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Chapter Text

Chapter Text

The Leather, the Leaf

Brandir needed not be told that autumn drew nigh—the birches spoke it to him daily, leaf by leaf, as they turned to gold and fell, to rust upon the forest floor. He would rest his crutch against a trunk, sink unsteadily to his knees, and fold himself onto his heels, taking some of those leaves into his hands. From childhood Brandir had done thus—there was a rare comfort and safety in the feel of their brittle roughness beneath his fingertips, something like leather, yet softer, gentler, guileless. In those leaves dwelt the very breath of home.

So he did likewise that day when he heard the cry from the path that wound toward the settlement, mingled with the pounding of hastening feet, heavy war boots trampling moss and grass. "Brandir! Brandir!"

Brandir rose at once, for he recognised that voice, and soon the face as well, as, through the pale sunlight, he beheld it. It was Dorlas, clad in his warrior's raiment, stained with blood and soil. His eyes, beneath the helm, was as ever: fierce, ardent and sure, yet there was also a fear within them Brandir had never seen before.

"We have brought Lord Handir—your father!" Dorlas gasped, fighting for breath. "He is dying!"

Brandir swayed, and clutched at his crutch in haste. He felt the blood drain from his face, and terror gripped him, greater, a thousandfold, than Dorlas' s own, and when he understood the reason why, self-loathing followed swiftly after. For it was not the sorrow for his father's possible passing that struck him deepest, but the knowledge of what must come to pass thereafter: that he, Brandir, by every law and custom, would now lead the Haladin. The very thought sickened him, yet all he said was, "Let us go!"

"Faster!" Dorlas' s sharp, judging glance spurred him onward as he dragged himself behind, even now, as ever, unable to keep pace. Dorlas had revered Lord Handir, and his eyes were the very image of the father's. Like the mirror's reflection.

"You are ever hiding behind your leg", his father had oft said, with displeasure and impatience in his voice. Brandir had remembered those words a hundred times before, yet now they rang with a crueler clarity.

"Ever hiding behind your leg..."

He halted for but the blink of an eye, drawing a great breath through his lips, yet still it seemed he could not find air enough; then he pressed on after Dorlas, toward the settlement.

He found his father in the Halls of the Halad, lying upon a bed near the hearth, surrounded by his men, who had surely carried him thither and, like Dorlas, had not yet even washed the filth and blood of battle from their limbs. Brandir scarce caught their voices; only fragments reached him: "Orcs", "ambush", "a hail of arrows"... The words seemed to echo again and again. Or perchance they were being spoken elsewhere, in some other's man world, or dream? For as he looked upon his senseless father, the only sound that came to him clearly was the chirring of a cricket, crying long and thin beyond the window. Small and black, like one of the holes in Handir's flesh where the arrows had been drawn forth. Perhaps that was what his father's wounds truly were—a gathering of tiny, black crickets, their ceaseless songs now marking the measure of his dying time.

For when the cricket fell silent, Handir's breath stilled likewise and came not again, leaving naught behind. No word for Brandir, no counsel, not even a groan or sigh. His father had been strong and always seemed unfeeling of pain; Handir had been the leather, and Brandir the trembling leaf, he had ever known it so.

He remembered it still when he took the staff of leadership into his hand, and for a fleeting moment wished it might replace his crutch and render it needless... but Brandir knew it would not. Never would.

"Ever hiding behind your leg", he told himself, as his gaze wandered over the faces of his father's men... no, his men now. Aye, his father had known him well indeed, for all that Brandir longed for in that moment was to hide and never emerge from his refuge again.

He hated himself for that wanting.