Imenry Barras (imenry) wrote in thebattleage, @ 2011-03-31 23:16:00 |
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Entry tags: | ! complete, (backscene), brennan wulfe, imenry barras |
Backscene: Hide n' Seek
Who: Imenry Barras, Brennan Wulfe
Where: Their village in the Gamordan Peaks.
When: 27 Matrinalis, 9:28
Summary: Brennan has been lost in his books for far too long, even Imenry is tired of his brooding and sulking.
Rating: E/PG
There was something that her father had said to her. "Im, you're not an adult yet. Don't let your childhood go so easily." He said it when she was taking herself too seriously, or when she was too studious, working too hard to practice her sword work. Those days he might even forbid her from picking up the wooden practice blade, and tell her to go outside. "Take a walk. Build a snowman. Pester the other children. Just have fun.".
She often thought him crazy. Practice was fun to her. Wielding the wooden sword was fun. It was not the chores that her mother assigned her; like mending which she was frightfully bad at, or working in the shed for hours during planting seasons to turn the frigid soil in the hopes that something might grow. It was true that her thoughts of fun and games had not exactly been the same as those of the other children. But she'd always had Brennan, or at least, for a long time now. He'd always poke at her until she'd play with him, dragging her out of the house so that they might explore the village, creating magnificent stories in their heads. Sometimes in these games they were heroes, sometimes she got stuck playing the bad guy. Sometimes Brennan tried to mimic a powerful dragon by shooting flames from his hands. But she wasn't supposed to talk about that.
Of course, that had been before the hunting party that Brennan's Dad had been part of had never returned. It had been a hard winter that year. They'd barely scraped by on what was left in the stores. People had been hungry and sick. But the worst part was that the hunters were dead.
Imenry had learned at a young age that life in the village could be harsh. People died and they didn't come back. At first it had been almost hard to grasp. But now she was old enough to more than understand. She would be sad to know her father was never coming home, and so she knew Brennan was sad too.
She hadn't seen him as much after that. When she did he was strange, and quiet, and he never really smiled. She tried to provoke him with challenges, but that didn't always work. Sometimes he just told her to go away. One day she'd asked her mother why he didn't like her anymore, after he'd bothered to be her friend. "Was he lying?" she'd asked.
"Sometimes the best way we can be a friend to someone is to let them work through things on their own."
Her mother's words seemed smart, so she'd stopped bothering him so much. Sometimes she'd go and visit, sit next to him on the bed and just talk, or say nothing at all. A lot of times he wasn't at home, rather at the village library, buried in old scrolls made of vellum. It wasn't really a big building. So many of their records were kept by the elder, stories passed down from generation to generation. Written word was rare, because animal skins were a precious commodity. Still, the children learned to read here, because history and knowledge was important, the elder said.
Mostly, the mages used the library to study magic. There was a great deal of responsibility that came with magic, she'd been told, and so the mages must study just as hard as they trained before passing their tests to become guardians.
Imenry didn't bother trying to go to Brennan's house today. His mother would be at the Temple and it would be empty. Rather, she walked over the thin coating of summer snow towards the small stone building that stood not far from the Temple, tucked beside the Elder's home. Her grandfather's home, it would likely pass to her mother when he died, and they would all move there.
Skirting around the building she took the couple of steps up and pushed the door open slowly. It's hinges creaked slightly and she slipped inside, shutting it again. The space was not large, a circular building with two windows up high to let in more sunlight. Still, it was dim inside, the only light that of a flickering oil lantern sitting on the lone table. The wall was thick stone, but carved with recesses to hold the many scrolls. Against one wall sat the work area of the scroll-keeper, the man who kept watch over the place. He would preserve the scrolls and copy those that began to grow too old to be handled. It was also told that some scrolls there were kept locked away and that only he might see them, but Imenry did not know why that would be true.
For the moment, the man was tending the fire across the room. He glanced up over at her, then replaced the grate in front of the fire so that no embers might snap free. "It appears you have a visitor, young man," he murmured, his voice sounding raspy as if it was rarely put into use.
She could see whom he had addressed, Brennan, sitting at the end of the table, some scrolls in front of him, bent over them as if in study. Her boots scuffed idly on the stone floor as she crossed towards him. She stopped, leaning her elbows on the opposite end of the table to stare at him in silence for a long moment before she puffed out a breath of air. "Brennan... you're always in here. Haven't you read everything in this whole place already?"