He roared out with everything he had, with all the grief and guilt and rage that had been building inside him for eight years!
But it truly didn’t do a thing.
Everything faded.
The fire. The blood. The floating corpse of his mother. The room that had once been his sanctuary!
All of it dissolved into nothingness as he felt an immense sense of empitness, the image and sensation of his mother that he had missed all these years being taken away just as quickly as it was given.
This dream, however it came him after his first sleep since he reclaimed Mana and obtained that terrifying letter of The Primordial Tongue...it ended just as abruptly as he found himself waking up.
And he found himself reaching out toward an empty sky that held a fading night as stars disappeared one by one.
His whole body was soaked with sweat.
He was trembling so violently that the stone beneath him should have been shaking with him. His breath came in ragged gasps, his heart pounding with the heavy beat that had become his constant companion.
DUM!
DUM!
DUM!
But the beats were faster now. Harder. The rhythm of panic rather than power!
He realized that he was crying even here, in the waking world. Tears streamed down his face, mixing with the sweat, dripping onto the stone below.
He felt so hollow and so empty!
He was trembling when he realized that someone was holding him at this moment.
His head did not feel the hard stone of his sleeping place. It rested on something softer. The lap of someone who had gathered him close while he thrashed and shaken in his sleep.
He looked up.
Grandmother Essun’s ancient eyes gazed down at him, filled with a pain that was not her own. Pain that transformed her wrinkled face into something almost gentle.
"You began crying in your sleep, Tokoloshe."
Her voice was quiet, barely above a whisper.
"I just... felt like holding you."
Her gnarled hand stroked his hair with the same absent affection his mother had shown in the dream.
"I hope that is okay. You looked so lost. So sad."
...!
The sweat across his back felt even heavier as he processed her words.
He did not even have the strength to push Grandmother Essun away.
He remembered the dream and the nightmare.
The warmth of his mother’s embrace. The horror of her bleeding corpse. The fire that consumed everything he had ever loved.
He hated himself so much. For leaving her. For not having the power to save her.
Why... why could he not have the Primordial Tongue back then?
Why had that power not awakened when he needed it most?
Why had he been so weak, so useless, so unable to protect the people who mattered?
"Why...?!"
...!
He cried this out into the fading darkness, his voice cracking with eight years of suppressed grief.
Grandmother Essun held him tighter.
Her thin arms had surprising strength, wrapping around his shoulders with the firmness of someone who would not let go no matter how much he struggled.
He felt like crying even more, but he stopped himself.
He could not.
Men did not cry. Men had to be strong. Men had to...
"They are all asleep, Tokoloshe."
Grandmother Essun’s voice cut through his thoughts.
"None will hear you now."
She shifted, pulling him closer against her bony chest.
"It is okay to cry."
...!
Grandmother Essun took her gnarled stick and struck it into the ground beside them.
The rings on it began to clash with one another, bone against stone against crystal, creating an echoing melody that filled the air around them. The sound was rhythmic and strange, almost like music, almost like a heartbeat, almost like the lullabies that mothers sang to children in the darkness of the night.
It was loud enough to cover any other sound.
Loud enough to give him privacy in his grief.
"It is okay to cry."
She repeated the words with gentle insistence.
"Only the stones below us will make records of this."
Her hand continued stroking his hair.
"Cry now, and whatever caused you to cry... you can rectify it later."
Her voice hardened slightly.
"Let this be the only time you cry. After this, whatever you need to do, do it. Whoever you need to kill, kill. Bathe the Lands of Stone in blood if you need to, Tokoloshe."
...!
She pulled back just enough to meet his eyes. As if she knew for him to sort out these emotions and for things to be rectified for whatever caused him to be in this much pain...The Lands of Stone had to be bathed in blood!
"But let this be the last time you cry."
Her ancient gaze held his.
"Cry, and let it all out."
...!
His entire body buzzed as he wanted to do many things!
He wanted to push her away.
He wanted to pretend he was fine.
He wanted to be the strong Young Lugal that his mother had wanted him to become!
But at this moment, he remembered his mother.
Her smile and her warmth.
Her voice telling him that it was okay.
"My Little Lugal, remember, when your Ama is here, it is okay to cry."
She was not here, but Grandmother Essun was.
And right now, right here, in the darkness before dawn with the melody of her stick covering all other sounds...
He covered his face in the rags of Grandmother Essun’s garments.
He held his head, and he cried.
Tears that had been building for eight years, finally released. Grief that he had pushed down and locked away and refused to acknowledge, finally given voice.
For he missed his Ama so, so much.
The melody of Grandmother Essun’s stick continued its strange song as the stars faded and the first hints of dawn touched the eastern sky.
And the Tokoloshe of the Purple Stone Tribe wept for everything he had lost.
For the last time.
Because when these tears ended, he would begin to plan for those who had brought about such grief and misery!