Author's notes: I should note that Tseng is about seven in this part of the story. I also must admit that I first stumbled across the name Nokomis is the novel The Onion Girl by Charles de Lint. Nokomis is a goddess-type figure in Native American myth.
My apologies if there doesn't seem to be much going on in this chapter. It's my attempt at subtely.
Salvation (15)
Someone had once told Reno that the only way to start a story was at the beginning. He personally thought that that was bullshit. Where did any story truly begin? For him, his end was his beginning. There was a moment where everything went blank. He was a video tape, he sometimes thought. Pause, stop, rewind. Play again.
For anyone else it might've been melodramatic to say that he had died but not for Reno. Some nights he could still feel it, his heart stopping in his chest. He had watched the world fade to black around him. He could even remember the exact moment when he had stopped breathing. He had died. He should have died.
But that wasn't the beginning.
The problem was that he remembered everything. That wasn't the way that these things were supposed to happen. If someone was going to go through the trouble of ending your life, they should do it properly. God, it would have been so much simpler if he had just died.
He could still see her, laying there, eyes cold and empty watching him die. In that moment, he had wanted to die.
These things were supposed to be simple. Life and death, they were the cardinal truths. Nobody could cross that line. Nobody should be forced to.
Reno touched a spot slightly above his heart. It had been right there. That had been the bullet that had killed him. There had been another that had buried itself in his left lung, another in his hip and one more in his stomach. He remembered all of them them. Some nights he woke up screaming because he could still feel them ripping into his body.
If there is no beginning then there can be no end. Where does the past end and the present begin? There were too many links, too many similarities. What separates now and then?
He didn't want this. He didn't want any of this. There were too many connections, too many parallels. God, you didn't need to be a doctor to understand it. Two women, both young, both beautiful, both slightly jaded, both a little vulnerable. God, they were even both blonde. It was just too much.
There was a name that he would never utter, a story that he would never tell. The last thing he had seen before the dark had closed in on his world had been her eyes, staring wide and beautiful into his.
She had died. He had watched her die.
...Malina. Her name had been Malina.
A woman is like water flowing. She can sustain a man and give him life but may drown him all the same.
Wutaian Proverb
Tseng stood at the edge of the bluff, looking outon the unending ocean. Tall grasses whipped around his feet and his hair, clumsily pulled back into a boy's ponytail, flew about in the wind. Eyes too serious for a child's plush and unfinished features took in the scene before him. His black clothes contrasted sharply with the grey, stormy sky. The wind was stirring the ocean into a frothing mass of salt and sea foam. The boy stood at the edge of the cliff, unafraid. It was a long, long way down to the water below.
"Tseng!" a woman's voice called the boy's name and he spun around. A middle-aged woman came trudging up the hill towards him. She was breathless by the time she made it up.
"Tseng, where have you been? Honestly, I don't know how your poor father puts up with you! Always out and about, never a care to where you should be."
"But I finished helping Master Kiosh mend his fence hours ago."
"And you never though to tell you father that, hmm? Poor man wanders in, gloomy as a storm cloud, Leviathan bless his soul, wondering if I knew where you were! As if I don't have my own responsibilities to tend to in the village!"
"I'm sorry, Goodwife Serona."
"Sorry never mended a fence Tseng."
"But I mended the-"
"I'll not have you talking back to me, silly boy!"
The woman grabbed Tseng by the sleeve of his robe and began pulling him down the slope.
"I don't know how your father puts up with you. I swear there's not an ounce of sense in your body! Honestly. And with your poor mother gone, Leviathan take her soul…"
Tseng's eyes looked down to the ground. He didn't hear the rest of the woman's tirade.
"I'm sorry," he said to no one in particular.
Tseng sat on his knees in his father's house with his eyes on the floor and his hands on his thighs. His father was standing above him.
"Where were you?" he asked with eyes like flint trained on his guilty son. His tone was flat.
"At Evana's point, Father."
"Why?"
The boy paused a moment before answering.
"…No reason, Father."
Miro was silent a moment.
"It was wrong of you to leave without telling an adult. It's not safe for a child to wander the cliffs alone."
Always the same speech but he'd never been hurt before and so what was the problem?
"I'm very disappointed in you Tseng."
Tseng closed his eyes wearily.
"I'm sorry, Father."
Miro made a non-committed noise in the back of his throat. When he spoke, his tone didn't change.
"Go tend to the goats in the pasture now. They can't be left to roam."
"Yes Father."
"And as punishment, you'll have no supper tonight Tseng."
Tseng shrunk down a little bit lower. He was already hungry.
"Yes Father."
They were both quiet.
"May I go now?"
"Yes Tseng.
Tseng stood to leave avoiding his father's eyes until the sound of his voice stopped him
"Tseng, tonight Grandmother Nokomis is coming for tea. If you are done your chores by the time she arrives, you may sit with us for a time.
"Yes Father."
Without another word, Tseng walked out of the room.
Responses:
Drakonlily: Ha, sorry I'm making you miss out on work m'dear! Though I'm grateful for the interest. Don't do that too much though! Work is somewhat important, you know. (wink) Thanks for mentioning the repitition. I'll fix it whenever I have the chance. Also, thank you for the lovely compliments. (smiles)
Cendrillo: I have way too much fun with mythology. Part of the reason why I'm writing Salvation is because I want to talk about Wutaian mythos and ideology and history... Hopefully it'll turn out okay. (grins)
Fantasy: (cringe) I'm sorry I took so long to update. I was away at school and writing just didn't seem to work for me there... Hopefully I'll be able to update more regularly from now on! Thanks so much for staying with this story though! It's very humbling and I'm definitely going to do my very best to post as much as I can.