1 – 2

I've known this was coming for a year. It's not as if what follows being deemed a skilled dancer of the komo'ka is a secret or kept hidden from us daughters. So why, then, am I caught so very off-guard? I feel struck by some strong wave of feeling and press my ear against Mother's chest to drown it out with the strong, even beat of her heart. I feel her kiss my hair again, then tuck my single braid behind my ear. It's as if I cannot breathe and no amount of fast, short breaths will give me the air I need. My own is racing, as if in flight or under some great strain. I feel light, as if the arms around me are the only things keeping me from lifting from the ground and flying away. “What is it?” Mother asks me, “What's wrong?” Her voice is warm and strong and soft with love and concern. Hearing it draws a shuddering breath from me. Tears burn in my eyes as they spill over. I'm not able to speak, but this seems answer enough.

She holds me close, as tightly as I do her, and tucks my head beneath her chin. She starts to sway us back and forth, slow and gentle, and hums as she rocks me. I feel safe and while it sends away that feeling of horrible lightness, it only serves to worsen my tears. I'm not even sure why I cry, only that I can't seem to stop. I let Mother soothe me as I ride out the wave that washed over me.

When my tears run dry later, they leave behind a clarity I lacked before. It's the catharsis of a year's effort, frustration, and worries. The many days of tripping and falling, of not learning fast or well enough and fearing I never would; it all gathered up and climbed higher and higher until finally, it came crashing down. I also find myself in the curious position of being afraid of something I also, at the same time, looked forward to. I wanted to walk my road, to learn the world and myself, as much as I did not. Another deep, shuddering breath comes. It helps.

So what, then, am I to do? I have these last hours with my family before I go and no moon-cursed idea what to do with them. I feel well enough to break away from Mother's hold. What was once safe and grounding now felt hot and uncomfortable. I am a mess of sweat and tears. I'm not allowed a clean escape. She stops me to wipe away the tracks on my cheeks and beneath my eyes, then cups my face in her hands. “Better?” she asks.

I look away before nodding and answering, “Yes. I'm sorry, Mother.” It's embarrassment that drives to me apologize. Here is what should be the greatest day of her life: her daughter's beginning to come of age, and I'm doing my best to ruin it by clinging to her like the child I'm no longer supposed to be.

She waves my apology away as though it were an irritating insect. When she takes my chin in hand and guides me to meet her eyes it's with a firm, inescapable grasp. “You've no reason to apologize,” she tells me. Her voice is as firm as her grip and leaves as little room to wiggle. “None. You are not the first daughter to weep in her mother's arms, and you'll not be the last.”

“But I–” My protest is interrupted both by me not really knowing how to express what I'm feeling and her actually interrupting me.

“This,” she declares, “is how it should be.”

In the face of her fierce reassurance, I can only nod. “Alright,” I say. Perhaps this is also childlike of me, to allow someone else to change how I feel. I have no idea how to not be a child. She smiles and mothers my hair and the way my dress sits on my shoulders.

“Now,” she says, “let us join the boys at the river and wash our gross and grime away. Shall we?” She offers her arm. I'm a mess of sweat and tears. My skin itches from where my sweat-dampened dress clings and my feet feel swollen and trapped as if in tiny cages. The idea of jumping into a snowmelt river and being foolish with Father and my brothers is one I find, at this moment, very agreeable.

“We shall,” I say decisively, and nod to confirm it. Arm in arm, we do.

- - -

We follow the sounds of splashing and shouting and find the river before the boys. The part of it we come to would, in the rush of springtime, be a place of roaring rapids. What is now a slow, blue-green meander around the riverbed stones would then be a breathtaking, white-tipped thunder of motion. It's not at all difficult to imagine that this stretch of water would be heard miles away then, for all that it can be no longer than fifty foot in lenght and half of that as wide. I look downstream for the rest of my family and see the waters curl into a lazy meander around a massive tree's trunk and out of sight.

Not that way, then.

Looking upstream I see a weir, a gentle slope of earth and stone down which the river flows. Not built by the hands of man, it seems have constructed itself over the many years. Beyond that comes an almighty splash, followed by the exultant whoop of a young boy. Father has probably thrown one of them or himself into the waters. I have faded memories of being small enough for that, of the trust and safety in Father's hands. Even as he was about to send me flying. “I think they're up there,” I say to Mother, pointing. There's another splash and joyful shout.

“They just might be,” She agrees, smiling wryly. I roll my eyes at her teasing and earn a pinch to my side as consequence. I squeak and shy away, pulling my arm free of hers.

“That hurt,” I complain, rubbing my hand across the grievous, hideous wound. It's a brazen lie with no effort made to conceal it. Now it is she who rolls her eyes.

