Ander - Part 6: Subchapter 186
186
Vallah! Get down from there before you break your neck!
But there's this huge bug up here, Father! You gotta see it! Its fangs are like, this big!
She held her arms as far apart as they would go to indicate the sheer size of the mystery bug's fangs, and Sorrin damn near fainted dead away the moment her hands let go of the trunk, all sticky and gooey with pine tar.
Then at least come down before your mother spots you up there and breaks my neck!
'Kay!
And for the love of the Cora, don't ju -
She jumped down like a grasshopper, all smiles, and wiped her sticky hands on the grass, blissfully unaware of how badly she had spooked her father.
That memory flashed through Sorrin's head in a matter of moments, the colours, the sights, the smells, his little girl's face, looking up at him with that big smile of hers, asking him if he had seen a ghost.
Sorrin ducked his head and stepped into the building, and in the seconds it took his eyes to adjust to the gloom, a new image flashed in his mind.
Banno. Pitch black fur against pitch black shadows. All you could really see were the whites of his eyes and those monstrous teeth, more and more of them appearing out of nowhere as his lips peeled back into a knowing smile.
Don't worry, Sai. I'm sure we'll find her. She couldn't have gone far.
The real face emerged from the darkness, seamlessly overlapping with the one in his mind; a feral beast, a monster, a demon, all blood and gnashing jaws, tearing into flesh, gorging itself even as it lay dying.
Sorrin's hands curled into shaking fists. A dull heat built up inside his face. His teeth clenched. His heart raced.
Anger. Toxic, unending anger flowed through every part of him, sparking those memories of long ago, the memories he always pretended he didn't still carry on his back, day after day.
Winding paths. Trees. Shrubs and ferns and thorny vines in the undergrowth. Sorrin walked through it all, shouting Vallah's name over and over, until his throat went hoarse and all the light bled out of the sky.
Hands on his shoulders, telling him it was time to go back, that they'd never find her in the dark, that they could try again tomorrow.
How he hated those voices. They sounded so sympathetic, but they knew nothing. If they could feel even a shred of what he was going through, they wouldn't be telling him to give up and go home. They would help him keep searching. They would help him keep going all through the night and the next day if they had to. They would help until his baby girl was found!
Come on, Sorrin. Mellah doesn't want to be all alone right n-
MELLAH WANTS HER BABY BACK!!
I... I'm sorry, I didn't mean -
Don't touch me!
Winding paths, now just giant black snakes winding their way between black spikes growing out of the ground. Black thorns. Black sounds. A broken, shattered moon peering through the black branches, shedding no light at all, a cruel, uncaring eye.
It looked at him. It saw him. Did it remember him? Banno's body convulsed upon the stony alter, kicking and flailing. A broken arm slapped against the stone and a font of blood squirted onto the floor.
Faces. So many faces. All downcast. None of them wanting to look him or Mellah in the eye, but none of them wanting to look at what they were supposed to be looking at either, because it was all a lie, a farce. Worse, a sacrilege.
An empty stack of wood. A pyre without a body. A symbol of how easily they had all given up hope.
Kadai. Speaking. Giving a pretty little speech, talking about things he couldn't possibly understand.
There is nothing in this world that compares to losing a child. It is the coldest, darkest, loneliest thing anyone can ever go through. As you all know, Shekka and I have... three sons that we love with all our hearts. And I don't say that in any symbolic way. Each of our sons takes up our hearts wholly. Losing any one of them would be like having our hearts ripped out. I... I have never lost a child...
His eyes, filling up with fake tears, as if he knew what he was talking about, as if he didn't merely spend an hour or two beforehand thinking up a bunch of words to spew at this farcical pyre, as if he knew what they were going through!
I can only imagine what that must feel like, to lose a child. Just now I said it would feel like having your heart ripped out, but I think it would actually be worse than that. If your heart gets ripped out, you die. That's the end. You don't have to suffer anymore. But if you lose the piece of your heart that once belonged to your child, that is very different. It is a hole that stays inside of you forever, and you can never hope to fill it up again. It stays with you, but it won't let you die. You have to feel that pain forever. And I can't... I can't begin to imagine what that must be like...
He raised his head. His face was blank. Wiped clean. There were no tears there. Only the same dry sympathy.
Mellah. Sorrin. I am so sorry.
He stepped down, and then Shekka came up to say her bit. Mostly Old Wolven, half of which he couldn't even understand. He kept looking at the torch in her hand, searing orange lines through the air as she talked and waved and gestured, screaming her forgotten words up at an old god who clearly didn't give a damn.
And when she was done, and she dropped the torch onto the pyre and the flames spread out over the wood, licking at the branches, growing tall and sending plumes of fragrant smoke into the starry sky, he felt Mellah press against him.
