Da da daaaaa! Aren't you proud of me for my quick update? ;) This chapter's shout out goes to theviolinxx, who made my week and made me want to keep writing!
Cadvan's face cycled through several expressions: very confused, slightly horrified, incredulous, and finally blank, as though there was too much going on behind it to show. He actually stumbled backwards with the force of the proclamation.
Maerad, meanwhile, rushed at Sirkana, so grateful for her clear Sight. She dug her muzzle into Sirkana's belly, tail wagging like a puppy, and Sirkana soothed her with smooth strokes over her head and neck. Claw would have scolded her for such un-wolf-like behavior, but she wasn't a wolf, and now everyone knew. Everyone important, anyway.
At that thought, her tail stopped wagging, and she tugged her head from Sirkana to swing towards Cadvan. He had gone pale, and his face was still blank, like he wasn't sure what to feel. She padded towards him, still happy, but more… somber. This was… a lot. To handle. To reconcile with the past weeks of intimacy.
She sat a foot in front of him, ready to accept whatever reaction he had, but not willing to leave him, no matter how hard the future might be. She wouldn't let him drive her away again, by accident or on purpose, despite the good intentions that would no-doubt motivate his every action.
Cadvan cleared his throat, and to Maerad's relief, moved a step closer. "She's…. you're," he corrected himself, speaking to Maerad directly, "…Maerad?"
Maerad awkwardly, carefully nodded her head up and down, and a chuff escaped her. In the next moment, Cadvan lunged to his knees before her and threw his arms around her neck, burying his fingers in her fur and whispering apologies and gratitude behind her ear.
Maerad felt the binding on her tongue keenly, and, unable to speak, could only communicate her own relief and forgiveness by wriggling tighter into their embrace and whining softly.
Sirkana didn't speak or interrupt their belated reunion, but after long moments, they turned back to her on their own. "Sirkana, you said… you said you knew of similar legends? What sorcery keeps Maerad thus?" Cadvan asked, voice hoarse, still on his knees next to Maerad. "Is it the Winterking?"
"I… must admit, I never did credit them with truth, or at least only what was true in ancient days. I don't recall more than the childish flights of fancy we still tell our children." Sirkana looked at Maerad again with wonder in her eyes. "I will have to ask our elders and peruse the library. You are welcome to it also, if you wish."
Cadvan nodded sharply, but then hesitated. "I will… but perhaps this evening. There are things…" he trailed off, "and we need to see Darsor."
Sirkana nodded, an understanding smile on her face. "You have much to adjust to. What should have been a joyous reunion is clouded by magic we none of us understand." She smiled at Maerad, then, and went down on her own knees to reach out and grasp her foreleg. "And yet, I do not feel that it is malicious, somehow. All will be well."
After a strangely anti-climactic meeting with Darsor in the stables (he snuffled her and shared a moment of silence, for which she was grateful not to have to respond to) Maerad and Cadvan returned to their room. Cadvan hesitated in the doorway.
"I suppose you… we can get you your own room, of course—" Maerad rolled her eyes as best she could and cut Cadvan off by tugging him towards the bed, her teeth in his sleeve. He followed, albeit unsurely.
Maerad had to keep tugging on him, to get him to sit on the bed before she jumped up and lay down on it herself. He was so stubborn, as always, and it made her chuff at him in exasperation and fondness, a noise she had grown used to using and he, no doubt, and gotten used to hearing. In any case, it helped him relax enough to sit down on the bed.
"So… so all this time." He said finally, and looked at her, really, in the eyes, and knew her. The gaze bolted through her like cobalt blue lightning. "Maerad, I'm sorry. For how it was, before… before the pass. And for what's happened to you now, and for not seeing it," He looks down for a minute, but then right back up, and Maerad can't speak to comfort him. "But I swear to you, by the Light, Maerad—We will fix this. I'm right here."
Maerad was shocked by the depth of feeling in Cadvan's eyes, and in her own heart. Her whole life, she'd mostly shoved her feelings down and away, deemed too dangerous or depressing to be lingered upon. But Cadvan, as always, cracked her open and showed her where she could be strong.
The moment stretched and stretched, Maerad curled up next to Cadvan, so many feelings between them. And then Sirkana burst into the room, startling both of them to the floor. Cadvan, luckily, on his feet—Maerad, unfortunately, not, although she twisted herself up to sitting in a moment, trying to pretend as dignifiedly as possible that she didn't just embarrass herself.
"I found something," Sirkana said, a little breathless and far from her normally put together self. She was holding a few scrolls in her arms.
"Already?" Cadvan exclaimed, "It's only been a few hours."
Sirkana shrugged gracefully. "Hearing of our problem, the loremasters here responded with alacrity—we want our cousin healed." She looked at Maerad with compassion.
Cadvan found himself blinking hard, and Maerad also felt a weight in her chest. Who knew they could have found such warmth so far North? "So what did you find?"
"Right, of course, let's just…" There was a desk in the room, which Sirkana found after looking around and placed the scrolls on. She took one and spread it out carefully. Maerad sneezed at the must, and Cadvan bent over the desk to examine it. It had a beautiful, stylized drawing of a wolf, and several paragraphs of text Maerad couldn't even recognize, much less read.
