Difference between revisions of "Logs:The Goodbyes."

"You need to go with her. You need to let her take you."
"You can't ask me to do this, Ma. Not this. Not now."
"Oh baby, I'm not askin'."

It wasn't so long ago that his mother told him to pack his bag and go with the rider who'd come on Search. Told him to go. Because she knew who he was and she knew she had to make the tough decision for him, but more importantly for the family. It's always for the family, if you aren't doing it for the family then what are you doing? And they needed a leader, and he wasn't one.

He knows now that it was the right call, knows it in his bones like she knew it back then, but at the time it hurt so much he couldn't stand it, and it hurt even more to be in a strange place with new people everywhere he looked. But he made friends, and soon the eggs were hatching. And then Ahruth found him, sought out his sad, lonely heart no matter how clever he was about hiding it from the rest of the world. Ahruth knew, and Ahruth found him. And the hurt started to go away slowly and surely. And he made more friends, and Sabella...

---

This morning he skips breakfast entirely to say goodbye to his family. He walks the short walk down to the lake shore, hands in his pockets, Ahruth nowhere in sight. He needs to do this alone, he knows. They both know.

The Renais are quick about picking themselves up when it's time to leave a place, and he catches them in the finishing stages of their disappearing act. They came to do the play, they did the play, (most of) the goodbyes have been said and now it's time to leave.

He helps them for a while. They all joke quietly with one another and E'sren teases his little sister, and they go through the motions of packing and loading so that everything fits in the one of the two wagons where all the stuff goes. And when they've run out of work to do they all stand there and look at each other for a moment.

"I guess this is it," E'sren says, breaking the silence and laughing quietly for the cliche. They all smile at him, and one by one walk up to him to hug him and say their goodbyes. Adelaine squeezes him and tweaks his nose; Harys smiles warmly at him after pulling away; Seamus clasps his hand first, pulls him in with that arm and thumps him on the back; Merilyn nearly tackles him and he pretends to be almost bowled over and they laugh, she with tears rolling down her cheeks as she steps away to squeeze Seamus for comfort. They stand in a semi-circle and look on as Siobhan steps up, her calm smile in place.

"You're gonna be okay," she tells him, with all the confidence of a mother.

He nods, smiling, and repeats it back as if she's expecting him to, "I'm gonna be okay." But as they look at each other the smile melts a little and he swallows some strange lump, and then suddenly brushes away a stranger wetness at the corner of his eye with the hasty, hoping-to-be inconspicuous heel of his hand. Siobhan tilts her head and steps up to lean in and hug him, her arms tight around his neck.

"I'm so proud of you," she whispers into his ear, a secret for them alone.

"I know, Ma," he replies, his voice thick despite all his efforts at calm and muffled by how he's hiding half his face in her shoulder.

She holds him like that for a long time, finally pulling away only to press a kiss to his bowed forehead, smooth her thumb under his eye to wipe away another one of those weird leaks he's having so much trouble with.

After, when they're all loaded in, Seamus in the driving seat of one wagon and Harys in that of the other with Adelaine, the animals pawing restless to just go already, E'sren stands there looking up at them and smiles at his brother. "Take care of 'em."

The wagons roll out of sight under his protective watch, and it's not until long after they're gone that he makes his way back to the barracks alone.

---

There are a handful of people who will either find goodbye notes and well wishes, or be given them by a messenger, respectively, and by then the traders will be gone. The shore of the lake will be like it was before their arrival, as if they were never there.