The door clicks. A man walks in that I don’t know.
My knives are gone. My brain does a little jigsaw dance attempting to figure out where the heck my knives are. But it doesn’t matter. There’s a lamppost beside the bed.
I grab it and swing around, baring my teeth. The lamppost is a lot heavier than I thought and the wick nearly lights the daggum pink canopy on fire, but after a stumble, I have the thing ready to swing with the flame precariously balanced on top.
The guy's eyes light with amusement. He holds his hands up. A broad smile crosses his face which makes me want to trust him—but also makes me more suspicious. Who the heck can look that innocent? It’s too innocent.
“Easy. I’m mage acolyte Fern. Just here to check Crown Prince Arin’s wounds,” his words are soft and easy, as if placating a wild filly.
I search his eyes, then delve into my Gift. His emotions are open and honest. Amusement mixed with a hint of fear he hides well, which leads to a hint of hurt pride and mortification that he can feel so daggum threatened by a slip of a girl. At least, that’s my interpretation. But everything else is honest and genuine—he’s here with feelings of comfort, compassion, and a wish to help.
But… I don’t know him.
I blink, the emotions draining from my face as I search him.
He backs away, leaning out the door. “Get Sir Hans, please.”
A soft snort of humor comes from outside the door. “He tried to warn ya,” the other person says. Is that Sir Rowen, one of my four guards I left with Jack, Jill, and Momma?
Acolyte Fern rolls his eyes. He takes something from his pocket that jangle. “I’m not betting you again,” he warns, but despite the stern set of his face, his eyes are laughing.
“As if,” the man on the other side says, before jogging off. I follow his footfalls until he’s halfway down the hallway. Then they stop, I hear some muffled voices, and two sets of steps come back. Ran’s ears come in handy at times. Speaking off, I need to check on my girl next—
I’m fine, Rider. Lemme sleep, she half-growls into my mind.
I smile and debate teasing her but the footsteps are back at the door.
“Let the doc do his work, Little Minx. He’s here to help,” Hans says, rounding the corner. He stops dead in his tracks. Both eyebrows rise. He exchanges a glance with both the knight outside the door and Acolyte Fern.
“Minx, you realize that’s not a weapon,” he cajoles softly, raising both eyebrows.
I put the thing back where I found it—it nearly topples and I have to grab it before it really does light the bed canopy on fire—and shush him, glancing over at Arin. “If you wake him, I will tell Jenny the words you use when fighting,” I whisper-hiss, now less concerned about the people coming in and more worried about letting Arin sleep.
Hans actually grins, the old coot. “You’re back,” he says—much too loudly.
I put a hand back on the lamp post, lowering my eyebrows. “You whisper, or so help me I will use this lamp post to drive you into the ground because I have no knives,” I hiss, glaring, anger curdling in my soul but for no obvious reason except that Hans is here.
He leans against the doorpost, the grin not leaving his face. Which looks weird. Hans doesn’t grin. He may smirk. He may smile. But he doesn’t grin like this in a way that makes his eyes nearly dissapear in a squint. He also seems… happy. He’s eyes are alright with something joyful and his entire being radiates something that feels less gruff than the old man I know.
I stare at him suspiciously. And then my mind remembers why I'm supposed to be daggum mad at him.
“You!” I growl, pointing my finger.
His eyes widen and the grin drops from his face. Acolyte Fern moves into the corner of the room, as far away from me as possible.
“Is it healthy for her to glow like that?” Fern asks, but I ignore him and the slight radiance coming from my arms.
“You didn’t tell me you were my actual UNCLE?” I whisper-yell, stalking forward to jab him in the chest with a rigid finger hard enough to bruise.
His eyes grow soft. “I know, Minx. I know.”
I jab his chest again, unable to meet his kind eyes that are filled with both joy and sorrow in equal measures. “It. Explains. So. Much!” I jab him again with each word, the end of my finger hurting like the dickens, and the daggum man doesn’t even flinch! “And you didn’t tell me. ‘Oh, Aria, ya might wanna know I am your actual uncle, your father was my daggum BROTHER, for goodness sakes’. But no-ooo. Just leave the girl in the dark, no reason for her to know—”
He places both hands on my shoulders. He ducks his head down, catching my eye and stopping my wild gesturing. “I’m sorry, Minx.”
