Relearning Life (Open)

[Harbor]

Adjusting to life in the elven sphere was both smoother and more harrowing than Isilee had expected, not that she’d been able to expect much, not fully knowing or understanding the community that they were trying to assimilate themselves to. For the most part the elves were courteous, curious, and friendly in that strange quiet way that many of them had. Isilee fidgeted as little as possible when speaking to them because most of them seemed so still, and so remote, but it was hard not to be disconcerted by simply the gap in cultures. And Isilee, over the last decade, had somewhat forgotten how to converse with strangers, a disuse made much more complicated by the strangeness of the elves from her perspective.



The elves were not quite so reserved with the children as they were with the mother, however, and nearly every person she saw while with them made some remark in their favor, and were glad to give the boys some small instruction on the blade practices they were learning, or adjust Celia’s grip on her bow, as she’d worked up the courage to tell Isilee that she wanted the bow Brenton offered to her. The two youngest, Iva and Yesley, marched or toddled after every smiling elf or Rider who came to visit, beaming, happy in finally being in the presence of people who were glad to see them.



There were, of course, a few people she met or noticed from afar who didn’t wholly approve of the squall of humans who had moved into their innermost sanctum, but so far, those who disagreed had been polite enough not to vocalize their sentiments. Not counting the discomfort that these distant stares gave her, the most welcoming difficulty to living in Ellesmera was simply learning a new way of life. She would never call their lifestyle here lesser than the sumptuous ways she had endured in her husband’s household, but neither had she needed to do her own washing or cook her own meals when in the keep. Here she’d had to learn, with Rella’s sudden and unexpected presence and assistance, how to do these manual tasks that had, in past lives, always been done for her.



And now she knelt in the thick, sweet grass of her closely tended front yard, and fumbled with all manner of tools she didn’t know how to use, struggling to fix a rocking chair her boys had managed to force apart in one of their fits of boredom. All the pieces were whole, she just didn’t know how they went together, and on the sparse occasions where she managed to guess correctly, they refused to stay together. Muttering curses she wasn’t supposed to know, she wrestled with the bits that she recognized, trying to force them into a larger piece that may, someday, resemble a chair again.

[Brenton]

Shaelren walked up in his down lined cloak to the house where the humans had been let live and he had met Celia the daughter on a day like this one. On his hip was a long dagger and on his back a bow and quiver of arrows while his hair had grown shaggier again. Actually this day he had come looking for Celia who was charming and beautiful as well as a leader and brave. Yet he saw Isilee struggling with a chair and that took precedence over flirting. "Lady Isilee, may I assist you with that chair please?" Shaelren had grown up in a human city so he acted like a human instead of an elf.

[Harbor]

Isilee jumped when a young elf--by appearance, at least--appeared at the flowering hedge bordering the front of the yard, and shifted so she could see him. She recognized him, though it took her a moment to remember his name, as it did with all of the elves' names. "Saelren," she greeted cordially. As far as the elves went, he was one of the less confusing ones. Celia liked him, at any rate. She sat back from the chair, or what was left of it, and gestured at it with a tired hand. "You would be most welcome. Though if it ever resembles a chair ever again I will declare it a miracle." Now she knew why her children's tutors all looked so tired all the time. She had never been able to practice being a mother to her children. Now she was learning it six times over every hour of the day.

[Brenton]

Shaelren smiled and glanced over the pieces, recognizing several of them as broken. With a couple spoken words the few broken pieces were fixed. Shaelren started putting them together again as he gathered his thoughts. Finally the chair was fixed and he was able to look at Isilee again. "It's always a wonderful day to fix a chair but I must tell you why I really came here. Is Celia around at the moment?" At say her name, Shaelren thought of Celia and blushed because she always made him nervous.

[Harbor]

She was always torn between fascination and a faint unease when the elves used magic, or whenever she saw something that could only be magically explained. It was another cultural difference, she supposed, and she had been raised in two entirely nonmagical households. Her experience with the nebulous stuff had begun when she’d entered the elven kingdom. But she sat in a grateful silence as the elf—younger than most others she’d seen—nimbly twirled the cylinders of wood about his fingers and fitted them back together. This was a fairly straightforward chore, the chair, but honestly, was there anything these elves couldn’t do?

