The Face in the Shadows
Chapter Six
Brenna sat cross-legged in the clearing, lost in thought as the constant noise of the stream running by drowned out the rest of the world. She had mucked out all the stalls in the barn and was looking for something else to do, but her father insisted that she go for a walk and "enjoy the sunshine." The truth was, she'd rather be mucking out stalls, because then she only had to think about what she was doing in the moment.
Her mind drifted to Rupert, and dwelled there. She was making him miserable, the same way she'd always made her father miserable, and she didn't know how to stop. If she left him, he wouldn't be any better off, not after what she'd done to him. She'd given him no choice. A creature-empath mates for life... The words haunted her even here. Rupert was trapped, and she didn't like having that kind of power over him. Yet whether she stayed or left, it made no difference. They were both trapped. And it was her own fault. If she'd just realized…
Brenna sighed. Her mind was going around in circles again. It couldn't seem to stop. Well, when she got back, she'd try her best to please Rupert, both in bed and out. There was nothing else she could do.
"Am I intruding?"
The sound of Elaan's voice startled her, but it was a welcome relief from the path down which her thoughts were leading her. "No, of course not. It's your home, after all."
Elaan set a small wooden box down on a rock and arranged her skirts to sit on the ground beside Brenna, and Brenna indicated the box. "What's that?"
"My flute," Elaan replied, smiling. "I come up here sometimes to practice, so I don't annoy Timmon or Aren every time I hit a sour note."
"Oh, I'm sorry," Brenna said, rising. She mentally added one more person to the list of people whose lives she was successfully sabotaging. "You wanted to be alone."
"No, please stay. If I wanted to be alone, I would have gone elsewhere when I saw you."
Elaan's words caused her to hesitate. There was a sincerity in them, a genuine wish to be with her that Brenna hungered to hear. What the Hell, Brenna thought. I'm supposed to get to know her. She sat down again.
"It is not often I can enjoy the company of someone besides Timmon and Aren," Elaan said.
"I'm afraid there's not much to enjoy," Brenna said, covering the truth of her statement with a smile.
"Oh, but there is," Elaan replied. "It is very strange, but...I feel close to you, somehow. I feel like I have always known you, and yet I really know nothing about you."
"Count yourself lucky," Brenna told her, giving another false smile.
Elaan didn't return the smile. Instead, she asked, "Why do you belittle yourself?"
"It was a joke."
"I see. Well, then, I fear that off-world humor escapes me."
"Don't worry. It wasn't all that funny."
Elaan looked around the clearing, and changed the subject. "This is one of my favorite places," she murmured.
"I can see why," Brenna replied. "It's lovely here. I've never seen anything so beautiful before, except in pictures or holos."
"But there are many such places."
"On your world, perhaps. Not on mine."
Elaan settled herself turned to Brenna. "Tell me about your world."
"Which one? The one where I grew up, or the one I plan to live on?"
"Both."
Brenna shrugged. "They're similar, in many ways. They're both barren, desolate places. Tatooine's a lot drier, of course. And hotter. You heard Dad tell a little about it last night. That's where I grew up. It's got two suns, and there's just barely enough water to support a few cities, maybe raise some crops here and there, if you can yank enough moisture out of the atmosphere. Most of it's desert, with a few rock mountain ranges. A few life forms scattered around, most of them dangerous, all of them struggling just to survive. The land is very harsh and unforgiving."
"And the other?"
"Just as stark, though not as hot and dry. The air outside is breathable, and there are seasons of a sort, even a few bodies of water here and there, but no life. Everything native to Croyus Four was killed off in wars. At one time, the planet was supposed to have looked very much like this one, but that was long before I was born. Now, for life to exist there, food and shelter have to be brought in."
Elaan frowned thoughtfully. The name 'Tatooine' hadn't meant anything to her, but the name 'Croyus Four' seemed vaguely familiar.
Brenna sighed and went on, oblivious to Elaan's reaction. "It's possible to reclaim the land, plant trees and introduce other life forms, but the process is very expensive. Nobody else has done it, and I certainly don't have the money to."
Elaan shook off the almost-memory. "If it is so desolate, why would you want to live there?"
