Ishgod: Repetition

[mother_herbivore]

Sweep the cobblestone paths winding through the temple grounds. Draw fresh water from the stream for the midday washings. Feed the ritual stag and his doe, brush his coat until it shines. Gather wood for the pile, never let it sit below waist height. Check the traps for Itisfit’s gifts, and reset them for tomorrow. Ishgod does his chores thoroughly and without complaint, every day whether the weather allows or not. He has a sealskin poncho for when it rains, heavy furs to keep warm in the snow. It is good, honest work that keeps him strong, and the temple runs all the more smoothly for it. No one bothers him. His days are peaceful.

 

Sweep the paths. Draw fresh water from the stream. Feed the ritual stag. Gather wood for the pile. Check the traps. In the evening, he studies: history and architecture, some literature and scripture. He reads and reads and reads while his brother leads the evening classes in the temple’s main hall, and his sister plans weddings and funerals and ceremonies of the first hunt. His parents sit in the library, copying texts for worshippers to take home with them. His father illuminates the pages that his mother writes—she cannot do any physical labor with a child so near, and he won’t leave her side. They let Ishgod be. His work is satisfactory.

Sweep. Draw. Feed. Gather. Check. The smokehouse is full, and now there are two deer hides to flesh, wash, dry. Ishgod sits on a flat stone, a skin in front of him and a blade stretched between his hands, and he works. He glances up every so often, looking across the clearing to the library, and sees his parents’ shadowy forms bent over books. They are focused on their work, and they don’t look up. Ishgod reminds himself not to get distracted—the hides will dry out if he does not work quickly. The ritual stag stares at him for a long time. His doe is more interested in the rich, soft grass than in Ishgod.

    The sun sets, and Ishgod skips supper to finish his work. His mother will want the hides ready for the baby when it finally comes—between the rest of his chores, and his studies (meager as they are), softening the skins will take a week or more, and he doesn’t have much longer than that. He should have started the tanning sooner, but most of the hides he received this year went to his own clothing. He had put off new clothing for too long, opting instead to repair and alter what he already owned, and he could no longer ignore the wear-and-tear, the tightness across the shoulders, the gap between the end of his sleeve and his wrist. In the past decade, he’d grown another six inches, standing over a head taller than his father now. His head brushes the top of doorways when he passes through them, and he has had to replace all his shoes almost every season. He is certain  his parents pray that he won’t grow anymore. 

At least he is strong, and his great height makes it easy for him to hang the hides up by himself. 

Sweep. Draw. Feed. Gather. Check. Ishgod resets a few loose stones in the path and cleans out the smokehouse, wrapping the meat in rawhide to be stored away for winter. He has time to practice his illumination tonight, painting a tiny meadow at the bottom of one of his favorite poems. It looks empty, so he adds a stag. The antlers are too thick, but he is getting better at the body. 

“You’re improving,” his father says, with a cursory glance at the paper. “Use smaller brushes and define the details.” He is focused on the book before him, painting an ivy border around the scripture. It looks as though he’s pressed tiny leaves onto the page. His mother is still copying scripture into another book, and she does not look up. Ishgod leaves the library, taking his poem with him.

Sweep. Draw. Feed. Gather. Check. The hides are dry. Ishgod takes them down from the racks and lays them out. They will need to be soft enough for a baby’s delicate skin, thick enough to keep them warm in the winter. It’s a difficult balance to keep. Ishgod scrapes and scrapes, softens and washes, scrapes again. His shoulders burn, but he keeps working. No one else will do it. 

He works the hides again the next day, and a third day again before they are satisfactorily soft and creamy smooth. He folds them carefully when they are dry and puts them in his mother’s room—she will cut them how she pleases, after the baby is born. Ishgod hopes they are good enough to be used for the baby’s first-year dress.

Sweep. Draw. Feed. Gather. Check. His mother is more withdrawn, late-term fatigue dampening her excitement. She is older than what age most elves have their last child at—Ishgod was supposed to be her last, and no one thought she would be fertile now, nearly in her sixth century. The coming baby is all the more miraculous for it. It will have a wonderful start to life, already a blessing from the twin creator gods. Still, his mother is tired. She sleeps more often now, even giving up her transcribing work. Whenever Ishgod wants to see her, she is asleep.

“She needs to rest,” Keska says, when he catches Ishgod lingering outside their mother’s room again. “Leave her alone.” 

“I feel like I have not seen her in weeks,” Ishgod says. Keska grasps his upper arm and guides him away from the bedroom.

