Chapter Text
His hand is sore, but Emmrich doesn’t cease as he traces his practice words in Trade. Nevarran is a proud language with a proud history, Papa said, but Trade is the language of the educated.
Money could not buy the benefits an education could provide, he’d explained.
Looking down at their worn table as he carefully practices on what few scraps of paper he has, Emmrich isn’t certain that money wouldn’t provide at least some of those benefits. But they haven’t much money to spend, and Papa had been quite serious about it all, and so Emmrich will be too.
Maybe too serious, Papa has always said that pain is the body’s way of giving a warning and to stop if something hurts so they can determine what needs to be done, but Emmrich continues on without saying anything. His Trade is getting so much better through practice, and the soreness will fade by the morning.
He can hear Mama in the kitchen as he works, humming softly to herself over the sounds of sizzling meat and boiling water — probably for potatoes; they’d been given some by the neighbors in exchange for some chicken. He’s glad.
Emmrich will eat what he is given, of course, but why must meat feel like that? The texture makes him wince before he’s even managed to taste its flavor. Potatoes are better.
The front door opens with a clatter, and he can’t help but scowl as the surprise drives his hand off course. Ugh. He’d worked so hard on that one, too, but the word Chantry now has a line leading to nowhere that’s vexing.
“Emmrich!” His father’s booming voice fills the room, and Emmrich feels warmth seep from his shoulder where Papa has gripped it as he looks down over Emmrich’s hard work. “Other than where I startled you at the end, those are looking very practiced, my little scholar.”
He beams and Emmrich beams back.
“Come now. Let us set the table for supper.”
Emmrich gathers up his book and parchment while Papa carefully puts away the ink well and quill. Spilled ink makes quite a mess, and it is expensive to replace besides.
His feet tangle with each other as he walks, and Emmrich stumbles like a newborn colt as he makes his way to the sideboard. Evidence he is getting taller again, Mama says. Annoying though, if you ask him. Embarrassing too, sometimes; he tripped in the street the other day when he’d heard a dragon’s roar in the distance, and Konrad — the baker’s son — had laughed for too long.
Once he’s set down his supplies, he begins to pull dishes from the sideboard for supper. “Mama? Do we need bowls or plates?”
“Plates, Liebling.”
Emmrich carefully stacks three of their plates, treated with care though worn with age, and some silverware before trying to walk as precisely as he can to the table. They only jostle a little, and though Emmrich knows that’s more an expectation than an accomplishment, he’s pleased.
“You two go wash up,” Mama orders from the kitchen, and so Emmrich all but sprints to the fresh bucket of water she’d had him bring in earlier. He’d rather not be stuck washing with whatever has come off Papa’s hands after a full day of butchery.
His father cleans up before he comes home, Emmrich knows, but he cannot shake the pictures in his head of blood and sinew even so.
He wins the unofficial race, and quickly washes off his hands of any ink that has stained them and splashes water on his face to get off any dirt.
“So fastidious,” Papa comments, amused as he draws up behind where Emmrich has hunched over to avoid wetting his shirt.
Emmrich doesn’t think it worth correcting. Or maybe it is correct. He’s not sure. He is sure that he wrote supper ten times in a row today in Trade, and he’s hungry.
By the time he’s dried off and returned to the table, there’s a pot of potatoes — mashed, and hopefully they’d had butter and sour cheese for them — a mountain of pickled cabbage and one fried cutlet for each of them. Pork or chicken, he isn’t quite sure. He hopes it’s the latter, whose texture is more forgiving.
He’d never tell his mother this, but on occasion her pork reminds him of shoe leather.
His stomach isn’t worried, because it growls like it’s going to eat every last morsel Mama has prepared.
“Sit, Liebling,” Mama instructs, and he hastens to oblige. The sooner he’s in a chair, the sooner there is food on his plate.
By the time his father joins them, Emmrich has salivated so much he doubts he’ll need water with supper tonight. Pork or chicken is no longer a question worth asking.
“We thank you, Maker, for the food in front of us. For the generosity of our neighbors — people and animal alike,” Papa intones once they’ve all bowed their heads. “For this and for so much else we are grateful to you and your bride.”
“We are grateful,” Emmrich murmurs along with Mama.
His utensils are in his hands before his mother has finished serving him, and Papa chuckles. “Did you forget to eat dinner again?” He asks as Emmrich begins shoveling potatoes in his mouth.
“I—”
“Swallow first,” Mama corrects. Emmrich stops talking through a full mouth, but he’s not sure what is expected when they always ask him questions while he is eating.
Once he’s swallowed, Emmrich continues, “I had some käsebrot. But I…I might have been distracted. You see, I was eating it as I walked home and…”
A shriek pierces the air. Inhuman. Guttural. Immediate. The plates Emmrich had been so careful with clatter against the table and the walls shake.
It feels like his ribs are vibrating in his chest.
And the house explodes.