Many of the day-to-day memories of his life, of the days, the years, the decades leading up to that fateful lightning strike, are now faded and grey from lack of use. When he had first died, on the day of the bear and the lightning storm he had been in too much shock to think much of anything.
But after the first year, the first time someone had walked through him, Robin began to accept what had happened to him. Began to accept that perhaps until the very earth cracked, and the King of the Dead rose once again to take possession of all his subjects, Robin was stuck here. Stuck in this small stretch of land in which the Family had built their circle. The very first of those great stone circles that stretched all throughout the land the Others now called, Britain.
The Others had copied the design of the Family's stones for their own circles, their 'Stone Henge' and the like. Yet Robin privately prided himself that they had never really been able to capture the true power of the stones. Oh, he was sure some of them had inklings of magic, all those who walked above the ground did, in theory at least, but they were nothing compared to his own people's creation.
And it wasn't just a matter of species pride, although sometimes it did feel nice to know that perhaps not everything they had built, everything they had created, had been wiped from the face of the earth by the ever expanding presence of the others. But this, no, this wasn't that – or at least not solely.
For the Family had not been the only makers of the Stones.
It had been a memory he thought long lost to him after death, it had certainly not been the only one – so long by himself, with no one there to remind him, he had forgotten most of his life by the time the first of the other Ghosts had joined him. Even the stones themselves had gradually been buried by the rising of the earth, which always happened he would come to learn over time. Rocks and mud would fall from on high, and bury a couple of the sacred stones, but the circle as a whole was stronger. The power of the circle that Robin could feel even after his own death, was not broken just because the earth had decided to take back a couple of its stones.
It had not survived so well when the Others had removed the recumbent stone to make their house. The house that he lived, or at least dwelled in now. And so more memories had faded, for there was no one to remind him anymore, even when the Others had begun to arrive they did not often speak to him. For he was strange, and other worldly to them. They often thought him a spirit of a fairy, or worse yet a demon, and for a short time, before they had grown used to him, it had almost been worse than being alone. Thinking of the time before, the time when he had yet drawn breath had been too painful, and so for a while he had willingly let those memories fade from him.
And even when things had gotten slightly better, many of the memories had simply not come back. For decades, centuries, he had forgotten most of his time journeying with Legolas and Gimli, he had forgotten the Wanderer, or at least his aged face, for a time he had even forgotten the face of Owl. Not in his earliest memories, those he would hold deep in his chest until the day the great Cave Bear came for him.
But the other memory of Owl, the other face she carried, the older one. Not the girl, or the sister he had lost in childhood. But the mother and priestess she had become, while they had been parted.
That memory was gone.
That was until the day Alison had decided to show them the Peter Jackson films.
Alison enjoyed showing the ghostly inhabitants of Button House films, particularly films that they had never seen before. Robin knew this for a certainty because of the wide, beaming smile she always wore whenever she came home with a new DVD for them to watch.
She was under all the exhaustion, and the snipes, and the deep irritation with their antics, a very kind girl. Robin knows he sounds like an old man when he thinks things like that, but he supposes he is old now, very old indeed.
On that particular day, on that day in which the memory was awoken in him again, she had come home with an entire six movie box set of DVDs. Pat, he remembers had been talking about his favourite book series, and how it could never be translated into live-action cinema.
Alison had actually laughed at that, and had ran straight out to the shops with no other word of explanation. When she'd come back, she held the box set over her head like a hunter showing off a kill. Mike had made popcorn, and they had all – dead and living alike – sat down and watched the first film, named "The Fellowship of the Ring", in raptured silence.
It wasn't a bad film, as films go, though Robin would have preferred to watch 2001: A Space Odyssey again, but he was enjoying himself. He liked the lady's voice as she spoke about the world that had been lost. He liked the plop of the creature in the cave, he enjoyed the bright rolling hills of 'The Shire'. And the Silly Travelling Wizard who very few of the inhabitants of the green hills trusted.
He enjoyed it all really, the mystery of the ring, the midnight dash to escape the black riders. He even enjoyed the frowny man, who led the meeting at the half way point of the film. It really wasn't until the short man with a ginger beard broke his axe on the ring, that Robin spotted the first flaw in this film.
"That not what he look like."
Angry hisses and shushes were the only reply this statement received, but Robin didn't care. Memories, old memories centuries considered dead were awakening in him, and he couldn't be stopped now. Not for anything.
He must have jumped up and down, because suddenly the world was rocking and he was on his feet. He was in front of the tv hitting it with his closed fists.
