"May I have this dance," asked Zeke. He stood in the center of the room, a warm yellow glow highlighting his white tunic, his smile as bright as the ocean was wide. The hynerian exuded charm and grace, a trait he never seemed to have to work very hard to exhibit.
His bride of heart and soul smiled. And in that smile, two souls joined hands and feet moved not asunder to a beat known in the memory of love grown as branches in the tree of time. Kyra, peeked her small head over the railing, her nightgown kissing the wooden floor, her eyes wide in the dance of light and love playing out in the smooth movements below. She imagined whispers of endearment as grand leaned her head into papa's broad chest, her hair flowing as silk, his arm wrapped with care around her waist. A tear fell.
"Kyra? asked Ariel. "Why are you crying?"
Startled, Kyra looked up. Rubbing her eyes she said: "Was I crying?"
"Do you miss your mom too?" Ariel added, her eyes as big as saucers.
Kyra smiled, the memories of her mind dancing in the young expectant eyes before her. In a voice as sincere and warm as natural honey she spoke as one someplace else. "Yes, I miss my mom too."
10 comments:
So lovely and superbly written, starting with the title, it would be an injustice to leave you with the half a comment I had time and coffee to write. The correlations all through this one show a beautiful mind at work.
Dear Sweetest, if I could take the essence of your beautiful soul, bottle it, and slip into the waterworks round the world, we'd see a transformation of life as we know it.
As you can see, I decided not to be as direct in Kyra expressing, even in a thought, her feelings for her absent mother (and father for that matter). Although she has not (yet) addressed the matter in the story, it has always been an undercurrent in my mind as I see her and her actions. Her whole personality is built on two foundations: (1) Papa's love; (2) the aching sadness of parents that put work before child.
Sometimes it is hard for her to watch John and Ariel interact. Now that Cait has died, we might see a connection form between Kyra and Ariel or at least a slightly different view that Kyra takes of her. As always, stay tunes as this glacier of a story moves forward. :-D
Bless you for your eternal sweetness, I could so easily get addicted. Though who I am trying to kid with that statement I know not, that inevitability happened with you as a person, and this story, a long time ago. :-D
Brightest star in the blogging universe, and much loved friend, you know my world changed back when with the knowledge there are people such as you that reside in it.
Been sitting with Kyra all day, watching Papa and Grand, watching Ariel. I have a great admiration for how in one short chapter, you urge forth so many impressions given in past chapters. How in just the memory and the short exchange, you somehow manage to write a paragraph between each line. :-) There is for example a chapter near the beginning of the story when the crew are yet nameless and faceless, always prominent in memory, that conveys their thoughts and feelings as they begin their journey to find a new place to call home. The precariousness of their situation, their prayers for survival and hopes for a future are palpable in this chapter, easier to believe too that one can begin to understand what that might be like, simple emotions of fear and hope voiced on behalf of the crew as a whole before there were facets, before the tinges of character, of memory, of age, of dreams and how these tweaked complexity into what was generalized. Not grand variations, fear is fear (to cite one), but with each new detail that we learn about your multi-faceted characters, there is always something to make the simple even more interesting.
So tender a scene pictured here, a life and a great love shared until an autumnal age. Timeless in not only the knowledge that this was not the only time, Grand and Papa shared such a moment, timeless too in that the love survived the loss of one of them and survives still in Kyra's memories. As she remembers this happy time, them, how they were with each other, how they were with her, she does so when John has lost Cait, just as Kyra is without Kieran. Nameless once, since we know better that in leaving Hyneria behind, in leaving family, friends, life as they knew it, survival is just one aspect of their journey albeit the most pressing. Known to us now, as full-bodied individuals, we have come to understand through Em's letters for example that survival is just the foundation and that none of them, save at this moment in time Yul and Rog (and even that is unsettled with Yul being ill again), have any real possibility of the normality Kyra remembers from her childhood, of having what Grand and Papa had, or Kyra as a child had. Ariel (or a grandchild) will chance upon John and Cait in a similar setting, at a similar age. Such is their fate, very different from what might have been had the winds never come to Hyneria. Had they not, Cait would not either have been aboard Tranquility.
...the utter dull weariness of fate rising relentlessly, how heavy a sentence this is, how in just a few words the magnitude of what they face in their day-to-day lives is shown, and that at any time everything can change. As it has now for John and Ariel, as it has for all the aforementioned mothers, sisters and fathers.
I was trying to remember today if Kyra's parents were ever mentioned, elsewhere than in comments and audio commentary, or whether throughout, clearest at the dock, they are conspicuous in their absense only. You've answered that here in your comment and in approaching it this way, not just here but throughout, you lend great credence to the theory that less can often be more. Lends extra heartbreak, throughout and here, to know that though she basked so gloriously in the unconditional love of her grandparents, she must have longed for her mother.
Ariel, such a little heart to have suffered such a great shock, and yet in the silence that surrounds her as the adults retreat into their own minds, she is the one to have reached so far two. When one might think they should be clamouring to embrace her, to try and shelter and comfort, she is the one reaching out. The one to whom the facts seemingly are most clear and so, though the youngest and the one to have lost the greater presense, her acceptance, though appearances at this stage may be deceptive and due to shock, seems real, seen through her conversations especially with Em. Some wonderful comments on the chapter below, truth clear within them, still to see her this way fills me with wonder.
Loved this chapter, for the smile and for the tear.
You know, I could live off of comments like this. :-)
Sometimes, as Von stated in his last journal entry, we don't know we are cold until someone tells us it is cold. Likewise with Kyra, it takes seeing Ariel, motherless, to open those memories she had long locked away. In answer to your question, there is a slight mention of her parents in the early chapters, being both marine biologists and quite concerned with the climate changes they were witnessing, which, as we know later, led to the planet's destruction.
I have only one word to describe this: beautiful! Anything more would be redundant.
Thank you SJ. :-)
Great image! It really looks like a clock. Brilliant work :)
Thank you Jenni.
I guess this is Kyra imagining the event of her grandparent's wedding
There seems a bond between her & little Ariel, one of loss and missing people...
Mona, this is Kyra reflecting on seeing her grandparents dancing one night after she had been tucked into bed and should have been asleep. She was, for all intents and purposes, raised by her grandparents. Ariel triggered those long forgotten memories since she has just lost her mom and Kyra never felt like she had one--so, in that respect, a bond is forming.
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