“Growing a child takes a toll on her body,” he says. “She was the same when she was with you. It was not so bad with Lenoran, but she was tired then, too. We are simply stuck in a period of waiting.” He pats Ishgod’s shoulder. “Things will improve when the baby is finally here. There is a splintered board in the corner of the main hall—I need you to repair it before tomorrow’s noon sermon.” 

Keska is right—all they can do for now is wait. The house is quiet, almost tense. Ishgod’s mother still comes to evening prayers in the temple, but she sits in the back of the hall, her eyes half-closed, and his father always takes her back to the house before the prayers are done. Ishgod does his chores, and practices his painting when he can. The days are boring as they wait for that one exciting thing to happen.

Sweep. Draw. Feed. The ritual stag’s doe comes close to Ishgod, trying to put her nose in his bucket. He pushes her gently away, then puts a bit of carrot peel in the palm of his hand and offers it to her. She stares at him. Then she walks away to eat the carrot peels he’s already tossed into the grass. Ishgod shakes his head.

He hears running footsteps, and then his sister is standing at the edge of the wooden deck, leaning out as far as she can with one arm hooked around the nearest pillar for support.

“Mother’s had twins,” she calls to him. Her chest is heaving, she is almost breathless with glee. Ishgod stares at her, confused. No one told him that his mother was even in labor, but now there are babies to see? He opens his mouth to ask why he had not been called, but Lenoran is already hurrying off again. She does not look back. Ishgod hastily scatters the rest of the vegetable trimmings for the stag—surely he will understand the urgency—and follows after Lenoran. 

Keska is braiding his mother’s hair when Ishgod joins them, and his father is stroking her shoulders, murmuring something soft and loving. She holds two tiny bundles, neatly wrapped in linen and creamy soft deerskin. 

“Iseda, and Ipeyat,” she says, tired but smiling. “Two little girls.”

Ishgod can’t see their faces from where he stands in the doorway. Lenoran sits next to Keska on the bed, and it seems overly full now—Ishgod doesn’t try to join them. He’s too big. It would only overwhelm his mother, so he stays where he is and leans against the doorjamb while Keska says a prayer. When it has been quiet for some time, Ishgod goes back to his chores.

Sweep. Draw. Feed. Gather. Check. There is an endless stream of visitors every day, family and friends and acquaintances and strangers who want to see the beautiful twins. They love the twins as daughters, and all of them stop at the altar to give prayer and thanks for such miracles. The girls are sweet-tempered and do not cry as countless faces lean over them, cooing over their spring-green eyes and round umber cheeks. Ishgod comes to see them once, when the visitors have thinned, but they are asleep, and do not know he is there. They never do. He returns to his chores.

Four seasons pass, a moment in the long life of an elf but still an important milestone for the little ones. There’s a celebration to mark it, and Ishgod has to rush through his chores so he’ll have enough time to get ready. There is a rabbit in one of the traps. He loses time, skinning and storing the meat, and makes it to the dining room just as his mother is settling into her place on the reception altar. Keska is holding the twins for her. Lenoran stops Ishgod at the door.

“You’re almost late, Kota,” she scolds. Child, she calls him, like it’s his name. She reaches up and brings his braids in front of his shoulders, shaking her head. “You are nearly grown, I shouldn’t have to fix your hair every time.”

“I like it behind my back,” Ishgod says. 

“It’s not proper,” Lenoran says. Then her face softens a bit. “Here,” she says, and tucks the ends of both braids into Ishgod’s belt, “this will keep them from getting in your bowl. When you’re older you can coil them, like Father does.”

Ishgod has never liked wearing his hair in braids, much less coiled into a tight chignon, but he doesn’t like to argue, either. He goes to stand quietly in his place beside the reception platform.

The receiving line is a long one. Relatives from both sides of the family, dear friends and casual friends and acquaintances, regular worshippers and scarce ones—and all of them have gifts to present. Most of them are small tokens: handfuls of colorful beads, plainly embroidered handkerchiefs, hand-written copies of traditional poetry. Some aunties and the odd ambitious acquaintance bring fine, soft nightgowns or tiny, buttery leather shoes. The twins grasp idly at some of the gifts, more interested in their own fingers than the objects. Ipeyat tries to put a bead in her mouth, and Keska laughs as he takes it away from her.

