I wrote this for my English class the other day. Not that I told my teacher it was fanfiction.
Partially inspired by idahlart on tumblr.
Safe Return
The day of departure has come, but she doesn't want to let them go. She sees her sons standing among the older men, eyes bright and hopeful, awed to somehow have been included. It was their birthright, her brother informed her. He would look after them. They would be safe.
No they won't, I don't want my boys dead, let them say, it's too dangerous— these are the words she had cried. It was no use crying them now. The boys went willingly, they were eager for a chance to prove themselves.
It is dawn and the warriors are ready to leave. She hugs her sons goodbye and drinks in the moment. They go to fight for a noble cause, but she doesn't know their blood will be worth it.
"Stay safe. Protect your brother," she whispers to her eldest. He is wise and strong. He has a good head on his shoulders. He will be safe.
"I will, Ma," he whispers back. She holds him tight, then lets go. He smiles at her and her heart is already breaking.
"Don't be reckless," she tells the younger son. "Return to me." She slips a stone into his hand as they embrace, a token to remember her by. He will need it. He is so young, so rash and brave.
"You know me, Ma," he says with a wink. She does. That's why she worries.
Her brother she does not embrace. She looks at him levelly and folds her arms.
"Keep them safe," she says, "or I will never speak to you again."
He laughs. "I love you, too."
She cracks a smile, but it does not mask her fear.
She stays at the edge of town, watching as her brother leads the warriors away to battle. She doesn't turn back until they have disappeared into the rising sun.
For a year, she worries. She dreams nightmares of her sons' deaths, of her brother's madness, of disaster and destruction and doom. She dreams of tragedies before: her parents' demise so long ago, how her younger brother perished in a battle so like the one her older brother fought now, her husband's' untimely death at the hands of his enemies. But it will be alright, she assures herself when she wakes. They will be safe.
She wished she believed herself.
It is dawn when the knock comes to her door, familiar and yet not. She answers the knock and shouts for joy: the warriors have returned! But it is not her brother leading them. And their eyes are not bright and joyous as she had hoped. She fears the worst.
"Which one of them...?" she asks, her heart in her throat. No, it could not be—where were her sons? Where was her brother?
Her brother's lieutenant bows his head in answer. "All of them," he whispers.
She can feel herself falling apart. She cries, she falls to the ground and weeps, she breaks from the inside out. Her sons, her sweet, precious sons...they were too young. She had lost too much already...
She wished they had listened when she had told them to return.