Murmuration by Talullah

Chapter 1

Legendarium Ladies April - Prompts for April 18
General Prompt: Forgiveness
Picture Prompt: All Creatures Great and Small (Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan), by Steve McCurry

Poetry Prompt: Murmuration, by Triin Paja
you say its kindness, the way dusk gathers
its skirt-hems, walks to the wheat field,
leaves. how a cat leaves an old woman’s lap,
ribbons of light fluttering in the wind.
kindness, you say, as the sun disappears in
your throat, leaving me beneath the grey belly
of the whale-sky. I hear spring shatter its
perfume bottle, the clouds clinging to tin roofs
with soft hands. I have kissed your hands.
when we cannot speak, we press our bare skin
against silence’s bare skin—I want to say
when you die they will not find blood but birds
in the body. how kindness is always forgiveness,
the thrushes covering us with the insect netting
of their song. how somewhere we pearl into
a bone-white memory, rising, collapsing,
like a lover’s breathing after a vodka-darkened
night, after the ghost of the orgasm leaves us.
how somewhere the stones are writing us,
the dandelions flickering in a kind of light.

 

Tar-Aldarion died in 1098 S.A.

Read Chapter 1

Orrostar, 1097 S.A.

“‘How kindness is always forgiveness…’ That is what she wrote. Orchaldor, do you hear me?” Ailinel asks with a certain sharpness to her voice.

“Yes, but I wish I hadn’t,” he lazily replies from somewhere behind her.

Ailinel rolls her eyes, impatient. It has been a long and happy marriage, but not without its quarrels, and Orchaldor’s penchant for dry wit always irks her, especially when she is talking about woes caused by her family.

Only, Orchaldor is not really there. They won’t start bickering, he won’t rise from his comfortable chair to come to her side and wrap his arms around her shoulders, she won’t say that she is sorry, even if she is not, just to make peace, and they won’t go for a stroll in the garden before dinner is served. Ailinel’s eyes fall to the letter on her lap, from her sister Almiel, relating how their brother has come to his last year and is slowly saying his goodbyes. She feels like ripping it to pieces and throwing it to the wind, but instead, she folds it and leaves the house, heading for the dovecote.

Orchaldor built it for her with his own hands, when they were married, although, over the years it was added and reinforced several times, as her brood, as she called it, grew larger. She has rock doves, mourning doves, turtle doves, crowned doves, Andunië pigeons, common pigeons, and other species, but her favourites - and she would never admit that to anyone - were the descendants of that pour couple of birds that the Elves had gifted her brother and Erendis upon their wedding. Orchaldor knew that they were her favourites, of course, as he always knew when she was hungry or tired before she did, the right temperature for her tea, and when she was miffed, even if she tried to hide it. Even now, ten years after his death and a lifetime together, she wonders if she ever knew him half as well as he knew her.

What a wonderful husband he was, Ailinel thinks, as she tries to touch the birds inside the dovecote. They flinch from her hand.

“See, they aren’t feeding again,” she whispers, upon seeing the lone couple resting very close to one another. She knows Orchaldor is not there, listening behind her shoulder, and she knows that one of these days, the maids or her daughter-in-law or Soronto will hear her talking to her dead husband - if they haven’t, already. She shrugs at herself, almost hearing Orchaldor’s kind laughter at her embarrassment.

He was kind, much kinder than her, and friendly to everyone. That was why her father had chosen him for her husband, and even if at first she had hesitated in taking the hand of an older man, she had accepted after talking to him exactly seven times. In her gut she felt it was right. It didn’t hurt that he had the good looks of a true son of the House of Hador, tall, sun-kissed hair, those eyes, blue as sapphires… They had made a lovely couple, everyone had said, and what pretty their children they had produced.

“They won’t come out now,” Orchaldor says. Ailinel knows he’s right but she tries again to lure the birds out. Upon her failure, she quits and comes to sit on the courtyard, by the fountain, right there on the stone pavement. Her joints do not ache, yet, not with the drops of elven blood running in her veins, keeping her hale after everyone is wizened or gone. The birds fly around her, happy to be out and recognizing her in her bright mustard cape, as the usual source of delicious treats.

