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Oct. 9th, 2004 03:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
theravenboySilent, it's been silent for days. It is still silent, even though crows are calling, and kestrels, and peregrines. The sheep baa and trudge uphill, and the big black dog barks them into line. The moors stretch, vast, bracken-covered and empty of people; no amount of birdsong can fill them with sound.
It's been quiet since Will left, really, Bran thinks. I'd been used to being alone before, well, alone with Lluchdu. He pats the sheepdog absently as it goes about its rounds. I suppose I forgot how different it was to have friends around.
Will had come, and they'd talked and named stars and told stories and sang together for more than two weeks, and then Will had gone again. It isn't fair. Will has a brother and sister still living at home, and a normal mother and da. Will can go back to Buckinghamshire, and not be alone, and have other things to do besides tend sheep on Saturdays, and chapel twice on Sundays. Will can--
From the top of the hill, from a place where no human should be, Bran hears harp music. Too vague to seem melodic, but played in some harmonious mode, it ripples, shivers, echoes across the moorland. Bran looks up towards the music and grins suddenly. "Come on, 'Du. Let's see who's there."
Lluchdu isn't moving. He's frozen in place, front paw halfway lifted. The sheep are not taking advantage of his unusual inattention. They, too, are stopped between one motion and the next. Even the birds have stopped crying, and hang, unmoving, in the sky.
"Come on, Lluchdu. Tyrd yma." Lluchdu doesn't react.
Bran stands, uncertain, for a moment; if he leaves the sheep, what if they start moving without him? What if some crazy farmer like Prichard (but Prichard's in the hospital now, has been for four years) comes to steal them, or attack Lluchdu? What if...
Can't play foolish what-if games, Bran Davies. The world's gone strange and there's someone with a harp here, and what else can I do but find out what's wrong?
Bran glances back at Lluchdu and the sheep, once, and then climbs upwards through the still landscape towards the harpsong. He follows it up, and up, and up, and suddenly he is somewhere else.
It's been quiet since Will left, really, Bran thinks. I'd been used to being alone before, well, alone with Lluchdu. He pats the sheepdog absently as it goes about its rounds. I suppose I forgot how different it was to have friends around.
Will had come, and they'd talked and named stars and told stories and sang together for more than two weeks, and then Will had gone again. It isn't fair. Will has a brother and sister still living at home, and a normal mother and da. Will can go back to Buckinghamshire, and not be alone, and have other things to do besides tend sheep on Saturdays, and chapel twice on Sundays. Will can--
From the top of the hill, from a place where no human should be, Bran hears harp music. Too vague to seem melodic, but played in some harmonious mode, it ripples, shivers, echoes across the moorland. Bran looks up towards the music and grins suddenly. "Come on, 'Du. Let's see who's there."
Lluchdu isn't moving. He's frozen in place, front paw halfway lifted. The sheep are not taking advantage of his unusual inattention. They, too, are stopped between one motion and the next. Even the birds have stopped crying, and hang, unmoving, in the sky.
"Come on, Lluchdu. Tyrd yma." Lluchdu doesn't react.
Bran stands, uncertain, for a moment; if he leaves the sheep, what if they start moving without him? What if some crazy farmer like Prichard (but Prichard's in the hospital now, has been for four years) comes to steal them, or attack Lluchdu? What if...
Can't play foolish what-if games, Bran Davies. The world's gone strange and there's someone with a harp here, and what else can I do but find out what's wrong?
Bran glances back at Lluchdu and the sheep, once, and then climbs upwards through the still landscape towards the harpsong. He follows it up, and up, and up, and suddenly he is somewhere else.
