The Elven brothers, Part III

          Strangely enough no tears came to his eyes. No feelings at all were born of the sight of his dead mother's charred and distorted body. Maybe it was the shock of it all or maybe he had felt all that there was to feel, either way Aluim couldn't seem to speak. When Veldren came to his side and saw that horrid sight he was filled with momentous rage and sorrow. He had hoped beyond hope that their mother had escaped during the night and was just lost somewhere in the forest still waiting for him to rescue her, but now his hope was crushed and reality sunk in.
     Aluim looked up to his brother. He saw his face fill with emotion and he thought of the many words he could use to calm him, but decided it would be better to just let him vent. He did not speak when he watched his brother shoot arrow after arrow into the sky as he cursed it for abandoning him during the night. Nothing was his only reply as he let Veldren run again into the wild without saying a word to him, somehow he knew it was the right thing to do.
     For what seemed like hours he sat in the ashes of his lost home in silence trying to feel something, anything but the vast emptiness that seemed to be suffocating him from the inside out. Anger seemed to be the right thing to feel or at least some sort of sorrow but only a numbingly subtle buzz ran through his head. It was a calming din like the ocean beating upon the white sandy shores, never ceasing in its continuing sounds with every coming wave. He came to wish he could learn something from this but nothing seemed forthcoming. Aluim sat and waited in silence as the sun went down on another day.
     Above him the sky swirled with the watching stars. Slowly a bright shower of light began to fall, stars were being dropped from the sky and as Aluim watched the scene, it was being replayed on his face. A lament ladened tear fell from his eyes with every shooting star across the sky and suddenly he could feel again. The Father was clear this night and the everpresent moon guided his soul through its torment. Emotion raged within his heart but his body was still. That night he sat on his knees, his eyes cemented upon the firmament and save for the steady raising and falling of his chest, he never moved.

*     *     *

     Veldren ran far into the wood, his legs carrying him faster than ever they had before and he could feel the rage inside him ebb with every step. The strength beneath him was not his but the power of the earth that he stepped upon. He felt an enormous wealth of vitality flow into his speeding feet and could see it pulse in the trees around him. The Mother eased his pain and reassured him that he would live on even though it seemed as if all was lost. 
     Voices so sweet they were phantasmal began to sing in his elven ears and the songs that they sang were those of solace and lucidity. The honeyed words of the ancestors of the Earth called out to him, leading him into an open glade. The glade seemed quiet and attuned with nature but there was also a second presence there that was somehow familiar. Veldren stopped running, something had told him to listen.
     "Swyrel", the voice whispered,"A' amin Swyrel....sina naa vys eska. Vys naa tel' Kemen."