War and Love

Amaret was a only a young norn. She wasn't the prettiest, but she was a good norn. As an orphan she had been taken into the Terbithia tribe. There she was raised by Kuvac and his mate Retrea. Living with her were their sons Ruberio and Malle and her best friend, another adopted norn named Caleryl.
Though Caleryl and Amaret were best friends, they often fought for the attention of handsome Ruberio. They would do little things to show off in front of him and often got angry with each other. One night they were so angry that Amaret shouted at Caleryl,
"I hate you! I wish you were dead!" Those were the last words she would ever say to her friend. During the night a party of grendels who wished to have the Teribithian tribe's lands to themselves snuck into the shelter and killed Caleryl. Amaret was so sad she couldn't eat, so sad that she couldn't even cry. Retrea too was angry and acted in a way that none of the norns had ever seen. It seemed a warrior spirit had awoken in her.
Soon another grendel came. He was angry and Kuvac tried to block his family from the grendel, but the grendel just killed him. Retrea was so angry that she lunged at the grendel, while in the same breath yelling at the children to run and find a place to hide.
The now adolescent norns knew what Retrea was going to do with the grendel. They hid in the forest a little way, sheltered by a rock.
The remaining family spent a year there. They tried to go about a normal lifestyle, they still played and Retrea taught them, (though she mainly taught them about battle and about the famous Teribithia warrior, a female norn named Smirfet) but life wasn't the same. Every night Amaret would go to bed sad and would often wake up crying.
During this time Malle and Amaret became good friends. They found they could talk to each other and indeed they had much to talk about. Malle loved Amaret, but Amaret still loved Ruberio as before.
One day Ruberio ventured out to find food and his scream was heard. The grendels had returned! Quickly Amaret and Malle ran to find Retrea but it was too late. Ruberio had been killed. The grendel Redtooth who could speak the norn language told them that the grendels wanted the land and that they had better leave before another norn was killed.
They attached. Malle and Amaret fled and somehow broke free of them, but Retrea remained. She fought like crazy against a big adult male. She knew she didn't have a chance but she kept fighting.
"Go!" She said. "Go past the pond and the big tree and keep running. You'll soon reach the jungle. Go!" They ran, past the pond and the big tree and into the jungle. Right away there was a change. The air became humid and sticky and there were swarms of bugs everywhere. They traveled for a long time until they found something familiar, a lift. They crammed inside and shut the door, keeping the bugs away at least. There, cramped together and shivering, Amaret realized the she loved not Ruberio but Malle. She loved him very much. They curled up together and slept that night through the rain, the bugs and the humidity. Morning came and they brought the lift out of the trees and down to the ground to start their new life.
The two surivers lived together in the jungle, eating the mushrooms and weeds. After a time they had a child, a boy, and all was going fairly well until one day Malle died of a jungle sickness. He had always had a weak immune system.
Amaret was heart-broken. She lost her will to live. She ran only on instinct and only stayed alive to care for her son, whom she named Malleno.
One day she looked up from the food she was gathering and found herself staring in the face of an adult male norn. He looked so much like Malle she thought that it was, but it was not. It was a norn named Kapugen who had been exported from Teribithia long ago. He was Kuvac's father. Malle's grandfather.Malleno's great-grandfather. And Amaret knew that he would have to be her mate. Weather she loved him or not, it had to be.
They had a girl. Her name was Laterose and she was very beautiful. Amaret loved her as she loved her son, but she did not love his father. He was a good norn, but no one would take the place of her Malle.
They left the jungle, it was too harsh a place for a faimily of four norns to live.. On invitation from the ettins they moved to the dessert. They lived there for a long time until one day Amaret woke up and her son was gone.
He had gone back to Teribithia where the grendels now lived and had reattached an old machine that had protected norns from them in years past. Kapugen and Amaret found him and helped run the last of the surviving grendels out. They had Teribithia back!
Amaret watched her Laterose and Malleno get older and since they were not full brother and siter, fall in love. They had many children, but the baby norns didn't get to see their grandfather because Kapugen died. After a while Malleno died, and then Laterose. Amaret was left all alone. The oldest norn ever, she lived contentedly with her grandchildren and great-grandchidren. It was a happy life, filled with laughter and light, but in the back of her mind Amaret longed for the day that she would die and be reunited with her dear love Malle again, this time forever.