#halvalin

Sometimes Elina wakes up and comforts her, sometimes Halvalin gets up and wanders through the house and Vamir can hear her quiet footsteps, like a pale ghost searching for something it has never known.

Vamir knows the feeling.

During the nights she leaves the room he keeps her company in the kitchen, he makes her tea and sits with her while she stares out of the window, not daring to look at him. Maybe because she’s scared that he will ask questions. Maybe because she’s scared that she’s going to start crying.

He remembers finally being free of the world he grew up in only to find that he didn’t know how to act in this new world he stumbled into. Not home in either one or the other, lost and alone and without anyone to talk to.

Vamir refuses to let this child experience all this the same way he did.

One night when he finds Halvalin sitting on the window sill, bathed in moonlight and wrapped in one of Elina’s big sweaters he hands her jasmine tea, pulls up a chair next to her and takes a few deep breaths.

After all these years, talking about feelings is still hard.

He will never be as good at it as Ira already is, Ira who, with only eight years, is able to articulate how she feels way more confidently than him. He is fiercely proud of this.

“I was in love with one of our servants while I still lived at home”, he finally says and Halvalin blinks at the unexpected sound of words. She doesn’t turn her head to look at him, but he can see that she’s listening.

“His name was Timeon, he was a human. Sometimes he snuck food out of the kitchen, things he knew I really liked, so he could give them to me when I was locked in my room.”

Now her head turns.

Vamir looks out of the window as he keeps talking.

“I’m not good with magic and my parents were endlessly frustrated by that. Probably not as frustrated as I was. I once got so angry about having to learn magic at all that I broke one of my mother’s very expensive vases. I was locked in my room for over two weeks after that.”

Halvalin swallows.

“Timeon climbed up to my window after my parents were asleep and he brought me books from the library. And food from the kitchens. When you grow up in a world where kindness is a very rare commodity every little act of kindness feels almost overwhelming...”

Halvalin bows her head to look at her lap. The moonlight shimmers on her short, blonde hair. Vamir notices that the small talisman she showed him earlier has started glowing slightly as he talks. It almost feels like approval even though Vamir doesn’t understand where it’s coming from.

“It was the first time someone told me that being locked in my room was not a thing that should be happening to me. Or any of the other things my parents did. It was hard to believe, just because I didn’t know any better. It took me a long time to really understand that it was all wrong and that no child should be raised like this.”

Halvalin looks at him.

“Ira is never locked in her room?”, she wants to know.

Vamir shakes her head.

“She doesn’t have to learn magic at all?”

“Not if she doesn’t want to.”

At the moment Ira is more interested in picking locks, drawing dragons and asking every adult she meets if they can teach her archery.

“If she never learns a single spell or falls in love with a hundred girls or breaks all of our plates and vases I will still love her all the same, just like a parent should.”

Halvalin is chewing on her bottom lip and she holds her teacup so tightly that Vamir is a little concerned that she might break it and spill hot tea all over herself. It takes her almost five minutes to finally start crying.

“You’re really brave, Halvalin”, he tells her quietly and she sniffs before taking a sip of tea. “I know it’s unbearably hard right now. But I’ll do my best to help and to keep you safe, alright?”

She takes a deep breath and turns her head to look at him again. Her eyes are red but there is determination in there, too.

“Lin”, she says. The name Elina calls her.

Vamir, who once was Vamiran, doesn’t have to ask what she means. He understands. 

 Arek brings them food to their room and there is a tense, uncomfortable moment when Halvalin clenches and unclenches her fists, her face red and terribly ashamed of something she apparently wants to ask. In the end, Elina has to ask for anything that can help with monthly bleeding and Vamir is forever grateful for his husband’s complete lack of shame about topics like this.

 Arek takes Halvalin to the bathroom without any further questions and the two of them stay in there for quite a long time. Later in the evening, they invite the two girls out to a small walk around the village and the house. They don’t talk much and hold each other’s hands the whole time. Vamir introduces them to the bees and Ira explains how to get honey from the bees.

 “So… who lives in the attic?”, Elina wants to know eventually. Vamir looks at her and considers his options. Finally, he decides on the truth.

 “My best friend. She’s hiding up there from the authorities”, he says.

 “Is she a criminal?”

“No.”

“Hm.”

 “She’s a druid”, a voice says from the kitchen door and both Elina and Halvalin turn their heads to look at Nash standing in the doorway. Nash is easily the tallest person Vamir has ever met, but he supposes that Elina is not intimidated since she is part orc as well.

 “So, did you find your words again after making out with your girl?”, Arek teases mercilessly and Vamir watches Nash’s face turn dark-green.

