In Childhood's Hour

Ynaevir

10

"Lethallin, come on, get down from there! The hunters are back!" Gheyna called out to him, hitting her palm against the base of the tree Ynaevir had scaled earlier that morning to escape his chores, looking out at the halla pen as the newest baby found his legs and walked in the middle of the herd. From his perch, Ynaevir leaned over, peering down at the red-haired girl, and then off to where she pointed. Sure enough, three of the older Dalish were returning, all of their faces unmarked.

The three of them dragged with them, quite laboriously, a relatively young adult bear.

"Come on, you're so slow!" the younger child chirped, dashing off down the clearing, disappearing between two aravels to get as close as she could to the returning hunting party, a sharp rock clasped in her spare hand, ready to try and snatch a bit of bear fur when the opportunity was ripe.

Adjusting the flimsy, dirt-covered linen shorts that were ill-fitting after his last growth spurt, the eight year old boy shimmied down the tree, letting himself fall for the most part. The return of a hunting party was always an exciting event for the children of the clan—they viewed this one much the same as any other, with the added bonus of getting to watch as Zathrian marked each of the returning elves with the vallaslin, a testament to successfully reaching adulthood and becoming contributing members of the clan.

That was the part that Ynaevir liked.

He did not like to see the dead animals very much. It made him upset.

Following the path Gheyna had taken, the taller boy nearly smacked himself in the face once he rounded the corner of the aravel, only just managing to duck underneath the protruding board of the dwelling. The path to the gathering was short, all he had to do was skip over the posts that extended from the backs of the aravels, avoid tripping over a satchel of dried berries, and make his way down the low rise. Joining the others, he stooped down at the waist to try and peer between the legs of the adults, dark brows furrowing. The clan gathered around the returning hunters, the slightest of smiles on their faces, and pride in their eyes, but there was no cheering or hollering of praise.

"Well done, Bel'len. You've honored Andruil with this kill, and will honor your clan with your actions, of that I am sure," Zathrian said, striding through the throngs of the Dalish gathered, coming to stand in front of the three adolescents, all of which touched their hearts and dipped their heads to the Keeper—the only elf to have discovered the secret to their long lost immortality.

Ynaevir crawled forward between the legs of the adults, coming to crouch with Gheyna and her brother, Ghedan. Her brother was Ynaevir's age, perhaps a little older, and the two boys did not get along very well.

"Aw, Gheyna! What'd you go inviting him for?" Ghedan complained in a hissed whisper, elbowing his younger sister and then running his hand through his mop of strawberry blonde hair, sparing Ynaevir the barest of disgusted glances before setting his sights on the bear once more.

"I'm going to try to get a claw," he announced, promptly forgetting how much Ynaevir's presence irritated him in favor of showing both of them how sneaky he could be to get one of the much sought after claws for his own.

"—Not supposed to do that…" Ynaevir mumbled, almond-shaped eyes fixed on the ground between Ghedan and Gheyna rather than looking directly at either one of them. Whenever his eyes accidentally touched theirs, his gaze quickly slithered away, roving about the legs of the adults, instead, as though they were far more interesting. Slow to warm up to others, Ynaevir had been marked as an odd child from a very early age, and the label had stuck with him as he had grown. It caused him some grief with other children, but adults treated him exactly the same as the other children, with remarkable patience for his avoidance and slowed responses. It was simply his nature, like it was the nature of the wind to weave through the trees in the early morning, and how it was the nature of the rabbit to sit idly, twitching its whiskers and tail before bounding away with lightning quickness.

Children, without the wisdom of adults, were not nearly so forgiving, and Ghedan was no exception. Tolerating the taller boy only because sometimes he felt he needed an audience, and that that audience needed to be more than just his younger sister, Ghedan often made it a point to remind Ynaevir that he was, at best, his own personal charity case.

Much to Ghedan's ire, it seemed as though Ynaevir had very nearly stopped caring two years prior.

"Don't be such a spoil-sport," Ghedan rolled his eyes, crawling forward as the new hunters were led forward by Zathrian and the Hahrens, leaving the prized bear unguarded and left for the crafters to strip it of anything and everything that was useful. The bear's blood, what they could get from it at this point, would be mixed with the ink used to tattoo the faces of each of the new young hunters. A claw, Ghedan rationalized, wouldn't be missed, and it would look very nice around his neck.

"It's okay, Ynaevir, everyone is supposed to get something, right?" Gheyna tried to reassure him, smiling up at the dark-haired boy and bumping her hip against him, nearly knocking him over. The older boy flicked his eyes at her, then quickly moved them away, forcing an uneasy smile and nodding slowly. That was true, in a way. A kill was used in some capacity for the entire clan. Need came before greed, and it was a system that had worked very well for quite some time.

