Teja son of Tagila (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ostro_goth) wrote2010-11-01 10:05 pm
ostro_goth) wrote2010-11-01 10:05 pm
OOM: Conversations with Dead People 3 -- Life Goes On
People had worn horns and strange dresses in the bar that day, and that, if nothing else, had told Teja which day of the year it was.
Last year, and the year before that, the veil between the worlds had become thin around this time, and Teja had seen how his people had fared, and then even spoken to those dearest to him, ending that which had been left dangling open-ended between them.
Teja did not expect anything this year; had they not spoken of all that had been unspoken for such a long time?
And yet, he knew it was the time, the only time when it was possible at all.
He had lain down in his bed night after night, ready for deep words, and yet woken each morning only from dream not much different from those on any other night of the year.
Life went on, and they no longer needed him.
Then, on the Day of the Dead itself, most of the dark holidays already past, Teja had curled up on a chair by the fireplace, and suddenly fallen asleep to an armful of desperately sobbing Adalgoth.
He was clawing the straggling autumn grass on the Kings' Barrow-Hill, crying his eyes out and entreating unknown entities he probably did not believe could help him. "Please, please, please, I will do anything, everything..." he was sobbing when Teja took him in his arms.
"Teja!" Adalgoth stopped in mid-stammer, his hands on black linen and fur-lined Tyrian purple instead of sparse grass and moist earth.
Teja kissed blue eyes, wet and puffy from crying, as a matter of course; he stroked short brown curls and broad strong shoulders as a he asked, quietly, "What is it, my Adalgoth, that you come to me, pouring out your heart even though you could not be sure I would be here to answer you?"
Adalgoth lay in his arms, shuddering, not speaking for a while, just clinging.
"Teja," he finally said again. "I just wanted to feel you near me in the darkest hour: - I know you cannot help me now. Another would say this is in the hand of the gods; but I learned from you that there are no gods, and it is in the hands of fate, and our duty to deal with it manfully, whatever outcome it may hand us."
The darkest hour? Teja looked around. It was a cold, foggy, very early morning, peaceful, the sound of cows and the cries of gulls filled the air, and from Adalgoth's homestead under the shadow of the barrow-hill, there were untimely lights, and urgent women's voices calling to each other.
"Gotho?" Teja guessed. "Is she having a babe, and things are turning ugly?"
It was a common fate, after all.
Adalgoth nodded. "She is having twins, and they're all not expected to live," he said, blandly. "Still, the wise-women have kicked me out of my own house for hovering and worrying. I should not have touched her again after the last time, that little girl who never even took a breath, but was born pale and still. She nearly died then. And Alaric, before that, had been very, very difficult."
Teja nodded, just listening.
"I cannot help, that is true," he finally said. "I doubt I can will myself to return through the barrow-hill to my afterlife, and fetch my friend Guppy, who would have the knowledge and skill to save them, as the healing arts have made great progress in the future times that he is from. But I can be with you here, and hold you while you suffer in helpless uncertainty that you may show to none other."
"You may not wish to hear of my wife..." Adalgoth began.
"I do," Teja says. "Life goes on. Your life as much, or more, as does my afterlife. And I was glad, quietly by myself, that you had one to love, a golden ray in the last dark days of our people, or what I thought were those. That you had from another what I was refusing for us to have together, at least. That you would leave together, and that Liuta's child would live after all, was the last thought in my heart before death took me."
"Liuta drops them with the ease of a cat," Adalgoth said, almost resentful. "She's had seven so far, and never any trouble. But Gotho -- who would have thought that sturdy, sensible, fearless Gotho would have such pain each time, and now..."
He clung to Teja.
"If she survives this, I shall truly never touch her again, for I wish her to live more than I wish to have children, or even know the pleasure of her embrace," he swore, hotly.
