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Jan. 24th, 2010 12:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
inthetapestryWhen Paul-who-isn't-his-father and Jaelle-who-isn't-his-mother die, Kevin dan Davor of the andain has been around twelve years old for going on twenty-five years.
He doesn't know where to go at first. He has always had a home, before. He stays in the cottage for a month, feeling lonely. He considers seeking out his mother, but he suspects that wouldn't help with the loneliness. So instead, he does the next-best thing to seeking out his father, and goes out to the steppes to find the Dalrei.
Kevin likes the Dalrei, and they like him. Ivor dan Bannor is long dead, but Levon dan Ivor remembers Kevin's father well, and welcomes him in Davor's name. Kevin learns to hunt elkor with reasonable skill - and if he sometimes runs with the elkor as one of them, he makes sure not to do it on days when anyone is hunting.
"This life suits you," says Levon after a year, pleased to be doing well by his old friend's son. "You've been growing."
Kevin looks around fifteen, now. He can ride with the warriors, though he is still more a child than not, and not let to do anything to dangerous. This suits Kevin perfectly well; he has no urge to prove himself. There's no rush. He is andain, and he has time.
He has time, but his friends do not. The boys who learned to hunt elkor along with him grow, and keep growing, and marry, and have children. Kevin stays slim and beardless and likeable and free of responsibility. A few years pass, and he rides with a new crop of youths. Another few years go by. Another set of boys grow up, and Kevin does not. Levon dies, and his son, who once helped Kevin to smuggle a skunk into the shaman's bedroll, succeeds him.
The Dalrei know what Kevin is. They don't question his youth. Kevin doesn't question it either. He is surrounded by people; he enjoys his life, mostly. He doesn't know what more to ask for.
All the same, for reasons he can't name, he finds himself running more with the elkor, these days, than with the hunts.
He doesn't know where to go at first. He has always had a home, before. He stays in the cottage for a month, feeling lonely. He considers seeking out his mother, but he suspects that wouldn't help with the loneliness. So instead, he does the next-best thing to seeking out his father, and goes out to the steppes to find the Dalrei.
Kevin likes the Dalrei, and they like him. Ivor dan Bannor is long dead, but Levon dan Ivor remembers Kevin's father well, and welcomes him in Davor's name. Kevin learns to hunt elkor with reasonable skill - and if he sometimes runs with the elkor as one of them, he makes sure not to do it on days when anyone is hunting.
"This life suits you," says Levon after a year, pleased to be doing well by his old friend's son. "You've been growing."
Kevin looks around fifteen, now. He can ride with the warriors, though he is still more a child than not, and not let to do anything to dangerous. This suits Kevin perfectly well; he has no urge to prove himself. There's no rush. He is andain, and he has time.
He has time, but his friends do not. The boys who learned to hunt elkor along with him grow, and keep growing, and marry, and have children. Kevin stays slim and beardless and likeable and free of responsibility. A few years pass, and he rides with a new crop of youths. Another few years go by. Another set of boys grow up, and Kevin does not. Levon dies, and his son, who once helped Kevin to smuggle a skunk into the shaman's bedroll, succeeds him.
The Dalrei know what Kevin is. They don't question his youth. Kevin doesn't question it either. He is surrounded by people; he enjoys his life, mostly. He doesn't know what more to ask for.
All the same, for reasons he can't name, he finds himself running more with the elkor, these days, than with the hunts.
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Date: 2010-01-24 05:30 am (UTC)The elkor know this very well.
It is one reason why the approach of the wolves sends them bounding away across the steppes.
Survival is a strong motivator.
And the wolves are hungry --
Or so it would seem.
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Date: 2010-01-24 05:51 am (UTC)Theoretically.
But to be fair, it is hard to think so rationally when one is in the middle of a herd of stampeding elkor, or, more properly, when one is a stampeding elkor.
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Date: 2010-01-24 05:58 am (UTC)The wolves prey on neither the weak nor the young, but instead swiftly and skillfully arrow toward one young buck.
And that one they separate from the herd, driving him ever onward, toward the forest.
He has a long, long way to go.
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Date: 2010-01-24 06:14 am (UTC)Elkor are supposed to be part of a herd. Elkor don't run alone. It's what Kevin likes about them.
He puts on an extra burst of speed, squelching down panic with some difficulty. He knows how the elkor run, and he knows how their predators run, too. This isn't right -
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Date: 2010-01-24 06:29 am (UTC)The wolves speed up, two of them leaping ahead of the pack to nip at Kevin's heels.
It should serve to drive him to the right, into a clearing where --
The pursuit abruptly stops.
It may be possible to blame the presence of the Wolflord in said clearing for that.
More than possible, even.
"Kevin, son of Ceinwen, sister to my father, I bid you welcome. Your escort did not harm you overmuch, I may hope."
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Date: 2010-01-24 06:39 am (UTC)His panic is receding; he retains enough presence of mind to bow his head in greeting. Only one andain is lord here, after all.
He says, after a moment, "Was that really necessary?"
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Date: 2010-01-24 06:47 am (UTC)"Were you more aware of what you are, you should have had little to fear from my wolves. But you are, in your way, more elkor than andain. Should you prefer it remain so?"
He doubts it. He doubts it, indeed.
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Date: 2010-01-24 06:54 am (UTC)He takes a breath and says, more calmly, "It's a form, only that. I know what I am."
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Date: 2010-01-24 07:00 am (UTC)He says it so casually, as if it is only simple fact, the most basic of truths.
And for andain, it is.
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Date: 2010-01-24 07:09 am (UTC)"I am half of the sort, and that is not the same, but it isn't nothing either."
He doesn't take up the topic of his guardians, not with the Wolflord. He's familiar with some of the history - and he remembers their first meeting.
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Date: 2010-01-24 07:14 am (UTC)Would Kevin, in fact, compare a man and a mayfly?
Or a man and a monkey, as some worlds' science would have it?
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Date: 2010-01-25 02:18 am (UTC)How many generations has he seen pass by? Not so many. Two, three? It hasn't felt that long -
Not the way it would to a mortal.
"Only that I wouldn't deny half myself. I know I am not the same."
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Date: 2010-01-25 02:33 am (UTC)And between comprehension and understanding.
"And you have too little experience with what you are to have overmuch grasp on either."
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Date: 2010-01-25 02:37 am (UTC)He only means in the sense of living through more years. He hasn't yet learned how to choose his words as wisely as he should.
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Date: 2010-01-25 02:55 am (UTC)"Choose to come with me, then, and you will find out."
Some answers cannot be so easily given.
It is a lesson all children must learn -- and not only children, either.
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Date: 2010-01-25 03:22 am (UTC)But Kevin is young, and sometimes you do things just because you're bored - or because they're offered - or because it's been an interesting, if somewhat stressful day, and maybe, after all, it's time for a change.
"All right," he says, after a moment, with a shrug and a bright smile that has little to do with his father. Or his guardian, come to that.
But someone who knew his namesake of no relation might wonder at the strangeness resemblance takes, sometimes.
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Date: 2010-01-25 03:30 am (UTC)He reaches out and rests one hand on Kevin's shoulder. The other he lifts over his heart, sketching a complicated gesture in the air. The world begins to fade out around them -- or is it the other way around?
"This will be nothing like what you're used to."
And as everyone knows, the reason the Wolflord is so convincing is that he has very little need to lie.