Title: Butterflys
Author: Me: Bloody Buterflys
Disclaimer: Yea, Valdemar belongs to Misty. Not me, I have not the luck.
Note: This is pretty much my first fanfiction, so be nice. Critisim is welcome, all mistakes my own. This is unbeta'd, but has been through spell checker.
Her smile is bitter, but it's there. The boys always manage to make her smile even when nothing else can. They're still so innocent; easily distracted from their chores by anything really: a bird, a squirrel, even by the chickens they're supposed to tend. It's by a butterfly this time, a tiny white little thing that the boys chase around the farm.
It's with a sigh that she yells for them, "Nathen, Ethen! Ya's 'possed ta be workin', not playin'. Get to it boys."
Nathen, the older who always had more check, whines, "But ma…"
"Don' ya but ma me. The eggs ain't gonna gather 'emselve y'know."
He pouts, but he still goes back to gathering eggs. It's Ethen that's the problem. He's caught the butterfly now and is holding it carefully in small grubby hands. The look in his eye is the same one that his father got when he was trying to figure something, usually bad, out. She sighs again; her youngest causes her more problems than all six older ones combined.
"Ethen," she tries again, putting all the authority years of motherhood have granted her.
He looks up, a question forming in his dark brown eyes, "Mama?"
Another softly bitter smile, forced this time, "Yea, Ethen?"
"When'll Jasin be 'ome?"
She closes her eyes, against tears or in acceptance she doesn't know, "'e ain't sweetin."
"'Ow come?" and here's the question she hates, "Ain't 'e love us no more?"
"Ethen," and how to explain it all to a child? "Ethen ya brother loves ya, jus well, 'e can't come 'ome I thunk me an' Nick 'plained."
"But, ifin 'e ain't 'live, where is 'e?"
"With the lady."
"With his 'panion? An' da?"
"I-I… yea."
"'Kay, they'll watch o'er 'im." He giggles and runs off to finish his chores.
She sighs. They'll watch over him. The companion'll take care of him. All that damn horse did was steal away her son and get him killed. Hailed a hero, as if being named a hero could bring Jasin, her baby, back. As if that could heal her heart.
Nothing could do that, nothing. She blinks quickly against hot stinging tears. She has no time to cry. Not for her sons, the dead one or the two fighting Karse, not for her husband, fallen in the same war as her son, nor for herself. After all a farm doesn't run its self, and the bays could hardly handle it themselves. The kitchen beckons and she hopes Valdemar, and her King, have no use for the rest of her children, as selfish as it maybe. Let some other woman bear the burden of raising heroes. She's lost enough to this damned war.
A/n: This was inspired by my boys. Their demons, but they can't help it. They make me wonder about how the mother's must have felt.