PORTRAIT OF A HAPPY FAMILY

Back to the northern sea and Blackhold is still a tumult of emotions with Shara and Jamos's loss and Marlon and Lana's announcement. Oh, and we have a visitor on the way! We return you to your regularly scheduled chapter. ~ DK

…

"'Course Ness and I never experienced anythin' like what you and Jamos have been through," Maris offered her condolences, "but I'm sure it must just be awful."

"It hasn't been easy. Thank you, Maris." Shara took a sip of her weak ale. There wasn't any reason she shouldn't have a drink but it still felt wrong. Nothing felt right. She wondered if it ever would again.

Jamos had told her it would be good for her to get out and spend some time with her friend. She had hardly left the Hold for more than her appointment with Niamh after the procedure to make sure that everything was back in working order. It was. She knew that for sure now with the return of her cycle.

She didn't want to be here at the pub. She wanted to be back in their wing of the Hold with her husband and her son. Even Kason was getting a little tired of all the attention Momma was giving him, though. And besides, Maris had said she had received something for Shara in the post. So Shara was making the effort.

"Here it is." Maris brought out the flimzy envelope and handed it to her. The note had come from Bralyk Keep of all places and the address had been inked in a woman's handwriting. Someone named Suzelle had signed for both she and Hugo.

"Hadn't you heard?" Maris asked the surprised recipient. "But I suppose you've been distracted with everything. Hugo's got himself a new wife."

Shara read the note silently to herself:

You don't know me and I know your family hasn't had the greatest relations with my husband but I just wanted you to know that you have our deepest condolences. Hugo as you know lost his son and I also years ago was engaged to another man and lost his child before it had the chance to be born into the world. My father and brothers sent him away when there was nothing to keep us together any longer. Only now am I finally able to experience the joys of motherhood with Hugo's sweet daughter, Talia. I understand that you have a young son and I wish you all the happiness of watching him grow and hope that he will bring you some comfort in this dark time.

The letter was signed, "Suzelle Flint-Bralykburn."

"What'd she say?" Maris tried to get a look at the flimzy sheet as Shara folded it away and blinked back tears.

"She sounds very nice." Shara smiled genuinely, already composing a reply in her mind. "Probably, she'll be a good influence on Hugo."

"Salt gods know he could use it." The barmaid was relieved that the note had put her friend in better spirits though a little disappointed that she hadn't been able to see the contents for herself.

Shara shrugged and took another sip of her ale. "He has his faults but he does seem to be a good father. He wouldn't have done… what he did if he wasn't upset about his children, the one he lost and the one he still has to provide for."

She expected for Maris to have a witty comeback but her friend seemed distracted by something across the pub.

Maris frowned worriedly. "Don't look now, Shara, but that gentleman over there has been starin' at you all afternoon. It's startin' to give me the jeebies."

Shara glanced back in the direction Maris indicated. The man in question, who was quite definitely staring, seemed familiar to her for some reason.

"You want me to have Ness see what his problem is?"

"No, that's alright," Shara assured her and she stood from her seat.

She walked toward the stranger and asked him, "I know you, don't I?"

The man, who also stood, was shorter than Shara herself. He had dark curly hair and a beard and his smile was triumphant. "You look just like your mother. You have your father's coloring, yes, but Hadassa shines through your features."

That was all the confirmation Shara needed. "You're the artist from the Fete. You painted her… and me when I was a little girl."

"Just so." He nodded humbly. "My name is Balthazar."

Shara was amazed, and though she could guess at the reason, she asked, "What are you doing up here at Blackhold?"

His smile was now a little guilty. He didn't want her to think he was stalking her. "I returned to Onderon for the summer and caught a glimpse of you on the news holos with your little boy. Congratulations, by the way. I thought it would be a wonderful idea to come north and ask about a follow-up piece of you and your husband with your little boy? They grow up so fast; you want to capture them when they're little to last forever."

"To last forever," Shara repeated. She had heard something like that before but couldn't remember where. "I'll have to speak to Jamos about it. And who knows, maybe Marlon and Lana would like something done with their little ones. Lana has always admired the picture you did of Mother and I. I still have it hanging in my son's nursery."

"Wonderful!" Balthazar beamed. "I will await your decision eagerly!"

…

"Is this something you really want to do?" Jamos would hardly dare to refuse her. His wife had returned from her visit to the pub more animated than he had seen her in weeks.

"Well, he's the same artist that did the painting of Mother and I. I thought it might be nice to have a portrait of Kase and I to hang alongside it."

She still sounded hesitant so he teased her. "If he wants you to pose nude I'm putting my foot down."

And then she laughed. Salt gods, how long had it been since he had heard her laugh? "You sound just like my father."

"That Kason Rupingwood was a smart man." Jamos grinned.

"I'll go and tell him then." Shara smiled. "I'm not sure if he'll be able to start right away. He might have materials to prepare or send for or something." She started to leave his office but then turned back with a flush to her cheeks that he had also not seen in quite a while. "And the other thing… maybe later… a private showing?"

