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Old 11-25-2006, 01:48 PM   #33
piosenniel
Desultory Dwimmerlaik
 
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Grimr looked quickly at Káta and then away as Erling spoke. He tapped the fingers of his right hand in an uneasy rhythm against the side of his mug. There had been any number of hushed conversations in the long winter nights as he and Káta lay in their bed. Most about their Elvish hosts; some about Lord Ulfang himself.

It was Káta who had first brought up her fears concerning those strange folk from west of west as she termed the Elves. They made her uneasy with their looks, their manners. Their words were fair spoken she would say to him, but behind the fair planes of their countenances seemed a coldness that cared not for the concerns of men. ‘Ours is a piddling welfare in their wintry grey eyes,’ she had told him once. ‘Of little concern to them save for the fact that the bodies of our men and sons will be offered as fodder for the battles they plan against their foe.’

She had raised herself up on her elbow, pinning him with her dark eyes. ‘And what is that foe to us, heart of mine? That one has not done any wrongs to us.’ She put her finger to his lips as he started to speak. ‘I thought we were to be given good sized parcels of land to be our own. Places to run our stock, grow food, raise many children and them to raise many of their own. We are crowded in this land as much as in our homeland.’ She’d narrowed her eyes as she shook her head. ‘And what do we hear but promises of how we will be rewarded when their foe is defeated.’

‘I don’t want to go back,’ she went on, ‘but we must do something for ourselves somehow, even if the old Lord thinks otherwise. Not just sit about waiting for those.....Elves.....to give us a handout.....’

~*~

‘Strange folk indeed.....’ Grimr said in only a slightly louder voice than that which Erling had used. He motioned for Fálki to make fast the thick woolen door of their dwelling as he and his twin entered. ‘We should be careful how we speak about our.....hosts. It is said they are keen-eared. And I’ve heard it also that these magics you speak of may be all too true.’ He frowned as he looked about at his family and then back to Erling. ‘I have heard they can look into a person’s thoughts.’

He hunched closer to Erling, lowering his voice so that it could barely be heard above the crackle of the little cookfire. ‘Some of us men have been talking about the Elves and such.....’bout the old Lord, too. Talking bout what might be best for us plain folk.’ He motioned for Káta to pass round with the ale jug, and took a deep draught of it when she’d passed beyond him to Erling, then on to Granny.

‘If you wish,’ he went on. ‘If you’re of a like mind I’ll bring you to our next meeting.’ He took another long swig and wiped his mouth on the back of his sleeve.

Last edited by piosenniel; 11-26-2006 at 01:30 AM.
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