Elara's Song, Chapter Three

• Posted by Kynareth September 3, 2012 - 797 views

  Onmund drank in the scent of pine trees and freshly turned dirt, filling his lungs and bathing his mind in happy memories of the playground of his youth.  Not like the tense moments spent with his family. 

  “Da picked a damn inconvenient time to die,” Onmund observed out loud.  “Maybe Ma just needs an extra hand.”

  You know that is not true, the voice said, the one he had surprisingly accepted since leaving Winterhold.  It was a companion, albeit a severe one.

  Onmund scuffed his boot on the well-worn dirt path, and continued, his mind searching for the changes to the landscape that had occurred in the past year, but marked only a fallen branch here and there or a few extra patches of mountain flowers popping through the bracken.   He paused at the top of the rise.  Rich brown fields rolled away before him; two brothers and two sisters worked assiduously in the fields, planting and cultivating the rocky soil.  The freshly shorn goats frolicked in their paddock, overjoyed at the lifting of their heavy burden.

  “Onmund!” A high pitched shriek reached his ears as he was almost bowled over by a tangle of arms, legs, and blond braids.

  “Gerta!” Onmund greeted his seven year old and youngest sister with a bear hug, swinging her in a circle.  He switched her weight over to his left arm as he waved to his siblings in the field.  They looked up but did not return the gesture.

  Worth a shot, he thought.   I at least wanted to tell them I am sorry about Da.

  Are you sorry?

  Shaking off the voice, he set Gerta back on the ground and asked, “Canute and Dag?”  They were the two sons born after Onmund, the twin tormentors of his youth.

  “Windhelm,” she replied quietly.  “Ma was dead set against them going, but they said they wanted to honor Da’s memory by thrashing those damned Thalmor magic users and…,” Gerta looked up at Onmund and covered her mouth, eyes wide.

  “I won’t tell Ma,” Onmund reassured her, ignoring the implied insult made by the twins.  “They should not use that kind of language around you anyway.”

  “Gerta, go feed the chickens while I talk to the one that flew the coop.”  Onmund’s mother appeared at the door of the cottage, wiping her floury white hands on her apron.

  Onmund bent down to give Gerta a kiss on her head and slipped a ring into her hand.  “Our secret,” he whispered, and with sparkling eyes, she scampered off to obey her mother’s command, willing herself to hold off looking at her gift until she was entirely surrounded by feathered witnesses.

  “Sounds like I am not the only one who left.”  She harrumphed and motioned Onmund into the neat and modest farmhouse, once his home.

   Alfsa’s wiry spare frame stood tall, grey hair neatly plaited and coiled on top of her head.  Her sharp, deep blue, almost black eyes focused on her eldest as he dropped his satchel on the floor.  He stood awkwardly, looking down at his hands, and she realized this was his normal stance.  How had she not noticed all these years that he was so ill at ease in the house, and a picture flashed in her mind of a younger Onmund, all arms and legs, flying through the fields like a stag?  Or maybe he was only uncomfortable around her.  She squelched the instinct to take him in her arms, as she had squelched it all these years to please Berg.

  Berg is dead.

  “Do they feed you at that College of yours?” she asked gruffly, motioning for him to sit.  She scooped a bowl of stew from the pot simmering over the hearth and augmented it with a generous loaf of bread and a tankard of home-brewed mead. 

  She watched him eat energetically, taking a mother’s pleasure in providing nourishment for her child, her firstborn of eight.  Hah, a war over eight or nine, her restless mind wandered.  I won that battle with Berg but I have two fool sons who want to lose their lives over nine.

  Alfsa talked desultorily about farm and family matters, her eyes fixed on the table.  He did the same, keeping his mouth full of food so that he did not have to speak.  “You can remove your hood in front of me.”  She focused on him suddenly, willing him to look up at her.

  Her words shot through him like a bolt and as their eyes met, they became locked in the same memory, at this same table, Onmund seated in the same chair, Canute and Dag sniggering in the doorway, Alfsa sobbing and pleading with a shouting Berg, tears streaming quietly down Onmund’s face.  And then a burlap sack was thrust over his head.  All on account of the abnormal shape of his ears.

  Suddenly Onmund knew this was why his Ma wanted to talk to him.  The reason he endured many familial cruelties, why his Ma was so hard, why she never hugged him, or even laughed.  Oh Stendaar, he knew how to handle that life, was handling it quite fine, and her dark steady gaze glittered at him, offering him a new one.

  I don’t run away from my fate, Onmund told himself, trying to draw strength from the words.

  Sure you do.

  “Berg is not your father,” she said softly and pushed herself away from the table, not looking at her son.  Onmund stared at his thumbs again, pretending those words were not salt on his raw heart.   Alfsa returned with a small packet, tied with twine.

  “If you choose to look for him, this note is to be given to him in explanation.  It should accompany the amulet that I gave you before you left.”  She noticed the start he gave when she mentioned the amulet.  “You still have it, don’t you?”

  Onmund nodded, forcing himself to swallow.  “Does he have a name?”

  Alfsa raised an eyebrow at his tone.  “Toranir.  He was an Altmer priest in Falkreath before the Great War.”

  And now Onmund knew why he was hated by his Da—Berg and how that hatred drifted down to Canute and Dag and paralyzed his mother.  He was part mer.

  “But you…?” Onmund began and saw the tears build in her eyes.  All of a sudden, the room became too small and he had trouble breathing.  He grabbed his satchel and walked away, his head thrumming and his heart pounding.

  Alfsa, silent, let him go, just like she let him endure all the shame, all the abuse and ridicule over the years.  He was her mistake, and Berg never let her forget.  She bit her lip, holding her emotions in check.  If only I were a different sort of person, she reflected, and knew that it was a ridiculous thought, like asking a rock to turn into a soft and silky hare.  When she tasted blood, she knew she was in control again, though she harbored no hope of seeing her son again. 

  Onmund’s pace quickened as the anger and pain from years came flooding back, charging his muscles with restless energy.

  As the sun began to set, Onmund stood in front of a wall of rock he used to scale as a child.  Instead of climbing, he unleashed a powerful surge of electric energy through his slender fingertips, blasting away the tiny chinks and crevasses that served as foot and finger holds so many years ago.  Energy spent, Onmund continued north, determined not to use magic again until he found his father.