He smiled at her, feeling like a fledgling again, but not resenting it in the slightest. “I will,” he promised. The Lightkeep would come first, would have to in all things, but he would not forget himself either, whenever circumstances allowed it.
“Right,” she said with a sniff, pulling back entirely even though he could clearly see that it pained her. “You come back to us soon, understand? I’m tired of being without you.”
There would be no more letters while he was away, not when there was no one to deliver them. He would miss their exchanges, and he nodded in acceptance at her words.
Her eyes drifted behind him, presumably to the Lightkeep. “But you do your duty, and you do it well,” she amended, her smile a watery offering that did not quite meet her eyes. It was plain that for all his resolve to make his parents proud, in that moment, as only a mother could, she would have much preferred to scoop him up and fly him home.
“Mother says we’re not allowed to get married until you come back,” Saryn complained, although he could plainly see her holding back her own sniffles.
He took hold of her long plait and tugged it affectionately. “Quite right, too,” he confirmed. “You’re much too young for that yet, whatever is happening with me.” Outrage flared in her, just as he knew it would, but Lira interrupted, insinuating herself in his arms where their mother had been.
“I’m tired of doing your chores,” she informed him, strangely calm despite her desire for contact. “So you owe me big when you get back.”
That was not the proper sentiment. They all should be urging him to tend his duty well and that be the end of it, and he hoped that the sages were not attempting to listen to their conversation. The view should have been that all owed him, that he had sacrificed something in the going, in the promises of safety that he pledged to the Lightkeep in his acceptance of guardianship.
But it was typical of his sisters to complain of what was expected of them instead, and it brought a smile to his lips rather than the eye roll it might have done at home.
“If you complain enough,” he whispered back conspiratorially. “Father might have to hire on some help.” Saryn’s eyes lit up considerably at that prospect, and at last Grimult allowed his attention to drift to the man who meant so much to him.
He stood back slightly, arms crossed, and Lira released Grimult with some reluctance, allowing him to take a step forward.
“Are you going to tell me to hurry back too?” Grimult asked, wondering at his father’s reaction. None had reacted quite as he’d expected, but surely his father would understand.
Had to understand.
“No,” he answered back, his voice gruff. “I’m going to tell you to keep your head. I’m going to tell you to keep your hands to yourself if that Lightkeep is a pretty girl under all that fabric.” Grimult felt his colour rise at such an insinuation, or perhaps that his father felt it necessary to say it at all. His father swallowed, and strong hands suddenly gripped his shoulders, pulling him nearer. His father was a sombre man, his affection typically reserved for their fledgling days, but apparently there were exceptions. “There’s work for you here, and there’s work for you back home, when you’re ready. And we’ll all be waiting when the time comes.”
Grimult nodded, returning the embrace that was given, wondering how they expected him to simply turn around and follow the strangers who had chosen him for such a task.
The answer was quiet and sure.
Because they had chosen him.
Because they knew his commitment to his duty, and that he would not leave the Lightkeep unprotected, even if it was difficult to say goodbye.
Or, as it felt in that moment, nearly impossible.
“I’ll write,” his mother informed him, ignoring Grimult’s shaking head. “You might not get to read them until you’re home again, but I’ll write them all the same. Don’t want you missing out on any news.”
His smile was indulgent, but his gratitude was sincere.
He would not be forgotten.
They would be waiting.
With a pile of letters on his freshly made bed when the time came for him to truly be home with them.
He stepped back from them, allowed his mother to place a last kiss upon his cheek, and took a steadying breath. “Until next time,” he said, unable to actually form a true goodbye. He looked each of them in the eye, committing their faces to memory. The girls were taller than they had been, a bit more womanly than he’d care to admit. There were a few new lines about his mother’s eyes that betrayed her worry.
And his father’s hands were a bit more rough, shouldering the extra work alone, no matter what his sisters said.
“I miss you all,” he admitted brokenly, worried that if he said more he would dissolve into the tears that threatened to take his family as a whole.
“Go on, son,” his father instructed. “Sooner you go, sooner you’ll be back.”
It’s what he had said when Grimult’s feet had balked along the edge of their lands, nervousness temporarily banishing his excitement to the far recesses of his mind.
It was as true then as it was now.
Grimult dared to say no more, only turned and walked back to where he now belonged, wondering if he should thank the sages for the time they had given him with his family, more certain that he would not be able to form the words at all.
This was not what he expected. He had been so sure, so steady in his determination during training, and now...
Now as they all began to