 “I’m Nash”, Nash says, ignoring Arek. But Elina seems interested.

 “Making out? With Zamira?”

 Nash hides her face in her hands and makes a sound that could mean anything.

 “It’s fine, we’re together”, Elina says, pointing at herself and Halvalin, and Arek snorts into his tea while Halvalin blushes just as furiously as Nash. Vamir tries very hard not to chuckle. Nash seems at a loss for words but she eventually enters the kitchen and sits down on one of the chairs. Arek hands her a cup of tea.

 “I was more concerned about the whole druid thing, not the making out part”, Nash says and clears her throat.

 Vamir looks at Halvalin who looks like she’s trying very hard to not look scared. But Elina doesn’t seem as disturbed.

 “It’s fine. When Ernest and the others saved us from the fire there was a druid helping us out.”

 She looks at Nash for a few seconds.

 “Can you turn into animals too?”, she wants to know.

 Nash nods.

 “Can you do anything?”

 “No. I have my limits”, Nash responds.

 “That’s pretty cool. That guy turned into a Giant Eagle.”

 “I can’t do that.”

 Elina hums and looks at her tea.

 “Can you do cats?”, she wants to know.

 “Yeah, I can do a cat”, Nash says and Vamir wonders if she’s willing to pull magic tricks for these strangers, but he also knows that Nash is good at reading people. Nash puts her tea down and closes her eyes for a second, then she transforms into a very round, grey cat. Elina makes a noise in her throat and dives to pick the cat up to hold her in front of Halvalin’s face. Nash doesn’t try to resist while she’s being dangled in front of Halvalin’s face.

 “Check it out!”

 “Very impressive.”

 “Nash is a very nice person. You don’t have to be afraid of her. I know that you probably learned differently about druids and I also know that it’s hard to just throw everything you ever learned out of the window overnight. But she’s safe.”

 Halvalin looks at him, then at the cat.

 “Ernest held hands with that druid in the forest”, Elina tells Halvalin, as if that would make her fears about “ferals” disappear instantly. Vamir cannot help the raise of his eyebrows at the mentioning of Ernest holding hands with anyone.

“It’s fine”, Halvalin mumbles. Then: “It’s a very cute cat.”

 Nash meows and Elina actually smiles.

 “Can I put you in my lap?”, she asks the cat. Nash can’t answer, but she gives another meow and Elina plants the cat on her lap and starts scratching it behind its ears.

“What? I always wanted a cat”, she says when Halvalin looks at her sideways.

 “I could teach you a new spell for that.”

 She knows how to make pancakes now. She can repair tears in her clothing without magic. For the first time in her entire life, she scrubbed a bathroom and washed clothes. She knows what to do when someone scrapes their knee. She learned how to bind her chest. She heard more fairy tales in a few weeks than she ever did when she was a child. She knows—in theory—how to use a bow and arrow. She learned so much about bees and honey.

 The list goes on and on.

 She can read however much she wants. What she wants. She can leave her stuff in parts of the house that are not her room and no one complains. Vamir and Arek make an active effort to learn what she likes.

 Everything is very overwhelming. And very exciting.

 Arek agreed to teach her Dwarvish. Aline agreed to teach her Orcish.

 No private tutors who pester her about learning enchantment spells when she’d rather study illusion. No parents who criticize her clothing or her hair or her everything.

 Lin can go for walks, sleep in the garden, stay in bed an entire day and all she gets is a question if she wants some tea and honeycakes.

 She imagines growing up like this and she can’t. It seems like a surreal vacation that might end at any moment. But it seems as if the little talisman in her pocket keeps its promise of safety.

 “Do you think this god is going to want anything from me?”, she asks Elina.

 “He protected me in the forest and he didn’t ask anything from me so far”, Elina says with a shrug and looks at the little talisman lying between them on the bed.

 “I guess—you know. Maybe not all gods are like that?”, Lin says and pokes the talisman as if it might answer her.

 “Well, orcs are not really big into religion, so—I guess I’m not the best person to answer that?”

 Lin sighs and pokes the talisman again.

 “It’s weird that I feel… betrayed. Right? Like, it was such a big part of my life and now my parents were ready to rip out a bunch of memories from my head and give it to them and they would have just. You know? Taken it? Ugh.”

 “Yeah, I get it. I mean, I don’t get it—get it. But it really sucks. Maybe you could… like. Look into other deities? Some that aren’t as shitty?”

 Lin isn’t sure how to answer that. She’s pretty sure that religion doesn’t work like that, but she has a hard time to explain it. Especially to someone who doesn’t have a religion.