Cadvan, on the other hand, was reading rapidly, his eyes darting over the page. His brow furrowed, and he reached out to keep the scroll flat as Sirkana rolled out another, this one with a drawing in the same style of a group, or maybe a family? Maerad peered at it, but was shuffled a little aside as Cadvan abandoned the first scroll for the second. She snuffed in annoyance and gave up to go lie down on the bed.
When he was done reading, Cadvan slowly straightened, his face unreadable. "I… I see."
Sirkana nodded and rolled out the third scroll. "Yes, that is the tale… and I found this interpretation, also, from a prominent Truthteller many ages ago."
Cadvan scanned the document and nodded to himself. "Yes, I thought as much."
Tired of looking back and forth and understanding nothing, Maerad bark-growled. It wasn't a sound she made often, and it made Cadvan jump before they both turned, Cadvan choosing to sit next to her on the bed while Sirkana took the chair.
Closer to Cadvan now, Maerad could smell his upset, though his face remained as inscrutable as it often was. She inched closer and leaned against him, trying to offer comfort while he started to speak.
"Maerad, the scrolls tell an ancient myth about a… not a Bard, but a… one-who-speaks-to-wind?" He looked to Sirkana.
"It is hard to translate, but probably a part-Elemental, or close to it." Sirkana helped explain. "As you know, the Pilanels have long associated with the Elementals, so tales of such part-bloods are… still rare, but not unheard of, especially in this time period."
"Right." Cadan shook his head in small wonder. "So, this particular tale tells of a part-Elemental named Oromë; he grew strong in the way of… it says the Voice and the Music, which I take to mean both Bardic and Elemental Art." Sirkana nodded in support. "He learned to turn himself into a wolf, Maerad. Is that what happened to you, or were you turned by someone else?"
Maerad and Sirkana both gave him an exasperated look. "You must ask one yes or no question, Cadvan," Sirkana reminded him, and Maerad smacked him in the back with her tail in agreement. Cadvan was surprised into a small wry smile at Maerad, and that settled her more than anything else could.
"Sorry, Maerad. Is that what happened to you?"
Maerad nodded as obviously as she could, happy that she could do so: surely this story was similar enough to lead to a solution.
"Good, that's good." Cadvan paused to shake his head and murmur something to himself about legends walking the earth, but Maerad was impatient (justifiedly, she felt) and poked him hard in the ribs with her nose to continue.
"Alright! I'm telling it." He gave her a look tempered by affection. "Oromë didn't get stuck in this form, he could switch back and forth, until one day his family caught the plague and died; He left the city in wolf-form, and none knew where he went—for years, the scroll didn't say how long—until one day, a wolf came to that same city and started guarding a family there. No one knew why, and it took time for them to lose their fear of him. Eventually, though, the Elder of the family hobbled out to see him, and recognized him, calling him by Name. Oromë was thus reunited with his Niece and her family, and found his human form again, living to again be a leader of his people; and he never left his family again.
"The interpretation hypothesizes that it was not just his name, but hi Truename that called him back to himself, and also that it was important that it was his family who called him. This is in accordance with other stories of people called forth from sleeping sickness or magery gone astray."
The upset smell Maerad had sensed earlier was back in full force, and Cadvan stood abruptly, jostling Maerad and rubbing a hand over his face perfunctorily. "So, then. It seems we've found our answer, and… I leave you to it." He bowed to Sirkana and Maerad.
It was just like Cadvan, Maerad thought, annoyed, to act like everything was settled and understood when absolutely nothing was. It wasn't just her, this time, either: when she snuck a look at Sirkana to check, she looked just as confused, and so Maerad felt very justified in jumping off the bed and scampering around in between Cadvan and the door. She growled at him when he tried to step around her.
"Cadvan." Sirkana's voice was flat. "I've no notion why you're trying to leave, and I think it's clear that neither does Maerad."
Cadvan turned back around, keeping his eyes on the ground. "I think it's clear, Sirkana, that it should be her family that calls her back, and I wouldn't want to interfere. What Maerad wants to do afterwards… we'll discuss then."
Maerad sat abruptly, cold at heart, but Sirkana's reaction seemed to be the opposite: there was fire in her eyes as she stood. "You foolish man!" She burst into a quiet cloud of what sounded like Pilanel cursing before stepping up to Cadvan and continuing in a quieter, but no less intense voice.
"Family is not blood, Cadvan—not just, at least. It's sticking together in the cold times, it's knowing each other deep down, it's love. I saw Maerad when she thought you were dead, you know"—Cadvan winced at that—"and if you don't know, I am qualified to play witness. You're her family," Glancing at Maerad in her current state, she added "You're her pack."
Cadvan's shoulders had slowly hunched in on himself while she spoke, and when he looked up at the end, his eyes were wet. He cleared his throat a couple times. Sirkana indicated Maerad pointedly, then stepped around both of them, closing the door behind her as she left.
Cadvan knelt down to Maerad's level and slowly reached out, putting his hands on her shoulders. Maerad felt like she couldn't breathe, only watch and listen, until Cadvan cleared his throat again and whispered in the speech hoarsely:
"Elednor Edil-Amarandh na, come back to me."
I KNOW, I'M THE WORST! But this chapter was turning out to be really long, and I thought you might want the quicker update… the more reviews I get, the quicker I'll post the end! (coercion, what, what is this thing you speak of)