Ashan 54, 708, Late Evening
“Again, Pa’bo?”
Ilynn was more than just a little displeased, that much was obvious in the lantern light as she led them quiet and barefoot through the lower half of the house. Windows open to the sea breeze, it was chilly in pre-dawn Ashan and the curtains all swayed every time the wind sighed over the grass covered dunes that rolled their way down to the beach. She’d been up, waiting to discipline him clearly, only to have Pash limp home bleeding and alone. Not even a friend to escort him, so ashamed of their exploits she assumed (and rightly so). She bade her eldest to sit on her impossibly tidy worktable after leading him to her weaving room, closing the door so that they didn’t wake his brothers or sister (or worse, Traek his father) while she worked on his injuries.
She lit another lantern and then set the brightest beside them, bidding the boy to remove his shirt carefully and show her the gash on his arm as well as the bruising on his face, his knuckles, and his body. Ilynn’s expression was taut like sails in a strong wind, and his mother’s gaze was so dark in her frustration her shifting irises may as well have been black pools. Her affectionate name for the boy bleeding in her work room was suited for a child, and she was clearly using it as an indication of her disappointment, not as her usual term of endearment to-trial.
“You should’ve seen the other guy, da’oat.” Pash retorted eagerly, defensively, blinking at the stinging pain across his forehead where there was the beginning of a bruise. He didn’t look at her face, the weight of her words heavy enough,
“Torim didn’t bring you home—was this his fault?” The shorter woman sniffed in judgement before turning away to retrieve a small leather bag from near her largest loom, a bag full of various medical supplies he knew she kept on hand because everyone came home from the shipyard injured eventually and even her no less mischievous husband Traek had been in a bar fight or two. Her eldest, however, had a terrible penchant for them, or at least his cousin did and Pash was just in danger by his constant association with her husband’s nephew.
“No.” The boy sighed, aware that he smelled of alcohol and hearth smoke, that he smelled of a tavern. His shoulders sagged but he hissed, the cut on his arm still bleeding. It was jagged and curved, the gash from a broken bottle running from his elbow downward across his wrist. He’d wrapped it in his shirt once he’d crawled from the bar fight, and yet his cousin and their friends had managed to escape unscathed, save for a few bruises that would heal in a handful of trials, “Djet started it. As usual, flirting with some other drunkard’s woman. I just wanted to play some music. I was next in line, too, but—“
“—I see.” She cut him short and offered Pash a stern smile. While it was easy to judge his poor decisions sometimes as his mother, it was obvious the boy was genuine. He was always more competitive around his cousin, the older, rougher boy often bringing out the worst in Pash’s already budding hedonism, Torim did sometimes put in the effort to look out for the younger, impressionable boy. More often than not, however, her nephew mostly looked out for himself, “Well, perhaps the next time you should play music in the market and not in a tavern, eh? Or at least take Unja with you or Kaden. Not Torim and Djet.”
Her tone was stern, but as she pulled some cloth from the bag and a glass bottle of her antiseptic tincture—which smelled more like the kitchen after a good meal than medicine,
“Let me clean this all up first, Pa’bo, and we’ll see about that cut.” Pouring some of the liquid onto the folded cloth, she reached for his arm and pressed the cloth firmly, causing the boy to wince and hiss, nodding to his other hand, she instructed him to hold the cloth on the wound and elevate his arm, “If we can’t get the bleeding to stop with pressure and elevation, I’ll have to do some stitching.”
Pash frowned, vaguely aware that would involve sharp objects and string.
Ilynn was a patient woman, not simply because of her calm nature but also because she had to put up with four children of her own and the handful of rowdy shipwrights that were her extended family. While he pressed against the silver gash, his mother began to set things aside on the work table her son sat on, his lanky legs swinging nervously, just barely brushing the floor despite his height.
“You waited up for me.”
“Aye, I did.” She smiled softly, pouring a bit more antiseptic tincture onto another cloth and beginning to dab gently at the scrapes and budding bruises, reaching carefully for his face and brushing his hair out of the way with a mother’s touch and a wink, dabbing at his forehead as she spoke, the smell of the herbs filling his senses, “I didn’t really agree to you three going to that tavern alone, Pa’bo.”
“It was just a night out with friends,” The boy smirked, lowering his arm as she reached for it and turned it to better view the wound, removing the cloth. The bleeding had slowed but she could see a few pieces of glass shine in the light. They were small, and it was only as she turned his arm slightly that Pash saw them, too, “and da'at said it was fine.”
“He would.” Ilynn didn’t look at her eldest as she spoke, reaching for her tweezers and setting his arm in his lap, firmly on his legs which had stilled in their swinging motions. She brought the lantern closer and asked him to hold still, “Perhaps he’s more ready for you to be a man than your mother is.”
She chuckled even though Pash grew quiet for a moment, watching as his mother carefully removed pieces of glass from the jagged gash on his arm, a bit more silver blood oozing slowly from the places where she tugged the shards free,
“I’m sorry.” He offered quietly, though his maturing baritone carried with it the implication that he wasn’t apologizing for the tavern so much as for growing up. His mistakes were his to make, but he had no control over time as it passed between both their fingers.
