alpharaposa: (Rumex writing)
[personal profile] alpharaposa
This is something I've been writing off and on, for fun, during stray moments for a while.
____

Tempor Amuta was boring, an unusual trait in an elf. He had no hobbies to speak of, and never went adventuring. Though most elves changed professions every few decades, he was nearly two hundred years old and did the same work with the same company since he first apprenticed there as a youth of seventy-five.

The Folkhoarding Bank was one of only a few elven banks. Elves were not known for money-counting and investing, but many of them accumulated projects or interests in their long lives and it all added up eventually. Tempor spent every day making updates to the ledgers, calculating returns and occassionally losses as news of this or that venture arrived. His desk and chair were worn as if carved for him, as comfortable as his routine.

Tempor's hair was bright and blond and held back in the same ponytail every day, with a few strands that always worked their way loose by the time he took his lunch. His face was unlined and pale, with grey eyes the color of a snowy sky. No matter the weather, he took a walk every evening just as the stars began to appear in the sky. The bridges and gardens of his home town had a few subtle marks where he tended to stop every time to appreciate a particular bend in the stream or lean over to smell a favorite flower bed. His home was a modest apartment high in an old tree, cool and quiet. His siblings sporadically sent him new clothes in an effort to spark a taste for variety in his life. He wore them, but that's all the further it went. For Tempor, the change of the seasons was all the change he needed. The daily rhythm of his work was its own music that carried him through the years as sweetly as a waltz.

But even the longest waltz yields the dance floor eventually, and one day he finished his work, closed the last ledger of the day, and was met at the door by the owner of The Folkhoarding Bank.

"We purchased a human bank today," the old elf told him, "And you will be our representative in their main office."

Tempor stared at him in shock.

"Mores," he said, "I couldn't-"

"I won't hear it." Mores said with a thump of his walking cane. "You've earned this position. Who else could we send to help organize the accounts but our most dependable clerk?" He began to walk and Tempor walked with him. "Your travel is paid for and the ravens will deliver corrrespondence weekly. Your salary will be increased to match your new responsibilities."

Worms of cold crawled under Tempor's skin. "Travel?"

The old elf gave Tempor a kind look and told him, softly. "The office is over the sea, in Lond." Then Mores returned to his enthusiasm, "Ah, to travel on a ship again! You never forget the smell of the sea or the sound of the waves."

Later, when Tempor went back over the events of the day, he remembered the rest of that conversation. All the details, the arrangements, the names he would need to know. But for the rest of the walk, he couldn't bring himself to think of it. The curve of the buildings around him were suddenly dear as life to him. Every tree and branch was precious; he could not bear to look away. He was cold, and the warm spring night could not cure it.

Still seized by this chill, Tempor's evening walk took him to his parents' house. He hadn't lived there since he had been able to afford his own apartment, and yet now he wended his way to it like a child with a bruised knee. The old tree was as solid as ever, and Tempor walked inside the door and up the spiral staircase, running his fingers over the polished, living wood. The air was full of the comfort of vanilla, the tree's own scent deep in its heart.

Illis, Tempor's father, was on the first landing tending to a brace of owls. One was perched on a bark-covered glove, obedient as a well-trained dog.

Illis nodded to him as Tempor approached. "These two are fairly promising. I hope to try them in a few weeks."

His father's passions had tended towards animals for as long as Tempor could remember, though every couple of decades Illis tried a different species. The owls were new. Tempor made an effort to show some interest as Illis told him about the soft feathers that muffled sound and the excitement of hunting at night under the stars.

Finally, his father put the owls in their cage with some bits of meat to keep them happy and sat on the bench carved into the side of the tree.

"What brings you here, Tempor? You don't usually visit unannounced."

Tempor half-settled on an elegantly carved chair. "Mores wants me to oraganize a human bank he recently acquired. It's overseas."

His father nodded. "Are you going to go?"

Tempor sighed. "I don't know if I can." He sat dejected while his father looked up at the sky, as if some star could peep down through the branches to provide insight. The silence stretched on, with tickling spring breezes carrying the scent of violets up from below.

"This little village is a long way inside our kingdom," Illis said at last, standing up. "Only elves live here, and we make our homes in trees that live for over a thousand years." He caressed the bark for a moment. "You could almost believe that nothing ever changes here, that this place merely cycles through the same days, the same seasons, the same years over and again, for ever."

The older elf looked at Tempor and smiled. "It's an illusion. Everything changes. Some things change so slowly that you would need the most careful measurements to find a year's growth. Some things change so quickly that it seems absurd to even try to measure it once. Some flowers bloom for one day, and the bees rush to take hold of their bounty. Others bloom a month or more. But not a single blossom lasts an entire year. Sooner or later, everything comes to an end."

Tempor held himself carefully, holding back tears at the thought of the valley and its great trees dying. Illis paused for a moment, then leaned close.

"But change isn't always an end, or even so terrible. It's merely new, which means we have to learn new things when we see it. When you stop learning, though, you don't make yourself impervious to change. Instead, you become like the old tree on a bank that is worn under by the stream. Eventually, the stream cuts you from your support, even though you never did anything different from what worked before."

Illis placed a hand on Tempor's shoulder. "It's not wrong to put down roots, but you're not bound to one place. You're not a tree, Tempor. Go learn new things." He smiled. "Write me about it. I'll be here to write you back."

Then Tempor cried, but in his parents' house there was nobody to see who didn't love him enough to make it okay. He stayed long enough to speak with his mother, who cried a little bit too, and then he went back to his home.

A few days later, he visited the elf who had been his landlord for so long and settled accounts. Tempor didn't know how long he would be away, but there were other, younger elves who might like to stay in the little apartment. It felt wasteful to keep it for himself.

What few things he wanted stored went to his parents' house. The rest fit into one trunk, and then Tempor left the only place he ever knew to go over the sea to Lond.
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