Tales by the Fire

The wind howled through the valley day and night during this season, so loud that it seemed the residents of the cottage on the mountainside would never hear anything else. Two Q’lin had made their home here, one old and one young, one with much to teach, and the other with much to learn.

Solpor, a black Q’lin with steel-blue scales and a short brown mane stood in front of one of the windows, watching the snow as it fell in fat flakes. They clumped together on the windowsill, threatening to block his view once more. This was the last window he could look through, the snow had plastered all the others and he would sooner lay in his bed and stare at the ceiling all day than go outside into the blizzard and clear the snow away from the windows. Not after the first time.

He shuddered to remember and stepped away from the window, placing his hooves carefully on the floor to avoid stepping on Aelsa, the owner of this cabin. The large Q’lin lay in front of the wood burning stove, his chin resting on his hind leg, milky, unseeing eyes staring at the flames.

“You are restless,” the Q’lin commented, his deep voice rumbling in the silence of the room.

“I am always restless,” Solpor replied, moving to sit by the fire, positioning himself close to the older drakiri but not invading his space. Personal space was important, both of them understood this, but they could appreciate the necessity of closeness in the winter months.

“Do you long for more than what I have to offer?” Aelsa asked, lifting his head now to look up at the younger drakiri.

Solpor thought for a long moment, unsure of how to answer that question. Realistically, he thought that yes…he was dissatisfied where he was currently. He couldn’t have said why, but the dissatisfaction lingered. But if he answered truthfully, he risked insulting Aelsa. The Q’lin had never appreciated lies and pageantry, but Solpor had much to learn about interpersonal relationships and how to avoid conflict in conversation. It would be easier for him to learn if he had more than one drakiri to interact with, but the thought of immersing himself in large groups even for the purpose of furthering his education and bettering himself filled him with dread.

“Your silence speaks louder than your words,” Aelsa said, sitting up with a low grunt of pain. The cold made his bones ache, Solpor knew this, but the drakiri didn’t often complain about it. He would suffer in silence until he was approached about his condition, but perhaps that was becoming more difficult.

“I did not mean to offend,” Solpor said cautiously, stepping back and putting himself between Aelsa and the wood stove.

“Then it is fortunate you did not,” Aelsa replied. “I have lived more years than you could imagine, the words of a pup mean precious little to me.”

The old Q’lin limped across the living room of the cabin, his hips stiff and his neck held low, as if lifting it too far would hurt as well. “Come, Solpor,” Aelsa said. “I want to show you something.”

Solpor stood and followed his host, glancing toward the window once more and sighing quietly when he saw the snow had covered all four panes. At least there was more to do now that Aelsa was up and moving.

The old Q’lin navigated his cottage with an expertise that Solpor doubted a seeing drakiri could manage. His long tail flicked just so to keep from catching on the corners of doorways, his broad shoulders fit through the towering piles of books and scrolls that had nearly become part of the cabin by that point without so much as stirring the thick dust that coated their many-colored covers. Even Solpor had knocked over a stack or two in the first few weeks he had lived there.

He followed in the darkness behind Aelsa to the proper library, the only room in the cottage that wasn’t full of dusty tomes—the result of a decades-long effort to organize and dust the library. When asked, Aelsa had explained that he’d gone blind before he could finish the project, and he had no way of knowing which book was which and where it should go on the many floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. But as Solpor had taken in the full scope of how many rooms were in this cabin and just how many books there were to find, he doubted the shelves would have been enough to hold even a quarter of them. The times Solpor had offered to help organize and clean them had been met with staunch refusal and a day of silence where Aelsa would often leave the cabin to walk the grounds around. It was this behavior that told Solpor that Aelsa had become accustomed to the clutter, perhaps even dependent upon it, if he knew the layout of the cramped space already.

“There is a book on the shelves,” Aelsa said, stepping aside with an unsteady shuffle of his hind legs before he came to sit on a dusty pile of discarded scrolls that looked to have been ravaged by the passage of time. “It has a green cover with gold filigree. It was one of the first books I put back on the shelves.”

