My Grandmother's Stories (book)

My Grandmother's Stories

By Ilaltin Siterzu

My grandmother was a storyteller. I suppose I should really say that my entire family is made up of storytellers, and this has been so for many generations. But it is my grandmother who showed us how to bring stories to life with such flair that she could bring a crowd to breathless silence as they waited to hear what happened next. Once, I remember, she managed to get an entire barroom full of brawling Gor'Tog so entranced with her tales that they settled quietly around the tables like schoolchildren. But that's another story.

"Is this story true?" Listeners ask that question so often. And it made my grandmother laugh every time. "All stories are true" she'd chuckle. "It's just that the truth of them is not always revealed in ways you might expect." She never would explain that statement any further. We knew exactly what she meant, though.

She could always find a story to slip into whatever was going on. Sometimes it was like finding the missing piece of a puzzle. I recall when I was in the throes of my first heartbreak. I'd met a lovely Elothean woman - by the moons, those people have the grace of a willow in autumn winds! And how can a young scholar (for this is what I was) fail to be enchanted by such beauty combined with a quicksilver mind? But my people are traditional. I was raised in those ways from the first breath I drew, and no matter what my heart yearned for, there was a bridge of...difference, I can't find a better word than that in your language...that my quicksilver lady and I never managed to cross together. I knew that, ultimately, we would have to part. One wintry night, I was struggling with admitting that to myself. Sleep wouldn't come to me.

My grandmother heard me pacing, came downstairs, and told me this story. It is a true story.

"Once, there was a young Human Trader. Now, before I go any further, you must know that this Trader was not the sort of indolent slug that infests some of our great cities these days. No. He was a rover and a bit of a warrior -- well able to protect himself on the road. It was, in fact, the song of the open road that called him, the freedom that gold gave him to travel wherever he pleased, and the chance to explore distant realms, haggle over rare artifacts, and mingle with many different peoples that made him a Trader. Perhaps he had a touch of Gypsy blood, or perhaps he was a smuggler at heart. Who can really know?

He traveled to the high desert country, and was enchanted by the stark beauty he found there. Ultimately, he made his way to one of the great S'Kra clan cities, there encountering a lass of that ancient people. An artisan of no small skill, she could take gems and craft settings that would suit any royalty. While not high-born, she had all the pride (some would call it arrogance, I suppose) of her kind, and their traditions were the foundation of her existence.

They began to forge a business relationship, then mutual respect blossomed, and soon they found themselves engaging in an affectionate sparring of words and minds. She called him "smooth-skin", laughing and flashing her fangs, and he'd grin and hiss mockingly back, saying that at least he didn't have "demon claws". By this time they were friends, of course, and the spark of something more was there, too, though neither quite saw it happening. They were both slow to trust.

He showed her his books of Dwarven and Elothean jewelry designs, and these fired her imagination and spurred her to new creativity in her work. She led him to the shops of weapon-makers hidden deep in the city -- S'Kra masters who forged deadly blades of such balance and power that any warrior would beg to possess them. They told one another stories of their homelands, which turned to speaking of their own pasts, which turned to sharing their hopes and dreams. And all that finally awakened more intense emotions. He realized it before she did. Or, perhaps, he was the one who was willing to speak of it.

Gently, he tried to let her know that his feelings had become deeper. She skillfully deflected him. He became more persistent, and she more evasive, though never unfriendly. Finally, desperate at her seeming obliviousness, he confronted her. Couldn't she see that he loved her? Her response was a quiet nod. Then why, he demanded, did she seem so determined to ignore that fact?

She was not ignoring it, she declared. But he, she murmured in frustration, seemed to be blind to that fact. At a loss to understand what she meant, he exploded in exasperation. She snapped back, he shouted (have I mentioned that neither one of them was of a retiring temperament?), and before long, with a hiss and a flutter of her silk robes, she stormed off. They were both miserable, of course. She threw herself into her work, and he alternated between disappearing on long and bloody hunting trips and hovering to shower her with persistent tokens of affection. Rare blossoms appeared at her door. Delicate pastries were delivered as she settled down for her morning meal. And when they did have time together, he tried in every way he knew to explain his feelings for her. Her response was always the same. "You do not see what I offer you."

