Tavi of Calderon (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
student_of_impossibility) wrote2013-10-19 04:49 am
student_of_impossibility) wrote2013-10-19 04:49 am
[Pre-Canon] Artifacts of Play
Aunt Isana is with Uncle Bernard. She's crying, and hugging him, and Tavi knows his uncle is trying not to cry because he's a grown-up, and they don't cry. (Grown-up girls can, though.) But maybe it's okay for them to cry when they're alone with their sisters.
Tavi doesn't have sisters. Not anymore--not ever, not really, Aunt Cassea and Uncle Bernard are their mother and father. He likes that. They’re lucky, having parents that caring and strong and... there. But even if they’re only cousins, they are like sisters. He loves them like he guesses boys are supposed to love their sisters (and be irritated when they're brats, because they are).
Grown-ups don't cry, and he's the biggest (fine, Adela's almost his height and it's not fair). He's almost eleven now. A few months away, and so long as it's less than half a year, it counts. He's older than ten. He's a grown-up. Or that’s what he tells the girls, because it comes with the lofty privileges to try to make them leave him alone somehow. Or wheedle them into helping, or convince them he didn’t leave those frogs in their bed.
(He did. He had to eat dinner in his room a couple days. But then he gave them his dessert without even being told by Uncle Bernard or Aunt Isana. They forgave him. Bribes, he'd discovered, were really effective.)
He cried a lot, at first. He was also feeling a little sick--Aunt Isana made sure he got better quickly, not like Aunt Cassea and the girls. Beritte's parents died too. Another acute flash of pain rips through him. At least they didn't try to lie to him about what was happening. They called it the Blight, and it wasn't the first time it had happened in Alera. There was one earlier this century according to the history book he got last birthday. But it was long enough ago that even old Bitte hadn't seen it.
Watching his aunt and uncle now, he resolves fiercely that he'll be grown up, now, for them. He knows he isn't yet, not to them. But he'll be it, do extra chores and take some of the ones that someone now gone had done. He'll do whatever he has to. And he'll make sure they don't have to worry he'll cry. He won't make them worry about anything at all.
(Well, not until he thinks of something entertaining to do. But right now he's too glum to do so.)
So he sneaks down to the kitchen, and yes, there are Aunt Isana's keys. While no one's looking, not even old Bitte, he filches them and tries to make his way stealthily to the girls' room. He knows which key it is—the spoils of the frog incident, along with where in the Rillwater to find frogs--and slips into the room before anyone can see him.
Their toys are still there. He knows which he's looking for. Adela has a hound--it was Uncle Bernard's Brutus, really, and he'd made it for her out of a pretty rock she'd found last year. And then Gerhild whined a lot--Gerhild always whines--and he gave her a carving from wood of his wood fury Cypress. They're the girls' favorite toys.
He puts both into his pockets and cracks open the door, peering out carefully. With no one there, Tavi quickly slips out and shuts and locks the door again. Ambling innocently back to the kitchen, he's barely around the first corner when he sees Fade. Uh-oh. "...I want a snack?" Tavi hazards.
Fade only makes a small sound--Tavi doesn't bother trying to understand it this time--and if he weren't Fade Tavi would swear he's looking pointedly at Aunt Isana's keys still in his hand. Helplessly he shrugs and puts a finger to his lips, hissing. Fade follows him back to the kitchen anyway. Luckily Bitte is too busy shooing Fade out before he upsets the basket of new bread to notice Tavi silently replace the keys. (He steals a couple rolls, too. He's hungry.)
He scampers to his room before anyone notices and shuts the door. Immediately he sags against it, and the tears blur his vision and threaten to fall. Pulling out the girls' toys again, Tavi sits on his bed trying to decide where to hide them. Eventually he falls asleep, still holding them close. His pillow is salty wet in the dark and silence.
No one sees him weep.
Tavi doesn't have sisters. Not anymore--not ever, not really, Aunt Cassea and Uncle Bernard are their mother and father. He likes that. They’re lucky, having parents that caring and strong and... there. But even if they’re only cousins, they are like sisters. He loves them like he guesses boys are supposed to love their sisters (and be irritated when they're brats, because they are).
Grown-ups don't cry, and he's the biggest (fine, Adela's almost his height and it's not fair). He's almost eleven now. A few months away, and so long as it's less than half a year, it counts. He's older than ten. He's a grown-up. Or that’s what he tells the girls, because it comes with the lofty privileges to try to make them leave him alone somehow. Or wheedle them into helping, or convince them he didn’t leave those frogs in their bed.
(He did. He had to eat dinner in his room a couple days. But then he gave them his dessert without even being told by Uncle Bernard or Aunt Isana. They forgave him. Bribes, he'd discovered, were really effective.)
He cried a lot, at first. He was also feeling a little sick--Aunt Isana made sure he got better quickly, not like Aunt Cassea and the girls. Beritte's parents died too. Another acute flash of pain rips through him. At least they didn't try to lie to him about what was happening. They called it the Blight, and it wasn't the first time it had happened in Alera. There was one earlier this century according to the history book he got last birthday. But it was long enough ago that even old Bitte hadn't seen it.
Watching his aunt and uncle now, he resolves fiercely that he'll be grown up, now, for them. He knows he isn't yet, not to them. But he'll be it, do extra chores and take some of the ones that someone now gone had done. He'll do whatever he has to. And he'll make sure they don't have to worry he'll cry. He won't make them worry about anything at all.
(Well, not until he thinks of something entertaining to do. But right now he's too glum to do so.)
So he sneaks down to the kitchen, and yes, there are Aunt Isana's keys. While no one's looking, not even old Bitte, he filches them and tries to make his way stealthily to the girls' room. He knows which key it is—the spoils of the frog incident, along with where in the Rillwater to find frogs--and slips into the room before anyone can see him.
Their toys are still there. He knows which he's looking for. Adela has a hound--it was Uncle Bernard's Brutus, really, and he'd made it for her out of a pretty rock she'd found last year. And then Gerhild whined a lot--Gerhild always whines--and he gave her a carving from wood of his wood fury Cypress. They're the girls' favorite toys.
He puts both into his pockets and cracks open the door, peering out carefully. With no one there, Tavi quickly slips out and shuts and locks the door again. Ambling innocently back to the kitchen, he's barely around the first corner when he sees Fade. Uh-oh. "...I want a snack?" Tavi hazards.
Fade only makes a small sound--Tavi doesn't bother trying to understand it this time--and if he weren't Fade Tavi would swear he's looking pointedly at Aunt Isana's keys still in his hand. Helplessly he shrugs and puts a finger to his lips, hissing. Fade follows him back to the kitchen anyway. Luckily Bitte is too busy shooing Fade out before he upsets the basket of new bread to notice Tavi silently replace the keys. (He steals a couple rolls, too. He's hungry.)
He scampers to his room before anyone notices and shuts the door. Immediately he sags against it, and the tears blur his vision and threaten to fall. Pulling out the girls' toys again, Tavi sits on his bed trying to decide where to hide them. Eventually he falls asleep, still holding them close. His pillow is salty wet in the dark and silence.
No one sees him weep.