Pine-Brother
By: Eärillë
She yearned for him all her life. Was it so wrong to want to know about one's brother? What was so terrible about him that people never deigned to talk about Evanzadí, firstborn son of Evandar and Islanzadí?
11.
Brom had gone even more jittery and sour once they settled in a luxurious-looking inn in the heart of Belatona. In fact, it seemed as if somebody else had forced him quite against his will to choose that particular place to regroup. It bewildered Arya. But since she did not mind sleeping in a clean bed in a clean room without fear of burglars and pickpockets in the night, she chose to once more ignore the moody Shur'tugal. The noisy, smelly atmosphere of human towns and cities still unnerved her, but now at least she could ward her tiny rented room against those inconveniences and relax a little.
She did just that, as evening deepened into night and the outside noises dimmed a little. Lying curled on the narrow, filthy, smelly bed like a cat, she entertained herself by creating tiny coloured blobs of light and making them dance round each other. The deed and the visual spectacle that it created always soothed her for some reason, even in her worst moods. There was something playful and childlike conveyed simply by the dance of coloured spots, and the disorganised tumble of tiny light balls ironically exuded a sense of peace, familiarity and intimacy that she never got from her own mother after she had turned three.
But perhaps, the last was not that surprising. One of her earliest memories was indeed that of being entertained with little bright colourful blobs flying gently round her head, while the scent of fresh, wet pine-needles encased her in accompaniment to a strong cuddling embrace.
From large, stolid human arms and chest, now she realised as the train of her memories brought her to its different feel from the embraces given by her parents and relatives, but she was far too sleepy to contemplate the revelation. And then, as her sight turned inward into reverie and her ears caught the soft trilling sound of a nightingale's song, she willingly succumbed into peace, encased in a pair of stolid-but-tender human arms and surrounded by the scent of wet pines.