Brenna shrugged. "It's got buildings and other facilities already established. And for what I want, its location would be just about perfect." She shook her head. "I don't know why I'm going on about this. I haven't got a prayer of getting the money I'd need to renovate."
"Is this for the rescue center your father mentioned?"
Brenna glanced at her. "You know about that?"
"Your father told me a little. He said he was very proud of you for wanting to do so much."
Brenna blinked. "He did?" For an instant, her defenses lowered.
"Yes."
"What else did he say?"
"He said that…while the cause is worthy, he is worried that you may be taking too much on yourself in its implementation."
There it was again, her inadequacies hitting her in the face. "He doesn't think I can handle it?" Her tone made it clear that she would handle it. She'd handle it if it killed her.
"That was not his meaning," Elaan replied. "He just thought...you were putting a lot of pressure on yourself, especially after your recent experiences."
Brenna realized that she was showing more of herself than she wanted, and put on a mask of non-emotion. "I can handle it," she said matter-of-factly.
"He did not imply that you could not. He was just...concerned for your well-being." Elaan's words slipped in through a section of the wall she hadn't yet fortified. But somehow, they seemed more like the words of a friend rather than an enemy.
Brenna decided she'd better change the subject, before Elaan gained access to all the secret places of her soul. She looked for something to say, and her eyes landed on the flute case. "Won't you play something?"
Elaan chuckled. "Only if you can stand to hear," she said. Then she looked around the clearing. "But not here." She rose to her feet and held a hand out to help Brenna up. "Come."
Brenna could see no reason not to, so she allowed herself to be pulled up. "Where are we going?"
"You will see," Elaan said, eyes sparkling.
Brenna frowned. There was no danger in those dancing eyes, yet she felt as if she was losing something, as if something was slipping away from her, but it didn't seem to be anything important.
She didn't realize that what she had lost was a tiny piece of the weight she'd been carrying.
Elaan took Brenna higher up the mountain to a small, gently sloping meadow. It was much quieter here than in the clearing with the stream. The birds were further away, and there was no water rushing nearby. Still, when Elaan stopped and spread her arms in a triumphant gesture, Brenna was confused.
"I don't see what's so spe—" she began, then caught her breath. The hills carried her voice back to her in a resonant echo.
"Exactly," Elaan said in a voice quiet enough not to carry. The smile never left her face. She motioned for Brenna to sit down and opened her flute case. The instrument was wooden, segmented into pieces, obviously hand-carved. When Elaan put the pieces together, they fit perfectly, testifying to the craftsmanship of the carver. She left the case on the grass, faced away from Brenna, seemed to consider something for a moment, then blew across the mouth-hole to produce a single, pure tone. The note held, then blended into another, and another, until the notes became a melody, sad and sweet. The tempo borrowed and gave, reluctant to give up the past, yet moving inexorably into the future. It was beautiful.
When the last note faded and died and the echo faded as well, Brenna was genuinely sorry that there was no more. "That was...lovely," Brenna said quietly.
"I have always liked that one," Elaan admitted. "Ever since I first heard Sonaay play it."
"Timmon's mother, right?"
"Yes. Without her, I would have been useless here. I knew nothing when Timmon found me. Sonaay taught me most of what I know."
"You loved her," Brenna observed.
Elaan smiled, a little sadly. "Yes. She was a good woman. Very patient and kind. She became...like a mother to myself as well as to Timmon. I still miss her."
The silence that followed made Brenna uncomfortable, and after a moment, she said, "Play something else, won't you?"
Elaan played a cheerful piece that she told Brenna afterwards was called "Harvest Jig." After that she played something called "Spring Airs," and then "The Feast of Fools." They were all light tunes, full of laughter and promise. Brenna found herself momentarily forgetting her life and losing herself temporarily in the music. She almost smiled.
Then Elaan played a few imitations of birdsongs, and spent a little time pretending to tease a bird in the distance, though Brenna didn't really think the bird's singing was a response to the flute, more likely to another bird somewhere further off that they couldn't hear.
"Play another song," Brenna said, when she was done.
"Very well. Let me see..." She thought for a moment, then exclaimed, "Oh, I know! I should have played this one first! You may even know it. I call it my humming song, because I do not know the words, yet I am certain it has words." Elaan raised the flute to her mouth, took a breath, then blue a couple of grace notes before the down-beat note.
