106th of Nemulum, 313 EA
Peyr Myarsa
Leça settled into the relieving warmth of their home, basking in the lively sounds of family. At the center of the table sat a hale stew, steaming, and gathered around it were Leça’s father Gustaw, as well as their young niece and nephew Kasha and Leo. Amongst all of them Leça carried their weariness in their back rather than on their face, and so the familiar cradle of their chair at the dinner table was enough to soothe them after a long days standing.
“I did too see it!” Leo wiped at his nose with a sleeve, calling across the table to his sister in the unrestrained pitch of childhood. “It was a fox, I know it was! It was hairy all over, but not like beaver hair, like person hair, and it was red with red eyes, and it walked right on top of the water, just like in the stories! It was out in the swamp, I saw it!”
“Foxes don’t live in the swamp,” Kasha retorted with a sibling’s contrarianism, “they live under it with the Myarsans. Right grandpa?”
Gustaw looked up from his soup as though he couldn’t possibly have expected to be asked a question. “Hm? Foxes? No, no, there are no foxes, not anymore. If they ever existed, I’d expect they’d have been drowned by the swamps, just like everything else from Old Myarsa.”
“Mepka saw it too, it wasn’t just me.” Leo gave a dejected pout.
“Could the swampers have made the foxes into mud demons?” Kasha took on a look of nervousness at her own thought, a nervousness that began to creep over her brother as well.
“It was probably a dog.” Leça chimed in before her father could continue to miss what the children needed to hear. “There are a lot of dogs in the swamp, just like there are dogs in Peyr.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure.” Gustaw leaned in to the children with the sort of whisper that children could not help themselves from. “The swamp is a dangerous, damning place kiddies. Wandering out into the swamp on your own means y’ain’t have no city around to hold you up.”
There was a cold pause, as the sentiment wrapped it’s way through the children’s young fears, before Leça forced herself to burst out in a short laugh. “But you’ve nothing to worry about. We’re kept safe here from the swamp, by the conservators’ hands. You’ll be safe.”
Kasha and Leo exchanged a look, and then warmed back to their chatter. Leça smiled, and ushered them along into the next room to begin cleaning up.
They found their father later that night, working quietly to himself to hang bunches of aster to dry.
“You know you really ought not to play ghosts at the children like that.” Leça started, the sagging scent of the flowers filling their senses, “I’m sure that Alisja and Marek would not appreciate you filling their sleep with nightmares.”
“T’was no bit of play, my dear.” Father picked at the stems, the underneath of his fingernails staining green. “They need to know the dangers of this world, too soft they are. Liable to get themselves hurt, playing silly.”
“They’re going to be alright.” Leça spoke with a convicted optimism that they had hashed out against their father all through their life. “Peyr places its faith in them, and that’s not nothing. It’ll take care of them.”
The Etra Anthology 