Creative Challenge: Post 6

This wasn’t where he wanted to be. His legs were really tired, and his feet hurt bad, and his sister was just acting so perfect, he wanted to pull her hair. Her tail was still, her ears flattened, and she walked diligently forward, holding their father’s hand.

“Why do we gotta walk so far to see nothing?” Taro asked unhappily, hopping on one foot as he tried to get a rock out from between his toes.

“You know why,” replied his father shortly. Arietta shot him a mean look, then turned back straight ahead. Grumpy, Taro continued onward.

“But I don’t get it. I don’t even remember-” he started to complain a few minutes later, and Ronin stopped. Taro stopped talking, and looked at him.

“I do. And you owe her this much,” he said in a low growl. The threat was real, he knew, so he stayed quiet until they got there.

It was outside a little house that he knew was theirs (not that they lived in it). The garden was gross, weeds everywhere, and bugs swarming around tomato plants long gone unpicked. Arietta recoiled from this a bit, and Taro sneered at her.

They moved around to the back of the house and out a little way, to the edge of the forest. Arietta knelt quietly by the pile of rocks that marked the empty grave of their missing mother, and their father followed. Taro took one look at the rocks, rolled his eyes, and headed off into the forest.

“Where do you think-” Arietta called after him, but Taro waved a hand to stop her.

“I wanna be by myself. I won’t go far,” he said. He expected his father to call after him too, but surprisingly, he stayed silent. Instead, the beating of wings followed him, and Kietaro was at his side. He landed, and walked like a dog next to him, eyeing him.

“You don’t have to babysit me,” he said reproachfully, but Kie just snorted and shook his head.

“You’re six, what are you going to do if a boar or outlaw comes for your hide, hm?” he asked.

“I’ll gut ‘em!” he said, and drew his little knife, slashing wildly at the trees. Kie just snorted again.

“Put it away, before you hurt me or something,” he said. Taro obeyed, but only because he wanted to.

“So, why do we gotta do this every year, anyway? She’s probably dead,” he asked, kicking a stone.

“It’s what people do when someone they love dies,” Kie said, perching on a rock in a sunbeam peaking through the canopy. “Sit down. This is far enough.”

“Yeah,” he said, flopping on the ground. He picked up a stick and drew circles in the dirt with it. “But I don’t even remember her, what she looked like, or anything. I woulda wanted to stay with Mai and Lycan and them. It’s more fun there. Aioru was gonna teach me how to do that Mi-whatsit dance thing with my knife.” He sighed heavily. “Father just gets so mopey this time of year, and it makes Arietta sad.” And me, he thought, but he didn’t say it. When his father got depressed, he didn’t like to tell stories, or play with them; instead, he liked sinking in dark corners with his thoughts, eating little and drinking too much.

“Yeah, well, he doesn’t handle it well. He really liked your mother,” Kietaro said.

“Tell me something about her,” he said. He was bored, and wanted a good reason why she was so great. Maybe Kie would tell him something other than ‘she was beautiful, kind, and loved you very much.’

“She…” he uncurled his head to look up in thought. “She was pretty, with all her cattyness, and stronger than she looked. She had a voice that would beat Ronin into submission with just a few words.”

“But he’s so tough! Was it like, magic words?”

“Nope, just threats. But she carried through on them. I remember once…Ah, but you’re a little small for that joke. Let me think.” He paused again, Taro blinking. “When they met, your father was stone drunk in the middle of a temple. She came in seeking help, and he tried to shoo her away. He gave in from her shouting and because she was pretty, and did the favor she wanted from him.”

“What was that?”

“Oh, to go slay this big evil bad guy that had done her some wrong,” he said. “She had gotten into some pretty serious stuff. But, your dad realized it would take a long time to track this guy down.”

“So he left?”

“No...He stayed. She was a fiery woman, and he liked that. She knew what she wanted, and she could fight for it if she had to. She wasn’t one to sit down and let things happen.”

“She sounds like a great warrior,” he said. Why had this never been mentioned?

“She liked peace more. After a while, they gave up on their great chase, and settled down. By then, your dad loved her very much, and they wanted to be together permanently. I was fine with this, cause your mom had a smokin’ hot dragon companion, which I-”

“Really? Both of them gave up? What wimps!”

“No, no. They realized it wasn’t important: vengeance was just taking over their lives. It was your mother that convinced your dad that the fight wasn’t important anymore. Besides, they could go kill him later, once they felt like it. But they wanted to have you, so they did.” He paused. “Then one day she vanished.”

Taro sat in silence for a while, pondering this. His mother before now had been faceless, just some maiden Finan who his dad had been taken with, not a proud warrior who had decided that making his sister and him was more important than fighting. He felt guilty that he hadn’t cared.

He stood up and bolted back the way he came. Kie followed him swiftly on foot, shifting to something more apt to running through the underbrush. He broke out of the forest to find that his father and sister had gone inside. He knelt, alone, at the pile of rocks with his eyes closed. He heard shuffling behind him a few minutes later, and peeked to see his father with a smile on his face kneeling next to him, curling his tail around his own.

“Sorry,” Taro said. Ronin nodded. “I didn’t know how brave she was.”

“I’m sorry too,” his father said, looking up at him. Taro shifted and looked back. “For being a bad father recently. And you’re right,” he said suddenly. His face showed signs of sadness, but the smile broke it. He ruffled Taro’s hair. “We don’t have to walk so far for nothing anymore. The place doesn’t matter. Just...think about her sometimes, okay?”

“Okay,” he said. Together, they got up and went back into the house, the stars shining above their heads. Taro looked up, and wondered if his mother still saw the same sky.