The problem was that Ghedan did not need the claw, just as Gheyna did not need a small bit of fur, and the children were the very last of those permitted to loot corpses. This ensured that the crafters had their pickings of whatever they needed to make their tools and trades before a child snatched something up and ran off with it, promptly losing it in the bed of a creek.

Reluctantly, the tall, sinewy boy followed after the two red-haired children, crouching down behind them and watching as the adults took their time around the bear, several of them struggling to heft up its furry haunches so that another could cut the throat and drain whatever blood was available. Luckily, the kill was fresh enough, and a small wooden bowl was filled to capacity with blood that hadn't coagulated just yet.

The sight of the bear's lifeless eyes staring at him while the knife hacked open its throat made Ynaevir feel somewhat queasy, and he looked off to the left, trying to focus on the halla in their round pen while the 'gross stuff' was handled by the adults. The round pen was, as expected, much the same as always, with the great white deer plodding lazily from here to there, munching on fresh leaves and twigs, soft eyes looking from each other to the elves that they cohabitated with.

Ynaevir liked the Halla. They were sweet and affectionate, and enjoyed nosing his hands and nibbling at the top of his head whenever he walked with them, petting them fondly. The best part was that he never had to see any of the hunters kill one of them or cut them open. The very worst he had seen was a halla that was very old lying down after nuzzling the tender of the hallas, as though in thanks, and deciding to drift into a deep sleep that he never did wake up from. Ynaevir had been young at the time, perhaps four or five, but he remembered the mournful sighs of the halla as they had gathered around their very own hahren.

It was never like that when the hunters returned with wolves, badgers, bears, or gigantic cats. For a brief moment when everyone was still gathering around the animal, it looked vaguely peaceful, but once the hacking and blood draining and skinning began, Ynaevir lost any and all desire to be around the scene. Having an unfortunately low constitution seemed a curse that would never leave the boy, and some adults wondered openly exactly how he would fare years down the road when his own hunt occurred.

"You can look for a little while, Ynaevir, Varathorn forgot his skinning knife," Gheyna whispered to him, cupping her hand at the base of his obnoxiously long ear, as though it were some great secret that she were telling the other child.

Hesitantly, Ynaevir stole a glance at the carcass of the bear, its throat cut open and still draining slowly onto the dirt. Thankfully, once the hunters had set his haunches down once again, the flow of blood was much slower than it could have been. Making a face, Ynaevir crept forward along with the other two children, squatting by the mouth of the bear and picking up the tip of its tongue with his fingers, trying to delicately place it back inside of its powerful maw—which, as it turned out, was impossible for the boy to shut entirely. Growing anxious at this, Ynaevir fidgeted and had to make himself look at the halla again, dark brows lowered will ill feelings that he didn't understand.

Ghedan, meanwhile, took the opportunity to tug a massive paw into his lap, examining the claws at length to try and pick out the very best one for himself. At last, he made his choice, isolating that toe and forcing it to extend, snatching a da'mi from off of the ground to try and cut into the toe and remove the claw without damaging it.

"And I suppose you lot are helping Varathorn and Master Leyradan?" a skeptical voice startled the three children, causing all of their faces, filled with a strange mix of guilt and youthful innocence to turn towards Danyla. The woman smiled down at them, causing the branches of her tattoo to shift and wrinkle, lifting up towards the sky, it seemed.

"Here, Ghedan, you'll never get the claw cutting it like that," she chided the oldest boy, coming to squat beside him, placing her callused hands over his and guiding them through the task, patting his back as though he were a babe in need of a burping once he happily picked up the freed claw.

The anxiety in the pit of his stomach settled some when Ynaevir focused on the woman that had nursed him during infancy, and he crept closer to the woman, trying to hold one of her hands once she had finished helping Ghedan with his task. He still did not meet her gaze, but continued to look out at the halla, watching as a mother nipped at the flank of her own baby with her lips, chiding the calf to get it to stand up again from where it had settled and move out of the rest of their way.

"You know, Gheyna, I'm getting a portion of the pelt. I'd thought about making some gloves with it, but if you were very sweet, I could try to fit the fur into a pair of boots for you, instead." Danyla gripped Ynaevir's hand in return, moving her arm to pull the boy closer against her side, but not forcing him to turn to look at the body of the bear.

Gheyna, as it happened, was enthralled by this idea, and after kissing Danyla's cheek, she sprinted off to go and brag to her brother, who was discovering rather quickly that he had another dilemma—how was he supposed to clean the claw and punch a hole through it to tie it to the leather thong he had?

