Arrow Lake If you see something, say nothing and drink to forget

Aurëwen gazed after her son, who tittered as he bumbled back and forth from her once he’d been acquainted with snow, himself. Dragomir’s exclamation drew one from his mother; a peal of loving laughter and just further, unbidden reason to adore this fascinated half of her brood. ”Try again, sweetling,” came a lilt of encouragement. ... Yet, so much had changed. Was changing, like the scent of her son — a son who’d nestled into a father, whose own scent only lingered now in waning vestiges of Verx.

Although there was a somber note, it didn’t entirely diminish her smile, and Aurëwen kept her faithful eyes on the flurrying heavens. ”Your noni will return, Drago,” she breathed, the warmth of it tousling the mauve of her son’s shoulder. ”He always has.” That as much was what seemed truthful to her; whether Verx had meant to or not, glad or furious, he’d always sought the silver out in one way or another.

And as much as she appreciated this mountain-male, Mahler’s verdict would not keep a fervent father from his children. All she could do until that time came was to continue to be the mother which Vercingetorix had helped meld her into; and she prayed, godlessly, that Verx would persevere in being the father he strove to become — wherever the world had taken him.  ( Where had it taken him? )

In that sense, he had left for a reason. She recalled the reverence upon dragostea’s face when her children had been delivered; how he’d pressed close, to take that study of the next chapter of this off-kilter life of theirs. Her breast fluttered, and then she felt a film of salt at her lashes, and so Aure pressed her eyes shut, made a quivering smile peal at her maw as she instead reveled in the dance of snow settling on her tongue.

With a trilling, wry laugh despite it all, she whet scarred lips, and looked back towards her son in a cheeky moment of spontaneity: ”Can you say that, my little dragon? Noni?” Her silver brow rose imploringly; perhaps he would, perhaps not, and either way it would still be some time before his tongue could master consonants, let alone different languages.