Averell lay uncomfortably awake whilst her new-found family slept around her. The sheepskin on which she lay tickled her incessantly, only getting worse the more she fidgeted, and snores surrounded and irritated her like midges on a summer night. The presence of so many other people around her, breathing, twitching, coughing, set her on edge – after a lifetime of just the company of Mother and Eadwulf, the fact that so many people could exist together in such a small space made her skin crawl. Even the thought of the city itself made her uncomfortable; thinking about so many people forced so closely together, an island of seething humanity in a sea of unending golden plains.
Unable to bear the thought any longer, Averell rolled off her sheepskin and took to her feet, stepping lithely across bodies to reach the door and taking a deep, welcome breath of cool night air. The air smelled different in the city, too; manure and horse-sweat, fresh peat and woodsmoke. A world away from the smell of dried grass and dust, and perfume washing in on winds from the great forest. Averell slipped out of the hut and made her way to the stable where Eadwulf slept alone.
As she sat cross-legged on the straw beside her sleeping companion, the sound of his deep breaths transported her back to her cave; she heard his breathing echo off the bare rock to become a calming, enveloping wave of sound, coddling her like her mother's heartbeat in the womb. She closed her eyes and let it surround her, washing away the memories of earlier that night, and the deep sense of displacement she now felt.
Aelfling, to his credit, was sensitive to his cousin's distaste for crowds and had done his best to shoo the family away, letting them introduce themselves to her one at a time. Countless aunts and uncles, nephews and nieces, and cousins once, twice and thrice removed had approached her at some point or another to proffer a hand and introduce themselves. Nearly all of the names had gone in one ear and out the other – when she was still trying to process the fact that her mother had family who had missed her for twenty years and had never told her about them, trying to recall their names and faces was always going to be a difficult task.
Things had gotten even worse at dinner. It was a simple meal, though Aelfling went to pains to indicate they'd tried to put together something special for her, even with their limited resources. A steaming hot stew was ladled into bowls and passed around, and Averell had spent much of her time questioning what she was eating.
"What are the round things?" She'd asked at one point, slightly too loudly.
"Don't you know what carrots are?" one of the younger children had replied.
"She doesn't know!" crowed another, clocking her look of confusion. The children had found this hilarious, despite their parents' chiding, and their laughter hurt her to the core. How ill-suited was she to this world, when the infants knew more of it than she?
"We very rarely ate vegetables," she'd explained to Aelfling later. "They take time. They need to be grown. Land around the cave was poor…the soil, very thin. We hunted most of the time," she muttered, spooning more of the stew into her mouth. The meat, though clearly of no great provenance, was richer and moister than any she and Mother had ever cooked.
"I can imagine," Aelfling had said, sympathetically. "Actually…no. No, I can't. I can't…begin to imagine how you both survived."
The stew turned sour in Averell's mouth and she swallowed sharply. "We just did," she replied.
Time and again family members would probe her for answers – where she and Mother had ended up, how they had fared as hunters, what game they had found. Averell's answers grew more and more evasive with each question, until eventually the message sunk in.
As the night wore on and talk turned away from her and back to family matters, Averell felt increasingly like an intruder – a fish out of water, thrown into a world she had no part of and couldn't participate in. Aelfling, however, was determined to see her integrate into the family; more than once he would surreptitiously explain the conversation to her, or steer it in directions she felt more comfortable with.
Though at first wary of his eagerness to help her, Averell found herself growing to appreciate Aelfling's company. Without his guiding hand, her first meeting with her family would have been just as likely to end with broken bones and a ham-fisted flight through the rear gate. She reached out to stroke Eadwulf's belly, when a noise behind her made her leap to her feet, reaching instinctively for the knife at her belt which was no longer there.
"Hey!" Aelfling called softly, holding his hands up. "It's only me." Averell's muscles gradually relaxed, the adrenaline flooding her system abating slowly. The ease with which she had turned on her own cousin gave her pause, and she silently retook her seat on the floor.
"Couldn't sleep?" he asked quietly. Averell nodded. "I don't blame you. Uncle Arod's snoring could wake the dead," he chuckled. "There's something else, isn't there?" he asked, concerned. "You really don't like being that close to people, do you?"
"Too many," Averell muttered. "Too many people." Aelfling nodded sombrely.
"I understand," he said. "Completely. I mean…just you and Hild, alone all that time…" he trailed off and sat on the straw next to her, never taking his eye off the sleeping Warg just feet away from them. "You didn't ask a single question about your mother," he said. "Actually, you barely spoke at all, except when you were answering questions. Don't you want to know?"
Averell's mouth gaped open, dumbly. Of course she wanted to know – that was the entire reason she had come so far. But then, why hadn't she asked? These people had known her mother since the day she was born, and probably knew of her father, too; what was stopping her?
"I just…" she began, before giving up. "I couldn't. I can't." Silence blew in with a whistling wind that chilled them both.
"I know a little," Aelfling whispered. "If you like, I could tell you. Would you like me to?"
Averell turned to face her cousin. "Yes," she said, "yes, please ."
Aelfling smiled and re-settled himself on the straw. "Well, when I was a child, your mother was married to a man from this city, called Bram," he began. "I was very, very young at the time, so I can't remember anything perfectly, but I do recall the day your mother and father left. They'd had a…disagreement, of some kind. Your father went one way, your mother another. I'm not sure what possessed her to strike out into the wilds on her own, but…well, I suppose only Hild knew that for sure. Bram went to Helm's Deep and…well, he never came back," he said apologetically. "If you want to know more, I suggest you ask my mother, or my father – he knew Bram well. I can only tell you what I remember – it's something not often spoken of in the family. We thought Hild was lost to us, and the pain it caused my mother was simply too great. When I heard you state your name, out on the wilds, I…well, I honestly thought I was dreaming," he laughed, silencing himself as Eadwulf grunted.
"Why," Averell croaked, her throat dry with emotion, "why would she just leave? And why would my father just…"
Aelfling reached out and stroked Averell's shoulder tenderly, his heart aching with pain to see how she flinched from even his concerned touch. "Like I said, I just don't know," he said sadly. "I do hope mother will finally be able to talk about Aunt Hild, though…now that you're back with us."
For the first time since they had met, Averell really looked at her cousin. Though he didn't share her long nose and sharp cheekbones, and his eyes were a far duller shade of blue than hers, her mother's mouth leapt out at her, and the way he smiled reminded her of the way mother used to. Back when she still smiled, at least, she thought to herself.
"Will you be there with me," she asked, "tomorrow, if I ask her?"
"Of course," he replied seriously. "I'll give you whatever help you need. To be totally honest with you…easing my mother's heart motivates me just as much in bringing you back into our family as the thing itself. She never forgave herself for allowing Aunt Hild to go…"
Silence once again fell over them, heavy and melancholic. "I should let you get some sleep," he announced, quietly rising as Eadwulf turned onto his back with a great snore. "I assume you'll be staying out here?"
"With Eadwulf," Averell confirmed. "I prefer it this way."
"No problem," Aelfling replied, yawning. "I'll see you in the morning."
Averell kept watch on her cousin's back as he turned and walked back into the hut, keeping sight of him until he disappeared. Just as she had the night before, she would spend the night curled up against her only true and trusted friend.
For now, at least, she said to herself, thinking of Aelfling's smile, and passing into sleep with a smile of her own.