He curled his arm around her shoulders and hugged her tight, but there was something wrong with her. He could feel it. It wasn't like hugging his mate of fourteen years. It felt more like he was hugging a lifeless stone draped in her skin.
Mellah?
She wouldn't look at him. She looked only at the pyre. He could see the flames reflected in her wide, staring eyes as shots of orange, dancing inside her unspilled tears.
Her fingers gripped him, tightening to the point of pain. The corners of her mouth turned down. Her whole face was changing before his eyes. She blinked and two lines of tears cascaded down her cheeks, shining in the night. A soft mewl escaped her, and Sorrin hugged her tight with both arms, trying his very best not to go to pieces himself. She needed him to be her rock, now more than ever.
It's okay, Mellah, he whispered, lightly rubbing her back. It's okay...
No one could have predicted what happened next, but looking back, Sorrin should have known.
He should have known.
Nooo!! She ripped free of his grasp and charged at the pyre, screaming and crying.
Before anyone could do anything, before anyone could even react, she had plunged her hands into the flames and ripped out great burning chunks of wood, scattering them far and wide. Wolves had to leap out of the way of flaming logs and sticks in a panic.
Mellah!
Noo! Noo! Noooo!! She kept reaching for more, grabbing hold of burning sticks with her bare hands and flinging them in random directions.
Sorrin rushed over and tried to pull her away, but she kept ripping loose with wild savagery to attack the pyre. There was really no other word to describe it. She _attacked_it like a wild animal, slapping at the flames and swiping her claws at the wood, breaking it apart. Everyone was too shocked, too stunned, to do anything. Even the Chieftain and his mate could only gawp with all the others as Mellah ravaged the pyre, singeing her fur and clothes. Thin streams of smoke rose from her hands and shiny blisters were already starting to form on her fingers and palms, but she felt none of it.
Nooo!! This isn't my daughter! This isn't my Vallah! This is just an empty pyre! This isn't her!
Mellah! Please!
You can't just burn a stack of wood and say it's her! You can't just say it's over!
Mellah! You're hurting yourself!
She plunged her hands into the flames and with a scream of grief and anger she pushed the whole thing over, scattering bits of flaming wood and glowing coals at the Cora statue's feet - small orange spotlights, shining in the dark.
You can't tell me to say goodbye to a fire!!
Mellah!
Sorrin grabbed her around the middle and forcefully hauled her away from the flames. She fought him every step of the way, screaming and crying into his chest, hurling curses and profanities at every passing face.
All the strength suddenly ran out of her legs and they both sat down heavily, right there in the middle of the village centre, illuminated by the broken, scattered pieces of their missing daughter's pyre while the entire tribe looked on in uncomfortable silence. And presiding over all of this, backlit by the half-moon, was the Cora statue, its blood red eyes just barely catching the light of the flames down below.
Mellah's screams of anger had deteriorated into cries of pain and anguish. It was something Sorrin wished he could do, too. He wanted to go home. He wanted to lie down in the dark, all by himself. He wanted to think about his daughter and he wanted to cry. He wanted to cry until there was nothing left.
But he couldn't do that. As much pain as he was feeling right now, so much so that he was certain the emptiness of death would be preferable, he was also certain that Mellah was feeling it so much more.
What are you doing, Mother? Can I help?
Motheeeeer!! Did you see the Chieftain's new baby? Aaaargh, he's so cute! Such a little tiny grey puffball! I wanted to hold him so bad but Shekka-Kai was right there and, well, you know...
Mother! Mother! Look what I found! Isn't it neat?
Mother! I made something for you!
Mother, is it okay if -
Mother, would you like me to -
Mother, why is the -
Mother, can I please -
Mother, will -
Mother, you -
Mother...
Mother?
Mother!!
Mellah wasn't a mother anymore.
She cried against his shoulder. She cried so hard he feared the force of her sobs would suffocate her. Her arms were burnt all the way up to her elbows. Her fur was completely singed away in several places, revealing the soft, pink skin beneath, breaking out into smooth, fluid-filled blisters before his eyes, ringed by blackened tufts of bitter-smelling strands of hair.
Sorrin... she moaned, her voice muffled by his chest. That's not her, Sorrin... That's not my baby!
Sorrin held her. Rocked her back and forth. And no matter how badly he wanted to, he did not allow himself to cry. She needed him to be strong. She needed him to carry her through this. And if that meant being a vessel to absorb all of her tears, then that was what he would do. Because he loved her. And they were still a family.
Maybe... when enough time had passed, and she had healed as much as she could, when the wound stopped bleeding and began to scar over, then he could have his turn. She could hold him and he could cry for their daughter, cry until his wound began to scar over, too.
But until then, she would be the one to cry, and he would be the one to hold her.
Because he loved her.
