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“Brightstar?” Vanyel’s still-young voice echoes with concern.
Brightstar staggers on the other side of the Gate leaning heavily against the wooden walls, the trees now thick and sturdy, unlike him. He takes a deep breath, smelling the wet leaves and impending cold blowing down from the mountains. Autumn seems appropriate somehow, since he had lost Vanyel in the spring of the year and of his life.
Vanyel sounds closer when he asks, “What are you doing here?”
Brightstar waves a shaking hand, still trying to recover. A root erupts from the earth, twisting into a seat that he gratefully drops onto.
Looking back, I can't believe the first time I came here I hiked— and that my fathers didn't kill me themselves, he chuckles to himself a bit breathlessly. A familiar feeling of longing sweeps over him. When a kyree had finally arrived with the news, Brightstar had been determined to see the Pass for himself, to reassure himself that Vanyel was truly gone. He had been so eager to spread his wings and flee the nest he hadn't realized what he was leaving behind.
He smiles at the sound of wind blowing through the immense trees of the Forest. 25 years and I still find myself seeking them out for advice. Perhaps we'll meet again soon.
“It’s starting.” At Vanyel’s inquisitive look, he continues, “I’m finally at the end, Vanyel. I can feel the power burning.”
“And you risked a gate?” Vanyel sounds equal parts horrified and concerned.
Brightstar blinks at him. As soon as he realized what was happening, this was the only place he wanted— needed— to go. After all, it was Vanyel that Brightstar had run to when his fathers had breathed their last, so it seemed natural that he would come here now. “Where else would I be?”
“With your family, for one.”
“You are family.” Brightstar slumps and he finds himself wrapped in solid arms. The smell and feel of Vanyel, now so intertwined with safety and home, fills his senses again. “It’s been a century. Can you not admit it yet, my beloved third Father?” Brightstar tries to inject humor in his voice but then sobers when Vanyel makes a choking noise. “I know that you feel you’re stepping on toes, but they loved you until their own end.”
After a moment, Vanyel says, “They did the same, you know. Starwind and Moondance. I wish— wish Moondance hadn’t kept away for so long, but I was glad to see them before the end.”
Brightstar stiffens in surprise and the arms wrapped around him tighten in response. “I knew Father came here that one time, but I didn’t know they both had." He pauses, debating, before continuing, "It gladdens me, though. I think your death hit Papa harder than he ever admitted to.”
And now Brightstar himself was nearly at the end. It didn't seem like enough. In many ways, it felt like little more than a blink of an eye and sometimes he looked down and wondered whose gnarled hands these were.
Turning his head into Vanyel’s strong chest like he was still that long-ago child, he quietly asks, “Are you proud, Father?”
He feels a chuckle against his cheek.“You know very well there was never a moment when I wasn’t.” Vanyel sounded like he was making some effort to be amused. “Now you’re just hunting for compliments.”
Brightstar chuckles but doesn’t deny it. Instead, he smiles and closes his eyes, reveling in not being the elder, the one who everyone looks to, the one who must always be strong. That mantle had passed to him when Father passed, and he could admit he was ready to pass it on.
"I watched you, you know," Vanyel says, his voice sonorous where Brightstar's ear rests against his chest. With one last squeeze, Vanyel stands and Brightstar tracks his movements without opening his eyes. He hears the rustle of wood and then the warmth of the fire before Vanyel continues, "Well, I started with Moondance first, then Starwind. You and Moondance were always the easiest to find."
As he moves to sit stiffly before the fire, Brightstar makes an enquiring noise in the back of his throat. Luckily after over a century Vanyel knew him well enough to answer, saying, "I'm bound to the earth and you Heal it. Once I knew what to look for, it was easy enough to find you. It was lonely and terrible those first few years." Vanyel says almost to himself, then pauses for another moment, before continuing, "To be so close but so disconnected."
The boy Brightstar once was would have snapped that it had been hard for him too. The man he had grown into would have assured Vanyel that he was missed as well. The elder he is now merely leans over, wrapping an aching hand around Van's shoulder as well as he can, trying to maintain the connection just a little longer.
Sad as it was, the thought of Van watching him throughout his life warms his heart.