"Would she forbid you to go to battle?" Teja asked, gently. "As a man risks his life in fight for his family and his people, so a woman risks hers in childbirth. It is a simple thing. Future times will see this differently, but for our people, if fully holds true. If she does not wish you to touch her again, you would do well to respect it."
"It is moot," Adalgoth said, bleakly. "She will die, and take those twins with her. When the wise-women found that she was carrying two, that are fighting for their way into the world, a dark pall fell, and I found myself outside the house, even, banished into the darkness until the truly dark thing would bring me back inside to her deathbed."
"Nothing is moot, before it has happened," Teja says. "But not knowing, despairing at a decision that one is powerless to sway this way or that, is worse than certain death. She may yet make it. But I would stay here with you, help you through the darkest hour, until you are called back in, be it for the dire duty of farewell that you fear, or some sort of gladder news."
Gotho might live, after all; so might one of the children, or both, even if not all three.
"If the children live, and are boys, I will call them Teja and Totila," Adalgoth said, in the manner of a man worried by a future that may go this way or that, latching his mind onto small detail to cling to in the face of that terrifying emptiness.
"Do that," Teja said, stroking his shoulders. "Life goes on, and even if only one of them lives, you must be there for him and raise him, to be worthy of his mother, and the name he bears."
Another thing for Adalgoth to cling to, even if Gotho did not live.
The sky was growing lighter, and Adalgoth was calming down in Teja's arms, easing the desperate grasp to a more comfortable embrace, stealing a moment of closeness and warmth from the great fear that was gripping him.
"Fearing for those we love is worst," Teja said, "fearing for them, and unable to help them, powerless to rip this single one from the claws of fate..."
There was a baby's cry, thin and feeble, from the homestead, and Adalgoth lifted his head, hope shining from his eyes.
"One is alive," Teja said. "We know not for how long; we know not about the other or their mother, but one is alive now, at least!"
A door flung fully open, spewing forth light, and a tall, stout man with a bushy beard, running at full speed towards the barrow-hill.
"Wachis!" Teja said.
"He knows he will find me here, taking refuge with my king, as I sometimes do -- but never this literally before!" Adalgoth said.
Wachis was shouting something, but he was still too far away to be understood.
"I am here!" Adalgoth called out, sitting up. Teja stayed down in the grass, uncertain whether Wachis would be able to see him, and not wanting to distract from whatever it was that the man was running to tell to Adalgoth.
"... all alive!!" was what they could understand now. "... two little girls! Wants to kick your ass -- that's what she said, sorry, and you're to come right now so she can!"
"Give me just a moment," Adalgoth called back, and Wachis stopped, to give his friend the chance to dry his tears and remove all traces of despair, before facing his wife after her ordeal, and greet his little daughters.
Teja, selfish for just this one moment, beckoned to Adalgoth to bend down again, and kissed him, as if it was a matter of course. "Call them Myrtia and Valeria, instead?" he suggested.
"Myrtia?" Adalgoth said. "But..."
"Life goes on," Teja said. "What used to be the most painful secret of a man's dark soul may become open knowledge after his death, part of his myth, or maybe something to be handed down in secret by those he loved and trusted. As for the other thing..."
If the magic of his afterlife would grant him one more visit, then he would use it, a year from now, for the good of those he loved, so life could truly go on!
Adalgoth sat again, and looked down at him, and nodded.
"Come to this place again on this very night, one year from hence," Teja said. "I cannot promise that I may force the gap between my afterlife and your life once more for my own bidding, but if I can, then I will bring you untimely knowledge from the future that will allow you to touch Gotho again without endangering her life with another pregnancy. She will need the year to recover from this one, and suckle the babes, so none will wonder if you touch her not before that."
They might still not live, not all three; there would be weeks and months of uncertainty yet. But there was a bright ray of hope, even if it was only a watery November sunrise.
"I will be here," Adalgoth whispered, bending down for one last kiss; then, he jumped up and ran towards Wachis, and home to his wife and children.