I puff out my cheeks. “Why’d you not tell me?” I ask, deflating a little, but still mad as Sixth.
He looks behind me, and I turn around to see the doc at Arin’s bedside. The doc freezes when he sees us looking. “Let’s let the man tend to your lover, eh? You have someone who’s wishing to see you.”
My cheeks grow red and then I grow cold. I take a step back, breaking out of his grasp. “I-I-I’m not s-sure I can,” I whisper.
“I’ll be with you, little minx. The entire way.”
I shake my head. Hot and cold battle within my soul. Guilt and relief. Hope and despair.
But over it all is a joy. A joy that my father has come home.
I nod. We walk out, and he puts his arms around my shoulders and squeezes. I elbow him in the ribs--finally getting a wince out of him--and grin when he takes his arm off my shoulders. Sure, I love him, but I'll ensure he knows I haven't forgiven him. Yet.
----------------------------------------
Hans knocks at a door down the hall. And I realize we’re in the Honour Knight’s barracks. But… why do they have pink bedsheets and pillows here?
The door opens. I stand, stunned, unable to move. The floor has comes up and swallowed my feet. My hands feel glued to my sides.
Papa stares at me. His eyes are the blue I remember. So bright, so clear, so bold, yet so very very kind. Yet behind that is a sorrow, a pain, a soul-deep ache I don’t remember seeing as a child. He’s a warrior, but he’s also just been through years upon years of slavery. I don’t know what that does to a person. There are dark circles under his eyes and wrinkles on his face I don’t recall.
He takes a single step forward. “My little cub,” he whispers, voice choking off.
That breaks the metaphorical tar from my feet. I launch myself into his chest, tears bursting from me on impact. He takes three steps back, reflexively wrapping his arms around me, and cradling me in the warmth of his campfire and smoke and all around wild scent.
My emotions erupt in a massive wave… and that’s when I feel it. Jenny and Hans. Ran and her mate. Jack and Jill. Momma and Papa. Arin down the hall. Queen Ambrose and her daughter.
A gentle wave of one thing can be felt. A gentle reminder that all is never lost should we never give up.
Love.
It’s a sacrificial love. It’s a love of choice. Of hope. Of truth. It’s not an infatuation. It’s not a love of how someone makes you feel. It’s a love of you as a person. A deep, passionate hope for the best for the person you love.
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It is love in action, by action.
A love which flows down from above, from the Source of all Love, and enables us to have a sort of warmth which nestles deep inside and expands beyond flaw, beyond mistake, to the very core.
And this room—the warmth settles here as moonlight caresses a field of poppies, bringing peace in its cool embrace. It settles here as the glow of the sun felt on the face brings a simple, lasting contentment. It settles with the gentle caress of a mother, the loving embrace of a father, the gentle welcoming of coming home after a long absence.
It is the indescribable moment in time where a babe is born, a person passes into the hands of The King, and a child laughs for the first time. It is a moment suspended in time—no, beyond time, beyond measure, beyond even this plane to connect you to the very Heart of all things good.
My sobbing slows, and then gently eases. I rest in the peace which enfolds me as a warm blanket of sunshine. I allow it to permeate the garden of my soul and the places where I once again stuffed emotions and memories down to deal with later—and it gently eases those from my hold, which sends a sharp pain through my soul, but then they release to be with the other memories of my soul. The warm light makes my slightly withered soul tree perk and almost… grow. It was about the size of me… but before my eyes, it expands. Perhaps grow is the wrong word. It’s more of a… it gets healthier. Leaves grow, limbs reach toward the warmth, and tiny buds of luminescent flowers push past the folds of bark and emerge until the tree is covered in the tiny flowers which burst with different pastel colors, some of which are even swirled with multiple colors in one flower the size of a fingertip.
My soul feels… right. For the first time, this is right. This is genuine contentment.
Is this… what the other side feels like? I wonder.
A laugh radiates through my soul.
You have done well, my little warrior. I am proud of you.
