A/N: This is the beginning of a series of 24 (or maybe 32?) vignettes featuring assorted Salmalíns -- mostly Sarralyn and Rikash. I've split them into "chapters" of 8 vignettes each.
Disclaimer: I did not invent any of these characters, and I don't own them. If they do thinks that are wildly out of character, however, that part is my fault.
Variations on a Theme of Salmalín
1. Bullies
Sarralyn sometimes finds her younger brother difficult to love—particularly after he has set something of hers on fire. (Once he fills her clothes-trunk with frogs and, when she shouts at him, says innocently, "I thought you liked animals.") She tells him with some regularity that he is a dreadful little pest (and other things less complimentary), and she gets her revenge by sneaking up on him in the shape of a wolverine or a mountain cat.
So if Rikash is surprised when the palace bullies glowering down at him blanch, turn tail, and run, he is more surprised when, looking behind him, he sees Sarra grinning with huge carnivore teeth and brandishing a murderous-looking set of grizzly-bear paws.
But, then again, not really.
2. Maybe Not
Rikash thinks it would be the most wonderful thing to be able to shape-shift, until the afternoon when he comes upon his mother and sister picking out of each other's hair the burrs they have picked up while scouting in wolf form. They look exhausted and annoyed, and Rikash decides he likes his own sort of magic just fine, thank you.
3. Adorable
People are always telling them how sweet little Rikash is, how adorable, with his mop of brown curls and his dark, soulful eyes. Sarra has reached the age when she finds this deeply annoying, and has to resist the urge to tell them all about the time he set fire to her favourite nightshirt or the time he froze the bathwater around them in the tub. Then the small hand slips confidingly into hers and the velvety brown eyes look up at her with puppy-like devotion, and she forgets what she wanted to say.
4. Different Kinds of Trouble
"I have somefing you don't, Sawwa!" Rikash says.
"Yes," his sister replies patiently. She is kneeling beside the wooden tub, shirtsleeves rolled to the elbows, trying to scrub the soot out of his hair – on the quiet, before their parents find out. "You have the Gift. I know that. That's how we got into this mess."
"Not dat. Dis!" he stands up, splashing her, and points triumphantly down at the thing he has that she doesn't.
Despite herself, Sarralyn laughs. "Oh, that," she says. "Well, Ma says one day that'll get you into just as much trouble as the magic. Now, sit down. I'm not done."
"Twouble? How?" Rikash's dark-brown eyes are puzzled.
Sarra shrugs. "I don't know," she says. "Maybe you should ask Da."
5. Tears
When Sarra has done something naughty, and been lectured or shouted at, she shrugs off the scolding and emerges with head held high; if she sheds tears of regret or humiliation, it is later, in secret. Rikash handles chastisement differently, noisily apologetic and given to extravagant gestures of contrition. His sister scorns his ready tears and mocks his sincere but unkeepable promises of good behaviour—but they both know that he is the only one who is allowed to see her cry.
6. Silver Lining
"Are you mad, Numair? What in the name of Shakith were you thinking?"
Their parents are arguing, loudly. Rikash is unequivocally frightened and upset. Sarra, who has seen more of this, covers his ears with her hands and lets him bury his face in her shirt. Her own distress is tempered both by the knowledge that her parents will make up their quarrel before long and by the secret, traitorously delicious idea that, until they do, they will avoid each other for a little while—perhaps as long as a few hours. And then (maybe, if she is lucky) she can have one of them (it doesn't particularly matter which) all to herself for a little while.
7. Discovery
Sarralyn is still quite small when she makes an important—possibly life-altering—discovery: her father will cheerfully accept the disappearance of her pocket money, and sometimes even give her more, if he thinks she has spent it on books.
8. Something Right
Sometimes—often—Daine is not sure what to do with her children. Life was so much simpler (though no more restful, to be honest) when they were babies, when their problems could all be solved by a breast or a change of diaper, when she didn't worry constantly that they would do serious harm to themselves or, worse, to somebody else. (She tends to forget those first six weeks of Sarralyn's life, which she thought at the time would be the death of her.) What if she is doing this all wrong, and raising little monsters? On the other hand, sometimes she is so proud of them—their accomplishments, their small deeds of kindness, their beauty, or, sometimes, simply the fact that they exist—that she decides she must be doing something right.