Episode 184: Festival Food (Weston)

Weston liked holding Ari’s hand. It was one of those things you did when you we were weaving through crows. It was good and warm and once in awhile Ari would look back at him (because she was the one dragging him off to eat) and he liked her face and the way her eyes looked.

He liked them so much he was stuck in a daydream and when he looked up he saw a tall body.

It was really tall, like one of the skyscrapers you could see in other realms. It was a she body with kind of long clay-brown hair, that color that wants to be something nice like caramel but falls short and just looks like an afternoon of hard work.

She was his mom.

“Weston?” she asked.

She had left for for over three-thousand years for no reason except she wanted to. No, his luck knew she had to be away from him too. What had changed?

His height. His age.

She must have had a good feeling about it or live nearby.

He looked down and noticed Ari’s hand was gone. He had dropped it, though, not her. He wanted it to anchor him but all he had was himself, a foot in front of his mom with a confused Ari beside her.

“Mom?” he asked.

Maybe, hopefully, he was wrong.

“You’re.” She stood taller. Maybe she could tell he was mad at her, because her custardy smooth voice turned stoic. “Are you well?” she asked.

“Mom!” he ran the entire step to her and hugged him. She kneeled in front of him and wrapped him in her arms. It felt unreal. It felt important, because he had been twelve when last saw he and he was twelve now.

“I thought I would never see you again,” he remembered aloud. He had avoided thinking about her for the past few thousand years.

“What happened?” His mom asked.

“I.” He didn’t know what to say, where to start, how to handle the emptiness from her showing up after missing his life. He didn’t know what part of himself he wanted to share with her. So, he looked to Ari and hoped she wouldn’t mind being the focus. “Mom. This is Ari,” he offered.

“Hi,” Ari said.

“Hello,” a deeper voice boomed. “Welcome to the palace.” Weston looked up, behind up, and saw Konrad standing. Konrad’s hand extended across Weston’s shoulder.

His mom looked at Konrad’s hand and picked up the edges of her skirt instead. Konrad withdrew his hand as his mom curtsied. “Esmairi Akhan.”

Konrad tilted his head to her and she rose.

“Weston’s mother.” Konrad’s hands fell to Weston’s shoulders, holding him.

“Really?” Ari beemed. Her eyebrows contorted in the same moment. “I thought you had dads?”

Weston was a parent and a child, and he knew from both experiences that the best way to ruin a delicate situation was to invite your parents by. His mom was going to ruin his plan to introduce Ari to the idea of who he was over time, when it mattered.

“Well, dads can’t make babies,” he joked.

“You’re a gancanagh,” his mom commented. “Thank you for protecting him all these years.”

Weston had forgotten his mom was capable of being rude and polite in one sentence.

“We protected each other,” Konrad amended. He looked at Weston. “Hello again.”

Konrad looked even younger than the first time they had met, maybe because he wasn’t malnourished. Konrad had found him in a sea of kids, so he must have looked the same.

“Hi,” Weston replied. He liked the symbolism of reliving their lives together.

“Did you consider all the possible consequence?” his mom asked.

Seeing his mom, she was less a parent than Konrad. Konrad… he’d always be his dad. “Yeah,” Weston replied.

“What kept you? Some… three thousand years.”

Weston’s eyes shot to Ari. She was watching Amoret do cartwheels across the grass and hadn’t seemed to note the comment. He wondered if it was intentional, and his luck said it was a mix of avoiding intrusion and watching out for her twin.

His mom listed a bunch of reasons, but ended with: “You could have visited.”

“Alright,” Konrad replied, emanating Weston’s anger over the comment. He could have visited. He wanted to visit a thousand times and she had used luck or something to block where she was. Something stood in the way.

He bet by the time he could have visited he had given up on the idea. He didn’t want her here, now, trying to be his mom like he had never been shipwrecked. For his good or not, she abandoned him without warning.

“I know,” he grumbled. He turned to Konrad. “Wait! Dad.”

Konrad stopped, and after a moment Weston hoped was to hide a smile, turned back. “Yes?”

Sorry, Ari. “Where are you going?”

“I have Tarragon in the dungeon, if you’d like to help.” Konrad waited, hand resting casually on his sword. Weston wondered if he had a sword just so he would have a place for his hand.

“I want to.” Weston looked at Ari and his mom.

“Tarragon? Really?” Ari beamed. He was right, she liked adventure and some danger to them. He wanted to show her the world, worlds, more than anything else. But, not right then.

“Yeah, he escaped. But don’t tell anyone yet.”

“Go and do your work,” his mom said.

Good. Maybe she would vanish again. Except, he knew if she was there it mattered. He didn’t know why yet.

“I’d like to get to know Ari,” she added.

Great. Just what he needed; she knew who Ari might be to him. This was about Ari.

Calm. Ari was fine right now, and his mom wasn’t going to hurt her.

“I’ll see you for dessert?” he said to both of them.

Ari studied him as she spoke. “Okay. Have fun?”

“I will.” And then he would have to answer a few things, like how he hadn’t seen his mom in three-thousand years and why he was included in interrogations.

He walked off with Konrad, and together they headed toward the dungeons. Everything was further now. He missed his adult legs.

“You’re worried about my mom taking your place?” he teased Konrad.

“I have little faith in someone who let a twelve-year-old boy fend for himself. We would have done anything for you in those days.”

“She won’t replace you,” he assured Konrad. “But I should note she exists. She came now for a reason and I don’t know it yet.”

Konrad nodded as they walked. “Khale would have liked to know her, I think.”

“Well he can,” Weston replied. Luck, muddled in unknowns, still said there was a chance Khale would be alive soon.

“Yes, you mentioned that. Everything is primed.”

“But for what,” he wondered. “Why can’t it be easy to guess what bad thing will happen next?”

They continued their walk to the dungeon, secrets wafting through the air, with luck that was unsure of the future. He was twelve again, the beginning of when his first journey began. Anything could happen.

<- Episode 183 | Episode 185 ->