Broken Pieces (Ecthelion)
This is the first chapter of my book “A New Moon.” But it can work as a stand alone. More info at the bottom!
I'm jolted awake by something. A feeling so primal I don't even stop to question it as I spring out of bed and rush down the hallway.
My head is pounding, the cause of which I have no idea, but somehow, even in my pained state, I know where to go.
Down this hallway, then another, through the stairwell, out into the yard, then I'm walking down the street.
I pass by rows of vendors and small shops, all closed for the high, although lights twinkle from inside some, whispering hello to me as I pass by.
I know this street. I've walked it before, but my memories of how and why are hazy.
I walk for what feels like hours but in reality, can't be more than a few minutes. 10 at best.
I stop in front of a large mansion. It's beautiful. The house is a blend of shades of blue. Rose bushes and other flowers outline the garden in front. Something about it feels like home, but I can't put my finger on it.
There's a fountain in the center of the courtyard. As I watch the water trickling down, memories flash through my head. They're fragmented, distorted.
In one scene I'm sitting on the edge of the fountain in front of me. There's a figure next to me. We're laughing, but I can't tell who it is because their face is missing, seemingly erased from my memory. In another, I'm holding someone's hand as we walk down the street into this very yard. The images are vivid but distorted, yet I know, somehow, that the ellon in them - the one I'm laughing with and the whose hand I'm holding - are one and the same.
A sob jolts be out of my hazy memories, and that primal instinct is once again awoken.
There, sitting at the edge of the steps leading into the house, is an ellon with a young child. They're related, I can tell even from back here. Their hair is one and the same, a shade of black so dark it has a blue sheen to it.
They're vaguely familiar. Their faces etched in my brain, but whatever connection I had to them is severed, faded into the background of memories out of my reach.
The boy notices me first. He can't be more than 30 years old, a mere child (around 5 or 6 to humans). He's been crying, his face stained with dried tears while more flow ever freely from his eyes.
At my approach, he looks up. His eyes seem to clear, and in a blink of an eye he's barreling towards me, making a dive towards my legs with open arms while a cry of 'Naneth' leaves his lips.
It breaks my heart. Why, I do not know, but on instinct I crouch to receive him, crushing him against my bosom and planning to never let him go.
My body knows what it is doing, but my mind does not.
Something tugs at my heart, the place where my bond is, or would be if I had one. But I don’t? My fea reaches out to it instinctively, and my broken mind is shocked as someone else's fea receives it, reviving mine and checking for...damages?
A gasp alerts me to the other presence, reminding me that me and this little boy, we are not alone. Looking up, I lock eyes with the adult ellon. I wish I hadn't, as something breaks inside them as he looks into my eyes. I can feel it in his fea as well. It's him, the one reaching out to mine. His strong one, teaming with life, seems to deflate slightly, yet it still caresses mine with the utmost love and care.
The child's still sobbing away into my neck, hands holding on to my thin night shift with an iron grip.
I take his head in my hands, intent to dry away his tears, but what I see makes me gasp in shock.
Well, not entirely, I muse as I trace his features. His hair, brows, and eyes - a blue so deep they seem to reflect the bottom of the sea - are all his fathers. The man who was next to him. The man who now stands a few feet away watching us from afar. He longs to join our embrace. I can feel his need and desire for it pulsating through our bond.
Part of me longs for him to join him as well, but the other part, the logical one, the one that can't remember him or why I have a child with him, tells me that I should just keep my mouth shut.
I ignore it and listen to my heart.
'Come and join us,' I say, but it comes out more like a question.
My voice is quiet, too quiet...and gravelly from disuse. It makes me sound frail, and I shyly fold in on myself at the look he gives me.
It's soft. Full of love and adoration for me, and for the child we've created. A child that is a physical manifestation of our love, a love that I know so intrinsically, even if I can't remember it.
And suddenly, I feel so shy. Almost embarrassed. Because here he is looking at me like that, and I can't remember why? Or when they started? How we got here?
My eyes fill with tears without my consent, and I turn away from him in a futile attempt to hide them as they slip down my face in clear streams, melting together with the tears from our child.
He tsks as he crouches down next to us. 'What are you doing out of bed Melda?' He asks. His hand comes up to caress the side of my face.
I freeze at his touch. Melda?