She sits for a while, watching them fly around her, peck at each other, delighting in their cooing. Her daughter-in-law thinks that the birds are disgusting. She only sees the droppings, not the beauty of their flight, the way the sunlight passes through their wings. She doesn’t realize that they are smart too, in their own way. But Minluzîr, her grandson, loves the birds and this gives Ailinel the hope that they won’t be immediately stewed after her death.

She smiles, but then feels the letter, a stiff shape against her breast. Almiel telling her that their brother is in his last years, probably his last, and that she should forgive him. That hurts, still, after all these years, they way Almiel defines her as hard and unforgiving, without even stopping to ask what she feels. She has nothing left to forgive Aldarion, not now.

But Almiel… she takes offence that to this day her sister thinks that she hated Erendis, whom she, in fact, pitied deeply. And Almiel thinks too that she hates Ancalimë. She does not love the child, was never able to, but she does not hate her. She just thinks, always has, that Soronto is as equally intelligent or even more, and has his father’s good temper, which is a virtue in a king, and would be a much more balanced ruler. Ancalimë is destined to a life of instability and loneliness, like her parents, and she pities her niece for it, but does not think that she is the best ruler for the country for that.

The letter weighs on her bosom. What shall she do? Run to Aldarion’s bedside and comfort her brother, a man who had no pity for his wife and child and almost divided the country for the sake of running after the mirage of foreign lands. Ancalimë may be a rude little beast who is never interested in anyone but herself, but Ailinel remembers when her niece first arrived in court, dragged from the extreme isolation of Emerië to the opulence of Armenelos without any thought for her feelings and well-being. Selfish had Aldarion been, treating the child like a doll. And he had always been like that, to everyone, pleasant enough until they got in his way, then impatient, rough… And their many quarrels had always come from that, from his unwillingness to hear her when she tried to show him how his travels were breaking their father’s heart, even their mother’s, how they were generating instability, how people whispered that they couldn’t trust a king to be who spent more time abroad than home, who did not seem interested in keeping his promise to his lady… she tried to warn him so many times, only to have his anger, her mother’s quiet reproach, Almiel’s sanctimonious advice...

And now Orchaldor is not here to translate between her and her family, especially Almiel, and she is just as proud as ever, but more tired, which makes for a bad combination. She does not wish to expose herself to Almiel’s judgement once more, to, once more, be chided like a child. She was always too proud to tell Almiel or even their mother how she truly felt, when they mistook what she said for anger or hate. And only Orchaldor knew her frustration and tried to help her be more patient and open. She could understand that he meant well for everybody, for her above all, but it simply was not possible to face the disappointment of even more misunderstandings.

“She loves you, you know that, and she means well. Darling, take pity on Almiel - her life was not full of love like yours. She did not have a husband, a handsome son, and beautiful daughters to love.”

“Because she didn’t want to!”

“And Aldarion is your brother and he also has his good side. He had his in-laws being taken care of, in their latter days, and he sent money to the women of Erendis’s house after her death. And he was the one who had the elven birds sent to you, after Núneth said that they were dying, even though you were not speaking to him at the time. Remember what he wrote to you then?”

“Oh, Orchaldor, stop it,” Ailinel says a tad too sharply, startling into flight some of the doves that were closer. “I know he had his good side. He was wonderful when I was little, so funny and kind, and always bringing me presents. I know he did some of that to his own daughter. I know he was not all bad, no one is.”

She inhales deeply, trying to still her mind. Snapping at her dead husband might not help. It’s getting cold and dark. She rises to her feet and calls the birds until they are all safely inside the dovecote.

Then, she heads inside, takes the cape off her shoulders and asks for a hot bath to be poured. As she rests in the water, she decides on what she will do.

“Aglaril,” she calls out to her maid. “We will be travelling tomorrow. Armenelos. I’ll talk to my son in a bit, to arrange the transportation. Get us warm things.”

As an afterthought, she adds. “We’re both getting old, my friend. Let’s go by carriage. It’s faster too. I wouldn’t want to be too late. And pack that new silken shawl. It’s just the right thing for my sister.”

From the place where he always sits to chat while she has her baths, Orchaldor smiles, pleased.

Finis
April 2020

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Chapter End Notes

Adunaic names from Real Elvish:
Minluzîr - Sky-friend
Aglaril - Brilliant