In Which Arydath Speaks Literally

August 11, 1168

Arydath's brain slammed against her skull as if attempting to bust free. Headaches originating just above the right ear weren't usually so strong, but this one had her to the point where it hurt to even think about getting off the bed. She might have tried to sleep if she thought she was capable of undressing, or if the throbbing pain could be ignored long enough to doze out of consciousness, but such was not the case. She had tried several, ordinarily reliable home remedies, but to no avail; all she could do was wait it out.

Just above the right ear, her mother's voice echoed throughout her mind, its shrill, condescending timbre wreaking havoc with her already pained head. That means a pressing question is coming your way. A pressing question--pressing. Just what she needed right now.

Just like that damn knock on the door that no mother of six could ever hope to go without. "Yes?" She wasn't sure whether she'd meant to sound that cranky.

"Mother," her eldest addressed her, stepping into the room and quickly shutting the door behind her; Arydath moaned as the sound registered. "We need to talk."

Here came the pressing question; she had to admit, it had been months in the making. Defeated, Arydath glanced to the window, catching sight of Halford's large, laboring form. "This is about your father, isn't it?"

"The way you say it, it sounds like you think you'll have to punish him," Lyraina noted as she joined her on the bed.

In spite of herself, Arydath smirked. "When do I not have to punish him?"

"I don't know. When he's had ten serious falls in the past six months, maybe? And the chest pains? Trouble breathing on occasion?" She'd said it without the faintest inkling of a smile. Even if that hadn't been the case, Arydath knew that the time for jokes had passed.

"Look, I know you don't want to worry the kids, and for their sake I'm glad you can keep a brave face," Lyraina began, fingering the belt of her pouch in agitation, "but I think I have the right to know what's going on. What's happening to Father?"

Arydath sat in a petrified limbo as the pain in her head faded into a stiffening sensation and overcame her entire being. It had been too much to hope that the children knew nothing, but she had not expected to have to explain--not yet. She wasn't ready to tell. Lyraina wasn't ready to hear. "Lyraina..."

"Mother." Arydath's own black eyes pierced through her like a flaming arrow. When she had been quite young, her brother had once told her a story with the intent to scare her; she couldn't remember just what it had been about, but she knew it had involved a mirror. She'd never understood what was supposed to be so frightening about mirrors, but that had been before. "Mother, I want to hear it from you. And if you don't tell me, I'll ask Father--and if he won't tell me, I'll ask Grandmother--and if she won't tell me, I'll describe the symptoms to Laveria and see what she says. Whether you tell me or not, I will find out."

Through the window, Halford could be seen, cursing at a pair of pigs who had abandoned their food scraps in favor of a bout of loud, obvious fornication. Arydath shook her head, then turned to her daughter; it was unnerving just how like staring at a reflection she was. "Lyraina... you know your father.

"Your father... he's a big man. And he has a small brain--but what he lacks in brains, he makes up for in heart. No one has a bigger heart than your father."

Lyraina's lips pinched into a confused frown. "Well, that's a given, but what does that have to do with these spells he keeps getting?"

Arydath pried the heel of her right slipper off her foot with the toe of her left. "You see... I meant that both figuratively and literally."

Lyraina's face lengthened as her brows perked and her jaw dropped. Arydath could tell by the fear in her eyes--her daughter's eyes, her mother's eyes, her own eyes--that she understood. "Literally? His heart is too big for his body?"

Arydath shoved her slipping wedding band back to her knuckle; it often slid, as it had always been just a bit large for her petite finger. "If you put your hand to his chest you can tell. You can feel it beating from much too big of an area." She tilted her hand upwards to call upon the aid of natural forces. "It's so big it can hardly keep itself going."

Her daughter's silence was a reply in itself. The one advantage to having her mother in the house was that Arydath had a confidante other than Halford who was over the age of twelve, and telling her had indeed been far different. When she had told her mother, she'd felt as if the older woman had taken a part of her burden; now that she had told her daughter, she felt as if she had added part of Lyraina's to her own. She did not care to think about how that worked.

"Don't tell your siblings," she whispered as she watched Halford climb the fence and head toward the front door. "Not a word, you hear? And whatever you do, don't you dare tell your father that you know. It would kill him--figuratively. Literally..." She swallowed as reality's ugly hand curled its fingers around her neck. "Well... it still could."

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