Why is it that so many words for water start with the letter d? Dew, drip, drizzle, droplet, downpour, deluge, drenching.. And yet somehow, the default word used is the woefully pedestrian (and alphabetically aberrant) rain. Looking back on that day, he would not have called the precipitation that flowed through the city and forcibly diverted the course of his life rain. No, he would have called it a drowning.

Eldan was 12 years old on the day of the drowning. He woke to a sky that felt like cotton wadding, thick with strangely bright, suffocatingly close clouds the color of an old, yellow bruise. Electricity seemed to hum and crackle just out of reach, the atmosphere itself dangerously alive. He blinked at the sickly light and pushed himself up on his elbows to see the rooftops just below his window ledge, gray, flat expanses with the occasional clothesline hanging perfectly still in the breathless morning. Eldan habitually checked to see how cold or warm the day might be as he awoke, dressing according to whether wind was whipping empty lines and blowing sheets of sooty dust or rain across the rooftops, or if perhaps somewhere a matronly figure snapped sheets or even took a moment to stand staring, contemplative in the sun, basket on hip, past the cluttered buildings to the winding gray river dotted with ships beyond. As he looked blearily across the empty, airless view this morning he felt a vague sense of unease stirring in his stomach.

Eldan pulled his eyes from the window and shook himself awake. This was the morning! Finally, after years of imagining this day in excruciating detail he was finally following his sister (and everyone else, but mainly his sister) to prove himself in the Court of Keepers. Sylvan, his sister, as naturally poised and restrained as he was awkward and impulsive, had risen to a position of diplomat trainee in her four years with the Court. He knew he was unlikely to follow her path but perhaps someone would notice in him a glint of an iron will and he would find himself on an expedition to push past the edges of the maps of the known world, or he would execute a perfect dive and series of swimming strokes and be tapped to lead a dangerous mission to the sea floor. He had never met anyone who held anything like these positions, but then he had never heard of a diplomat before his sister achieved her position, either, and with the pride his parents took in her achievement he couldn’t hope to only find the path to blacksmith, like his mother, or musician, like his father, or even jeweler, like his best friend Cale’s father.

Cale! Eldan shook off the last of his sleepy ruminations as he remembered he had to meet Cale this morning so they could make their journey together. Eldan threw off the covers and ran to the sturdy wooden bench where he had laid out his clothes and shoes the night before. He had, in fact, tried to sleep in his clothes and shoes to make sure he was ready as quickly as possible but his mother had somehow felt the clothes beneath his blankets when saying goodnight and her tender, last night at home tuck-in had quickly turned to much more familiar annoyance as she made him get up and change into nightclothes. Eldan pulled on his best canvas trousers (these had caused an argument, as well, but they were his best because they were perfectly worn-in and comfortable and he wanted to feel his best) and laced his rough, brown suede boots with blood-weed red laces. Most of the boys wore white, soft leather boots but his mother had refused to buy him any color but brown as she said he would just get in the mud and they would turn brown, anyway.

Eldan grabbed his pack filled with all the items required on the list sent from the Court: four changes of clothes, one set of exercise clothes, one set of swimwear, birch sticks for teeth, a brick of soap, notebooks, pens and ink. As he glanced around his small attic room one last time his gaze caught on the window and the thick, yellow sky and as he watched a dark flicker of a fish tail seemed to pass just overhead.

“Eldan! Are you going to be late for this, too?”His mother shouted up the stairs.

“I’m coming!” Eldan jerked away from the window and slammed the door behind him as he ran down the steep, narrow stairs, skipping chunks of the staircase with each step by coasting most of his weight on loose palms sliding down the banisters. He slightly misjudged the final step, landing with the hard half-stumble that comes from expecting to hit one more step than existed at the bottom. As he staggered to a stop he crashed into the bentwood umbrella stand next to the front door, catching it and standing it back upright with an enormous clatter. He winced as his mother’s footsteps thundered down the hall from the kitchen while he froze, trying to still his body enough to look convincingly as though he had taken the stairs at a measured pace.

“I must have tripped..” he laughed nervously.

