Memories

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It took long minutes for the tears to come to an end, but Cour never let go. They stayed that way, curled against each other in the shadow of the trees lining the lake's edge, until there was nothing left to let out and Tay's head throbbed with congestion.

"Better?" Cour murmured when the lengthening quiet indicated that the cub-bearer in his arms was finished, and Tay sniffed and nodded.

"Let me see, then." He slid a hand under Tay's chin, which lifted obediently, and began wiping the remains of wetness from the swollen face with the hem of his sleeve. His ministrations were met with no argument at all; from the sleepiness in Tay's eyes, he was probably just too out of it to care. Still, it felt nice to be able to do something for him without rejection for once, so Cour took his time about it, and when he was done drew the drowsy cub-bearer back into his lap. He half wished that he could just sit still, letting Tay go to sleep there, but there was too much to be talked over for that.

"Tay," he started, shaking the younger Kindred's shoulders. "You can't sleep yet. You need to talk to me."

The curve of Tay's back pulled tense. "I don't want to."

"I know you don't, but you've got to. I'll listen quietly, I promise. Could you answer a few questions for me?"

There was such a pause that Cour was ready to repeat the question, in case the other hadn't heard. Then, almost inaudibly, Tay breathed, "Can I ask too?"

"Of course you can! We need to talk, not just you. But can I ask first?" Cour requested, winding tentative fingers into his lapful's soft, sweat-dampened hair. The head beneath his hand nodded jerkily.

"Yes."

"Thank you." He paused the light movement of his hand, but as soon as he pulled back, the curve of Tay's skull moved to align itself again, and he repeated the caress without thinking about it.

"Tay, I... I do... like you," he began hesitantly. He fumbled for the right words to say what he meant, but there seemed no end of the wrong ones, and none of what he wanted. "You're lonely, I know you are, and I am too," he went on, shaking his head. That wasn't what he had meant to say at all. "I just... I just want to know you better. Do you know what I mean? I want you to tell me, not just about the cub, but about you too. You're hurting, here." He fisted a hand and brought it up to press against Tay's chest. "I know you are. I want to help you, but I can't help if I don't know what's wrong. If I do that, I'll only make things worse."

A small quiver ran through the younger Kindred, but otherwise he remained still and quiet. The slowly, slowly, his hand crept up to cover Cour's, his fingertips brushing the fisted knuckles.

"I'm scared," he admitted quietly, each word wrenching itself out of his throat. "I..." The already soft voice lowered to a whisper. "I wanted you to like me. But I'm scared."

"I'm scared too," Cour whispered back, and now Tay was trembling in his arms, the stroking fingers clenched miserably, and he knew suddenly that he had to get the worst of things over with. If he could crumble the fear away, the pain would find an outlet of its own.

"Tay," he said quickly. "I know, about your coming-of-age. I figured the months. You turned fifteen five months ago. Your cub is five months old."

Tay let out a low sound like a choked scream and started to cry again.

"I'm sorry!"

"No, listen! You don't have to be sorry! I don't care, don't you understand? You have every right to do as you see fit, every right to follow as many of your tribe's rules as you want! I don't care," Cour stressed, holding off the urge to squeeze the limp form of his loved one even tighter. "You wouldn't be you if you forgot your tribe, where you came from. I'm not asking you to do that. I'm just asking you to trust me!"

The crying quieted, but the pain in it refused to go away with the volume. Cour tried a different approach.

"Did you love him? The father of your cub?"

Tay hiccupped and shook his head, his tears leaving wet trails to soak through his comforter's tunic. "I just wanted..." he started weakly, but Cour interrupted him.

"Do you love me?"

His armful stilled, then abruptly pulled away. Cour's heart sank into his stomach, then jerked back up as he got a good look at the wide-eyed, disbelieving hope displayed in Taydren's face.

"Do you-" Tay began, and Cour nodded before he could finish, not trusting himself to hold to his new-found courage for more than a few moments.

"Yes, I love you."

"I love you too," Tay whispered quickly, looking almost ready to pass out at his own forwardness. Cour spared a moment to hope that he didn't look quite that out of control, but he had the sneaking suspicion that he did. His heart felt like it was leaving bruises on the inside wall of his chest.

"I'm scared," Tay whispered again helplessly. The relief was almost too much; he didn't want to look at Cour anymore. He put his hands up to his face and started trying to scrub away the evidence of his crying.

A hand reached out to stop Tay's vicious rubbing of his wet eyes. "You're hurting them. Let me do it." Cour's warmth drew away and moved upward, the well-worn fabric of his smock's hem brushing Tay's knee as he moved off toward the lake, his feet leaving light prints in the damp soil under the grass. Tay watched from under lowered lashes as the male Kindred knelt long enough to dip his sleeve in the water.

"Here," Cour said warmly, coming back to reclaim his place. The wet cloth dabbed soothingly over Taydren's heated eyelids and cheeks, soaking up the stray tears. "Now it's your turn. You ask something."

"You're humoring me," Tay muttered dejectedly, but he took the offer just the same.

"Tell me... about you," he asked uncertainly. "About how you grew up. How... why did you go to Denen? When did you decide you wanted to be a corolaith?"

Cour's mouth twitched. "I thought you knew that already?"

"No," Tay replied softly. "I don't really talk with people that much. Vayrsila says things sometimes, but he doesn't like to gossip. Mostly we just talk about me. I want to know about you now."

"All right, then," Cour agreed gently. "Well, you know that my parents are of the Jalxon, right?"

