@Astrid. @Ujurak. @Kristjan. @Sven. The babies she’s watched grow into young people. But they were children, still. Fatherless.
She goes to them, to hold them gently, if allowed. She looks into each young face she knew so well, as well as her own blood.
“I am not a parent to you. I am not your mother, or your father. But I need you four to know that I love you, and you are my family, my own, as close to me as anyone."
"And when you're upset, you scream! You shout and you cry and you curse how unfair this all is. But you do it with me. Because I’ll be here next to you. Shouting, and crying, and we do it together. And we take care of each other. Let's make a promise today that we’ll always take care of each other. Can you do that?”
Gathered tight against Tauris’ side, looking up into her doleful, misty eyes, Kristjan felt a single grain of love fall into his hourglass of hurt. Every emotional neuron he had in his body was singed by the anger and frustration he felt towards his- no, Kvarsheim’s loss. He wanted this to be over. He wanted things to go back to normal: a joyful mother, an ailing but present father, happy siblings, his biggest problem being a bully sister.
But everything had changed in one surreal day, and nothing had felt quite right since putting Faðir forever in the ground.
At this stage in his grief, he required an outlet, but the boy lacked motivation needed for aggression, so he took out all his grievances on sticks, bones, roots, whatever inanimate objects he could rake his milk teeth on. This left him snaggletoothed, sheltering a gummy pink smile beneath the hood of his lips, which he cheerlessly shared with Tauris now. His attempt at a brave face. I promise.
His mis-matched eyes turned to his siblings, wondering if they promised, too.
Tauris.
Her lifeline, through this misery, through this ache that would not cease. Denial. Rage. Despair. Numbness. All of it came to her in a cycle, hourly, at least, that she did not understand; could not process.
Astrid had begun to collapse in on herself without realizing.
She hadn't wept since the day they had buried him; she hadn't spoken, either. Hadn't eaten much of anything in these passing weeks, but now she had begun to pay the price, for her weight had suffered and spiraled. Her siblings whom she used to clobber and hound were now left in an eerie lack of her boisterous presence.
She wonders if she, too, had died with him that day.
Tauris gathers them all in a cluster, and Astrid cannot bring herself to repeat the phrase; they didn't know how it felt. They didn't know how she felt. They couldn't, and they never would;
And she shies away from the touch as if it were the crackle of sunlight upon undead skin, and she cannot look into any eyes that linger upon her. But, after a moment, she reaches her paw out to touch the chestnut wrist of her auntie.
Was it a promise?
Eyes of slate grey, eyes that he couldn't look at. Fadir's eyes, fadir's. He frowned as he looked at Tauris, she was not his mother or his father. She hardly saw him really. She played with him a few times, had done what she could when she could. But her attentions had been on her own family.
Where was his mother? His father gone and in the ground. He felt his shoulder twitch and he wanted to rage and tell her no he didn't promise! And it wasn't fair to ask it of him either! He had a mother, up until a day ago, had had a father. What right did his auntie have to come and say come to me with your ails, not his mother, not his father, not his siblings, but to her.
An ugly feeling took place in his heart of heart, quickly shame followed. He was being unfair. He knew that. Fadir had always told him to love and to be humble and kind. But he couldn't find that humility or that kindness right now and he was angry for it. IT was always so easy for Fadir to find it. Why couldn't he?
Instead he bowed his head and looked away with tears burning his eyes, but he nodded. That was all she would get.
He had lost his internal sense to track time. Minutes passed like hours and hours passed like minutes. The normal, fluid flow of time had been captured in a jar, with him only able to look through the rounded glass to make sense of it.
His father was dead. Put in the ground forevermore. How he— how they all waited for this. How he still felt vastly unprepared for life moving forward. Whatever way forward was.
Through it all, Tauris came to them. Her arms extended as she offered them her love, presence, and care. He took far too long to process what she was saying. By the time he did, all of his siblings had given her some form of an answer.
He had already promised his father to care for his siblings, did he need to do it again? His heart panged at the thought, dropping low within his chest as he tried to think of where to start. His breath caught as he realized: he needed help.
His eyes met Tauris's. She meant to care for him too, for all of them. Finding his voice, he answered for himself, I promise.
In four different ways they each summon themselves and her voice adds to their own, “I promise.”
She takes them all into the spread of her arms, where grief will still penetrate. At least let them feel it beneath her chin, and where above she is hoping desperately for the strength to make it through not the next year, or the next month, but tomorrow.
For a moment, Kristjan was struck by the thought that maybe he would be the only one to promise. Worry threatened to overwhelm him as he looked desperately to his quiet siblings:
Astrid, distant and despondent, barely extending a paw to acknowledge Tauris' request; Sven, eyes filled with anger and grief, gave only a stiff nod; and somber, introspective Ujurak was quiet the longest until he spoke as well.
Relief silently quelled the hurting child. His family was suffering but they were not entirely undone — each of them like a cracked mirror, not yet shattered, though threatening still to fall into pieces. He saw his own broken reflection in each of them and tried not to cry as Tauris held close to those who allowed it.
Kristjan moved to draw them closer and squeeze between his brothers and sister, closing his eyes and taking in their warmth as if he were afraid to lose them, too.
A part of him had died with his father, that spirit of innocence which could not be reborn, but with this death also came new life. For where there once had been an immortal boy certain that life would not change, there would now stand an earthbound cherub of infinite, insatiable appreciation.
He would never take anyone for granted again.