In The Age of Death

Mel

Inside the city of Valdor, in the IronCross district, a young man stood nervously outside of a house with a bag of food in his hands. Unlike the house, there was something remarkable about the food. Its origin was a thousand miles away from the city, and most Valdorians would consider ortan meat to be beneath them, while for Mel, and where he comes from, Thalkir, it was a delicacy if cooked correctly. In the IronCross district, ortan meat was commonplace albeit expensive.

Mel took a second, then gathered a deep breath in, taking in the cool air of the morning breeze. He wrapped his finger around the door's handle, and opened it. Mel mentally congratulated himself on his preparation, for it was already chaos. "Drina, I can't help you if you won't let me. Just rest a little more—if you keep moving around like this…". Mel recognized the weary yet professional tone of his mother's caretaker, Elisa. He couldn't recall the last time Elisa wasn't worn out by his mother's uncooperative nature.

"Rest? Yeah, you think I'll go rot away on some bed and die in my vomit and shit." Drina joked in her usual vulgar manner. She laughed till the laughter gave way to a coughing fit. Then, the smile fell from her face. "I'll do what I do, girl. Been doing that my whole life." Drina said to the caretaker. A woman of 30 years, but to Drina, anyone who wasn't wrinkled or didn't have a foot in the grave was a child to her. Elisa looked over to Mel, finally noticing him. She walked over to him and lowered her voice.

"Maybe you can talk some sense into her. With how… "active" she's being, her condition will worsen quickly." Mel knew his mother very well, and Drina would not yield to anything or to anyone. She was set in her ways, for better, and more frequently, for worse. It was pointless. He shifted his glance to his mom, and it was an odd feeling to have. He had always passed by the house every week to check on her, and he didn't know when the change happened, but it had. Drina looked paler, and it was visible in her hesitant movements, a body that didn't respond well to the mind.

Elisa noticed his gaze. She patted his arm to comfort him, and then made an excuse. "I need to go pick some things up. I'll be back soon." It was a bad excuse, but Mel appreciated it nonetheless. She left the house to give them some privacy.

Silence filled the air. Neither son nor mother knew what to say in this moment. Mel set down the food on the table, and Drina smiled, recognizing the delicacy. "I had a chance to pass by Rak's place as he was opening, and he.. Uh.. He just gave me this, free of charge." Mel shifted in his place. Recalling the interaction made him apprehensive. The gesture was nice, but the underlying motive was too heavy to bear. Mel was their hope for a better life. He was the first honorary Thalkiryan to be inducted into the Magewardens. He was chosen, despite his race, because Mel was born with magic, a rare ability that very few had. An ability born not of training, will or bloodline, but of pure chance. At least, that's how it had been explained to him.

"That was nice of him." Replied Drina uncharacteristically. Mel thought she would complain that there wasn't enough meat to help him grow, or say something along the lines that this is the least that should be done. Drina walked to Mel. It was a shaky few steps. Mel knew better than to close the gap himself, he would just get a talking to if he did that. This was important to his mom, to prove to herself that she could still be independent. Drina placed a hand on her son's cheek, and reassured him. "You can leave. You can always leave. Fuck Rak, Fuck the Magewardens, Fuck Valdor." Mel realized that's why she was nice earlier. She had seen straight through him. "We're Thalkiryans. We don't owe these people a single piece of a single thing."

"I understand. But I do want this. I want to be strong enough to be able to just… stand up and be proud of myself." Mel appreciated his mother's concerns, but they didn't touch the heart of the problem. It wasn't an issue of desire, but one of worth. Mel had always desired to be strong enough to protect the weak, but he always felt that he'd be in the latter category. And, after seeing the rest of the Magewardens, that feeling only grew.

"You will be. One day, you'll be as strong as Matar, and as wise as Okra." Mel's head snapped at the mention of those names. "Don't… Don't say their names." He said worriedly. "If anyone hears you, you could get into trouble. She laughed. "Do you think anyone here cares about that? This is the home of the leftovers" She said, referring to IronCross. "We were given a consolation prize for surrendering, and unlike your father, I took it. There's no use clinging to a lost war. We adapt. We survive. That is who we are."

His mother rarely talked about his father, much less mention him without Mel asking first. "Why did he stay?" Mel asked cautiously, worried if he said more words, that she might snap back to normal and refuse to broach the subject further. She sighed. "He believed the words of a broken brother. Matar's sister, Okra died in a secret negotiation with the lost Valdorian Princess. When Matar told us of this, all of us Thalkiryans where shaken to our cores. We didn't know what would we do. We had nothing before Okra guided us, and now we had nothing left. But then, Matar said that this was part of her plan And, that she would return to us one day, and when she does, we would finally find peace."

"How? How would she return? Didn't she… die?"

"That's where the line was split. Your father believed the ridiculous ramblings. He truly believed that she would one day come back. But death is death. It comes for us all one day. Hopefully for Valdorians sooner than us, but that's out of our control." Drina sat down on the bed and looked at her lap. She seemed sad. "Matar was like a god to us. He took on hundreds of soldiers by himself, and he would come out victorious. He protected us. It was one of the hardest choices I had to make, to leave your father and come here. But I had. I had to give us a future, and there is no future in the dirt."

Drina looked at her son. "Mel, you understand." She said it in the form of a statement, and someone that didn't know her would have never guessed from her tone that it was a question. Loud knocking on the door interrupted Mel before he had a chance to respond. It was the voice of his squad mate, Jarek. "Mel, I've got orders to get you, dead or alive. You'd probably be better company dead, but hey, I'm open to being proven wrong." Jarek joking was like breathing, unavoidable but a necessary part of the experience.

"Go." Drina said with a faint smile on her face. "I'll be right here when you're back next time". Mel nodded warmly, opened the door to Jarek's dumb smiling face and said goodbye to his mother. The next time he would see her, he would be strong, he promised himself. He would be proud.