"Are you alright, Da'len?" Danyla's soothing voice roused Ynaevir, and his head tipped back so that he could look up at the corner of her eye, nodding his head slowly and leaning the side of his head against the soft mounds of her chest, listening to her heartbeat thrumming.

"I'm glad we don't kill the halla," Ynaevir murmured, running his thumb over a particularly rough callus on Danyla's fingertip as she held the boy who was, for all intents and purposes, the closest thing she had to a child of her own.

"I think that Ghilan'nain would have very stern words to say about that," Danyla smiled, looking off in the direction that Ynaevir had been staring, blinking at what was, to her, a less than remarkable sight. A hunter first and a mother second, Danyla didn't always understand the gentle nature of Ynaevir, but it seemed that Mythal had blessed her thus far with the patience and love to wait for him to explain himself. As she watched, a mother halla draped its neck over the shoulders of her calf.

Ynaevir shrugged, fidgeting restlessly in Danyla's arms, growing upset once more when Varathorn returned with the proper skinning knife, prepared to get into the truly gory portions of the work. Seeing this, Danyla drew in a deep breath and placed a kiss at the top of his head, patting Ynaevir on the back before standing and pulling the boy to his feet as well.

"Why don't you go and play with Gheyna and Ghedan, Da'len? The three of you could go to the stream that you helped Hahren Vita wash cloths in the other day," Danyla suggested, gently pushing him in the direction of the other two children. He was reluctant to leave her, she could see as much by the way that he stiffened, but the sound of Varathorn settling down to work with a heavy sigh was enough of a push to send him quickly skittering off towards the other children. Danyla watched them for several moments, taking note of the usual affectionate and welcoming greeting that Gheyna gave her friend and playmate, and the eye-roll that Ghedan loved to practice on Ynaevir whenever he could.

Placing a hand over her womb that no longer bled, Danyla slowly turned back towards Varathorn, smiling as her mate, Athras, joined them to help in the skinning.

"That boy, Ynaevir—he's never going to get his vallaslin if he doesn't get over his squeamishness." Varathorn said as he worked, sighing in exasperation at the sloppy cut someone had used to drain the blood from the neck. "He's not got it in him to be a hunter. Won't find a mate, won't be trusted to pass knowledge to children—he'll always be a child." He went on, and Danyla wasn't sure if he was speaking more to himself or to her and Athras, as well.

"He'll be fine," Danyla murmured, squatting down to help hold the bear still for Varathorn to work. His hands were steadier than her own when it came to crafts, as blessed by June as he was. "I remember the first time you saw an animal gutted, Varathorn. You bent right down and threw up." She teased the older man, smiling gently as she looked up at him.

Varathorn and Athras both shared a chuckle at the memory, but it was short-lived as a more somber thought settled over the three of them. It was true that the gruesome work was a startle the first time, or perhaps the second as well, but it was mandatory work that they grew used to.

Ynaevir, it seemed, never would.

So much of Dalish life was centered around the hunt, and if not the hunt itself, the jobs that the clansmen held were a result of the hunt. If he wasn't favored by Andruil, that was fine—many Dalish didn't have the eye, ear, or skill for the hunt, but Sylaise and June were the siblings of Andruil, and the gods of the hunt, hearth, and craft all worked together to achieve great things, and harmony among the clan. Ynaevir could not kill an animal, and it seemed that he could not watch as one that was already dead was tended to. What left for him was there, despite what Varathorn had said, remaining a child in the clan for the rest of his life, contributing very little, and being trusted with nothing? That was not the life of the Dalish.

To Danyla, and to many others, something like that wasn't much of a life at all.

Swallowing her concern, Danyla touched her shoulder to Athras, leaning against him and looking out to the halla pen once more, trying to see what it was that Ynaevir saw when the boy looked in on the gentle creatures. The calf was up to its antics once more, strutting around and trodding on the edges of hooves, braying loudly and starting to bounce itself off to the edge of the pen. Still unable to see, Danyla shook her head, attention turned back to the messy job ahead of them.

With her eyes downcast, and her attention focused on the bear beneath them, Danyla never saw the calf bounce itself right over the low fence posts of the pen, and down the side of the hill, braying a victory chant all the while, drifting farther and farther from his mother, who watched him warily until he was out of sight, and then brayed loudly, calling out to him, trying to get her baby to come back to her.

The keeper of the halla sighed, picking up her staff and slumping off in the direction the halla had taken, determined to drag the calf back to the group by his nostrils for the third time that week.

Across the camp, Gheyna, Ghedan, and Ynaevir yipped and cheered giddily as they skipped over the low slope and around the bend, deep into the brecilian forest and off on their latest adventure.