Rexanna

“M-mom?”

The world stopped spinning. The noise died away from those professing the reasoning of the gifts they hung on the tree. Suddenly, it was as if she held her breath and the eerie silence cut and tore at her in a brilliant flash of gold. The heads that kept her from the voice began to vanish until her head jerked in the correct direction of the sound.

“Mom!”

She didn’t even look for Tembovu or her twins. Her legs carried her while her mind sat dully and unbelieving. Could it be? Could it really be that just after her second son had been found, her first born was just around the corner? She tore away from Tembovu and the twins, aiming straight for Rein. His beautifully matured gilded face adorned with markings of blood. Born from a Thief and a Priest, and looking anything but.

And if she bumped into anyone on her pinpointed direction toward her child, she didn’t even apologize. This was far too important to her. Just simply seeing the boy relieved her heart while simultaneously opening a further sore. Oh, she remembered the blood knife he pointed at her throat. She remembered the words she had said to him – of how she’d die for him, because that’s what mothers did. And even though she wasn’t and hadn’t been a great mother, she still was his mother. And despite the crowds of faces she had seen many times, she always sought for his.

It helped, too, that despite the ever change in his voice as it grew deeper and raspier, filled with emotions, she’d always recognize it. Even the slightest hiccup, the slightest breath, she’d know it was his. And she aimed to collide with the bloody mess of her eldest son. “Rein.” She cried to him – her body numb except for the places her body yearned to touch his. He was a fire within her, a storm of emotions as the tears fell from her mascara marked eyes. The pain in her joints no longer an option, the searing heat from her tears were barely felt. All the feeling she had now went entirely to him. “You – You’ve grown.” A slight stutter as she looked upon him with glazed tearful eyes.

If she hadn’t remembered that there was a crowd here that they were in the middle of, she would have cried to him. To confess that she was a horrible mother, and how she had always wished he had the best despite the things she couldn’t provide. She wanted to be the one to tell him she left the Basin. She wanted to be the one to tell him all of these things, but she never could find him to utter the words. Perhaps if she was more of a mother she would have been able to search for her beautiful son, to tell him everything she could.

And as if that wasn’t shattering – the fact that there were more children among her family. And oh, she wanted to tell him first. She wanted to be sure he knew that she wasn’t trying to replace him. That he would always be her first living, breathing son. And how she was terrified as she laid upon the borders of the Basin at dusk as she gave birth to him, horrified that her womb was cursed and that he wouldn’t even be able to take his first breath. But he had, and he had grown strong despite the blood that leaked down his leg. “Can I help? I-I want to help you Rein. Do you need a healer? We can, I can – please just let me help.” Her words were a jumbled mess as the creases of her eyes grew sad. “I’m so sorry.”

"Talk."