The others were yelling, but he couldn't really focus on what they were saying because he was so angry. All he could hear were his own words as they screamed…
"Liar! Liar! That not him! That not him! That not even real dwarf! That just a man in a wig, his beard not even real."
Someone's hands were grabbing at him, trying to pull him away from the screen, where he knew he was blocking it from the others. But he didn't care, because this was all wrong. He didn't care because he could see Gimli's face in his head now, the real Gimli not this liar on the screen. He could see his dark brown cheeks, and his ruby red beard. He could see the bright smile he would give to the boy, the boy that Robin had once been, as they talked about the world that had come before.
The Middle Earth.
A combination of Julian, Pat, and the Captain, managed to wrestle Robin away from the telly. He was sobbing now, the faces of his friends – long given up as entirely forgotten – swam through his mind and he couldn't stop. He couldn't stop the great waves of grief that wrecked his body then. Or the heavy sobs that escaped his mouth. Or the words.
"I'm sorry my friends, I'm sorry for forgetting you. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I swear, by my gods of the wind and the rivers and yours of the stars, that I will never let it happen again."
Of course, no one around him now could understand these words, for they had been spoken in the tongue of the Pretty Ones.
"Mate, where'd you learn Elvish?"
It was Pat's voice in Robin's ear now, his arms wrapped around the ancient ghost's neck, trying to hold him back. But it wasn't enough, nor were the stronger arms of the politician or the soldier holding onto Robin's arms and legs respectively.
Robin was stronger.
Because Robin was of the Family.
And the Family had always been stronger than the other men who would come after them.
He threw them all off, and then he ran away.
He could just hear their voices behind him as he dashed out of the room, across the house and then down, down into the basement below.
He was aware vaguely of the other ghosts that crowded into that small space. The ghosts of that great sickness that swept through the land a few hundred years back. They were afraid of him, they always had been really.
He was so strange, so other – they had thought he was a demon, or a wicked fairy come to steal their spirits to be his slaves. Or perhaps he was something sent forth from the dark king in the north. That Raven Magician from Fairy.
Robin remembers the boy from fairy, remembers him from before he was king, though none of his kingdoms would ever encompass the land that now held Button House. The child had sworn that to Robin. Back before the house, before the village, and the plague, the boy had come seeking an ancient power buried in the ground.
Another memory, another face but this one doesn't matter as much as the ones already crowding round him. Pushing the present away. The Elf. The Dwarf. Robin, back when his name had been something else, something older and lost now. And the Stone they had all sought.
There was a reason Robin had ran to the basement, to the cellar, even despite the fear it caused in the ghosts that haunted there. The great stones of the circle were gone now, either buried by the rising earth and mud, or taken to hold up the walls of the great house. But what they had been set over, set to guard, yes that was still there hidden deep within the earth. Or at least part of it was. And sometimes, sometimes when the memories were coming and the world was moving too fast for a centuries old ghost to cope with anymore, he needed to come here. He needed to crouch in the middle of that basement, bent over with his for-head pressing to the mud or the stone, or the cement that now lay there. He had to do that, because if he pressed his dead ear to the ground he could hear it. Hear the thrum of the stone, of the Arkenstone that the three of them, no that the many of them, had lain there all so long ago now.
He had to lay here, because if he did the memory, the memory of the last time he had held the stone, that great glistening rock in his hand came then like a rush of water. And he needed that memory, because with it, now that he could see his friends faces so clearly within his own mind again, with it came another.
His sister.
His Owl.
The last time he had ever seen her in life, or death.
And he needed that thrum in his ear, he needed it now to remember it all.
He knew they were calling for him now, but with the thrum of the stone beneath him the name they used was wrong, and he would not answer to it. He could not answer to it. For he was no longer Robin, no longer the Caveman, or the odd one. No, now in the sway, the glow of that thrum beneath his ear, all he was now was…
"Rogh? Rogh! Wake up! Wake up, boy. The Sun has risen too high, too quickly today and if we don't start moving soon we will lose the light, and never make it over the great river before darkness."
At first in the dimness that always surrounds the eyes on first waking, the boy does not recognise his own name, barely recognises the voice anymore. He had a dream, a strange dream indeed in where he was locked in a cave, no it was not really a cave. Just like one, yet it had been made by the hand of man. He was locked in that cave, locked on that land and he could not run away.
He does not remember why, as he does not remember anymore the strange sound the people there called him.
It was just a dream, and dreams like so much else in this world were not something a living man could afford to dwell on.
