Standing Steady in the Storms Ch. 28

Notes: To keep from spoiling anything...I am going to leave all contextual references out of my notes. However, I will say that Evnia's name is pronounced ev-NEE-uh and Elquinn's name is pronounced EL-kwin. I'm just making the discintion because another reader asked at about the same time as this chapter was coming out (a few months ago).

Additionally, I'd like to give a huge thank you to @Azog the Moderator👮‍♂️ for approving all of these. I know it's a lot and I really appreciate it^^

Judgemental Words

The day after the hike, disaster struck. 

“Janner, Mama asked if we wanted to join the rest of the family at dinner tonight.” Sara looked at him expectantly as she held Elquinn, once again trying to get him to quiet down. Janner smiled and got up from his desk, where he had been writing about the twins. He gently took Elquinn from her and hummed the little tune that neither of them knew the name of. It still worked every time.

Since he had been back they had avoided the “larger group settings.” Rather, Sara had steered him away out of concern that something unexpected would come up so far as conversation went. Janner knew his family, though. He knew they had been careful and over-considerate and avoided talking or asking about Kal.

But keep in mind that Kalmar is currently with the Fangs who-knows-where and quite possibly dead. Janner winced at the hailstone and glanced at Sara, hoping she hadn’t seen. She was busy sorting Evnia and Elquinn’s clothes, though, and she hadn’t.

“What time?” Janner asked, in an effort to dislodge the thought.

Sara looked at him sweetly. “Pretty soon. Maybe in half an hour.”

The pellets of hail came more frequently, now. Well, are you going to tell them so they’ll do something about it? How are you even protecting your brother like you’re supposed to if you can’t tell them where he is?  

Janner nodded at her, putting a false smile on his face before quickly turning away. He felt his heart lurch. Why did it have to happen again and again and again? Why did they always come back to torment him?

Because you deserve it, they whispered, breathing the icy breath of a winter storm onto his face. 

“Stop,” Janner said under his breath. He rubbed his temple with his right hand, trying to find something else to focus on. Elquinn. Focus on Elquinn. 

Janner glanced down at his sleeping son, the tiny button nose and soft cheeks adorable and relaxed in sleep. Everything was alright. Everything was fine. Everything he could control was fine. Nothing was washing away, not even his mind. His mind wasn’t washing away. It wasn't being drowned out in a rainstorm. 

“So do you want to go? We’ll be in the larger dining room, since Mama can’t fit everyone into the kitchen. And I happen to know that she’s making something you’ll like.” Sara walked over to him, her eyes twinkling.

Janner smiled at her. “Well, you do need an escort. Are we taking Evnia and Elquinn, too?”

Sara giggled. “I don’t know if they can eat at the table with everybody else. Freva offered to watch them. Apparently she’s been dying to. I honestly had no idea.”

Janner felt a flicker of wariness pass through his mind. 

“You’ll be alright,” Sara whispered, placing her hand on his. “And if you’re worried about talking, you don’t have to. You can just listen.”

Even as she said the words though, more doubt filled his heart. Before, he never would have hesitated to speak and make conversation at the dinner table with his family. Now, though, every second he was afraid that he would say something that would make him think about his brother, and that would be that.

A few minutes later, Janner was still thinking. Sara had gotten ready and put Elquinn and Evnia to bed in preparation for the baby sitting.

What if something goes awry? What if I mess up or start thinking when I don't want to be?

“We don’t have to go if you don’t want to,” Sara said quietly looking into his eyes understandingly. But coupled with the understanding, Janner could hear the dejection in her voice. Sara wanted him to go with her. Surely he could. Surely she deserved it. She did. 

“I'm ready. Are you?" When she nodded, Janner smiled. "Then please come this way, Queen Sara,” he whispered in her ear as he held out his arm for her to hold onto. She slipped her arm through his and laughed aloud as they made their way to the dining hall. 

*****

When they reached the door that led to the dining room, Janner stepped forward and turned the knob, opening it ahead of Sara. She smiled at him. “Thank you.”

Everyone was there, sitting at the dining table. Mama was in her seat, ready to serve everyone with Leeli’s help. Artham was whispering to Arundelle while she did her best to keep Asteria from throwing the cutlery on the floor.

But when they walked in, everyone stopped and stared. Janner felt a wave of strange self-consciousness come over him as everyone just kept staring. He didn’t know why he felt the way he did — he shouldn’t have, this was his family! — but he did. 

