1 – 4

I'm watching the fire die out. The once blazing warmth within the pit is now a banked ember of its former self. Only a soft orange glow remains. Night is well fallen and brought cold with it. As I breathe, mist curls from my lips. What I can see of the night sky is black as pitch, with neither moon nor stars to cast their pale, lifeless light down on me. My new cloak is wrapped tight around me, my satchel and knife in my lap. The heavy cloth is warm and thick as I curl beneath it. For the moment, I am alone. Mother and Father have taken the boys in for bed. It's a monumental task, requiring both of them to complete. Neither Tals nor Djan are in the mood to cooperate, judging by the muffled complaints I hear coming from the wagon. It draws a smile from me.

It's a smile that fades soon, taken by the once-again had realization that soon I won't be witness to these nightly arguments. I won't hear my parents' patience wearing thin, held together by love and force of will. It's not the hot, stinging rush of tears that come over me – I've run dry of those – but a strange sort of weariness that takes me by surprise. It's the fatigue of a heart that has been worn out by strong feeling. It's hollow, like I've been scraped out and stretched thin. My eyes droop, heavy from this weariness and the tears I shed earlier. I lower my head to rest my brow atop my knees. The hood of my new cloak falls atop my head and drapes me in warm, dark quiet.

I can sleep like this. I likely will, in the days to come. Here, in this dozing space, I can admit that I am eager to begin walking my road. I am as eager for that as I am sorrowful to be leaving. There is much I wish to see. To stand in the foothills of the Icewall and see their peaks break open the sky. I want to walk the streets of the city-kingdoms and see their vast, ancient sprawls. I want to walk the sands of the far southern desert, gather handfuls of its red sand and let it fall between my fingers. We are wanderers, we Royah, and know much of the world. The hidden paths and secret ways are ours.

Fear tempers that eagerness. A large part of why each grown child of my people sets off on their road is to learn of our truest selves. By going out, alone, and experiencing all this land has to offer we become who we are meant to be. When we return to our families it is as this true, grown self.

If we return.

It's easy to imagine running afoul of one of the many dangers that await the unaware. Beasts that prowl the wilds, uncaring of anything but soothing the ache in their bellies. For that, I would serve as well as a deer. The roads are safe from them, but replaced by bandits or others of ill-intent. Their ache is for what I possess and will take it if they can. If I avoid these, there are other threats to strike me down. Illness, storm, or sheer misfortune. I can and may very well die on this road of mine.

I've tried not to think about it too much. There's not been much success. It's easier to ignore something when it's a ways in the offing, as this journey's beginning has been for so long. I can't ignore it anymore. Wrapped in my new cloak's warmth and unwilling to leave it, I hear Mother and Father emerge from the wagon. They take care to quiet their exit, so they must have won the argument for boys needing their sleep.

I imagine my family and all the days of their lives stretching out without me. Them learning to exist around the space I used to occupy. It's a sad and dreadful thing, which I resolve here and now will not happen. I promise, to myself and the blessed sun: I will return alive from walking my road. I will take in this land's beauty and danger, grow from it, and become my true self. When I return, it will be as a grown daughter of the Lost. I will be older, wiser, and better than when I left.

I hear Father settle beside me with a groan and a wordless grumble. His broad, warm hand settles between my shoulders. Mother adds a handful of twigs to the fire, bringing it back to a semblance of life. The rising warmth spreads first across my feet, then up my legs. I sigh heavily under the solid weight of my promise.

Only, I can't be the first to make such a promise. How many have sat where I sit, on the eve of their first steps down a long and winding road, and sworn to see its end? How many of them died at the claws of a beast, the blade of a man, or the rage of a storm? I can't think of anything that makes me different from them. What separates my promise – separates me – from them?

I don't know. Mother sits on my other side and sighs. She reaches into the folds of my new cloak to take my hand and draw it out to hold between hers. She sighs again, this time with a hitch in the long breath. Her fingers twine between mine and hold tight. It's warm and strong and this is when I realize that will is what separates me. I will not die on my road. I will not allow it. There is no danger out there that will stop me from coming home. This, I promise. To myself and the blessed sun.