He knew he'd overslept, and now he must rush to pack his things, otherwise Gimli and Legolas would leave him behind…again.
They had been wandering this way, led by the stars and the whispers of the wind, since the end of summer. Now with the chill in the air, Rogh knew that Winter would soon be upon them.
Rogh's twenty sixth winter. He would be an old man soon enough, and he was beginning to feel the pain deep within his bones already. He did not know how old Gimli, or Legolas were, but he suspected as they were not men like him, that they did not feel the cold. Or at least not in the same way, not anymore.
They were beyond that. How else could they both walk so much faster than he wrapped in only the thin furs, and spun cloaks that the Great Pretty One had equipped them with three winters ago. While Rogh, still the youngest of the three companions, struggled to match their pace even on the warmest of winter days, and had to wrap himself twice over with new furs he had caught and skinned after they had left the Pretty King's Place.
He was getting too old for this wandering life, too old to be always so far away from the Family. From his Sisters, and Brothers, his Mothers and Fathers and the children. The children that would call him father, not because his spirit, his essence had helped to create them, but because he was of the Family. Perhaps his bones, his aching bones, were telling him that it was time, finally, to go home. But then he thought of the stone, of the Wanderer's betrayal, of his foster mother's face so pink and proud as he left to do such a service to the people of Mahal. He could not go home until his duty was done; he could not let the children of Mahal's treasure remain in such a hand as was the Wanderer's. And if the wind, and the stars, and the bird songs in the trees told them that the stone lay this way, then this way Rogh would walk, even if it cost him the very legs in which he did so.
"There it is, I see it now," cried the old dwarf, from up ahead of Rogh. "There's the river right enough, so my love your dream has not led us astray this time. Now how can we ever cross such a beast, for it is far too deep for us to wade through, and that current is much too strong. The boy and I will be swept away and crash upon the rocks, should we try to swim it."
Despite the vivid image, the elf laughed at his lover's words.
"Why my dearest one, perhaps I shall take you and the child in my arms, and I shall leap across the river."
Child.
Boy.
It was the way they had always referred to Rogh between themselves, when they thought he was not listening. And right now, Rogh stood just far enough away that Legolas could be forgiven for thinking he was not. He supposed that to beings as old as they he would forever remain a boy, an infant toddling in their wake, but he wouldn't lie, the habit was slightly irritating to him. After all he was a man, a man grown and soon enough he would be an old man in the thinking of his people. It would have been nice to have been treated as such by his traveling companions, at least once before their journey's end.
"Oi! Oi! You down there!
The voice was high, like a child's, which made all the more sense when Rogh raised his eyes to the lowest branch of the tree above his head. Two small boys sat there, two small boys of the Family.
One was small and thin, wrapped in a familiar seeming blue fur. However, he had clearly not been the child that had cried out to Rogh, for his eyes were locked on the clouds high above, and he was humming quietly to himself. As if he had no notion that Rogh was here at all.
No, it was from his larger, bulkier companion in which the cry had come from. A big boy, perhaps ten or thirteen winters, a heavy strap of leather hung loosely from his fingers. And behind his head a short spear, of the throwing kind, leant against the trunk of the tree that the two boys were sitting in.
The large boy smiled down at Rogh, his teeth far too sharp to be anything natural. Teeth Sharpening. Why I ask you what had parenting become in the years he been away from The Family? The boy was still talking.
"Strange men shouldn't be trying to cross the river at this time of year. It's much too full, you'll all drown."
The words were familiar, as were the way in which they had been said. In fact everything about the boys was familiar, like something out of a dream long since put aside for the waking world.
"Then how can we get to the other side ? For our journey must take us across this river if it is to take us anywhere at all." Said Rogh.
"You'll have to wait till the Winter freezes it." Said the boy, more than a hint of smugness to his voice. There was no fear there, no concern at the damage or terror three unknown men could do. He must have a strong tribe to protect him, and they can't have been that far off either. Otherwise the other child would never have drifted off into a dream, even from the relative safety of a tree branch.
Men had slings, they had stones, and two children – carrying spears or not – wandering far from home would be easy prey for such creatures. No tribe would have allowed it, certainly no tribe of the Family.
"Well then," said Rogh, raising his voice just so as to both snap the other child out of his humming dream, and to catch the attention of the bickering lovebirds further down the bank of the river.
"Perhaps you could show us a place to shelter for the Winter then? A cave? A Rock ledge?"
The boy with the pointed teeth scowled at him but made no move to answer Rogh. No, it was the other child, now awake, and smiling down from the branch, that gave him the answer he sought.
