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Snow

“What are you doing?” Xanth asked, his heavy boots crunching in the hard, wind-packed snow. His cheeks burned with the sting of the wind as he unconsciously pulled his hood up over his head. At first, there was no movement, no sign of acknowledgement from the figure lying prone on the ground. A dark bundle of fur looked more like an animal carcass than anything alive, except for the outstretched arms and legs. “It’s cold out here,” Xanth said to the figure, concern leaching into his normally nonchalant tone. “Let’s get inside.” Still, there was no reply.
Shifting uncomfortably, the elf looked back and forth across the plains, the grey sky and the far away reaches of snow blended. The landscape looked blank and horizonless. He shivered slightly and then knelt beside the body. The figure was lying on his stomach, his head turned away from the young elf, one blank eye visible, staring out at the same blank landscape. He blinked once and took a deep breath. “I hate this place,” his raspy voice hissed out of unmoving lips. Xanth placed his hand on the other’s shoulder and rubbed him softly.
“It’s better inside,” Xanth said soothingly. He placed his hands under his companion’s chest and heaved him unsteadily up. With a sigh, the once unmoving figure stood and pulled off his hood. Trynn’s dark eyes scanned the empty horizon one last time and then turned to Xanth. “How long have you been laying here?” the younger elf asked, staring incredulously at the ground where Trynn had just been laying.
“A month or two,” he shrugged, his eyes half blinking lazily. “Maybe more.” He turned his gaze to follow Xanth’s. There was a bare patch of ground there, the grass green and warm despite the winter around it. Xanth’s hand reached out, touching the grass. There was definite warmth, he thought, puzzled. As if spring came only to this one spot. Xanth stood, stretched and looked after his companion, but Trynn was already walking away, his light body not making the same sound on the hard snow as Xanth’s just had.
Xanth ran to catch up to Trynn, and matched his pace when he did. Trynn trudged silently over the open field, staring somewhere distant, his eyes barely slits, but not in the same realm. Xanthesan said nothing at first, turning to look at the elder elf, choosing his words. “I think you should come back.” He paused, waiting for acknowledgement again from Trynn. He usually waited for acknowledgement from Trynn. And as usual, none came. “Come on, Trynn,” Xanth pleaded, “What’s going on?”
Trynn paused, turning slightly and sighed. “I’m tired,” he said. “I feel like I’ve lived a thousand years and am looking forward to the end.” His shoulders sagged and his knees started to buckle. Lowering himself to the ground, he sat crosslegged in the snow and stared at his hands in his lap. “I honestly didn’t think I’d live this long.” His mind wandered then, Xanth could tell. He couldn’t hide that far away look his dark eyes got. “I’ve screwed up so much, and I’m tired of trying to hold it all together.”
Xanth sat in the snow across from this darker elf and said nothing. Instead he waited, listening. After a moment, Trynn continued. “I’ve always dealt with a sense of ‘uniqueness’. I’ve never been comfortable with being so different from the people around me, and so I’ve developed ways to adapt, to fit in. I’ve lived a long time, holding back, controlling my impulses and emotions, and forever held myself in check.” Trynn looked up from under his hood at Xanth, his eyes smoldering. “I don’t know what my nature is capable of, I don’t know what power I have, and sometimes I don’t know who or what I am. And now I’m no closer than I ever was. I thought to separate my emotions, my moods, into entities, you, Lan, the others…” Trynn paused, took a deep breath and looked down again. “All that did was further alienate myself from everyone. INCLUDING myself. I don’t want the war anymore. I don’t want the separation or the weariness.
“It’s hard for me, at times like this, to remember moments when I was whole. I know they are there, in some part of my past, but no single time comes readily to mind. Do you know why?” Trynn asked as he looked up again at Xanthesan.
“Because you’ve split your consciousness,” Xanth said simply.
Trynn smiled. “For me to remember particular feelings, particular moments I have to share a state of mind with the person I was when I first experienced it. I rely on external stimulation a lot for this, like scents or sounds, particularly music. It’s also why my short term memory is so bad. Unless I hang onto a thought or repeat an experience enough to remember it beyond ‘my own’ mind, it’s gone.”
Xanth considered this and interrupted, “Now when you separate yourself from the others, from Brant and Tali, their experiences are gone?”
“In a sense. I may be aware of events, but the details, the reasons for the events and even the sense of it are vacant. Sometimes the things I do make no sense to me in time. Lately it’s worse.”

posted by September @ 4:18 PM