We Two of the Tempest

 I was born to a storm. To the glee, to the fury, to the pounding, shaking, ripping rhythm of it. There’s no music like that, down here, in the dust and the soil.

You were born in a storm. My storm; my mother and father of sky and wind and water. As I was born, so were you- we were siblings. Blood was on the cobblestones that night, blood and water, and the rain wouldn’t wash it away.

There was something sacred in the air- the sonorous peal of church bells. A funeral procession, passing undaunted. They were clothed in black and grey, outlined by the flash of father lightning, buffeted by mother wind.

Your mother was not so fearless. She’d fled; from where, I don’t know; to where, I doubt we’ll ever discover. She was clad in gold and transparent silks, torn and soiled and cold. I was small, but not quite blind, and the first thing I saw was you. Your mother yet carried you within her, her fearful steps reduced to waddling. The blood was hers, leaking from wounds all over her body, proof of the cruelty she’d suffered. She was as torn as the clothes she wore.

Her flight brought her past the mourners, and she paused, to watch them. Amidst them they carried a corpse, sheltered from the rain by golden shields, a sharp crown on his brow. Even in her fear, in her pain, she watched, and mourned with them. Perhaps if she had not, she could tell this tale herself. Someone was following her, shining in the torch-light. A knight. His face was hidden by a silvered helmet, but she knew him. When she saw him, she ceased her vigil.

Alas, too late.

Down alleyways, twisting and dark, she ran. Down where the song of mother wind drowned out the music of the bells. She was not fast, and soon stopped. Our mothers sang in unison, a chorus of screams. Both were giving birth that night. She fell, the pain too much, and in mere minutes you had emerged, bloody and stinking, struggling and crying. You gave her away, but she clutched you close to her, shielding you from the bite of the rain.

The knight had come, and the shadows robbed his metal of its gleam. He said nothing to her, to the woman he had come to kill. All he did was raise his sword.

I was born of a storm, and you, in one. The self-same storm. If father loved one thing more than he loved mother, it was steel, upraised. With a great crack, he descended. I took my first steps in the form of that smoking corpse, the knight that wind had embraced and lightning pierced. So were we born together.

Father had touched us both. Me, he gave flesh, and you, he marked. Our mothers whispered and cooed, yours weak and mine quiet. The first human voice I ever heard was your mother’s.

“You’re not him, are you?” she asked me.

In that moment, I didn’t yet know words, but I understood her meaning. My newborn head shook within the confines of the metal that had melted and twisted.

“Help us,” she begged me, “please.”

I didn’t know how to help, but I tried. I lifted her, and you, and I went the ways she directed me. Through the dark, and the cold, as my parents danced and sang above and around us. As we went, her voice waned, and my shaking step grew steadier, faster. I knew, in some deep place, that something precious would soon be lost. But I was… I was…

My voice trembles. How can I tell her? How can I comfort her, reassure her? My weakness has stolen a mother from her, and I cannot say it. All we have is each other. If I can’t protect her, what use do I have? Her hand rises, tiny and plump, to touch my charred cheek. There is an ocean of understanding in her eyes, the gaze that so rarely turns to meet mine. It gives me the strength to continue.

I was too slow. My father was lightning, but I was not. When at last we arrived at the door your mother had indicated, she was silent. My fist could scarce be heard over mother’s voice, though my blows were sharp. The brother that opened the door was quiet as he took in the scene before him. He carried a candle in a steady grip, and peered at us through the shadows of his hooded robe.

“Who are you? What are you doing here, in this weather?”

His was the second human voice that ever I heard. I stopped counting soon after that. I couldn’t answer his questions, for I had not words yet. I stepped forwards, into the candlelight.

“Is that…?”

I never heard the end of his question, for it was interrupted by my death. That was the whole of my first life- not even an hour. He told me later that the knight fell to one knee, then froze, the joints of his armour melted together. He cradled your mother, in death fulfilling a knight’s duty.

I don’t remember where I went then, between my births. Perhaps I flew, flew away with my parents, travelling to water some distant land. I know that most people only live once, no matter how long that life is. Was it right, for me to live again? I don’t know.

I smile at her, an expression I learned with some difficulty. She has returned to the stones on the floor, arranging them into neat patterns. I study the paths she traces, my eyes flicking about in dry sockets. Outside, my mother’s voice can be heard, as she howls and whistles through the cracks in stone and mortar. I know that my time is short, so I continue my tale.