Teja watched him go, smiling; then, he stretched in the damp cold that was rising from the sea, turned, and woke in his chair by the Milliways fireplace, the smile still on his face.
Last year, and the year before that, the veil between the worlds had become thin around this time, and Teja had seen how his people had fared, and then even spoken to those dearest to him, ending that which had been left dangling open-ended between them.
Teja did not expect anything this year; had they not spoken of all that had been unspoken for such a long time?
And yet, he knew it was the time, the only time when it was possible at all.
He had lain down in his bed night after night, ready for deep words, and yet woken each morning only from dream not much different from those on any other night of the year.
Life went on, and they no longer needed him.
Then, on the Day of the Dead itself, most of the dark holidays already past, Teja had curled up on a chair by the fireplace, and suddenly fallen asleep to an armful of desperately sobbing Adalgoth.
He was clawing the straggling autumn grass on the Kings' Barrow-Hill, crying his eyes out and entreating unknown entities he probably did not believe could help him. "Please, please, please, I will do anything, everything..." he was sobbing when Teja took him in his arms.
"Teja!" Adalgoth stopped in mid-stammer, his hands on black linen and fur-lined Tyrian purple instead of sparse grass and moist earth.
Teja kissed blue eyes, wet and puffy from crying, as a matter of course; he stroked short brown curls and broad strong shoulders as a he asked, quietly, "What is it, my Adalgoth, that you come to me, pouring out your heart even though you could not be sure I would be here to answer you?"
Adalgoth lay in his arms, shuddering, not speaking for a while, just clinging.
"Teja," he finally said again. "I just wanted to feel you near me in the darkest hour: - I know you cannot help me now. Another would say this is in the hand of the gods; but I learned from you that there are no gods, and it is in the hands of fate, and our duty to deal with it manfully, whatever outcome it may hand us."
The darkest hour? Teja looked around. It was a cold, foggy, very early morning, peaceful, the sound of cows and the cries of gulls filled the air, and from Adalgoth's homestead under the shadow of the barrow-hill, there were untimely lights, and urgent women's voices calling to each other.
"Gotho?" Teja guessed. "Is she having a babe, and things are turning ugly?"
It was a common fate, after all.
Adalgoth nodded. "She is having twins, and they're all not expected to live," he said, blandly. "Still, the wise-women have kicked me out of my own house for hovering and worrying. I should not have touched her again after the last time, that little girl who never even took a breath, but was born pale and still. She nearly died then. And Alaric, before that, had been very, very difficult."
Teja nodded, just listening.
"I cannot help, that is true," he finally said. "I doubt I can will myself to return through the barrow-hill to my afterlife, and fetch my friend Guppy, who would have the knowledge and skill to save them, as the healing arts have made great progress in the future times that he is from. But I can be with you here, and hold you while you suffer in helpless uncertainty that you may show to none other."
"You may not wish to hear of my wife..." Adalgoth began.
"I do," Teja says. "Life goes on. Your life as much, or more, as does my afterlife. And I was glad, quietly by myself, that you had one to love, a golden ray in the last dark days of our people, or what I thought were those. That you had from another what I was refusing for us to have together, at least. That you would leave together, and that Liuta's child would live after all, was the last thought in my heart before death took me."
"Liuta drops them with the ease of a cat," Adalgoth said, almost resentful. "She's had seven so far, and never any trouble. But Gotho -- who would have thought that sturdy, sensible, fearless Gotho would have such pain each time, and now..."
He clung to Teja.
"If she survives this, I shall truly never touch her again, for I wish her to live more than I wish to have children, or even know the pleasure of her embrace," he swore, hotly.
"Would she forbid you to go to battle?" Teja asked, gently. "As a man risks his life in fight for his family and his people, so a woman risks hers in childbirth. It is a simple thing. Future times will see this differently, but for our people, if fully holds true. If she does not wish you to touch her again, you would do well to respect it."
