How’d you manage to get a talking dragon? All mine does is sleep.

 
Timeline/World: Newfound Worlds – Chiera: Autumn
Characters: Allaithe Vertus
Race: Chieran
Age: 31
Current residence: Eldine, Nualari
Final Word Count: 791 words
 

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Rumours of animals talking when animals should not talk have started to flow within the walls of our village. I know that certain birds can mimic sounds and are believed to be able to talk. I don’t know that I would call this talking so much as it is really just mimicking. I’ve been around some of these birds while the sun had begun to set and it was disquieting, to say the least.

The current rumours are about other flying animals that don’t truly get much bigger than a newborn child, at least not the ones that are usually kept in captivity. I’m fairly certain that there might be bigger ones out there in the wild but I’ve never seen them and I’m in no rush to see them. Elotes are usually fairly small, scaled creatures with wings. Some of them breathe fire but the vast majority are merely companions without fire. The ones who do breathe fire have been usually kept with those of us who might need help starting a fire.

I’ve thought about the potential of an elote before but with Ida, I don’t know that I would dare. He is so used to our routine that adding in an extra to it would possibly unsettle him and, well, elotes do need some patience, love and care and the ones that do breathe fire are known to prefer living in a heated environment. While the ovens are hot when the bread is being baked, the rest of our house is comfortably cool most of the time. The area where we mill our flour is kept as cool and as dry as we can manage and having an elote around that area wouldn’t do me any good. To make a long story short, I think that fire-breathing elotes are better kept for blacksmiths and others who work near forges.

When I first heard the rumour, however, I didn’t really know what to think. We only know so much about the elote and its habits that there is plenty out there that remain a mystery to us. The elders might know more but, somehow, I don’t know that they do. Studies on the elote are still ongoing as I don’t think the whole captivity thing is that old. A few decades at the most. I know that while my parents still were alive, the presence of domesticated elotes was only just beginning to be a thing.

Someone has been going around recently, claiming that they had an elote that could talk. I have a hard time believing that kind of idea and I haven’t given it much thought. I know that Ida has heard the stories too but I don’t know that it has stayed much with him. He’s often enough lost in his own world and a lot of what goes around him goes in one of his ears and right back out the other and, you know, I think this is for the best. There’s so much out there that I don’t know would sit well with him that I think it’s best if he doesn’t really pay all that much attention to it.

Ida being happy is one of those things that matter the most to me and that’s how I want that to keep on being. It’s been a really long time since anything has set him off and I want to keep it that way. I know that he’s not too hard to calm down once something does go wrong but the less often that happens, the better it is. It’s one of the reasons why I make sure to avoid certain wooded paths after dark if I’m with him. I still remember how unsettled I was when those birds talked at me—not that they were truly talking—and I don’t want that for him.

So that someone is claiming to have an elote that can talk is one of those things I will take with a grain of salt. I don’t want to believe it, and even if I do, I’m not one to want a domesticated one. Even if it were one of the ones that are without fire. There are plenty of animals out there that we’ve domesticated but I’m still not completely sure of how I feel about the elotes. I know that they can be useful. I know that people seem to love having them—the ones that do—but like most other things, there are downsides to it all and I have my hands full living my life as I do and that’s all I need. I don’t need something else to possibly worry about and that’s all there really is to it in the long run.

If I said what was on my mind, you’d get offended, so no. I’m keeping my mouth shut.

 
Timeline/World: Newfound Worlds – Chiera: Autumn
Characters: Allaithe Vertus
Race: Chieran
Age: 30
Final Word Count: 720 words
 

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It took six more months before Anthia was gone. It so happened during a celebration that somehow, the truth of things finally made a dent through her skull and made it clear to her that none of the celebrations had ever been about her. She ran off screaming and crying, calling all of us monsters that had led her wildly on while she’d innocently been trying to just live her life peacefully.

The following day, she was gone, her house left in a mess but her personal belongings all gathered and taken away. I don’t know where she went off to and I’m not altogether really interested in knowing, not really. I think we’re better off without her trying to hog all of the attention. For a year, we’ve tried to get her to understand that none of the celebrations were about her but, in a way, I think she just chose to ignore that information.

I feel for the next people she’s going to live with, and the next after that, and the next after that. Somehow, by her reaction before she fled, it seemed as though it was all a game to her. It felt as though she knew exactly what she’d been doing but some had been pushing much harder to get her to understand the going-ons and it might have tired her out, I just don’t know.

At first, I honestly thought she might have been a little bit like Ida. I know that it’s a rare condition, what he has, and it affects him deeply, but after speaking to the elders, it seems as though while it isn’t common, it still has been observed and not all who are autistic as he is, are as deeply affected and can mostly function just fine on their own. Thinking back now, though, it was clear that there was nothing of the sort with her. As one who tends to stay back a little during gatherings and celebrations, I watch others more than not and there just were little things, small signs.

I did catch her in a conversation with another woman; that second woman was a stranger to me. I can’t claim to know every resident of our village but I do know most. There are not thousands of us and most have come to get bread and other items from me more than once. The other woman she spoke to was about as younger as Anthia herself but there seemed to be some animosity between the two. What I mostly caught of the end of their discussion was the stranger telling Anthia that if she said what was on her mind, Anthia would get offended, so she was keeping her mouth shut.

That seemed to set Anthia off; she stalked away from their discussion following that. I suppose that maybe it is that woman more than any others that managed to get her to leave, I just don’t know. Only few people seemed to actually have any sway on Anthia and if that’s what it took to get to her, then all the better for us, I’m not going to lie.

It’s been much quieter since she left. The gatherings and celebrations feel so much better, smoother. There is no one trying to hog all of the attention, there is no one shouting their grateful thanks, just out usual celebration of joy and sadness. Celebrations during which we thank deities, we thank the planet for her bountiful harvest, the moon for her presence, there are plenty of celebrations to be had for a whole plethora of reasons.