Artham was the only one who looked away, but not before a glance of understanding came across his face. Janner knew that Artham understood and that was a relief, but even still, an urge to walk right out the way he had come came over him. 

“I-I think,” he said softly in Sara’s ear. “Maybe—”

“Janner!” A voice he knew so well squealed and chased all the thoughts from his mind in an instant. Leeli ran to him and wrapped her arms around him. 

Janner laughed and hugged her back. “I’m happy to see you too, Leeli.”

“I’ve been trying to see you for the past few days, but Mama would only let Artham and Sara see you. Except when Sara let me show you Evnia. I got to do that. But other than that, I haven’t seen you!” Janner saw a flash of annoyance on her face and smiled.

“Yes, and it was for your everyone’s good,” Nia said from where she had risen, holding a ladle in one hand and an empty bowl in the other. She turned to look at them and smiled. “Leeli went into bouncing-off-the-walls mode whenever you came back, and I figured both of you,” she indicated towards Janner and Sara. “Would want some time together. Alone time.” Her words did not hide the look of sadness in her eyes, though.

Nia did not say the other part of what Janner knew she was thinking, that she thought he needed to be alone to process what had happened. More than ever, he felt a wave of guilt about Kal’s disappearance. He had lost not only his brother but her son. Again. It was like reliving what had happened when they trekked to Kimera, minus the Fork! Factory!, Black Carriage, and snow.

As Janner and Sara took their seats — he pulled hers out for her to sit in and pushed it back, earning a smile from her — Leeli and Nia continued filling the bowls. 

It was an old meal, one that Janner remembered having many times before, when they still lived in Glipwood. Most would think it was out of place in the opulent dining room, but somehow it felt right. Nia had made cheesy chowder. His favorite. “I’m so glad you’re back,” she whispered in his ear. Janner smiled a little but wondered if he imagined the thickness in her voice. 

Dinner was normal. It felt almost the way it was supposed to. Everyone talked about things they always did: Nia got down to business and discussed the crops some of the Annierans were growing with Artham and Leeli jumped in with a few logical points unexpectedly. She also told Janner about all of Thorn’s letters that he had sent during the month he was gone and the sweet note he had given her when he left the day before. Sara couldn’t resist teasing her a little bit about her crush. Arundelle continually told Asteria not to throw her spoon on the floor, but she was eyeing it curiously. Every second, it seemed as though the silver spoon was going to be launched to the floor with a clatter.

Everything was going well, even if Janner didn’t feel like talking much. No one asked him about it, but they didn’t ignore him either. He was grateful for that. Listening felt strange, though. He almost felt like he was regarding his close family as a group of strangers he was afraid to share anything with. Janner did not enjoy it, but he couldn’t shake the thought.

Then there was a heavy knock on the wall outside the dining hall. Nia rose, clearly puzzled that someone would come at this hour. She opened the door that separated their private area from the rest of the hallway. Everyone looked to see who was there, but no one had a very good view.

“Can you see who it is?” Sara whispered in his ear. He shook his head. 

Nia talked quietly with someone, a man, he guessed, who seemed desperate for something. Janner strained to hear, and finally the words drifted into his ears. “The people of Rysentown need to know what is happening, Ma’am. They want to know where King Kalmar is and why he’s gone. They want to know why the Throne Warden couldn’t keep him from going missing.”

At those words, a roaring sound took over Janner’s mind. Wind howled and wrenched away every thought of peace and happiness. He was dimly aware of his spoon slipping from his grasp and falling to the floor, and saw the looks of confusion and concern on his family’s faces before the darkness and-and thunder and the voices took over his mind. 

They all know it’s your fault. They all know that your SELFISHNESS is the reason why they have a King no longer. They blame you for it. Why are you even here? Why are you giving this to yourself? GO. LEAVE. NOW.

Janner shook his head and pushed himself up from the table that rocked along with the wind. He stumbled away from it and felt himself drop, but he caught himself before he hit the ground. Other voices reached his ears, and he felt as though he was hearing them from somewhere deep underwater. He swung his head blindly and staggered away, trying to escape from the storm and clouds and lightning and thunder The darkness was strangling him, though, and the downpour was blinding him, and he couldn’t see enough to know where he was going. 

Breathe, breathe, breathe, breathe, he told himself as he forced his legs forward, once in front of the other. He felt the ceiling and walls closing in on him trapping him more and more firmly in the storms clutches. As if to prove they truly were, he felt himself bang into one that hadn’t been there before. He took deeper gulps of the rain-soaked air that choked him and he begged his feet to move, even though they were sodden with water. He thought they did, but he wasn’t sure. Janner wasn’t sure of anything other than the guilt that surged like a flood into his mind and the darkness that covered everything in a smothering blanket.