“It’s part of life, Pash, that growing up stuff. I can only hope that you’re a better man than Djet or Torim in that you learn from your mistakes some day.” Ilynn grinned, returning to wipe his wound with a bit more of the herbal tincture before pressing the cloth against it while he hissed in pain, “This may be shallow enough to not need stitches, but we should pack it and wrap it well. You’ll have a scar either way, I’m sure, but by U’Frek’s kindness, whoever attacked you missed all the major veins.” She ran her fingers over the places that would have been much more dangerous, showing him while she explained with the kind of tone that she would have used had he skipped a chore as a much younger child, “You wouldn’t have made it home had he gotten you here or here. So, you remember that next time you try to block a bottle with your wrist.”
The boy blanched at the thought, watching her as she dug a small container of salve that was thick with crushed herbs and smelled awful. Using a small wooden spoon, she carefully filled the groove of the wound with herbs, and Pash could only grit his teeth and whine to stay still, to keep himself from using his free hand to smack her hands away as the salve stung and gnawed under his skin with sharp pain. Ilynn whispered soothing apologies, her grip firm as she finished. She then placed a thin, folded piece of cloth over the length of the gash,
“Let’s wrap it up and then I think it’s time for you to get some sleep. The rest of your bruises will be there for Traek to see in the morning.” Her grin was mischievous, teasing her son about the potential reactions of his father, wrapping his wrist tightly but not suffocatingly so with soft, breathable bandages she may have woven herself. She had wrapped it in such a way to leave an end out and tied the bandage instead of pinning it, if only because she knew she’d be checking on it again the next day, “We’ll keep changing the dressing, checking for infection. I don’t know what was in that bottle, but if it was alcohol, I suppose it’s cleaner than it could have been. You can always use a bit of alcohol in a pinch to disinfect a wound. But it hurts.”
It was Pash’s turn to chuckle, the thought of pouring alcohol on an open wound sounding like a waste of something good.
“Thank you, da’oat.”
“You won’t thank me tomorrow—or the next trial, or the one after that—when I wake your sorry ass up to carry all of my fabric to market with me.” He still had one good arm and his punishment was clearly to be up even earlier than he needed to be for the shipyard. The boy groaned but leaned to hug the grinning woman anyway with his uninjured arm, closing his eyes for a moment and imagining himself much younger than he knew he was. Ilynn sighed in motherly satisfaction, both arms slipping around the too-big and too-strong shoulders of her eldest, “Next time you can clean yourself up while I sleep in, but I’ll keep a lantern lit just for you.”
Ilynn was more than just a little displeased, that much was obvious in the lantern light as she led them quiet and barefoot through the lower half of the house. Windows open to the sea breeze, it was chilly in pre-dawn Ashan and the curtains all swayed every time the wind sighed over the grass covered dunes that rolled their way down to the beach. She’d been up, waiting to discipline him clearly, only to have Pash limp home bleeding and alone. Not even a friend to escort him, so ashamed of their exploits she assumed (and rightly so). She bade her eldest to sit on her impossibly tidy worktable after leading him to her weaving room, closing the door so that they didn’t wake his brothers or sister (or worse, Traek his father) while she worked on his injuries.
She lit another lantern and then set the brightest beside them, bidding the boy to remove his shirt carefully and show her the gash on his arm as well as the bruising on his face, his knuckles, and his body. Ilynn’s expression was taut like sails in a strong wind, and his mother’s gaze was so dark in her frustration her shifting irises may as well have been black pools. Her affectionate name for the boy bleeding in her work room was suited for a child, and she was clearly using it as an indication of her disappointment, not as her usual term of endearment to-trial.
“You should’ve seen the other guy, da’oat.” Pash retorted eagerly, defensively, blinking at the stinging pain across his forehead where there was the beginning of a bruise. He didn’t look at her face, the weight of her words heavy enough,
“Torim didn’t bring you home—was this his fault?” The shorter woman sniffed in judgement before turning away to retrieve a small leather bag from near her largest loom, a bag full of various medical supplies he knew she kept on hand because everyone came home from the shipyard injured eventually and even her no less mischievous husband Traek had been in a bar fight or two. Her eldest, however, had a terrible penchant for them, or at least his cousin did and Pash was just in danger by his constant association with her husband’s nephew.
“No.” The boy sighed, aware that he smelled of alcohol and hearth smoke, that he smelled of a tavern. His shoulders sagged but he hissed, the cut on his arm still bleeding. It was jagged and curved, the gash from a broken bottle running from his elbow downward across his wrist. He’d wrapped it in his shirt once he’d crawled from the bar fight, and yet his cousin and their friends had managed to escape unscathed, save for a few bruises that would heal in a handful of trials, “Djet started it. As usual, flirting with some other drunkard’s woman. I just wanted to play some music. I was next in line, too, but—“
“—I see.” She cut him short and offered Pash a stern smile. While it was easy to judge his poor decisions sometimes as his mother, it was obvious the boy was genuine. He was always more competitive around his cousin, the older, rougher boy often bringing out the worst in Pash’s already budding hedonism, Torim did sometimes put in the effort to look out for the younger, impressionable boy. More often than not, however, her nephew mostly looked out for himself, “Well, perhaps the next time you should play music in the market and not in a tavern, eh? Or at least take Unja with you or Kaden. Not Torim and Djet.”
