Note: they can be read in tandem or separately as stand-alone pieces bc I am wizards and that's how wizards do
A fragmented almost syncopated rhythm of rain on the roof crescendoed into a full on percussive battering. Knowing how the rain made Owen restless and anxious, Ishara had tasked the child with sketching the images of herbs into her journal. She provided him with the plants and a healer’s encyclopedia to copy the scientific name of the plant and its medicinal properties for her. She had noticed her youngest had a talent for drawing having caught him in the act of producing impressive, realistic renderings of their house and other buildings. She’d even caught him on occasion tracing maps from his father’s military files. Ishara would occupy the uneasy child with a job that could encompass his attention and encourage a natural ability.
Ishara brushed her fingers over his hair. She smiled at the way he stuck his tongue out as he studied the plant. How best to draw it, he seemed to wonder. Satisfied that her son would remain engaged, she slipped away to have a moment of peace. The child had not let her alone since Renly had died. Though certainly old enough, he hadn’t accepted that his father was gone. A solemn military funeral did nothing for his denial. He had stood with that stubborn frow set on his brow during the entire ceremony. Crossed his arms and refused to take the white lily to lay on his father’s casket. When it was time to leave, he was suddenly unwilling to go. He didn’t want to leave his father there in the ground it seemed. Ishara wept and Darcy carried the broken child from the funeral service.
Since then it had been a series of unending ‘when is dad coming homes’ from the boy. She felt worn to her breaking point.
His father had left on a rainy night. Owen frowned at the ceiling when the sounds of the downpour drowned out every other noise in the house. He finished drawing the stem of the plant his mother had given him and glanced around for her surveilling eyes. She was nowhere to be found. Quietly he stole to the door. The locks clicked and he was out on the porch scowling into the rain. Maybe his father would come home on a rainy night. He stepped out far enough to feel the dripping of rain from the edge of the roof on his shirt. A figure moved in the dark on the ground some distance away. It cried out in pain. Cried out for him. He ran back inside, slamming the door shut as he did so.
The sounds of Owen’s desperately yelling for her from downstairs drew out the worried mother. “What is it Owen? Why are you wet?” She knew full well he’d gone to look for his father. She couldn’t leave him alone for a moment.
“Father is outside.” He was tugging on her hand. “He’s hurt mom. We have to help him. Come on. Come on.”
Ishara jerked her hand from her son’s urgent grasp. “Enough!” Her voice sounded shrill to her own ears and he jumped, scared of the sound she’d made. “Stop. You have to stop, Owen.” She knelt down to pull the child in her arms and pleaded for his obedience. “He isn’t there. He isn’t coming back.”
Owen squirmed to push away from her. He stared at her just as Renly would. Rational and levelheaded. Serious in his claims. “There is someone outside.” He affirmed.
She sighed. He wouldn’t be moved. He wouldn’t be satisfied until she took him out in the rain to look for the man. Ishara held her hand out for him. “Let’s go see.”
Owen was wrapped up against the downpour in a bright yellow raincoat and Ishara covered herself similarly. Out into the rain and sure enough there was the body of someone in obvious bad shape on the ground. Ishara would be lying if her heart hadn’t picked up at the idea of it being Renly. Just for a moment. But the figure was small. Much too small to be her Renly.
Owen followed close behind until Ishara’s arm stopped him some few feet away from the body on the ground. “Wait here.” She instructed as he craned his head trying to get a peak around his mother who purposefully placed herself in his line of sight lest the child see something gorey. He was much too young for viewing mangled bodies.
Owen was left watching the soggy grass that squished under her feet. The sound like a growl and the jerking of the body. Eager he moved forward as his mother tsked and coaxed the broken figure to stand.
It wasn’t his father. It was a woman. A strange looking woman with wet cat ears and a terrible wound on her arm. He found himself staring wide eyed at her. The disappointment that would settle upon him later was delayed by his morbid curiosity.
Inside, the door to a healing room was shut in his face with a sharp command from his mother to stay away. Owen ran to find his sister to brag about what he’d witnessed.
“I saw her bones inside her arm like in the medical pictures.” His eyes were wide with the excitement.
Victoria feigned puking with her hand over her mouth. “Gross. Why do you always like that stuff?”
Knocked down somewhat by being called gross, Owen frowned at his sister. “You’re just jealous you didn’t get to see a lady with ears like a cat.” He pushed his hands atop his head to mimic the shape and wiggled his fingers at his sister to taunt her.
“You’re lying.” She sneered and shoved her brother’s hands down.
Owen folded his arms over his chest and lifted his chin. He would have looked down his nose at his sister if he weren’t the shorter of the two. “Fine. Suit yourself.” And he turned on his heel to leave the room. “I’m going to go talk to the cat lady with the gross arm.” He swung his arm back and forth in a way he felt would emphasize the grossness. “You can sit here and play with your stupid dolls.”
