There weren't always dragons in the valley...

There weren’t always dragons in the valley…

The sun had not long left the sky, the waxing moon pulling the tide right to the sheer, black cliff faces, making them roar into the wind. Yotsi picked her way along the shoreline, her gait less than graceful due in part to her size but mostly her twisted kneecap that had been a plight since birth. The shores here were as treacherous as they were long, the winding pathways only an islander knew could just as easily lead you astray, strand you out on what looked to be a more expedient path only to swallow you whole with the racing tide.

When the tide was out, the great swaths of grey clay and orange humberstone could fool even the hardiest of country dwellers into thinking it offered rich and rewarding prospects – bounties of crabs, the odd jelly queem, maybe some flotsam from some poor crushed wreck – but it was a ruse. The clay would stick you as fast and hard as glue, holding you captive like a spider web until the water got you anyway. It was one of the reasons the islanders knew the paths to begin with, passed them down to their children and grandchildren. The sea was already drowned in souls lost.

When the tide was in, swallowing the edges of the island till there was nought but the village and the small, dense forest to the extreme north, the waters roared and hissed and spat until they became the very essence of the people that lived by it. When it stormed and raged it rattled the small wooden houses, and when it felt fit to be calm it offered fish and crabs till bursting.

Yotsi was quite partial to crab when the master saw fit to let her have some, which was often, although not as often as she would have liked of course. But it wasn’t crab that had her combing the shoreline that early evening. She had been gathering seaweed, at her masters direction, to make balm for when his hands blistered and burned from working, when an unearthly wail had startled her out of her work and her wits. Fearing it could be some kind of water sprite she had called on the master to come with her and find the wailing source.

He walked a few feet behind her, his heavy boots squelching through the mud and seaweed, leaving heavy boot pits where her smaller feet had passed just before. He was his usual stoic self, offering nothing but a patient sigh every now and then, clearly believing she had imagined the whole happening, perhaps had helped herself to a tipple of his cider.

“Yotsi,” He began and she gave a swift, sharp flick of her gaze to him.

“I heard it.” She proclaimed, pausing to peer out into the dark gurgling waters.

“I’m sure you did, but the tides will be soon over these passes – we need to be getting back to the forge. Work to be done.”

“Always work to be doing, ee master Ruddig. Always work to be doing.” She muttered, undeterred. She had heard it. A dragons keen wail, like a thunderous roar carried on by the tide and the incoming storm.

She had heard it. But now there was only wind, the patter of light rain and the tired squelch and suck of the masters boots behind her.

Just as she was about to turn and obey his command however, she heard it again. Piercing, a scream, and he heard it too his dark eyes snapping to the direction of the sound. His weathered face was grim set, his mouth a hard line in his red beard as he raised his great head and scanned the shoreside.

“There.” He pointed a meaty hand, a hand used to banging a hammer again steel.

She followed the gesture, her eyes perhaps not as sharp as his, for all she saw was rocks and surf and clumps of weed. He moved past her, across her, cutting off the path and she near grabbed for him before she stayed her hand. It would do no good for Ban Ruddig to meet a watery end, as town head the people would be lost without his steadfast guidance. She felt afeared, clutching her thinning scarf around her neck some more as she picked her way after him, the ache in her knee throbbing with the coldness of the wind as they turned directly into it.

“What’s it?” She called, her voice carried away behind her, but she pressed on coming up beside what she could now see was a wrecked boat. Not the kind they would ship supply to the mainland that was fast and strong and weatherproof – no, this was the kind of thing that would get battered on the rocks and be kindling the next morning. He reached into the boat, pulling a noisy creature from it’s berth, turning to her with a wailing, flailing bundle of rags that made her gasp.

“Tis’ a babe!” She cried, reaching to push the cloth aside. And it was. A rosy skinned, screaming baby swaddled in some kind of fine cloth. It’s face was as red as coal ember, wet from the spray of sea and tears and then she saw the ears – cherub-like, round soft with a definite point to the end.

“Ay, Master! It’s a devilish Elfkin, cast it back lest ye be blackened by their cursed vexing.”

