To Those Who Wait (1/9)

Avelina

I took a deep breath and made my way up toward the lookout point. It was surrounded by forest, and my dress dragged in the dirt, but I kept going forward. There was someone I needed to speak with. I hoped he would still be there; deep down, I knew he still was. My premonitions had never been wrong before.

Sure enough, he sat at the end of the ledge, bare feet swinging back and forth. His pants were torn just below his knees, and the sleeves of a once-elegant shirt of forest green were ripped away. I saw his skin was weather-beaten, tanned, so unlike his heritage. Parnell's red-brown hair shone in waves on his head. It fell to the middle of his neck.

"I knew I would find you here," I commented, crossing my arms over my stomach.

His legs stopped kicking and his arms tensed. "Of course you did."

"It is good to see you again."

He let out a humph, and nodded his head.

"Eli-" I began.

"Don't 'Eli…' me," he growled.

"Then what shall I call you?"

"Nothing."

"Eli, I am your friend. Am I not allowed to speak with you?"

"I would prefer it if you did not."

I sighed and walked over to sit next to him. He stiffened, and shifted away from me. I sighed again. "Your family misses you."

"I am quite sure nobody else does."

"I do."

He rolled his eyes. "You miss everyone," he snorted, pulling one knee up to lean on. "I have lost track of the years. How long have I been away?"

"Four years. You are seventeen, I believe." I glanced at the foot that tapped on the ground. The bottom was calloused and covered in dirt. "Do you wish for me to get you shoes?"

"No. My shoes grew small years ago. I would not want to grow out of another pair, especially ones with care and thought put into them," he remarked dryly, glancing at me. "But I thank you for offering. How is your brother, Gavin? Has he fathered yet?"

"Twice over," I nodded. "Two daughters who have all wrapped around their whims."

"Except for you."

"Except for me."

"What about you?" he raised an eyebrow. "Have you wed since I have been gone? You are five years my senior, and if I am seventeen-"

"No, Eli," I smiled softly. "I have not wed yet."

"You will die an old maid," he chuckled, shaking his head. "I would never have thought you of all people would never marry."

I shrugged my shoulders. "No one has quite tickled my fancy just yet."

"You will die an old maid," he repeated. He sighed and leaned back in the grass, putting his hands behind his head and closing his eyes.

I bit my lip. Pipha, the very first beholder of my Magic, had said I probably would not die; in fact, she said, none of the magic possessors would die of old age. She said she had lived to be a hundred and three, a fact that amazed me.

"Why are you here, anyway?" I asked Eli. "You hate it here."

Eli took a deep breath through his nose. He seemed ashamed of what he was about to say. "I wanted to see my home again. Forty-eight moons… I do miss humans. I do miss my family." He frowned and stared up at the sky, stained pink with the nearly-setting sun. "Although I do not think they miss me."

"Of course they do, you are being preposterous!" I exclaimed, turning to face him. "Matthias has not been quite the same since you left, your mother is grieved, your father…"

"My father?" Eli whispered. "What about my father?"

"Your father thinks he has failed you," I murmured. "He loves you, Eli."

"No. He doesn't."

"How could you say such a thing?" The boy was infuriating. "Everyone misses you desperately!"

"Morgaine?" he countered, sitting up. His blue-green eyes were stormy with emotion, a bitterness and misery that stung at my mind. "Aven? Marellus? They could not be more content with the fact that I am gone."

"Eli-"

"Lying does not become you," he growled. "I know what they think of me. They think I am a freak of nature, a monster."

"But Eli-"

"Do not make false claims!" he cried. "That is exactly what I am!"

"No," I frowned. "That is what you have become."

He set his jaw and fixed me with a stare so like his father's that appeared whenever his son's name was brought up unfavorably. Eli's skin was more tanned, and his nose was his mother's, but those were the only differences.

"Eli," I sighed. "I never wanted to agree with that."

"But you do."

"I do not. I simply think that you are being a fool."

"I am a fool?" he laughed blackly. "I am a fool."

"You are a fool to think that your parents would not care about you. I remember you told me a bear clawed you, but a bitch healed your wounds, am I correct? While she was nursing her own young?"

"Narida has since left her pups on their own," he answered stiffly. "They had grown out of the realm of needing her."

"But I am sure in the wild-"

"Parents abandon their young all the time." He would not meet my eye. "They leave them to grow up on their own, to fight their way into the world. And if they fail, so they fail."

"Don't tell me you honestly and truly wish to live like that," I said softly.

"No sane man wishes to live like that," he whispered, holding his knees close to his chest. He looked years younger; a small boy, alone in the wood, as I had seen nearly eleven years ago. "But when one is forced into the position…"

"You didn't have to leave," I pointed out. "Your mother and father-"

"Were getting the stares that I received." His chin dropped onto his arms. "My own brother would not spend time with me."

"Oh, Eli," I sighed.

"They are afraid of me," he sniffed. "I am a beast."

I could think of nothing else to say. Eli was still human, mostly. He still had the same feelings we had. And those feelings could still be hurt. I wrapped my arms around him and held him close.

