Schaffa tenses. “Nassun.” The blaze of silver within him suddenly goes still and dims slightly. It is as if the corestone is aware of the threat she poses.
It is for his own good.
But.
She swallows. If she hurts him because she loves him, is that still hurt? If she hurts him a lot now so that he will hurt less later, does that make her a terrible person?
“Nassun, please.”
Is that not how love should work?
But this thought makes her remember her mother, and a chilly afternoon with clouds obscuring the sun and a brisk wind making her shake as Mama’s fingers covered hers and held her hand down on a flat rock. If you can control yourself through pain, I’ll know you’re safe.
She lets go of Schaffa and sits back, chilled by who she has almost become.
He sits still for a moment longer, perhaps in relief or regret. Then he says quietly, “You’ve been gone all day. Have you eaten?”
Nassun is hungry, but she doesn’t want to admit it. All of a sudden, she feels the need of distance between them. Something that will help her love him less, so that the urge to help him against his will does not ache so within her.
She says, looking at her hands, “I… I want to go see Daddy.”
Schaffa is silent a moment longer. He disapproves. She doesn’t need to see or sess to know this. By now, Nassun has heard of what else transpired on the day that she killed Eitz. No one heard what Schaffa said to Jija, but many people saw him knock Jija down, crouch over him, and grin into his face while Jija stared back with wide, frightened eyes. She can guess why it happened. For the first time, however, Nassun tries not to care about Schaffa’s feelings.
“Shall I come with you?” he asks.
“No.” She knows how to handle her father, and she knows that Schaffa has no patience for him. “I’ll be back right after.”
“See that you are, Nassun.” It sounds kindly. It’s a warning.
But she knows how to handle Schaffa, too. “Yes, Schaffa.” She looks up at him. “Don’t be afraid. I’m strong. Like you made me.”
“As you made yourself.” His gaze is soft and terrible. Icewhite eyes can’t be anything but, though there’s love layered over the terrible. Nassun is used to the combination by now.
So Nassun climbs out of his lap. She’s tired, even though she hasn’t done anything. Emotion always makes her tired. But she heads down the hill into Jekity, nodding to people she knows whether they nod back or not, noticing the new granary the village is building since they’ve had time to increase their stores while the ashfalls and sky occlusions are still intermittent. It’s an ordinary, quiet day in this ordinary, quiet comm, and in some ways it feels much like Tirimo. If not for Found Moon and Schaffa, Nassun would hate it here the same way. She may never understand why, if Mama had the whole of the world open to her after somehow escaping her Fulcrum, she chose to live in such a placid, backwater place.
Thus it is with her mother on her mind that Nassun knocks on the door of her father’s house. (She has a room here, but it isn’t her house. This is why she knocks.)
Jija opens the door almost immediately, as if he was about to leave and go somewhere, or as if he has been waiting for her. The scent of something redolent with garlic wafts out of the house, from the little hearth near the back. Nassun thinks maybe it is fish-in-a-pot, since the Jekity comm shares have a lot of fish and vegetables in them. It’s the first time Jija has seen her in a month, and his eyes widen for a moment.
“Hi, Daddy,” she says. It’s awkward.
Jija bends and before Nassun quite knows what’s happening, he’s picked her up and swept her into an embrace.
Jekity feels like Tirimo, but in a good way now. Like back when Mama was around but Daddy was the one who loved her most and the stuff on the stove would be duck-in-a-pot instead of fish. If this were then, Mama would be yelling at the neighbors’ kirkhusa pup for stealing cabbages from their housegreen; Old Lady Tukke never did tie the creature up the way she should. The air would smell like it does now, rich cooking food mingled with the more acrid scents of freshly chipped rock and the chemicals Daddy uses to soften and smooth his knappings. Uche would be running around in the background, making whoosh sounds and yelling that he was falling as he tried to jump up in the air—
Nassun stiffens in Jija’s embrace as she suddenly realizes: Uche. Jumping up. Falling up, or pretending to.
Uche, whom Daddy beat to death.
Jija feels her tense and tenses as well. Slowly he lets go of her, easing her to the ground as the joy in his expression fades to unease. “Nassun,” he says. His gaze searches her face. “Are you all right?”
“I’m okay, Daddy.” She misses his arms around her. She can’t help that. But the epiphany about Uche has reminded her to be careful. “I just wanted to see you.”
Some of the unease in Jija fades a little. He hesitates, seems to fumble for something to say, then finally stands aside. “Come in. Are you hungry? There’s enough for you, too.”
So she heads inside and they sit down to eat and he fusses over how long her hair has gotten and how nice the cornrows and puffs look. Did she do them herself? And is she a little taller? She might be, she acknowledges with a blush, even though she knows for certain that she is a whole inch taller than the last time Jija measured her; Schaffa checked one day because he thought he might need to requisition some new clothes with Found Moon’s next comm share. She’s such a big girl now, Jija says, and there is such real pride in his voice that it disarms her defenses. Almost eleven and so beautiful, so strong. So much like—he falters. Nassun looks down at her plate because he’s almost said, so much like your mother.
Is this not how love should work?
“It’s okay, Daddy,” Nassun makes herself say. It is a terrible thing that Nassun is beautiful and strong like her mother, but love always comes bound in terrible things. “I miss her, too.” Because she does, in spite of everything.
Jija stiffens slightly, and a muscle along the curve of his jaw flexes a little. “I don’t miss her, sweetening.”
This is so obviously a lie that Nassun stares and forgets to pretend to agree with him. Forgets lots of things, apparently, including common sense, because she blurts, “But you do. You miss Uche, too. I can tell.”
Jija goes rigid, and he stares at her in something that falls between shock that she would say this out loud and horror at what she has said. And then, as Nassun has come to understand is normal for her father, the shock of the unexpected abruptly transforms into anger.
“Is that what they’re teaching you up in that… place?” he asks suddenly. “To disrespect your father?”
Suddenly Nassun is more tired. So very tired of trying to dance around his senselessness.
“I wasn’t disrespecting you,” she says. She tries to keep her voice even, inflectionless, but she can hear the frustration there. She can’t help it. “I was just saying the truth, Daddy. But I don’t mind that you—”
“It isn’t the truth. It’s an insult. I don’t like that kind of language, young lady.”
Now she is confused. “What kind of language? I didn’t say anything bad.”
“Calling someone a rogga-lover is bad!”
“I… didn’t say that.” But in a way, she did. If Jija misses Mama and Uche, then that means he loves them, and that makes him a rogga-lover. But. I’m a rogga. She knows better than to say this. But she wants to.
Jija opens his mouth to retort, then seems to catch himself. He looks away, propping his elbows on the table and steepling his hands in the way he so often does when he’s trying to rein in his temper.