Regardless, I was reborn. The second time was easier than the first, and harder. The flesh that became mine was young, and strong, but that was the difficulty of it. I was born again in the soil outside the city, in the body of a young man that had fled, in fury, into the face of the storm.

Mother wind ensconced him, father lightning pierced him through. But his parents saw my birth. That was the second time I saw grief, and the first that I recognised it. They who knew the man, knew that I was not him. His mother screamed, and his father wept and tore out his hair. I left them to their mourning.

An emotion stirs in my still chest, a distant yet lingering ache. I find its name deep in my borrowed mind: regret.

Perhaps I was callous, but I was an infant. I could offer them nothing, not even paltry words. Still, maybe there was something that I could have done, some gesture to assuage their suffering. Or not. It doesn’t matter now. I walked away, and left them there, in the shadow of their sorrow.

I wandered for some time, pelted by rain, listening to the thunder. My second life was spent in sensation; the earth beneath my feet, the water stinging my nape, the symphony of storm-winds. I simply felt things, trudging through ever-deepening mud. I had no purpose, no direction, no one asking for my aid. I remembered only scant glimpses of that first hour, that first life.

But when I thought of those glimpses, I felt something else. A guiding hand, a rope around my essence, leading me, pulling me. That was you, I think. I’m not sure, as I haven’t felt it since, but it certainly lead me towards you.

The first time I saw the city walls, I felt no awe. They soared and loomed, buffeted though they were by mother wind. Such walls protected and intimidated, quashing the armies that brought arms to bear against them. But I was not an army, and I didn’t know what arms were.

I stumbled to the gate, where a lone guardsman hid from the rain. If he had stood closer to the city, or closer to the world beyond, then the water would soak his boots. That was probably why he was so late to spot me.

I recall that he levelled his weapon at me, that he shouted some warning or other, that I didn’t listen. I approached him, a babe seeking company, heedless of the danger. I have never felt pain, and felt nothing when he ran me through.

When he saw that I cared little for a halberd in my guts, suddenly the rain was not so onerous. His boots must surely have been sopping, with all the puddles he splashed through.

A quiet snort catches my attention. It is a brother, watching from the corridor outside. It seems he was amused by my story. He sees me notice him, and quickly moves on. The little one doesn’t look up, occupied by her work.

It was a foolish thing to do. If he had merely waited a moment, then he would have seen my second death. Not from the injury, no, it was simply my time. My second life lasted far longer than the first, but it was still not full.

That may be why I have so many lives, eh? Because each one is so short. Then again, some people only live mere minutes, and do not get another chance.

My third life was when I found you again. That time, I was not a man. A city is a place for many stray things, men, yes, but also their companions. My third life found root in the shivering cadaver of a dog. It was strange, being a mutt. The world was different, and the same.

The moonlight was brighter, but even less colourful. Everything was scent and sound and movement, and speech had little sense. I know I found you, because I recognise your smell. You carry with you the thickness of my parents, the fresh odour of rain, the singe of father.

Even a man can smell it on you; even I can, now.

She does not look at me, even as I speak of her. I wonder if she is listening. I have found words, in the procession of my lives, but she does not speak. The brothers have told me that she is queer in her ways, that other children are loud and joyous. I asked them what she had to be joyous about. They didn’t answer.

I’ve been many things since then. Women, men, dogs, cats, wolves, flies, even a bear, once. No matter what, I remember you, through all my lives, through all my time here. I think that I keep coming back for you.

I fall silent, watching her. She has stilled, resting hands on knees, regarding her stones in silent contemplation. My time grows short; I know that soon, this body shall fail, as all others have before. I stand, not wanting my perishing to disturb her patterns.

I hope you can recognise me, when next we meet.

I turn to go, but before I can, I am frozen in place. She has grasped my withered hand, and points to the pattern of pebbles laid before us. But that is not the ice that roots me. She spoke, a single word: “Look”.

I do. The stones spiral and flow, arranged into an image, a shape with little meaning, save to us. I recognise it, I understand what she has made, what she wishes to show me. Me.

It is accurate. I appreciate your work.

All strength leaves me, and I tumble to darkness.

***

Brother comes into the room. They are all Brother to me. They look the same, they speak the same, they act the same. Different names don’t matter, they are the same. He says soft words, pointing to the rocks. My fingers are sore, I notice, sore from the rocks. I turn away from them. They don’t matter any more, they were for brother.