It didn't happen on the first note, or even the second. But around the fifth or sixth note, about the same time as it might take for one to recognize the melody to be in a slow 3/4 waltz time, something inside Brenna went shock-still, and then shattered, like an arrow penetrating a fragile crystal shell that had formed around her heart, leaving a smashed place where it had entered, and fractures over the rest of the surface.
The melody was very simple. It wasn't particularly sad or uplifting, just a plain, folksy tune.
Yet inexplicably, it cut right through Brenna's shell and into her essence. The sound stabbed her in the core of her being. The music was familiar to her on some unconscious level, but she couldn't really place it.
The song seemed to become as much a part of Brenna as the air she breathed. It wasn't particularly sad or lonely, but it seemed to be crying for the loss of joys half-remembered.
She closed her eyes against it, but the music penetrated the innermost part of her soul and refused to be shut out.
The music stirred vague memories. It made her want to cry. There was a profound sense of loss that she couldn't explain, not justified by the tone of the melody. What was it?
The longer the song continued, the less Brenna could stand it. It pierced right through her, stabbing deeper into her soul with each note. Finally, she could stand it no longer. She was losing control, she was losing...
Abruptly she stood up, and Elaan stopped playing. Brenna couldn't see. She wiped at her eyes and discovered she was crying. Shame mingled with the tears the music caused her, one pain mixing with another, and she turned away.
"I'm sorry," Brenna said, avoiding her mother's gaze. "You play beautifully. I'm sorry. I'm..." She couldn't finish. She turned and fled.
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.
.
Brenna ran all the way back to the farmyard. She ran into the barn and shut the door, then leaned against it for a moment, squeezing her eyes shut and breathing hard.
"Bren?"
She opened her eyes to see her father looking at her. He was in the empty stall, working on a makeshift table with a makeshift spindle, repairing a wheel that he had said at breakfast he would like to try his hand at, if Timmon and Elaan didn't mind.
"Are you all right?" Luke asked, coming around the table.
Brenna took a deep breath and pushed herself away from the door. "I'm fine."
Luke tried to turn her face towards the light, but she pulled away. "You don't look fine."
"I am. Really. What are you doing in here?"
Luke waved a hand towards the wheel on the spindle. "Trying to keep busy while staying out of everyone's way."
Brenna squared her shoulders and turned to face her father. "It's a mistake for us to be here."
"You've said that before."
"And I'm saying it again. It's a mistake."
Luke studied her. "What happened?"
"She..."
"Yes?"
Brenna closed her eyes, knowing how it would sound, even to herself. She imagined herself saying, "She played the flute," and imagined her father's mock expression of shock and outrage as he repeated, "She played the flute?" Even if he had been there, he wouldn't have understood. So she shook her head and mumbled instead, "Nothing."
"Nothing?"
"Nothing," Brenna repeated. "It's just a mistake for us to be here, that's all." She turned away from Luke, opened the door, and fled from her father as well, but at a pace deceptive enough to look like she was just walking away.
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.
.
Aren found Brenna and informed her that it was time for dinner. Brenna washed up at the basin, and took her seat. She felt her father's eyes on her and decided to get what she had to do over with as quickly as possible.
As soon as Elaan sat down, and the others began to eat, Brenna said stiffly, "Elaan, I must apologize for my behavior this afternoon. My actions were inexcusable. Please forgive me."
"What did she do?" Aren wanted to know, speaking with a full mouth.
"That is not your concern," his mother said, then turned to Brenna and said gently, "When music touches the soul, there is no need to apologize."
"But I—"
"Hush, now. I will hear no more of it."
Luke studied them both with some curiosity, but Brenna saw him and fell silent, biting her lip. Elaan changed the subject, distracting Luke for Brenna's sake. "Tomorrow, Luke, I must show you the old place, where we used to live. It is a long walk, but a pleasant one."
Timmon picked up his fork. "And I wonder if you would tell me more about this…'crop rotation.'"
