Revenir | A Tale of Two Brothers

Some bonds run deeper than destiny

Hello and welcome to the Fiction Section of Notes from the Town Hermit. Just like in my main publication, these stories centre on themes of identity and what it means to be human. Main genres are literary and slipstream fiction and fantasy written with a lyrical and poetic writing style.

You are reading a standalone story from Revenir, an anthology I co-wrote with my son who died in 2021. The stories explore the human experience and delve deep into themes of love, loss, and the search for meaning. Written in a haunting, lyrical style and set in a single fantasy world, this collection is for readers looking for character-driven stories with strong emotional resonance.

It was assumed, and acknowledged by both, at the very start that he would leave.

Not because the two didn’t work well together; if anything, the cogs and gears of the bond they had formed had been so well, any other inventor would have been amazed at its fluidity; it was because the nature of such polarity was eventually going to be pried apart to return where it belonged.

Silas was made to be nurtured by the dark soil of the earth, in the shades of green leaves and under the protection of blue skies and gentle winds. His interests rooted to see what the land had yet not given up. His skin was a subtle brown tanned under the sun, and eyes gold with a joyous glint to it. Even as a child, he would spend hours in their mother’s garden, tiny fingers buried in the soil, whispering to seedlings as if coaxing them to grow. By age six, the vegetables in his patch grew twice as large as any others.

Caspian was free spirited and focused, made to ride the tides and sail its changing ways with a skill only those of the wild possessed. Anchored below the lands to search for what the world held down in its depth and vision, high in the skies, searching for anything more, changing and changing to look for purpose in more than what was on land. His skin was darker than the night, speckled with white stars and eyes grey and piercing, looking right through any reality that could be doubted. While his brother tended the earth, young Caspian would stand at the shoreline for hours, learning to read the moods of the waves. The local fishermen soon noticed how the boy could predict storms before their most weathered sailors.

Hence, mortality in the balance, and foresight in mind, the two, Caspian and Silas, had established long before they had been born, that Caspian would leave.

Few things in life are met with the freedom of a flying sparrow lost in flight a little too high in the skies, its moments narrowed to the winds she is cutting through and a restlessness that comes with want for more of this temporary happiness, more of a liveliness giving colors that come out only when there's nothing left but instinct for the present.

Just like the eve they were born on, a contrast to their otherwise sin-rooted existence, the risk of creating so much beauty through contradicting so much of what had always been written to be followed until the end of all their kinds.

Their mother; a petite woman from those of the land named Ella, and father, a skilled man from those of the sea.

They had met under a crescent moon at the very start of the month. Ella had been scouting for berries under the late night sky for her kin as a testament of her love. Bare feet in wet, dark brown soil, an anklet shimmering to show protective trinkets the wiser of the kin had made of sacred glass, her hair braided to her knees and voice humming an old hymn that represented freedom in her tribe.

In a world where the people of the land and sea were forbidden to meet, Ella and her lover found themselves drawn to a hidden cove, a secret place where they could meet and share their hopes and dreams. A future where they would no longer hide.

If you were to send a bucket down their well of time, and try sending it down to where they met, you'd swear that the luscious non-existent silvery liquid would be solid down there, as if Time’s fluidity had become a viscous block stopping itself from running just for them to cherish wholly what was to come.

The night air was cool, wrapping around them like a familiar shroud, as if nature itself conspired to pause, allowing their destinies to intertwine. Ella’s song, a melody that wove through the trees, caught the attention of the man who lived by the sea, known to his kin as a navigator of the deep and the dark, a seeker of truths hidden in the shadows of waves. His name was Ronan, and he was drawn to the light of Ella’s spirit, a beacon in his world of constant flux.

With skin like the abyss of the ocean he so loved, hair that bore the salt and strength of sea spray, Ronan approached Ella with a cautious curiosity. His life was one of motion, never still, always chasing the next horizon. Yet, here he stood, rooted to the spot by the sight of a woman whose presence sang of the earth and its steadfastness.