“She likes them,” says the giver, an old tanner that Ishgod only knows by sight. She fondly touches the tip of her finger to Ipeyat’s nose, then kisses Ishgod’s mother’s hand and moves aside to let the next guest approach. Ishgod’s legs are beginning to ache from standing for so long under the weight of his heavy beaded skirt. He shifts his weight from one foot to the other.

“Don’t fidget,” his father murmurs. Ishgod clasps his hands behind his back.

They serve dinner once the gifts have all been given, and Ishgod is glad to be able to sit at last. He carefully slides into his place at the end of the bench, beads rasping over the smooth wood, and reaches to toss his braids over his shoulders. He stops himself, glancing at Lenoran. She is helping their mother straighten her furs, and she does not notice. He doesn’t want her to scold him again, so he leaves his hair alone.

The celebration ends at midnight with another formal presentation of the twins to mark their first full year. Ishgod’s mother sings their house’s hymn, her voice strong and deep, and the song stays with Ishgod through the night, long after the guests have left and his family has gone to sleep.

Sweep. Draw. Feed. Gather. Check. Life goes on, even in the wake of the miracle twins. Ishgod re-tars the roof of the grain storage shed, and sets more rabbit traps so there’ll be more hides for winter. There are three weddings in the temple, one funeral, a first-hunt ceremony for a girl that Ishgod has known since she was a baby. She’s a prodigy, only sixty years old. Ishgod didn’t finish his first solo hunt until he was eighty. He has done many more hunts since then, become quite a skilled hunter, but the first one is always special. There are only two milestone hunts: the first, and the hunt to celebrate adulthood, at one hundred-fifty years. Ishgod’s one hundred-fiftieth is drawing near.

He is allowed to skip his chores on the day of, a warm late summer day. He weaves his hair into one braid instead of two, and coils it up on the back of his head with a bone pin to keep it in place. His bow is well-oiled, the string new and strong. It’s a good day to hunt.

Keska walks with him to the edge of the woods. They’ve never been close, too far apart in age to have bonded when they were young and too different in character to bond much now, but still, they are brothers. Keska tucks a wooden charm into the lacing on Ishgod’s quiver.

“I carried this for my hunt,” he says. “Brought home the most beautiful turkey I have ever seen.”

“Thank you,” says Ishgod. Keska smiles at him, squeezes his shoulder lightly.

“Have faith, Kota,” he says. Then he leaves, and Ishgod is alone with the quiet forest. 

He spends hours looking for a trail. The sun rises and shifts slowly across the sky, and Ishgod finds nothing but old tracks and dry droppings, just shells mostly eaten by the scavenging insects. It’s almost unnatural, how still the woods are today. The birds sing, but when he looks, he sees nothing. A squirrel’s tiny claws scratch up the side of a tree, gone by the time Ishgod turns toward the sound. 

The scriptures are full of stories about Itisfit’s guidance, speaking to her hunters through the trees and the stone likenesses they carve for her. His mother’s sisters are renowned archers, and they tell the same stories—Itisfit’s firm hand, guiding their own, and her rich voice a comfort in the long, lonely hours of the hunt. But for Ishgod, the woods have always been quiet, and the statues are just stone. 

He climbs a tree to sit on a strong branch, lays his bow across his lap, and cries. He is a good hunter, skilled in tracking and shooting, but that means nothing to Itisfit. She won’t help him, not like she guided Lenoran and Keska and every other elf under her care. She gives him nothing, but takes nothing from him. He tries to think of a time that he knew her, but all he’s ever done is go through the motions, and she’s never responded. It’s as though he doesn’t exist. It’s as though he never did. 

There’s a pheasant in one of the traps. Ishgod takes it.

No one is waiting for him when he returns, the pheasant wrapped neatly in his bag. There is light spilling out from under Lenoran’s closed door, and Keska is in the middle of a scripture class. His parents are in the library again, a baby tied to each of their chests as they continue their work on copying scripture. They don’t notice when Ishgod peeks in.

Ishgod goes quietly to the kitchen and plucks the bird by himself, boils it with salt and strong herbs. The hunt took too long; he doesn’t have time to make anything more interesting. 

“Is this grouse?” Lenoran asks, when everyone is seated for dinner and he brings her a bowl of rich stew.

“Pheasant,” he says. Lenoran hums idly. She’s disappointed, he knows, but she wouldn’t say it. She doesn’t need to. 

“It’s a fine dinner, Kota,” his mother says.  Ishgod sets a bowl down for her and murmurs a humble thank you. 

“I always look forward to these hunts,” says Keska. “Remember the doe that Lenoran brought home for her hundred-fiftieth? Exquisite. Such special memories. Can you imagine how magnificent Iseda and Ipeyat’s hunt will be?”

