Aur Child

Lars Kjell-Tors, first cousin to Leiv Lars-Tors, the grandson of the Tors clan patron, Farfar Tors, added another arm-sized quarter of wood to the feisty stove that kept Elder Tors’ cabin warm through most moons of the year. A charred kettle of thinly rolled metal mumbled on the flat top of the stove, promising shortly the taste of a pine needle and honey brew. Outside the thick transparent panes, the wind now howled where the wolves had once done. Crescents of snow collected in the corners of the sturdy plastic casings, their edges either built upon by newly arrived flakes from the storm or blown away by the fury of frequent gusts. The Tors clan village, far above the coastal village of Dragon’s Snout, was buried deep once again in the pillowy mounds of another northlands winter.

Kjell-Tors returned to his seat, a crouched position on a cast-plastic stool he had pulled out from beneath a narrow cabinet on the advice of his clan elder. “You’ll break my sofa,” she had said to him, as she always did. The stool was all but invisible behind the thick trunks of legs bent at right angles and his heavy wool forest trousers. He was exceptionally large, even for a northlander, and even for an offspring of the Tors clan. Only his cousin, Leiv Lars-Tors, was larger than he, but only slightly. Together, which due to their friendship and common duties was often, they made a formidable presence few dared to challenge. But even on his own, as he was now, he was intimidating to all but a very few who knew him well, such as Elder Tors, the comparatively tiny, crinkled creature who sat between him and the warm stove.

Kjell had come to seek advice from the elder. It was delicate work, he knew, because she would be careful not to interfere with the patrimony of that clan and she never offered her wisdom without some fun in return. Her weakened frame of fifteen decades required her to choose her actions, and her words, carefully, and she searched determinedly for a few final laughs. Her eyes shone like a snow owl on the hunt, leaving no doubt that behind that puny, retiring physical form remained a mental figure perched high above that of the common villager. With her piercing perception, she could spot the tiniest of details, catch the most miniscule of flaws. It was for this shooting insightfulness Kjell had come. His body ached with the dilemma of the Na-sisters. His mind rumbled in its helplessness to solve the mystery of Tieri-Na’s disappearance. His heart wrenched for the distress he was sure the woman he loved was feeling at the loss of her sister. Yet he knew not how to help either of them.

“It’s a very peculiar trouble, young Kjell,” the old woman said, leaning back against the ragged cushion that softened her seat in the plastic rocker she used day in and day out. “I understand your desire to do something, but in cases such as these, sometimes it is best not to do anything at all.”

Kjell’s desperate eyes squeezed like overburdened rafts beneath his rectangular forehead, all floating above the red swirls of his wavy beard.

“But Sanna has searched for weeks now, Elder Tors, and she’s learned nothing of Tieri’s disappearance. Villagers – even FarFar Tors – say she’s been taken by giants. Others suggest she’s left on a losting.” He frowned. “Sure, Tieri’s adventurous, but she’d never up and go without telling her sister. If I don’t do anything, then Sanna will be on her own and …” he hesitated with his words, but the old woman helped him finish his thought.

“…and she will always think you abandoned her in her time of greatest need. Is that it?” she asked.

“Well, yes. You know, we have known each other for so long.”

“Yes, yes,” she said, “We all know about the wild band of Na sisters and their smitten host to the Tors village, granting them countless privileges of our clan that few of us have even had.” She squinted her already narrow eyes and offered Kjell a smirk.

Kjell’s face grew warmer.

“There’s only two of ’em,” he said. “And they’ve both been like sisters to me for so many years until …” again he hesitated.

“…until you fell for older one and broke the younger one’s heart.” She shifted sideways in the chair and gurgled amusedly in a soft, close-mouthed laugh. “You naughty boy!” she added, seemingly just for fun.

“Aw, it’s not like that, Elder Tors. You see, I guess I just grew up one day and realized that, as much as I’ve always had fun with Tieri, it was Sanna that, that …”

“…that steamed your kettle?” the woman interjected once again with a chuckle and waved her wrinkled hand towards the stove upon which that specific object was indeed pouring out wafts of the substance. Kjell stepped forward to grab the kettle and hide his embarrassed smile. He knew Elder Tors would take any opportunity to chide him; it was her way. He poured the kettle’s hot contents into the two waiting mugs and set it down on the table upon a pair of polished branches that had been used over decades for that sole purpose.

The woman dragged her mug closer and breathed in the sweet and tangy scents that frothed up to her elongated nose. In an exhale, she finally spoke the advisory words he had hoped to hear.

“Have you tried to just say how you feel to Sann-Na, rather than do anything more?”

Kjell shook his head adamantly. “Oh no,” he said with a grimace of panic on his face, “that’s the cause of most of my problems. I want to say it one way and …”

“…and you speak the fool again, don’t you?”

Kjell looked off to the dark window. The old woman looked down at his mighty fists clenched.

“Young Kjell,” she said in a kindly tone, reaching over to touch his hand, “you need not be embarrassed in this cottage. I’ve known you all your life, and I’ve listened to you speak those silly things that get you into so many messes more times than you can imagine. I know you. Your tongue is loose, but your heart is true. Any good woman will understand that. Now, surely, with a sharp girl like Sann-Na – and despite her own limitations of expression – recovery is possible from whatever has been said. Tell me now, what words have you used that cause you such anguish?”

Kjell glanced at his trusted councilor from the corner of his eye. He knew her sage advice always came at the cost of fodder for a laugh. It was a form of prostration. To get to the crux of the matter, he would need to tell her that shameful dialogue that transpired between he and Sann-Na.