“River’s depth, Eldan! Don’t you dare try to lie to me.” His mother’s eyes flashed dangerously and she stopped inches away from him. Eldan withered and dropped his head to gaze at the floor, his wavy, shoulder-length hair falling into a curtain over his face. “Look me in the eyes. And stand up straight!” She grabbed his shoulder and pushed back with one hand while using the other to shove inward from the small of his back, forcing him upright. “For keep’s sake at least pull your hair back if you insist on going out dressed like a street urchin.”

Eldan obligingly reached into his pocket, finding a leather thong among several stones, and tied his hair at the back of his neck while attempting to hold his mother’s furious stare.

“I raised you to be better than this, Eldan. I don’t know why you want to dress and act the way you do but you didn’t learn it from me. Appearances matter, you know. When people see you in those worn-out clothes they will think I don’t know how to raise a proper child”.

This is what it always came back to, the idea that every choice Eldan made reflected poorly on his mother. He wanted to make her proud, he really did, but he felt suffocated and self-conscious in the soft tunics and hose she preferred he wear. He also had an unfortunate tendency to come home with these finer garments wet, torn, or worn through at the knees and elbows, so in exasperation she had once made him wear the rough canvas pants and flax tunics worn by her forge-hands while doing labor. This had been meant as a punishment of shame, he knew, but putting on those clothes had felt like such an enormous relief that from that day he refused to wear anything else unless forced. His dress had become a source of constant tension with his mother, and no small amount of ridicule from the other children and even adults in the annex, but Eldan just couldn’t go back. He struggled under the weight of her disapproving silence, wanting to apologize but knowing how disingenuous it would sound, when she suddenly shook his shoulder and released him with a sigh.

“Well, at least I know you will work harder than anyone else. You will have to, if you want anyone to take you seriously, you know. But at least you can do that.” She turned toward the kitchen while Eldan followed, looking at her broad shoulders and the cords of muscle on her arms. She must have been in the smithy early, as she was wearing her heavy leather apron and had smudges of soot on her upper arms, and her face had been red and glistening from the heat.

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The kitchen was the heart of their house, and Eldan felt his throat clench as he stood in the spacious room with big windows where they spent most of their time together. Eldan was competent, if not gifted, when helping her in the smithy but he was a natural in the kitchen. He had always thought he might be selected as a chef, and though he felt some muted enthusiasm at the prospect of spending all his time creating recipes he mostly dreaded the idea of being trapped in a single room for the rest of his life. The fact remained, though, that cooking was one of the only times when he was able to channel his overabundant energy into something productive, and demonstrate patience and delicacy that he typically sorely lacked. Eldan pulled himself from his reverie and saw that his mother was standing expectantly behind the work table, waiting for his notice. He started to crumple again, expecting her to dress him down for his inattention and daydreaming, but she simply tapped a canvas bundle sitting before her on the table.

“This is for you.” Unexpectedly, her voice caught as her hand trailed over the package. “You are the best son I could have asked for. Infuriating, yes, and exasperating, yes, but you are the kindest, funniest and sweetest boy..” she trailed off and seemed to wrestle with what to say next before coming to some kind of decision and soldiering on. “I was always afraid I would have a son and wouldn’t know what to do with him. I was afraid he would be rough and cruel, looking down on women and girls and bullying weaker boys and animals. I’ve known too many boys like that, and I wasn’t sure if they might not emerge, fully formed, as smaller versions of the terrible men they would become. When I had you I was terrified, and I know I wasn’t always the best mother to you because of that fear. But you.. are something different.”

The look she gave him then was the softest he had ever seen, though tempered with fierce expectation, and his mouth worked silently for a moment while he tried to work out how to respond.

“All right then, open it up.” His mother nudged the package and Eldan shuffled to the bench, pulling the heavy canvas bundle across the smooth, heavy wood table, and slowly unfolding the long cloth. When he rolled out the last fold a short sword lay in front of him and he gaped at it in bewilderment. Only the military and nobility were allowed to wear swords, and he was certainly not nobility, nor had anyone ever suggested he might be an appropriate candidate for the military.

