The question made Tahiir’s teeth smack together with an audible click, jaw set tight as tears formed in his own eyes. “Mom and Pop didn’t suffer.” He said flatly, lowly, trying to keep age old frustrations in check, he did not avert his gaze from his old sister now but his brow was soft, looking more tired than anything. “Sila.. Sila was alive for a bit.” He took in a sharp, stinging breath. “There weren’t any healers ‘round to save her.” The way her eyes shot up to meet his told him the words he spoke reflected more of his thoughts than he’d meant them to.
Her shoulders were stiff, her nails digging slightly into her own arms as the frown that took her face tore at his heart. He instantly regret his feelings, pain he didn’t know he was still feeling. Her eyes searched his face, looking for the accusation in his words. But his own gaze softened, rolling his jaw, trying to disperse the age old anger that had suddenly taken him over. He spoke again before she could.
“I’m sorry.” He managed, but made no effort to take back what he said. Deflating infront of her he offered a small, sad smile. He closed the gap of heavy air between them and held his long gone sister in a tight hug. “It’s good to see you again Nan.”
The sounds of a knife lazily sliding against a wooden board was all that filled Tahiir’s ears as he chopped through a pepper, slower than usual. His arm ached and seeped through the rest of his body and he couldn’t keep from thinking how thoroughly he chased his sister away. She was the only family he had left and he’d let a bitter accusal that even he knew wasn’t true out in the open. He could see the time worn guilt in every part of her posture before she quickly walked away. They’d still spoken, sure, but the conversations were stilted and the letters were short, something he’d never been known for. He wallowed in his own mind before a quiet knock at his door nearly made him hit his head on the too low ceilings. He strode to the door only to find Naahia standing before him, she held something wrapped in her hands and looked as though she was ready to run.
He blinked at her, once, twice. Finally he managed to cut the silence with a soft. “Hey.”
She frowned slightly before taking a deep breath, setting her shoulders straight and locking eyes with him. Naahia looked more like she was preparing to fight a dragon than she was to talk with her sibling. The eye contact was brief before she walked past him and into his small temporary home. “I have something for you.” She said, voice firm, as though Tahiir might turn it away. He found a plainly wrapped parcel being thrust into his arms before Naahia’s retreated back to her, crossed and watching him, that stubbornness gone, now only a tentative look at the gift. He quirked a brow but frowned down at the flat, rectangular package, moving it between both hands.
“Nan, you didn’t have to ge-” She held up a hand interrupting his refusal.
“Just open it, Tahiir.” She spoke with the voice of the tired older sister she was back in his younger days and he let out a sigh, chest tight at the somehow happier memory despite the world around them. After a moment of taking in the shape of the gift he tore the paper away. A book, plain and leather bound, no writing on the outside to hint at what it may be so he flipped it open to a random page. Inside was the familiar runes of his native language and he let his eyes skim the page before he asked further questions. His breath caught, the handwriting was so familiar, old letters from his well-traveled mother would match the text completely. Such simple words, no flourish, it was a list of ingredients, measurements. A cookbook, written by his own mother. The corners of his eyes began to burn as he flipped back and forth through random pages, only when his eyes blurred too much to read did he look back up to see his sister watching him, sadness in her eyes, that guilty look she could never quite hide from him.
“How-”
“I went back to the house.. the original.” She said, running a hand through her curly hair before pressing her hands together again, forcing them to still. “It looked like shit- not that- I know you didn’t get a chance to live there- but it certainly wasn’t what I remembered.” He could sense her tendency to ramble beginning to boil over. “And when I went I.. Light I didn’t even know what I was looking for just ...something- something to remind me of the old life.. Something to bring back good memories.. Something to make it seem like they weren’t gone.. Mom, Dad.. Sila..” Tears were catching in her eyes but she blinked them away and continued on. “But it was just a decrepit old house… if you could even call it a house at this point. More like two walls of rotted wood and some moldy furniture. But while I was there, poking around, I found that.” She gestured to the book before wiping at her eyes. “I’m not much of a chef so that’s wasted on me.” She laughed weakly. “I know you didn’t get to eat most of the food we did back in the Valley- I know you were sick of all the damn mushrooms, but I thought maybe you’d want that. It was something Mom prided herself on and.. And I know it might be hard to get ingredients- but you could maybe have them shipped from draenor and-” He cut her off then by pulling her into a tight, warm embrace hoping desperately it would close the gap he had put between them.
“You didn’t do anything wrong, Nan. You don’t owe me a damn thing.” He said firmly, earnestly, wishing he could take away what he’d said. He heard Naahia choke back a sob before he pulled away, hands on her shoulders. He looked into her eyes desperate to see that guilt finally vanish. “I love this gift. Thank you.” She smiled slowly and he reflected it, her shoulders eased as they both wiped at there eyes. Naahia took in a steady breath.
“There’s some empty pages. You should write your own recipes in it! She would have liked that.” Tahiir looked to the book again, flipping to the first blank page he saw.
“She would..” He nodded, trailing off as he ran his thumb over the delicate paper. He looked back up to Naahia once more. “Tell me your favorite dish she used to make.” His grin seemed to lift the weight that had settled between them. “Stay for dinner and I’ll make it for you.”