Solpor scoured the shelves for the book Aelsa had described, finding many with green covers but none with the gold filigree described. He frowned and stood up on his hind legs to peer closer at a tome, reaching out to pluck it from the shelf.

“This has gold filigree, but its cover is black, not green,” he said, turning away from Aelsa to blow on the spine and the cover. The cloud of dust that resulted drew a great sneeze from the Q’lin and he shook his head in distaste.

“I said it was black,” Aelsa said, his voice testy as he held his clawed hand out for it. “Give it here.”

Solpor held out the book at the old drakiri’s request, knowing what he had heard but unwilling to argue the point.

Taking the book, Aelsa opened its pages, flipping through several of them with a snap that seemed inappropriate for how delicate the pages were. Solpor struggled to see in the dimly lit library, glancing to the tall windows that were meant to provide light to the room during the day, but they were half obscured with stacks of books and snow had piled up on that side of the cabin to cover the other half.

“Here,” Aelsa said, holding the open book back out to Solpor, who took it and looked at the page. He saw a crude drawing of a drakiri with black smudges around where the mane and tail should have been. There were the distinct shapes of shackles and chains around its ankles, and the face looked strangely smooth, without any features to denote which breed it might be.

“It has no face,” he observed.

“That *is* its face,” Aelsa corrected. “That is a creature unlike any I have ever encountered. It is called Ruin, though it has a proper name. That name is difficult to pronounce and I would have to read it again to recall.”

Solpor looked over the drawing again, frowning as his eyes scanned the page to the left, which was written in an alphabet that he didn’t recognize.

“I cannot read the information on this page,” he said, closing the book gently. “Why have you shown me this?”

Aelsa held his hand out and Solpor handed the book over once more. The drakiri set it on a stack of books that was as tall as his shoulders and then gestured for Solpor to leave the room.

“Ruin is your kin,” Aelsa explained as they walked.

Solpor hesitated and the older Q’lin stopped just short of running into him. The younger’s ears flicked back and he felt a prickling sensation travel down his back from the base of his neck. The hairs there stood on end as he looked over his shoulder at Aelsa, looking into the old drakiri’s clouded eyes, searching for some sign of deception.

“Are you certain?” he asked. “How can you know that?”

“I met Ruin when I was already old,” Aelsa replied, lowering his head to give Solpor’s rump a light push to get him moving again. “But I was not blind. I can feel the same energy in you that I felt in him. Dark, mysterious, with the potential to cause great harm if harnessed incorrectly, or not harnessed at all.”

Solpor had suspected that he was sent to live with Aelsa for a reason. Icarus had been frustratingly tight-lipped about how he chose the places he brought the orphans from Milarose’s farm, but it didn’t take a genius to make assumptions.

“Icarus thought you could help me harness it?” he asked.

“Icarus would not know great power if it crawled up his rear and died,” Aelsa snorted. “That deluded kainu is interested in my books and nothing more. He asked if he could have them when I die. I told him when I die, my books come with me.”

Solpor frowned and stepped aside as they reached the living room once more, moving to sit beside the wood stove once more so he could watch Aelsa come to rest in front of it again. He doubted the conversation had gone the way the older Q’lin remembered, but that was a conversation for another time.

“Can you tell me more about Ruin?” he asked. “What was he like?”

“Not he, *it,*” Aelsa corrected, crossing his forepaws and letting out a rattling cough that stirred the dust beneath him. “Ruin gave me precious little information, I was only able to glean a few things from it during our conversation. It had no idea where or what it was doing. That was most of it.”

The old drakiri’s answers were unsatisfactory to say the least, bordering disrespectful, but Solpor held his tongue. He wanted more information about his parents, had always wanted that. His first memories had been with Milarose, so to learn at least the name of one of his parents was more than he could have hoped for.

“Thank you, Aelsa,” he said quietly as he settled down in front of the fire, content now to listen to the crackle of the fire.