“Ma!”
Vakka-Ei pins the last of the laundry in place on the line and turns with a smile to see Haldryn running to her, dragging a branch half as big as she is along behind. “Another one?” She drops smoothly into a crouch to meet her at eye level.
“This one for real, promise,” Haldryn says. She thrusts out the stick with one small hand, the other going to adjust the old belt holding her tail on (a heavily amateur construction of pages of the Courier and the leftover ends of several candles that she has, beamingly, insisted matches Vakka-Ei’s exactly). “It looks special so it’s gotta be. See?”
“Hmm…” Vakka-Ei touches the end of one finger to the branch, pretending to contemplate it deeply. No matter how many times she explains the nature of the Hist, Haldryn still seems to think every tree is trying to communicate—a sentiment she finds she isn’t yet ready to disillusion her of. “What does it say to you, Hallie?”
Her little face scrunches up. “I don’t know, I can’t ever hear anything. Is it because we’re not in Black Marsh? Do they talk more there?”
Laughing, Vakka-Ei reaches out to ruffle her dark curls. “It is not quite ‘talking,’ my love. There are many things that can be said without talking. But yes, the Hist is heard most strongly in Black Marsh.”
“When I get older I’ll take you there,” she says confidently, “and then you can tell me what to listen for so I can hear it better. And maybe we can visit Morrowind since it’s on the way!”
It is only on the way if one is lost, but Vakka-Ei does not correct her. “And what will we do in Morrowind?” she asks instead, smiling.
Haldryn scrambles for the sharp little stick she’s been keeping in her boot the last few days—which Vakka-Ei has gently told her to keep elsewhere so it doesn’t stab her in the foot, but she had only become very serious and said don’t worry, Ma, an explorer’s weapon only stabs what she wants it to—and holds it aloft. “I wanna get the Sacred Lady to bless my dagger!” she beams. “D’you think she’d like it? Maybe she could make it all glowy like her sword is in all the pictures!”
“I cannot imagine that she wouldn’t like it,” Vakka-Ei tells her. “I’m sure she would like it even better if you did not keep it in your boot.”
“Oh,” says Haldryn, as if she has not considered this before. “But I don’t know how to make a sheath.” She ponders this for a moment, then tucks the sharp stick carefully into the belt of her tail. “Well, it can’t be too hard, if Dexion can do it.”
“Dexion is apprenticed to the leatherworker, my love.”
“Yeah, but I’ve seen him eat rocks,” she scoffs. “Off the ground.”
It is hard to argue with this logic. “We will have to see what we can do,” concedes Vakka-Ei. “What design will you give it?”
“Turtle,” she says immediately. “And—and the, um, this—” She holds up her hand, palm facing outward, pointing to it with the other. “—with the triangle!”
Humming low in her throat, Vakka-Ei rises to her feet again. “I am going inside to begin dinner. Are you coming in, or are you staying out here until it is ready?”
Haldryn leans on her branch, grins up at her. “I’ll come in when it’s time to eat!” She turns, then, running back to the tree she took the branch from, chanting to herself, “Tinkle, tinkle, hollow chime, singing with me as I rhyme, guide us through the evening mist, home to the roots of our Hist—”
For a moment, Vakka-Ei lingers in the doorway, watching. The sharp little stick emerges again, thrust in a child’s imitation of a dagger’s parry, her homemade tail swinging behind her. She stops, looking up at nothing, and corrects her stance after a moment.
There are many things about her daughter she does not wholly understand, but she is trying. It is good to see her so excited, even when what she is so excited about is unfamiliar. Vakka-Ei turns to go inside, resolving to bake an extra next time she makes spiced root cake, for Llaalam and his husband. She certainly would not be able to answer questions about netches and mushroom houses and Sacred Ladies.
Through the door, Haldryn’s thin voice carries, crying out, “Daedra, we cannot kill you! —whoops!”
…whoops, however, is very much her area of expertise.
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