Their meeting was not one of words at first but of shared silence, a recognition of souls that transcended the boundaries set by their origins. Ella, with her connection to the land, and Ronan, a son of the sea, found in each other a missing piece, a harmony that neither had known was lacking.

As the moon climbed higher, they spoke of their worlds, of the beauty and the pain that came with belonging so deeply to their elements. They spoke of the stars that guided Ronan’s voyages and the plants that whispered secrets to Ella. In the sharing of their stories, a bond formed, one as deep and vast as the sea, as nurturing and fertile as the earth.

Yet for their love, their people banished them from their presence and they fled the hardened minds of their families.

From their union, born under stars that witnessed their rare harmony, came Caspian and Silas. Twins who embodied the essence of their parents’ worlds, yet were marked by the inevitability of their separate paths. The boys grew under the tutelage of both land and sea, their hearts beating to the rhythm of a dual existence, knowing that the time would come for them to embrace their destinies fully.

“Will they find their place in this world?” Ella whispered in their secret cove. “Or will it reject them as it did us?”

Ronan kissed her brow and tangled his fingers in her braids. “We give them their sails, but they must learn to wield them. And perhaps when they have grown, they will remember their home and our love an anchor.”

She sighed into his arms and rested her head into the crook of his neck.

In the distance, they watched their toddling sons. Silas, with his feet planted in the sand, built castles as Caspian cupped water in his hands, and, laughing, aided his brother in the creation of small new worlds.

As the seasons changed, marking time in a cycle of growth, decay, and renewal, Silas and Caspian matured into their destinies, their paths diverging yet intertwined by the bond of brotherhood. And Ella, that they would find their way in their wanderings, lit their home with lanterns and a candle in each window.

Silas, with his feet firmly planted on the soil of their ancestral land, delved deeper into the mysteries of nature. He drew forth bountiful harvests placing his hands on the earth. His moments of solitude were guarded by twisting branches of an ancient willow tree. He learned the language of the trees, the whispers of the wind, and the secrets of the wild creatures that roamed the forests who gentled at his touch.

Meanwhile, Caspian's spirit yearned for the boundless freedom of the oceans, a call that echoed in the depths of his soul as he stared beyond the horizon as hours passed. He spent days and nights by the shore, collecting seashells to encircle his cot, learning to read the stars as his father had, understanding the moods of the ocean, and mastering the art of navigation.

And one frigid winter when the harvest failed, it was Caspian who visited the tide pools in search of food to save them from starvation—Caspian who ventured out to the seas with Ronan to cast his nets into the water. The siren call grew.

Silas paced at home when his brother was away. The hearth behind him did little to warm him. He knew outside the winds howled and waves could crash over the boat. If the land had yielded its fruits, Caspian would not be facing danger.

“Come and sit, Sye,” Ella said. “Caspian will be alright, for he had your father as his teacher.”

Silas continued pacing until his mother pulled her son into her arms, rocking him by the fire as she once did when he was still much smaller.

When the other half of their family at last returned home, Caspian fell ill after too many days in the cold waters. It was Silas who knew which herbs to gather, which roots to brew into tea. His hands, so attuned to growing things, now tended to his brother until the fever broke.

“Silas.” Caspian cupped the steaming mug as he sat up in bed and beckoned Silas to his side. “Those days with the spray of the sea on my face and wind in my hair were among my happiest. The sea calls to me, their waves beckoning as they ebb and flow. When I stood upon the deck and see nothing but ocean and sky, I am whole.”

Silas does not answer. Caspian went on, “It’s time I follow our father’s footsteps and find my way among the waves.”

“And what of our parents, who are aging and have only us?” Resentment laced Silas’s words.

“Our parents left their worlds behind to pave new paths unhindered. For us.”

Silas stayed silent for so long, Caspian turned back to his tea. He looked up only when he heard the sound of an escaped sob. In it, he heard Silas’s unspoken question, “What about me?” Caspian reached for his brother’s hand, as though they were still children. He considered it a victory that Silas did not pull away.