“It’s a dagger”, his mother said, staring at him meaningfully, “a long one, but you will grow into the length. Even so, it’s prudent to keep it concealed for now to avoid any confusion, so when you roll it back up you will find this has a stave pouch and a strap so you can carry both on your back with the stave in easy reach.” She seemed to struggle with what to say next again, pushing on with considerably less than her typical fierce certainty in her words. “When you get settled at the court I ask that you seek out a woman smith you feel you can trust completely, one who is skilled in blade-work, and ask her to teach you to wield this safely. Mind it must be a woman and you must be absolutely sure she is trustworthy. Don’t rush this out of excitement, and don’t show anyone this blade until that time. There are certain traditions only passed down among the women smiths. If you do as I have said, when she sees this blade she should understand.”

Eldan made a formal bow, understanding the burden of responsibility she was giving him and the risk she took by forging this weapon, though he could not fathom why. “It will be as you say. I promise.”

His mother nodded sharply and pulled a second, smaller bundle from her apron pocket. This one she put into his hands, and he untied the strap to find it was a small double pouch with two knives, one lage and one small, both utilitarian kitchen blades.

“These are so you can care for yourself and prepare food whenever and wherever necessary. You will also be making a home of your own one day, and these will be the knives you will need first and use most often.”

Eldan was far more comfortable and confident holding these familiar blades and he hefted them and held them to the light, smiling uncertainly. “Thank you. I will use these well”.

Finally, she pulled a whetstone and a small bottle of oil from her apron and set them down among his gifts. “These blades require constant maintenance, as you know. I expect to never find them dull and never see a spot of rust or grime. Can I trust you to care for them?”

“Yes, I promise. I know exactly what to do”. This Eldan could promise, having often been tasked with finishing and maintenance work in the shop, and expected to care for the household kitchen blades each time he used them. While he was somewhat thrilled by the sword, and in truth no one would ever call that blade anything but a sword, he mostly felt suffocated by the confusion and responsibility that came with the blade and his own inexperience. This could only be another arena where he would fail to distinguish himself in any manner, hampered by his small frame and tendency to lurch suddenly with his every movement, and the fact that the nobility and military hopefuls were trained nearly from birth in the art of swordsmanship. Eldan’s experience with swords was limited to a few, secret swings of commissioned blades when he snuck into the smithy alone or with Cale, and even those left him shaky with the fear that a single slip would leave him injured or maimed, or worse, reveal his disobedience to his mother.

“Well, I suppose if you intend to see your father before you leave you had better get moving.” His mother’s face set into hard lines as she mentioned his father, and Eldan felt guilty for wanting to make the trip, though the thought of not visiting his father made him equally guilty.

“I told him I would come. I don’t know when I will see him again so..” He trailed off.

“No, of course. You need to see him and say goodbye, I understand.” His mother’s tone was clipped and she didn’t look like she understood at all.

Eldan drew in a deep breath and began folding his new sword in its cloth, tying it tight with the stave pouch on the outside. He walked self-consciously to the door and withdrew his stave from the umbrella rack, sliding it into the sleeve and fumbling his head and arm through the strap so the case crossed his back. He reached over his shoulder and attempted to draw the stave, digging the strap sharply into his chest as the stave caught in the sleeve with only a few inches withdrawn. His mother sighed impatiently behind him and grabbed his hand, forcing it into the motion of drawing the stave smoothly over his head. “Oh.” Eldan mumbled “I will practice.” He managed to clumsily force the stave back in place by himself.

“I will write you. And I will make you proud.” Eldan shifted his feet, torn between a desire to run out the door and end this confusing, complicated goodbye, and to comport himself with some kind of dignity in their last encounter for many months.

“I am already proud of you. Now it’s time you find your own path of pride.” His mother pulled him into a strong hug and kissed the top of his head, making Eldan all too aware that he had yet to hit his growth spurt. He leaned stiffly into the hug and then pulled away, putting his hand on the knob and running his eyes over the familiar spaces of his home one last time. He nodded to his mother, opened the door and stepped across the threshold, releasing a breath he didn’t realize he had been holding as he walked into the street. He turned back to wave at his mother, still standing in the doorway, one last time before resolutely marching toward his father’s home.