Her tone was stern, but as she pulled some cloth from the bag and a glass bottle of her antiseptic tincture—which smelled more like the kitchen after a good meal than medicine,
“Let me clean this all up first, Pa’bo, and we’ll see about that cut.” Pouring some of the liquid onto the folded cloth, she reached for his arm and pressed the cloth firmly, causing the boy to wince and hiss, nodding to his other hand, she instructed him to hold the cloth on the wound and elevate his arm, “If we can’t get the bleeding to stop with pressure and elevation, I’ll have to do some stitching.”
Pash frowned, vaguely aware that would involve sharp objects and string.
Ilynn was a patient woman, not simply because of her calm nature but also because she had to put up with four children of her own and the handful of rowdy shipwrights that were her extended family. While he pressed against the silver gash, his mother began to set things aside on the work table her son sat on, his lanky legs swinging nervously, just barely brushing the floor despite his height.
“You waited up for me.”
“Aye, I did.” She smiled softly, pouring a bit more antiseptic tincture onto another cloth and beginning to dab gently at the scrapes and budding bruises, reaching carefully for his face and brushing his hair out of the way with a mother’s touch and a wink, dabbing at his forehead as she spoke, the smell of the herbs filling his senses, “I didn’t really agree to you three going to that tavern alone, Pa’bo.”
“It was just a night out with friends,” The boy smirked, lowering his arm as she reached for it and turned it to better view the wound, removing the cloth. The bleeding had slowed but she could see a few pieces of glass shine in the light. They were small, and it was only as she turned his arm slightly that Pash saw them, too, “and da'at said it was fine.”
“He would.” Ilynn didn’t look at her eldest as she spoke, reaching for her tweezers and setting his arm in his lap, firmly on his legs which had stilled in their swinging motions. She brought the lantern closer and asked him to hold still, “Perhaps he’s more ready for you to be a man than your mother is.”
She chuckled even though Pash grew quiet for a moment, watching as his mother carefully removed pieces of glass from the jagged gash on his arm, a bit more silver blood oozing slowly from the places where she tugged the shards free,
“I’m sorry.” He offered quietly, though his maturing baritone carried with it the implication that he wasn’t apologizing for the tavern so much as for growing up. His mistakes were his to make, but he had no control over time as it passed between both their fingers.
“It’s part of life, Pash, that growing up stuff. I can only hope that you’re a better man than Djet or Torim in that you learn from your mistakes some day.” Ilynn grinned, returning to wipe his wound with a bit more of the herbal tincture before pressing the cloth against it while he hissed in pain, “This may be shallow enough to not need stitches, but we should pack it and wrap it well. You’ll have a scar either way, I’m sure, but by U’Frek’s kindness, whoever attacked you missed all the major veins.” She ran her fingers over the places that would have been much more dangerous, showing him while she explained with the kind of tone that she would have used had he skipped a chore as a much younger child, “You wouldn’t have made it home had he gotten you here or here. So, you remember that next time you try to block a bottle with your wrist.”
The boy blanched at the thought, watching her as she dug a small container of salve that was thick with crushed herbs and smelled awful. Using a small wooden spoon, she carefully filled the groove of the wound with herbs, and Pash could only grit his teeth and whine to stay still, to keep himself from using his free hand to smack her hands away as the salve stung and gnawed under his skin with sharp pain. Ilynn whispered soothing apologies, her grip firm as she finished. She then placed a thin, folded piece of cloth over the length of the gash,
“Let’s wrap it up and then I think it’s time for you to get some sleep. The rest of your bruises will be there for Traek to see in the morning.” Her grin was mischievous, teasing her son about the potential reactions of his father, wrapping his wrist tightly but not suffocatingly so with soft, breathable bandages she may have woven herself. She had wrapped it in such a way to leave an end out and tied the bandage instead of pinning it, if only because she knew she’d be checking on it again the next day, “We’ll keep changing the dressing, checking for infection. I don’t know what was in that bottle, but if it was alcohol, I suppose it’s cleaner than it could have been. You can always use a bit of alcohol in a pinch to disinfect a wound. But it hurts.”
It was Pash’s turn to chuckle, the thought of pouring alcohol on an open wound sounding like a waste of something good.
“Thank you, da’oat.”
“You won’t thank me tomorrow—or the next trial, or the one after that—when I wake your sorry ass up to carry all of my fabric to market with me.” He still had one good arm and his punishment was clearly to be up even earlier than he needed to be for the shipyard. The boy groaned but leaned to hug the grinning woman anyway with his uninjured arm, closing his eyes for a moment and imagining himself much younger than he knew he was. Ilynn sighed in motherly satisfaction, both arms slipping around the too-big and too-strong shoulders of her eldest, “Next time you can clean yourself up while I sleep in, but I’ll keep a lantern lit just for you.”
