cadcamlan | always follow the voices beneath | childhood

Entry tags:

always follow the voices beneath | childhood | for llinos

It isn't that he's never seen a girl before. He has. His aunt is, technically, a girl--just taller and prouder and with the same unbridled ferocity in her toothy grin as he could faintly remember from his jumbled recollection of his mother. Then there's the mouse of a girl who helps keep things tidy in their little corner of the woods, who brings him little bits of sweets and suet among the apples and pinches his cheek fondly when he puts the gathered wood into neat piles. And there are the girls who flit through their lives like so many fluttering birds, stopping for a while to consult with his aunt and leaving with long straight spines and a secret in their smiles.

It's more that he's rarely ever seen one so close to his own age.

That's what's fascinating. This girl doesn't stand a head above him the way most other girls do. She doesn't have the sway in her body of the girls who sweep through their lives (teenagers, although he hasn't quite learned that yet). She's small the way he is; less a miniature of what he's used to and more something that comes before.

He doesn't know what to do with it. He knows to slip in silent shadow past the visitors and to tug affectionately at the swish of the cleaning girl's skirt, but he doesn't know what to make of such a young visitor to the sanctuary of their little glen. Even without a touch of magic, she'd likely have felt the quiet blue eyes (like your father, poor thing, Anti Morgan always tsks) peering uncertainly from the shadow at the door. He's been told to run along and scout about in the woods while Anti holds lessons, but he can't quite make it past the frame.

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There's one last glance spared back for the little hutch in the glen. There's one last thoughtful moment wondering if his aunt will be cross he's gone missing--or notice at all.

And there's one more appraising consideration of the girl before him, eyes bright and curious.

Then he vanishes with a soft swish of fabric into the woods.

She takes that as her cue to start counting, which she does with all her childish patience--that is to say, slowly at first but getting faster as she goes.

"Ready or not, here I come!" Her voice is loud but more carrying than shouting, and she sounds excited. This will be an excellent game.

But instead of hurrying off, she takes her time looking around and considering. A whole new set of hiding places requires she be thoughtful. He might have gone up a tree, or he might be among the ferns behind a rock. She doesn't want to resort to help, not if she can help it.

This might take a while.

It's easy to disappear into these woods. He knows it like he knows the lines in his own hands; like he knows the wrinkles when his aunt smiles.

It's so easy, really, that he'll be spending as much time as he can simply following along behind her. He settles easily into the backs of trees and the shadows of roots; why not use it to watch the other half of the game from a safe distance?

Her course seems random, circling this way and then that, avoiding the fox dens and rabbit burrows. There are so many places to hide in this forest, so very many, and she has to check them all. Slowly, patiently, carefully.

And then, after an hour or so has passed, her drowsy pace quickens and now she disappears.

"Oh! Come see what I've found!"

She seems to be following a pattern just beyond him. His own path would have dipped in to see the foxes, skirted close where he could check on the rabbits, circled into the paths frequented by the stags checking their domain.

She's respectful. She's in touch with the woods without being a creature of it. She's fascinating to watch through tendrils of moss.

Her call has him hesitating. He's meant to be hiding, after all. She'll likely feel the prickle of indecision scattering through the air, radiating from him.

Ah, clever boy. She had been intending to draw him out and pounce on him when his curiosity made him reveal himself. His hesitation has earned a measure of respect from her.

On the other hand... "I really did find something."

If he come to peek at her, he'll find she's holding something in her hands and seems truly interested in it.

Mordred doesn't have much magic in him. There's a lick of it from his mother--exhausting little flashes of visions which have been slowly beginning to look like the future--but it isn't the sort of genuine talent that runs through Pendragon women.

It's more that he's made good friends with the growth of the woods that makes his voice seem to echo in a little whisper around her. "--is the game over?"

Very clever boy. She smiles and sits down on a log, where he could join her if he likes. "Okay. I admit I couldn't find you this time. But come look."

In her hands she's holding a fairy stone, the hole worn soft and smooth, the stone mostly round and just small enough to be cupped in her palm.

Appearing at her shoulder isn't so magical at all. He's just got a delicate step and a very dampened presence from years of being hidden off in the shadows.

"--where'd you find it?"

It's not the sort of something he'd expect to be left at random--or to be taken from a formation.

"Just there, on the moss." She holds the stone out to him, if he'd like to examine it. "Do you think we should put it back? This is your forest."

He won't touch it himself, although he bends over it intently. Great care is taken in perching on the log not to actually bump into the girl.

"Yes. With-- a present. To thank them for letting us-- look at it."

She nods her agreement with his decision. "That's a good idea. Do you know the fair folk here?"

A present, a present. She'll pull the ribbon from her hair, wrapping and tieing it around the stone.

"Not 's well as others."

It's much more of a glancing thing--little tugs at his collar, tiny nudges at his ankles, bright glimmers at the corner of his gaze. Small marks, here and there, that they admire his aunt well enough to want to keep him safe.

"Y've to be nice to them even if you never meet them."

"This is true. My grandmother leaves out a dish of cream and honey every night, and she says it's always empty in the morning."

She kneels to carefully set the stone back where she found it, careful not to crush the moss.

"My lord father said it was the cats. He believed in nothing but his own strength, and now he's dead." This is troubling for her for a number of reasons.

That, at last, pulls a less reflexive smile to his lips. One finger lifts, without brushing the stone, to trace along the line of the ribbon being left to the fairies.

"It wouldn't be cats." His aunt calls him her little wolf cub, but Mordred had inherited his mother's soft spot for feline companions. "They're too clever to take what's been left for their better friends."

Cats and dogs can learn to live together. Every wolf can be tamed, and every cat can go feral.

"I don't think it's the cats either. My grandmother's cats are very smart. They know when the weather will turn and also when someone will grow ill." It's nice to have someone to talk to about this. Someone her own age who understands.

Understanding is new, but it sits well in his heart. Another child his own age is new, but it's starting to feel natural, the way lots of new things can at this early stage of life.

"And when to clear out."

"That too. Cats are good friends to have."

She sits back on her heels, pushing her hair out of her face. "Did cats teach you how to hide so well?"

"No, hogen."

She doesn't have a name, after all. She possibly oughtn't have a name, since he's not at all certain he'll be allowed to speak with her again.

"A fox did."

It would be tragic if they were separated so early in their friendship. But now she's left something of herself in his forest, and they could find each other again.

"Foxes are good, clever creatures." She approves of this. "You're lucky."

His head bobs unconsciously. Half the girls who flit through his life wouldn't be inclined to say anything nice about the little brood living just beyond the edge of the glen.

"I'm not so lucky. It's manners."

Everyone has their preferences. Some girls like foxes, others like boys. Llinos is pretty sure she's made the better choice.

"That too. Your aunt must be very proud of you."

There aren't many better ways to Mordred's heart than being sweet about his aunt. Apparently, there are even fewer than expressing his aunt must in some way treasure him.

His entire chest puffs up briefly with pleasure. "She is. When-- I'm good."

How fortunate she has no reason to think ill of Lady Morgan.

"The people who love us always want us to be good. Sometimes they have different ideas about what that means."

"Different?"

He only has the one, after all. He can't recall any of the other ghosts who had loved him with much clarity at all.

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