He knew that she cared for him; he could see it in her emerald eyes and feel it in the energy sparking between them. Why did she seem to step back from that fact? What was he missing in the picture? He determined he must have this thing out with her, once and for all. Early one morning, he rose, put on his finest clothes, and strode off to confront this stubborn and mysterious lady.

He found her apartments deserted. A little golden dagger speared a letter to the front door, and, somewhere between shock and despair, he ripped it down. The letter was written in a firm and graceful hand. The parchment it was written on was nearly transparent, and it was hard to discern what it was made of, though it looked rather unsettlingly like skin. This is what it said...

My wanderer (for this is what she called him):

I have departed on a trek deep into my homeland, for I feel the need to walk and to think. I will not return until some time after the rock shrikes have flown eastward ahead of the winter storms, and perhaps not even then. I wanted to leave this little missive with you, though. I am writing it because I keep having an odd dream -- one in which L'aarsa, the old Storyteller of my childhood, keeps appearing and telling the same tales to me with such urgency that I can only believe I am bound to pass them along. My people are great storytellers. And though the ones who do not know us might never suspect it, we are romantics in our own way. It should be no surprise, then, that we are fond of stories of great love and great tragedy.

The stories that old L'aarsa keeps chanting to me are stories of love -- doomed loves, to be precise. And among my people, the grandest of these are the ones in which we S'Kra find ourselves sweetly entangled with those who are not of our people. These affairs rarely have happy endings, you see, and of course that leads us to the place where the tragedy resides. Why? Well, as L'aarsa always said, S'Kra are S'Kra. No more and no less. And no matter how dearly we or anyone else would wish it different, the reality is that we can almost never truly love outside of our own kind -- at least, not in the ways those doomed lovers would wish. One would think that to be tragedy enough in L'aarsa's little tales. But the stories have a different point to make. The real tragedy is not the impossible romance. The real tragedy is the weight of what is actually lost. You see, when we allow a q'alrin (an outsider) into our lives - really allow them - well, it is a rare offering, indeed. In L'aarsa's fables this is what is refused and ultimately lost. Instead, the disappointed lovers kill the S'Kra, or themselves, or both, in storms of angry passion. It is all quite sad and messy.

The gift -- the one the fated lovers, blinded by imagined rejection, cannot see and therefore refuse -- is a rich one. My people rarely choose to take non- S'Kra into their ru'at, our most intimate circle. To stand in that place is to be a bit of both parent and child, brother and sister, friend and lover, companion in journeys and ally in battles. It is all of these, and yet more, and yet again not quite any of them. There is no word for it in any language outside of S'Kra, though the closest might be 'soulbound.' It is most precious, and rarely bestowed. Anyone lucky enough to be so linked to a S'Kra has a being who will stand by them in any circumstance that this world or any other may bring. This is the gift that is spurned in L'aarsa's stories. And in its way, it is a far greater loss than the romance the doomed ones imagined they craved.

My wanderer, I am compelled to pass the message of these little fables along to you in the hope that old L'aarsa will stop tormenting my dreams, and in the hope that they may be of some use to you or to someone you know. My people take their dreaming very seriously. May the grace of Peri'el light your way."

My grandmother stopped and smiled kindly at me. I sputtered, "Well, what, then? Did they find one another again? What is the end of the story?"

She threw her head back and laughed like a young girl. I saw in that moment the wild lass that my grandfather swore hypnotized him the instant they met -- a most happy trance that lasted across the span of their time together. She reached to hug me, and, still chuckling, walked out of the room. Standing now alone in the quiet light of dawn, I understood. I understood that sometimes a story has no "end" other than the meaning we glean for ourselves in the telling. And so I leave this story with you. The ending is for you to find in your own heart.