"There may come a day little fox, where death comes to your door and you die alone. I am not here to fill your head with tales of princes carrying you off into the sunlight. It would be nice no? But that is not our way. It does not matter what clan we come from little fox. Our people are built for hardship, endurance, for war. Something the West will never understand. If they knew what we had to offer. We would be allies. Instead, they would rather crush us. However, there is one thing, that our enemies cannot take from us. Our actions. Your Mother was a weak vessel when she gave birth to you. The ancestors saw it if fit to curse her womb. She brought misfortune upon you. The world is silent for you. But where one sense is dulled. The other is heightened. Draw strength from this. And with luck, you will produce better children than your Mother. Now go outside and play. I have other children to impart wisdom to and these old bones weary."
She awakens gasping, her eyes turning to the stars above after she catches her breath. After every camp, they've been in. The others may have noticed that like Ryheric she sleeps far away from everyone else. Her daughter tucked into a makeshift bed of furs next to her. Who is now awake thanks to her Mother's dreaming. The toddler doesn't cry, she just stares at her Mother in the dark. "Why Mama awake? Mama hurt? Salin help?" This brought the faintest of smiles to her face. She saw an innocence in her daughter, that she did not get to keep in her own childhood. An innocence that she would die to protect if she had to. Sicarra sits up and takes the child into her arms putting her into her lap. She said nothing to the child's inquiry. Sometimes words were not needed to understand one another. Yet, she also knew, that words are powerful and can shift the future or present. Her grandmother knew that. And now she is the voice that prods at her mind. At her soul. 'Remember I am all that you have.' Was this love? Or control? She could not tell. Yet, it was very true, during her childhood. Her grandmother was all she had. The only one that ever affirmed her. They said that she died of a fever in her hut. But something told her there was more to her past than meets the eye. Ghosts always came out at night. And this one was particularly stubborn. Always popping up when all she wanted was rest. Sometimes imparting wisdom, other times, imparting bittersweet memories.
Nan went silent now. And her thoughts were replaced with another person as she rocked back and forth with Salin. Hoping to lure the toddler back to sleep. There was no need for her daughter to share in the misery of her sleeplessness. Tarsorel.. claimed to be the shield. But from her perspective, he wasn't anything like he claimed to be. Perhaps she foolishly put him on a pedestal, perhaps this was the idealism her Nan warned her about. He made her feel like a princess for a little while. He showed her what it was like to be a 'western' woman.' Until the blood in her veins reminded her that such a man could not contain the fire she had within. He already lost a wife and she did not want to be a simple replacement. Labels were dangerous things if you could not live up to them. She wanted him to deliver. She wanted him to do everything he said he would. Her faith in him now left a bitter taste in her mouth. Sicarra didn't need him to protect her. But she wanted him to. Not all the time, but every now and then, so that she could breathe. She wanted him to be her refuge, her soft landing when she needed it. Maybe it was too much to ask.
The truth is she never met anyone like Tarsorel before. In the beginning, he was kind, he did not scorn her for the 'silent' world she lived in. He seemed to value her for who she was. Rather than what she could give. However, part of her, felt like that it was all too good to be true. He said he wanted to know her and with each conversation she slowly began to let him in. Until she drew the conclusion that he did not like what he saw. He wrote to her when the relationship ended. He asked her to come back to Bree again to raise Salin. She never wrote back. 'I will let him stay in the hole that he buried himself in.' she thought.
No one was perfect this is true. But there was nothing she hated more than hypocrisy and the failure to uphold one's word. Her own husband did not bring her 'love' in the traditional sense. In, fact, in the west he wouldn't be considered a husband at all. She didn't bother explaining this to most she came across. Why should she? Yes, Zeld is malicious, yes he is manipulative. However, she always knew that he would deliver. That he always did what he set out to do. She knows that he is still out there somewhere. And one day she would have to face him. For now she sits and holds her daughter in the night. Reflecting on the defender she has become. A defender of those that under any other circumstance she would consider enemies. Now they were her clan. Her real clan. And she sensed that something new was on the horizon.
