master-of-inscrutable-depths:
“No, you misunderstand, my son.” Thane was quick to reassure him, stroking his thumb along the ridges of the boy’s cheek. “I mean I hope it will not be a long journey. I do not wish to be apart from you more than I must.”
Kolyat slipped from his fingers, and Thane watched him go, looking mildly surprised at the facility with which his son turned himself to the piano. He had not known that Kolyat had taken up Irikah’s hobby of music.
The swirl of bright sound circles him. Her eyes are wide with the pulse of the music, long fingers rhythmic up and down on the keys…a river of emotion pouring from her body…
He remembered the first time he had watched Irikah play. It had been a long time ago, when they were first finding their feelings for each other. She had introduced him to so many things missing from the life of a young assassin. Art, and music, and love…and now Kolyat was following in her footsteps, pulling that beautiful music out of the air. He recognized the tune, vaguely; one she had played in her sadder moments…
And he realized how long it had been since he had been present to hear her play.
“That was excellent, Kolyat,” he said quietly, hoarsely. “You have your mother’s gift.”
He beamed a smile at his father’s praise. His eyes danced with excitement as his fingers moved over the final keys, the haunting melody fading to silence. He tilted his head, catching something in his father’s voice he hadn’t heard before. Or, perhaps, he had only been too young to hear the difference. Had he chosen the wrong song? His hands trembled in his lap as he risked a glance at his mother. Her smile was soft, her eyes filled with pride, but also with something he didn’t understand. Sadness? “Did I - Did I choose the wrong song?” His large eyes moved from his mother to his father and then lit up. He would make it right. Her returned to the keyboard, his fingers flying over the keys in an upbeat tempo.
Irikah had not meant to spoil the moment for him. Indeed, she was proud of their son. She had been surprised, embarrassed at having been overheard and even more so at having her emotions laid bare. But she was ever proud of him. She hurried to his side and bent down, her lips lowering to the top of his head, between his tiny, developing head spines. “You played beautifully, my son. I am - we are so very proud of you.”
He stilled...his fingers, frozen over the next keys, a smile so wide his white teeth all but glowed against the teal of his lips. His small chest puffed out and his shoulders straightened. His confidence and self-pride like a warmth within him.
Still bent over their son, Irikah turned her head and looked at her husband, her cheek folds still warm, but her eyes danced with pride for their son. With her throat slightly inflated, she released a brief cadence of notes that spoke of her love in a way no words ever could. She winked at Thane, rubbed the top of her son’s head and rose. She moved to sit beside Kolyat on the bench, bumping him teasingly with her hip to get him to give her more room.
She caught her son’s eye and nodded. “On three.” With someone playing counterpoint, the music flowed smoother. Sassy, yet light and jaunty. It lightened her mood considerably. Despite what she would have to tell her husband later, the consequences, she could not yet fathom, her heart felt lighter for the playing.
Her hands lifted from the keys. “Take it,” she said with a nod, when the solo verse came up. She smiled as small, teal hands hummed across the keys and rose from the bench. She drew silently to her husband’s side and slipped her arms around his neck and held him tightly as if she feared he’d disappear again. She brushed her lips softly against his. “Gods, I missed you,” she whispered into his ear.
Kolyat snickered. “Gross.”
Irkah leaned her head against his shoulder and released a breath that ended in a light chuckle. She loosened her hold, her hands falling reluctantly to her side and turned to face her son. “Perhaps, it is you I should be kissing?” She held her arms out and slowly approached the boy, her lips making loud kissing noises...
Kolyat’s eyes widened and his fingers froze. He rose from the bench, pushed it in, darting past her and behind his father, grabbing onto one leg. “Save me, father...save me from the kiss monster!”
Irikah’s mouth dropped open in mock surprise. “Monster? Do you hear your son?” She pursed her blue lips, her eyes narrowing on the boy. “You had better hope your father saves you, my son...for I shall have no mercy.”
She rushed forward, skimmed her fingers down her husband’s chest with a wink and slipped around him. But Kolyat was already rounding his father’s leg.
With a shriek of excitement, he gripped his father’s leg tighter, and shimmied around to the front . He held his arms up, his wide eyes beseeching, “Father!”