Jamos had hardly dared to hope that she might be ready to try for another baby so soon but if she was insinuating what she seemed to be… He got up hurriedly from his chair and went to her, taking her hands in his. "Are you sure?"

"For your eyes only." The words were teasing but he could see the same hope in her eyes that he felt, that one day soon they might be able to join Marlon and Lana in the announcement of another new Blackwell.

He kissed her deeply and then added, with his signature grin, "Aye. I wouldn't miss that."

…

This wasn't working out as they'd hoped. Maybe it was hormones, or the stress that Shara had been under or the grief that still gnawed at her. Maybe Kason was just tired of how clingy his mother had been for the past few weeks or he was just that age where he didn't want to be kept still. They had tried posing for the artist in the greenhouse. Then Jamos had suggested they try going out to the shore since it was one of Kason's favorite places. The toddler had only wanted to run and play.

"I'm sorry," Shara told Balthazar for what must have been the millionth time on the third day of his attempt to get a decent sketch of mother and son. She was tired and frustrated and sure that this couldn't be good for she and Jamos's attempts to conceive again.

"No, no." Balthazar waved his hand in dismissal. "It is my fault. I picked an inconvenient time for my visit. The child is obviously draining all of your strength."

She frowned hoping she wasn't miss reading his meaning. "Kason is a bit of a handful right now."

"Perhaps if we postponed until you are further along…"

"Wait." She stopped him before he could go any further. "I - I'm not… You said you saw holos of our family in Iziz. So you heard about…"

"That you are expecting your second child? I admit I had imagined that you would be showing more than you are by the time of my arrival…"

"I'm not…" She swallowed hard and tried to steady her words. "You must not have heard that part of the news. We… I lost the baby. I'm… not pregnant."

"Oh my dear I am so sorry…"

"Lana is." She cut him off. "You could paint her if you wanted… I… I'm sorry I can't. Come on Kase it's time for your nap." She scooped up the boy and fled from the room barely containing the sobbing that threatened burst from her chest.

…

Balthazar nearly left that very afternoon but he couldn't go without apologizing to her in person and Shara seemed to have locked herself away. Her husband said he would talk to her and in the meantime the artist set out to do as she had suggested and paint the other members of the family.

He managed to capture a nice sketch of the Lord and Lady with their daughter but the boy seemed to be just as active as his younger cousin. Then he attempted a few poses of Lana and the girl. Nothing like his masterpiece of Hadassa and Shara but Lady Blackwell approved of the progress before she went to rest as exhausted with her pregnancy as Balthazar had assumed of Shara.

After that the artist set to work on acquiring the preliminary sketches of the fathers and sons. He was sure his student back in Iziz wouldn't care about such a thing but the more he worked with the family the more he knew it was them he wanted to please and not the young lord who awaited his comm back down south.

…

One day Balthazar was allowed to sit in on what seemed to be a special right of passage for the little Lady.

"Let me see your grip." Marlon crouched before his daughter, who held out her birthday present eagerly and watched rapt as he adjusted her fingers on the hilt. "It's delicate, Dalla. Like holding a stylus."

"Aye, Father." Dalla experimentally turned the knife over with the new grip once her father had leaned back. "Like this?"

"Better." Marlon took her arm in his hands to demonstrate the strikes.

Balthazar smiled from where he stood back with Jamos and his son. When he first arrived in the north he'd balked at the idea of six-year-olds being given knives, but after seeing the parents and sailors with the little ones he'd come around. It really was a matter of how a child was taught about weapons, and the northern curriculum stressed safety and respect for what knives could do. That, Balthazar was all for.

A grunt brought him back to the lesson and he saw Marlon shake his head. "It's a knife, not a broadsword. If you slash and hack you'll break the blade, and then what will you do?"

Dalla blinked and stared at the blade. "But it's durasteel."

"Durasteel can break," Marlon told her. "Especially if your opponent has something heavy, like a broadsword or a cutlass. Your job is to avoid and get around his blade."

"If I can't slash and hack, how do I fight?" Dalla's brow wrinkled in confusion.

"You stick him." Balthazar spoke up from his place across the room. "People are made of water, child. If you poke holes in them…" Here he pretended to stab himself in the stomach with his pencil.

Dalla caught on: "The water comes out."

"And they die." Marlon smiled with pride. "Alright, ready position. Let's practice."

Bathazar cleared his throat. "You still will allow me to sketch this?"

"If you wish." Marlon drew his own knife and stood opposite Dalla, settling into a ready position himself. "Dalla, you will try to strike me. Ready...go!"

Balthazar took off with the command as well, lifting his pencil to his sketchbook at the same time Dalla charged at her father and he easily brushed off her strike. He froze the image in his mind and bent to his task while durasteel clashed in the background.

