Fanfare

Hiding Places

When he gets to her house, he finds her where he always finds her. Silently, he looks up, wondering if it's worth it to drag a chair over, but the one chair in this room looks like it'll collapse beneath his weight if he uses it even one more time. Kina must've used the table, but that looks frail, too.

He stretches his arms up and jumps, grabbing the corners of the square hole into the roof, and pulls himself up and in, glad for his years of labour to keep his family, Kina and Trenna and their mother, fed. Without the money from his work, he wouldn't have been able to keep them all alive. And, without that work, he wouldn't be strong enough to lift himself up, into the roof. He has worked to be strong. Strength is something that is lacking in their society. Slowly, it is being overrun by fear. And fear and panic only lead to tragedy. He will not give in to it easily.

The wood groans a little beneath his weight, but he makes his way carefully across the thin boards to where Kina sits, curled up in the far corner. He has to crouch down here, his height a hindrance. She would, too; sitting down, her head is just short of brushing the ceiling, in the sloped far corner where the roof angles down.

He goes to her and lowers himself down, crossing his legs, his neck craned but his head still touching the roof. It's silent for a while, but a comfortable, familiar silence. She is the one to break it. "Trenna told you," she says. It's not a question, more of a statement.

He just watches her; there's no need for words. He takes in the tracks tears have made down her cheeks, glinting in the half-light let in by the small window on the other side of the roof. Her hair is a fair halo around her head, a little static, outlining her face, her skin the same as that of everyone else's, a pale gold tan from the fire. Her eyes are wide and wild, like those of a scared animal, skittish and easily startled.

He holds his hand out towards her and she hesitantly takes it, lets him pull her into his arms without complaint. She curls into a ball against his chest as he smoothes down her hair. He can feel her heart beating madly against his chest. He hopes the steady beating of his own will calm her. He remembers cold nights at home, his mother holding him on the couch when they couldn't afford new blankets, the last thread of the old ones long worn away. He'd been young and small, then, small enough to fit in her lap. His father had been at work, so it was just the two of them. Dad had been working, His mother had been too ashamed to let him ask Kina for a blanket to borrow. He'd listened to the beating of her heart, strong and steady, and told himself that nothing mattered but their heartbeats, steady and paced to match each other. He hopes his heartbeat is as comforting to Kina as his mother's was to him, as hers is to him. He hadn't realised how much something as simple as a heartbeat could matter til it was gone. Now he treasures every one.

Slowly, Kina's breathing slows, the beating of her heart calming with her breaths into the soothing cadence of almost-sleep. "Love you, Joss," she murmurs, her cheek on his shoulder.

His fingers still for a moment, before he continues tracing circles on her back with his fingers. "Love you, too," he tells her. Though it barely matters. She's already asleep.