Important Letter

Milii sat atop a green hill overlooking her village, and though the redness in the sky was already fading from the west, it was still hot, and her sweat hadn’t completely dried. This girl of 16 had been waiting all day under the burning sun, keeping her small brown eyes focused on the village entrance and her long face and small nose and mouth immobile. She only tossed or turned or moved when her long black hair had clung to her back and the feeling of her hair sticking to her became almost unbearable. She thought about cutting it at times while she waited, but no sooner had she tossed and became comfortable again than the thought escaped her mind and she refocused her efforts on the village itself. The adults had been hard at work and the children out and about on their adventures and though she’d been invited by some to join in she refused and sent them away. At this point, she could see those same children going back to their homes exhausted and the adults returning from their bread-earning, all hot and hungry, but satisfied with their days and feeling fulfilled.

At some point, the activities stopped and she couldn’t see anything moving below for no one was milling about and it was so dark that she wouldn’t have been able to see anything or anyone anyways. When the wolves began to howl and the wind started to pick up, she gave up on waiting and went back inside. She lived in a small wooden house with 4 rooms. Fire pits sat cold in the center of two, while the other two were occupied with a bed and a wardrobe closet each. She went into the room with the more ornate, comfortable bed layered with pelts sitting next to a varnished wooden wardrobe that occupied too much space and left very little room for movement. Face-first, she fell into the bed, exhausted and frustrated and was fast asleep while a few tears made their way from her eyes onto the bed.

She awoke well after the sun had come up, and though she wanted to stay in bed and go back to sleep, she smelled breakfast and smoke and heard clanking coming from the small room they used as a kitchen and storeroom and knew then that her brother had been back – late at night or early in the morning she did not know, for he was never consistent in his travels and never announced his arrivals and sometimes she only found out he was back after seeing him sprawled in deep sleep over his bed. The small house wasn’t properly aired and a fire lighted in one or both of the pits meant the house would fill with smoke before long unless they opened a door or window and so she did whenever she cooked – even in the winter when the snow would pile inside and the wind would chill her bones if given an opening – but her brother was forgetful and never noticed neither smoke nor wind nor cold nor heat and always dressed the same in the dead of winter as in the high-time of summer. The two chimneys never did much to help and her brother wasn’t around for long enough at any point to clean them out properly. Milii coughed while she covered her nose and mouth and then opened the door to the outside and kept it that way as she started to walk back in and then changed her mind and went out to the outhouse to pee.

When she came back, her brother was plating the food – some eggs he’d gathered from some beast mixed in with some onions and herbs – which looked nutritious but dreadful and unappetizing for he was a decent brother but an awful cook and none too bright. He smiled at her and placed a plate onto a small table in a corner of the other room – one which served a number of ever-growing purposes as their needs demanded. There were two chairs but she was often alone and even when he was there he almost never ate with her and contented himself with watching her eat. It was no different this time and after he placed her plate he stood tall and said good morning and then leaned against the wall next to the table.

“How many times ‘ve I told ya to open somethin’ up when ya cook? Almost saffocaited,” she said but sounded disinterested and tired and none too angry and her tone hinted at no desire for banter or whimsy.

He shrugged and smiled and asked if she wasn’t going to eat but she said she wasn’t hungry and plopped back down onto her bed in the next room and laid there with her eyes open.

Luuk was tall and slender but brawny with wide shoulders and toned muscles like any young man from the countryside his age. He wore brown pants that were tight around his waist but became roomy around his ankles and a black sleeveless leather vest over a long-sleeve white cotton shirt that he tucked under his pants. He had the same brown eyes as his sister and short black hair but no beard to hide his high cheekbones, sharp jaw, and wide mouth. Normally, there was a short sword hanging in a scabbard from his waist but no such sword was there now and so it was for the long sword he had on him at other times.

He stood there smiling while the food grew cold and started tapping some tune with his fingers against the wooden wall of the house, so old it was that the wood of that panel was now almost hollow and the taps echoed slightly across the room but weren’t too loud to reach the room next door. For a second he closed his eyes and stopped tapping or smiling and sighed and said out loud that he didn’t know his sister changed her name to “Mirii” or that the village name changed from Krom to Chrom in his recent 3-month long absence away from the village and that changes like these ought to have been passed by him as her brother and resident of that there village.

Milii ignored him and kept laying there and then had an inclination about what he was saying and suddenly sat up to see if he was going to say anything more but no words were forthcoming and the residence was silent save for the sound of sheep bleating outside and smoldering embers from the pit.

Poking her head from the doorway of her room she saw Luuk standing as he was before, tall and smiling, but now waving an envelop in the air. So quickly she rushed to him that she almost tripped over herself but still couldn’t reach the envelop so high he waved it out of reach, teasing as older brothers do and promising to hand it over should she eat. No sooner was this said than he felt something force its way into his stomach and found himself keeling over on the ground. The envelop was wrested from his fingers and opened up in almost the same motion, Milii wide-eyed and frantic and crumpling the fine paper within, so inelegant and uneducated she was in all matters of refinement.

The letter was barely read and her eyes scanned over the page in deep concentration and scrutiny, looking for one word upon whose recognition she gasped and fell to her knees and held the letter close and cried while Luuk got to his feet and looked on more disappointed than glad but not surprised, so many surprises had he seen of the world that the result he saw wasn’t out of question.