At times, I feel as though there might be too many and that some even overlap. I can understand being grateful for all that we have, but celebrating it all as often as we seem to do anymore seems like it might be going a bit overboard anymore. I think that’s why I tend to mostly stay on the sidelines when I go. Not going is often seen as an affront, though no one can truly keep track of everyone who comes and goes. So I go most of the time, the rest of the time, I stay with Ida, since these celebrations gather too many in a single place and that doesn’t work out well for him.

Making yourself the centre of attention again, I see.

 
Timeline/World: Edge of Forever – Chiera: Autumn
Characters: Allaithe Vertus
Race: Chieran
Age: 28
Final Word Count: 604 words
 

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Some people should not be allowed into the gatherings. They seem to believe that it is all about and it makes it difficult to focus on anything else besides them. Gatherings and celebrations are not meant to be about just one person. They are about the harvest; they are about the full moons, about the change of the month, the eclipses. They are about a lot of things but not just a single person.

Now, Anthia is something else entirely. I’m not even sure why I’m surprised that she’s done this again during the last celebration. She’s done this with every celebration over the last full year. The first time it happened was more or less right after she moved. There was a gathering to celebrate the harvest the day following the one she had just moved into a little house not far from the city centre and I don’t know if she thought it was for her or if she’s just self-centred but she made the whole thing about her.

Most people played it off as her being new and maybe harvest celebrations not being a thing in her part of the world.

Except she did the same thing during the following gathering, the next ceremony after that and just… I think everyone is starting to be pretty tired of her trying to make everything about her. She’s just soaking in all the attention but that attention grabbing is beginning to be much less a thing than it was a year ago.

We’ve all tried to tell her that it’s not about her but she just laughs it off, flips her hair over her shoulder and tells us that we’re so silly and that it’s so great that we celebrate her and just, it’s insane. She makes me want to move, it’s that bad.

I think that if it weren’t for wanting to keep Ida in an environment he’s familiar with, I’d move us elsewhere. I can’t just not go to the gatherings, they’re celebrations of what we believe in and not going would just be stupid. Ida doesn’t always go but that’s to be expected. His mind’s not wired like mine or everyone else’s, and at times, when it’s too noisy, he has fits.

I love my cousin and that’s why I’m not moving us elsewhere. He’s lived here all of his life and I don’t want to have to uproot him just because one idiotic woman loves to make herself the centre of attention at any and every chance she gets.

One of these days, someone’s words will just get through to her tiny little idiotic brain and that’ll be that. I’m just not sure how much longer it’s going to take. It’s that or she moves on to another place and that might be the other option. Not that I’m planning anything to get her to move. I just want to focus on baking the most delicious bread I can. It’s my specialty. I’m not the only one in the area but I’m still one of the best ones. It’s in the way I grind my flour and the type of flour I use for my bread but I’m not about to spill my secrets. I’m the best for a reason and it feels good to know that I’m so good at what I do that I often run out of baked goods to offer while I’m at the market.

The only times I can usually manage to have enough on hand is when Ida helps and those days are an on-and-off thing, I don’t mind.

This doesn’t seem like it’s going to be ‘mess free’.

Timeline/World: Chiera: Autumn
Characters: Allaithe Vertus
Race: Chieran
Age: 26
Final Word Count: 553 words

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He was looking at the mess of items on the table, set out before them and he couldn’t help but chuckle faintly. While this activity had first been deemed as mess free, he knew it wouldn’t be the case. Nothing was ever really mess-free when paint was part of the package but he could admit that it made it interesting.

Then again, spending time with Ida after his day in the bakery was always fun, no matter if it turned out to be mess free or not. Paint was just paint and it washed off quickly. If it made Ida smile, it was even better and that was the important part. His cousin had been sad lately and Lai just didn’t know what to do about it.

It wasn’t the festivals, those weren’t for a while yet, it wasn’t someone who’d have broken his cousin’s heart, he would have heard about it and only one person had approached the autistic man in that particular way and it had simply not worked out, much to his dismay and to Ida’s almost unending tears. It had taken months to bring his cousin back out of that shell after he’d curled back into it once the heartbreaker in question had left.

Shaking off that particular memory, he looked at the bowls and tubes of paint sitting on the table, then up to Ida’s so very concentrated look. It was always something to just watch Idanel’s face change to concentration when he first picked up a brush or a pencil.

“Let’s try to at least keep the mess to the table this time, shall we?” He grinned a little, especially as, just to prove a point, his cousin dabbed his paint-covered brush on the table, grinned and then went back to the canvas that was sitting in front of him.

Shaking his head in amusement, Lai merely sat down on a bench just a few paces away, watching as the brush drew simple patterns on the canvas that he knew would soon take a more delicate and complicated shape. He could have spent hours watching his cousin paint, it was soothing. He felt no need to pick up the brush himself, just watching each stroke be applied was perfectly fine an afternoon activity for him and he didn’t really want anything else.

He nodded off, not even really aware of it and was woken up by the wet and slightly slimy—to him—touch of a paintbrush to his cheek. He blinked, startled and looked up to his cousin who was grinning brightly though there was a shine of curiosity in those eyes and Lai offered Ida a sheepish sort of smile and shrug before turning his gaze to the canvas. “Sorry, didn’t mean to fall asleep, it’s just been a long day at the bakery, we had to make more flour and just—you know how exhausting that can be.”

It wasn’t really an excuse but by the nod his cousin gave him, he was forgiven.

The painted image took his breath away and found himself just staring at it for a really long moment. It was a gorgeous sunset view of their home, a scene that hadn’t been painted yet and the colours were just perfect in his eyes. “Good job, Ida.”