Lenoran and their father exclaim and start to laugh, and Ishgod eats in silence as they speculate about what the twins will bring home when they come of age. A stag, a bear, a whole warren of rabbits. There is nothing that can limit them, no doubt they will be guided by Itisfit and the twin creator gods. When everyone is done eating (no one refills their bowl), Ishgod clears the table and takes the rest of the stew to store in the pantry, and he does not return. No one seems to notice.

He lays awake for most of the night, his head thick from crying. He’d looked forward to his hundred-fiftieth since he was fifty, and now he wishes it would just be over and forgotten. Everyone else likely will forget about it—Ishgod is sure that there’s never been a more disappointing hundred-fiftieth hunt. It will definitely be eclipsed when the twins come of age. Tiny, hardly past their first year, and Ishgod is already in their shadow. His baby sisters are boldly named for the twin creator gods that sent them. His name is one from way back in the family tree, that means good son, and he wonders if it’s even true. He wonders if it even matters, everyone calls him Kota anyway. They still will, even now, he is still a child to them.

When he finally falls asleep, it is dreamless and fitful, no more than an hour or two. In the morning, he slips into Keska’s room and places the wooden charm on his dresser. 

Sweep the cobblestone paths winding through the temple grounds. Draw fresh water from the stream for the midday washings. Feed the ritual stag and his doe, brush his coat until it shines. Gather wood for the pile, never let it sit below waist height. Check the traps for Itisfit’s gifts, and reset them for tomorrow. Ishgod does his chores thoroughly and without complaint.

The idea comes to him a year later, when he is looking through a volume of epics for drawing inspiration. One of the poems tells the story of Solluna, a founding elf, as she searches for a place to build her sanctuary. It reminds him of a ballad he’d had to memorize as a child, about the twin creators and their first followers. The song mentions a temple in the heart of the country (whether the song or the temple came first, no one can agree), and that temple has long been a pilgrimage site for wood elves. It’s a long journey, but every elf that Ishgod knows who has gone always speaks of the place with reverence, even adoration. Perhaps he would find answers there. Perhaps he would be noticed there.

“You’ll want to wait until after the next new moon,” his father says. “The rains will have passed by then.” He goes to a shelf, running his finger along the spines of the books there. After a moment’s consideration, he pulls out a linen-bound volume. “The Bearskin Roads will be favorable. There are plenty of houses open to travelers.”

He opens the book and unfolds a page, a section of a map of the coast. 

“Copy this,” he says. “And be thorough, Kota.”

“Yes, Father,” Ishgod says. 

“Even the smallest error can mean a day or more of unnecessary detouring.”

“Yes, Father.”

His father doesn’t stay to help him copy the map. The twins need his attention. 

“The old temple is beautiful,” Lenoran says, when Ishgod is feeding the ritual stag. She reaches into the bucket, offers a few carrot peels to the doe. She smiles as the doe’s soft lips tickle her palm. “The hymns echo inside, like nothing you have ever heard. Someday I want to go back there.” Then she brushes her hand off and tweaks one of Ishgod’s braids. “Fix your hair,” she says, and goes back inside.

Ishgod empties the bucket and leaves to check the traps in the woods. 

He rises early on the day he is to leave. No one else is awake, and he doesn’t rouse them. He enjoys the quiet of  just before dawn; the soft gray light and the lack of responsibilities pressing on him. All he will do today is walk. 

He dresses, rather enjoying the hard tap of his boots on the wooden floor, then opens the top drawer of his dresser to find his comb and a pair of leather cords for his braids. He takes out a stiff brush, too—he so rarely has the time to smooth his hair with the close-set bristles. It shines in the low light of his lantern when he is done.

Ishgod parts his hair down the middle and drapes it evenly over his shoulders, but he doesn’t part it into sections yet. He keeps on combing his fingers through the thick strands, enjoying the smooth glide. It’s improper to let hair hang loose, free to be splayed over the shoulders or whipped about by the wind. To leave your hair unbound is to invite humans to try and buy it from you. Braids are neat, clean, practical. They might be ornamented with silk ribbons twisted through, or copper rings threaded in here and there, but they are simple. They are expected, and they are proper. Ishgod is tired of braids.

He runs his fingers through the roots of his hair, pushing it back from his face and over his shoulders in a smooth black sheet. Then he stands and picks up his pack. He leaves the leather cords on his dresser.