He supposed what he was doing now could be considered resting. There in the isolated forest, he had no responsibilities (except for being hospitable to your daughter, right?) and no obligations. There were no relationships he had to maintain or pretend to maintain. He didn't have to think if he didn't want to. He didn't have to do anything at all. He was resting his fractured mind, his broken heart, the leftover fragments of his soul. Except that those things never really rested because they were always there; as much as he liked to believe he could, he couldn't carve those tired pieces out of himself and set them down somewhere to rest. He was still using them -- perhaps not as much anymore, but he was still using them.
Laruku was touched in a way, by the sincerity that both Rachias and Arkham seemed to offer him. They seemed so good-hearted and pure, and he couldn't help but continue thinking that maybe they weren't his children after all. Or perhaps kindness skipped a generation and they had inherited it from his mother. Of course, he could wish that he wasn't the way he was, that he were gentler and more careful; he could wish that he had tried harder, but all of those sentiments had long since lost their meaning. The hybrid did not wish anymore; things just were. He didn't try to change anymore because that hadn't worked. He didn't try to get better because that term couldn't be defined.
They're distant relatives,
he said after a while. The blind man had never considered himself part of the Sadira clan, after all, but he supposed that if Rachias could find kinship among them, then all the better. My mother's brother was Ceres's mate. Ceres was the alphess of Clouded Tears before me. They had five children together; Iskata's the only one that's still around. She's a leader of Phoenix Valley. She has some kids running around, I guess -- some of them are your age. The rest of Iskata's litter had some kids too. Some of them might be around, I don't know.
He didn't think about most of what he said; they were just information files that he had stored away because he had written a history book once. I've never really felt like they were my family though.
It had always been obvious, but he'd never really told anyone either. His mother had never been close to her brother anyway, so maybe the connection didn't count.