Emeth is taken from C.S. Lewis's The Last Battle.
The dealer snatched Chaniya’s doll with evil sparkles in his dark and demonically calculating eyes. “Chaniya? Dost thou still playeth with dollies?” He sneered getting up in her face and holding the doll out of her reach.
“Giveth her back. She art mine and thou knows it!” Chaniya whined agitated with her arms flailing to catch her doll should, brother two be mean enough to drop her.
Brother two (the dealer) tossed the porcelain doll carelessly to the twins with a hideously villainous laugh. The twins took turns tossing the doll above Chaniya’s smaller head. “No stop-eth”, “Nooo please brother”, and “careful you mights break-ith her” filled the air along with their riotous chanting and taunting.
The bull in all his thick stature sat watching with an amused grin over his latest cup of alcohol. She pleaded with the bull or with any of them to have mercy upon her small fragile doll. She longed to scoop it into her tired but devoted hands and to cry over it’s ill treatment not very different from her own.
The doll was tossed back and forth as though it were not but a valuable rag, and perhaps to the brothers it was just that. But to little Chaniya, that doll was the only friend she had were it not for Emeth.
She watched in horror as the twins stomped on the glass face of the doll with wicked grins adorning their impish faces. It’s beautiful white face shattered with a sickening pop that silenced the taunting brothers long enough to bring forth the most triumphant rounds of laughter.
Chaniya’s litte hands balled into fists first of fear and wanting to hit back. Then her eyes locked on the sad expression of the fractured doll. She wept silently and bitterly for her most prized possession. Her brothers seemed to destroy anything she held of value and it tore a deep gash into her young and sensitive heart.
Diving to the floor she tried valiantly to salvage what she could of her doll friend. She cradled the small glass pieces to her chest as though they were still more valuable than diamonds and twice as rare.
Brother two threatened to beat her worse than her doll if she cried in front of him. Tears forced their ways down the sides of her faces as she locked herself into her tiny room. “If only Emeth had come back a few seconds sooner…. he could have saved her.”
She had cried until the very well of her tears could not drip any further. Chaniya shrieked and screamed with boiling rage into the pillows she covered her tiny mouth with. The torment of seeing something she loved and prized destroyed stoked fires of fury the depths of which one is lucky to not know.
Some time later Emeth had finally gotten home. She couldn’t stop sobbing so monstrously deep that she nearly sounded unrecognizable. He ran to her side and seeing the glass he uttered words that Dodee dareth not repeat. He collapsed on the ground beside her at just as much of a loss for words as she was. With his gentle brotherly hand he scooped her trembling figure into his lap letting her squirm into a comfortable sobbing curl. Her tear stained cheek rested deflated in defeat upon his slightly larger shoulder and his other hand stroked the small dark tear intwined curls from her puffy reddened eyes.
He kept repeating their mother’s lullaby soothingly till the anger just vanished into nothingness. Chaniya’s little head burrowed its way into the warmth of her brother’s neck as it shook itself free of the harsh sobs. The little girl didn’t have the heart to cast another glance at the doll but she sobbed “Emeth….dollie’s broken and…… and and…… and I canst fixith her. I tried.” She woefully admitted her inability to fix the broken doll as if it would be considered cause enough for Emeth to bash her head in like the dolls was.
The elder brother looked at the wrecked doll with a sickened expression of anger and disgust wiping its foul way onto his face. He knew the doll was Dodee’s most cherished belonging and that their brothers had not the right to break her toys any more than they had right to beat on them. Emeth vowed to her that justice wasn’t all that blind and his words “I shalt fix this for thee…. I promise.” Allowed her to ease into the hard earned sleep she had unwittingly drawn in like a warm blanket from the sobs.
His heart beat and moma’s lullaby were the last two things she heard before the slumber encompassed her. Sniveling occasionally Dodee’s hitched breath would warm it’s way to her elder brother’s cheeks. He would wait until everyone was sound asleep to fetch the money to purchase her a new doll like she deserved. When everyone seemed to be deep within the sandman’s clutches he wriggled himself away from Dodee although begrudgingly. He slid into the hallway and to the place his elder brothers kept drinking money. He carefully pocketed the owed funds with a devious “look at me now dumb brothers” expression lifting his miserable frown into a momentary grin, before drooping once more.
He knew stealing from the elder brothers could mean he’d earn himself a skinning, but that pained expression and Dodee’s sobs bothered him more. He felt that she was horribly wronged and he was the only one who could remedy the situation. His dark eyes scarcely shut that night as he imagined what kind of doll he should get her. He certainly wouldn’t be foolish enough to purchase one their brothers could so ruthlessly smash. Returning to the room he watched her adoringly as she wrestled with the covers. He sighed knowing that she had him wrapped around her pinky finger.
It was still early when Dodee woke. Emeth was gone and that made her whimper like a forlorn and dejected puppy. Thankfully, her eyes were tired enough to squeeze shut for another round of sleep. This time when she woke Emeth was sitting up right next to her. A soft and brave smile slid across her weepy and still sluggish expression. “Em….emeth….I’m sorry” she sputtered as if spending the night snot-ting and sniveling had been her idea. He allowed himself to pull her small figure onto his lap and he quietly withdrew the new un-destroyed doll and handed it to her.
Her tiny eyes widened curiously and shot him an unknowing look. Tears of thankfulness shimmered in her freshly lit eyes. She chimed, “Emeth…..she is as beautiful as mothers but not as special as this one art. This one is all fixithed like you’d promised.” Dodee doted motherly over the plastic doll and its luxuriously soft curls before planting a sloppy wet kiss of thanks on the side of her brothers face.
Trouble erupted when the Bull and dealer found out about the new doll. Dodee remembers them hitting Emeth and she knew she had been the cause of his suffering. Leaving the doll in the safety of the room she lunged pitifully at the dealer. She gave a harsh tug on his hairs so he’d let Emeth alone. The four tumbled chaotically in a violent manner that would be described as a world war.
The saddest truth of the war is the fact that it nearly ever ended in their house of Harpha Tarkhaan.