 “Maybe you could talk to Vamir about it? He let it all go, right?”

 “Hm. Yeah. Maybe.”

 She puts the little talisman back in her pocket and puts her head in Elina’s lap.

 “I probably need a deity whose domain is being really pissed at elven culture and one’s parents.”

 Elina snorts and touches Lin’s hair that is all short and soft now.

 “I’m pretty sure there are many people who feel like that. Must be a god for that somewhere, right?”

 “Well. If he. Or she. Or… they? Can hear me… Hey! I’m interested in something that fills the religious void inside of me!”

Halvalin doesn’t try out her new spell for over a week because the embarrassment of the encounter with the girl on the riverbank burns inside her belly like hot coals. 

If only she could sue her parents for not adequately teaching her the interaction with peers her age that are not stuck-up elves who want to work in politics. 

Gods, Halvalin hates people who aspire to work in politics. 

She puts it on the long list of things she despises, right next to “Embarrassing herself in front of people her age”. 

But ultimately the illusion spell gives her freedom. The ultimate freedom - because she doesn’t have to look the same again when she wants to go out. She can look however she wants and if she ever sees the girl again, hell, the girl doesn’t need to know that it was Halvalin who stumbled into her lap like an idiot. 

Like a total buffoon. 

She marinades in her self-pity for over twenty minutes after recalling how shameful this whole encounter was, then she stands in front of her mirror again and tries another look. 

Maybe an orc, like the girl she saw? 

Halvalin tries it and finds that she quite likes the tusks. Then she realizes that she made an almost identical copy of the girl she met, drops the spell and goes to lie down on her bed for another ten minutes. 

Maybe she should quit magic altogether. Maybe she could run away, leave the province and start a solitary life of shame and reading and peace in the countryside. 

The second try works a little better. She goes for dark green skin and bigger tusks, long, braided hair and way more bust than she will ever grow. Maybe it’s a bit too much. Maybe she shouldn’t be staring at her own, illusory boobs in the mirror quite as much. 

Maybe this is a terrible idea. 

Halvalin shrinks the boobs and hides her face in her hands before completing the look with a simple, black dress and boots. 

She has no idea how orc fashion works. 

Do orcs even have fashion? 

That stranger on the riverbank certainly looked like she had some sort of style. A lot of black, fingerless gloves. 

Halvalin changes the color of her dress to purple. Just in case.

When she sneaks outside the house she still marvels at the feeling of freedom that spreads through her as she walks through the outer ring. 

Maybe she could just check the riverbank again. If the girl is there again, maybe this time Halvalin can have the upper hand in all of this and feel better about how it went the last time. 

So she tries to find the same spot, but of course, no one is there. 

As if that girl would just sit around in the same spot forever just to wait for Halvalin to return and to rectify her mistakes. 

Ugh. Why is life so hard? 

She sits down in the grass and watches the boats pass by on the river. It’s peaceful to look at and Halvalin finds that she quite enjoys watching boats. Maybe she would even like being on one someday. 

But of course, elves and boats don’t go together. Just like elves and fun. Elves and common sense. Elves and pretty much everything that is cool. 

“Is it ok if I sit here? This is my favorite spot.”

She almost shrieks. 

As she looks up, there is the girl again, wearing black pants and a black, way too big over-shirt and those gloves. Under her arm she has a book and on first glance Halvalin is sure that it’s the same one she had two weeks ago. 

“Uhh. Yeah. Sure. I don’t own this river.”

The girl blinks and snorts, a smile spreading across her face. She has a gap between her front teeth and her eyes crinkle up when she smiles. Halvalin stares at those crinkles for way too long. 

The girl sits down about a meter away, pulls her knees up and puts her book on top of them. 

Halvalin can feel her face get hot under the disguise and her palms start sweating. 

“What--what are you reading?”, she asks. Her voice sounds way too shrill to be considered casual. 

The girl turns her head to look at her, holds up the book just like last time and Halvalin looks at the cover again. It shows a pompously dressed Drow man with a bandana, a big smile and holding a saber. 

“I never read that. Is it any good?”

Halvalin has no idea if this is going better than last time but the girl’s face lights up and she smiles again and Halvalin feels like someone dropped her out of a ten story building. 

“Pretty good, yeah. It’s about sky pirates and this guy who’s a captain and like, it has a really cool orcish character too! The first mate of the ship. And he’s in love with his captain, but--”

The girl closes her mouth and looks embarrassed, a dark green blush spreading all over her cheeks and the back of her flat nose. Halvalin barely has time to think about her words while watching this full of fascination. 

“Wait. He’s a guy? In love with a guy?”, Halvalin asks, because she is distracted by that blush and what a nice shade of green it is. 

