Have some Elias fluff
Elias Pound shook me, you guys. I wrote this wee thing to correct all wrongs and thought I’d share.
“Wake up. Elias, wake up!”
He could hear the rustle of leaves and her voice seemed to be born from the earth itself, warm as the honey in the hives and clear as the water in the stream. Elias felt his eyes pleasantly heavy, his limbs sore from the hardships of the harvest season in the Ridge.
“I’d stop procrastinating if I were you.” Claire said in a conversational tone – he could hear the smile forming behind her words. “You’re almost completely covered in ants. One is plotting to build a nice colony inside your left nostril.”
“AHH!” He jumped from the small nest he had found amidst hay and crunchy leaves - kissed by the fire of summer’s goodbye – and frantically jerked, jumped and slapped himself, trying to dislodge the invading ants from the slopes of his gangly body, performing an impromptu tribal dance that made Claire giggle.
“You’re lucky these bastards aren’t fire ants.” She covered her mouth to hide her grin, as he glanced at her with accusing eyes. “Or I’d have to dip you in my mint and sage ointment, as if you were a chicken ready to roast.”
“I should be more careful.” He admitted with a shy smile, projecting one final offending insect to the ground. “I was so tired I couldn’t even master to get into the house.”
“You looked peaceful”. Claire commented, as they started to walk together towards the Big House, Elias quickly stealing her basket from her hands – filled with vegetables and roots to the brim - and carrying it for her, as was their custom. “Were you dreaming?”
“I was”. He brushed aside his brown hair, finally longer and mildly well-behaved, after Claire’s last experience at cutting his hair. “I was dreaming of the sea – I was sailing with the Triton and the Porpoise.”
“Oh.” She looked at him, her brows raised in concern, her eyes softening. “I hope you know how much we cherish you, Elias. I don’t really know how I’d do without you to help me with patients in the surgery and Jamie relies so much on you to keep up with the tenants. Not to mention Ian.” Claire’s arm came around his shoulders in tenderness – a sizable task, since he towered a few feet above her. “What you two have is thicker than blood, I believe. Brothers to the bone, if I ever saw two young men with such kindred spirits. But,” Claire stopped him and her calloused hands came up to frame his face in complicity, where a small stubble was appearing. “If you miss the sea and wish to leave – if you want to know what’s out there for a young man like you, no one would think ill of you. We will be here, whenever you’re done with your voyages. You’ll always have a place here, Elias.”
They stood silent for a while, savouring the distant echoes of voices and a shared song coming from the Big House, where people who loved them both awaited their arrival.
“Do you remember when I was taken ill during the plague aboard the Porpoise?” Elias said softly, grabbing Claire’s hand – always available to soothe and reprehend him, to teach him the ways of healing, to applaud his conquests and wipe away the tears of his shortcomings. “When you thought I’d perhaps die and told me to come home?”
“I do.” Claire nodded, tilting her heard in sorrowful remembrance.
“I didn’t really have many memories to hold on to, then. I’d been away from home for so long. I could barely remember my mother’s face.”
“Yes, but –“ She interrupted, but he smiled and started to playfully pull her towards the house.
“If death ever comes for me again, Claire, I’ll have you to remember – and Jamie, Ian, Rollo, Lizzie, Brianna, Roger. And this is the home I’ll always come to. There is no other place I’d rather be.”
