A month had passed since he and Kaila had found the strange flower. During that ti, Kaila's parents had gone to sleep and failed to wake up, within days of one another. They were carried off by several guards, their sleeping figures reflected in the despondent eyes of the hundred or so people who had gathered to see them off. This happened quite often, but Alistar was still surprised that it was Kaila's parents this ti around, and even more surprised at the attention they received. The usual crowd topped off at around fifteen, sotis fewer, sotis none.
"Where is he going?" Alistar asked his father, as Kaila's father, Kaisus, was being hauled away. "What's wrong with him?"
Kaila's father disappeared into one of the entrances to the Long Tunnel, along with the two guards that carried him. Their handling was so careless that Alistar was surprised that he didn't wake up. The sa scene had unfolded two days earlier, when Kaila's mother had also remained within her dreams.
Alistar's mother and his uncle had just gone off to the food line to fetch their lunches, the usual bowl of tasteless porridge. They had both spoken soft words to Kaila and her grandpa before heading to wait in the lines by the large cauldrons set up in the middle of the massive cavern. Most people had to wait in line themselves in order to receive any food, but oftentis his mother and uncle were permitted to fetch shares for him and his father. His family wasn't the sort to attempt to attain an extra serving, as others sotis tried, so it was only natural that they were allowed this privilege.
It took a mont for his father to answer him. The guards had been bullying him more openly in recent weeks, making him work longer than the others. Between his parents and his uncle, Alistar gathered that they were now required to fill four crates with crystals before they were allowed to retire at the end of the day. He wondered why they had raised the amount.
His father looked thin and there were dark rings underneath his eyes. His hands were almost always bleeding from constantly gripping his pickaxe. Couldn't they find soone else to do the extra work? Even if he was one of the hardest workers in the mines, it seed unfair to entrust him with so much. Alistar was worried for him.
"They went to sleep, Alistar," he said quietly. His voice, which was usually deep and stirring, was now as cold and brittle as the winters he often spoke of. "They won't be waking up. The guards are taking them to a place where they can sleep comfortably from now on."
His father's expression was pained, but not from the bloody blisters that covered his hands. Alistar wondered why. His father seed to have known Kaila's parents for a long ti, so maybe he was sad that he could no longer see them. Alistar would be sad if he couldn't see Kaila anymore. Speaking of Kaila, she was standing next to her grandpa a few paces away. Both seed weighed down by sadness. Sothing wasn't right.
When Alistar tried to approach her, his father stopped him by grabbing his arm. She hadn't even looked at him as he approached. "It's best that you leave Kaila alone for a while."
"Why?" he asked unhappily. He didn't want to be separated from Kaila. Although she was two years older, she was the only other person his age in the mines that he talked to. She was an important friend. The days would pass by much slower if he couldn't speak to her.
"Just listen to my words, son."
His father sounded exhausted, so Alistar chose to listen to him. His father sighed. It wasn't his usual sigh, the one he made when there was sothing tricky to explain to Alistar, or even the sigh that sotis seeped out of him when he was harassed by the guards. This sigh was different. He wasn't sure why, but for so reason Alistar was reminded of the darkness within the crevice. It was cold and empty. His father's voice wasn't supposed to sound like that.
After having found the crystalline flower, Alistar now knew that sotis things weren't as they seed. He had gone into that frightful darkness himself and at the very end had found a beautiful flower and a soothing light, and had even created one of his most cherished mories with Kaila. Here in the mines where the only light ca from lanterns and torches, such a sight had captured his heart. He deeply yearned to see it again. Thinking of this, he stared at his father amidst his confused thoughts. He didn't know why, but hearing such a sigh worried him profoundly, so he hugged him around the waist. There were words that he wanted to tell him, but he himself didn't know what those words were. Still, he sohow felt that his father would receive his feelings if he hugged him. From the look in his eyes and the small curvature at a corner of his mouth, it seed that the ssage was conveyed.
I love you, Father. Please don't fall into the sa dream as the others.
His eyes shining strongly once again, his father bent and rested a muscled arm around Alistar's shoulder, hugging him tightly in return. It wasn't the sa as when Alistar hugged his mother, but he enjoyed it all the sa. He wondered why they didn't hug more often.
They embraced one another in silence for a short while before his father cleared his throat and asked how he had been enjoying his lessons. His parents and his uncle had been educating him since the ti he turned five, using stones to write in the dirt as they taught him. They were busy throughout most of the day, so they made an effort to use whatever spare ti they might co by to teach him various things that they deed important. On the occasions that he followed them into the active tunnels and kept them company as they worked, he would practice what he had learned the night before for the duration of the day, his parents quickly looking over his work whenever the more lenient guards oversaw their labours.
By this ti, he knew his letters quite well. Much to his family's surprise, he had been reading and writing with ease after just a year of practice. Sotis Kaila would sit in on the lessons as well, although she seed to struggle quite a bit, and half the ti wound up scratching crude pictures onto her dirt-covered canvas. His mother claid that he was as smart as they ca, and his father and his uncle were constantly remarking on his cleverness. Recently they had started educating him on numbers; how to add and how to subtract nurals of up to three digits. He also learned of the kingdom they lived in and of the variations in its terrain. He loved hearing the fantastical tales of what lay outside of the mines and dread of the day when they would all go out to explore these regions together. He was not too fond of learning proper 'etiquette' and 'manners,' not so much because they were boring but because he didn't understand the point. His mother said that she couldn't teach him much given their circumstances, but that she would make the attempt nonetheless. These words made even less sense to him than the lessons themselves, but he endured because the sessions seed to make her happy. When she was happy, he was happy.
"Alie?"
"I like them!" He spoke enthusiastically, putting on his best smile as he returned from his thoughts. Sotis his father would smile when he smiled. He didn't smile this ti. "Especially the stories about mountains and rivers and lakes and animals. Especially the animals!"
Rather than a smile, his father's frown returned. Frantic, Alistar continued speaking. "Once we leave the mines, I'm going to look for every animal there is! I'll pick flowers for Mama and climb mountains like Uncle Raidon used to. We can eat every fruit, and even at! We can all ride on top of horses and scare chickens together, and throw sticks for the dogs to chase after and—and I also want to swim with Father in the lakes and rivers. You'll teach , right Father? You'll teach to swim?"
He grasped at his father's ragged clothes, hopeful. They were much dirtier than his, more worn out and with a more pungent sll. His father remained silent. A minute passed and he put a hand on Alistar's head. He had always thought that his father had big hands, that his would never be that big. "You'll pick many flowers, Alistar, and climb many a mountain. You'll swim in both rivers and lakes, you'll see the sun and clouds up in the sky, and you'll breathe fresh air and eat tasty foods with each passing day. Just a little longer and you will be able to go. I promise you, Alie. I promise that you'll get to enjoy all of these things."
The rest of his family returned a mont later, and before he could say anything he was handed a lukewarm bowl of porridge. He didn't know how to respond to his father, so he began scooping food into his mouth with his fingers in silence.
Their conversation had caused an old mory to surface. He'd once eaten a fruit called an apple. Although it had been a long ti ago, not one al had gone by since that day that he did not recall its fantastical tang. It had been crunchy yet sohow juicy, sweet yet sohow sour. When he had learned from his parents that the apple was just one of many different types of fruits, he'd spent an entire day fantasizing about what these other fruits might taste like. He had never forgotten the taste of the apple and prayed that he never would. Since then the porridge had remained forever bitter. There was no difference in today's al.
Reviews
All reviews (0)