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‘What happens when we die?’
Alba paused, halfway through carving a gouge in a block of wood to look over at Albion where he was stood by the fire, face turned to the flames. He had his back to Alba, a roughly spun blanket draped over his shoulders which was made from thick, undyed wool that scratched but did the job. Cymru was getting the hang of making them now, able to weave in a few patterns if he had the time and the colours, but it was haphazard work and nothing fancy at all. They were sometimes able to trade for nicer ones, ones with intricate designs of knots and swirls, charms woven into the fabric to dance across borders and seams, but food was more important, usually. Things they couldn’t catch or pick from the land, like bread.
Mama had never really praised overly nice things, or stressed their importance beyond a passing aesthetic appreciation, and so none of them were too concerned that their everyday clothes were dull and shapeless. Their nicer things Alba kept in a bag at all times near his person- golden armlets and bracelets folded in the plaid of their family woven by Mama herself to show them as children of the earth, Gods amongst men. Rich colours and bold patterns that Cymru eyed with greedy wonder.
Alba saved these for when they visited their people, the scatterings of them spread across the island that bore them. He was thankful that he and his siblings didn’t really grow.
‘What do you mean?’
Albion hesitated, mouth pressing into a tight line before opening again to speak, ‘When we die. Because people…’ Albion shifted, casting a quick glance back to him before turning once again to the fire, ‘humans don’t come back, do they?’
Alba, gave up on whittling anything further and sat up straighter, left hand holding what would one day be a bowl resting on his knee, ‘No, they don’t.’
He looked about their camp from his spot on the floor, back pressed again the trunk of a large tree they’d pitched their shelter against. Despite it being night Cymru was off somewhere, away on one of his walks that sometimes took him for days and there was no telling when he’d be back. This time Alba wasn’t too sure what had caused him to need space, the air was calm and friendly amongst them all, but Cymru had grown silent and still regardless and Alba had followed him with watchful eyes until he had taken himself away, seeing him retreat to the West where he could feel him linger on the edge of his perception.
He was the one that usually had these conversations, the ones where there wasn’t a clear answer, or a kind answer. Cymru could mould the truth into something palatable, something easy to understand and swallow without it becoming a lie. These sorts of conversations were not Alba’s strength- he did not like things for which there was no answer, or no easy answer, and so either worked at them silently until there was one, or ignored it. Not all things needed to be understood or reasoned with, some things just were and it was easier in the end to accept that.
But Alba had a feeling that Albion was leading to one of those sorts of questions and he was going to have to be the one to answer it.
‘But we do come back,’ Albion continued on. He said it as a statement; the tone was unquestioning but also unsure and Alba cracked his knuckles on one hand with his thumb as he tried to read between what Albion was saying and what he might be leading up to.
‘Yes, we do.’
An unspoken ‘sometimes’ fell flat and awkward between them. Mama hadn’t come back.
Albion looked down at the ground and rolled a stone underneath his foot. He was barefoot, again, because he refused to stay in shoes for very long if he could help it, and he balanced the pebble under the ball of his foot, round and around.
‘What is it?’ Alba knew this had come out rougher than he had intended by the way Albion’s shoulders twitched, a sudden self-conscious jolt that made Alba click his tongue in regret and try again. He was still getting used to this, ‘What are you thinking about?’
Alba watch the curve of Albion’s brow furrow into a frown, light from the flames silhouetting him and making him appear older and unknown, ‘Do we turn human? When we die? Is that why Mama…’ he trailed off, no words needed.
‘No, we don’t,’ he said it confidently but really, Alba knew as much as anyone did. Which is to say, he knew nothing concrete at all. None of them truly knew what happened to Mama, although her disappearance was as sure and real to him as much as his own hand was. Mama wasn’t missing or elsewhere, she was gone. He felt it as a truth deep within him, somewhere ancient formed long before his time. No matter what Alba didn’t know, he knew this all too well, ‘we stay as we are. We fade, when our time comes.’
He could see that this reply brought more questions than it did answers and thought of a way to try and fill the gaps, ‘humans die from age or sickness, or injury. We die from other things.’
Albion turned around to face him fully, ‘Like what?’
‘By the Gods, what is it with you today? Why so many questions?’
Albion scowled and lightly kicked the pebble he was worrying away from the fire. It rolled somewhere to Alba’s left, landing by the roots of a small shrub. They both watched its progress, ‘doesn’t matter.’
Damn it. ‘Don’t be huffy, why’re you asking all of a sudden?’
Albion shifted his weight from one foot to the other and tensed under the blanket, pulling it tighter around him and huddling in on himself. He ducked his head to stare somewhere off and down, ‘You’ll laugh.’
‘No, I won’t,’ Alba was slightly offended, although it couldn’t say for sure that it was unwarranted. Maybe there had been times when he’d read his youngest brother wrong. Albion was often prickly and capricious and it was difficult to tell how he was truly feeling, hard to know whether he was hiding another truth under thorns.
Alba also wasn’t used to talking with him in such a way yet. Before Mama died, he could be a brother: tease Albion whenever he said something stupid, or fell over, or messed up. But now Alba had to be something more, had suddenly found himself thrust in a role he didn’t ask for and the shape of caregiver hung too large on him. He was trying to fill a space of parent for everyone but all he himself really wanted was for someone else to come and do it for him, for Mama to come back and fill it perfectly.
It was hard to know where to tread on a path you’ve never gone down before, especially one made by someone else.
