In Hours of Grievous Hope: Ch. 6

Memories

Notes:

Guess what? Sara gets to talk again in this chapter! I have really failed to actually focus on her in this story, but I think part of that is because she was really my main focus in the previous AtE, and now Kalmar (and Artham a bit) is/are my main focus/es^^

And this chapter isn't solely focused on memories, but reading through it there are a suprising number of them. And since I can't think of a different title, well, Aerwiar (here we are)!

*****

Not wanting to ponder something so monumentally life-shifting when there was too high a chance of being interrupted, Kal decided to save it for nighttime. Who knew, maybe the Maker would come to him again? After all, it seemed as though being in the Fane of Fire was not necessary for it, though it was preferred. It was preferred because it allowed all of them to commune with the Maker.

It hadn’t occurred to him when he had actually gone in, but he supposed Janner and Leeli must have experienced at least a fraction of the Maker’s glory as well. He wondered if they had felt the gut-wrenching guilt, shame, and disgust for themselves as he had felt regarding his terribly sinful heart and mind. He guessed not; it wasn’t as though they had decided to completely defy their destinies and Fang themselves. Leeli had always been the sweetest and kindest in their family: there was nothing for her to be ashamed of. And though Janner had not always wanted to be a Throne Warden and had occasionally agreed to follow him begrudgingly, he had always done it. Every single time.*

Kalmar wished he had given more. Janner had sacrificed for him more times than he could count, and what had he done in response? He had continued to be difficult, continued to run off, continued to complain. 

The few times he had tried to sacrifice, someone had stopped him. 

When they came to Ban Rona and decided on Durgan Guild despite what Janner had wanted, Kal had spoken with Nia afterward, practically begging her to allow them to just do bookbindery. He hadn’t gone so far as to voice the fact that he thought it was the least he could do after nearly killing Janner a few weeks prior, but he had wanted to. Nia had refused his request, though, saying Durgan Guild was better for both of them than anything else ever could or would be.**

Then the time most recently when Kalmar had tried sacrificing himself for the Annierans — and he was ready, he was willing, even though his heart was breaking, he was going to do it — Janner had stepped in again, Janner had sacrificed for him again. Just this time it was his life he placed on the altar, not his desires. 

“Kal, careful! You’re about to walk on the food!” Leeli called from where she was sitting cross-legged on the ground, pulling him out of his reverie. His head jerked up and he blinked before looking down at his feet where the pack holding most of the dried food was. 

“It’s not exactly the food,” he countered, quickly putting a smile on his face. “It’s the pack holding the food.”

Rolling her eyes, Leeli tossed her head, her light-blonde hair flying. “Sara, please back me up on this.”

Laughing (though her heart was not in it), Sara added, “But some of the food is in there. We don’t want to trample it by accident.”

Kal grinned and plopped down on the ground beside them, regretting it as he did so. He had forgotten it was cobbled stone, not grass or dirt. “Fine. I’ll let both of you win. Just this once though — don’t expect me to let you win in some sort of argument with me again, alright?”

Leeli laughed, and Sara smiled lightly at that, maybe a little bit of a twinkle in her eyes that were…

“Wow, your eyes are really blue,” he realized, mistakenly voicing his thoughts out loud. 

Sara’s cheeks flushed at his words, and she ducked her head, her hair falling into her face.

“Kal!” Leeli exclaimed. “You…you don’t say things like that to girls randomly!”

Yeah, I know that, he thought, mortified. “Um, I’m really sorry, Sara,” he stammered. “I just meant that when Janner talked about you, I hadn’t realized that your eyes were really as blue as he said they were.”

She raised her head and looked at him, tears brimming in her eyes. “He talked about me?”

The desperation in her words and the way her voice broke was almost more than Kal could bear, and he felt his throat burning. “Yeah,” he whispered. “When he was sleeping. He would talk about how beautiful your eyes were. Sometimes he would talk about…other things, too. Bad things. Not bad things about you just…bad things.”

They were things that wouldn’t have made sense like chains, smoke, heat, hunger, pain, and whips, had Janner not told him about the Fork! Factory!, albeit in brief. Very brief. Come to think of it, he was wondering about that all of a sudden. “Hey, you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, but how did you…you know see him in the Fork! Factory!? Like, I know you were both there, but he never talked about you. It seemed like it made him sad.”

