New Spring, New Stones
Xanth found himself approaching the bottom of the staircase that wound it's way from their home at the top, down the trunk of the massive cedar tree, Trynn still hissing in his ear. Xanth furrowed his brows and looked annoyed over his shoulder at his grey haired companion. "Damn it Trynn, leave it alone," the younger man said."You're willing to throw away everything for this? You don't even know what we're getting into here. You don't see any of it, do you?" Trynn's voice had an edge of panic to it, something that was there a lot lately. The once stoic and proud leader now crippled and desperate pulled at his hair and tugged at Xanth's shoulder. Xanth resisted and pulled away from Trynn, taking his last step to the ground when Trynn pushed him off balance. Xanth spun, his hand reaching for the top of the handrail, but missed and he fell in an unceremonious heap on the frozen path. He winced slightly and reached out his hand to Trynn, who helped him up.
"Don't you remember when we were so much younger how moving and exploring were as important as anything to us?" Xanth stood again, and hooked his arm around the older man's arm and lead him away from the tree toward the edge of the meadow.
"I remember," Lan said, suddenly walking beside his old friend. Trynn's head drooped a bit, as if the weight of time itself had suddenly been placed on his head. "We were always moving then, if not exploring places we'd never been, we were exploring places we'd known forever, looking for new secrets."
"I know what you're trying to do," Trynn said, cutting Lan off, "but this is different. And dangerous. You're throwing out the foundation of our last 11 years, you're opening our home, our last safe refuge to anyone. You're prepared to walk out of here with everything we know, with every secret we ever learned and hand it over to world that has so many times been cruel, hurtful and hard to us? We don't belong with them. We're not like them. We don't belong." Instincively, Xanth and Lan heard Trynn's words close with a thump, their minds inserting the sound of his open hand on a table. It's the cue that had ended so many conversations in the past, as if Trynn passed judgement and banged his gavel. There was no more to be said.
"Oh yeah, you keep hanging on to that and see where that gets us." Xanth and Trynn both looked down at the fox, now walking just ahead of them. "You've been hanging on to that great hunk of hurt for a thousand years, and you're the only one willing to carry it any more, you giant ass. You think they want that to be their legacy, your legacy?" Lan shook his head. "I remember when nothing was outside your grasp, when we fought and railed and learned everything we could. Do you remember?" Trynn walk silently, his face a stone mask, unfocussed eyes staring straight ahead.
"It shifted again," Xanth said softly, his eyes lighting and a smile spreading across his face.
Lan looked up at the Xanth and tilted his head to one side, then gave the air a tender sniff. "What has?"
Trynn looked up, still expressionless, "the elements."
"No," the younger man said, "not that. Something else. It's combination, but I can't quite pick it up. It's like...." Xanth stopped speaking and moved away from the other two towards a little knoll. "It's like this," he said gesturing at the little hill.
"He's cracked," Lan said looking up at the grey haired figure beside him. "A lot like you a long time ago, I might add." Trynn scowled at the fox and ignored him.
"I see it," Trynn said, "just under the soil and snow. How long has it been here? I've been there a thousand times and never noticed...." His voice finally stopped, trailing away as he walked toward the younger man and the small hill. By now Xanth was walking up the small hill, his boots crunching on the untravelled snow. He crested the hill and reached down instincively to the older man, offering his hand. Trynn took it, and pulled himself up the small mound. "Lan, make yourself useful for once and dig here."
"Don't need to," Lan responded. "Make myself useful, or dig." Lan walked lightly over the snow up the hill and stood on the rounded top. It was stone under him though, not snow.
"I don't remember this hill," Trynn said softly, eying the field around him. There were familiar landmarks, the long, bare pine trees nearby, the edges of the old wall to his left and the giant cedar that was now his home directly infront of him.
"It's spring again," Xanth said. "Even the earth moves and changes, learns and lets go. It's the wheel, the year. Didn't we see this one before?" He turned and looked at Trynn, his eyes blazing and a slight smile on his face, his mind connecting the dots of a giant puzzle the others didn't seem to see. "The rune, jera," he continued, his hand reaching excitedly for Trynn, pulling him closer to stand with him.
"It wasn't for us," the older one said.
"How could it not be? We're directly involved!" Xanth started to pace a little, his excitement building, as Lan sat on the rock at the edge of the hill. "It may not have been for us directly, but we're a part of it, and I believe this is the manifestation of that."
Trynn spoke now, softly, following the lead of his young brother, "It's breaking free of the long winter, the freezing and thawing is pushing the rock out. The ice and earth are letting go and warmth and spring are bringing the rock out."
"Fire and ice seems to be a running theme for us lately," Lan said, still not sure where the conversation was going.
"The rock that the earth once held like a pit, a hard, cold hurt now works itself to the surface, and we can finally see what makes the landscape. It becomes warm with the sun, and could potentially be used to build again, or offer support to weary travellers here."
"It's a nice idea," Trynn said after a pause, "and I see where you're going with this, but it's not the right metaphore for what's going on now. She is on the very edge of tearing everything apart. She is going to rip this place apart to shape it to her will, and there will be nothing left of anything we recognize. I don't think we should be confused about the 'hurt' that you're referring to, and look at what she has already done. She has burned our walls and made us defenseless. She has brought strangers here, showed us off like zoo creatures and she crippled us...."
"Crippled you," Lan interjected. Trynn stared hard at the fox, who matched his gaze. "They won't carry this rock anymore, and I don't think they should. It's time, like the kid says, to let the rock go, let it out in the sun where it can be something useful."
There was a long silence as the trio stood and considered. "You will regret this," Trynn said softly.
"We regret nothing," Xanth offered, his voice matching Trynn's. He put his arm around the old man again and shielded him from the wind. "We never have. Everything we are, we walk through fire for. We always grow, and always change. It's what we are. Trusting yourself means trusting us, trusting her, and letting our strengths carry us through. It'll be ok, Trynn, just let us be who we are. Let go of the anger and distrust, of the hurt and terrible dark things you keep hidden."
"She doesn't want to be hurt anymore than you do, you stubborn old fool. She may be impulsive and she may not always be the easiest to understand, but she is a part of you, and we have to let her grow up, to become what she already is." Lan lazily scratched his ear, "It's not like the other time, if you let her control it. It's new ground, let it be explored, let's go beyond the forest."
