Topic: A Deafening Whisper

Ceridwyn

Date: 2009-05-09 09:00 EST
Silence reigned in the hired room, a silence touched only by the soft sound of breath moving in, sweeping out, quiet and smooth in the gloom. Moonlight flickered in through the half-open shutters, illuminating just enough that the concerned vigil of a half-dryad could continue. She sat with her back against the post at the foot of the bed, her bare feet laid by the side of the sleeping man upon whom her dark eyes were set.

How much these past weeks had changed him. The smooth fullness of cheek, the easy-going smile, the relaxed posture, all were gone, replaced with the gauntness and tension she had never thought to see in him. But then, she had never thought to link him with the forests, to torment him with the silent roar of thousands of trees speaking to him in the enclosures of his mind.

He was human, it should not have been possible. Even she, only half-dryad, had found it hard in the first days of her awakening to reconcile the constant sound within her mind, even when she had begun to understand that the roar of whispering voices was merely a welcome, a joyous call from the trees to invite the newest member of that select band who could hear them to come into the forests and stay.

He shifted in his sleep, and her breath caught, fearful that the voices had returned to waken him, to drag him from the healing slumber he had succumbed to only hours before. But no, just a shifting, and he fell back, one frail hand wrapping around her foot, his face turned towards her as she watched him.

She remembered then the ease with which she had followed the thread of the bond between them into his mind. Hearts that thumped in steady tandem had soothed him just enough that she could witness what it was that had kept him from her for so many days. And she had been horrified by what she had heard. The call of the trees, overwhelming to one who did not understand them, who could not command them, filling his mind, clouding his conscious, until he knew nothing. If she looked deeper into what he had told her, he had lost himself in that deafening whisper, becoming as they were, as part of her would someday become.

In truth, she did not know what she could do for him, beyond what she had already done. Her command to the call in the silence of his mind had done little but quiet the hum; if he truly had linked to her in the manner it seemed, then that hum would never be entirely still. But it would only intrude in warning, or in welcome, should he step beneath the boughs of the trees once more.

And here was her choice. To remain with him, the man who had won her heart and soul, he who had shown her a love every bit as deep and focused as her own, would mean never again stepping beneath the boughs of her beloved trees, for to do so would be to reawaken the link within him that had almost destroyed his mind. As a human, he could not be expected to understand that ever-present murmur, though she longed to teach him, to show him the way to command they who had harmed him so without ever truly meaning to.

Again he shifted, rolling onto his side with a quiet groan. Her heart beat in tandem with his, and she knew her choice was already made. No matter where the road took them, or how much the loss might pain a child of the forests, Ceridwyn's path lay with the sleeping man before her, with the one to whom her heart and soul belonged. With her meleth, her Brennan, her life's mate.

And perhaps, in time, that deafening whisper could be conquered, and they would once again walk beneath her beloved trees. But until then, she would bear the pain of loss, to keep her love from succumbing once more to the furious call of voices he could never understand.

Ceridwyn

Date: 2009-05-11 17:52 EST
Come to us, little one. We miss your song. Come back to us.

Tears slowly stained the face of a child of the forests, standing at the window of a stone building, a place with no living wood, no reaching boughs. And yet still they called to her, cajoling, singing, wanting her to return to them.

"I can't," she whispered brokenly, catching her breath in fear of waking the man sleeping barely feet from her.

And still that ever present hum echoed through her mind, reaching for her. They called to her mother's presence within her, to the dryadic nature that had sustained her for so long; to the pull of her father's people, the Elven love of the forests that had brought her back to them time and again. But this time she would not be swayed. Her love had almost destroyed the man to whom she was linked, bound in love and promise, and she would not risk his life again. It meant turning her back on the wild part of her, the joyous child who had danced beneath the trees, who had sung to them in every aspect of her life. But if it meant keeping her meleth whole and sane, she was prepared to do it. No more would she sleep in the comforting embrace of the woods, nor wander beneath the sheltering affection of the forests.

A soft grunt, and she turned to where he slept, smiling to see him laid out upon his back, snoring into space. His arm seemed to beckon to her, and she went to him, sliding beneath the sheets once more to be wrapped in his loving embrace. Her head rested against his heart, listening and feeling their lives' blood beating time together.

This was where her heart lay, where her future remained, and this was where she would stay. And though he might find her subdued, she would never tell him of her reasons for avoiding the forests of this world. And never again would she allow him to face such torments alone, never again would she stand by and let him suffer in silence.

But still they called to her, even as she slept in the arms of the one she loved more than life itself.

Come back to us, little one.

Brennan Du'hal

Date: 2009-05-11 20:38 EST
I have my eyes open for what seems like the first time in my entire life. It took me longer than I care to think on to place my surroundings. That constant hum in the back of my head is terribly distracting, the sound of voices just beyond hearing, a deafening caucaphony if I care to focus on it, which I most certainly do not. On top of that, the modest room I'm resting in is only the least bit memorable. Just one of many nearly identical rooms in the Red Dragon.