"Everybody does."

"Everybody knows this story too, but you don't," Cour countered with a grin. "Anyway, when I was younger, we all thought that I was going to be one too. Except Vayrsila, he never really thought I was fanatic enough," the storyteller admitted. "But when I was about Kelper's age... oh, probably a year or two younger, maybe the twins' age, I found out I was interested in healing."

"But then why didn't you start with Denen then?" Tay asked. His eyes narrowed in thought. “Vayrsila said you went there when you were thirteen.”

He wasn’t prepared for the sudden clouding of Cour’s blue eyes.

“I had a twin,” he began slowly. Then he shook his head. “Ask me something else.”

On impulse, Tay reached out and took his companion by the arm. "You can tell me."

Cour bit his lip. "He drowned," he said haltingly. "In the old stream bed down past the crabapple trees. There'd been a lot of rain for a week or so before-it was early spring. I was with him in the morning, but he said he wanted to look for crocuses and I didn't want to get in the mud." He cast a wry look across the lake at the twins. "Baths.

"He went without me, and he slid going past the long pool. He was a good swimmer, but they said he hit his head on something. He had a knot under his ear when I pulled him out."

Tay suppressed a shiver.

"I got worried when he didn't come back for dinner." Cour's voice had dropped to a thin murmur, and Tay almost wished that he hadn't asked. He tried his best to cast a silently supportive aura, but it didn't seem to be working very well. "Crocuses only grow a few places around here, and he knew every one, so I did too. I looked by the stream bed first.

"After that, I didn't much care for healing anymore. I tried just about everything on him, and it didn't any of it work, so I thought it couldn't be all that good." He paused, then let out a heartfelt sigh, and Tay was relieved that when he started speaking again his voice sounded more normal.

"He was dead before I ever found him, but nobody told me that for the longest time. I guess... I was still small, and they probably didn't want me knowing that I'd held a dead body. It took a while for me to understand that death can't be helped, but when I did I decided that it would be better to help who I could. So Da dropped me off with Denen, and I've been there since."

"And your parents weren't upset?" Tay queried timidly. “Because you’re not one of the Jalxon?”

Cour shook his head. His mouth curved in a half-hearted smile. "There's more than one way to be faithful, you know. Healing is only another form. After all, when I deliver your cub, I'll be delivering one of the offspring of the gods."

"I'm only going to have one?" Tay wondered, tugging at his lower lip with small teeth. "You never did say, when you looked."

"Yes," Cour agreed. "I thought you knew that. You keep saying 'him', not 'them'."

"I guess I do," Tay mused. "Maybe I did know. But not in my head... More in my heart. And why am I only having the one?"

"I think because of your age," Cour said, his forehead creasing thoughtfully. "Mixed with the fact that your tribe's birth rates were running down. Denen says he thinks that ours are doing the same, only slower. Five-litters are becoming less common, and sixes even less than that. It's been a long, long time since there were any eights."

"Does he know why?"

The lines in Cour's forehead smoothed out, and he shook his head. "No. But he thinks it's probably just natural. All things come to an end, as he says. Someday that's going to be a very famous saying, if he doesn't quit saying it first."

Tay clapped a hand over his laughter, but Cour tugged it away, smiling.

"Feeling better now?"

The smile faded but did not disappear. Tay inclined his head forward. "A little. I'm still not sure what to do. But I can try now."

"Good. That's all we need to do: just try." Cour shifted, stretching his legs. "Now then, you had better call your cohorts out of the water so we can go back. The light's getting dimmer. It's probably time for supper."

Tay didn't move. His head fell gradually further forward, until his forehead and Cour's were just touching. "Cour," he said after a few heartbeats, "do you think you would..." He stopped, and Cour watched the surge of heat wash across his face. "Could you..."

A piercing whistle sounded across the water of the lake, making both Tay and Cour startle and look up. Kelper was standing half in and half out of the lake's shallow edge, two fingers held up against his lips, and he was grinning.

"Kiss him already!" he called out.

So out of sheer obstinance, Cour did.

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Tay was red most of the way home. His face would have just evened out into an slightly uncomfortable pink when Kelper would reel off another of his wide supply of innuendoes, and the flush would return full force. In fact, the twins and Kelper were so busy teasing and Cour was so busy defending that both parties missed their turns home and all five of them ended up standing in front of Vayrsila's house without the slightest clue as to how they had gotten there.

"Teasing Taydren again, are we?" Vayrsila asked dryly upon seeing the entourage on his doorstep. "Cour, aren't you a little old for that?"

It was Cour's turn to flush now. "I wasn't-"

"He was stoppin' us!" Kiplin chirped truthfully, and was promptly kicked in both shins by his twin and older brother.

"Not s'posed to give us away," Kinlin hissed out of the corner of his mouth, trying desperately to look innocent for his grandfather and scolding for his twin at the same time.

Vayrsila smiled. "What did I do to deserve such troublemaking grandcubs? Go home now! Your da will have my hide if I let you stay out here and miss your supper."

Breathing identical sighs of relief, Kinlin and Kelper collected their pouting sibling and headed back the way they had come. Cour grinned sheepishly at Tay.

"I'd better go now too, or I'll catch it. See you tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow evening," Tay assented quietly, and when Cour left, he watched until he was out of sight. He turned around to find Vayrsila grinning in a way that made it quite obvious where Kelper and the twins' demonic streak had come from.

"Something you wanted to tell me?"

Tay blushed. Again.

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