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The stars, the wind, the music, and the rain.
The first time I went on a long walk, it was because the food was thin. At the time, I didn't know why mom was suddenly so hungry. I get it, now, though. She didn't want Rikken to be small like me.
I think the concept of home is something we're born with, not something we learn. It's something we have to unlearn, and everyone eventually did, back in Caephor. When the land changes so fast, home has to change.
But it was scary, you know? When you're a little kid, you grow up surrounded by the same nine trees and the same twelve tents and the same big rock and the same little lake, and that's all you know, and then your dad tells you you're going away and you're never coming back. Everyone else seemed so... unphased by all of it, but I was scared. And the fact that nobody else was scared just made me even more afraid. Is this normal? Does everything go away?
I remember we crossed a big field, and when we got to the other side, the trees were different. I had never seen them before. They had these bright orange leaves that were sharp at the tips, and they looked like eyes staring at me. It was like we'd just crossed into this alien territory, and that's when it really sank in that everything was about to change. I had just found my place in our comfortable, green little world, and I was coming to terms with the fact that I was safe, even though I was small. And just like that, everything I had finally deemed safe was going away.
I asked my mom if everything goes away.
That night, she asked me to follow her up onto a hill. She had this tube with her, like a wooden scroll case, but almost as tall as she was, and she held it very carefully, straight up and down, never letting it tilt over. I could tell it was something important. It had blue and grey feathers tied around each end of it, and it was riddled with hundreds of little sticks and rods that had been shoved through it - in one side and out the other. She sat down on the grass and asked me to look at the stars with her. She taught me some of their names. She told me about her grandmother, and how she was watching from the moon.
Then she flipped the feathered tube over, planted it in the ground, and from inside of it, I heard thousands of little pellets - probably rice or corn or something - dancing their way down the tube, bouncing off all the sticks, like rain. And it kept going, and going, and going. A few minutes later, a breeze picked up, and the real rain joined us. At the time, I thought it was probably just coincidence.
She said that when she feels like she doesn't have a home, she thinks of the stars, the wind, the music, and the rain, and how they're always everywhere she goes.
When they put us on the ship, they kept us below deck. Even after I started working, they made me go back below deck any time I wasn't working, and just sit with the others, until they knew I wasn't going to do anything stupid.
Then one night, as I was tidying up my lines and getting ready to sleep, they told me I wasn't done working, yet. They wanted me to work the nest overnight. I was exhausted, but I couldn't say no, right?
My captain was a terrible man. He did terrible things. He was there for... for Locket, y'know?
But that very first night, working the nest, long after most of the crew had gone to sleep, he climbed up onto the forecastle, sat down on a barrel, and started playing a fiddle for nobody. He had his back to the ship, just watching off into the rolling black waves ahead of us. It was jolly and snappy at first - the sort of songs they sang when they were drinking. A couple of the guys working the lines hummed along. But after a while, he started playing this... really soft, tender something. I'd never heard it before, and I never heard it again. I eventually found out that he did a lot of songs like that. I don't think they were real songs; I think he just kinda... faked it. He played what was in his head at the time, like he was dreaming with the fiddle, and when the dream was over, he never played it again.
And it was beautiful. The stars were foggy, the wind was cold, and the rain was the only thing keeping me awake, but he kept playing until he was done with his dream, and then he went back inside.
And that's when it really sank in that everything was about to change, again. This was going to be home, now, and I could either hate it, or try to make the best of it.
I wish I had hated it.
The stars, the wind, the music, and the rain.
The first time I went on a long walk, it was because the food was thin. At the time, I didn't know why mom was suddenly so hungry. I get it, now, though. She didn't want Rikken to be small like me.
I think the concept of home is something we're born with, not something we learn. It's something we have to unlearn, and everyone eventually did, back in Caephor. When the land changes so fast, home has to change.
But it was scary, you know? When you're a little kid, you grow up surrounded by the same nine trees and the same twelve tents and the same big rock and the same little lake, and that's all you know, and then your dad tells you you're going away and you're never coming back. Everyone else seemed so... unphased by all of it, but I was scared. And the fact that nobody else was scared just made me even more afraid. Is this normal? Does everything go away?
I remember we crossed a big field, and when we got to the other side, the trees were different. I had never seen them before. They had these bright orange leaves that were sharp at the tips, and they looked like eyes staring at me. It was like we'd just crossed into this alien territory, and that's when it really sank in that everything was about to change. I had just found my place in our comfortable, green little world, and I was coming to terms with the fact that I was safe, even though I was small. And just like that, everything I had finally deemed safe was going away.
I asked my mom if everything goes away.
That night, she asked me to follow her up onto a hill. She had this tube with her, like a wooden scroll case, but almost as tall as she was, and she held it very carefully, straight up and down, never letting it tilt over. I could tell it was something important. It had blue and grey feathers tied around each end of it, and it was riddled with hundreds of little sticks and rods that had been shoved through it - in one side and out the other. She sat down on the grass and asked me to look at the stars with her. She taught me some of their names. She told me about her grandmother, and how she was watching from the moon.
Then she flipped the feathered tube over, planted it in the ground, and from inside of it, I heard thousands of little pellets - probably rice or corn or something - dancing their way down the tube, bouncing off all the sticks, like rain. And it kept going, and going, and going. A few minutes later, a breeze picked up, and the real rain joined us. At the time, I thought it was probably just coincidence.
She said that when she feels like she doesn't have a home, she thinks of the stars, the wind, the music, and the rain, and how they're always everywhere she goes.
When they put us on the ship, they kept us below deck. Even after I started working, they made me go back below deck any time I wasn't working, and just sit with the others, until they knew I wasn't going to do anything stupid.
Then one night, as I was tidying up my lines and getting ready to sleep, they told me I wasn't done working, yet. They wanted me to work the nest overnight. I was exhausted, but I couldn't say no, right?
My captain was a terrible man. He did terrible things. He was there for... for Locket, y'know?
But that very first night, working the nest, long after most of the crew had gone to sleep, he climbed up onto the forecastle, sat down on a barrel, and started playing a fiddle for nobody. He had his back to the ship, just watching off into the rolling black waves ahead of us. It was jolly and snappy at first - the sort of songs they sang when they were drinking. A couple of the guys working the lines hummed along. But after a while, he started playing this... really soft, tender something. I'd never heard it before, and I never heard it again. I eventually found out that he did a lot of songs like that. I don't think they were real songs; I think he just kinda... faked it. He played what was in his head at the time, like he was dreaming with the fiddle, and when the dream was over, he never played it again.
And it was beautiful. The stars were foggy, the wind was cold, and the rain was the only thing keeping me awake, but he kept playing until he was done with his dream, and then he went back inside.
And that's when it really sank in that everything was about to change, again. This was going to be home, now, and I could either hate it, or try to make the best of it.
I wish I had hated it.
Category All / All
Species Unspecified / Any
Size 783 x 1280px
File Size 537.2 kB
"The stories with your mom in it are kinda my favorite, even when they're pretty sad. I feel like I'm getting to know her and- I feel more and more sure that we're gonna save her. Sometimes things change for the better, right, Shadowcat?" The dragonborn smiles reassuringly and clutches the tabaxi's hand against his heart.
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