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The artificer had her umbrella partially unfurled, making Lorelless pause where the wooden pier abutted the rocky shore. Unable to spot any danger, as the elf slowly rotated her magic’ed paper and bamboo shielding device, he stepped on the wood. More like stomped. His sensibilities grated at being nosy, but Jasmine ability to perceived her surrounding rivaled rocks.
She didn’t even turn around. The girl needed a keeper.
“Hey, Jasmine, you okay?” the half-elf said, just out of range of her preferred gadgets of choice.
She startled and turned. “Oh, hey, hi Sticky Fingers.”
“Hey, yourself.” Lorelless let an easy smile escape across his face. No one else could call the thief by that nickname, but she meant it in an entirely different manner after the time he helped her build something and she hadn’t explained exactly how the glue created specifically for that project would work. “What are you doing out here? The village is blowing it out in celebration, and I’ve never known you not stuff yourself to bursting when real food is available, especially all the elven stuff like greenie grubbie and fermentia.”
“Yeah, I’ll be there. It’s just that,” her slanted green eyes studied the elven script she had inscribed around the edges of her umbrella as she twirled it one way then the other, “we had been with humans so long I had lost track of the date.” Tears hovered at the edges of her young eyes. “It’s Ring Day.” She tilted her head to the side and wiped her eyes with her ungloved hand. “At least it would be ring day if I was back home. Each community has their own aur-o nimloth taith.”
“I guess that is an important day.” Lorelless sat on the end of the pier and patted the wood beside him to the left. “Could you explain it for an abandoned city rat?”
With a watery laugh, she closed her umbrella completely and sat down beside him, placing the, now, walking stick within easy reach of her dominant naked left hand. To show solidarity in caution, Lorelless pulled out his most obvious dagger and placed it beside him, easily able to be grabbed with his right hand, and scooted closer to her until their shoulders touched.
“So why does aurko minnylothtait make you cry?”
“Cin prenan’tion na-deleb.”
A giggle danced in the air and alit directly in Loreless’ ear as Jasmine bumped his shoulder. He was well aware of what that phrase meant; you can’t speak elvish worth shit, although Jasmine inflection was much more polite about it. The underlying growl and the rising final note he could not replicate were missing, changing it from the insult said to him by most pure elves. For her, the words were just a statement of fact and some amusement, with the physical touch indicating that the amusement was meant to be shared.
Elves never touched unless their words were meant to be communal.
“I try.”
“You do not,” she protested, “Not even a little.”
“I haven’t had a reason to learn it before.” He turned his head to look at her, his nearly black eyes meeting her green ones. “But knowing you does provide some incentive.” He shifted to face her, a bent leg resting just behind her, not touching but close enough for her to feel the heat if her prosthetics were magic’ed to experienced temperature. Something he didn’t know but wanted to learn. Unable to leave his weapon outside of easy reach behind him, he moved it to lay on the leg still dangling over the pier with just a bit of the two-foot blade landing her right thigh. “Now, tell me, what is ring day?”
Jasmine looked at the knife, taking a second to touch his hand holding it with a gloved finger, curious about the weirdness of touching when not touching. Using a created-metal object instead of natural physical naked touch. The mixed signal had no meaning in elven communities, but Lorelless said many things without speaking if she could just figure out what he was saying. She drew back her hand and turned her face up to his to answer his question. “Aur-o nimloth taith, or Ring Day, marks the day the Home Tree has gained enough growth to have another ring. It is approximately every eleven or so years.”
“It sounds like a big deal.”
“Yeah, it is. A huge community thing, everyone spends the entire spring of years with Ring Day weaving new clothes, carving decorations of gifts, practicing old songs or crafting new poems. About a week out, the bakers start the seed pancakes, brewers add finishing touches to last winter’s syrups, vinegars, and brews, and the calen harvest early berries. The last two days of prep are non-stop decorating and cooking.” She nodded to the lights and music drifting from the riverside village behind them. “When it finally comes together, that night makes what is happening there seem like bas a nen.”
“And you are missing it.” He tucked an escaped blond curl from her bun behind her ear.
Her face fractured into a thousand expressions. “For the first time ever.” A sob rushed out. “I’ve never been away from home for aur-o nimloth taith. Even when at the academy, they always let me go home for it.”
Loreless sheathed his weapon and pulled her against him, as tears poured from her.
“It shouldn’t be important. I’m an adult now and left home for real and ever.” She wept into his shoulder, words filtering through his shirt in a mix of human and elven he barely made out.
Patting her back, he reassured her, “It’s always important. Home and family always is important.” Personally he had no clue, but he had hungered for the concept of it more often than for food while stealing on the streets of Forever. “Nos bang-golas ir nimloth rucs. Kin share branches even with the trees are apart.”
Laughing, she pushed away from his shoulder but kept her right hand on where her tears had soaked the linen. “Where did you learn that?”
“An elf once said it to me, claiming to be a relative.” Loreless lips thinned and he dropped his eyes to the small bit of bleached wood between them, shifting back a little. “They were the first words I had ever heard in elven, and I engraved them into my heart.”
“Oh,” Jasmine cupped his chin and raise his face, “I take it she wasn’t.”
“He, and no. I was maybe ten or twelve, the years blend and I didn’t age like most of the kids around me on the street.” He pushed his face into her gloved hand, closing his eyes. “I had hoped so much.” Loreless pulled back, reaching up his left hand the one cradling his stubbled cheek before dragging it down, and rearranged his face into an earnest smile. “But enough about me, I’m here for you. How can we make a Ring Day for you?” He stopped, dropping her hand, then held up a finger. “Correction, do you want a Ring Day or something like it? Would it help?”
Her eyes grew soft as she handled the thought, looking at it from all angles, like it was a gadget. “No, I think I just needed to … rin glir, sing of its memory. Thank you for listening.” She patted herself down.
“Your umbrella is beside you. Your goggles are on your head. And your bag is back in the village with the horses.”
She touched her goggles then reach for the umbrella. “You are the best.”
He gracefully stood and offered his hand, which she ignored, using the umbrella and her gloved hand to leverage up. Her replacement leg creaked, and Jasmine made a face. Tomorrow she will have it spread out on a table, figuring out where the noise came from.
“After recovering from a hangover,” Loreless muttered.
“Hmm, what?” Jasmine looked up to where he towered nearly a foot taller than her.
“Oh, just thinking about how much you and I are going to drink tonight.” Loreless looked at his hands, and pretended to juggle them before stepping to her right side. “May I escort you back to a party, keep your cup and plate full, and fall asleep in your arms tonight?” He extended his hand to her gloved one, holding his breath.
(words 1,396; first published 6/23/2024; created 11/19/2023)
Lorelless & Jasmine Series
- Dragonfly (5/26/2024)
- Even when the trees are apart (6/23/2024)
