In the Midst of the Lonely Sea of Loneliness 19

Podo stayed up with Nia until she eventually fell back to sleep in his arms. He gently laid his daughter back down on the couch and tucked her in before he left her.

"Goodnight, my little waterlily. May tomorrow have fairer seas." Podo softly mumbled as he gently pat her head and went back to bed himself.

The next morning after breakfast, Wendolyn shooed the Igiby children to the backyard to play so they wouldn't wake their sleeping mother. She reasoned that even though Nia had slept the day away the day before, a nightmare like she had last night could easily rob her of any energy she had stored. There would be no rough housing inside, that's for sure.

The three children headed out and soon found their Uncle Artham sitting on a bale of hay with Nugget sleeping in his lap. They naturally approached him to see how he was doing.

"Good morning, Uncle Artham..." Janner greeted, helping Tink hobble along.

"... Good morning, Janner... and Tink and Leeli." Artham greeted in return with a distracted look on his face.

Just when Artham had started to feel some relief regarding the events that occurred nine years ago, the guilt hammered down on him last night. He had thought that by bringing Nia home, things would start to be made right again but after her night terror, Artham only felt overwhelmed.

"The way she screamed Esben's name..." Artham thought, completely losing sight of the three children in front of him. "... They must have been tortured... And where is Esben now? Why was Nia alone? Could... He still somehow be alive?"

"Uncle Artham?" Tink waved his hand in front of his uncle's face. "Janner just asked if you're okay..."

"I guess that was our answer." Janner shook his head, seeming to be annoyed with how frequent his uncle's dissociation episodes were becoming.

"I'm sorry, Janner." Artham replied as he forcefully brought his mind back where it needed to be. "I just... I couldn't help but think about your father after... what happened last night. I'm sorry..."

Janner sighed and nodded in response. "I know... I'm sorry too... For being impatient."

"No, I understand." Artham patted Janner on the shoulder. "I'd feel the same way."

There was an awkward silence bayern the throne wardens before Leeli made a kind and helpful suggestion.

"Would it make you feel any better if I played you the song I was practicing yesterday?" Leeli asked with whistleharp in hand. "It was meant for mama but I didn't know if I was ready to share it..."

"If you'd like to, I'd be happy to hear it." Artham half-smiled at his niece as Nugget hopped down from his lap. "Maybe you can still play it for her when she's awake."

"Yeah! You're helping me practice for when I can play it for her!" Leeli grinned before placing the whistle to her lips and beginning to play.

While Leeli began to play, Tink began playing fetch with Nugget.

The song started out normal at first with no indication of where it would go. It was a sweet tune but had an obvious bitter undertone with lots of low notes. However, the chorus of the song brought something Artham didn't ever think he'd see again.

Like something was shrouding his eyesight, Artham began to have a vision of a dark place- but he wasn't the only one who saw it.

Tink, who had been oddly quiet so far, also experienced what Artham was seeing but did not realize what was going on. He froze, panicked that his eyes were seeing something he did not understand. He stopped the stick, leaving Nugget tilting his head in confusion.

It was like Artham and Tink were looking into a window in time in space- a dark void of a cave with a mangled creature crying silently in the back of it. The creature appeared to be full of sorrow and possibly injured but neither Artham or Tink could hear it speak.

Then, out of nowhere, Janner heard a voice speaking but it wasn't to them.

"What do I do? What do I do?" The voice rambled with a shakey and terrified voice. "Alone, alone, alone. No help. No food. What do I do?"

As soon as Janner heard the voice,, Leeli abruptly stopped playing and the vision immediately faded from her Uncle and brother's eyes. She put her hand over her heart and began to cry.

"What... in Aerwiar?" Artham wondered aloud, almost as confused as the other Wingfeathers by what he had just seen.

Tink slowly looked at his uncle with wide eyes and asked, "Did you see it? The monster in the cave?"

"You guys saw a monster in a cave?! I heard something speak! Leeli, what did you-?" Janner paused when he looked at his younger sister and discovered her in tears.

Leeli was sniffling and wiping her face with her hands to get rid of the tears but they just wouldn't stop falling no matter how many times she tried to wipe them away.

