern shore. The brisk wind whipped their cloaks about, but the chill was soon forgotten. Clouds began to appear from the twilight, illuminated from somewhere behind the rolling sea. The sky's colors brightened slowly from dark blue to a soft wash of lavender, pink, and pale orange, on a powder blue canvas. Fingers of light, and then wide sprays of it, shot up from the seeming heart of the sea.

"Ankale..." Jera said quietly, "He awakens," as the dawning sunlight began to bathe them both where they stood between their mounts.

"Aye, from his nightly kiss to Mezumiiru." Ashe grinned and leaned to kiss Jera lightly on the cheek. She turned to look at him a moment with her soft smile and a blush. While they gazed at each other, Ashe's mouth formed unspoken words and then very softly he put enough breath beneath them to make them audible. Shortly thereafter, it was a tune, a very old tune with very old words which Jera knew. Ashe continued to sing in a whisper as he and Jera looked again toward the sea. He sang welcome to the sun while it rose to peep over the edge of the watery horizon.

They stood in silence, watching the sun rise a bit further, then Jera smiled, "Time to go west, I think... west to Camelot, that is." She grinned a little crooked grin at Ashe then turned to gesture behind them, away from the sea, "Allow me?" Ashe nodded, "As my lady wishes," and turned the horses then stood once again by her side.

Jera closed her eyes and focused while singing her own soft words of summoning. The landscape immediately before them appeared to waver then wisp and whirl like clouds. She could feel the tides behind her perpetually embuing the air and land with power. Her hand reached out and twisted gracefully in the air to seemingly pull the swirled landscape to her, but what she drew was merely a gap, an entrance to the Road. The clouds of swirling colors came closer, then muted into one greyish white cloud which gently enveloped them and their horses, until it disappeared and they with it.

The beach was once more a lonely whisper of dry grasses and sand, gleaming in the golden light of the sun.


Note: The story Ashe tells may be read from Lamath Parma, Sorrow (an elven myth)
DHP and Bill West © Jan 2003

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