"It is moot," Adalgoth said, bleakly. "She will die, and take those twins with her. When the wise-women found that she was carrying two, that are fighting for their way into the world, a dark pall fell, and I found myself outside the house, even, banished into the darkness until the truly dark thing would bring me back inside to her deathbed."
"Nothing is moot, before it has happened," Teja says. "But not knowing, despairing at a decision that one is powerless to sway this way or that, is worse than certain death. She may yet make it. But I would stay here with you, help you through the darkest hour, until you are called back in, be it for the dire duty of farewell that you fear, or some sort of gladder news."
Gotho might live, after all; so might one of the children, or both, even if not all three.
"If the children live, and are boys, I will call them Teja and Totila," Adalgoth said, in the manner of a man worried by a future that may go this way or that, latching his mind onto small detail to cling to in the face of that terrifying emptiness.
"Do that," Teja said, stroking his shoulders. "Life goes on, and even if only one of them lives, you must be there for him and raise him, to be worthy of his mother, and the name he bears."
Another thing for Adalgoth to cling to, even if Gotho did not live.
The sky was growing lighter, and Adalgoth was calming down in Teja's arms, easing the desperate grasp to a more comfortable embrace, stealing a moment of closeness and warmth from the great fear that was gripping him.
"Fearing for those we love is worst," Teja said, "fearing for them, and unable to help them, powerless to rip this single one from the claws of fate..."
There was a baby's cry, thin and feeble, from the homestead, and Adalgoth lifted his head, hope shining from his eyes.
"One is alive," Teja said. "We know not for how long; we know not about the other or their mother, but one is alive now, at least!"
A door flung fully open, spewing forth light, and a tall, stout man with a bushy beard, running at full speed towards the barrow-hill.
"Wachis!" Teja said.
"He knows he will find me here, taking refuge with my king, as I sometimes do -- but never this literally before!" Adalgoth said.
Wachis was shouting something, but he was still too far away to be understood.
"I am here!" Adalgoth called out, sitting up. Teja stayed down in the grass, uncertain whether Wachis would be able to see him, and not wanting to distract from whatever it was that the man was running to tell to Adalgoth.
"... all alive!!" was what they could understand now. "... two little girls! Wants to kick your ass -- that's what she said, sorry, and you're to come right now so she can!"
"Give me just a moment," Adalgoth called back, and Wachis stopped, to give his friend the chance to dry his tears and remove all traces of despair, before facing his wife after her ordeal, and greet his little daughters.
Teja, selfish for just this one moment, beckoned to Adalgoth to bend down again, and kissed him, as if it was a matter of course. "Call them Myrtia and Valeria, instead?" he suggested.
"Myrtia?" Adalgoth said. "But..."
"Life goes on," Teja said. "What used to be the most painful secret of a man's dark soul may become open knowledge after his death, part of his myth, or maybe something to be handed down in secret by those he loved and trusted. As for the other thing..."
If the magic of his afterlife would grant him one more visit, then he would use it, a year from now, for the good of those he loved, so life could truly go on!
Adalgoth sat again, and looked down at him, and nodded.
"Come to this place again on this very night, one year from hence," Teja said. "I cannot promise that I may force the gap between my afterlife and your life once more for my own bidding, but if I can, then I will bring you untimely knowledge from the future that will allow you to touch Gotho again without endangering her life with another pregnancy. She will need the year to recover from this one, and suckle the babes, so none will wonder if you touch her not before that."
They might still not live, not all three; there would be weeks and months of uncertainty yet. But there was a bright ray of hope, even if it was only a watery November sunrise.
"I will be here," Adalgoth whispered, bending down for one last kiss; then, he jumped up and ran towards Wachis, and home to his wife and children.
Teja watched him go, smiling; then, he stretched in the damp cold that was rising from the sea, turned, and woke in his chair by the Milliways fireplace, the smile still on his face.