“I mean. Yeah?”, the girl says as if it’s no big deal. 

“Is that normal in books like these?”

The girl raises an eyebrow and Halvalin is pretty sure that this is going downhill again. 

“It’s totally normal in books and out of books, actually”, the girl answers and all the nice crinkles around her black eyes are gone. Halvalin swallows. 

“I have two moms”, the girl continues. 

Halvalin technically knows that this is a thing. She lives in a big city and of course she sees couples like this around. But. 

“Oh”, she says, because she doesn’t know what else to say. And then she decides that somehow this was even worse than the last time and she hastily gets up from the ground. 

“Ok, bye.”

Sometimes Halvalin finds it depressing that the list of things she despises is so long while the list of things she loves is very short. While she has time, she thinks about the things she loves and breaks them into the smallest pieces possible so the list will be longer.

Warm baths. Specifically with bubbles. The pea and lentil stew Hama sometimes makes for the servants. Rainy autumn days. Her dead grandmother Meliana and all the stories she would tell. Illusion magic. The color blue. The few hours late at night when everyone meditates and silence falls.

She wonders if the list will grow longer when she gets older, but when Halvalin looks at the adults in her life she feels mostly like there is impending doom hanging over her like a sword that whispers “It will grow shorter still”.

Her tutors disregard her interest in illusions and try to teach her enchantment and transmutation spells. Halvalin studies alone at night with books she grabbed from her parents’ private collection until she has filled pages of her book with spells she is not supposed to learn.

Invisibility. Disguise Self. Something called Phantom Steed that she is definitely unable to learn at this point, but having the notes can’t hurt.

Damn, she wants to try being invisible a whole day, maybe a week.

Maybe forever.

For now though, she will try to work on looking like someone else, someone who is not confined to a life of private tutors, studying, weird politics and scheming for advantageous, arranged marriages.

She tries looking like a human. Switches her dirty blonde hair for black, makes her ears small and round instead of long and pointy, transforms her nose that she never liked and makes her face look more round. She makes herself smaller, too.

When she is done, she doesn’t recognize herself, which is a good feeling.

She decides to sneak out and walk through the outer ring like a normal person and no one even looks at her twice. Halvalin considers doing something very irrational. Maybe steal something. Or trespass somewhere. Or.

Looking like someone else somehow makes her feel invincible.

She wanders along the riverbank and wonders what people normally do with their day when they’re not stuck with private tutors and pseudo-important social events just as she bumps into something and falls face first over a pair of very long legs.

“Dude, what the fuck? Watch where you’re going! Get off me!”

Halvalin needs a second to realize that she stumbled over a person’s legs. A person sitting by the riverbank reading a book. She feels embarrassment flooding her insides as she scrambles to get off the girl’s legs.

Her lap.

Halvalin has never been happier to not look like herself.

She glances at the girl while she hastily gets up. Black eyes and small tusks, dark hair, a wide, flat nose and furrowed, bushy eyebrows, pastel green skin. Halvalin is sure that this girl must be a whole head-length taller than she is.

“Sor--I--I didn’t see--Why are you sitting in the middle of the way like that anyway?”

“Huh? I’m not sitting in the middle of the way. This is a public riverbank. I can sit where ever I want. The path is over there!”

“Well. Next time, maybe you should sit somewhere else then!”

“You walk somewhere else and look where you’re going.”

Halvalin is not used to people talking to her like that.

Then she remembers that this girl only speaks to her like this because she doesn’t look like herself at the moment.

“Yes, I won’t walk where ever you’re sitting next time, do not worry”, she says and raises her nose up. The girl snorts and ignores her before turning her face back to the book she’s reading.

Halvalin’s heart feels like someone cast a haste spell on it.

Somehow interacting with peers her age seems like the most difficult thing in the world. How did she never learn this? How do normal people learn this? What in the name of Vildamo is she supposed to do?

“What are you reading?”, she asks before she can stop herself. The girl blinks, looks up at her and raises one eyebrow. Somehow that look makes Halvalin feel like she is way smaller than she is. Also it makes her insides feel like someone is pouring molten metal inside of her. She can feel her cheeks redden and prays to the gods that her disguised self doesn’t blush.

The girl raises the book so Halvalin can read the cover.

“Prince Of The Skies - The Niall Thunderheart Chronicles...? That sounds rather frivolous.”

The girl rolls her eyes and puts the book back onto her outstretched, long legs. Halvalin somehow feels offended about the fact that the girl’s legs are so long. She also somehow wishes that she wasn’t so terrible at talking to people even thought that never bothered her before.