Having been introduced to the concept of crop rotation, Timmon was eager to learn more, and he and Luke discussed the various advantages and disadvantages of rotating this crop versus that crop in a particular field after another crop had been grown there. Several times Luke had tried to turn the conversation over to Brenna, who was nearly as well versed in the subject as he was, but each time she deferred back to him. She countered that she had never been as good a farmer as her father, or that she had slept through that particular lesson in school. Luke was pleased to note, however, that Brenna ate all her bread and drank all her milk.
Luke was about to embark on a treatise on simple crop hybridization, when he saw that Brenna's expression had suddenly changed to one he couldn't read.
And then she said quietly, "I hear weapons."
The ensuing silence and shock lasted just an instant. Then there was the sound of scraping chairs as Timmon, Elaan, and Aren rose from their seats as a unit. "Aren—" said Timmon, pointing to something in the next room and moving toward the window. Aren was already crossing the threshold to the next room, Timmon was already starting to close the shutters, and Luke began to think that their movements were too choreographed, too practiced, for them to be strangers to the idea of weapons sounding in the distance. Then Elaan held up a staying hand and said, "Hold."
Instantly, Timmon and Aren froze. Luke and Brenna had risen, and Brenna was about to ask what she could do to help. Luke knew that his lightsaber was useless unless at relatively close quarters, and he was about to ask where the safest place to send Aren and Brenna would be, but likewise stopped in mid-syllable.
After a span of a few seconds, there was a faint rumble in the distance.
"There," Brenna said. "It's closer."
Timmon and Elaan exchanged looks that were a mixture of relief and amusement. Then Elaan smiled and turned to Brenna. "That was no weapon. Thunder is more like."
Timmon shook his head and returned to his seat. Aren rolled his eyes and uttered an expletive that earned him a sharp rebuke from his mother.
"Thunder?" Brenna asked. She closed her eyes. "I'm sorry. It sounded like a weapon."
Luke held her chair for her. "It's okay, Bren. Don't worry about it." He lifted his gaze to the rest of the group and gave an apologetic shrug. "She's never heard thunder before," he explained.
"I'm sorry," Brenna repeated. She dropped into her seat and covered her eyes. "That was incredibly stupid."
Elaan laughed. "If one has never heard thunder before, it would be quite natural to assume the sound to be made by a weapon."
"How can one never have heard thunder before?" Aren asked with equal amounts of incredulity and sarcasm. "How can someone with machines that do everything never have heard thunder before?"
His mother shot him a stern glance that held a warning, but her words were light and airy. "Why, by having lived in a place where thunderstorms do not occur, of course." She went to the window and looked up at the sky, where the stars were still visible, but probably wouldn't be for very long. "I expect we shall see a deal of rain before this night is over."
"Rain?" Brenna echoed quietly.
"It usually follows thunder," Aren pointed out dryly. "And then there is lightning. Which usually comes before thunder."
Brenna put her napkin on the table and looked at Elaan. "May I be excused?" she asked. "I'd—Actually, I'd like to see the rain. And the lightning."
Aren gave a snort, which earned him reproving looks from both his parents.
"By all means," Elaan said, with a gentler expression towards Brenna.
Brenna scooted her chair back from the table and stood. It wasn't until the door to the house had closed behind her that Luke made a sudden decision. "You know," he said, "I'd like to see the rain, too." He didn't wait for permission, which he hadn't asked for, but rose from the table and followed Brenna out the door.
Timmon rose, too. "I had best get the animals in before the storm starts," he said.
"And I," said Aren, reaching for the bread board, "am going to finish eating."
Elaan pushed the bread back out of his reach. "Help your father," she said, "and then you may finish eating."
Aren gave her a disgusted look, but did not argue.
As Aren went to join his father, Elaan went to the window and parted the curtains to look outside. Already in the yard, Aren turned to look back towards the window and saw his mother gazing out of it, looking not at him, or at Timmon, but towards Brenna, and Luke.
Elaan was not the only one with powers of observation. Aren had acquired them, too. The boy's expression darkened, and he went off towards the barn wearing a scowl.
After a few moments, Elaan turned away from the window, took a large pot from the hook on the wall near the stove and went to the pump.
Brenna was standing some distance from the house, turned to face it, in the direction from which the storm was approaching. Outside, the thunder was somewhat louder than it had been in the house, more audible.
