The Elven brothers, Part XII

     Intangable masses of oddly shaped gasses swirled and whirled like beings from lands that pass those of the living and meshed with those of the dead. They swam right through lively essences as if they did not exist and touched their souls with their caressing tendrils of cold yet honestly whole substance. Shifting again from side to center and back, they gripped the spirit of the frozen Aluim and cast him into the silence that could mute both song and storm in tandem. Once there he found solace at last as he gazed upon this brother's oddly pale visage, a visage that seemed less real than a dream yet shined with the heart that he knew was Veldren's alone.
     His brother watched a scene that he had never seen before, oblivious of his presence their beside him. Aluim saw the memory that Veldren had so wished to forget but for some reason was reliving even now as Aluim stood in his silence. The younger brother did nothing to watch the scene that Veldren's mind displayed, he was more interested in the rawness of feeling and eminent fear that still poured over his brother's features as he watched his own memories. A pain in his heart welled as he saw the overwhelming emotion that gripped Veldren so in childhood once again take hold and play games with his mind.
     Aluim was unphased by the ghost of his father dieing in effigy in his brother's mind. He saw only the condition that Veldren was now in, watched only the fierceness that emotion gripped him with and thought of only what to say to console him. He attempted in vain to speak but as he opened his mouth he realized that no noise existed in this plane of thought and that he was to only be a spectator to this eminent event.
     The scene had played out. Veldren was gone from this world and Aluim was alone in this ghostly forest glade wondering what would come to whisk him away next. Nothing came to thrust him into reality and the sky in this fogged mirror of truth had grown dark before a new scene began to play out. It was then that he realized that something very similar had happened many years before. Aluim glanced over and viewed his own shape come into view.
     The young Aluim had left his brother and mother that day after Veldren had come back alone and had abandoned him for the condolenses of their mother. No one had told him what had taken place in that wooded glade not far from their home, they hadn't the heart to tell the small child that his father had died. Aluim was curious then, too curious to save his youthful innocence.
     There he was again, standing over the scarlet smear across the earth that was then his father's remains. He had felt nothing and he would later come to curse himself for that. Being so young he did not yet understand death and the finality that it held. He couldn't grasp the fact that daddy was never coming back. He called to his father in his tiny child's voice and he awaited a response that never came. Aluim was silent then, he remembered that he wasn't to speak unless spoken too. That's what daddy had always told him and today for some unknown reason he obeyed. Days passed before his family found him, cold and alone sitting silently in his father's decaying remains.