"You can stay at the camp, it's not far away. Just walk along the river bank southwest for about a sling's throw and you'll reach it soon enough. I can show you if you like."
With that he slipped down from the branch, with all the nimbleness of one of the big hunting cats. And extended his small hand for Rogh to take.
The other boy landed on the ground with less grace and far more of a thud as he quickly said. "We'll both take you."
Rogh smiled in gratitude, but only one of the boys bothered to answer back with a grin of his own.
It did not take them long to reach the camp, to reach the settlement or village or whatever these people called their homes. It was not next to the river as Rogh had been led to believe, but rather a little away from it, down into a muddy valley surrounded by old and swaying trees.
At first Rogh was not certain that they'd been led to anywhere, but a small hunting base. Tents in a cluster, the kind a regular man might dwell within while he's out on a mammoth hunt. The kind that Rogh, Gimli and Legolas had made for themselves each night that they had failed to find the Wanderer, or the stolen stone.
And then he saw the first villager, and suddenly Rogh was not so sure anymore. Of anything really. He was like no man Rogh had ever seen before, in fact Rogh was not so certain he was a man at all. He was tall, far taller than any person the former trader had ever encountered on his long and winding road here. His hair was long and grey, as was his skin, which was as speckled and silver as the stone which he was pushing into a place.
It was a great stone, like none Rogh had ever seen before. Ha, there he was repeating himself. In time he would understand it's power, along with all those that would come to join it. But for now it was just a stone, trying to be placed in a standing position by the strangest hunter Rogh had ever seen.
The boy with the pointed teeth, swung his spear high and called out a word of the Family. A word that Gimli and Legolas as knowledgeable as they were, were not likely to know, but Rogh did.
It was one of the many words for Father in the tongue of the family. Spirit Father, it would be to the Children of Mahal. Or "Father whose Spirit has made me" might be a better translation in the tongue of the Pretty Ones. The Hunter's head jerked round to look at the boy, and he grunted as the stone he had been pressing into place, slipped just an inch out of his hands. It trembled and then in a horrible moment that Rogh would never forget no matter how long he lived, it began to fall forward on top of the great hunter. Someone cried out then, but Rogh was no longer sure if it was the boy with the spear, or himself that made the noise.
Then there were cries from other people, from people coming out of the tents but Rogh hardly saw them, they were nothing but blurs in the side of his vision. He let his real focus be the man, and the falling stone before him. Amazingly, the man was still managing to hold it above him, despite the wait that must be crushing down upon him.
Rogh's feet started to move, stumbling at first and then he was running, running towards the faltering man, ready to lend him his aid. But there was no need of it, no want of it, for the man screamed, a bellow like nothing that Rogh had ever heard before, and then the stone was pushed back. By the man's strength alone and it fell backwards and landed, flat on the ground in front of him, broken in two.
Rogh stared at the stone on the ground now. It had, before it had fallen, been taller than even the great man that pushed it upwards. Taller even than Legolas, or his kingly father. Taller than all the peoples that yet walked this strange earth of theirs. The stones that lay on the ground now were half of that, still as tall as the tallest man in the Family, but not the great stone that had come before them. Not the great stone that should have crushed that man.
That would have crushed him.
If he were a man at all.
This was his first meeting of the Strong Ones, though Gimli and Legolas would have other names for them – Orc, Uruk, Broken - a people that in years between now and his death he would grow to know quite well. He would grow to know them as surely as he knew the Family, for that was what they will become to him. He would take some as lovers, others as friends. He would share children with them, and for a time he will be happy, if only by half counting.
But that is for years to come, now as he watched the people of the camp, of the settlement of the Stone run to check on their panting friend. On the man that should have been crushed, Rogh knew none of that, and would care little for the knowledge should it have been presented to him. The man was living, not crushed as Rogh might have been should he have attempted the same thing, what need had he to worry more for him than that?
Especially when he saw her.
He did not know her for herself at first.
He only saw the great wolf cloak around her shoulders, and the white feathers twirled through her hair. He saw the blue swirls on her face that marked her out as a shaman, as a wise woman of the Family. And she was of the Family. Not Mahal's Folk, or the Pretty Ones, or even the same folk as the man who pushed the stone, who broke the stone, the Strong Ones. She was not even of the Small Ones, that small mythical race that even now lay hidden and forgotten, just out of reach of Rogh's conscious mind.
He was none of these people, much as he will love and treasure them and the memories they make in him.
And neither was she.
For she was the birds at night.
She was the Owl.
She was his Owl.
His…Owa.
