In the Pursuit of Death| ONC 2024

8| Mother, Daughter, Father

Twelve years into the Ruin

(Trigger Warning: on-page death of a child)

*

ERIS HEARD NOTHING save for Akul's deep, peaceful breaths. He was slumbering next to her, one arm tucked under her, one around her waist. She felt his heartbeat through his bare chest, calm and strong.

She kissed his forehead, ran a hand along his jaw, pushed a lock of hair out of his eyes. His eyelashes fluttered, and he awoke. His mouth lifted into a smile when he took her hand in his.

"My heart." Gone was the haze of sleepiness in his eyes. He stared at her knowingly, acutely, his eyes piercing. 

She smiled. "Good dreams?"

He kissed the back of her hand. "Good yes. But I prefer being awake more. Dream you pales in comparison to the you before me." 

Eris kissed him.

They laid in bed a moment, hair and limbs entangled, exchanging kisses - some meek and tender, others fueled by passions that would have to wait until night to be satisfied. Then Eris rose and glanced at the door to Daya's room. It was askew, a slat of  morning light striping the hut's warped floorboards.

She frowned, and, with the bedsheets wrapped around her naked body, stood. Akul's fingers grazed her back, tracing her spine. Eris playfully slapped them away.

"Daya's gone." She shuffled across the floor and took a robe off the hook near the door, exchanging the soft satin of their bedsheets for something more rough-spun and weighted. The robe belonged to Akul, and its length pooled at Eris's feet.

Akul propped himself on an elbow. "To the field, I'm sure."

Eris turned toward him, her eyes then drifting to the workbench at the far corner of the hut. Above it hung one hundred pages of Daya's art - from waterfalls, to fields, to fruit orchards and cattle pulling carts. All of them drawn as Eris had described them in her stories.

Beneath them, she glimpsed the mortar and pestle, the half-empty vials she used for her potions and salves. All the tools she used to keep her mama's memory alive. She had passed that knowledge onto Daya, to keep safe, to add to, so that death was not final. Some things could never die, she had learned. Memories, the most perservering.

"You know she goes beyond the field now." Eris cut Akul a chiding look. "Because you encourage exploration."

Akul got up, strode toward her, embracing her from behind. He kissed the curve of her neck. "You encourage her imagination. She is ten, Eris, and she has been told to never go beyond the field." His eyes glimmered. "And so she goes beyond the field."

Eris rested a hand over his and they laughed. Then Eris moved away, though she was loath to give up Akul's warmth. "And who shall retrieve this wandering daughter of ours?"

Akul's gaze flickered to the floor, then back up. "You're more clothed than me."

She pressed a kiss to her husband's mouth. When she pulled away, she also flicked her gaze down, before returning it to his face. "I can't argue that." 

She moved to the corner of the room, where their clothes laid in a heap. Pools of silk and satin, worn-burlap mixed together, eagerly discarded in anticipation. She grabbed her trousers and tossed on a tunic, feeling Akul's gaze on her all the while.

"I'll make my wife and daughter breakfast for when they return," he said.

Eris nodded, shoved her boots on her feet, and went outside.