Then he found himself somewhere where fresh air blew steadily and he felt a carpet of grass beneath his head. Janner breathed in what he knew was the salty, sea breeze that blew in from the water. The darkness cleared a little. The black storm had retreated like the voices and nothing closed in on him, not like the rooms and halls inside. Was this why Artham had lived alone in Glipwood Forest for so many years? Because he had been able to breathe there? Maybe trying it was a good idea. Maybe the voices couldn’t catch him there. 

Is that why you’re running away? A gentle Voice asked him.

Janner started a bit. The Voice was not like the other voices. Those voices cackled and murmured and hissed. This Voice was as gentle as it was strong, and Janner found himself resting in the Voice. It was the Voice he knew.

It spoke again. Janner, do you run because you are trying to protect others from what you believe you will do to them, or because you loathe what you have done and wish to punish yourself for it?

“I-I’m not sure,” he murmured sleepily. “Both, I guess. No one is angry with me because of what happened. I deserve their anger — so why aren’t they showing it? Instead, I’m choosing to hate myself for what I did to Kalmar because—” His mind faltered at his brother’s name, and the other voices cackled in the corner. 

Do not listen to them, the Voice said, firm but loving. Listen to Me. Janner Wingfeather, you are the Throne Warden of Anniera. This is not the end. 

But the other voices spoke as well, lashing him with hail as they did so. He says you are a Throne Warden. Of course He does. He thinks that no matter what you do, Janner Wingfeather the Selfish, that you’re redeemable. Well your job was to keep Kalmar safe and you FAILED. So you’re not a Throne Warden, are you? You’re just another person, another self-conceited, scrappy person who needs to hate himself for what he has done.

Janner’s mind flashed between the two, and he felt himself being torn in two by the voices. The Voice and the others. Why were they all there? Why couldn’t they just leave? Janner clapped his hands over his ears as thunder cracked deafeningly and forced himself up as the darkness and rain crashed over him again, telling his mind to run somewhere, anywhere, somewhere, far, far away from Castle Rysen and the Voice and the voices that tormented him.

The others screeched again. Listen to what the storm wants you to do. We are the storm. Listen to us. Run. Hate. Drown yourself in the gale of your fury. Do to yourself what you have done to Kalmar.

Janner, do not listen to them. Listen to Me, came the Voice again. He pushed the voice away. Janner couldn’t listen to it. He had to hate himself. He could take vengeance on no one else. He was the only one he would hurt in his fury. He would hurt others no more.

Something grabbed Janner, and before he knew it, he was wheezing for the breath that refused to come. He tried to breathe but found air filled with cold water that just wouldn't stop soaking him. Janner choked and pushed himself up unsteadily, still trying to breathe in something other than the dark rain. 

He put his hand out and felt something cold and hard beneath it. It was hard like stone and damp, like the stone of a cave. A dark cave. A cave so dark that no light reached him. Maybe he could escape the storm there.

His mind spinning, he finally realized that he had been running through the cave for a while, and that downpour had reached him there as well. There had to be some shelter somewhere. Anywhere. Janner shivered in his wet clothes. 

But he could not see anything. All he could find was darkness. There was no light in sight anywhere. Deep in the darkness raged a storm so strong that nothing could survive it. Janner knew it would come nearer and nearer and drown him.

And he felt a sickening gladness wash over him. The voices could not torment him here, in a place where he was alone and hidden from everyone he knew, in this dark place where the walls inched closer by the second, where his mind's storm almost reached him but could not yet. He would squeeze himself until he could bear the pressure no longer. 

Because he deserved that.

Notes: I'm sorry 😭😭😭😭😭But it was bound to happen....

I'm REALLY hoping that last section doesn't break the angst/dark themes barrier. Think....Peet....but Janner's not crazy. He's not experiencing added PTSD on top of Throne Warden Guilt.

I know that was super confusing, but I PROMISE the next chapter will give a lot of context and cover what's happening in it from someone else's perspective...since Janner was a little unreliable, ESPECIALLY with that cave part at the end....

Another ✨fun✨ thing I learned about a week ago is that apparently head trauma not only causes migranes (etc.), it can also mess with the way you process emotions and emtional situations. So, even though this is an after though, part of why you see this escalate is because of that little run-in Janner had with a rock at the beginning of the story. He's not exactly processing things like he should.

Next chapter tomorrow morning^^