Eventually talk shifted to those who accompanied N. to T. and the unfolding chaos in F. There had been no recent news. A. gnawed on her lip until W. reached up to touch his mother’s mouth. “Awwight, mama,” he said, “awwight.”
Puzzled looks formed about the table. An expression of potential comprehension, not unlike that of those who suspect they have unraveled a secret, formed on P’s face. He leaned toward his son and said, “Are you telling mommy that it will be all right, W.?”
The boy nodded with the exaggerated certainty of a very young child and said, once more, “Awwight.”
P. smiled at his beloved. “I think we are raising a seer, my love.”
This domestic scene is not a proper part of the plot of this volume but it does link the home front with the distant battlefront and offers background for tales to come in future volumes.
I am curious, myself, about the shape W's life will take. I know he will participate as a layman at the first church council in that region, but right now he is a precocious pre-christian thirteen-month-old with a forest athlete for a father and an aristocratic urban sorceress for a mother. I think it's time for another cup of N's quality brews.
Oh, this dinner of friends is in the home of a gay couple. When you're writing fantasy fiction, the society can be ever-so-advanced, even in an 8th-century tribal setting.
Sweet dreams, my perspicacious parakeets!
--the BB
2 comments:
The domestic scene is beautifully written.
Thank you, Mimi. I often intersperse small, intimate, and usually peaceful scenes in between the more horrendous moments of my stories. It helps us get through the harder parts, of course, but it also reminds us where most of our lives are lived. The mother and child motif is so strong in the current story (even if it IS about a battle for a throne), that I may have to dedicate this one to the Theotokos.
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