She glanced at Luke when he joined her, then looked back at the sky. "I can't believe I was such an idiot," she murmured.
"No harm done." Luke put an arm around her shoulder and looked into the distance, where brief streaks of light lit up the sky in the distance. "Been some time since I've seen a good thunderstorm."
Brenna looked around at the nearby trees, where the leaves were beginning to rustle. "Wind's picking up."
"Yes," Luke agreed.
She heard Aren whistling to the ride-beast, turned, and saw Timmon and Aren rounding up the animals. "We should give them a hand," she said, starting to move away.
Luke tightened his arm around her shoulders to keep her where she was. "They've brought in the animals a million times before," he told her. "They can manage without us."
Brenna fell silent. As the storm drew nearer, the rustling grew louder, and the temperature began to drop a little. There was something about the way excitement seemed to be building, in the ground, in the trees, in the very air, that made her forget about everything but the experience of her first rainstorm. The bushes, the leaves, the branches, the tiniest plants were waving to the clouds in anticipation of receiving that basic liquid from which nearly all life had sprung, and which nearly all life required for continued existence.
Timmon and Aren finished their chore and returned to the house.
"Sorry I embarrassed you," Brenna said at length.
"You didn't embarrass me," Luke said. After a moment he added, "You've got good ears. I didn't hear anything. Not until everyone else did."
Brenna rolled her eyes, remembering. "Weapons," she muttered. "Who would have weapons of that caliber here?"
Somebody did, apparently. Luke remembered the speed and the practiced motion with which Elaan, Timmon, and Aren had begun to move. Aloud, he said, "Don't worry about it, Bren. It was an honest mistake. You've never heard thunder before."
"But I have," she insisted.
"Where?" Luke asked. "The Academy is domed, and I don't remember Coruscant having any thunderstorms while we were there, and the weather on Dagobah was unusually mild."
"On the tri-dees," Brenna replied.
"Not the same thing," Luke answered. "The tri-dees aren't real. They're sound-effects for the most part, and all of it's edited. Besides, you don't get rain on the tri-dees."
They were silent for a few more minutes. Suddenly there was flash of light followed by a loud Crack! That caused Brenna to catch her breath.
"That was a good one," Luke agreed.
After another few minutes, Brenna noticed something else. "What's that smell?" she asked.
"Ozone," Luke told her.
"Oh." Ozone. She should have known it was ozone. She'd read once about how ozone was associated with lightning storms. It was stupid not to remember.
But the clouds of the approaching storm overshadowed even that thought. Brenna inhaled deeply of the ozone-laden air, trying to hold it in memory in a way that she'd never be able to hold it in her lungs. She very nearly closed her eyes, but didn't want to miss a single instant of the light show.
The stars directly above them were completely covered by clouds by now.
"Did you feel that?" Brenna asked, after a raindrop fell on her cheek.
"Yes," Luke replied. He hadn't felt the exact same raindrop that Brenna had, of course, but he had felt one like it, and another, and another. The excitement of the storm was having an effect on him, as well, and he looked up and grinned at the sky. He hadn't seen a real thunderstorm himself in nearly Brenna's entire lifetime. Even then, the rainstorms on Coruscant were filtered through the tall buildings. There had been rains on Dagobah, of course, but the constant mist had kept much hidden, and there had never been thunder or lightning.
The drops became a sprinkle. Brenna did close her eyes now, and tilted her face towards the sky from which the drops were falling. After a moment, the sprinkle became a rain.
Rain.
It was raining.
Luke was not ignorant of the dangers of lightning, but it seemed to be concentrated mostly to the east, so he did not suggest that they move to a shelter. He released Brenna's shoulder and smoothed back his hair, which was becoming wet throughout, and savored the feel of the cool, sweet droplets of clear water falling on his own face.
Brenna made a tiny sound in her throat. It was the only sound that escaped her. Luke remembered his first rain, back on Dagobah. He had let out a war-whoop and gone splashing through every puddle he could find, kicking up mud and leaving bootprints in soft earth. His antics had earned him an afternoon off from exercises and afterwards a place by the warm fire where he could dry off. Yoda had seemed to understand, though that understanding only seemed to last only through the first storm. Yoda hadn't been quite so lenient during the later storms.
