Written for fic_promptly on dreamwidth. Hopefully I can write a bit more for it. We have a challenge week there and I love to write about TLS, but it's difficult.


When he was a child, he was waiting for the adults to tell him that everything would be alright. That his father would come back. That his mother and he would not starve. That his father did a good thing and helped saving people.

They told him to wait. They told him his father would come. They told him he didn't have to worry about his mother. Until the rumours started. They said his father fled – left his mother and him behind. That he was a coward and traitor.

Yurick yelled and denied and cried in secret.

###

When his mother grabbed him by the hand and dragged him to the small cart she had managed to find, he asked her if they would be alright. His mother had looked around, her behaviour nervous, and said in a hushed tone: "Yes, yes, dear, get in the cart." Squashed between a bag of various foods and a wooden chest, he looked back at the village. The people on the streets had turned their backs to them. Even Yurick's friends weren't there to say goodbye.

He wanted his mother to tell him that they would be alright on their own. That she would protect him. But when he looked up at her, she was constantly glancing over her shoulder; she had always taken pride in her beautiful hair, but now it was stringy and fell out in handfuls. Infected by her fear, Yurick cowered down and wished his father was still here.

Yurick wanted to cry, but he was afraid his mother would hear him – and break down again.

###

When they buried her – burnt her and put her in a cheap, ugly urn – they told him someone would take care of him. He was still so small, they said, people would pity him. When they saw that he wasn't thankful – that he didn't even cry at his mother's death – they looked at him strangely. They said there was something wrong with him – that he was a heartless monster.

Yurick had enough of reassurances. They were only lies. They said them to feel better – to seem compassionate – while not doing anything to help.

They were lies.

No matter how much Yurick wished they weren't.