The one I’d thought he’d lost.
The pin I’d bought him from the travel port ten years ago was still on the breast of the cloak. The pin of the two stars—me and him.
Seeing it now brought a rush of tears to my eyes, and I didn’t bother to quiet my sudden sobs. I was alone here, deep in Stellara. No one would hear me, unlike at RaanaDyaan, where I muffled my cries into my palm under the weight of blankets late at night.
The cloak was damp. When I lifted it my nose, it smelled nothing like my father, another reminder of how long it had been since I’d last seen him. What had he even smelled like? I couldn’t remember.
For the first time, I allowed myself to admit it.
“I’m afraid,” I whispered, the words ripped from my throat, harsh and sad.
My shoulders shook with my sobs.
“And I miss you,” I cried. “What…what am I going todo?”
I allowed myself to cry until I grew tired with the tears, until my eyes were swollen and my nose was running, thinking that last question over and over again.
I’d never been alone before. I’d always had him. But now…now I didn’t. And I needed to learn how to live with that.
What was I going to do?
What you promised him,I thought next, the answer easy.And once you do that, maybe you’ll have a new answer to that question.
That gave me comfort. One step at a time. One moment into the next. That was all I could do.
The hour grew late. After my tears had long dried and my nose felt raw from wiping at it, I sat with my back against the legs of the table, my father’s cloak nestled in my lap.
I’d found it.
I’d found the cottage from his letters. He’d come here after all. Had he been looking for her? Had he discovered what I’d discovered now…an empty, rotting cottage? A melancholic, depressing shell of what it had once been?
I remembered the bleakness on his expression that night. It likely mirrored my own right now.
But as I looked around, my Halo orb making circles overhead, making the shadows dance in the open space of the cottage…
I knew what I wanted to do.
What Ineededto do.
I can see it,I thought, my eyes beginning to prickle with the sting of longing, gazing around at the desolate space, imagining a fire, imagining the warmth. I could imagine this cottage cast in gentle light. My father would’ve imagined a kitchen of his own, drying his herbs along the windowsill, tied up with brown twine, once the encroaching vines were cleared away. During the day, shafts of sunlight would spear the floor, spreading gold in their wake.
I could imagine a garden in the front. Blooming bright with edible flowers in the warm season. A garden of his favorite things.Kannospice. Winter weed for teas.Varaamfor sweetener.
I could see myself here.
Disappearing softly into this magical, quiet place.
A home of my own making.
Not my home,I amended, feeling gentle determination rose.
Theirs.
It would be the last gift to my father once I brought his body back to Krynn and made his soul gem. I could bring him here. But only if it was restored to what it had once been. Their quiet place.
A home oftheirown making, the home they’d never gotten the chance to build together.
My breaths came quick. Tears rushed in my eyes. It wasn’t quite a vision. It was a…hope. It was what could be.