Luke would have understood if Brenna had wanted to yell her head off, fling her clothes away, and roll around naked in the mud. Instead, all she had done was make that one tiny, almost inaudible sound.
But it was enough to tell Luke that there was still something inside her that could respond to the rain. He gave a yell that rivaled his original war-whoop and opened his arms, spreading his body to the falling water similar to the way many of the leaves on the surrounding trees curved upward to hold as much of the moisture as they could. He spun around like that, slowly, as if his turning would encourage more rain.
Inside the house, Elaan had filled her largest cooking pots with water and had set them on the stove. Timmon and Aren had finished eating, and for his earlier rude behavior at the supper table, Aren had been given a lecture about the proper way to treat guests, and sent up to his room.
Elaan paused in clearing the table of dirty dishes and looked out the window.
After a moment, she felt her husband behind her and his hands sliding to her stomach. Timmon rested his chin on her shoulder and followed her gaze to where Luke was still spinning, and Brenna had opened her mouth to try to catch raindrops, to learn what fresh rain tasted like.
"They are either mad, the pair of them," Timmon remarked, "or extremely thirsty."
Elaan laughed and turned so that they were face to face. "Or driven mad by thirst, perhaps." She glanced out the window again, and shook her head. "Their souls are parched. One night of rain will not be enough to replenish what they have lost."
"And you? Is your soul 'parched' as well? Will you return with them, now that you have found them? And found what you lost so many years ago?"
Elaan kissed Timmon on the mouth before replying. "No," she said. "My place is here."
"It is Aren's fear that you will leave with them which causes his rudeness."
"I know," Elaan replied. "But his fears are ungrounded. He will simply have to deal with them. I will not turn Luke and Brenna away, not while they need so much healing yet."
Timmon glanced at the water on the stove coming to a boil. "For them?"
"Save for a cup or two for your tea, yes. The cure for standing too long in the rain is—"
"More water," Timmon finished with a laugh. "I will see to the tub." He turned away.
"Thank you. Plenty of towels, too, if you please."
Timmon stood at the threshold for a moment, then turned back and said, "They saw. Or at least, he did. The girl may not have, but he did. He has been a soldier, and a fighter. He knows that we are not everything we seem."
"He saw," Elaan agreed, "but he does not understand."
"He is a dangerous man."
"Dangerous, perhaps, but not to us. I have seen a little of his heart. He would not betray us. Even if he knew, he would not betray us."
"I hope that you are right."
Elaan shook her head to dismiss her husbands worries. "They are strangers to our ways, Timmon, and wizard-born. I have felt it in him, and she has admitted to having had the gift, as well. I trust them."
"They are also fremmin, and stand to profit greatly at our expense."
"And are we not also fremmin? And is every stop along the Way not manned by fremmin? Besides, what profit from our world could possibly be of any use to them? They who can travel in flying boats, who do not want for food or shelter, and who have machines to do all the work. The luxuries of our world must seem as simple toys to them. I doubt our money would be any use to them beyond a mere curiosity."
Timmon was not convinced. "That may be, but I beg you to be cautious. Even if they themselves are not dangerous, they could bring danger without meaning to by speaking a careless word to the wrong ear."
"Aye. That much is true. We are fairly well alone here, but I shall have to warn them about the Sniffers nonetheless. For their own safety as well as ours."
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Eventually, the storm gave up its heaviest gifts, but continued to share the rest of its offerings in a steady downstream. Like Brenna, Luke was thoroughly drenched, but he didn't mind a bit. He was, however, beginning to think they might enjoy the rest of the storm from the relative comfort of the covered front porch rather than the open ground. He was about to suggest the change of venue to Brenna and turned to say as much, when he noticed that despite her still upturned face, she was shivering.
"Sweetheart, you're cold," he observed. "Why didn't you say something?"
"I don't care," she said, through chattering teeth.
"I do." He stepped close to her to try to give her some of his body warmth and rubbed her shoulders and back vigorously. "Let's get you inside and dried off."
He started to turn her back towards the house, but she resisted. "Please, just a few more minutes."