- - -

It would be wonderful if a single promise, sworn to be kept, is enough to chase away my fears. I would like it very much if my will is strong enough to suppress my doubts. I am trying, and it in the midst of this conflict that Mother asks me, “Are you well, Zira?”

It is because of this conflict that I answer honestly. “No,” I confess. I leave my head resting on my knees and hide beneath the hood of my new cloak. I meant to lie, if I were asked. It seems kinder to me if my parents think I am well and ready to leave. With the truth out that intent is worth nothing. There's no point in lying anymore. “I...am not.”

Father's hand shifts up to grasp my shoulder. His offered support is quiet, warm, and strong. Between that and the gentle slide of Mother's fingers over my own I find myself spilling my thoughts without prompting. Every feeling in my heart and the conflict their presence brings fly from between my lips. They rush out, like the rapids of a river in spring. I can't stop myself, even as I make less and less sense. It's only the presence of my parents, and the place of safety they create, that I finally can. I fall quiet and leave a stunned silence in my wake.

I must now add embarrassment to the things I feel.

Every word I just spoke was directly into my own knees. There's no way I was understood. None. All of that mad babble did nothing but make me look as if I've lost my mind. “Zira,” Father says eventually. His free hand pulls my hood away. “Look at me, daughter.” I do, and the hand atop my head moves down to cup my chin. I meet his eyes and there is a fierce kind of love in them. “You do not shame us,” he says, “you have not shamed us, ever.”

I don't understand why he's saying this, not at first. Then, unbidden, a portion of my mad bleating rises to the surface of my memory. “I will make a fool of myself to the other clans,” I had said, “they'll think less of me and worse of you!”

Father isn't done. “If they do not see your value,” he tells me, as sure and true as if speaking of the rising sun, “then they are at fault. Unless,” his beard quirks, “you set fire to a wagon or paint something lurid on its walls.” I smile, as he no doubt intended with his words.

“Please, do neither of those things,” Mother interjects. Father looks over my head at her and the quirk becomes a full smile. That look, in which they trade some kind of knowledge, lasts only a moment. He returns his gaze to me, moving his hand on my chin to my cheek.

“You understand?” he asks.

I don't, but am reluctant to admit it. So I say, “I do,” and nod. He looks me long in the eye, as if searching for the lie I just told. I hope he doesn't find it.

He doesn't. “Good,” he says, and releases me only to pull me in close to put a kiss to the crown of my head. I breathe deeply in the strong embrace and try to take the surety of it and make it mine. He releases me suddenly and nods. “The fire needs tinder. I'll go and fetch some.” He stands and makes for the treeline, soon swallowed whole by the dark of night.

Wrly and with great affection, Mother observes, “You would think he's allergic to feeling with how he runs from it.”

I turn to see the smile she wears that shaped her words. “It's just his way,” I defend. “He shows his care in other ways.”

Mother arches a brow. “Does he now?” she asks, playful. “Tell me more of my children's father and my constant companion these sixteen years.”

I smile and play along, humming thoughtfully before answering, “Well, he has a bearded. It's scratchy.”

“Yes,” Mother agrees, and there's just enough of something in her tone that makes me recoil from this game, “it is.” Talk quiets between us, the silence filled by the crackle of the fire and Father's stomping around nearby underbrush. She turns my hand over in hers and traces the lines of my palm. “You were so small,” she says, quiet and wistful, “I could hold half of you in the palm of my hand. Now look at you. I closed my eyes for a moment and you're grown.” She blinks hard and asks, “When did you grow up?”

I wrap my arms around her middle and hold tight. She takes me under her arms and presses her lips to my brow. Her hand runs through my hair and we sway side-to-side. Her smile wavers against my skin, breaths shuddering beneath my grasp. “I love you, Mother,” I say.

She swallows thickly before answering, voice cracking as she does, “And I you, my darling girl,” Then she sighs and huffs a shaking laugh. “As does the lumberfoot out there.”