“Yotsi,” Ruddig scolded, cradling the child so he could look at it properly “Mind you don’t act the fool. Tis’ but a babe. Not quite as fearsome as your dragon, eh?”

“Elfkin are not to be trifled with master,” She insisted, taking a step back as he took one forward, determined to be away from the spawn “likely it was tossed to the sea as an offering, it’d be a sore soul that plucked a sacrifice from the waters and showed it kindness, likely it be sick – it’ll sicken ye, mark my words and we’ll be without a master a-“

“Yotsi enough.” He barked, silencing her with his tone “Get your arse back to the forge and light the fire in preparation for this one, it’ll need warming. And milk.”

She looked at him sourly, curling her lip as she said “How do ye know it drink milk and no ye blood? Dirty elf spawn.”

“Yotsi,” He warned and she held up her hands in reprisal, slinking back to the pathways. She knew when she was beaten, it was why she had kept her position as housekeeper for the master for so long after all.

By the time Ban made it back to the forge Yotsi had indeed set and lit a fire in the hearth as bid. The child had chosen to quieten, soothed somewhat by his lumbering gait perhaps, or the tight hold he held on such a small creature for fear it would slip loose of its cloth in his clumsy hands. Again he stilled the shaking of his wits, bringing the child to his large shoulder as he moved inside the home.

His dwelling was modest, certainly nothing to cater for a babe, but it was at least warm and dry. The attached forge was dank and dark this time of night, the coals long since cooled after he had attended Yotsi’s ramblings. She greeted him by the fire, reaching to remove his overcoat which took some manipulation as he was reluctant to hand over his charge to her for fear she may well toss the child into the fire given the look on her face.

“Milk, Yotsi, what do we have?”

“Ee expect me to go fetch it?” She asked, the grizzled tone of her voice vexed “Tis’ no my babe!”

“Go and find some milk.” He commanded tiredly, sinking to take the stool nearest the fireplace.

She grumbled some complaint, largely under her breath, and left him. The door at the rear of the house creaked and slammed shut not long after and he was alone with only the sound of the flickering, snapping fire next to him and the whistling breaths of the baby in his arms. Now, free of eyes, he could properly appraise the creature by the fire which offered the only source of light in the room.

He was not a well versed man in children, especially infants, and so had no real understanding of what age the babe could be. It was clear however that Yotsi was right, it was indeed Elfkin – the slender, pointed ends of it’s ears but also the delicate features and make of it’s face told him that. It had been decades, maybe more, since he had seen Elfkin or the likes but there was no mistaking the otherworldly beauty they carried – as if their faces were sculped by a master artist.

He unswaddled the cloth around the child, gently, rousing the baby as he did. It gave a plaintive cry, something like a noisy yawn, and fixed him with eyes that were the colour of rubies.

His inner sense was unsettled at such a colour, it did indeed remind him of blood as Yotsi had so loudly proclaimed, but nothing else of the child seemed amiss.

“Well little one,” He said, and the expression of the child changed, little dark brows rising in almost alarm at the rumbling tone of his voice “Who are ye?”

There was nothing else on the child save a cloth diaper, no identifying keepsakes or notes stuffed into the clothing.

“You will need a name in the meantime.” He reasoned aloud, watching the baby as it’s face turned toward the dancing flames in the fireplace “Can’t have ye nameless, the after hungers for nameless souls.” He mused, frowning as the light of the fire hit the baby’s skin and it appeared as if there were markings there, faint, as if the skin were a different tone. He blinked, thinking at first he had imagined it, but the longer he held her to the firelight, the more they seemed to appear – runes and markings that ran along both the child’s arms and again on her forehead.

He was not so schooled on Elfkin to know what the runes were. Writing perhaps? Some kind of protective, superstitious warding? He ran his thumb along the small arm – there was no raising of the skin, no texture difference, and yet the runes were there, silvery and winking in and out, but there. He drew the baby closer to him, the markings fading the further she was taken from the heat of the fire until they were not there anymore and he could believe once again he had imagined the whole fancy.

“Aerwyna.” He said softly and her large eyes turned back to his face, a gurgle of contentment “I shall call you Aerwyna, and it means, little one, friend from the sea.”