My soul swells… then drops. In my soul vault, I fall to my knees before the blooming tree, looking up into the light that is so much like the sun.. and yet not. Scalding, yes, but it's the scalding of warm water after your fingers have lost all color due to cold. But… I have not solved the problems, My King. So many things yet to do, so many people still losing their lives, aching inside… they need help. And I can’t—
No, dearest. You cannot, comes his gentle whisper on the wind, which caresses my cheek.
I… can’t? That can’t be right. I had to hear him wrong.
His chuckle is a sigh on the wind. You cannot, sweet one. The world is not yours to heal. Life and death is not in your hands—
It’s in Yours, right, my King? I ask, lifting my face from the grass to the light shimmering in the air.
His gentle agreement floats in the form of a breathy sigh. The petals release from the tree with a gentle breeze—my soul has a breeze?—and they swirl in the air like multi-colored flakes of snow. Something in me breaks and reforms and breaks and reforms, but it’s the stretching of muscles, the release of stress, and the reformation of a new being mixed with the experiences of the old. It’s the growth from the ashes, the rebirth of a phoenix, the saplings of an Eldertree when their mother goes dormant to birth them.
The weight is released. My shoulders are free of their burden.
I was never meant to take the burden of life and death. I am not the ultimate healer nor the ultimate giver.
That belongs to The King and The King alone. That is too heavy a burden for me to bear.
I am not the reason my father is here today. The King gave me the means to reach him and the Gift to free him… I was merely the tool. The one who set Papa free was The King himself.
I am not the one who saved Jill. The King put me in a time and place and gave me the fairies and set up a specific set of circumstances which would lead me to communication with the library itself. Another tool which The King used to help heal and to bring about life.
And then there are those I’ve lost along the way. The girl to the Bamshee attack. The knight, also in a Bamshee attack. Different men, women, and children who I carried inside of me. As if… as if only I could’ve been better, faster, or more prepared… then maybe they would’ve lived.
But life and death is not in my hands. I am merely a tool for the Giver of both.
A burden lifts. My soul tree grows to twice its size. My soul sings with a joy so beautiful it seems nearly unbearable. My heart beats to the rhythm of the indescribable.
This is what it means to be alive. Not just surviving. Not just going through the motions.
This is living.
This is the calm in the storm. This is the peace in the eye.
The worries of the world remain around me. La’Maciago is still beneath, still overtaking the Underworld one guild at a time. The Opes is lost. There is still a war ahead, still a Protector Trial to be won by the best contender, a prince I love, and a father who is hurt and aching along with a world that is slowly descending into chaos as food becomes scarcer and scarcer.
But yet… those things are not the weights they were before.
They aren’t weights at all. I enjoy protecting others. I enjoy using what was Given to help those in need. I just need to stop bearing the burden of other’s lives. I will do all I can, but ultimately, the fate of this world rests in The King’s hands. Choices will affect the outcome, choices will bring about both beauty and sorrow for the one making them, and there are countless making decisions on behalf of Risia.
But the one who holds it all is none of them.
Their choices affect it all. But he holds them all.
And not I. I can’t. It’s not my job to offer healing to an entire city. I don’t have that in me to Give. But He does.
This peace… this joy… this freedom—I send a gentle inquiry.
My daughter, you know, he replies, his voice so full of gentle love and pride I nearly fall flat on my face again. Being in his presence… it’s the same as standing too close to the water dragon… but times a thousand. A mix of heart-pounding, soul-quavering excitement and downright knee crippling danger. He’s not safe. He’s not tame.
But he’s good.
I gather the feeling, gather the gentle and encouraging love—and I Give it away. It is not something to hold for yourself.
Papa draws in a sharp breath. Jenny catches her breath, then erupts in sobs in the corner, her tiny sniffles and snorts something I had become used to during our lessons as her hormones became more and more out of whack.
Jack and Jill smack into my back, squeezing tightly. Momma sets a hand on my hair, ruffling it. She gives Papa a big long kiss, much to my sibling’s dismay.
Ran curls around us on one side, licking my cheek, her mate at her back, confusion tickling his mind, but he welcomes the embrace of joy and hope and love with a playful yip.
