On the second night, he gets himself utterly drunk.
Curled up in a dingy corner of the barroom with a never-empty mug for company, staring out a window at the slowly wheeling stars, somehow all he can think of is that Aelirn would’ve hated it. She’d never approved of hard drink, or running from hurts, and he never had either, even when he had stumbled through the door blind and dry-eyed three hours before, he’d cursed himself for it.
He runs a lethargic hand back and forth along the rim of the table before him, uncaring of the grime he picks up. It is not a reputable tavern he sits in by any means, dark and stuffed with smoke and ill odors, inhabited by the weary, the uncaring, and those who cared more for the seat than the drink.
Calden has given him this, at least--- one night to grieve all he has lost, one night to just forget. In the morning, however splitting his head, he will show once more to the clean streets and tiny house by the market. But Calden has taken the boys for the night, citing that it was closer to the healer’s, and large enough to house the nurse they had needed to hire---
He sets the mug down with a deliberate thump, and across the room the barkeeper lazily looks up for a moment.
They probably think it a grand lark, to visit their friends by the river-side, to spend the night giggling and whispering under a strange roof. Aderthor is, perhaps, old enough to understand and to realize what has happened, but he is only ten summers old, and easily distracted by sweets yet.
Areher, on the other hand, is four, and has asked for his mother twice already, innocent and gap-toothed grin unfailing and unseeing of his father’s hidden tears. He too, had been drawn off by a weak excuse and Calden’s bright voice.
And Amathan---
Círamath is not and never has been an idiot.
You do not blame him, Calden’s voice is his only clear memory of the nightmare of two days before, after the screams, the blood, the panicked call for the midwife--- after all sound had died away. You nearly lost them both.
Círamath is not an idiot.
He does not blame his youngest son, for though the memory is not clear he can still see him in his mind’s eye, wet and crying and so terribly tiny, grey eyes wide and terrified as the healer and midwife bustled around him trying to save his mother.
He had been even more lost and alone than his father, shoved into a corner and despritely trying to see what was happening, choking prayers through a closed throat. Just as much bereaved by a birth gone wrong.
His mug is empty, but he does not ask for more. He sits, and he watches the stars. He does not think.