"I lied," he whispered. "I did not return to see my home. I returned to see the sunset from here. I have no wish to revisit that manor ever again." His eyes were trained on the horizon where the sun dipped down into the valley. The sky was pink and fluffy, tinged with a bright orange. Eli's muscles slightly relaxed as he took in the view.

I looked into his mind and saw that it was crying.

I breathed out and ran my fingers through his hair in an attempt to comfort him. There there, I thought soothingly. Everything is going to be alright, Eli. Just wait and you will see.

He sniffled and shivered. "Always very creepy when you do that," he muttered.

"Sh," I murmured, playing with his hair. He leaned his head on my shoulder and nuzzled against me; it was subconscious on his part, I realized, and I smiled.

He cares for you, an amused voice whispered. I recognized it as my father, Gawain's, who had died eighteen years before. He cares for you deeply.

He does not.

"Avelina?" Eli asked suddenly. "Why are you so… so different from the rest? Why do you care so much about me? Why do you not hate me like they do?"

"I could never hate you, ever," I assured him. "And why do I care about you? I watched you grow up. And I see into your mind. I see the resentment, the bitterness, the…" I picked up another tumultuous emotion, "…the loneliness."

Eli snuggled against my shoulder, his mind longing, yearning, for human contact, human care, human love. I could provide that, for the time being, until he ran away again.

"I was hoping you would not see the loneliness," Eli said softly.

"Even if I had not seen it, I would have guessed." A strand of wavy hair had fallen into his eyes and I brushed it aside. "It cannot be pleasant to be on your own for so long."

Eli nodded, blinking up at me. "It isn't. It truly isn't."

"Poor thing," I crooned. "Poor little Eli."

I could not tell what he was thinking exactly. It was a tempest of raw, unbridled emotion, little planning. At some points, he wanted to see his brother again, but quickly decided against it with that little bit of doubt. His joy at seeing me was tempered by an overwhelming anxiety. He shuddered in my arms.

"It's hard," he whispered close to my ear. "It's so difficult."

"What is?"

"Living out here. Alone."

"It must be," I murmured.

"You have no idea in the slightest," he swallowed. Memories poured through his head; sleepless nights, running for his life, nearly going hungry, not speaking his native tongue for months at a time. "It is positively awful."

"It must have its good qualities, no?"

"The occasional sun ray comes around," he shrugged. "But other than that… The only positive side is that it makes me stronger." Tears welled up in his eyes, and he swore in his mind. I held him close, shushing him.

"You mustn't dwell on the negative," I hummed. "And you mustn't feel terribly alone. You are loved, I promise you."

Eli looked at me curiously, his eyes shining with a curious gleam. I could not follow his racing thoughts, though they were all about me in one way or another. My head spun as I struggled to make sense of his.

Suddenly, he adjusted his position in my arms and pressed his lips against mine. My mind reeled, in a state of shock. Eli! it gasped. But I could not draw back. I found my eyelids falling closed, my face leaning forward. He shifted to face me better and his strong arms rested on the ground on either side of my waist. My fingers grew tangled in his hair.

He loves you, my father smiled in my head.

I did not answer him. I tuned him out.

Suddenly, Eli shuddered, and he pulled away from me, sliding out of my arms and scrambling backward. A look of shock illuminated his features, and he covered his mouth with both of his hands. "Oh, God," he mumbled, eyes wide. "Oh, God, A-Avelina… Avelina, I am so so sorry!" He started to ramble a million words a second. "I didn't know what I was thinking, I don't even know why I did that," he shivered, closing his eyes tightly. "Oh, God, I am going to hell!"

"Stop that!" I couldn't help but laugh a little. I slid over to him, not caring about my dress, and tugged at his wrists so that his palms rested on his knees. "Look at me, Eli. Please?"

"I am going to hell," he whispered, shaking his head. "You aren't married, you… you… I shouldn't have… I don't know why… I am so so sor-"

"Eli." I smoothed his hair out of his face and kissed his lips lightly. I had no idea what I was doing or what I was thinking, only that Eli… Sweet, misunderstood Eli… Eli cared about me. I saw it in his mind.

I love you, he thought miserably. I love you. Why do I love you, I haven't seen you in years!

I was about to ask you the same thing, my mind whispered, and he jolted, much to my amusement.

He kissed me a little harder, possibly more desperately, and I found myself kissing him back and holding his head closer to mine.

Eli, why? Why do you love me?

I… I don't know. His head was agonized. M-maybe because you were the only one beside my parents that was decent to me after I came home. You would actually talk to me, you seemed like you cared. And you… well… obviously you are very… a-attractive, but t-that was not a factor before…

My heart pounded against my ribs and I held him closer to me. Eli…

He ran his fingers through my hair, loosening it from its ties. His hand tickled the nape of my neck and he pulled me tighter to him.

Eli, I love you too, I thought, and, deep down, I knew it was true. I didn't know why. Maybe I knew he had a good heart? Maybe my mind wanted something out of the ordinary? Whatever it was, I was grateful.

We held each other, kissing softly, until the stars began to twinkle in the night sky, and the moon was past its full height in its arc.