Shaelren’s very nearly hesitant tone made her look up again, and she stood to stress the joints of the chair, assuring herself that it was solid—for the moment—before she let her boys play with it again. ”No I’m afraid she’s out,” she said neutrally, resisting her natural urge to be brusque and protect her children from anything she didn’t know well, such as the kind but still peculiar person before her. ”Why do you ask?” She carried the chair back up to the front porch and when she went inside, left the door open so he knew he could follow, busying herself with tidying up the only place she’d ever been permitted to call her own.

[Brenton]

Shaelren grinned as he hid his disappointment behind his mask of youthfulness. For being so young, the elf lord knew that all Isilee was doing was protecting her daughter. " I wanted to talk to her and maybe go shoot some targets. Nothing real dangerous unless you consider being polite and charming as dangerous. Anyhow, is there anything else you need help with Lady Isilee?" Shaelren followed and explained that he just wanted to spend time with Celia.

[Harbor]

Target practice was an innocent enough endeavor, but that depended on the target. Isilee did her best not to assume the worst of all of the kind people she had met so far, but nearly half her life surrounded by people who were afraid to befriend her.

"She'll be home soon," Isilee told him, scrubbing out the sink, which was already clean but it felt wonderful to be permitted to do work for herself so that now she did more than she had to. "Want to help me with the laundry?" The sheets needed to be folded and she couldn't do it as well without help and all of the kids were either gone or asleep. It made her feel better to be doing things with people rather than watching while they did things or they watched her. She was just happier active.

[Brenton]

Shaelren nodded and pulled his bow and quiver off his shoulder so as to not rip any linens or anything like that. The dagger he kept on his hip but that was because a weapon gave a person comfort and a sense of safety in troubling times. Slowly the boy walked over and began helping with the laundry, quiet and content to wait for Celia to return so he could laugh and joke around. The air was cool on his face and Shaelren was thankful for that since work could often cause people to get hot. Suddenly the elf boy thought of Celia again and he smiled softly at the memory of her the first time he saw her.

[Harbor]

Celia still struggled to fully draw the bow Brenton had given her but she strung and unstrung it multiple times just to loosen and warm the wood, and to strengthen herself. Her mother just sighed when she saw her leaving to practice, unsure if she was pleased or concerned. Either way, once Celia expressed her genuine interest in learning, her mother made no efforts to stop her or distract her from it. It was marvelous.

By the time she came home there were blisters in the crooks if her fingers and her arms were aching, but it was delightful to be permitted to not be pretty at all times, an her hands were decidedly not pretty right now.

Celia walked into the front garden and through the front door still gazing, mysteried, down into her right hand, testing the fingers and their fascinating aches. It was only once she'd shut the door behind herself that she realized they had a guest. "Hello, Mama. Hi, Shaelren." She smiled. "What are you up to?"

[Brenton]

Shaelren looked up to see Celia walk in and a grin broke out on his face as he stepped toward the girl with careful steps. He stopped and brushed a stray strand of hair from her face before speaking in a soft tone. "Celia, I came here to see if you would go practice archery with me and just talk. I want to spend time with you and with you and laugh and have fun with someone as beautiful and charming as you." Shaelren hoped that he didn't sound too desperate or that the blush didn't show when he called Celia beautiful.

[Harbor]

Isilee very quietly sighed as Shaelren greeted her daughter swiftly before she could. It was hard not to warm toward people who showed real affection to a girl who had almost never known it in her life. She couldn't blame Celia. The girl faintly blushed, glancing down, not sure of what to so about the attention.

But Isilee, newly trying not to smother her children and make them as suspicious as her, decided not to pounce and throw him out and lock Celia in.

Celia looked past the elf and to her mother. "May I, Mama?" It was clear at least to Isilee that Celia wasn't sure how to deal with the attention.

"Go ahead, honey." She smiled as best she could.

[Brenton]

Shaelren smiled at Isilee and picked up his bow and quiver from the ground next to the door before wrapping his fingers around Celia's smaller hand. He hand was blistered which meant she had been practicing earliers yet the skin was soft and warm. "Well, Celia Isileesdaughter, may I?" He swept his arm out in front of himself and gestured for the girl to continue walking. Hopefully he could figure out why she made him so nervous to begin with.

