Lady of the Veiled Vale

Family

When the sun peeked into her chambers, it gilded a matched pair of tear-stained cheeks. Gwinneth was the first to wake, and bear witness to his sadness. Raiden, self-named upon his rebirth as Guardian of Sanctuary, woke soon after, to bear witness to her tears.

   "You were crying," he said, cupping her face with one large hand.

   "So were you," she murmured, wiping the tracks with her much smaller thumb. He was surprised. He reached up to cover her hand, thereby mingling their tears on his cheek.

   "What made you so sad?" She asked. Her eyes whirled an anxious yellow. She wasn't sure he would answer, but in the end, he could not contain the sadness of two generations.

   "I dreamt of my mother." Fresh tears pricked his eyelids. "And my father." The tears spilled over, though he hardly seemed to notice.

   "Tell me," she crooned.

   "She died, because of him." Gwinn stroked his cheek encouragingly. "We were perfectly fine without him. He didn't have to come back so often. He says he loved her, but..." His brow furrowed with remembered anger. "If he truly loved her, why would he put her life at risk? She barely survived giving birth to me, so why..?"

   He sniffed once, and continued in as detached a manner as he could manage. "I was training for my life as a Hand of Justice. Mother was sparring with me. He came home from assignment, saw us sparring. It must have... turned him on, because he whisked her away. I did not see them again until dinner."

   There was a pause, and she let him gather his thoughts. "Eight months later, while he was away, my mother went into labor. I Called and Called, but I had not reached my full potential. I could not contact him on another world." The tears flowed faster now. "I couldn't help her," he wept bitterly.

   Gwinn cradled his head to her bosom, stroking his hair. "She died, didn't she?" He nodded into her lavender haven. "That's why you treat me like spun glass." It was as good an explanation as any, but it didn't make her feel any better.

   "And your father? How did he take it?"

   He stiffened in her arms. "He waged another bloody war—with the only person in the world who would listen. They decimated entire planets because Father would not listen to reason."

   "Inhabited planets?"

   He shook his head. "Some of them might be by now, though. Ares," here he let out a huff of almost-laughter. "He can be rather dramatic. He said that Father drowned a dead moon with his tears."

   "You do not believe him capable of that level of devotion?"

   Another puff of air warmed her breasts. "Oh, I am sure he was attached to my mother. I think devotion is a bit much to ask of him. Now, my brother on the other hand, thinks he hung the moon."

   Gwinn smoothed a hand over his hair, trying in some small way to ease an old hurt. "He did not know your mother as you did. You need bear him no ill will."

   Raiden's head lifted, eyes puzzled. "I bear him none. 'Twas not his fault for being born."

   She gazed upon his ravaged face with a wisdom beyond her years. "Do ye not, Raijin? Truly? No small part of ye resents his body tearing your mother asunder?"

   His eyes darkened. He didn't like her choice of words, she knew, but the hurt needed to be purged, like poison from a wound. "Aye, I've attended many a birthing. We nearly always tear, to some degree. Ye would've seen that, when he was born. He would have been covered in a mixture of his and her blood. 'Tis natural enough, but for a young man barely out of, what, your teens? 'Twould have seemed that he wounded her. Delivering the afterbirth is never pleasant, and quite bloody as well."