A Fallen HomeKin

PART XLIX

Ray-chel grimaced as she peeled back a bandage. "Why does it have to hurt so much?" she muttered under her breath, setting it aside and dabbing at the small cut with a wad of what looked to be wool, but, well, less wooly. "It's so small," She glanced towards him, "unlike yours."

"Yes beep!" Fralith wiggled, shying away from RuthMom's hands, PainBird a ball of squawking black feathers on his shoulder.

RuthMom quirked her lip, hands hovering in the place where his injured shoulder used to be. "Come now, Fralith, stay still. You're only prolonging the process."

He bared his teeth, huffing out a breath of air. But it hurt! Hunkering down, he let RuthMom approach again and carefully unwrap his bandages, mindful of the spots where clear stuff had leaked out and fused the layers together. He rumbled and growled like a MetalEater the whole time—mostly to annoy PainBird—wincing and hissing when she pulled the last layer off.

When the layer was off, he tucked his chin to his chest and strained his nose towards the wound, sniffing intensely. Sweat and a bit of bandage smell tickled his nose, but otherwise, nothing. "Beep." So it wasn't infected. Good.

"Fralith, what are you doing?"

He glanced up, and shook out his hair, quickly running through his vocabulary. "Beep." He didn't know anything that would explain it.

Shrugging, RuthMom began to clean the area around the wound. When she was done, she wrapped it up with new bandages and patted his knee. "There," she said. "All done. Now, would you two like some hot chocolate?"

Choc-o-late? He could get choc-o-late? Hopping to his feet with a HappyBird cry, he did a little spin. "YES!"

RuthMom and Ray-chel laughed. "Alright, alright, Brave boy. Hot chocolate coming right up." RuthMom smiled and slipped out the door.

"You sure love sweet things." Ray-chel rose from where she was perched on top of the toi-let, rubbing a bruise on her wrist, chuckling. "Just look at you."

Happy wiggles wobbled his body, completely ignoring PainBird as it flapped and yelled in his ear. Choc-o-late! Choc-o-late was the best thing ever! And he was going to eat it! Grabbing Ray-chel's hand, he pulled her out the door and down the creaky steps. "Choc-o-late! Choc-o-late! Choc-o-late!"

"Woah, Fralith!" Ray-chel laughed, scampering down beside him.

He dropped Ray-chel's hand and flopped down on a cow-ouch, breathing hard and wiggling his feet as hard as he could. Oh, he couldn't wait for the sweetness hinchillas! PainBird sat on his chest, staring down over his beak with the utmost disapproval. He stuck his tongue out. You haven't tasted choc-o-late before so you don't get to judge.

Tucking herself between his feet and the cow-ouch, Ray-chel snuggled down, pulling a thick, fuzzy blanket over both of them. She sighed, leaning back, a smile lighting her face.

With a few squirms, he positioned himself closer to her where he could watch her BodyTalk and the entrance to the kitchen. Over the past few days, he'd taken to shadowing Ray-chel around the house, just...watching. She didn't seem to mind, and, in fact, sought him out in the cooler hours of the evening when everyone was doing their own thing, like now.

They didn't talk much during these times, but that was okay. He could glean enough from her BodyTalk to know that, while she held herself tensely around darkness and didn't sleep very well, she was...okay, as much as she could be. There was a steel hardening inside of her, slowly becoming impervious to shadows.

Noticing his stare, Ray-chel glanced at him, searching his face. "I'm okay."

"Beep." He cocked his head to the side, lifting his eyebrows. "Very yes?"

A small smile lifted Ray-chel's face. "Very yes. It's hard but..." She looked out at the room with all its thick rugs and cozy decorations, the corners of her eyes relaxing slightly. "....I have you, Mom, Dad, and Ezekiel to help me."

Her...expression, he'd seen it before. Where? Reaching back into his memories, he grasped tails and edges and crinkly paper until he touched something that matched the cool touch her expression reminded him of. It lifted to the front, unfolding the memory over his thoughts like a blooming flower.

He'd seen Ray-chel's expression on Drao's face. It was the deepness and darkness from shadows experienced that formed as a cool, ebony smooth hardness. It didn't block and hold back, but gave strength to withstand more trials. Ray-chel's wasn't as deep and resilient as Drao's—his was like a vast ocean—but it was there, and that was what mattered.

Do I have that look too? He had shadows too. But did they form a shield or a wall of mist? Turning his senses inward, he looked down at the shadows resting in his belly. They were there, lurking, but...they didn't bother him much, and when they did, he had everyone else to help him, like Ray-chel had said.

They weren't a wall or a shield but...maybe that didn't matter. They were there, but they weren't the burden they used to be. Slowly, he nodded and patted Ray-chel with his foot. "Yes."

She smiled wider and settled under the blanket more, the smile staying on her face as they fell into comfortable silence.

He let a contented sigh slide out of him, the warmth of the blanket easing PainBird's weight. The sounds of RuthMom clicking around in the kitchen floated in, followed by their faint breathing and muffled laughter from upstairs.

Maybe everyone had shadows that lurked and slid and terrorized. Maybe they were the reason people did bad things, like Davith leaving, Father controlling, Mother growing cold, and him...running away. And maybe they had to learn to tame the shadows and make them into strong shields for the next battle and if they couldn't, people who could help. Find people who would love and accept and support.

Shadows were bad, but they could be good, too. They could lead to good—be used for good by the Eternal—like Drao once told him. They weren't forever. They weren't the end.

He still loved Davith and Father, Drao and SecondHome, and— everyone, everything, else. They were still his, still good somewhere inside. So maybe, if he still loved them with shadows inside, they could too.

And if they did...he wanted to see them again.