"You... You felt the creature's emotion." Artham observed. "Was... Was he sad?"

Leeli nodded. "Very sad... I've never felt that sad before... But he was."

"Wait, why are we calling that thing a 'he'?" Tink asked with ignorance. "It's not like it was a person... right?"

"..." Tears began to subtly form in Artham's eyes. "It... was most definitely... a person, Tink."

Janner exchanged looked with his two siblings before looking back at Artham. "Uncle Artham... Who was that creature?"

"What did he say?" Artham asked, seemingly ignoring Janner's question entirely. "What did the creature say?"

"... That he didn't know what he was going to do..." Janner averted his eyes with the sinking feeling rising in his chest. "... And that he had no food and no one to help him."

Artham covered his mouth with his hand in an effort to keep himself from crying aloud. Tears fell more obviously as he mumbled his brother's name, "Esben... That creature was Esben."

Meanwhile, just inside, Nia was beginning to stir from her turbulent sleep. Her arms were stretched out to one side and she flexed her claws like a cat awaking from its nap.

"Mmm..."She hummed, her eyes slowly opening to realize that she had lost Esben's sketchbook from when she had her night terror.

Neet quickly sat up and frantically looked around the couch to find it. To her relief, she found it resting on the table above where her head had been laying and she took it into her arms soberly.

"I could have lost it... I could have hurt someone last night." Nia thought as she sat back down on the couch, curling around the book like it was treasure to protect. "I almost hit Artham... It could have easily been... Leeli or Janner... Or Tink... or..."

Nia's train of thought was interrupted by careful footsteps approaching the living room.

Shortly after the steps stopped at the edge of her room, Wendolyn peeked her eye in to make sure Nia was awake before barging in.

"Oh, Nia... You're awake." Wendolyn smiled and pulled back the sheet so her daughter could see her face. "I made blueberry muffins. Would you like one?"

Her mother's voice put Nia at ease; She was thankful her mother didn't think less of her for her episode the night prior.

"Sey." Nia nodded.

"Seyyy???" Wendolyn asked but not in the way one might expect. She was only reminding her daughter to use her manners... Or was she?

"Esaelp?"

"Please?" Nia replied with confusion before she realized what her mother had done.

By reversing her own speech, Wendolyn managed to get her daughter to say the correct word forwards by repeating after her.

Nia allowed herself to laugh a little bit at Wendolyn's method. "Sey, esaelp."

Wendolyn grinned and nodded before she stepped inside the room and offered Nia a muffin with a glass of milk. "Here you go, my dear."

Nia carefully set Esben's sketchbook at her side and received what her mother had brought her with contentment.

"Knaht uoy."

"You're welcome." Wendolyn replied before she pointed at the spot beside Nia. "May I sit with you?"

"Sey." Nia nodded as she took a bite from the muffin.

With Nia's permission, Wendolyn stepped over and sat beside her. When she sat down, she quickly recognized the book tucked between Nia and the cushion.

"Hm... Is that what I think it is?" Wendolyn asked curiously, having not seen it when it was brought home.

"... Esben's." Nia mumbled with a sigh.

"It's his sketchbook, isn't it?" Wendolyn asked. "May I see at it?"

Nia nodded again as she set down her glass of milk on the table beside her and carefully handed the sketchbook to her mother to look at.

Wendolyn dealt tenderly with the book, understanding it held great value in her daughter's heart for her late husband. She delicately opened its cover and turned to a random page.

The page Wendolyn happened to land on was a beautifully detailed sketch of a young woman. The woman's back was turned just enough that only a small glimpse of her face was showing but it was obvious to Wendolyn that it was Nia.

In the drawing, Nia was facing a grand window with her eldest child, Janner, who was but a toddler at the time. The child was reaching outside the window at a butterfly that had rested on the outer pane as the sunlight shrouded him and his mother. It truly was a beautiful sight and Esben's mastery of the pencil was on full display.

"Aww..." Wendolyn tilted her head, admiring the drawing in its glory. She looked over at Nia and beamed. "What talent he had."

The sight of the drawing of her younger self made Nia tear up and look away, it being too painful to think of how things were before the war.