Mourning

Through sun and rain she lay with her head on his chest in silence.  Watchful, ever vigilant, she protected what was once hers.  She lay there as others gathered around.  She lay there as they spoke their words though even if she'd wished to speak, her tongue was unable to form the words.  He was gone...

~*~

The man stood before her, his hat held anxiously in his hands, his eyes as frightened as they were sad.  "I'm sorry, m'Lady.  There's no sign of him.  We've searched high and low.  He crossed the lake with his men and none of them returned."  There was nothing left to say.  As he walked away, she sagged against the doorframe, lowering to her knees.

She wept.  She mourned.  But she didn't beg...  Something deep in her soul refused to allow her to beg.  His life was in the hands of the Gods.  She would not - could not challenge that.

~*~

She'd kissed her children and tucked them into bed.  She'd made arrangements: they'd be cared for, kept safe, for right now she just could not do it.  Her duty was to this man.  She lay herself down, dark hair fanned out over his bare chest, and pressed her cheek against his cold skin.  She wept.

And, as she mourned, her body broke, her spirit shattered, and she was remade.  Pride and loyalty filled her soul and kept her going far beyond what she herself would have thought possible.  She would see this through.  His blue eyes, always as serene as the quiet lake, filled her minds eye as she threw back her head and poured out her grief to the weeping sky.  The others granted her silence, granted her their wishes, but she could not respond.  She could not open her mouth, lest she beg.

She would not beg.

And one by one they filtered away, leaving her to her silent vigil.

Discovery

She walked behind while they ran ahead.  Even as small as they were, they could outrun her, out pace her, and just plain wear her out.  Still, she smiled to see their enthusiasm.  Squirrels, beavers, this odd plant and this neat mushroom, everything that a child's fancy could catch on, theirs did.  Her heart swelled with joy.  The Gods might enjoy toying with her, breaking her down every chance they got, but in those two small, mischievous children she could find no fault.


She paced slowly along, letting the blossoming springtime fill her senses.  Perhaps that's why she didn't notice the absence of other voices for some time.  She'd never really worried too much about her children.  They were raised to know right from wrong and safety from danger, and among the Tir she was more than content to let them roam and play.  Now, suddenly they were missing...

In a heartbeat, everything she knew and believed was called into question...  What would she do if... what could she do?  She'd do what she had to.  She'd do anything.  Those babies were her life.  Her head tilted to one side and keen eyes searched carefully through the undergrowth, the bushes, and even high into the branches of the trees.  Nothing.  There was no sign of footprints in this pristine corner of the world.   Panic swelled in her chest... 

~*~

"I have her, and if you want to see her again, you'll cooperate, bitch."  The man's eyes were hard and cold, and there wasn't an inch of give in his entire body.  His long, white hair looked almost angelic, but he was cold, and he held all the cards.  Oh, she snarled, she bit, she fought back but it earned her nothing but a split lip and a set of manacles in a dank, dark cell.

"If you don't, I'll throw you both in with the most violent of my prisoners..."

She'd caved, eventually.  She'd given them what they wanted.  They'd left her no choice...

~*~

Reason settled over her, cool and clear, calming her instantly.  She could find them just the same way she'd always found them when they'd wandered too far.  She was their mother, after all, and nobody would chain her ever again.


She turned in a circle, letting the soft breeze drift past her face and then, yes!


At a brisk run, she moved over the narrow, stony, broken trail until she found herself face to face with a mess of brambles along a cliff face.  There, like a little flag, hung a torn fragment of her daughter's dress.  Playful, childish laughter echoed through the bushes and across the cliffs, teasing and taunting and driving away her fear.  


Determined, she pushed forward, ignoring the scratching of thorns across her bare arms as she hurried to catch up with the twins that wreaked such havoc on her heart.


What she found waiting beyond the hedge of brambles left her breathless.

Renewal

The sensation of homecoming was bittersweet.  The long grass tickled her belly and stroked her legs and made her feel as if there was nowhere else she wanted to be.  The scents were familiar, the sights just the same.  Everything was the way she'd left it and she embraced the sensation with everything in her.  She ran through the night, beneath the stars, until her lungs felt as if they were going to collapse.

She'd had to leave, she'd been forced to return... she had found a way to be happy anyway.

The demons fell before her strength; no longer was she weak, no longer did she struggle.  Through the tribulations of her life, she'd found the strength within her and brought it to the surface.  Now there was nothing she feared.  Nothing.

With the last barbed wolf fallen, she turned towards the trees and stopped, immediately.

Him.

The one she'd never forget looked back at her.  The meeting she'd been avoiding, dreading - the one thing she still feared, though she denied it - was at hand.  The hair on the back of her neck bristled.  Her lips pulled back into a blatant snarl.

He whined.
~*~


The young woman napped by the lake shore, alone and content to be that way.  The argument had been bitter, and her friends had left her behind.

Some friends...

Scowling, she'd turned her eyes to the nearby cliffs and tensed abruptly.  Shaggy, mottled fur in browns and blacks left him almost entirely invisible, but she knew him anyway.  She'd know him anywhere, even if she couldn't remember why.  Her wolf.

