Dead and Buryd

Days that Came Before

 “Grandda’,” the young boy asked, pushing his blanket back impatiently and gathering his stuffed toy horse up in his arms. “You tell me a story?”

Lyle lifted his head, looking away from the knife and half-carved wooden block in his hands. A small, tired smile slipped over his lips, and he gave a gentle nod. It was already a long way past the boy’s bedtime, but he could hardly blame him for being restless. The heat had set in, and the thick air remained uncomfortable long after the sun had set.

Pushing himself up from his chair, Lyle moved over to his grandson’s bed, fixing the blanket neatly across the end before he sat down. The bed was low and it made his joints ache to sit on the soft mattress, but the boy would only complain if he remained on the other side of the room for the story.

“Which story would you like?”

The boy thought for a moment, nuzzling the horse’s soft flank as he blinked sleepily.

“Ships!” the boy answered finally, sitting up.

Reaching out and leaning across the bed, he gently pushed his grandson back down onto the mattress and brushed his dark brown hair away from his eyes. If he was going to tell him a story, the boy could at least pretend to try to sleep.

“You had that one last time, Brae,” he reminded him.

“It’s my favourite.”

Lyle rolled his eyes. He was sure that he’d told Braedon the story of the ships the last half-dozen times. Just like his son, Braedon’s father, his grandson never tired of hearing the tale of their past.

“Alright,” he answered with a slow nod.

He leaned away from Braedon, placing his knife and the block of half-whittled wood down on the floor before looking back at his grandson. With his son, Halden, working long hours so often, it was a regular arrangement that he put Braedon to bed. Lyle didn’t mind. In fact, he rather enjoyed it. The young boy was almost as enthralled with his stories as his own children used to be. Though they were both grown now, no longer needing stories at bedtime, when they even came home at all.

“Long, long ago, Os-Veruh was a beautiful and rich planet,” Lyle began, smiling back at the grin spreading across Braedon’s face. “The Veniche people lived in one place, they had everything they could ever want, even if they sometimes complained that they didn’t.”

Braedon rolled onto his side, knees drawn up towards his chest as he hugged the horse tightly and turned it in his arms so that the toy could hear the story better.

“Men fought for more, to see more of the skies. So they spent years building big ships that could float on air instead of water.”

“Grandda’, you forgot the men who look up!” Braedon whined.

Frowning, Lyle shook his head.

“I was getting to it,” he answered. “Os-Veruh had everything, from men who examined the deepest oceans, to those who looked at the furthest stars in the night sky. One day, one of the sky watchers saw something. He saw a shooting star heading towards Os-Veruh. The Veniche people panicked. No one knew whether the meteor would hit the planet or sail past, but the sky watcher said it would collide with them, and they had to believe him.

“The big sky ships were almost ready, and all the people argued and fought over who would be allowed onto them. Men argued using their power and their money, claiming that those things made them more worthy of saving. Others asserted their intelligence and skill, saying that those things should be what mattered.”

“Like Gianna?” Braedon asked.

“What?” Lyle asked, thrown from the rhythm of his story by Braedon’s sudden question. In the times he’d told his grandson the story, he’d never asked that before.