A Fallen HomeKin

PART XXXIII

Pou-tine was a strange food. Made up of thick grass-shaped yellow-brown blades, blocks of squeaky ees, and thick dark sauce with orange and green chunks in it, it was one of the strangest meals he'd eaten here. Fralith poked at the bowl in front of him, frowning. Who came up with this food?

It was good—salty—but strange. What did they do to grass to make it so thick? Was it a kind of grass? Or was it a type of...meat? Plant? Rock? Using his fork to spear some of the yellow-brown grass and squeaky ees, he stuffed it into his mouth and chewed.

Ray-chel sighed from across the table and set down her fork. "I'm not hungry," she mumbled, pushing her bowl away.

"Are you sure? You didn't eat lunch." SmileTalk frowned, eyeing her bowl, then her face.

Standing up, Ray-chel nodded, rubbing her arm. "Yeah, I'm sure. I need to be doing homework, anyway."

"I can bring you some fruit later if you get hungry." RuthMom's eyebrows tilted, the corners of her eyes pinching and shoulders tensing.

"No thanks. I'm good." Pushing her chair back to the table, she slipped past the kitchen and up the stairs, movements slow and stiff. She placed her feet down like a nervous Slirdandrii, each step light but ready to fly into motion the second danger appeared.

He watched her form disappear up the stairs, clenching the fork tighter. She was...sad and scared? Why? Why did that make her not hungry? He hadn't been paying much attention, but as far as his fuzzy memory recalled, she hadn't eaten much lately, so she had to be hungry.

Drao said when people were hurt they did funny, sometimes bad, things like not eating or yelling at others. Was that why Ray-chel wasn't eating much? She was hurting? But what— the frantic pulse of the girl's heart thumping with his as they tumbled off the bed. His hand, surrounded by glittering shards of ClearStone as if it lay in water lit by moonlight. Thunder booming through his bones as he tucked into a roll.

He blinked hard, shaking his shoulders to clear away the memory. That's why. That was...scary. With the edges of shadows pressing at his skin, he shoveled more food into his mouth, casting his gaze around the table.

In the eyes of everyone lay the darkness of memories born of night and men, accentuated by furrows in brows and gazes fixed on the table before them. The darkness was the strongest in BlueShirt's eyes, and he started to stand, jaw set.

RuthMom covered his hand with hers, shaking her head. "No. Let her be, Matthew."

BlueShirt turned his gaze on her, eyebrows drawn together. Slowly, he sighed and sat back down, shoulders slumping.

Fralith chewed on the last yellow-brown blade, the edges of sensations no longer in the present slithering around his shoulder blades and in his stomach, mixing with a tinge of shadows. This family's sad, too, he realized. It has its own shadows.

And he was somehow a part of the shadows, just like in his blood family. His stomach clenched and he hunched his shoulders into the back of his chair, flashing his teeth. This was not going to be like the first time. The shadows weren't going to tear this family apart. He had to do something, but what?

What did Drao say about helping sad people? Squinting, he felt around in his memory, touching two strangely sticky corners before finding the correct one.

"What do you do when someone is sad, then?"

Drao smiled at him, gentle warmth tinged with the weight of personal experience. "There are many ways and many things to do depending on the person, but sometimes, being there for them—doing their jobs, cleaning their space, just talking to them about the day—is best."