Mara - The Lady Grief (Completed)

26 The Past Comes A'knockin'

A/N  A couple of months have passed...

2651 B.C.E., City of Tmari-on-the-Euphrates

Late Fall, Month of Arahsamnu, One Year and Eight Months after Mara's Rebirth

Mara

Child you locked them in jar

My father sounds exasperated with me. I pout, poring over the scrolls spread out on the table in the library. My father has ceaselessly encouraged me to study over these past weeks. These weeks... blissful weeks. Thelios leaves at dawn's earliest light to fulfill his duties as the Captain of the Recondites. Poppy and I have breakfast together, then one of the Postites steals her away to show her all the sorts of things that a normal child would never see; gravestones being carved, mourning flowers being cultivated, sweetbreads being baked for funerals with crossbones frosted on the top.

She barely speaks, but the postites talk to her anyway. Between them and the gargoyles, I have time to come here and study with Alnue everyday.

Then Thelios comes home. Sometimes he makes it for dinner, sometimes not, but he always makes sure to come in time to tuck in Poppy. Then, it's just the two of us.

I blush with a soft sigh, just thinking of how wonderful it is to have a male with me at night. Even in the temple of Death I can have a domestic bliss, a family.

A dark shadow moves across the far wall, startling me back to the task at hand.

The Fourth House hearts sit in their jar on the table, mocking my efforts to set their spirits free to go to the Underworld. It was a complete and utter failure. I look again at the scroll of Reincarnate, the one I used to give the angry souls enough corpulence to "kill" them again. Then I trapped them in the jar, accidentally.

"This is hard," I sigh. I search through the other texts on the table. "Summoning, these are all about summoning demons, Alnue. That can't be what I want to do. Father is there something else?"

Keep them in the jar

I just heave a sigh. I can't keep them trapped. It's terrible.

They will serve you

"I don't need angry-spirit servants, father," I mumble.

They may be useful

I study for a moment or two longer until I feel my father's presence fade. Biting my lip, I slide out the scroll I have hidden under the others.

My fingertips trace over the demon's picture. I was right, it is a gano lizard. It is eerily similar to the tattoo inked on Thelio's bicep. His tattoo demon is dying, however, with a blade stuck down his maw through his throat. I look again at the words.

This story is less informative than the one in the Recondite's mausoleum. I would love to go back and research that space. I don't want to intrude on Thelios' while he's training his warriors. He doesn't like for me to go to the barracks, anyway. It's 'too rough' for me, whatever that means.

A sudden chatter brings my eyes over to Alnue. He holds up a roll of papyrus as large as him with the pride of a hunter with a lion.

"What is it, Al?" I take it from him and unfurl it. It's a charcoal rubbing of the wall carving from the mausoleum.

"You're the best," I whisper to him. He blushes.

He sought the fire until one day a Flame was born-