“Well,” he began, “last time I saw Sanna – on the east lake trail – she was headed back down to Dragon’s Snout to ask again if anyone had heard anything about Tieri. I told her I’d been looking too.”

“Oh, well, that’s good,” she said.

“Yeah, but then I said that if no one in Dragon’s Snout has heard anything more, then perhaps she might want to accept that Tieri won’t return.”

“Ah ha, I see. Perhaps a bit direct but nothing short of the truth. Was that all?”

“Well, no. You know how quiet she always is; she was like that, just standing there.”

“Standing there, thinking, of her sister, presumably.”

“Well, it can still catch me off guard sometimes. I was nervous by it, and she seemed so bothered and I thought I should say something else.”

“Yes, yes, the wrong instinct you might have already learned to control, but what did you say?”

Kjell looked down into his steaming mug.

“I, I reminded her that she disliked how messy Tieri always was and that now at least the cottage would stay tidy.”

The old woman whimpered in a pitying way as if she wanted to laugh but couldn’t ignore her empathy enough to do so.

“Oh, um,” she said, “now that might not have been the best thing for her to hear but how did she react?”

“Well, that’s just it. She just kept quiet. Now I know I should have stopped there and just listened or waited or, or hugged her or something, but the forest is so quiet, and I realized the thing I had said about the cottage wasn’t so helpful …”

“No,” the old woman interrupted, “indeed it wasn’t. But pray, did you say something more, Kjell?”

She shook her head in anticipated disapproval.

“Go on,” she said.

“I. Well,” He put his head in his hands and spoke through the bars of his fingers. “I said I was sure it wasn’t as bad as when their parents took off on their losting.”

The old woman gasped. A crackle of wood came from inside the stove.

“Oh, dear,” she said in a low voice. “You might note that I suggested you say how you feel, not tell her how she feels. To guess a woman’s emotions is a masterful skill; to put them into words on her behalf is a fool’s errand.”

Kjell kept quiet and remained hunched over with this head in his hands. The old woman’s fingers tapped against the thick wooden mug.

“The problem, Kjell, is not your occasional poor choice of words or even your reckless flirting with girls who have no parents to keep them at home where they should be. Although you fail to think before you speak more often than not, anyone who knows you understands you mean no harm by it. And if I recall correctly, FarFar Tors has already spoken to Sann-Na and suggested that she would be welcome to the Tors clan if she were pledged to you. As far as I can see, that part of the equation is already clear. She either accepts you for who you are and chooses to join us, or she does not. You cannot control that and – I’m sure you will agree with me – anything you say to convince her otherwise won’t help. Also, you cannot be held responsible for the disappearance of her sister; she knows that.”

“Yes, Elder Tors, I have searched along the courier routes in one direction while Sanna went the other way around. Then, we returned to the cliffs where Rik-Na said he found her things.”

Now the old woman cleared her throat in protest. Her body angled forward, and she peered at Kjell from just beneath her bushy eyebrows.

“Ah, yes, see that is the problem. Those cliffs are far beyond the wind towers, and you have been warned since a young boy to stay away from them. Everyone has, including the Na sisters. Yet Tieri-Na made her way up there after all. It’s not your fault. It’s no one else’s fault but hers, and perhaps that even more reckless uncle of hers, Rik-Na. She put herself in danger, danger she had been explicitly warned to avoid, and now I am sorry to say, she has very likely been taken. It is a terrible thing, but you’ve nothing to do with it. Sann-Na knows this and does not blame you.”

Kjell sat pensive for a moment.

“You don’t really believe in those stories about giants though, do you Elder Tors?”

“Well, now you ask about things that go beyond my duties. You know, there’s a reason FarFar Tors leads this clan and not an elder as tradition dictates. He wishes to keep us protected – to protect the Aur children of our clan – in his own way. For a very long time it has been effective even if it goes against our conventions. The elders say ‘keep sight of the wind towers’, yet he has moved us so far north that we can no longer see them. So, he says, ‘beware the cave giants, fjord dragons, and ghost ships,’ and people take heed of those warnings instead and keep away from those places. It all comes to the same thing, Kjell. Few wander where they shouldn’t, and of the Tors clan, none have ever been taken while stories of missing folk from the larger villages happen every few decades. He does right by the clan and for that we should be respectful of his methods.”

“Yeah,” Kjell wagged his head back and forth, “but giants? Dragons? Ghost ships? There’s got to be another explanation than that?”

The woman took a sip of the hot brew and rotated the mug’s handle around the table while she contemplated these inquiries.

“But I thought you came here to speak about the Na sisters?” she said.

Kjell smiled, he had gotten onto a tangent.

“But isn’t there anything I can do to help her, Elder Tors?” he said in a pleading voice.

She shook her tiny head. Kjell noticed the two leathery cords of flesh that hung between her chin and neck wobble about. He drank down his tea to avoid staring.

“The best you can do is keep an eye out for Sann-Na. It is true what you say that, aside from Rik-Na, she is now all alone. Keep her away from strange people in our forests,” she said in a lower voice.

“Strange people? Like the giants?”

“Giants is what FarFar and some villagers call them. We elders call them Apostates. Either way, they are trouble. If you see them, challenge them. Ask them from where they come. Ask them why they’re here. Make sure their story checks out. An Apostate can never fool you in dialogue, Kjell. If something smells rotten, do what you can to keep Sann-Na away from them.”

Kjell nodded his head. “Thank you, Elder Tors. I can do that.”