The TwiceBorn

Madness Among The Shadows

"I was aching with freedom and kissing the damned. I said, "Remember, this is how it should be."--Indigo Girls

Islinn watched as Alora ambitiously finished off her second bowl of peas and silently wondered where the other woman put it all.  She glanced down at her own bowl, which she’d been absently stirring about ever since she’d sat down to eat and waited for what had become a standard question at every meal.

“You going to finish that?”

Islinn smiled to herself and automatically held the bowl out.  Alora hesitated.

“You don’t eat enough, you know.” 

‘It’s fine.  It’s the heat, I’m just not hungry.  Besides, you eat enough for the both of us.”

Alora took the bowl with a sheepish grin.

“Well…no sense in letting it go to waste.”

Islinn nodded in agreement and leaned back to prop herself on her elbows so she could look at the sky.   Her skinned elbow barked in protest and she grimaced slightly as she twisted her arm around to assess the damage. 

Alora’s eyes were steady on her but she was getting used to that sensation and she couldn’t say that it made her all that uneasy any more.  Behrin had done the same thing. He’d had eyes like a hawk which followed her every breath and she knew that his intense scrutiny was just a prelude to something that would ultimately be painful. 

Alora was different.  Maybe because she felt Alora watched her along the same lines with which she watched Alora.  In the hopes that something…a movement, a gesture…would suddenly make everything clear.  Answer questions she didn’t know how to give voice to.  

Alora stretched and yawned.

‘Buhr tin cyaam fuh libe.”

Islinn liked the guttural sound of the woman's language.  The woman was speaking bits and pieces of it more and more, it seemed, the closer they drew to Lochedge.  That hadn’t been lost on Islinn but she couldn’t figure out the connection.

“What does that mean?”  She asked as she repositioned herself for star-gazing.

‘It means sell your fear to live. “Alora replied, her eyes heavy on Islinn. 

“I don’t get it.  Sell your fear…?”

“It means that… to truly live, you have to be fearless. “

Islinn thought about it for a moment.  She frowned slightly but inside she was rather delighted with the saying.  She’d recently developed a liking for situations…and people…where the cost wasn’t counted.

“I like that.   I guess it would make things simpler.”

“I don’t know, really.  You tell me.”  Alora said and held out her hand.  Islinn got up and dusted off the back of her tunic as she took Alora’s hand and settled in beside her.

“How could you not know? You’re The Twiceborn. “Islinn stated as though that were the answer to all questions.

Alora chuckled as she wrapped an arm around the girl and leaned back against her saddle to watch the fire.

“I was raised that way, so it’s different.  Besides, I have been afraid here and there.  But you…”

Alora shook her head slightly in amazement.

“…You’re the one who’s lived it.”

The idea was powerful, Islinn had to admit.  But relating it to herself was a stretch she couldn’t quite make.  She leaned into Alora and thought about how afraid she’d been that her father wasn’t returning. Fear, bright and blinding and always there, when she knelt down to bear.  And Behrin.