war-of-shallows-009-first-and-ch – Vesper Elow

#warofshallows ## War of Shallows 009: First and Chosen The riverbank returned slowly. Radiv had stopped looking at the water. Juva had stopped looking at him. Both watched North Eis as if the star had been present in the memory and might object to some detail. "You never told me that," Juva said. "You never asked." "I asked about the day I was brought home." "No. You asked the people who enjoyed telling you how impossible you were." Juva accepted that because it was true. Pilas loved the story of her impossible life. They told it in halls, beside fires, and whenever a visitor needed to understand why the next ruler of Pila Land was not to be touched without permission. They always began with Vantack's greatness. They often ended with hers. No one had thought to mention his fear. "Did you hate me?" she asked. Radiv looked offended. "For being small?" "For taking him." He leaned back on his hands. The half-rock shifted beneath them. Neither moved to steady it. "You overestimate your achievements. Vantack was difficult long before you arrived." "Radiv." He sighed. "I hated everyone for a while. That was convenient because I was young and everyone deserved it." "Including me." "Especially you. You were loud, useless and permanently celebrated." Juva nodded. "But no," he said. "I did not hate you for taking him." "Why?" "Because he was not taken." The answer came too quickly to be invented. Radiv rubbed at the drying tattoos along his arm. The patterns had begun to move again, though slowly, as if the memory had tired them. "After the knot, Vantack changed. Everyone knows that. But he did not become less my father. He became worse at ordinary fathering, perhaps. His voice frightened my tutors. He stopped wearing clothes, which made formal meals worse than necessary. He could stand in daylight and still look like a door into a place without daylight." Juva waited. "But when I was afraid, he knew. When I lied, he knew before I finished choosing the lie. When I wanted something foolish, he let me have enough of it to regret myself properly." "That sounds like him." "He did not give you the part of him that belonged to me," Radiv said. "He gave you the part nobody had ever asked him to give." The sentence settled between them. Juva had no answer. Radiv tossed a small stone into the current. The splash was minor, almost polite. "Besides," he said, "if I had wanted to be successor, I would have challenged you years ago." "You did." "That was over the last honey cake." "You screamed succession words." "I was eight. The cake was large. Politics begins somewhere." Juva smiled despite herself. "You were Vantack's first child," she said. "And you were the child he chose." She looked at him. Radiv raised both hands. "Do not make that face. I am not dying of nobility. I enjoy travelling, returning with alarming hair, and allowing important people to underestimate me. It is a balanced life." "Balanced?" "I fall in many directions equally." The stars had fully sharpened. The Tail Moon had not risen, but its coming had begun to pale the eastern sky. Radiv followed her gaze and seemed to remember something. "That reminds me," he said. "What does the moon remind you of?" "Dials." "That is insulting to the moon." "They invited me again." Juva turned back to him. Radiv smiled with deliberate innocence. "Apparently, I am expected in Dial land before the Tail Moon ends."

Comments

Everyone can understand sacrifice when it becomes legend, but it is harder to see what remains after it

Love the picture, very unusual

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I really like how mysterious this looks. So much detail packed into one image, but it still feels quiet. The kind of art where you zoom in and keep finding new little things.