Chapter Text
The night has long since moved in, and he is tired in the way that only the young can be. He's lying on her, his head on his mother's stomach. Both wrapped up in a blanket, woven into pictures of the gods. Her chest moves up and down, and Tamlen's body moves in time with her.
Then his mother shifts, moving from her back to her side, curling her legs inward. Tamlen emerges from his slumber. Blue eyes open to the inside of his parents' aravel, where the shadows have swallowed all that he knows. He shivers against the damp cold of the night and pulls the blanket tighter around his shoulders.
His mother told him stories of the beings that haunt the night. Demons and spirits that would snatch away an unsuspecting child. Tamlen tries his hardest to look alert, blue eyes moving in the dark. He is not afraid, he tells himself, he is not afraid of what lies in the dark. He is six years old, too old, he thinks, to be scared of a story, yet he clasps the blanket tighter.
He looks at the space where the window would be, where in the daytime he could look out at the trees, and the aravels, and at the people he calls his clan. What he would give for the sunlight to shine through, that he could watch the birds fly, and the ants crawl, but the sun is gone, eaten away by the night.
There's a crunch outside, and Tamlen turns his head, heart beating faster and faster. He is not alone. The creatures will not come to take him. He is not unsuspecting. He is awake, and he is alert.
The latch on the door creaks. He makes to hide under the blanket, to huddle closer to his mother. His breathes grow warm, caught in the dark space beneath the blanket.
"Tamlen."
A whisper. He pokes his head out of the blanket, eyes wide.
"Tamlen."
Eyes reflect back at him. They shine at the doorway of the aravel, half in, half out.
He knows him, the reflection in his eyes.
"Sul'salin?"
In the doorframe, Sul'salin cocks his head. "I've got something to show you." He disappears, gone back outside, as swiftly as he came.
Tamlen lies there but for a moment, then lets go of the blanket, stands, and goes to follow Sul'salin out the door.
Sul'salin, three, four, five steps ahead, beckons Tamlen. "Come on, come on, it'll go away soon."
Tamlen wonders how he got out. The clan does not lock their doors or hide away their valuables, but Ashalle keeps Sul'salin closer than others, though apparently not close enough if he's out here this late.
Vestiges of fear still cling to Tamlen. Feet meet the dewy grass, and he turns his head from side to side.
"Are you sure about this?"
Sul'salin turns around. A stick has materialized somehow in his hand. "Of course," he says, swinging the stick around. "We're going to miss it if we don't."
"Miss what?" Tamlen feels like he's back in front of Paivel, getting lost, being left behind in a lesson.
They walk to the back end of the camp, past the still-smoldering fires, and darken aravels. The clan members on watch will be bypassed and avoided by Sul'salin, who it seems, with his swift feet and whirlwind haste, has gone this way before.
Saplings leave water on Tamlen's shirt, the last remnants of a rainstorm from earlier. He follows Sul'salin dutifully, watching his hair glow and darken with the patterns of the trees and moonlight. They almost have the same hair color, Sul'salin's more blonde, yellow bordering on white. His mother always says that they could be brothers, with how much they look alike, except for their eye colors. Tamlen's ice blue, and Sul'salin's unusual purple. He's overheard his mother and Ashalle say that the grey-ish purple was from his mother, but there's no way of checking. Sul'salin's mother is long gone.
Tamlen bumps into Sul'salin, who has stopped in front of a tree. An old one, by the looks of it. Its branches are far from the trunk, and the leaves create a dome, shielding the forest floor. Sul'salin throws his stick to the side and starts to climb. The bark creaks, threatening to give way.
"Follow my lead," he says, "Those branches to the left may break, but these won't."
Tamlen follows Sul'salin once more. The tree dwarfs the two small boys, who reach the halfway point. They sit together, and the wind picks up, swaying the branch. Tamlen can feel the gentle movement under him.
Sul'salin is looking down, his head swiveling from side to side.
"What are you looking for?"
"Shh." And then, whispered into Tamlen's ear, "You have to be quiet, or else it won't come."
Tamlen gives Sul'salin a worried look. His fears from the dark reemerge. What is he waiting for? A wolf that gobbles up children? A demon? An abomination? He doesn't want to ask, both afraid of the answer and reluctant to speak again, lest Sul'salin shush him again.
And so he waits. And waits. And waits. The leaves rustling in the wind are like a lullaby to him, and his eyelids grow heavy. He is almost asleep when Sul'salin nudges him with his elbow. He startles and almost yells, expecting to see the creatures from his nightmares.
"There," Sul'salin whispers. His voice is so serious it cuts off any worry that Tamlen might have voiced.
And below them, nearing the trunk of the tree, is a stag. In the moonlight, his huge antlers almost glow, some of the velvet still attached. Tamlen almost laughs. This is what he was afraid of? This beast?
It climbs around the roots lifted up from the ground. It shuffles, then rubs its antlers against the tree. Its darker hue belies brown dyed with shadows.
"How did you know?" he asks.
Sul'salin doesn't look away from the stag. "There were marks on the tree. Scratches. I saw them when your mother took me out gathering berries earlier."
The stag starts to walk away, northward, away from the tree. The expelled velvet lies at the base of the tree. At the edge of the branches, it stops and turns back to the tree.
Its black eyes bore through Tamlen. What should be exciting, electrifying to him, only causes him to bristle with uneasiness. It seems endless behind those eyes, like it knows they are there. But maybe more than that, like it sees them beyond their bodies. He shuffles closer to Sul'salin, searches his face for any sign of the same uneasiness, eager to share in his fright. But there is none. Sul'salin is wide-eyed in wonder. It scares Tamlen, whatever is happening, whatever this is.
"Let's go." Urgently, he shakes Sul'salin's arm, and it seems to break whatever spell he is under. Sul'salin shakes his head from side to side. The stag, as if spooked, retreats off into the distance, its hooves an echo of Tamlen's fear.
"Wasn't that neat?" Sul'salin says, and his smile is so wide, so happy, that Tamlen's anxiety almost disappears. But he can't get what he saw out of his head.
"We should go back." Tamlen slides down the ladder of branches, already foreseeing their departure. "I want to get back before anybody wakes up."
Sul'salin looks down at the bloody velvet left behind by the stag. To Tamlen's horror, he bends to grab it.
"Ashalle will be worried," he says, a last-ditch effort before Sul'salin's hands reach the ground. "You don't want to worry her, do you?"
Sul'salin's hands retract, as if whacked. He straightens, casting one long look back to the velvet before looking at Tamlen.
He has to turn away. Tamlen fears that he'll see the same thing in Sul'salin's eyes as he saw in the stag, that all-seeing feeling.
"Let's go," he says again, trying to focus on a spot in the darkness.
"I guess," Sul'salin says. Only a whisper, but there is a longing in his voice that Tamlen tries to ignore.
If Tamlen holds Sul'salin's hand a little too tightly on the walk back, Sul'salin doesn't say anything. Tamlen takes it as a good thing. He does not want his friend to get lost in the dark.