[Harbor]

Isileesdaughter. Her daughter had a bastard's name. But perhaps it was better that way than to have stayed with their father. He would have given her worse. Isilee stepped out and watched them leave, arms crossed protectively before herself, and wondered how this oddity would turn itself out.

Celia let him take her hand but she only let it rest there, not grasping it back. She hadn't done this before and wasn't sure what to do about it. Shaelren was an interesting and kind boy, but....men hadn't worked out so well for her mother. She wasn't are yet how they'd work out for her. And besides, she was too young for men.

"How long have you been shooting?" she asked him as they walked. He was plenty better at it than she was.

[Brenton]

"I started shooting when I moved back to the forest less than a year ago. Yet I spend hours each day practicing and I had a great teacher. Like with drawing the string back. You breathe in and as you do as you do you draw with the muscles in your back. Helps a lot." Shaelren had seen the way the girl looked at him. "I'm not going to hurt you Celia or make you uncomfortable. If you want to go back I will understand."

[Harbor]

"Why does it matter how you breathe?" Celia asked, rubbing the smooth wood of the grip of her bow as they walked.She'd never bothered thinking about her breath. His proclamation made her smile tentatively. "It's not that I think you will. I'm just not used to people who won't." She sighed. "It's not the life I'm used to. And...I didn't meet many people." She frowned. That hadn't come out right. "I'm not used to talking to anybody who doesn't work for my father."

[Brenton]

Shaelren nodded as Celia spoke but suddenly she spoke of not talking to many people. He slowed his breathing but when he closed his eyes and forced them open again he started breathing quickly for fear of what he was about to do. Shaelren stepped close to Celia and spoke softly. "I don't work for your father, Celia." Slowly he kissed the girl and tried to impress upon her the fact that he meant her no harm.

[Harbor]

Celia stopped without complaint when Shaelren stopped, blinking, as she always did, at the bright sparkling color and life evident, seen deeply into, their surroundings. Before leaving Carvala all she'd ever seen was the inside of the castle, the garden and the city. Everything was beautiful here, a veritable contradiction to the entire rest of the world.

"I believe you don't," she replied calmly. In the strongest habit of honesty, she couldn't tell him what she knew, only what she thought she knew.

Celia didn't have much experience of other people, less of men and boys that weren't related to her. SHe didn't expect the subtle warmth of having another person so close. It was peculiar and unexpected and not as frightening as she'd thought it might be. But she watched him quietly, as quietly as she did everything, and said, "Shaelren...I hardly know who I am these days. I don't know what to do or who to be. I don't know....much of anything about the real world. I want to learn everything in the right order."

[Brenton]

"Celia, I only wanted you to know I care about you too much to hurt you and it is painful to hear you say you are confused. I am a friend and that's all I'll be unless you need something more than a friend in this harsh world that we live in. Please understand that I care about you and want you to be happy no matter what and I want to laugh and joke around with you." Shaelren recognized the confusion and fear but he meant every word he had said to her just then. The boy smiled at Celia softly and warmly.

[Harbor]

Celia smiled gently to him. "I didn't realize friends made a habit of kissing one another on the lips," she replied, as close to being pert as the reserved girl could come. Being quiet had always been the surest way to earn others' dismissal, which meant they would never know how much she observed and retained. She could never envision herself being anything else. She didn't have the ability to snarl at those who vexed her, as her mother amusingly did, considering her size and stature.

"I'm too young to need anything more than a friend," she told him, "but a friend I am very glad to have." She smiled again, tentatively, and at last allowed herself to lightly squeeze his fingers back. They were warm and careful, two things she was still unaccustomed to. She was careful herself, but her father had been heavy handed and a fool. She had promised herself when she was young that none of her sisters or brothers would grow up to be like him. Marek's abandonment of them for their father had ached, but she didn't have the power to command her father's heir the way she could the other children.

[Brenton]

Shaelren blushed as Celia pointed out that he had kissed her randomly on the lips and that friends didn't often do that. He rubbed the back of his neck and looked away, unable to meet Celia's gaze as she waited for him to reply to her words. Shaelren finally took a small breath and looked back up at Celia who was now holding his hand and confusing him. "I...I wanted to kiss you j...just once." Shaelren swallowed nervously and tried to wet his dry lips that just wouldn't wet again. He looked at Celia fearfully hoping she would understand him.