Brothers are Brother, but he is brother. A name for them, a word for him. I don’t know his name. I only know his eyes. Always the same, no matter the colour, no matter the shape. The same eyes. He is different, but he is always brother.

There’s a dead man on the floor not brother but the body he came in the form he came in a dead body on the floor I don’t like it. I leave the room. The floor is cold on my feet, and the dark is like my blanket. I need my blanket.

I go to my room, the room Brother gave me. I find my blanket and I wrap myself in it. The mother of brother sings outside. Brother followed me. I hear him sigh. He leaves. I am alone, listening to step-mother sing.

***

Hello again, brother Deiron. I trust you are well?

The monk regards me with faint distaste. They all have come to know me, in whatever guise father strikes me into. “You come in daylight now?” he demands.

I come when I am born, I leave when I die. I don’t choose the form, nor the time. How is my sister? …

Brother Deiron?

…

Brother, are you well? Your face is more pallid than mine!

…

Oh. No. Oh no. Where is she? Tell me! WHERE?

I run, his silence chasing me, the look of shame haunting me. My feet are bare, and slap to the stone. There are guards here, where there have never been guards before. Men draped in red and blue, the signs of the new king. They see me, my blackened visage, my ragged clothes, and they pale. One is brave, he raises his weapon, “HALT!” he cries, like a supplication.

I do not stop.

I push past them, mother’s strength in my arms, parting them as she parts grasses. The door splinters before my blows, the bolt unable to hold me. I hear a cry, a sound of mortal pain.

SISTER!

I see my first flesh, reborn as I was. Shining and silver, a knight of the high order. He turns his face to watch my entrance, his metal marred by red blood. Brother Fallo, the man that first greeted me, lies dead on the ground, and sister huddles in a corner, clutching her ears and rocking.

You will die if you touch her.

My venom surprises even me. The knight cocks his head, and I see a glint of his eyes in the shadows of his helmet. “Will I?” he asks, his voice flat. He steps closer to sister, and lays a hand on her shoulder. “It seems not.” He says, turning back to me. They are his last words. As I move to attack him, to pull him away from sister, she strikes.

Her tiny fingers, pudgy with youth, find the slits in the knight’s helmet. She surprises him and me both. Before either one of us can react, she flashes with brilliant light. Father lightning pierced me, and marked her. The knight snaps rigid, then tumbles down, smoking. She returns to her rocking.

Sister, it’s okay. I’m here, you’re safe, you’re safe.

Deiron appears in the room. “Fallo?” he murmurs, weakly.

He is dead. He died protecting the girl. I can’t ask you to do the same, and I won’t. We’re leaving.

Shock makes him look younger. “Leaving?” he asks, as I gather sister into my arms, “where?”

I do not know. Far away from here. This place is not safe for her, that much is clear.

“That’s it?” Deiron demands, “Fallo is dead, and you are leaving? What of the monastery?”

I fix him with a cold look. It isn’t hard, father lightning’s flame has long faded.

How did they find her?

His shame is louder than any words. I leave, sister in my arms.

***

He came back, brother came back. He is carrying me. We are going somewhere. He is hard, and cold, like stone. He is taking me away. Away from the blood from the man from the metal man from dead Brother from the light from the dark. He is holding me tightly. He says something in his rumbling voice. It is him, so I listen.

***

I was born to a storm. Born again and again. But this time, I awoke in sunlight. I came to you, as I have so many times, because you are the only thing that I know. You are the certainty of my world. Thank you. I hope I can be the same for you.

We have to go now, to make a journey, far, far from this city, from these people. We have to go to a place where no man knows us. One day, you will be safe. I promise you.

I look down, and those eyes are watching me, attentive. I have an idea.

We will need names. I will name you, will you name me?

She nods, a slow motion.

Your name will be Storm.

***

Words are difficult. Name. I have a name. I like it, because brother gave it to me. He wants me to name him. He is strong, and hard. I name him.

“Stone.”

***

So I am stone. I nod my understanding, and repeat the word.

Stone.

I look up. The sun touches the earth, the end of another day. I am not weary. I don’t feel the call of death, the weakening of my borrowed flesh. Father and Mother are far away, dancing their endless courtship, but I live regardless. Maybe all I need is this little girl in my arms. Maybe all I ever needed was for her to need me.

I walk towards the horizon, and I know, whatever happens, whatever adversity, fair weather or foul, we will be all right.

After all, we were born, together, to a storm.