Amari: Afraid, and So Brave

"Ma. Ma, help."

She walked over to join him at the mirror, and she stood behind him, peering at his reflection. She tried to ascertain what was bothering him, since she knew there'd be either no words or a jumble of them. He was already frustrated. Hands in his hair, elbows flared out to either side, jaw clenching.

His tension rose and fell in waves throughout the morning, and when it peaked he'd be seized by grins and giggling, hiding his face behind his robes or his hands. She'd spent years training him what to do when he was overcome by the powerful, painful emotions that used to wrack him on a daily basis. She'd never had to show him what to do when he was overcome with joy.

He was tugging his hair. "It's all—it just looks bad. Look. It's—"

"Well, stop pulling at it," she said gently, and touched his hands to try and ease them down. "That's not going to help it at all."

"I shoulda cut it," he said.

"You look very handsome with it grown out. Hansel likes it."

"Yeah, but it's all—" He winced and made incomprehensible gestures on either side of his head. He puffed out his cheeks.

"It's a bit frizzy. Possibly because you keep tugging it." She smiled wryly at him and smoothed a little of the offending hair down. "Mishka—"

"Mishka's busy."

"—Mishka gave me some conditioning oil for my hair that's very nice. We could try a bit of that."

He sat in a chair and she worked the oil in for him. Only a few drops—she knew if she handed him the bottle, he'd pour half of it into his hand. Or perhaps directly onto his head.

Mishka had given her some lotion for her face, too, and she offered some of that to Goro. His skin was looking awfully dry. It was a testament to how special a day this was that he didn't immediately scoff the idea away.

She dabbed some lotion onto the pads of her fingers and dotted it across his face, then massaged it in with little circles. He went on fidgeting, and his eyes darted every which way, but he didn't flinch from her touch the way he once would have. She was used to watching him, oh so carefully, whenever she got close—making sure she wasn't crossing a line. Making sure she wasn't causing him more hurt than he'd already been made to suffer.

#

Amari had taught him to comb his hair.

Such a peculiar child he'd been when he came to her—in some ways so feral that other clerics mistook him for simple-minded, but a five minute conversation with him could eliminate any suspicion of that. Verbally, he was deft and cunning, with a vocabulary and turns of the phrase that belied his age and background. But the first time Amari handed him a comb, he made a weird face at it and dropped it on the floor.

"It's to get the tangles out of your hair," Amari explained.

"Why?"

He understood what soap was for and how to use it. His first day at the abbey, Amari took him and Sylar, another young convict, to the baths. Goro had come out clean and smelling of soap. He had no concept, however, of how often he needed to bathe. Neither did Sylar. Both boys were greasy and smelly again after a week, and Amari herded them back to the baths.

"Again?" Sylar asked. Goro scowled, which was all he ever did.

"It's important to clean yourself frequently, if you can," Amari said, mindful of the possibility that neither of them had ready access to soap and warm water before coming to her.

"'Cause of the bugs," Sylar guessed.

"For your health," Amari said.

"Bug bites are nasty," Sylar agreed.

#

Ombre painted Goro's nails black, then added red glitter on top. His affection for her was plain as day, perhaps not to an outsider, but to Amari. She doubted there was anyone else he would hold his hands still for while the rest of him writhed and his face twisted up with confusion every time he glanced at the work in progress.

"Why?" he asked.

"'Cause I love you and want you to look special on your special day!" Ombre said. "You deserve it."

"The glitter makes it very special," Amari agreed. "Hansel will always remember the way your nails were painted."

It was no accident she invoked Hansel's name frequently when trying to soothe him. Something about their love for each other was truly magical—a balm that cooled Goro down and settled him in a way that Amari's fifteen years of guidance barely could. She suspected it was because Hansel made Goro feel desired—longed for. Amari's love had taught Goro (or at least led him to suspect) that his very life was worthwhile. Hansel's love had taught him that someone would cross oceans to be with him.

#

He spoke three languages. He knew the system of gestures thieves used with each other and the symbols they wrote to leave messages. Give him a handful of coins in differing denominations and he could tell you the total in half a minute. And yet, he was functionally illiterate.

Amari wanted to teach him how to read.

"I can read," he snapped. "Just don't like to."

She assigned him the chore of shelving books in the library until he gave up, frustrated, and admitted he didn't know how to alphabetize them. Amari told him she would teach him, and he hurled a book across the room.

Throwing things was his usual recourse when he was upset. Books. Dishes. Cleaning supplies. Ceremonial objects. Anything that wasn't nailed down, really.