“It did not,” she says. “Now, let's hurry along before your father hurts himself.” She puts deed to her word and sets off up the weir's gentle slope, and I follow. The ground is earthen clay here, wetter than dirt yet drier than sodden mud. Heel and toe sink in slightly as we climb.

I've a sudden urge to feel that on my bare feet and stop. I hop awkwardly on one foot while I work to free its twin from the boot that traps it. “No concern for your sons?” I ask, the picture of grace as I try not to fall on my face. With a grunt, the boot comes off. My foot is free to sink into the wet, cold clay and does. I hum, pleased.

“I should feel concern for the ground,” Mother answers. She's summitted the weir by now and I look up from my task to see her watching me with amusement. “should one strike it with their head. They're indestructible.”

I snort and manage to wrest my other boot off. The chill of the clay sinks into and soothes the overheated skin of my feet. It's lovely. I'd be more inclined to disagree with Mother's assessment of my brothers had I not a distinct memory of having my nose bloodied by one of those very heads.

Djan, my younger brother, had been bewildered and ecstatic at the birth of Tals, my youngest brother. He'd been five at the time and had come to me in his excitement, to climb into my lap and tell me everything he knew. He was so wild with his limbs that when he threw his head back into the bridge of my nose, I saw stars and had quite the pair of bruised eyes for a time.

Boots in hand I join Mother at the top of the weir and see them, along with my father. They had found themselves a pool nestled between a pair of large, mossy boulders. Doubtless the boys had jumped from their mighty peaks many times. There was a sandy shore to this pool, beyond which was grass. At the boundary were three pairs of shoes and three sets of shirts and trousers. They were not folded, instead thrown in a haphazard pile.

Father stands up to his chest in the water. He's shorter than Mother by half a head, and compensates for this in breadth and depth. His hair and beard are a dark red, his eyes blue. Tals, who share his look, is seated on his shoulders while Djan is climbing up his back. Djan has his eyes and Mother's hair. Father grunts as one of Djan's feet digs into his hip, but still manages to smile at us. “Wonderful, you're done,” he says. “perhaps they can clamber all over you now.”

Mother smiles at him, in the way she has for him and him alone. Her answer holds a deep betrayal, for she says, “Me? No, not their delicate mother.” A betrayal of me. “Their strong, beautiful sister is right here, after all.”

Tals sees me first. He grins at me, gap-toothed and sunny. “Zira!” he shouts, and waves so wildly he topples backwards off Father's shoulder and into the water. He surfaces and shakes the water from his eyes. He shouts my name again and begins to paddle towards the shore. I have enough time to set down my boots by the rest and get my vest off before he scrambles up the shore and collides with me. His skinny, wet arms wrap around my middle and I'm rocked back on my heel from the force of his hug. “Are you done with your lesson?” he asks. Before I can answer, he asks, “Can you – can you play now?”

Djan, from his place clinging to Father's back, contents himself to wave at me and is careful not to be too happy to see me. Or Mother. At ten years of age, he has deemed himself too grown to display such childish emotion. Gone are the days where he would be just as exuberant as our little brother, just as open. I sometimes find myself missing them. I pay no mind to how wet and squirming Tals is and wrap him in a hug of my own. “I can,” I answer, “if you give me a moment.”

He pulls away to look up at me and frowns mightily. He deliberates for a few moments before nodding and declaring, “All right,” in as dismayed a tone as can be mustered. I smile as he scampers over to greet Mother and tell her everything that has happened since he woke this morning. She listens, the model of interest, as though she was not there herself.

I fold my vest neatly and lay it atop my boots. The dark red linen it's made from was last year's birthday gift. It took me several long afternoons to stitch, even with help. I struggle to reach behind myself for the laces of my dress before giving up. I walk to the water's edge and let it lap against my feet. The tide picks up a little when Djan decides to leap off of Father and swim to shore. He trudges past me, heading towards one of the boulders, saying, “Watch me, alright? Watch me.” I promise to do so and wade in as he climbs one of the boulders.

When I'm close enough, Father wraps an arm around my shoulders to bring me in for an embrace. “How was your lesson?” he asks.

“It was my last,” I answer, and he understands. I see that clear enough. He nods.

“I see,” he says, grave in tone and set of face, “then it is all the more important I do this,” and before I can see the false nature of his seriousness he's lifting me by the waist and falling into deeper waters. I come up shrieking and grinning, laughter bubbling even as I retaliate. It's only mild drowning.

Atop the towering boulder peak Djan calls for an audience. His great leap can only be performed with all eyes on him. Once given, he hurls himself into the void and curls into a ball to fall and splash into the water. When he surfaces I make sure to be suitably impressed at the splash's size. He tells me I can't do better and I can't let that go unchallenged. Mother, from her seat in the shade of a tree, declares us all our father's children. Without wishing to boast overmuch, my splash manages to reach her.