"You can have all the minutes you want on the front porch, once we get you dried off." Luke firmly propelled her back to the house. This time, she didn't resist.
From inside the house, Elaan saw them approaching, and met them on the porch. She carried a tray with hot tea, and had already set out a couple of blankets. She set the tea tray down, picked up one of the blankets, and immediately threw it over Brenna's shoulders. Then she picked up the teapot, poured the hot liquid into a cup, and handed it to her. "Drink that," she ordered, "and then go inside. There is a hot bath waiting for you in the parlor. You may soak as long as you like, and need not fear for your privacy. Timmon and Aren are already abed. Do not come back out here until you are good and warm." She opened the door for Brenna and shooed her inside. Brenna nearly protested, but a hot bath did sound marvelous, almost as marvelous as the rainstorm, and she went without argument. Once she was in the house, Elaan turned her attention to Luke and draped a blanket over his shoulders, as well. Then she poured another cup of tea and handed it to him. Finally, she poured one for herself, and led the way to the rocking chairs.
"Thanks," Luke said, indicating the blanket and the tea.
"You are welcome. Was the storm all that you expected?"
"Best storm I've ever seen," Luke said, grinning at her through his dripping beard. "Thanks."
Elaan laughed. "I have nothing to do with the weather."
"No, but you have plenty to do with our being here, and…I'm glad not to have missed Brenna's first rainstorm."
Elaan gazed outside the edge of the porch. "Rainstorms are so commonplace here, I hardly think of them, except for the work that must be done in their wake. They truly are remarkable, are they not?"
"Yes," Luke agreed.
They sat in silence, watching the rain, not needing to talk. At length, Elaan said, "Our world must seem very simple to you."
"'Simple' isn't a bad thing. In fact, I'd say what you've got going here isn't too bad at all." Luke replied.
"Yet…a simple world may contain some complex problems."
"What are you getting at, Elaan?"
"You and I are wizard-born, my brother. I do not know how such a thing is regarded where we come from, but here on this world, what once was honored is now…merely tolerated. Or feared. Outside of Timmon, and myself, and Aren, you should take care of what you say, and to whom. These days, the wizard-born are more feared than revered, and one who is new to our ways, as you and Brenna are, is likely to be viewed with suspicion. Your manner of speech I can explain by saying you are from the far north territories, which none around here are likely to have visited, but other mannerisms may not be so easy to disguise."
Luke smiled. "Brenna already warned me that the 'wizard-born' are sometimes thought of as 'witches.' Don't worry. She and I will try to keep a low profile. We'll take our cue from you if we come into contact with the natives. But tell me. How worried should we be?"
"Not too much, I should think. Since living here, we have yet to have Sniffers find our house. There are no other wizard-born in the village, and only those in the family know that Aren and myself are wizard-born. But do be careful what you say. And to whom."
"Sniffers?" Luke asked.
"Those wizard-born who seek out other wizard-born and betray them to the watchers. The watchers are the ones who fear wizard-born the most. They are fairly well organized, and very dangerous. It is said the Sniffers are paid well and given immunity for their gifts in exchange for their deed. They come so rarely to these parts that I hardly think of them at all. Yet after Aren's experience, we shall be on our guard."
"I don't much like the sound of that. What sort of 'experience' did Aren have?"
"He was being chased by Sniffers when he escaped in the flying boat in which you found him. Never fear. Just as they can sense us, we can sense them, and we know how to deal with them. Aren was, in fact, leading them on a merry chase away from a village where there was a troupe of wizards—and there may actually have been a genuine wizard-born among them!—when he grew careless. For some reason, he and I cannot be sensed by the Sniffers unless it is our desire."
"You're both Shields," Luke explained. "You can hide your Force-presence. I'm not a Shield, though. Is that what you were worried about at dinner? The Sniffers and the Watchers?"
Elaan smiled. "As I said, the Sniffers come rarely to these parts, but they do come."
"If Brenna's and my being here is a probl—"
"No, not at all! I only mean to place you on your guard. I do not seriously believe there is danger, but it would not hurt to keep your awareness open. Brenna, I cannot sense. But you—"
"I'll be careful," Luke promised. "Thanks for the warning."