Her younger brother was ever the one with a sense of adventure. He was always instigating trouble. Though Victoria resisted his peer-pressure for one brave moment, she was quickly running after him in the halls. “I don’t play with dolls anymore.” She humphed when she caught up to Owen. He snickered cruelly knowing that he was partly responsible for her decision to put her dolls aside. She couldn’t keep them from her mischievous brother who somehow found more and more heinous ways to destroy them.
When they entered the room, Owen and Victoria stole inside like bandits. They weren’t supposed to bother their mother’s patients but here they were almost settling a bet. And Owen, of course, was the winner. A woman with cat ears sat up on the bed.
With a neutral face, Owen gazed pointedly at his sister. I told you so. He mostly sat frowning as Victoria dominated the earlier portion of the conversation. The basic facts of their names were exchanged and he filed the information away. Rylan, a two hundred and fifty six year old cat woman. Clearly a foreigner which was Owen’s astute observation when he finally spoke demanding to know where she was from. He almost scolded her when he made his observations suggesting that she shouldn’t have been out in the woods after dark. She was an interesting guest but she simply wasn’t his father and he wouldn’t forgive her for that. She even claimed to be of a land that his father had never showed him on any map. He stormed from the room to prove her wrong.
He probably won't find it. The woman was saying and he wheeled around creeping back towards the door. Owen positioned himself out of sight and eavesdropped on the conversation. The woman’s hand disappeared into thin air. Disappeared into darkness cast about by the fire and out came a paper. Old parchment.
Give him this.
It was a map to prove him wrong. He was furious and turned back to where he had been headed. Hours and hours he’d sat on Renly’s lap learning the continents and countries. States and cities. Waterways, mountains, deserts. Owen had been voracious for the information. In wonder and awe that he could point to a map that represented where his body was on the planet. He could pin point himself in space. How dare she call in to question the knowledge Renly had patiently laid down for him.
Victoria found him in their father’s study pouring over the maps that hadn’t moved and hadn’t been touched since Renly’s death. She dropped the parchment over the map he’d been reviewing.
“Hey!” He started to brush it away in annoyance but there were islands drawn on it. A map he had never seen. One his father had never shown him.
“She pulled it out of a shadow like magic, Owen.” Victoria’s hands worked in the air trying to mimic the action she’d witnessed. “I think she’s a witch.”
“She isn’t a witch.” He hissed displeased with the woman who’d crushed his hopes and turned over his worldview all in the matter of a few short hours. He didn’t look up from the map having no need of Victoria’s display since he’d witnessed the event himself. “She’s just some lady. With cat ears.” He did the hand motions again and shoved at the map that had been given to him.
Ishara found her children messing around in Renly’s study and shooed them away to bed. Owen was particularly feisty with changing into his pajamas not wanting to let go of a map her patient had given him. Without scolding him for pestering her patients, Ishara tried to explain the language he’d been unable to decipher.
Her understanding voice and soft kiss to his head did nothing to calm him for sleep. When the house had gone quiet, Owen threw the covers from over his legs with the goal of interrogating their guest further without the presence of Victoria to dominate the questioning. To his dismay, Victoria woke to the sound of his door creaking open and met him in the hall.
“You aren’t supposed to be out of bed.”
“Leave me alone.”
“We’ll get in trouble with mom.”
“Then you go back to bed. I am going to talk to her some more.”
“But she’s a witch.”
“She’s not a witch!”
They argued in hushed tones until the sound of a struggle met them. Owen and Victoria crept down the hall. The sound of their mother and another voice talking came through the open door to Rylan’s room.
Just couldn't be bothered to keep to yourself. Just like your husband.
Owen moved forward just enough to push the door open with his fingers. His mother’s body pinned against the wall opposite to him. Green eyes wide with terror to be met with the gaze of her youngest child. His eyes seemed so cold and quiet like the first season’s snow.
The sound of bones cracking, something like gurgling, the metallic smell of blood. Victoria screamed and hid her face. Owen didn’t look away. Or couldn’t. Or willed himself to keep watching. His mother’s body thrashed around like a patient he had watched while peeking through a crack in an open door to a healing room. What is happening to him? He’d asked to his father who’d scooped him up to shield him from the sight. He is sick. It’s called a seizure. Your mother will fix it. Something about the way his mother’s legs beat against the wall seemed more deliberate that the seizure he’d witnessed. She knew what was happening to her. She was suffering. There would be no one to fix it. There was no one to fix it. The man on the bed hadn’t been there. He hadn’t seemed himself. Not really. Owen didn’t know he was crying. His face just felt moist. Maybe he’d been sprayed with blood.
Rylan turned to follow the gaze of their mother and fell upon the children in the hall as his mother’s body slumped to the floor. Do you remember my name?
Victoria was clutching him. Hiding her face against his shoulder. His gaze flickered to the heart in Rylan’s hand, blood and clots dripped off and soaked her hand leaking red down her arm. He matched Rylan’s gaze and nodded.
He would never forget her.
Bitch, I'm limited edition.
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