As young as he had been on that first trip, Brightstar hadn't considered all of the implications of Vanyel’s guardianship of the Forest of Sorrows. Looking back on it now, as young as Vanyel had been, Brightstar wasn't sure if he had considered the implications either. Brightstar had merely taken it at face value. After all, he had been raised to be the guardian and caretaker of the land and it wasn’t unheard of for a Tayledras to continue that work after their death.
Like sighing, the wind blows through the trees again.
It was difficult to think that he had lived three times as long as Vanyel had. I wonder if he realizes how much his death impacted everyone. Papa really wasn't the same, after. He swallows around the throb of grief that he has carried nearly his entire life. I'm not sure if I want him to.
There’s a quiet noise from the door of the hut as Stefen walks in concern written on his face. Smiling at the Bard, Brightstar says, “It's good that you’re here. You need to watch him for me. He doesn’t do well on his own.”
“Tell me about it,” Stefen says with a grin.
"Doesn't do well on my own? Me?," Vanyel asks archly, pulling back slightly to look down his nose at Brightstar. "I seem to recall one of the first times you were out on your own you decided to fight a colddrake."
Brightstar blinks as the pieces fall into place. The light that I saw that distracted me from the coldrake's eyes— a century later he could still picture it, and how close he had really come to being the Colddrake's next meal. "Papa was right? That was you?"
"I can't believe that your father at least didn't listen to him, but yes, it was me. That was the first time Moondance visited—well the only before the last. He said he needed to be sure that he saw me. I wish he—" Vanyel breaks off, sounding vexed and Brightstar isn't sure if it was from the infrequent visits or from Moondance's death.
Brightstar studies the man— spirit— across from him. He tried to warn me that first time, that he couldn't really be in my life and what that would mean. Although, I don't think either of us truly understood back then. Marriage, children, grandchildren, life really, and he missed it all living a— what did he call it then? A half-life.
After a long moment, Vanyel says, "I never could figure out how he even found me." He glances over at Brightstar when he snorts, and they share a rueful grin.
“That was Papa for you. I think he enjoyed surprising people.”
"Wait, I need to hear this story. Properly. From the start," Stefen says as he stirs the fire against the late autumn chill.
Van and Brightstar look at each other again, both wondering if the other will start.
And just like that, the afternoon takes a turn. As the hours go by Vanyel and Brightstar entertain Stefen with stories of those long gone, while Stefen pouts that he can’t write any of it down. Then Stefen told stories of his time as a Bard, running up and down the length of Valdemar. It wasn’t until nearly dawn that they wind down, with Brightstar noticeably flagging.
“It’s not fair,” Brightstar says, finally giving voice both to a long-ago thought, and his impending death spurred by the power he had worked with his entire long life. As they lapse into a moment of silence Brightstar looks around the sturdy hut, remembering how it was the first time he saw it when the trees were barely more than saplings. So many years, and he was right, we all moved on without him.
“It’s not, and I’m sorry.”
The quiet apology pulls Brightstar from his woolgathering. “Why do you apologize?”
“I've had a lot of time to think,” Vanyel says, sounding rueful. “In those last months, I made so many mistakes, Brightstar. So many. I could see that, in the instant after. No matter how powerful we are, though, we can’t change the past.”
It’s possible, Brightstar thinks, that I might be the only one to know the cost of these years on Van. Brightstar knew that even now Vanyel longs for a natural life, and a natural end. However ageless Vanyel appears to be, the deaths of his loved ones one by one have taken a lasting toll on him. And now I’m the last.
“If asked, I would say that I have lived a full life without regret—” Brightstar pauses and considers the figures sitting beside him. “Those ten years after my first visit, and then just how infrequent and how little I’ve seen you is one of the few regrets I have.”
Vanyel chuckles, “Two children one after the other would see to that. Does Dawnsinger remember coming here?”
“I don’t know, though I’ve wondered. You being confronted with a child almost made everything else worth it.”
Vanyel’s chin ducks and he runs his hands through his hair. “It wasn't a child, it was your child. You were too young—”
“—older than you,” Brightstar interrupts with a laugh before sobering. “Still, I always thought there would be more time. How many times did I visit? A dozen?”
Vanyel looks at him, eyes glassy. “Not enough, I agree.” He swallows several times before continuing, “I remember the fourth time I looked at you and realized you were older than I ever was.”
“I remember about the sixth or so that you suddenly looked so young.”