Her heart soared and she extended a hand, inviting... hoping that he'd come nearer.  His low whine filled the air and for the first time she could ever remember, he let her bury her face in his fur.

~*~

The shock of memory brought about by that lonely sound sent a shiver through her and chased away more rage than she'd known she had.

Settling onto her haunches in the grass, she waited.

Homeless

The feel of wood beneath her feet - wood that wasn't bucking and twisting like an ill-trained horse - drew a sigh of relief to the woman's lips.  For a moment, her knees buckled and she wanted to do nothing more than sit and relax and take refuge in the steady, solid feel of the docks.  The desire didn't last long, however.  The stench of the city wrinkled her nose and the sounds of drunkards in the nearby taverns had her hand tightening around her willful young son's.  Despite struggling to carry her ill daughter, and the typical curiosity of young children, she tugged him along towards the gates.

There were faces here she did not want to see, people she did not want to speak to.  And try as she might, standing on the docks brought his memory to mind.

~*~

Winter snow fell on her hair and about her shoulders as she stood on the docks.  He stood there, not too far away, swathed in white until nothing but his blue eyes could be seen.  If it weren't for her nose and the ache in her breast, she'd have walked right past him without a thought.

Everything in her wanted to cry, to plead, to stay.  But there was something beneath it all.  The same willpower that'd kept her alive through many a bitter Darkfall held her shoulders back, her chin up, and allowed her to look him square in the eye.

Then she'd turned and boarded the ship, intending never to return.

~*~

Yet here she was...

Her bare toes curled into the sand of the beach as she released the lad's hand and sent him scurrying off to dance in the surf beneath the warmth of the setting suns.  Her daughter slept feverishly in her arms, giving her plenty of time to think while she watched her son with an aching heart.  He looked so much like his father...

The Gods were cruel.  She'd always known it and They'd proven it time and time again and, now, once more there was proof - as if she needed it.  Not only did They tear him from her, they refused to allow her to actually keep that distance.  They tried to seal her fate, to force her in line.  They tried, and she was firmly convinced They would continue to try.

She turned her head to look back at the looming city walls as the last rays of the sun drifted away.

In that instant, the mournful reflections on her past ceased.  Hugging the red-haired little girl close, she turned east with a defiant determination. She could, and she would, carve a niche for her children, somewhere away from the shadows of her past.

Returned

The ship rolled over ocean waves. She groaned as loudly as the swollen timbers, restlessly craving fresh air and solid ground beneath her feet.  She needed to run.  A week in the belly of a ship was enough to drive anyone mad... and she was anything but the most clear-minded of women.  She was quite sure that it was only the pitiful cries of the little red-haired girl that lay on the bunk pale, feverish, and near-death that kept her from dashing up that ladder and diving overboard.

Her daughter was ill.  The captain said it was merely seasickness, but that didn't calm the raging beast inside, the beast that would do -anything- to save the ones she loved, the few who could lay claim to her loyalties.  She'd killed before, she'd kill again... but that impulse was absolutely useless within the confines of the wooden cage.

And so she paced and more than once memory drew her lips back in a snarl that seemed awfully out of place on her feminine features.

~*~

The same woman, but so much younger, was sitting in a shady thicket with a blonde-haired, blue-eyed lawman.  Haden... Quiet conversation had passed the time.  She'd quite liked him, and then he'd done it:  He'd grabbed her.

"I'll keep your little secrets safe.  Nobody will know.  If you don't, I'll have you and your sister both arrested... it'll be your word against mine."

Her dagger had proven the better argument, and she'd left him with a nearly severed finger.

~*~

The girl, pressed against a wall, cornered by a dark-skinned, sneering Tyen.  Vasteel... She'd almost enjoyed taunting him, until he'd touched her.

"I am the law, girl.  And trust me, you'll enjoy every moment of this if you stop your struggling..."

Again, her knives had proved her saving grace... though the Tyen had managed to evade the emasculating blow.

~*~

The memories back, beyond that were hazy.  She strained for even glimpses, fragments of her past.  Bright blue eyes kept flitting to the foreground and were pushed away, forcibly.  Not that it mattered.  Every time she looked into her darling little girl's eyes, she saw his.  Still, somehow she knew that there had been other issues in her past.  There had to have been; this rage didn't spring from nowhere in her otherwise placid, quiet temperment.

Wherever they came from, they'd done it this time - no, she'd done it this time.  The forest lands of Tarkas had been her haven, the tribe she'd found there was a solace in her time of grief and need.  But now they were behind her, forever...

Those cold grey eyes - she'd never forget them.  The way his fingers curled around her arms... she shuddered still at the memories.  And this time, it hadn't been daggers that had secured her freedom, it'd been her teeth.  And he... had not walked away.  When she'd realized what she'd done, it was too late.  Too late to do anything but face the consequences or run.

And here she was on board the ship with her two innocent children, returning to a land that was just as bleak for her as the one she'd left.

She sighed and wiped a tear from her scarred cheek before turning to look over at her son.  His green eyes were the only thing that spared her the heartache of looking into the mirror of her past.  The Gods had been merciful in that, at least.  She touched the slumbering child's cheek, smoothed his long, tousled hair, and sat down on the bunk beside him, closing her eyes wearily.

Had she done the right thing?