"What's your trouble?" Brachet shot Rue a red-eyed look and didn't answer. Rue, wincing with the cold, pulled on his shoes and stood up. He walked over to Brachet and put his hands on her shoulders, stopping her. Brachet snarled and covered her face with her hands.
Rue shook her gently. "What's wrong, m'dear?" Brachet moved her hands from her face to her hair, which she began to pull at.
"I had the chance to kill him!! I just realized last night, I could've killed him but I waited and now I'll never have the chance..."
Rue knew that by 'him,' Brachet was referring to Lothe. He smiled at her and detached her fingers from the tangles of brown and gold..
"Darling, you are so much better than him for that. You said yourself, you would only be as bad as him, to do something like that." Brachet, who had been avoiding Rue's eyes, met them and attempted to sieve the truth from the unrelenting blue. Satisfied, she smiled and hugged him.
"Thank you, Rue," she murmured, "You are my best friend." With a final squeeze she released him.
"Let's go home."
***
"This is your home?" Rue asked. Snow had coated the grand Cathair, and everything was full of whispers and peace, the whiteness blotting out everything. It was beautiful, for the Cathair was not merely a place of draconic interest, it also had a quaint little village in its central area. The area was decked out in brilliant red and gold, festive holiday brilliance, and lights flickered, beckoning them onward. Brachet nodded, her spirit swelling with happiness.
"Oh, yes--do you like it? I'm so glad to be home!" Brachet exclaimed, and without warning spurred Mathe on. The golden paard flew across the snow, joy adding wings to her hooves. A rather bewildered Rue followed.
The paards slowed at the main Gate, Brachet hesitant to admit her failure and Rue astounded at the decorations. The Gates opened, and the solemn clatter of hooves was the only sound, for most of the Cathair was still at bed. Brachet dismounted and Rue did as well, leading the paards to a little stable where paards of all different colors, shapes, and sizes murmured and snuffled the musty, sweet warm air. They left them there and Brachet took Rue to her home. She had been gone for only two years, but it seemed like a lifetime and Brachet's throat was full remembering that it had been for nothing. Rue noticed her bleak manner and squeezed her shoulders gently.
"Come on, kinna heir," he said, and Brachet opened the door.
It was very quiet in the house. Kitt was still asleep, unaware that her younger daughter was home. Brachet could hear Kitt's labored breathing, heavy with sorrow, but did not see or hear her older sister in the room that Calli had lived in. Rue wandered over to a chair and sat, and Brachet entered her mother's bedroom.
There was a gentle glow of the suns through the window flushing her mother's otherwise ghastly white face, but the room was mostly dark and Brachet moved through it quietly to the bedside. She knelt and touched her mother's shoulder.
"Mother?" Brachet whispered, and Kitt's eyes fluttered, barely noticeable, but Brachet saw.
"Brachet?" The tremulous query came from Kitt's lips, once full and lovely, now thin from years of pain. Her blue eyes, bloodshot and hazy, opened and Brachet could tell her mother was drunk. But she managed a smile and smoothed back her mother's golden hair as the woman struggled to sit up.
"Yes, mother, I'm home." Kitt sat up all the way, and she smiled feebly, and put her arms around her daughter. Brachet squeezed her back.
"My darling Brachet...you've come home to me..."
"Where's Calli?" Brachet asked, and Kitt shook her head, fully awake, although not alert.
"She's gone. Ran off with a boy, not too long ago. I've been alone these past months, waiting for you to come back. I thought you were dead, darling..." Brachet sighed.
"I'm not dead. But...mother, I didn't kill Lothe."
"What?"
"I didn't kill him. I couldn't." Brachet sat down on the bed and turned away. "I don't know why, so don't ask me." Brachet waited for the disapproval she was sure would come. However, Kitt moved closer and kissed her daughter's cheek.
"All I need is you here. I don't care about the past anymore." Mother and daughter embraced and Brachet's heart warmed a little to the mother she thought she had lost when her father died.
What happens Next?