Cometh the Hour

“Father!” She said, reprimanding. “Again?”

“I am sorry, λίγο matóy.” He said, using for her the
nickname he seemed to call her by more than her actual name. *λίγο matóy*. Little soldier. “I thought
you could use a meal made by someone other than yourself today.” His eyeshine consistent
almost entirely of a strong green – happiness. Though, even as she watched, she
could see some flecks of indigo, for anticipation.

“I could use a good meal, yes.” Ianthe conceded. “Not the
burnt remains of one.” She gingerly picked up a scorched piece of meat that she
couldn’t even identity. Her father had always struggled with domestic life,
even following the death of her mother – a woman she barely remembered – but this
was one of the greater disasters she’d seen him cause in her twenty-three years.
“Have you ever considered investing in a class of some kind?”

“λίγο matóy, you wound me.” Her father said, placing his
right hand on the left of his chest in mock hurt. His performance, however, was
undermined by the smile playing across his features.

“I would not be much of a “matóy” if I could not inflict
wounds as I wished.” She pointed out to him, not untruthfully. Her father
laughed. He was a surprisingly reedy man, her father. Considering the stories
of him as a soldier in the war, he looked little like the other old soldiers, of
which she knew two - Lathyros, a musclebound old man, and Nedjeftet, who was
both twice the age and twice the height of Ianthe. Merikare was short, and slightly
stocky, with a greying beard and a demeanour so friendly it bordered on
helpless. Whatever physical strength he may have once had had ailed over the years,
and Ianthe had long since learned that she could not rely on him for assistance
with physical tasks. Tearing open packages when they arrived, loading and
unloading supplies if they went travelling, carrying any furniture that needed
moving – these tasks had all been hers for as long as she could remember.

“Now, your mother,” Merikare would always tell her whenever she
had asked, “now she had been a fine warrior! She worked as a *besnet* – a smith – before the war, and
she knew how to make and use weapons. I saw her fight with all sorts…” and so
he would ramble on, losing himself to a life and love past. She had always been
enraptured with such stories, in the way that a child always is. To think that
such exciting things had actually happened! At such an age, it had always been
difficult for her to wrap her head around.

Her favourite stories were of her mother, for they had been the
only ones that had made her father smile. He had talked of their first meeting,
where he had saved her from a marauding enemy and then she had returned the
favour when he had been taken by surprise, and how their bond had quickly grown
and they had spent many nights talking to each other long after the rest of
their comrades had gone to sleep.

“She would always tell me, “stop it, stop making me laugh””
he had once told her in a conspiratorial manner. “She was worried that we would
wake up the rest of our unit. And I told her, “they are always awoken by our
enemies anyway. If they have to wake, better they wake to the sound of your angelic
laughter than the sound of another surprise attack”. And that look she gave me,
λίγο matóy… I had been in love with her for many weeks by that point, but it
was only then that I considered the possibility that she may have been in love
with me as well.”

Despite this, their comrade had apparently been surprised to
see how strong the connection between the two was. When the war was over, Merikare
said, the pair had announced their decision to stay together while looking for
a place to live and had been met with a collective gasp louder than just about
any noise he had remembered hearing throughout the war. Not only had her mother
never once expressed romantic feelings about anyone, but the other soldiers had
apparently made a mistake about her father.

“They thought I liked only men, my dear λίγο matóy.” He had
been bouncing her on her knee as he had told her this, even though she had been
almost nine and almost too bit to fit there anymore. “I had not mentioned to
them my capacity to love females as well as males, so when I told them I was in
love with your mother, you should have seen the looks on their faces!” He had
laughed after telling them that, as though failing to mention such as thing was
the smallest detail imaginable to make a fuss over.

Ianthe had always found his flippancy exasperating, but she had
never loved her father less for it. Even now, as he stood laughing about his
inability to cook anything beyond a burnt husk, she found that she was only
endeared by the display, and humbled by the fact that he had attempted it for
her sake.

“Let me handle the meal today, paté.” She told him. He shrugged,
complacent as always.

“If you are sure.” He said. “Maybe it is for the best. Maybe
the act will ease your nerves.”

“My nerves require no easing.” She told him, picking up a
knife and beginning to slice through some fresh fruit with ease. “Today is
routine. Just because they are running a test today does not mean I have
anything to fear.”

Merikare shook his head. “I hold respect for the Mythrans,
but they think in a different way to us.” He told her. “They have ideas every
day that we could never dream of. What they describe as “routine” may well be
totally different. Even catastrophically so.”