Sara cleared her throat and closed her eyes briefly, and when she opened them again, the tears were gone. “He was the last person I expected to see there. He kept trying to escape and we made a plan together, even though I was sure it was impossible. There was just this hope in him that I didn’t understand, that didn’t make any sense. Even after he left, that light and hope was enough to keep me and the rest of the kids there going. We escaped because of him. It wouldn’t have happened otherwise. He even sent Artham to help us. That’s about it,” she ended simply, saying it in a way that indicated there certainly was more that she could have said, but chose not to.

A few days before, Kal would have pressed her. He would have asked her more questions and tried to figure out everything he wanted to know. For some reason, though, he didn’t feel like doing that. He didn’t even want to do something like that, since it seemed like she didn’t want to talk about it anymore. Instead he nodded and switched the subject. “Has anyone seen Uncle Artham?”

“Yep,” Leeli replied cheerfully while Sara went back to “preparing” supper, which at that point meant she was simply moving the dried diggle meat and plumyums to make it more organized. “When you were talking to Oskar, Mama convinced him to go on a reconnaissance to look for the Well. He flew off a few minutes ago. And Mama’s still inside the house with…with Janner.”

Kal glanced behind him at the row of cozy-looking stone buildings. He probably could have figured out which one Nia was in just by checking them, but he would rather if he could peek into as few homes as possible. There was something special and personal about each one of them that he didn’t want to taint. “Which one is she in?”

Leeli pointed wordlessly and he nodded his thanks, walking toward it, slinging his pack onto his back again. He didn’t want to be without it.

“Oh, and can you please take this to her?” Leeli put some of the dried food onto a square of cloth and wrapped it in a little bundle before grabbing her crutch and limping toward him. “I don’t know if she’ll want to eat it but she can at least have the choice.”

Kal smiled at her. “Thanks, Leeli.” She turned to go, but he called her back. “Wait. Hey, I didn’t ask yet, but are you alright?”

A look of surprise flitted over her face and her mouth parted a bit.

“Yeah, I know I haven’t asked yet and totally should have and it was kind of mean of me not to but—” Kal began before being interrupted.

“No, it’s alright. I just…thanks for asking.” She blinked quickly, as if she was trying to hold back tears. “I’m okay. Enough. I mean, I’m okay as I can be, what with Grandpa and Janner both being—” her chin quivered and she held her head up, as if that would keep her steadier. “But Janner’s going to be with us again. And right now, he and Grandpa are both really happy. He’s with Papa, you know,” she added before giving him a tremulous smile and limping back toward Sara.

Kalmar stared at her, her comment about Esben completely shifting his mindset. Not in the way that he didn’t want Janner to be back with the family — no, he thought. In fact, now it’s almost crucial that he comes back, considering what might happen soon — but in that he was with Esben. Janner had always had such a special connection with their father, one that Kal had admittedly envied as of late. It wasn’t that had he wanted and tried to have that connection but failed, he had just never really…wanted it, at least not until recently. Not in the way Janner had. Janner had had that connection before they had ever seen or met Esben. 

Granted I did take care of him after the Durgans hurt him, Kal noted, grief sparking in his heart at the memory, at how he hadn’t known for so long that the Cloven was his father. And then when he did know, it was too late to truly relish it. Only when they were in the little skiff, drifting out to Sea, drowning in the sunset, grief, and joy, when Esben had reassured him of his love, of his confidence in him had he truly felt the wondrous love a father could have for his son.

Since then he had been hungry for it, desperate even. He felt as though he would give anything to feel Esben’s arms around him, wrapping in a firm, loving embrace. To hear him say, well done. 

He shook his head; he was getting off topic again. Now he wanted to share Esben with the others, especially with Nia. She was the one who needed it most. Who needed him most. They were about as close to Esben as they could ever be staying in Clovenfast, and the last thing Kalmar was going to do was deny her time with her husband in her hour of grief.

*****

Notes:

Okay, how did I break canon this time? I seem to be doing that quite a lot, and JM seems to like point it out a bit bluntly 😏😅😂

*We're all quite aware that Janner did have a transformative experience in the Fane, Kal just doesn't know. My main point with this bet is to explain that the Maker purified both Janner and Kalmar for sacrifice, one of the reasons why I think it's strange that Kalmar's attempt to sacrifice would be so completely thwarted.

**No, there's not canonical evidence for Kal and Nia having that conversation, but it's an idea of mine spawned from the fact that Kal did offer to just do Bookbindery, and Nia still said no.