peerless_thayet (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
peerless_thayet) wrote2008-05-02 06:44 pm
peerless_thayet) wrote2008-05-02 06:44 pm
444 HE
Ten tiny fingers.
Ten tiny toes.
A small nose, no hint yet of a distinctive curve.
Eyes that already show signs of deepening to the Conte blue.
For the fourth time in an hour, Queen Thayet takes a tour of her new daughter's features and falls further under her spell. This adoration, this enchantment with every silky black hair, is different than what she felt when Roald was born. With him there had been a feeling of relief, of a duty fulfilled. Now there is only amazement.
It's that way with mothers and daughters, she thinks. Even more so when the daughter is named after her grandmother, the most beautiful woman in the world: Kalasin. Thayet breathes the name like a prayer and feels her heart warm. Years have passed, but she's never truly gotten over the manner of her mother's death. At first, there hadn't been time to think about it; survival trumps grief. Then she came to Tortall and discovered a singular happiness, a rich life she had never expected to lead, and she began to feel guilty for indulging in even small sorrows.
But this girl-child in her arms is a balm for old wounds she’d forgotten to tend.
Kalasin.
The name is loaded with meaning for Thayet and every daughter of Sarain. It's strength, humility and a true nobility of purpose as well as blood. It's honesty. It's dark, kind eyes and fairness. It's remembering one's past, and honoring one's ancestors. It's sacrificing the self for the good of others, and beauty that goes beyond the ephemeral surface.
Kalasin of Conte’s namesake stood in her window and sang of her shame at the laws her husband had enacted against her people. She threw herself to her death so that jian Wilima and everyone who heard the tale would know that it's not right to abuse the K’mir -- to abuse anyone. The news spread, and when they could, K’miri men and women broke the assembly laws and chanted to honor the Warlord’s dead K’miri wife.
Thayet tells the tale to her daughter, even though Kalasin's far too young to understand anything except the cadence of her mother's voice. And she'll tell it again and again, until the child knows it by heart, until it's almost a memory in her mind the way it is for the people who were there.
A quiet knock echoes through the darkening chamber. Sunset is only a few minutes away.
“Come in,” Thayet answers, tearing her eyes away from a fascinating miniature fingernail.
The door opens, admitting a dark, compact K’mir wearing a determined expression; she’d also lost a mother that day, and a brother.
“Good. You're just in time, Buri.” Thayet’s smile lights the room. “We have a birth chant to sing.”
Ten tiny toes.
A small nose, no hint yet of a distinctive curve.
Eyes that already show signs of deepening to the Conte blue.
For the fourth time in an hour, Queen Thayet takes a tour of her new daughter's features and falls further under her spell. This adoration, this enchantment with every silky black hair, is different than what she felt when Roald was born. With him there had been a feeling of relief, of a duty fulfilled. Now there is only amazement.
It's that way with mothers and daughters, she thinks. Even more so when the daughter is named after her grandmother, the most beautiful woman in the world: Kalasin. Thayet breathes the name like a prayer and feels her heart warm. Years have passed, but she's never truly gotten over the manner of her mother's death. At first, there hadn't been time to think about it; survival trumps grief. Then she came to Tortall and discovered a singular happiness, a rich life she had never expected to lead, and she began to feel guilty for indulging in even small sorrows.
But this girl-child in her arms is a balm for old wounds she’d forgotten to tend.
Kalasin.
The name is loaded with meaning for Thayet and every daughter of Sarain. It's strength, humility and a true nobility of purpose as well as blood. It's honesty. It's dark, kind eyes and fairness. It's remembering one's past, and honoring one's ancestors. It's sacrificing the self for the good of others, and beauty that goes beyond the ephemeral surface.
Kalasin of Conte’s namesake stood in her window and sang of her shame at the laws her husband had enacted against her people. She threw herself to her death so that jian Wilima and everyone who heard the tale would know that it's not right to abuse the K’mir -- to abuse anyone. The news spread, and when they could, K’miri men and women broke the assembly laws and chanted to honor the Warlord’s dead K’miri wife.
Thayet tells the tale to her daughter, even though Kalasin's far too young to understand anything except the cadence of her mother's voice. And she'll tell it again and again, until the child knows it by heart, until it's almost a memory in her mind the way it is for the people who were there.
A quiet knock echoes through the darkening chamber. Sunset is only a few minutes away.
“Come in,” Thayet answers, tearing her eyes away from a fascinating miniature fingernail.
The door opens, admitting a dark, compact K’mir wearing a determined expression; she’d also lost a mother that day, and a brother.
“Good. You're just in time, Buri.” Thayet’s smile lights the room. “We have a birth chant to sing.”