Sunspark

ElfQuest Fanfic

By Maracae Grizzley

Leaf was booooaaaaaaard.

He had barely a hand and one of turns and he was not so skilled as his mother for finding his own entertainment. At least, the entertainment he found was not always the entertainment she would have liked for him to find.

This particular day he had driven his mother past distraction and she had banished him from the den lest he ruin yet another set of leathers that she was stitching into clothes for the tribe. This was after he had spilled her bowl of decorative seeds. And the bowls of powdered colors.

He kicked absently at a rock at the base of the Mother Tree and watched it roll over to where one of the hunters sat sharpening her spear. He frowned in sudden curiosity. The hunter was one he had seen each and every day of his short life. He walked over to her with the innocent assurance of cublinghood.

She looked up at him from her task, tilting her head slightly, to meet his grey-blue eyes with her brown ones. The cub had bright red-gold hair, like the leaves in the fading of the turn. The huntress' hair was plain brown, like tree bark. Her clothes, though, were in all shades of yellow and gold. Her face didn't mirror the brightness of her leathers.

"Why don't you smile?" the cub asked bluntly. Other adults smiled when he asked blunt questions, without preamble. The huntress did not. She also didn't answer. "Don't you know how to smile?"

She sighed. "I know how, cubling. I do not feel like it."

The cub blinked in surprise. He was the only cub in the tribe and all the adults smiled at him, and often. He could not imagine anyone not wanting to smile. He smiled all the time. At the trees. At the bugs. At the leaves when the wind carried them like they could fly. When he stood on a branch with his arms outstretched, wishing he could fly, too. "Howcum?"

She merely shrugged silently. "It does not matter, cubling. I do not find anything worth smiling about." She looked at the cub for only a moment longer. "And you are being sought by your mother."

He turned in surprise and saw that his mother had emerged from the den and was looking for him. He knew that look on her face. She had something for him to do and he wasn't going to enjoy it. He turned the other direction and fled.

He didn't look back to see the very small twitch to the huntress' lips. It wasn't a smile, but it was closer than he would have ever seen.

The huntress watched Leaf run off to find mischief somewhere his mother didn't want him to be and sighed in momentary envy. Time was, she had dreamed of cubs of her own, but that was a long time ago, when her world was brighter and smiles came easily and often.

Her tribename was Sunspark, but she had long since lost any brightness. She had seen cubs born and grow to hunters and she had watched too many of them die. Maybe Leaf would be one of the lucky ones to grow and have a cub of his own. She hoped so.

She hadn't always been silent. She hadn't always been somber. Once upon a time she had laughed and dreamed and loved among the trees of the Forest. But that was a very long time ago.

---

Arms wrapped themselves around her waist and Sunspark laughed as she turned to see who had distracted her from shaping a branch into a shaft for a new spear. "Oak!"

Oak smiled to see her joy. He could still remember her as a cub, serious to a fault, until the day he had taught her to smile, and since that day she had not stopped.

She had been the one to inform him that she was more than enough of an adult for what they both wanted, and she was the one who had moved her things from her parent's den and into his. Friends had become lovemates and one day, perhaps one day soon, they would make that step to become something more.

"I have something I want to show you."

She smiled and tilted her head in curious confusion as he did not Send her a picture. Oak?

He shook his head. No, Lovemate, I want you to see this with your own eyes.

She nodded and with another grin took his hand as he led her into the forest and away from the Holt.

Time had no meaning to Wolfriders in the Now, but the sky had started to brighten with the coming day when Oak slowed them and their wolves as he carefully led her to a break in the trees, and a great cliff edge. Sunspark watched with dazzled eyes as all of Abode stretched out before her and the sky bathed in colors as bright as she was with the rising sun. It was too beautiful for words. Oh, Oak . . .!

He smiled and wrapped his strong arms around her, breathing in the scent of her hair. I like seeing your joy as you see this world which is almost as beautiful as you are . . . He paused slightly before continuing, Lifemate.

She turned in his embrace, her eyes as round as the sun coming up from the edge of the world. Lifemate. The word felt strange in her mind, strange, but right. She smiled wide, her eyes filling with happy tears. My lifemate.

It was the most perfect moment of her life. Of course it had to end.

The wolves howled a brief warning before one of them was cut short with a painful yip. Sunspark cried out in pain as she knew, somehow, that it was her friend who had died suddenly.

