Page 74 of Fly to Fury
After discussing a few more items with Dacha in a low tone, the elf healer and her orderly ducked out of the room. Uncle Weylind also seemed to have left.
Dacha disappeared into the other room for a moment, and he returned with a pitcher and glass. After retaking his seat, he poured only a small amount of water in the glass and set the pitcher on the table beside the bed. “You should take a few sips, if you can.”
Fieran struggled to raise his head, and Dacha helped, both steadying his head and pressing the glass to Fieran’s mouth.
Fieran tried a few sips. The water washed cool in his mouth and soothed as it slid down his throat. He would have gulped more greedily at it, but Dacha only tipped the glass enough for a small swallow at a time.
Strange how thankful one could be for something as simple as a sip of water. Before, he would have just grabbed a glass and swigged it down without even thinking about it.Now he was dependent on someone else to help him with even that basic necessity.
Once Fieran finished the water, Dacha set the glass on the table as well. “You should rest, sason.”
Probably, but he wasn’t ready for sleep just yet. The healing magic had numbed the pain, and the morphine was still working its way into his system. For this rather blissful moment, he was relatively pain-free and somewhat clearheaded.
He tipped his head to better face Dacha. Dacha’s sleeve had fallen back, showing those scars around his wrist.
“I always wanted scars just like you.” Fieran felt himself smiling. Not sure why. Maybe the morphine was working more than he realized. “Seems I finally got them. Hurts more than I realized it would.”
“Sason.” Dacha drew out the word, as if he wasn’t sure what else to say.
“I’ve always wanted to be just like you.” Fieran had the vague sense that he was saying something he normally wouldn’t, but he couldn’t seem to stop either. “Never could quite manage it. My hair’s too short. I talk too much and too loudly. I’m just too human to be a true elf warrior like you.”
“No, sason.” Dacha gripped Fieran’s hand again, shaking his head.
“It’s true.” Fieran blinked up at Dacha. Was the room getting blurry at the edges? “And I know it disappoints you. You wanted an elf warrior for a son to carry your name and legacy, and I’m not that.”
“No, Fieran.” Dacha gave Fieran’s arm a small shake as his tone turned fierce. “The only way you would ever disappoint me would be to cross moral lines that should never be crossed. You have never done that.”
“But I don’t wear proper warrior hair. I don’t—”
“Shh. Fieran. Listen.” Dacha’s silver-blue eyes met his with an intensity that quelled the words in Fieran’s throat. “You are far from a disappointment to me.”
Fieran struggled to focus on his dacha’s face above him, the bright lights overhead glinting in the strands of his dacha’s silver-blond hair. He couldn’t quite seem to process the words or make them fit with the pain that lingered inside him. Not a pain from his injuries but a pain he’d carried most of his life.
Dacha sighed, some of the fierceness easing from his eyes. He stared at the wall for a long moment, as if gathering his thoughts and his words. “Before you were born, your macha and I teased each other about what traits we would like in our children. She wanted pointed ears like mine. I wanted red hair like hers.”
“And when I was born, I was just what both of you wanted.” Fieran would have pointed to his tapered ears and red hair, if his hand hadn’t been so firmly clasped in Dacha’s. He’d heard this story many times growing up, usually told by Mama with her green eyes sparkling as she looked at Dacha as if they were sharing an inside joke between them.
“Yes, but not because of your hair or your ears.” Dacha rested his other hand on Fieran’s shoulder as if to further focus him. “It would not have mattered if you had been born bald with rounded human ears. You still would have been exactly what we wanted because you are ourson. Oursason.”
Dacha had said the word first in Escarlish, then in elvish. As if to make sure that Fieran didn’t miss every nuance and meaning in either language.
A lump filled Fieran’s throat. Great. Was he about to cry like a little boy? Again? He was definitely going to chalk that up to the morphine running through his veins.
“I am sorry I have not told you that enough growing up.And I am sorry for any time I have made you feel as if you disappointed me.” Dacha leaned back in his chair, his gaze lifting away from Fieran as if to search within himself. “If I have ever harbored even a momentary disappointment, then that disappointment is my problem to resolve, not yours. You have done nothing worthy of disappointment. Not by keeping your hair short or joining the Flying Corps or in any other way you have chosen a different path than mine.”
Those words soothed deep inside his chest. Perhaps they didn’t instantly heal all the wounds he’d nursed over the years. But they would be the truth he’d use to lance the festering the next time he struggled to come to terms with how much he felt like he fell short.
“I am perhaps the last of the elven warriors of old. But you and your siblings are the first in the new line of warriors wielding the magic of the ancient kings. You bring that magic to both humans and elves, melding both worlds in a way never seen before. You are what this changing world needs, and I am so…” Dacha’s voice turned rough. “So very proud to have you for a son.”
Dacha had said he was proud of Fieran several times before. Once before Fieran had left for basic training. Again after the Battle over Bridgetown.
Yet this time struck even deeper, lying injured and broken as he was. Even now, after he’d crashed and failed his squadron, Dacha was still proud.
Fieran finally let his eyes slide closed, relaxing into the fog carrying him away again. “And I’m proud to have you for my dacha.”
He wasn’t sure he’d managed to get the words out of his head or if the murmur had been discernible.
But his dacha’s hand squeezed his, and Fieran found himself smiling as he fell back to sleep.
