Blood Memories [Last of Elves book 1] (NaNoWriMo 2014)

Twenty: Naameh

Naameh

His request shocked me to the core. I never expected something like that, and I know that he knew I didn’t. It shames me how I reacted, how he had to take care of me, but there was no other way that I knew how to.

No one knows my name.

Those who once did are gone, left this world to join the goddess once more. I am the only one left. Surely he cannot know how powerful a name is.

Yet, I feel that what I call him is not his name.

It’s been so long since I have heard my name spoken by another. The goddess uses it, as she must, when she comes to me in my dreams, but no mortal has spoken it for years. In a way, I want him to say it, to hear how his slightly different way of speaking changes my name, and whether it is nicer.

But I am scared to tell him.

Scared to see the emotion in his eyes, for surely he knows that to know my name, he must tell me his in return. I feel like he will refuse to do that, refuse to tell me his name for fear of what I might do to him. I don’t really blame him. After all, I have kept him here, against his will, away from the sky and the earth.

I had no idea that the stone was suffocating for him. It certainly explains why he was so weak after being in the stone room, why he almost seemed to die.

I cannot do that to him again.

If I could, I would let him return to wherever he came from, let him out of the temple again. But the goddess wants him. she wants him here, and alive and I cannot disobey her.

My dreams are becoming more and more urgent. She is sending me messages, messages of life and death, and of a spindle. The fate of our world rests on him, just as the ancient prophecy said. But if he doesn’t know that, then how is he to save us? Or will he destroy us?

I don’t know if I wish to find out. If I tell him my name, I give him a link to me, a way for him to speak to my soul. I shouldn’t want to do that, I shouldn’t feel the need to tell him, but … but I do.

I have feelings for him. Despite how stubborn, insulting and arrogant he seems to be, there is something in him that calls to me. Something that I want to see, to cherish. He makes me warm inside whenever I see him, whenever I hear his voice, so different and distinct, yet so familiar.

It’s like I met him a long, long time ago, in a dream, or another life.

I want to know why he does this to me, and why he was brought here by the goddess. I want to know about his world. I want to understand it, so that I can help him, even if he is the last of the elves.

I feel that I have to do something.

I want to know about the history of his people, of the history that we as humans didn’t write. I want to be able to see what is important to them – to him. Whenever I chance upon him alone, unknowing that I am there, he seems wistful, longing and sadness in his eyes. I wish that he would give me the opportunity to chase that away, give him some sort of happiness, but I can’t. He doesn’t let me. Instead, he insults me, mocks my title, my way of life, my beliefs.

As humans once mocked them.