Oak let go of her and started towards the forest, to see what had killed the wolf, with his sword in hand and ready when the giant beast, a long-toothed boar, came crashing out of the brush, running directly towards him.

Sunspark raised her spear, but she was too far away from Oak to stop what was happening. The boar never stopped. Whatever had set it running towards them had set it moving quickly enough that it couldn't stop. It caught Oak below the ribcage and carried him with it over the edge of the cliff.

The dawn sky was stained red with the rising sunlight as Sunspark screamed so loudly that she was surprised that it didn't burn out her voice. OAK!! LIFEMATE!!

She fell to her knees at the edge of the cliff as Oak's wolf, Greypelt, crept towards her, whining in pain. The boar had caught the female with the edge of a tusk, but the cut was shallow and not life-threatening. Sunspark looked over the edge and saw Oak, miraculously, hanging on to a very small ledge.

He looked up at her and smiled through the pain she knew that he was feeling. I'm sorry, lifemate, this wasn't part of the plan.

She tried to laugh, but it came out as something closer to a sob. Hold on, beloved, I'll call the tribe. Maybe we can use some vines or something to pull you up . . .

Then it happened.

Their eyes met across the distance and Sunspark thought that the entire world had spun around them like it used to do when she was a cub and would twirl herself dizzy. Bohl?

Oak's eyes widened in shock at the sound of his own soulname. High Ones . . . Sher?

Sunspark sobbed at the answering name. It had happened. Recognition. All she had ever hoped for and dreamed of. Sher belonged to Bohl and Bohl belonged to Sher, together, forever, and a little cub to follow, a piece of each of them made precious and unique.

She reached her hand out to Oak, her Bohl, stretching as far as she could while laying prone against the ground so that she wouldn't fall over herself. Her fingertips could almost reach his hands as he clutched the outcropping of rock that was all that kept him from falling all the way to the bottom.

Desperately she Sent to the tribe, and dimly heard a response. They were on their way, but it was going to be a while, even at a run on their wolves. She caught Oak's eyes. Hold on, Bohl. The tribe is coming. We'll find a way to save you.

The connection, though, told her much that he couldn't put into words. The boar had knocked the breath from him, and possibly broken ribs in the impact. It hurt to breathe. It hurt to hang on. His hands, even now, were slipping.

He looked up, tears in his eyes as he knew a truth that she was still denying. I love you, Sher. I love you forever. I will be the breeze that cools your face. I will be the light that warms you. His hands slipped a little further. Sher . . .

It was useless, but she couldn't help it. She stretched as far as she could, making Greypelt whine in concern as she bent over the edge further than before, still flat against the ground. Her fingertips brushed his before his hands lost all strength entirely and let go.

She could feel him falling. She could feel herself screaming. She could hear his voice whispering to her even as he fell to his death. Survive, Sher, please, for me. Survive and live. See our world, for both of us.

Then Bohl was gone and Sher felt like the sun had died with him.

---

The tribe found her at the edge of the cliff, with Greypelt beside her, curled up into a ball on her side. She didn't move. She didn't talk. She wouldn't Send. They found her wolf and saved the hide for her. It was all they could do to carry her back to the Holt.

She retreated into the den she had shared with Oak and didn't emerge from it for days. She didn't eat. She probably wasn't sleeping, either. Greypelt stayed close to the friend of his friend, filling the hole left by the loss of her wolf, but a wolf couldn't fill the hole that Bohl had left.

Eventually she crawled out of the den, thin and gaunt, with sunken eyes and sallow skin. She never let the healer touch her. She never let anyone touch her. They all thought that it was just grief that gnawed at her, not unfulfilled Recognition.

Recognition, though, wasn't kind enough to kill her. No matter how much she had wanted it to do so. She survived long enough to feel the effects of the ache wane and eventually disappear. Life returned to normal, sort of.

The spark that had made her live was gone with Oak. She survived, but she couldn't be said to really live. She didn't join with anyone, politely refusing when offered. She didn't take another mate, didn't even try, though more than one worried over the matter.

In a way, Sunspark had died with Oak, even though she still walked and hunted.

And she never dreamed of cubs of her own again.


Well, this story sort of wove itself around a character I rolled up using the random charts from the old EQ RPG book. I made some digital dolls of her on the Scroll of Colors discussion forum and then I wrote this story. It's not over yet, not really, but I'm still working out the details of the rest of the story. Please let me know what you think.

Mrs. Grizzley