(Untitled)

[theravenboy]

Bran will have to leave Clwyd for the spring term soon, but at the moment he's still at the farm, reviewing his classnotes, preparing the next semester's work, helping out his father and the other farmworkers, and remaining infuriated at the local news

Comments

[mmquitecontrary]

Mary is regarding him solemnly.

"Are you still angry?" she asks, after a few moments.

[theravenboy]

"Yes," Bran says gently, "but I am getting better at putting the anger aside when there is nothing that I can do about it. And right now, there is nothing I can do. How are you, Mary?"

[mmquitecontrary]

"I am twelve now," Mary informs him, standing a little straighter, "but other than that I am mostly as usual."

[theravenboy]

"Penblwydd hapus, then. Happy birthday," Bran says, as solemn as Mary. "There were very many important things that happened to me, the year I was twelve."

[mmquitecontrary]

Mary repeats the phrase, carefully.

"Penblooud hapus? I shall remember that. How long ago was it that you were twelve?"

[theravenboy]

"Pen-BLU-ith," Bran corrects. "Careful to use the soft th sound for the double d. Seven years ago, it was, back when I first met Will."

[mmquitecontrary]

"Was Will twelve then too," Mary asks, "or was he the same as he is now?"

Mr. Lyon is old as can be imagined, and Will is the same sort of thing as Mr. Lyon, after all.

[theravenboy]

"Eleven going on twelve. We are more or less the same age. Although Will was a very old eleven." Most eleven-year-old boys do not inform their friends that the murder of their friends' dogs is part of the long pattern of history.

[mmquitecontrary]

"Were you an old eleven?"

Mary cannot imagine Bran as one of the shouting, running boys who called her names in the first house she stayed in before moving to the manor; she cannot really imagine him throwing a tantrum like Colin, either.

[theravenboy]

"I am not sure, really," Bran says, thinking about it. "I never really had friends before Will, so I don't know."

[mmquitecontrary]

"You knew me when I was eleven," Mary says, thoughtfully (because that was clearly ever so long ago). "I do not know if you have known many other eleven year olds to compare, though; and I am awfully queer."

[theravenboy]

Bran does not laugh at Mary. "I expect that you and I were about the same age, when we were eleven."

[mmquitecontrary]

"I had not any friends either, before I was - not eleven. Before I was ten. I expect that is part of it. I made friends when I came to Yorkshire, and to here. I came here too when I was nine, but I did not know enough to be able to make friends, then."

[theravenboy]

"Making friends is a skill," Bran agrees, "and not an easy one, either. I am proud of you for learning it."

[mmquitecontrary]

"Dickon taught it to me," Mary says, "and Duo, and the robin."

There's a quiet kind of happiness in her voice, at that; she's lucky, in this, and however contrary she might be she knows it.

"Was it Will who taught it to you?"

[theravenboy]

"Some," Bran says, his tawny eyes going vague with thought. "John Rowlands taught me some too. But the one who really taught me was Cafall. He was my dog."