Family Matters

Yew finally sat down to write a letter to her parents, after everything that happened, she wanted to let them know. She wanted to tell them so many things, sitting at her desk. She stared at a blank page for hours, begging the words to come out. But every time she tried it was like her hands forgot how to form the shapes of anything other than runes. She absently snacked on some dried meat, her wounds long healed, but her indecisive thoughts made her hungry. It had been a long time since she last felt so much hunger, but it wasn’t a bad thing.

In fact, her family had been the ones to teach her that the hunger meant she was alive. She had learned to live with it. It seemed to return in full force with her song. Astilbe told her it was a sign of recovering from sadness, and that he was happy for her.

She wanted to write. Desperately wanted to put her thoughts and feelings down so she could send it to her parents. Spent hours trying and trying and trying, but nothing worked. None of the words she could start with felt like the correct words. Should she start with the everyday stuff about her research? Or start by addressing the rumors they had probably heard about her adventuring work? Was she supposed to tell them she missed them first? Or apologize for not keeping in better contact? Ignore all of that and talk about something inconsequential like one of the cafes she had been to?

She did not know, she wished that she did so that the words would come to her already.

In the end, Yew had shown up in Heliot’s house. She climbed in through an unlocked window and stood at the end of his bed until he woke up, screamed in fright, and fumbled off the other side. It took his sleep addled mind a few minutes to realize that it was just Yew. His brain refusing to compute that she would be in his home, willingly, after so many years of having to chase her down through obligation just to see how she was doing. He had promised Ulma that he’d look after their little sister if anything ever happened to her. Heliot had promised, but he also insisted nothing would happen. He never quite got over being wrong about that.

After he had some time to wake up and get dressed, he met Yew out in sitting room where she had been somewhat impatiently waiting. She looked at him like he was the unreasonable one, rather than her who had thought breaking and entering at six A.M. was a cool and fun thing to do. She glared at him so fiercely he wondered if she was about to blast him to pieces like she had the convention hall. Then she opened her mouth and complained more than he had heard her speak to him voluntarily since forever ago and he couldn’t find it in himself to be too irritated. He wondered what had changed; five or so weeks ago she had still hated his guts as far as he could tell.

But here she was. She could have gone straight to the point if she just wanted whatever she came for. Instead, she was willingly bringing up a bunch of unrelated things. For a little bit, it felt like they were family again. Unbidden, the sorrow of the past snaked its way through his heart, chilling him slightly. Yew seemed to notice because she stopped speaking, meeting his eyes in the silence.

She seemed conflicted about something. Her lips pursing in that way they so often do, the same old Yew. She had seemed so different today, like a stranger almost, until that moment of indecision crossed her face. She was lighter, it was not always easy to tell, because Yew was a calm person in general, but she seemed happier. He wasn’t sure about the cause of the change, but that was good. Heliot had never stopped hoping Yew would forgive herself for Ulma’s loss. His love never would have wanted her precious little sister to feel like she was responsible.

Heliot had tried to tell her that, once, and been thoroughly rejected before he even got the words out. Yew had slammed the door right in his face and refused to speak to for a month. That day had been especially terrible, having lost his fiance and then feeling like he was going to lose his sister too.

Then Yew spoke, and told him a very long story; he knew some of it, like what happened to Ulma and before, but there was so much he hadn’t heard. Most of the info he got through the grapevine about Yew’s life and wellbeing came in fragments that he had to organize himself. It was not always a simple matter to parse out what was truth and fiction when he didn’t have ready access to the only person that could confirm or deny what he heard. The last major rumor he had been able to confirm was the destruction of the convention hall and her subsequent acclaim to hero-hood for defeating an arch-lich be herself. He had not known that the lich in question was the same one Ulma had fought against and that had indirectly caused her loss in the first place.

At the end of it all she had looked straight at him and asked him to come with her to visit her parents. He hadn’t known what to say or think to that. Here she was, reaching out to him after all this time; here she was, asking for his support and comfort that he had always wanted to give her. The thought of it made him want to cry, just a little.

He didn’t cry, somehow. Nearly, but he didn’t.

He did go with Yew, however. And when she had entered the house she had yelled, “We’re home!”

Then he did cry. Right there in the doorway, he sobbed and sobbed, because he always thought she didn’t see him as family anymore. Yew had looked very concerned, attempting to comfort him. She tried patting him on the back and singing her song. He hadn’t heard it in years. He sobbed even louder. Heliot reached over from his place on the floor and grasped onto her old ratty cloak, which he distantly recognized as one that he and Ulma had gotten her for a past birthday.

She had worn it to tatters and still wore it even now.

Heliot realized that for all she pushed him away and been mad at him, she had never stopped seeing him as family, not truly. He was mildly embarrassed later though, not for having cried, but for having made such a spectacle of it that Yew hadn’t been able to enjoy her reunion with her parents. When he tried to apologize at dinner, Yew had stuffed a bread roll in his mouth and mother and father both had waved him off.

It was not exactly what Yew had been imagining when she went the collect the man for morale support, but it had worked out. She had been able to skip over the initial awkwardness by focusing on someone else. Once again, Yew told her story to her parents. They were proud of her, and worried, and told her they loved her no matter what. Yew spent the whole night with them.

***

In the morning, she went one last time to the field where the vanishing ruins sometimes appeared.

There she sat a few hours and spoke to her sister, just incase she could somehow hear it. She had a lot to catch her up on about her life, the last few months aside. She was sure Ulma would love to hear all about it.