Logs:A Field Guide to the Emotional H'kon (excerpt)
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| RL Date: 31 July, 2014 |
| Who: H'kon, Kallia, Raija |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: H'kon and his mother reach a new level of understanding. |
| Where: Tillek Hold |
| When: Day 26, Month 5, Turn 35 (Interval 10) |
| Weather: Spring |
| Mentions: Dilan/Mentions, Kairek/Mentions, Lilabet/Mentions, Madilla/Mentions, Naelli/Mentions |
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| H'kon had been watching those little lines at the corner of her eyes, her mouth, all afternoon. They would jump to life when she would smile, or speak things nearer her heart. Seeing them after the meal made him smile, and brought a coloured laughter, happy and understanding as much as it was teasing, to the back of his mind. It was a delayed surprise when he came to understand that Madilla meant to stay, with his father, leaving him to escort his mother and Raija to the docks. When they neared the ships, he opened up his jacket, and stopped to pick the little girl up. The first step after that jarred them both, meant to be faster than need be, meant to catch up to the mother who had not gone ahead, but somehow had anticipated his halt. His mother remained quiet, strangely so. Raija burrowed into his jacket in the cooling early evening, and H'kon was the one to fill the silence for both of them. He showed her the parts of the ships, told her their purpose, read off their names, and knew his daughter was remembering much of it as she stared where he pointed. "You talk to her like this quite often." It had the sound of a question, though his mother hadn't phrased it as such. H'kon felt again exposed, as he had when he'd started talking. He'd forgotten it, lost it, throughout. "I do." His mother smiled, and looked sad at once. "At nights," H'kon offered, shifting Raija, who was starting to near sleep, on his arm. He held her closer, thought of her heart against his, though it was harder to feel here, with the little girl wearing a jacket of her own. "She wakes, sometimes. When I am trying to tend to wing business." His mother paused near a fishing boat, familiar. H'kon waited for her, now. "Do you tell her about your 'wing business'?" "No." Immediate. H'kon shook his head, careful at the end, when the little girl's cheek came at last, after much drooping of her head, to his shoulder. The girl at his chest, his duties to the Weyr... those things were at other ends of the world from one another, connected only by Arekoth and physical proximity. His mother continued to watch them. Two careful steps forward on his part had her starting to move with them once more. "I tell her about Arekoth," he offered after he'd regulated his pace to something more usual. "About my childhood and his. About her siblings and her mother. About Kai sometimes. And Naelli." He regretted saying it, that last part. It had brought that sadness back into his mother, stronger now. H'kon was barely aware of bringing his second arm around Raija, pausing once more. He did feel the little girl's hair brush his chin when she turned to stare at her grandmother. Her grandmother stared back at her a moment. It was she who started them walking again, after a time he could measure against nothing but Raija's breaths and the fluctuations of colour, sign of Arekoth's presence and attention, in the back of his own brain. H'kon held Raija just that close, with both arms, as they returned, still counting her breaths, silently, to Arekoth as much as to himself. He could not find words that were right while still being equitable, and his mother offered nothing more. When they reached the main room again, his mother brushed her hand over Raija's hair, and from there, to her son's shoulder and down his arm. H'kon held his daughter even through those minutes when they were preparing to leave. Despite the fact that he would need his hands to prepare Arekoth and assist Madilla and Raija, despite those lines in Madilla's face when she reached for their little girl, H'kon was well aware of the cooling place on his chest when she was no longer in his arms. |
Comments
Madilla on 23:40, 31 July 2014 said...
I heart this so much. <3
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