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Little D'iff lay face down on her bed with her teeth firmly clenched in her pillow, trying not to sob. The result was a muffled sound. Amel heard it, very faintly, through the wall. It infiltrated his dreams and gradually woke him up because he knew who it was. He slid free of Perry and got up. He didn't turn on the light in D'iff's adjoining room. The toddler heard him at the door and went still as a predator interrupted in the act of licking wounds. "It's Amel," he said into the darkness. "Are you all alone?" "Yes," came the sullen response from the precocious two year old. "Go 'way," Amel was told. "I'll go away," Amel promised obedience. "I'll just leave my voice behind to sing to you." A small shadow stirred and sat up on the bed. He had her attention. "What for?" "I lived in some bad places when I was a little boy," he said. "I was never as brave as you. When I cried I liked people to know. But sometimes no one who cared could come, so I imagined them. What they'd say. What they'd do. If I was D'Iff, of course, I wouldn't have needed to. D'iff is brave and strong all on her own. But since I've had so much practice, imagining, it would be nice if you'd let my voice stays behind, to try some out." The shape on the bed said nothing. Amel watched her wipe herface with an arm, in the dark. He groped for an appropriate song and began something old and familiar that wasn't a nursery rhyme but a working song. He followed that with a sad song about exploring space. Somewhere in the middle of it the dark shape on the bed lay down again. He was getting chilly by now, dressed only in the thin robe he'd pulled on when he climbed out of Perry's bed: a loose and shapeless one of hers. He liked it because it smelled of her. But Perry was always parsimonious with resources of any sort and it was winter beyond the walls. He rubbed his hands and tucked them under his arms. D'iff spoke up in the middle of the next poem. "Are you cold?" "A little," he said. "You can come back," the toddler announced. This baffled him until he recalled he had claimed to leave while his voice stayed behind. "Thank you," Amel accepted. D'iff held open her sheets to him. He hesitated, but the guesture was so simple and bold it felt vulgar to be self conscious about his history and nakedness beneath Perry's knee length robe, even if he was nervous about doing anything that could be misconstrued. D'iff settled immediately against his chest with proprietary confidence. "Sing," she said, tucking one little hand around his waist and adjusting her head to get comfortable on her breathing pillow. Amel settled an arm on her back, closed his eyes and began to sing again, her weight no impediment. She tolerated a local lullaby he'd only just, accidentally memorized, getting restless towards the end. "Do you know any stories about duels?" she chipped in before he began again. He did. Lots of them. "The best ones," he warned, "have a Demish bias." "That's okay," she said. "I can fix them in my head." "Fix them?" "You know, make the people who ought to win, win." So he recited Demoran classics aloud, in the dark, to Perry's formidible granddaughter, until she fell asleep as sweetly as any two year old, and Amel drifted off beside her, thinking that he really ought to get up. But he'd tried once, and she'd immediately woken and pressed herself closer, locking her fist in his robe. He found he lacked the strength to break her grip, tiny as it was, even after she was sleeping and its purposeful ferocity relaxed. |
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OKAL REL UNIVERSE |
Page last updated: 05-Dec-2003 |
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