Welcome to Gaia! ::

As long as Zekiel had known him, Tacrith had been consistently private. Some might even have classified him as ‘reclusive’ or ‘stand off-ish’ though these lables never crossed Zekiel’s periphery—he just saw the doctor as as a quiet and introverted soul with need for time to himself. Though he did work to see to it that Tacrith was exposed a little more to the world than he might otherwise have been. Even if his natural inclination was for privacy, everyone needed some social interaction for structure and fulfilment in life, at least so far as he understood it.

Thus, while Zekiel personally did not mind delving lightly into most personal topics, it was still a surprise to hear the initiation in Tacrith’s question.

It was, as the gods would have it, one of the few subjects where Zekiel himself had strayed from speaking of in detail until very recently. Little as he’d portrayed it that way, the ‘good’ memories of his childhood were kernels of gold among a rocky and tumultuous shore in the span of his life, which had improved dramatically after he’d been taken into the keeping of the Sanctum. Still, he had been working through the knots of his beginnings and this was Tacrith asking.

He smiled. “Jevan, the man who became her husband after she grew heavy with me…he has told me about her. He has said that I look just like her…‘like the gods had taken her spirit and put it in me’ when I was born and they took her from this world instead. He said that she was joyous and in love with the world, too bright for him, and that the gods must have made a mistake putting her where they did in the world…” Zekiel tipped his head, pausing only a moment before adding, “And that I was punishment for him from the gods for not caring for her as he should have.”

Zekiel blinked, surprised, and then privately pleased by Tacrith’s defense, though he couldn’t have said why in that moment, it felt reassuring. After, he watched his friend’s posture and guided self composure before he continued again.

I am grateful that my father did not take such a view on me…

Zekiel pondered the statement a moment before inquiring, “You also lost your mother when you came into this world?” Perhaps Tacrith had said it or hinted it before, but he couldn’t remember touching on the subject in any depth, and it felt like the appropriate time to ask, if ever.

Zekiel watched as Tacrith spoke, and at length, he smiled. “Of course…it is a wondrous thing to have someone to share life with, even or particularly in its more difficult portions. Whether or not we believe in gods, it remains that we do not always know the reason life happens as it does and makes…what can feel like ‘unfair’ or unnecessarily painful occurrences reality…”

He tipped his head. “But…there is a togetherness in understanding both our powerlessness to certain things and our capacity to influence others, and our journey towards learning how to devote our energies most towards positive influence, despite how life might test us and those around us.” He eyed Tacrith. “Though you do not believe it precisely as I do…I trust in some way our mothers are nearer to us than it might seem, and influence us more than we know though our path was not to have them in our lives in this world. Perhaps one day when we leave this path as they did, we will know them again.”

I wish I knew what part it was for myself though.

Zekiel studied his friend, and then smiled. “Have you asked your father of her? What parts of her he may see in you, what she was like…” He had had no real opportunity to ask about his mother for most of his life, and so had only garnered the scraps Jevan had slipped into his ramblings.

It was good, though, to know something, and Tacrith had had the opportunity once upon a time. Now, though—well, time robbed many opportunities, or so it seemed.

Zekiel nodded. “We do tend to think we have all the time there might be to have until the gods make it evident we do not.” It was good, in some ways, to think optimistically of one’s future and expect the best, but at the same time, too much of such thinking detracted from full use of the only moments given for certain: the present.

“Do you know of any remaining family of yours, beyond your brother?” Many Yaelian families were close knit even after branching out, several portions living in a given city, but in truth, he had never spoken with Tacrith at length about such things, and it had always seemed as though the medical facility was Tacrith’s home, perhaps in its entirety.

“Lout,” Zekiel repeated with curious intonation. At the rest, however, he had to take time for thought. What had there been in his youth to inspire good spirits? Many things—but none of them family. “Marleya was the nearest I had,” he said at length. “Jevan was the one to call me his, and I know that my mother had parents that were alive then, as he spoke of them, but he said they would have nothing to do with me after having taken their daughter from them. I was the fisherman’s cursed child. But Marleya was the sailmaker and seamstress of the village, and she had had many sons who lived with her before they’d grown, and her hut was empty enough that she would take me when I was older and Jevan was out to sea, so that I might help her with her sails and cleaning and netting.”

He considered a moment.

“There were many wondrous things of course, but…I knew new happiness when I was taken by the Sanctum. Some of my brothers and sisters of the church were tested by the separation, leaving behind their families and becoming part of a new one…but to me it was the greatest blessing the gods ever gifted.” Now that he was nearer again to the area, though, and on the subject, he did wonder. “It would be a curious inquiry to know if my mother’s family was still with this world.”

Zekiel listened. At length, he nodded. “I am not worried,” he said earnestly. “As it pleased them more for me to be out of their lives, I did not think to impinge upon that. If I am meant to have more answers, I believe the path to them will become more clear at that time. Until then, I am happy in the place I have come to…and grateful for those who have come and gone before as they laid the way. Perhaps, if we are very good at what we aim to do, this world will be better for their efforts.”