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Patience
Posted: 21 Nov 2004 11:57 PM |
He pulled very slowly on the softened oak stave with a gentle and insistent force, listening carefully to the wood as it bent for signs of resistance or weakness. Gradually, it yielded to his pressure, assuming the graceful curve familiar now to many throughout Ferein. He released a resin covered hand to tighten the clamps that would hold the oak to its new form.
“There… that should do,” he sighed to himself.
He lifted the heavy iron mold with its newly bound captive and hung it among the many others already drying in the crisp autumn air. He stepped back to take a look at the day’s work. These were prisoners but temporarily, just waiting to be released, to take flight in the hands of a young elven hunter or warrior. It would be a few days before they were ready.
This moment of peace and manual work was precious. Too often did other matters keep him from this place. He had so many duties, too many cares. But not today.
His fingers ached with the strain of fastening clamp after clamp. The skin of his hands was dry and cracked from the acids and mineral laden waters used to soften the wood. He reached above him to a shelf filled with old dusty bottles, many crusted over with the dried drippings of their contents, and grasped a small green one. He poured just a drop of clear viscous liquid into his palm and rubbed the balm over his hands, which suddenly looked no more worn than those of a pampered bureaucrat.
Poking his head through the crooked doorway of his creaky workshed, he felt a cold breeze coming in off the inland sea. It carried with it a multitude of leaves newly fallen from the beech trees that lined the coast and a faint tinge of salt. He took a deep breath and pulled his bearskin cloak more tightly around him. Stepping lightly up and out though the doorway and turning back towards the shed, he uttered a few words in a forgotten tongue. He watched the door close gently behind him. Hearing the metallic click of the latch catching its notch, he started back towards the village. After a few steps even he could barely see the shed, covered as it was by a thick blanket of hanging branches and brambles.
Thoughts shuffled idly in his head as he walked, swirling like the leaves he tread through with every step. The distant howl of a lone wolf called his memory to days now over 50 years past. Days wandering the forests outside Ferein with a beautiful human woman. Days making love in the soft grasses near the Gladden. Then he pictured her again, holding a radiant infant against her body, still exhausted from the labor of birth. He could still feel the soft silvery fuzz covering his daughter’s smooth pink scalp.
He wondered, where could she be? Surely by now she had mastered the bow he left for her. Did she wish to find him? Doubts crept into his mind. Maybe she had not learned the ways of his ancestors or of the forest. Maybe she was more human than elven. Maybe she was a follower of Midoran. But that could not be, for he had been called to her on the day of her birth with a name and a promise.
“She is late,” he whispered to himself. A faint smile traced its way across face, and the light of the late afternoon sun drew shadows in his deepening wrinkles. “But she will come.” |
Alarwen Emeria - Patience and time...
Ranger/Sorc/AA
Jessminda (companion) |
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