Never *at* people. This told Amari that he was not trying to hurt, only to frighten. Likely because he himself was frightened.

"It's alright," she told him smoothly. "It will be easy for you to learn. You can already read some words; you just need to learn the letters so that you can sound out words you haven't seen before."

She wasn't just saying so to make him feel better. She truly believed that with his knack for language, he would pick reading up quickly. And she was right. Within a matter of months the library became his favorite place to be.

He stopped throwing books. They seemed valuable to him, once he could read them. Much in the same way he never threw food.

#

Jonn knocked on the door, a crown of roses in his hands.

Before he'd even finished explaining what it was, Amari watched the way Goro's eyes fixed on it, and the strange emotion that passed over his face, and she thought he might already have figured it out.

"'Course I'm gonna wear it," he said. If it were anything else he would have snatched it from Jonn and stalked off, but a flower crown necessitated more care. He accepted it with both hands and took a step back to hold it up and examine more closely, looking glum.

"It's too nice," he told Amari once Jonn was gone.

"Do you mean nice like it's too fancy?" she asked. "Or too kind?"

"Well—both, but. I meant too kind." He was mumbling, eyes on the crown.

"Luci loves you," Amari said.

"So?"

"People do kind things for the people they love."

"But…" He started picking at the petals, dissatisfied, but caught himself and stopped.

"Are you uncomfortable because you don't know how to repay her?" Amari asked. He shrugged. "You don't need to repay her. Loving gestures aren't transactions. They're simply things we do as part of our relationships. You've helped Luci with spells, and you're always ready to lend an ear as she navigates her new religion. Those things mean a great deal to her."

"So… you're saying we're square."

"No—" Amari started, but Goro had finally looked up at her, and he was grinning. She laughed and kissed him on the forehead.

He'd learned so much in the past year. Things she'd attempted to teach him for years all finally seemed to crystallize. Partly that was just how Goro learned things—for how sharp his mind was, and how quickly he picked up new skills, he needed more time than most to grasp new ideas. Always a skeptical boy, turning things around to examine from every angle.

And partly, he'd needed a demonstration. People besides Amari who loved and cherished him, to prove to him what it looked like.

She helped him place the flower crown on his head. It settled between the waves of his hair, black tendrils crossing with woven green stems and red petals.

#

"Excuse me, ma'am? There's…" One of the child acolytes found Amari in the main sanctuary and was tugging on her sleeve. "There's a problem with your 'prentice."

"Oh," Amari said, putting a hand to her mouth, already feeling the heartache. "Where?"

"The inner sanctum, ma'am." The girl pointed. Amari thanked her and hastened toward it, afraid she would not be the first adult to reach him. Perhaps another cleric was already there and had sent the girl to fetch Amari. They *always* made things worse before she could get there to smooth it over.

Only… not this time. Goro was alone in the sanctum. Taking in the scene, Amari surmised the child had simply asked him what was wrong, and received either no answer or some screamed obscenities. Goro was curled in a ball, rocking himself, whimpering. He beat the ground with his fists when Amari approached.

"It's Amari," she said, since his face was planted firmly against his knees. He did not react. She knelt on the ground an arm's length away and began to inch closer.

Goro was hyperventilating. He was starkly pale and trembling.

"Oh, sweetheart," Amari murmured before she could stop herself. "Goro, it's alright. You're going to be alright."

"I can't breathe," he said, strained and gasping. Dire as it sounded, Amari took it as a hopeful sign. He loathed asking for help, but he was doing so now.

"You're alright," she assured him. "You're panicking. Has this ever happened to you before?"

He shrugged. She glanced around the area for clues as to what might have upset him. There was a shattered piece of pottery on the floor a few feet away—she recognized the pattern in the glaze as an old ceremonial decanter that normally sat on a pedestal against the wall. Glancing up at the pedestal she saw that sure enough, there was nothing on it anymore.

Knowing Goro, her best guess was that he'd broken it on purpose; indeed, the distance of the pile of shards from the pedestal suggested it had made a trip, not simply fallen off. But what could have possessed him to throw it, she didn't know. It could have been anything.

Goro was scared all the time. Amari had been taught that fear was the feeling of being unsafe, and a child on the streets is never safe. Fear had been etched into his bones since he was too young to remember. He didn't know how *not* to be scared. The world had been filled with people and things trying to hurt him, and he had no reason to believe the abbey and its occupants were any exception. Regular meals and warm shelter were alien to him, not a comfort.