A shadow fell over them. At first he thought the moon must have sunk behind the statue's face, but it was only Banno, staring down at them, so dark he was almost like a shadow himself; an empty space in the sky devoid of stars. Except for his eyes. They looked different. Sad.
He crouched down, almost reached out and touched Mellah's shoulder, but then thought better of it and put his hand back on his knee. He looked down at the ground, unsure of what to say, but it was just as Sorrin was about to ask the boy to please leave them be that he did say something.
Sai? Kai? He couldn't look them in the face. I... This might not be my place to say, but... I just wanted you to know that, out of all the children in the tribe, Vallah was, without a doubt, the happiest kid I have ever seen. And... I'm sure you are the ones to thank for that.
Sorrin gave a quick nod, not wanting to be rude to a lad who was only trying to be nice to them, but hoping that he would get the message and leave them alone.
Banno had one last thing to say, however. He took a deep, slow breath and this time he did put his hand on Mellah's back. For one insane moment Sorrin had an almost uncontrollable urge to slap that hand away, as if a spider that may or may not be poisonous had just landed on his mate. He had been able to keep that irrational urge at bay, but looking back on it now, Sorrin regretted his restraint.
I don't know what happened to Vallah or where she is now, Banno had said, but I am sure that she is just as happy now as she was when she was with you. Perhaps... even happier.
That face. That hideous, smiling face. It writhed on the stone slab like a snake. Brownish foam bubbled from the corners of its mouth. Its teeth sliced into Ander's arm. And that eye...
That eye was the last thing his daughter ever saw.
Perhaps... even happier.
"You..." Sorrin breathed, too furious, too incensed, too outraged to find words strong enough to carry the weight of all that anger. Perhaps no such words ever existed. All those days spent searching for his daughter. All those terrible nights he had to hold his mate close and promise her, again and again, that they would find her tomorrow. All that cold, creeping dread inside his heart, that building certainty that maybe they would never find her. That feeling of hope, slowly wilting away to nothing. Hours and hours spent reliving the last, horrifically short and unceremonious conversation he and Mellah had had with their only child.
'Kay, gonna head out! Bye, Mother!
Be careful, Mellah.
Bye, Father!
Mrrhmm.
That was it. He hadn't even said goodbye to her back then. That was the last time he ever saw her, the last time he ever spoke to her, and he hadn't even gone to the trouble of giving her a proper goodbye. He had grunted at her like some boar, expecting her to come in just before sundown, like she always did, all covered in dirt and leaves and her fur stuck together into nasty clumps with pine tar, and perhaps with a dead rabbit or a squirrel or something over her shoulder as a little bonus for supper.
I'm back! And lookit what I got!
Grinning that huge grin. So happy to be home, with her family.
Happy...
"YOU SICK BASTARD!!" Sorrin thundered, crying the tears he had been unable to shed on the night of his daughter's empty pyre. "YOU TOOK MY BABY GIRL!!"
Banno looked at him, but didn't see him. It was the same kind of look his blind witch of a mother used to give, the kind of look that made you wonder if the one giving it was truly alive or not.
Sorrin walked past Nilia as she struggled to keep her weapon in place, and stepped up next to Mateo.
"Hey, can you help me with th-"
Sorrin grabbed the edges of the circular piece of stone and began to turn it, putting every last ounce of his strength into it, fuelled by decades of quiet suffering, restless nights filled with nightmares, and all the hatred that had never had a single outlet until now. Banno resisted at first, pushing back with just one arm, but even he couldn't keep it up for long, and the stone began to roll along its track, making a rather unsettling grinding noise. Sorrin did not know what this stone actually was or what it was used for, and he didn't care. It was big, it was heavy, and it would get the job done.
He caught Ander's eye. He didn't know how the boy was still alive, but he was. He wouldn't be able to last much longer, though. He was practically dead already.
Sorrin wanted to thank him for fighting so hard, for giving him this last chance to help avenge the death of his daughter, but he knew Ander well enough to know that he would not want to be thanked for fighting. Least of all, he would not want to be thanked for killing his own brother.
Banno had taken so much from so many people, Wolves and Foxes alike.
He had even taken a piece of his brother's heart.
Sorrin did not thank him. Instead, he gritted his teeth and turned the stone, fighting against the growing ache in his shoulders, pushing until it felt like his muscles would tear themselves right off his bones, pushing until Banno simply couldn't match his strength anymore. His arm bent at the elbow, and that's when Sorrin knew it would all be over soon. Banno couldn't even push back anymore. The stone had almost reached the blood that had spilled into its track. It would all finally, finally... be over...
"Gargh, dammit!" Nilia suddenly cried out. Tendons stood out in her neck like whipcord, and her face was racked by pain and effort. "Ander, he's -"
And that's when Sorrin realised why the stone was rolling so easily now. Banno wasn't trying to keep the stone back anymore. He was -
He was slowly sitting up...
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