Albion still looked unsure and as much as a large part of Alba was tempted to let it go, to take the easy option that was presented to him and move on with the evening, another, more stubborn, part wanted to prove Albion, and maybe himself, wrong, ‘I promise I won’t laugh. Now will you just spit it out?’
Albion remained staring somewhere at the ground between them, ‘what if-,’ he cut off, swallowing, ‘what if you die?’
There was a beat of silence in which a flurry of emotions coiled in Alba’s chest, ‘I will die. We all die.’
Albion pursed his lips tight together and blinked a few times in succession- too quick, ‘But I don’t- I don’t want you to.’
Alba’s throat felt thick suddenly, ‘Hey, come here.’
Albion refused to move, still studiously looking down at the ground and locked stubbornly in place, so Alba half stood to reach out and grab hold of the blanket and tug him closer. Albion stumbled at first, unwilling to allow himself to let go easily, but another tug had him near enough for Alba to wrap him in arms, falling back down into a sit with him. Once there, all pretence was dropped and Albion lifted his arms to curl them around Alba’s neck, chin coming to hook over his shoulder.
Alba shifted him to settle more comfortably on his lap, legs around his waist and blanket forgotten on the floor, and rubbed his back, holding him tight with his other arm. Albion’s hands gripped Alba’s tunic in a tight bunch, tugging it awkwardly askew around his back. They stayed there for a few moments, mostly silent and unmoving apart from the odd jolting repressed sob from Albion who still refused to give in completely.
After he’d calmed down, shaky breaths softening into regular breathing, Alba reached up to cup the back of his head and lightly ruffle his hair, ‘I’m not going anywhere any time soon.’
Albion sniffled and released one hold of Alba’s clothes to rub at his eyes, ‘How do you know?’
‘Because I do.’
Albion dropped his hand to once again grabbed hold of his tunic but looser, tugging and pulling at the fabric in a half-hearted distraction, and huffed, ‘That’s a stupid answer.’
Alba prodded him in the side, smiling when Albion twitched in surprise, ‘It’s the truth. I think Mama knew; we knew as well, didn’t we.’
Albion hmm’d, unwilling to agree. Alba knew he had noticed though, as small as he was. He had never fussed or questioned when she’d wandered away and left them, had never tried to follow her on her journeys alone. He had known, as they all had, that she was disappearing into time and a place no one could follow.
‘We are our people. We watch them and speak for them- we remember them,’ Alba shifted him and rested his cheek on the crown of Albion’s head, speaking into his hair, ‘when our people change, sometimes we can’t change with them. I think that’s what happened to Mama.’
Albion stayed silent. Alba could feel him thinking, sense him turning this over in his head to search for holes.
‘What brought this on?’ Alba tried again, gently. He felt Albion swallow against his shoulder.
‘Things feel more different now. Cymru goes away and sometimes I can’t feel where he goes. Ériu feels the most different and-‘ he paused for a moment, thinking, ‘humans feel different. Some I can’t feel them at all, I know they’re not mine now. So, I thought… what if…’
Alba raised his head and shrugged his shoulder for Albion to move off. He leant back, heavy in his lap, and Alba caught him by the chin to keep him from looking away, ‘Just because we’re growing apart now, doesn’t mean we’re going away,’ he smoothed a thumb under Albion’s eye before resting his hand on his neck, steady, ‘we’ll be different but we’ll still be here. You’ll know when it’s my time to go.’
Albion’s eyes slid to stare at Alba’s shoulder so he tapped him under the chin to get him to look back, ‘Alright? You’ll know.’
Albion gave a small nod, ‘yeah, okay.’
Alba eyed him critically, searching for anything lingering that he still wasn’t saying. Finding nothing and feeling satisfied that Albion had taken in what he’d said, Alba gave a moan and rubbed theatrically at his thighs, ‘Good, now get off- you’re heavy.’
Albion scowled, ‘No I’m not!’
‘By Gods you are, I can’t feel my legs.’
Albion shoved at his shoulder but stood, moving off to the side, ‘Maybe your legs are just weak.’
‘Maybe it’s all those raspberries you keep filching when you think I’m not looking.’
Albion coloured, ‘No it’s not!’
‘Must be, I did think you were looking rounder,’
Alba prodded Albion in the stomach and he scowled, swatting his hand away, ‘I’m not round!’
‘Well, you certainly ain’t a feather. Here,’ Alba picked up his block of wood and his carving knife and held them out to him, ‘help me work on this. It can be for you to carry the berries in rather than stuffing them in your shirt and staining everything.’
‘I don’t do that,’ Albion huffed but took the wood and tool anyway, sitting down next to him. Alba picked up the blanket and shook it out to shake off the dirt before draping it back around his shoulders.
‘Do you think I can’t tell? Stop grousing and hollow me out a hole, we can smooth it later.’
‘What are you going to do?’ Albion began to carve in the centre, widening the impressions Alba had made earlier.
Alba fished in his pocket for his hunting knife, ‘I’ll sharpen this and then go and check the rabbit traps.’
He leant behind him and around the tree for his travel bag, pulling it closer and rummaging about inside it for his whetstone.
‘Thanks.’
Albion’s voice was small and quiet- Alba probably wouldn’t have heard it if he hadn’t still been so alert to noise from him.
He prodded his brother on the arm with his knee and turned to carry on digging through his bag, ‘of course.’