Even Amari was a threat. She'd lost count of how many times he'd screamed, "You're fuckin' killing me, lady!" And over the most mundane things, too. Trying to show him how to hold a pen properly. Making him go back to redo his sweeping of the floors, because he hadn't hit the corners. Goro's mind and body constantly, constantly told him he was in danger, and it was impossible to predict what was going to set him off, either flying into a rage or curling up to rock himself.

This was the first time she'd seen him so upset he struggled to breathe, however. And if Amari was a threat, she was still *less* of a threat than whatever had scared him, because he'd implicitly asked her for help.

She placed her hand firmly on the back of his neck. She didn't warn him beforehand, because she knew the idea of it happening would alarm him more than the act itself. The back of the neck was a calming place, and firm pressure was often more stabilizing to traumatized children than light touches.

He jerked like she'd shocked him, but didn't try to get away. He lifted his hands, still balled into fists, and she touched the one closer to her, providing him with more spatial awareness of where she was in relation to him, since he still wasn't looking.

And then—

He grabbed her hand.

He worked around until he had a good grip, and then he squeezed so tight her knuckles cracked.

He'd never touched her before.

"That's good," she said. "Good job, Goro. You're doing so well. Just keep holding onto me."

He did. And over the course of the next several minutes, he began to settle. His breaths came more smoothly, and his grip on her hand eased a touch.

Eventually, he lifted his face from his knees, gave her a funny look—confused and vaguely disgusted, the same look he always gave when she extended him kindnesses—and scooted away, ducking out from under the hand on his neck.

"What scared you, Goro?" she asked.

He didn't answer. When he was a safe ten or so feet from her, he curled into a ball again and went back to rocking himself.

That should have been the worst of it.

Amari stayed where she was and contemplated getting a broom to sweep up the shards for him. Usually, she was firm in requiring him to clean up his own messes. No matter how scared, angry, or out of control he felt, she wanted him to see that he was capable of setting things right once he calmed down.

Watching him panic like that, though. Struggling to get a breath in. It awakened a different kind of sympathy in her: one that only wanted to hold and comfort, to give him a break from feeling so bad. She could sweep up the mess for him this one time, she thought. He was doing the best he could right now.

Footsteps clicked on the marble floor in the vestibule, and Eli entered the room. Amari's heart sank. He was followed closely by Stella, a paladin who always seemed to be in his company lately.

Amari rose to her feet, immediately feeling defensive of Goro. She stepped in front of him as though she could block Eli's path to him. The sanctum felt cavernous around them.

"What's going on? Is the boy hurt?" Eli strode toward them, glancing between Goro and Amari, and then he saw the pile of shards. He came to a stop and was dead silent, staring at them.

"My dear, what's the matter?" Stella asked, coming to a stop beside him. She peered into his face, concerned. "Eli?"

"The Decanter of Yses," he mumbled, looking and sounding dazed. "It's… it's…"

"It's what?" Stella glanced at the shards, and back to Eli. "My love?"

"A priceless artifact," Eli said softly.

"It's a fifty-year-old piece of pottery made by a cleric," Amari said. Eli was prone to showing emotion only when he stood to gain something from it—in this case, Amari sensed, he was planning to make Goro's crime seem far more serious than it was. "It isn't magical or holy. It's a decoration."

"Priceless," Stella repeated, as though Amari hadn't spoken at all. "What happened?"

With that, Eli's gaze turned back to Goro, his face hardening. "He destroyed it. Didn't he?"

Amari was not a liar. She didn't tell falsehoods. She didn't exaggerate or downplay. She aimed, at all times, to be fair and honest. But in that moment, she had the most untoward urge to cover for him—make up a story about how the decanter had broken. Explain how it had been accidental. Claim that she herself had broken it.

The evidence would not back her up; and besides, she didn't want to give into the urge. It would not sit right in her conscience. But…

Eli started toward Goro. Goro had been watching him, and he scrambled backward, shaking his head.

"You're coming with me downstairs," Eli said, and Amari went cold. Not again. This would be the third time this year they'd interrogated him.

"Don't touch me," Goro said as Eli reached for him. Eli made a grab for his arm, but Goro twisted out of the way. Seeing the scuffle that was brewing, Stella hurried over to help.

"Don't," Amari said. "Eli, leave him be. I'll take care of it."

No one was listening to her. Goro swatted and kicked and scooted away until Eli and Stella had him cornered. "*No*," he said, struggling against them as they seized him by the arms and dragged him back out onto the floor. "No. No. No. No."