…

After a while Balthazar left the fighters to their practice. He had received a comm from his student demanding to know the progress of his visit to the north.

"You must send me a holo or a drawing of Shara and her son so that I might have the inspiration to continue my artistic education." Sanjay insisted in the recorded message.

He couldn't do it. He couldn't betray the trust of this family to some obsessive admirer. It was clear to him now that this was the sole objective of his so called student. Sanjay Rash had only wanted live out his fantasies of his ex-wife through her new situations. Balthazar couldn't be a party to that.

He would find her, tell her the truth, and apologize. Then he would leave all of the sketches and paintings he had done during his time here and be on his way. He wouldn't go back to Iziz. He wouldn't give Sanjay the satisfaction of disrupting this home.

It was almost by chance that he heard her voice as he was leaving the Hold headed towards his rooms at the inn to think over where he would go next. Shara Blackwell was singing. It sounded like a hymn or a prayer.

He tried to speak up but he didn't know what to say and he was almost entranced by her song. She didn't seem to notice as he followed her down the path towards a pool of water that steamed at the foot of a large sparkling white obelisk.

Shara stepped right into the pool without breaking her stride or her chorus. Her skirt floated around her as she continued until the water level was up to her waist and then up to her shoulders.

Balthazar began to worry that he should go to fetch another member of the family. What if the distraught young mother meant to do herself harm? He was prepared to jump in and save her even though he was no great swimmer himself.

After only a silent moment when she ceased her singing to dip her head under the water, Shara broke the surface again with a gasp. She tread water speaking words too low for the artist to hear. It must have been some sort of religious ritual that he could not understand. She swam back to a place where she could stand and before she left the pool she turned to the tower of salt, pressed her thumb to her lips and then lifted her palm toward the natural structure.

He couldn't speak to her now. It was too private a moment to disturb but he did unashamedly lift his sketchpad and begin a drawing of the young woman who sat on the bank of the pool and sang quietly to herself or to her god, Balthazar couldn't be sure which.

…

What must have been hours later, Balthazar had lost track of time as he tried to capture the true spirit of the young woman praying at the spring, her husband came running up the path towards her. "Shara, I've been looking for you everywhere!" He splashed through the shallows and took her in his arms in a tender embrace.

Her response was almost too low for the artist to hear from his hiding place. "Please tell me you didn't think I'd taken the sea stairs."

"No." He shook his head gazing at her and caressing her hair. Then with his free hand he pulled something small and white from his pocket. "I found this in our 'fresher."

She nodded.

"It's positive." He practically choked on the emotion of the words.

Tears came to her eyes and she sobbed. "I was so afraid to get my hopes up when I took the test. And then… what if it happens again? And how could I ever think that we could replace Jamie?"

"No, no no." He held her tightly again and spoke in earnest. "We will never replace Jamie. Jamie was a part of this family. IS a part of this family. And this new baby is a gift, a blessing!"

"I can still hardly believe it. Not until I can see Niamh. She must have better tests… more certain than…" She waved at the bit of plastoid he had in his hand.

…

"Don't know where he went, Shara," Maris said, her brow furrowed with confusion. "In the middle a' the night he slipped an envelope full of credits under our door and I haven't seen sail nor stern of him since. Room's all cleared out, his bags are gone - he just up an' left!"

"That's odd," Shara wondered what had come over the artist for him to leave so suddenly. "Did he say anything last night about having a problem here, or did he leave a note."

"Oh aye, he left a note," Maris nodded. "But that's not all he left."

"What do you mean?"

Maris gestured to the open room down the hall from where the two were standing. "See for yourself."

Shara did, taking the invitation to poke into the inn room. The room was in order, the bed neatly made and the only indication someone had spent time here being the stack of canvases and sketches against the wall.

"I recognized you in a few of them paintings," Maris announced. "You got any idea what all this is about?"

"I honestly have no idea." Shara picked up the canvas on top, an image of her sitting by the hot springs and praying. She hadn't known Balthazar was watching her.

"Maybe the others do?"

"Maybe." Shara set the canvas down and thumbed through the others. "Marlon loved a few of the paintings; Balthazar might have sold them to him before he left. He might know something..."

But that didn't seem to be the case when she showed the paintings to the rest of the family and discussed the artist's mysterious disappearance. "Bought them?" Marlon repeated. "I hadn't bought anything yet. I was going to when he was done, but he didn't indicate he was."

"He left before he was paid?" Lana examined the canvases and sketches. "And he left all his work. He's a professional artist. If he didn't want credits, then why did he come up here?"

"Don't ask me," Jamos shrugged. "I'm glad he left the paintings, even if it's a bit of a mystery. Especially this one of you by the hot spring, Shar..."

There were murmured agreements and then a moment of silence before Shara spoke up in a voice barely above a whisper. "I think...I think the salt gods answered my prayers."

…

L.S. and I would like to thank all our readers and commenters for sticking with us and allowing us a bit of a break.