[ Respond | Andarin: The Mountains ]
Posted by nyota on March 15, 2009, 3:31 pm, in reply to "a necklace of stars,"
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“Tell me a story, Mom.”
Holden’s request was more like a demand and Nyota smiled, eternally glad to have the little black body curled around her beneath the tree. Ever since he had come back with Anatole, the boy’s curiosity about his mother’s life had been insatiable and she’d told him many stories to placate him. It was a ritual, really – he would be gone during the day, off doing whatever he did (and she no longer used the Sight to keep up with him constantly… it was just now and then, when her curiosity wouldn’t quiet) and then he would return a little after dusk. They would go to the stream and eat together, and then return to the tree and curl up beneath it. She would tell him stories in the starlight until his eyes drooped and his breath deepened and she realized how much she loved him.
“Okay,” she responded as he pushed against her round stomach, and she thought of what she’d already told him. Of course, she’d told him all about Choke – and she’d told him much of Anatole’s childhood. She’d told him about Stelios and Kale, Nicodemus and Wicked. Entropy and Ilium had made their way into the stories, especially when she spoke of Anatole, and of course she told him about Betrayal (he knew much of that story, anyways.) Tonight, though, she chose to tell him about Rook, to which Holden answered,
“I have another brother?” and Nyota smiled. “Well, yes – I had never really thought about that, but yes. You do.” Holden smiled smugly to himself, thought of Renfield, and pushed Nyota’s underbelly with his nose to urge her to continue the story.
She told him of the time when Rook had fallen off the cliff, and she and Wyvern had gone to fix him. Holden marveled at his mother’s power, and then of course asked to know why she had helped Rook. “Well, he was Choke’s son and my friend in his own right,” she said, surprised at Holden’s question. “But, why wouldn’t I help someone in need?”
Holden shrugged. He didn’t tell his mother about all the times that he and Anatole had bypassed someone in need on their journey. “It’s impossible to fix everyone, Mother.” After a pause, he asked, “Why did Wyvern help?” Her frown faded into a small grin then, as explained to her son about Icarus and Wyvern. She had begun to tell him about when she first met Icarus in Solira when his eyes fell and she could See the dreams that had begun to unravel in his sleeping mind.
Leaving him in the very capable hands of Kivuli, Nyota struck out from the tree (something she rarely did, these days) in search of the ones she’d just written into fable.
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