But the moment faded with Caspian’s return to health as he made his preparations to depart.

In the kitchen, Ella’s hands stilled over her bread dough as raised voices drifted through the window. Ronan’s weathered fingers found her shoulder, both of them remembering other voices, other arguments, from their own past. Their sons’ words echoed across the garden:

“How can you not see there’s a whole world beyond these shores?”

“And how can you abandon everything we’ve built here?”

The sound of a door slamming. Silence, broken only by the distant crash of waves.

Nature itself seemed to hear their discord, for a tempest arose from the depths of the sea, called forth perhaps by the pain of brothers divided. The clouds gathered like memories of shared childhood dreams, dark and heavy with promise of both destruction and renewal.

Caspian felt it first in his blood, the way the air shifted and sang of approaching chaos. The sea was in him after all, wild and knowing. He found Silas in the garden, shoulders tense as he worked the soil.

“A storm comes,” Caspian said. “Help me secure the house and fields.”

Silas’s hands stopped in the earth. “Since when do you need my help with the sea’s moods?”

“The sea brings the storm, but it’s the land that must weather it.” Caspian knelt beside his brother. “We need both our strengths, Sye.”

And so they came together one final time, each bringing their inherited gifts. Caspian read the language of wind and wave, while Silas spoke to root and branch. Where sea-knowledge failed, earth-wisdom prevailed, and where the land’s strength faltered, the sea’s cunning found a way.

In the heart of the storm, as lightning turned night to day and thunder shook the foundations of their world, the brothers found themselves creating something new—not quite of land, not quite of sea, but born of both. Like their parents before them, they transcended the boundaries of their elements to forge something rare and precious. The boys—now men—caught glimpses of their younger selves: two boys building castles where sea met shore.

When dawn broke and the tempest retreated to its ocean home, Silas and Caspian stood together on the shore where they had once built castles of sand and dreams. With their home and land spared from destruction, Silas and Caspian stood amidst the calm, a new understanding between them. They realized that their conflict had not been born from a place of malice but from fear—fear of change, fear of loss, and fear of the unknown.

“I understand now,” Silas said,” why you must go.”

Caspian looked at him with soft relief in his eyes. In them, Silas heard all he needed to hear.

As the day of departure neared, Ella and Ronan bestowed upon Caspian blessings for his journey with pride and sorrow twining together.

Ella placed her hand on Caspian’s back as she did when he was small. “Your candle will always be lighted in your window, my beloved.”

And he laid his cheek on her head and no other words were said between them, the bitterness of their parting known only to themselves.

Ronan clapped his son’s shoulder, eyes gleaming with pride.

Between the brothers, an embrace that spoke volumes was all the exchange they needed. Caspian stepped into his boat, casting off towards the horizon. Silas stood on the shore, watching as his brother sailed away, a silhouette against the rising sun.

The Story Behind the Story

This story was incomplete when Ren died, but I knew it was one dear to him. Brotherly relationships meant a lot to him—for various reasons. I left it out of the original anthology edition, choosing only to work with his completed pieces. Four years later, I have made my attempt.

I have and always will give Ren grief for his character names. The original names for the twins were—wait for it—Chance and Chase.

Yes.

You’re welcome for Silas and Caspian.

I kept Ella’s name, but Ronan was still unnamed at the time of Ren’s death.

Ren’s story ended with this paragraph:

As the moon climbed higher, they spoke of their worlds, of the beauty and the pain that came with belonging so deeply to their elements. They spoke of the stars that guided Ronan’s voyages and the plants that whispered secrets to Ella. In the sharing of their stories, a bond formed, one as deep and vast as the sea, as nurturing and fertile as the earth.

The rest was written by me. I wove in a few sentences of my own through Ren’s original beginning, here and there. This was to give more flesh to the characters and setting, and offer a bit of foreshadowing to the ultimate separation.

I hope I’ve done Ren’s story justice.