“I was,” Vanyel says quietly, all traces of earlier mirth gone. Brightstar pulls him into a hug for a long minute, before Vanyel pulls back and stands up.
As he looks up at Vanyel's form, Brightstar suddenly feels young— like he was once again that arrogant boy of so, so long ago.
He suddenly, desperately wants the comfort of his fathers again. He wants Vanyel, and to know everyone is safe and whole. “Where does this leave you?” he asks, hating how small and weak his voice was, but feeling small and weak all the same.
Vanyel smiles warmly. “I'll be here, until my— our— watch is done. I’m so, so proud of you. I wish—” he breaks off with a sigh.
“How did you say it all those years ago? That our paths didn’t fork here?” Brightstar smiles a thin, pained smile, as Vanyel wavers a bit at the edges. “Remember me.” I’m afraid we’ve reached the final parting of the ways.
Vanyel pauses, indulging in a sharp inhale that he doesn’t need. “Of course, how could I ever forget?,” his voice shakes with emotion and he presses an acorn into Brightstar's hands. “Keep this close,” Van says quietly looking at Brightstar like he was trying to memorize him. "I’ll make the Gate"
Before Brightstar can cross the Gate’s threshold, Vanyel pulls him in for a long hug and gently kisses his forehead. Smoothing away a tear from Brightstar’s creased face, he murmurs quietly, “Zhai'helleva, ke’chara”
Brightstar looks around the hut one last time. “Zhai'helleva, Father.”
A week later, Brightstar lays surrounded by family, clutching the acorn when he looks to an empty gap in the crowd and smiles at the indistinct figure there. Dawnsinger looks but turns back with a frown when he weakly squeezes her hand.
"Father, what—"
“It’s alright, Vanyel is here. He’ll watch over you for me,” he says and gasps as some primitive impulse tries to keep drawing air. As his vision blurs and dims, the burning of power finally fades and he feels a sense of peace. He had lived a full life and had few regrets.
Looking back to the gap in the crowd he sees Vanyel glow still brighter, his features more defined, yet he is still unseen by anyone else. "It's alright," he whispers again.
Later, Vanyel joins the crowd in the chambers below the Heartstone. Brightstar stood here with him for Moondance and Starwind, he stood with Brightstar for Featherfire, and now Vanyel stands alone.
Brightstar was the last.
Vanyel’s heart twists seeing the silver eyes and narrower faces of so many in attendance. Not for the first time he regretted the arrogance of his younger self– not even twenty and convinced he wouldn’t live ten years. He never gave a second thought to what he would leave behind.
He wasn’t supposed to be left behind.
Then Vanyel sees the shroud-covered body and knows that he could never regret it. Would never, for however long he lives this strange existence as a spirit of the land. It was worth any pain, to have kindled such a beautiful, bright light, and to have known him for all of his days.
Vanyel hears the deep vibration that seems to go through his incorporeal form like a wave as the door to the heat chamber below the Heartstone itself opens. He is surrounded by so many bloodkin, and yet more alone than he’s ever been. Vanyel closes his eyes and the shrouded body disappears one final time, the sounds of the traditional chant offering little comfort.
This is the heaviest weight,
But I am strong, and I bear it.
This is the most solemn part of their story,
But while we live, their story will be known.
Vanyel hears the wind chimes play upon their beaded ropes, for all of those that could not attend. He knows that if he looked, he could find the blue and white one that represents him. It has hung in four vales now. Without opening his eyes, he feels the deep vibration again of the final chamber and knows his son returns to the wind. I may not live, but I will never forget you.
Four centuries later, Vanyel finds himself in front of a motley group of mages, Heralds, and gryphons of all things. His eyes keep straying to his many-times-great-grandson. Vanyel hides his grin as Firesong tosses his hair, recognizing the insecurity that underlies the gesture, and the young man’s need for recognition.
I think you’d have liked him, son, though I can just imagine the arguments.
Firesong doesn’t look at all like Brightstar, of course, too much time has passed. However, he’s gifted, handsome, and young enough to be a bit arrogant— the similarities were enough to make whatever passes for Vanyel’s heart hurt. The wind sighs through the towering trees and he takes a deep breath— such as he can— and imagines that he breathes in what is left of Brightstar.
I think I’ll be proud of him, like I always was of you.