Interlude: Hearthfire (3)

12 Second Seed, 4E206

The nightmares didn't start until several months after her return.

Honestly, my only surprise is that they took this long to start coming around. I know what it's like to be a soldier. I've seen many brave and strong men return from horrific battles and crumble within days, all of them suffering just like Amara does sometimes.

She tries to hide it or at least play it down, but by now I've had the time to become uniquely attuned to her. She can't keep very much from me anymore: I can't feel what she feels, not exactly, but if something's going on with her, I'm almost always going to know about it. My ability to smell stress and fear still doesn't make me a mind-reader, though, so the catch is getting her to tell me exactly what.

It's not every night, and even then, it's not always catastrophic. Sometimes she's able to wake herself up without thrashing or screaming.

And sometimes I'm afraid she'll never come out of it.

Tonight's a mild one… or mild enough, anyway. She's hunched over and sweating, breathing hard, knuckles white, fingers gripping the sheets around her waist. I saw the little flash in her eyes again when she shot up and opened them, the same one I'd seen before. Even if I don't know what it is, at least now I know I'm not imagining things.

I'm not going to bring it up, though. Not now.

I know not to say anything. My job, right now, is to listen for Corinna. Sometimes her mother's nightmares are loud enough to wake her up, and sometimes they aren't. But soon enough, I hear a pair of little feet hit the floor of the adjacent room. I get out of bed to intercept her.

"No," Amara says in a harsh tone, stopping me in my tracks. I'm reminded, just a little, of her Thu'um. "No, I want to… see her face."

Corinna's already pushing the door open before I can reply or do anything else. I don't say anything, I just help her up onto the bed and watch as she crawls into Amara's lap. Kids tend to have a weird kind of intuition, I'm learning: the two of them are connected, no matter how awkward Amara is. Corinna knows it even if Amara doesn't.

"I heard you, Mama."

She buries her face in her daughter's hair. "Pardon me, ocelle… I hope I did not frighten you."

She used to. Corinna's gotten used to it by now.

"No." Her little arms wrap around Amara's neck. "All better?"

Amara laughs softly through her nose. "With so adept a healer, I have no choice but to feel better." They cuddle tighter together. "Thank you, my darling."

15 Midyear, 4E206

"I will admit I feel a little silly all of a sudden," she says suddenly and with a smile, which I see when I look up to where she's sitting at the table.

I'm on the floor with Corinna, trying to help her with… whatever it is that she's trying to draw. All we've really managed to do is get ourselves covered in six different colors of charcoal. I honestly have no idea how that happened. "How come?"

She leans back in her seat and regards me for a second. The table is covered in books and papers, half of them in languages I don't recognize, as she's seen it fit to try her hand at being a scholar again. "It has only just occurred to me that you write with your left hand. I wonder why I failed to notice it before."

I smirk. "Probably because the constant threat of dragons and who-knows-what-else left my hands wanting a sword instead of a pen. Or, well, these charcoal things—" I cut off mid-sentence to turn my head and sneeze when Corinna suddenly smacks the paper and a cloud of dust flies up my nose. "Oh, hey now—!" I start scolding her, but another sneeze cuts me off again.

Now the kid's just laughing at me.

"Darling, you look like an urchin," Amara says as she gets up to get a washcloth, trying to hide her own mirth. I would say something in return, but I'm trying not to sneeze again. Then she's crouching down in front of me and wiping dust from my face.

I turn my head and sneeze again, but I think it's the last one, thank the gods. "Returning to my roots, I guess," I mumble and snort in a very impolite, very urchin-like way. Then I smirk at her cross-armed, silently-scolding expression and tease: "Oh-a Lydia! You-a offend my-a delicate sens-a-bilities with-a your nose-blowing! I am-a well-a-mannered-a rich girl!"

"You wretch!" She smacks me on the arm, but it's light and she isn't actually angry. "I do not sound so absurd as that!"

She doesn't, she really actually doesn't, but it's still a great source of fun for me. "You-a wretch-a!" I mock, grinning. "How-a dare—!"

I'm already sitting on the floor, but she tackles me anyway, cutting me off mid-sentence. "Let us hear you speak my language, eh? All your flat vowels and—" Then she's also cut off by the little body that launches itself onto her back, giggling. But she rolls with it, laughing along, and reaches behind herself to pull Corinna between us, careful not to put too much weight on her.

"Your flat vowels and lack of rhythm!" She continues, all while Corinna's overjoyed at all the energy and hanging on her neck. "I daresay our daughter and all her multilingual babbling sounds still more refined! Would you not say so, ocelle?" She rolls off of me, onto her own back, taking the kid with her. She doesn't even seem to mind that she's getting covered in charcoal dust.

Corinna's absolutely thrilled. She squirms and squeals with laughter while Amara tickles her sides and talks to her in fluid, amused Latine.

"Ey, desiste!" The little girl squeals in her usual language-soup: "Get Ma, me non!"

My accent might be a disaster, but I understand the language perfectly. I begin to inch away as Amara turns her head toward me and gives me a look that's just wicked. "Ma?" She leers at me. "Oh of course. Ma." She whispers the next bit into Corinna's ear, but I still hear it: "I will need your help."

I'm scrambling to my feet and running away before I can think twice, Amara and Corinna hot on my heels and Duran barking after all of us. And why not? These little games make the kid so damn happy and they make Amara look so… unburdened, you could say.

Like she hasn't got something shadowy and painful crawling around that head of hers.

Like she doesn't have a long, complicated past that haunts her every day.

Like, for just a little while, she can be young.

Author's Note:

Thanks for reading. :)