The woman who has obviously dropped away in exhaustion after her long vigil over my sleeping form is in the chair overlooking my bed. She, on the other hand, is instantly recognizable. Ceri....my Ceri. She had found me, called me back from the brink of madness....or so I hoped. Had I plunged completely down the rabbit hole" Or had she caught my foot as I fell headlong into that breach and been saved, able to retain that which made me me" There is so much I don't yet know. So much of the last few weeks that only comes back to me in fits and starts. What had happened" And whats more, how much of myself is lost forever" This much I know, the first thing I lost....was everything.

I was waking on a carpet of moss, the light that trickled through to me was broken and dappled as it came through the leaves. I had experienced a strange connection to this forest ever since I first met the one who lay sleeping still, curled against my chest. Her dryadic nature seemed to echo and reverberate through me whenever I got close to her. I was able to hear the faintest trace of what she was able to hear all the time. The voices of the trees, the heartbeat of the forest. The heartbeat that thumped its steady rhythm inside my beloved's chest. I could hear it....and feel it too, beating in my own chest. Our heartbeats were in perfect sync.

And then as I listened to that perfect synchronization, I felt everything slip away. The voices of the trees came sliding to the forefront. My conciousness was brushed aside. I was such an insignificant, small thing really. The forest was filled with hundreds, no thousands, of trees. And each one had a life, a spark, a history of its own. Each one's echoing, ancient voice pushed itself inside me now. There was simply no room left for the man who was known as Brennan Du'hal. I was walking towards the heart of the forest, drawn away from the woman who lay sleeping beneath the boughs still.

~~~~~~~

A day is such an insignificant thing to a tree. One is much like the one before and the one after. I don't know how long I stood motionless amidst my ancient brethren. My bark was not the thick, brown, tough exterior of my fellow trees. I was a sickly pink think, my flesh far to yielding. My upper boughs were to short, I only had two of them, and I had not yet budded the leaves that would draw in lifegiving sunshine. And yet I could feel the sustenance feeding the collective mind of the forest with every bit of sunlight that shone down on us. I only had the two roots, which had somehow come free of the earth. I stood so precariously, no real anchor to the ground beneath me. And yet through that collective mind, I could feel lifegiving water and nutrients drawn up through other roots buried deep within the soil. I wanted for nothing.

The dryad girl was asking for her mate again. Entreating us to help her find this 'man.' I could hear her voice just as clearly as those around me. He was gone. There were no movers here, only the small ones, the animals that made their home amongst my kin. None that walked on two legs. There was only us trees.

~~~~~~~



I pull myself back from these memories, exhausted once more at the remembrances of my time as a tree. Those voices are trying once more to push their way to the forefront. It's taking a tremendous amount of focus to stay in the here and the now. As I look passed the beautiful woman sleeping in the chair, I am able to catch my reflection in the mirror hanging on the wall. The sunken eyes that look back at me appear to be looking out of a skull. My hair is shorter than I've seen it in years. To many of the snarls had needed to be cut away. My face is clean shaven, the paleness of my cheeks in stark contrast to the dark brown where my face had been burned from days standing in the sun. I look gaunt and wasted. I've never considered myself a vain person, but this is destroying me....seeing what I've become. I tear my eyes away from the horror that had been looking back at me and roll over on my side. Closing my eyes once more, I feel myself drifting....tomorrow is another day. Tomorrow is soon enough to deal with what I've become.

Ceridwyn

Date: 2009-06-06 12:54 EST
Again she keeps watch over him, her sleeping companion. How long has it been since she has slept a full night' She cannot remember, wrapped up in the need to know that he is well, that he sleeps soundly, undisturbed by the cacophony of emotion filling him from every side. Part of her relieved to know what he is, what he has become ....that it was not her trees that have damaged him, but some innate sense of self that has come forward, to shape and mould his mind into a conduit for the emotions and feelings of others.

A empath ....she has heard of his kind, though never thought to meet one who had been born human. In the forest of her birth, it had been thought a skill given only to Elfkind, and even then, a rare and wonderful event. To feel not just your own heart, but the hearts of others ....she could not imagine such a thing. Perhaps it was something close to what she felt for the trees; perhaps not. All she did know was that her own heart and emotion must be constant, never waning from him, or she would do untold harm to the one she loved.

A bond such as theirs cannot be broken, she knows, though it is long since they have renewed that binding. To overwhelm him so would be too cruel to imagine, and though she aches to show him her devotion, she dares not. For in the moments of their last joining, he had lost himself to the trees, turning wild, becoming as them. She dare not risk another such melding.

He shifts in his sleep, one hand reaching out to her, and she smiles, moving to curl up in the curve of that arm. In his sleep he is safe from the broiling whirl of doubt and fear that wracks her, and yet he still reaches to comfort and still that worry. The deafening whisper that fills his mind is receding, slowly, to the manageable hum she hopes for. Beneath the gentle gaze of a dryad, the emerging empath sleeps sound, wrapped in the quieting cocoon of her love.