This is where Eik should tell Katniss that her son will grow up fine. More than fine. This is where he should say the boy will grow up with love, and that’s all a boy needs. But he doesn't, because he knows: parents can only do so much for their children. They can only make the choices they think are right. There are no redos, no do-overs. Mother, father, village can try to shape and steer and carve children a certain way, but in the end, children will be who they want to be.
Eik does not know that her son will grow up fine. He can’t even say for sure the boy will grow up, but he’s certainly not going to share such a cynical tidbit. He smiles, sad and hopeful at the same time. The expression is a ragged, tired thing, like a worn sail that’s seen too many storms. It could still catch the wind, though. It was not broken yet.
And finally, he says “I hope he doesn’t.” Eik wanted to be proven wrong on every suspicion he had, every foul assumption. He did not expect to be wrong (he was as wary as a jaguar in a city of concrete, out of place and all the sharper for it) but oh how he wanted to be.
Sometimes, there was nothing else to do but pray to gods who did not listen.
(Prayer, brooding, other exercises in futility-- he knows them all. All the foolish things hope makes us do.)
Her features soften as she says “They will come to respect you…to know that you only mean the best for them”
“I hope you’re right.” Hope, is that all he had? Even that seemed fleeting, most mornings. The truth was that every day his girls felt less like his girls. They were becoming not just daughters and sisters anymore, but their own creatures. Women. Wolves. They made him so proud, and so hopeful, and sometimes so very sad.
Like Katniss said: I can only hope I will be enough. Didn’t every parent think the same? But the burden was not entirely theirs, even if it felt that way sometimes.
Eik can see the burden she places on herself. It lives behind her eyes, like a ghost. He doesn’t know what to say, how to show her-- she’s not alone unless she wants to be. He thinks long and hard, eyes flitting over the horizon like the right words could be fished out of the distant sea.
After a long quiet, he finally speaks. “It’s not just you, you know. It’s all of us, together. The court.” He gestures to the kingdom below them. From here it looks so small and precious. “Isra. Me.” His words are self-concious, here. Like he’s afraid offering his support is more harm than help. (And what use are you. What good could you possibly do. Won’t you just make it all worse, all rotten, all blood-stained and broken-glass jagged?) “We’re a family, you know. Or we can be.” The words sound so… mushy and sentimental. Not something he favors hearing on his own lips. He’s scrambling now, trying to capture what it is he wants to express. It feels like digging a deeper and deeper hole. “I just mean… if you need anything, we’re here to help. We want to.”
Eik breaks off with an uneasy smile that does match the serious intent carved in his brow. He swallows, and tries to ignore the chanting of his ghosts.
(you're inviting her to ruin, don't you know? anyone who sits at your table is destined to burn.
broken, broken, breaking, all you know. broken,
broken,
breaking.)
@
Time makes fools of us all
