FE4 drabble prompt: Aideen's schoolroom in Tiranogue.
Edain knows she will never escape their ghosts.
She spoke of it with Oifey once, only briefly: shortly after they’d come to Isaach, after she’d helped him shush Seliph to sleep against his shoulder, tears spilled down his face and he asked if he could confess guilt to her, the way he used to Father Claude. He should have died with Sigurd, he said; should have struggled and fought and protested, should have found someone else to carry Seliph away – for he had been relieved to be out of the fight, like a coward, and perhaps this pain was his due. Edain pulled him close, him and Seliph both, and scolded him gently. Their lives were what Sigurd had wanted. They had to live them freely and gladly, or all the sacrifices would have been for nothing.
Oifey improved, after that: him and Shanan both. They sparred thrice a day and Oifey studied at his usual level, far beyond what Edain could teach him. They grew into manhood quickly and with stubbornness: Oifey refusing to shave as Lord Byron had, Shanan refusing to cut his hair as Odo didn’t. They are survivors with her, in their own right.
They are not part of her schoolroom in the convent, where the light from the windows scatters into fragmented memories, where she catches glimpses of things long gone.
Lana and Lester are easiest. All they ever do is make life easier on her, her sweet, beloved children. They are her strength each morning when she rises from her pallet (to think, once long ago she’d had a bed big enough for six, with gauze curtains). They are her joy when she sheds her simple robe to bathe and her vivid, shiny scars remind her of too much. Their skin is soft and smooth and healthy; they sleep without nightmares; they have dreams in their waking hours.
But sometimes she sees her husband in them – the angle of his chin, his earlobe, the middle knuckles of each finger – and it is difficult to keep looking.
She has looked over her tome and into Ayra’s eyes, two pairs, sharp and dark and taking in every detail. Ayra is in Larcei’s cheekbones, in the way she stomps her foot and snaps “I don’t want to sit down!” before she obeys; Ayra is in the furious slant of Ulster’s eyebrows as he studies his slate, in how he refuses to make mistakes.
Diarmuid is every inch a Nordion, but for a mouth that refuses to pout: he has Lady Lachesis’s straight nose with the little turn, her spun-gold hair. Though he’s as different in personality as he could be, Lachesis shines through in the way he walks, straight-shouldered and with effortless confidence. (Even in her own child, Lachesis eclipses: his father, himself.)
And Seliph – he has run directly from her mind’s eye on warm summer afternoons. She watches him play chase with the girls outside the classroom window and she knows she’s seen that before, that exact head of hair shining in the sunlight. On multiple occasions her mouth has been open to call “Sigurd” and she’s stuttered around “Seliph” – and then he turns to heed and his large eyes are Deirdre, Deirdre, Deirdre.
They are shadows. Legacies.
But they are more than that, too, of course.
Edain sees the proof when they come to show her their slates at the end of their lesson, and her heart warms at their work. Seliph is careful and obedient as his parents never were, and she laughs to read his too-literal metaphors. Diarmuid’s script is sloppy and he’s not comfortable leading in groups, but she sees him offering the most pertinent suggestions from the crowd. Larcei is a secret romantic and doodles handsome legendary heroes. Ulster’s chalk-strokes are thick, powerful, deliberate; grounded in a way she’s never seen before. Lester wants to be a knight – not for the glory, she knows, but for the travel. And Lana wants to heal – not to find a long-lost twin sister, but because she worries for Larcei and the boys after they play; frets over their scrapes and bruises.
Edain glances up from her desk. Her title as abbess and her position as an actual mother ensures she never truly knows who’s calling for her until she looks. It’s Ayra this time, hand in the air.
“Lester and Diarmuid won’t stop telling jokes and I can’t concentrate!”
“They’re funny,” Lester insists.
“Are not.” Lana, from the front.
Edain sighs, marks her page, and walks to their bench to settle the disagreement. It’s good when they talk, tease, bicker, come into their own. It helps her forget.
