Long forgotten

Illy had long ago stopped wishing the wind would speak to her.

Yes, she wished she was like the others, that her magic made more sense… but she had no desire to hear the Voice of the North. She shied away from the meditations held by the Windspeakers and avoided any question about her faith, or Molach, or, worst of all, her father.

He was a distant memory now to much of the herd; it was strange to think but he had been gone now for five full years. Colts were growing their first racks having never heard his voice; there were hinds who would carry their firstborn children and they would never be able to tell them the stories of the first Stormcaller. Well, perhaps they would - but they would be myths and legends; he was like the Storm King to them, a fable. Unreal.

Her own memories of the golden stag were fading and fickle. He had become a flickering, monstrous creature - but one that was kind, was soft. He had been her protection and her Mother’s protection too; and when they had needed him most, when they had been whole at last, he had gone.

This year she could not stay amongst the herd in the Autumn, as her heat built and her eyes were drawn to the long fine legs of the young stags. She could not think of them now, when she needed to remember - to try to recapture him, to see his long face and his dark eyes. To see his smile and hear his voice as he tried to tell her a story to send her to sleep… Father was no good at stories, but he tried, that summer in Westhaven he tried so hard to tell stories. He told her about Duathail, but he couldn’t remember what the story was about, and he was never very good at talking so he’d just tail off in the middle.  

She told him that he should learn some stories from Jeet, because Jeet knew all the stories, but she didn’t know if he ever did.

Westhaven was the place she remembered him most, the golden summer when her strange magic came to her. It was like a dream now, everything was hazy and warm, and when the others had started their return to Gumtree Hollow she had found her legs unwilling to follow. Instead she remained, wandering aimlessly from grove to grove, trying to recapture that summer: the soft smell of family, the safe comfort of home, the rich golden light…

Westhaven in autumn was not as warm or as bright as it had been then. The colours were red and gold, but there was a chill to the air and a stillness that fitted Illy’s mood. Aside from the occasional yell of a kookaburra, there was very little to break her melancholy and it was oddly comforting. No, not comforting, it was distinctly uncomfortable but somehow, it was as it should be.

She was hunting for her past, tugging and pulling at the earth and trees with her magic, feeling for something that had long gone. She tried to see her father in the grasses and the sky but he was not there, tried to scent him on the wind but as ever, for her, it was empty. She wanted to weep, to let her grief taker her in the way it took Mother, but where her mother was filled with a storm of emotion, Illy’s soul was devoid of movement. She could not connect to the storm even through feeling, and the tears simply would not come.

The golden hind found herself wandering from copse to copse, aimless and confused. The grasslands were tired and worn from the spring and summer of grazing and her stomach was aching with hunger - a mouthful of the short, dried blades was enough to persuade her to eat no more. Finally, exhausted and empty she curled in the tangled roots of a eucalyptus tree, not bothering to clear the dried leaves from her bed. She slept fitfully and distractedly, and in the depths of the night she could found that she could sleep no more.

“Father, why did you leave?”

The answer would never come.

Nor, it seemed, would the tears.