The logical part of my brain comments that it would make sense. He's the father of our child and so must be my husband. That would make me his wife. And suddenly, I'm hit by a pant of longing. It hits somewhere deep inside me, in that place where I know memories were once held, memories of us, of our child. But whatever was once there is gone, void of anything but a few fractals of broken memories.
'What did you just call me?' His brow furrows in confusion at my cold tone. 'Melda,' he says again, tone rushed and worried. 'I called you Melda like I always do. What's wrong?'
Instead of waiting for me to answer, he rushes on, like he's scared of what my answer may be.
'Did something happen? What did the healer's say?' He blurts out, voice hushed as to not frighten the still sobbing child half buried in my arms.
'Healers?' I question, my eyes narrowed at him in confusion. 'Why would I need healers?'
Again, I'm asking a question I already know the answer to, at least, partially, but I'm scared.
I know something's wrong. There's a void in my chest and a bond I have no memory of, not to mention a child. My child. Our child. A child who's name I can't...I can't even think of. There's nothing there.
The hand still on my face moves to caress my cheek, and I flinch involuntarily at the move. It feels foreign to me. Well, not entirely, more like there's a shadow of memory there, but because I don't know the what or why it's happening, my body's reacting as if it's alien.
His reaction is automatic. His hand freezes, he blanches, and then he recoils back like he's been burned.
He stares at the ground for several minutes. I take the time to coddle the child in my arms, who only snuggles deeper into the freely offered embrace.
When he looks up, there are tears in his eyes. They glisten on his deep ocean blue eyes like icicles, and I secretly pray they don't fall or I don't know what I'll do.
Finally, he speaks, his voice broken.
'Who am I?' I can't do more than stare at him in confusion at the question.
'Who am I,' he repeats again, louder this time, voice growing frantic.
'I don't know,' I mumble out, not thinking, just wanting him to stop in his interrogation.
He stops dead. Behind his eyes something both crumples and is put up. Like he's simultaneously breaking and protecting himself...{I swear, I can see something shatter, and next look in his eyes is too painful to look at, but I force myself to. I am the one that's doing this to him. I am the one that's causing him pain. And I hate myself for it, but I can't stop.
Then, in the next second a wall is put up, and all the pain and brokenness from before vanishes. I blink and it's gone, well not gone, just behind an iron wall, sent to live in the shadows. The shadows, a hidden place where it's easier for pain to breathe. Exposed to the elements, pain is...well, painful. It screams, tearing through your being and bringing with it every horrible memory you’ve ever had.
'You don't know who I am?' He strangles out eventually, voice barely audible.
I look down, the sorrow in his eyes too intense. Fidgeting with my fingers, I answer,'I know we're married...at least, we must be, we have a child together.'
He nods along mutely, before unwrapping his outer rope and draping it along my back. He doesn't to any more than that, but I can tell he longs to. His hands move like they itch to hold me, and the realization bares me open, exposing me to the cold air I hardly noticed before. I start shivering uncontrollably, and the child in my arms looks up at me with wide frighten eyes.
'Naneth?' The cry is so soft, so genuine, that it takes everything in me not to break. I can't do that, I chastise myself mentally. Think about what you're putting this child through. What you are going to put him through once he realizes your memories are gone. Vanished, in a poof of smoke that you can't catch, that you can't bring back.You don't get to break on him too.
'What's wrong?' The sweet voice breaks through my mental lecture, and I look down meeting his eyes. I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. I don't know what to say. So I just sit there, hands frozen in their gentle caress of his face, mouth open, ready in its attempt to justify what it is that's wrong when I, myself, don't even know.
I'm saved, once again, by his father coming to my rescue. 'Ion-in,' he says, kneeling down once again to be at our child's height. 'Your Naneth needs to return to the healers. We will visit her later.'
The child looks up at you with sad doe-like eyes. 'Pinky promise?' He asks, stubby little pinkie sticking out at the question.
'Pinky promise,' I whisper back, leaning down to kiss his sweet little head.
That earns me a smile, and I swear, it's like my own personal rainbow in this hurricane that's currently my life.
Tears prick my eyes again, but I force them down as his father leads him away, back to the manor and a much needed night of rest.
Hey! So, if you made it this far, thank you! A Blue Moon will be updated on Ao3 and possibly here on Tumblr? I’m not sure yet. Let me know what you think.