Her father had always talked about the Mythrans with an air
of uncertainty around him, like they were animals that he would not let himself
assume were domesticated. According to him, though their kind – the Aenieth –
had done most of the work during the war, they would not have been able to win
without the assistance of the Mythrans, who had created extraordinary war
machines and hairbrained schemes that the Aenieth would have never thought of
in a thousand years. He has once told her a story of a war machine that stood
three stories tall, with guns mounted on all sides that shot flames in every direction.

We were lucky, Merikare said of the incident, not to be
killed by accident.

Still, Ianthe knew that her father held no real ill will
towards the Mythrans. The biggest sign of this was the fact that she had been
named after one – the previous Ianthe had been a soldier in the war (one of the
few Mythrans to actually fight on the front lines) who had died saving her
father when a building had collapsed on top of them. She had apparently given
him her rations of food and water, as well as nursed him upon discovery that
his arm had been broken in the collapse. They had remained there for days, and
by the time rescue teams had arrived, she had died of malnourishment. Her father
had narrowly survived.

“She was the bravest person I ever met.” Her father had
said, a quiver in his voice. “It is one thing to launch yourself into battle,
and to fight to protect others. But this woman loved life as much as you would
believe – spent every day singing and dancing and forcing us all to enjoy
ourselves. That she would give up that life in order to save mine, it…” he had
trailed off a little bit. “I would not have been so brave. Even your mother, I
think, may not have been so brave – although I thank the stars that she was
never put in that position.” He sighed.

“When your mother and I knew we were having a daughter, it
was the first thing that both of us thought of. To name you after the woman who
saved my life.” He had turned to her then, eyes watery but smile as whole as
she had ever seen it. “You are the legacy of two amazing women. Your mother and
my friend Ianthe both. And I’m sure that someday you will do both of them
proud.”

Upon learning of such a legacy, she had proclaimed her
desire to uphold it and surpass it. Her father had scooped her up into his arms
and cried a little.

“Oh, you are not like me, λίγο matóy.” He had told her. “I
would settle for honouring their legacies by living a fulfilling life. But you-”
He looked into her eyes. His eyeshine was pink and green, full of love and
happiness as he looked at her. “You will create your own legacy, I think. Instead
of honouring the legacies of those before you, you will rise above to the point
where everyone else will have to honour yours.” He hugged her. “I am so proud
of you for that.”

Ianthe had never mentioned to her father that she had caught
glimpse of one other colour in his eyeshine while he had been talking about her
legacy – the pale yellow of fear. As she sat down at the table to eat her
breakfast, she caught sight of it again. A smidge of colour below everything
else, likely hiding itself in a mirror of how her father had made no admittance
of the emotion himself.

“You are… concerned.” She said. Her father’s shoulders
seemed to wither a bit, and for a moment, he looked more like a withered corpse
than a living creature. Then he sucked in a new breath and seemed to re-inflate
back to life.

“I am concerned, it is true.” He admitted. “As I said, I
know not what the Mythrans have planned for today, and there is every chance it
could go wrong. And I care about you very much.” His gaze was pointed. She
rolled her eyes.

“I would never have guessed that.” She told him. He laughed
through his nose at the sarcasm, but gave no other reaction. Then, he said:

“Ianthe.”

This made her pause.

“You have a good kefáli, a good head on your shoulders.” He
said, poking his own food with his knife. She noticed that he had eaten little.
“Be sure to listen to it.”

“This is foreboding.” She told him, hoping to get him to
smile again. But it didn’t work. By this point, his eyes were almost completely
pale blue (for pensiveness). “I will, but… is something the matter?”

He smiled at her again, without answering. His eyes crinkled
up as he did so. His eyeshine seemed, all of a sudden, a mix of colours. Strong
green, pale yellow, deep blue, pale pink, strong indigo. They flitted in and
out of his iris so fast that she barely had time to keep track of them all.  She had, of course, seen this before. It was
typical of parents to feel multitudes of emotions towards their children at
certain points. Common ones were anger (bright red) and sadness (deep blue)
mixed with affection (pale pink), which was typically observed during
arguments, and dark yellow and dark purple for amazement and pride, when their
child successfully completed some kind of important task. Storms of emotion
such as this were even common amongst the more emotional individuals – such as
her father. But she was, of course, perturbed by the fact that he appeared to
be feeling so many things for no apparent reason.

She asked him if anything was wrong again, and this time he
blinked, as if in consideration, before shaking his head.

“Just one more ache in an old man’s bones.”