Arin limps in the door, the doc at his back with a disapproving frown but eyes alight with wonder. Arin sinks down beside Ran, and puts his hand on my foot.
Papa pulls back, his eyes heavy with joy and sorrow. “How I have missed you, my darling child. But you would reach for me. So often, I—” his voice chokes. He coughs, moisture pooling in his eyes. He cups my cheek. “So often, you were my warmth and my light. You lead me back here, my little cub. My little warrior.”
I blink, more tears tracing my face and slowly dropping from my chin. My lips turn in a gentle smile. “I know, Papa. I know,” I whisper.
His eyes hold both immeasurable sadness and an overwhelming happiness. He blinks, and the tears break free, racing down his weathered and leathery cheeks which are so much paler and older than I recall. But his eyes have not changed. They are the blue of the fall sky, the twinkling of the sun off the most tranquil waters, and the light on the darkest day.
He squeezes my shoulders.
“Does this mean we can move back home?” Jack asks. His voice is so soft, I barely recognize it.
Momma and Papa exchange a glance. He wraps his arms around her waist, pulling her close.
“Oh,” she says, giggling, batting her eyes at Papa.
My mouth gapes in shock. Did Momma just act like a twitterpated teen?
I glance over at Jack and Jill, who have shock radiating from their bodies. They both click their mouths shut.
“Ewww!” they say, in sync.
I chuckle, and their eyes turn on me.
“Hey now, I’m right there with you!” I defend myself, backing away with hands raised in surrender.
The glance at each other, mischief dancing in their eyes. Then they turn back to me with matching, terrifying grins.
I nearly pee myself.
“Oh heck no,” I say, darting to the nearest window.
Jack jumps on my back before I make it two steps. He flattens me to the ground.
I attempt to throw him, but he knows my tricks by now… and then he grabs my hand and puts it behind my back in a chicken-wing style hold—which I heckin did not teach him!
“HANS!” I scream into the floorboards, slightly garbled but still understandable. “I’M GOING TO KILL YOU!”
Hans gets down right in front of me, his face stone cold. “You must get out of that first,” he says, nearly apologetic.
I struggle, but Jack has become strong.
“When on The King’s good planets did you start teaching him?” I mutter into the floor.
I feel Jack’s pride radiate from behind me as I struggle to get free and only end up bruising my shoulder. He’s a daggum beast!
“He asked me,” Hans replies.
“Imma kill ya,” I mutter.
His eyes light with laughter. “Methinks you aren’t,” he says. “Until you can escape my protege.”
“Burn,” Jill says.
“Stay out of this, rugrat!” I hiss to Jill.
“Oh? Then I suppose I shall merely stay quiet then,” she replies.
“Thank goodness—”
That’s when I feel something warm and wet against the back of my neck. I squeal as the wet and gooey tongue works it’s way up my hair and to my forehead.
“SO HELP ME LET ME UPPP!”
Laughter erupts from the little booger behind me—or not so little anymore—and the others as Ran gets to my nose.
“SO HELP ME I WILL—” I gag as slobber drips into my mouth. I spit, sputter, and gag again.
I finally get desperate enough to throw Jack off, who was nearly convulsing in fits of laughter which is the only reason I was able to break away, and sprint to the corner, gagging and spitting and hacking into a chamber pot.
Ran sits, her tail curled around her, and that blasted tongue hanging out in happiness.
“You’re dead,” I hiss to all of them. But it comes out a weak sounding threat when I’m gagging between words.
Arin meets my gaze, his face missing the usual stone-cold features to betray a warmness which permeates the room and filters in joy.
Father has his arms crossed and is watching with a contemplative look on his face, glancing back and forth between Arin and I. Jenny and Momma are standing, their arms linked, watching as if they are two knight’s who tagged the bunny.
Jack and Jill are laughing so hard their eyes are nearly popping from their heads.
And the fairies weave a ring of light and dark around us, which somehow feels… fitting.
And despite the slimy feel of wetness in my mouth and the taste of dog breath that I don’t know if I’m merely imagining or actually is still there, I smile.
But I hide it behind another well-timed gag.