Miniwrimo day one! More Tos and Sray
She stared off to the North. The question weighed heavier than it should. Where to from here. She sighed and leaned more heavily into the wagon's side. Where to from here. Standing here so far away from it all she felt lost. The last few days she felt blown about by the winds of a summer storm that couldn't decide which way they were going, twisting around each other, trying to decide if they were going to congeal into a tornado or unify to blow one direction. None of her options felt safe. They all seemed terrible and full of lurking danger. Things were no longer simple and the consequences were so much larger than she felt capable of managing.
Tos slowly stepped up beside her when she didn't respond. He gently put his hand on her right shoulder. Sray took in a sharp breath and turned her head towards him, seeming a little surprised he was still there.
"How are you?" He asked.
Another question that she had been struggling to find an answer for. "I'm alive, but I'm tired." She replied. "I'm tired of everything. I don't want to run, I don't want to fight, I want to hide and pretent the world doesn't exist, but I know if I run now there will be no end to it. There's nowhere I could go that this wouldn't follow." She shook her head and shrugged her shoulders, which caused Tos to move his hand and he leaned into the wagon side instead. "I don't know what I'm doing. Thinking I could face all of this." She looked down at her knotted fingers. "Last week I was so sure about what was next, but now it's all confused, crumbled, like fine ash with no weight or substance." She looked North again, as if staring towards Engama might provide the answers that were eluding her.
"Do you remember when we first met?" Tos asked, folding his arms and following Sray's distant stare. "When your mother brought you all into town the first time. She had picked you and Kallon up from where you'd been staying while she settled the property and you all came in for some supplies."
"Yes, I remember."
"You were a little shy." Tos recalled, full of nostalgia.
A soft laugh escaped her and she glanced at Tos. "That is an understatement. You were so eager and had a hundred questions and a thousand words I couldn't understand. My Ela'yan was so bad," she looked down and rubbed her fingers, "but my mother insisted I use it so I could learn, even if I was terrible at it. She practically abandoned me to your curiosity while she worked with your father."
"You were never terrible." He consoled. "You were nervous, but once you set your mind to it you became quite determined and learned quickly." He observed. "If you decide to do something, Sray, you get it done."
She shook her head. "This year has felt a lot like that, but worse." She admitted. "Everything new, and strange, and terrifying, except this time I didn't have my family to fall back on. I thought I figured it out these last two months, but," Sray touched just below the wound on her arm, even covered by her sleeve she knew exactly where it was and she feared that even when the stitches dissolved she would always be keenly aware of where it was and what it meant. A permanent reminder of how much some hated the idea that she even existed. She shook her head to clear the thought. "I don't know now."
"Your past caught up to you." Tos observed. "Are you going to meet it or run away?"
"What do you know about my past, Tos?" She asked back, a bit more bitter than she intended it to sound.
"Enough," he replied cryptically, unbothered by her tone.
She frowned back at him. "Who is keeping secrets now?"
Tos laughed. "It's your past, Sray, you'll tell me in your own time what you want me to know."
The Brotherhood of the Meim, secrets upon secrets. The only saving grace was that her family could know. If that wasn't the case she was sure it would crush her. She didn't tell them everything. There were things they did not need to know, like the contents of Gilbreizhyem's journal.