Amari walked closer, reaching out fretfully, not knowing what to do. "Stop it," she said. "He doesn't want to be touched. Just—let me. Let me."

This boy who could talk for endless stretches once Amari got him started—who never seemed to have any shortage of words—now he had just one, but it was painfully clear. He was doing exactly what he ought to do—telling them no. And they weren't *listening*.

"He's telling you to stop," Amari tried again, feeling panicky herself. "Let him go. Please."

Goro's movements grew more violent and erratic, still hitting and kicking but with more force. He lunged out, teeth snapping as he tried to bite Eli's hand, but he missed.

"*Hold*," Eli said, suffusing his voice with magic. Goro stiffened, twitching, for a mere fraction of a second before he shook it off and went back to thrashing. He yanked one arm free and his hand went straight for his ankle, up his pant leg. Amari clapped a hand over her mouth.

Oh, no.

Goro was not supposed to have knives. Acolytes weren't permitted any weapons. But he kept getting hold of them, somehow, and hiding them on his body. The one he emerged with was a tiny dagger, the blade not three inches long. He sank it into Eli's shoulder, and Eli howled.

"Goro!" Amari cried. No, no, *no*. It would be worse now. They would take him to the Citadel. She pointed at him and issued a Command. "*Drop.*"

Goro clenched his jaw harder and threw off that magic, too. He stabbed Eli again, closer to the neck this time. Stella tried again where Eli had failed, putting her hand against the side of Goro's head and shouting, "*Hold*."

Goro stiffened again, then fell limp. He flopped to the floor, dagger clattering beside him. His eyes were still darting around frantically, and when Amari came in closer she could see he'd broken a sweat.

"Stop touching him," Amari said. Her voice was strained with the effort of holding back tears. She was weaker than Stella and Eli both, but she tried to nudge them aside. Eli backed away of his own accord, murmuring a prayer to heal himself. "Please, leave him alone. Let me work with him. He listens to me."

Goro's breaths were coming fast again. His eyes fixed on Amari. "It's going to be okay," she told him, the first of her tears spilling.

And there was her lie. She couldn't help him if they took him to the Citadel.

Goro twitched, and his muscles began to tense. He writhed, jaw clenching once more, and with a deep, throaty scream he threw off the paralysis. He was halfway off the floor, going straight for Stella's face—claws out only; he hadn't bothered with the dagger—when Stella drew her mace off her back.

Amari screamed. Stella struck Goro on the side of the head, her weapon glowing with a holy light. He dropped again, clutching his head and wailing.

"*Be afraid*," Stella commanded, her voice unnaturally deep and thunderous.

Goro took a deep, noisy breath in and out. Blood trickled between the fingers he had pressed to his temple. He looked up at Stella, teeth bared, eyes alight with fury. He snarled. "Fuck you."

Another swing from Stella's mace knocked him unconscious.

Amari was on her knees, shaking and crying, watching helplessly as they dragged him away. But deep in the midst of her horror, she felt a glimmer of pride. It felt *wrong*, and—sickly, almost. A diseased plant growing in a storm.

But she was proud of him.

For all his fear, and all his pain, he refused to let anyone get the better of him. He'd thrown off Stella's smite like it was nothing.

He was afraid, but so, so brave.

###

She managed to hold off her tears until after she'd walked him to the gazebo and come back inside the manor.

He looked so handsome, in his vestments and his flower crown, with his sparkling nails and neatly combed hair.

At some point he'd shed the weight of anxiety and grown so light he kept bouncing on his toes. No less fidgety, but the scowl was gone. He looked excited and hopeful. Amari grew a lump in her throat that wouldn't budge, and she was reluctant to speak in case her voice broke.

Inside the gazebo she squeezed his hands and kissed his cheeks, then his forehead, and she hugged him. He hugged her back, holding tight, and they stood that way for a long time.

"I'm so happy for you," she whispered. "My boy. My baby."

"Wasn't your baby," he said. He sounded on the verge of tears, too.

"I didn't get to hold you, but you were mine even then," she insisted. "When your father was no longer there to take care of you, that's when Eldath and Mask set us on the path toward each other."

He scoffed weakly.

"I taught you to read," she went on. "I taught you to tie your shoes."

"Did fuckin' not. I knew that shit since I was a kid."

"You never tied them in bows, just knots. Which I suppose worked fine for you, since you refused to take them off anyway." She smiled, chin still resting on his shoulder.

"Pfff. Whatever. Knots are the same fuckin' thing."

"We've talked about this." She kissed his cheek again and sniffed. "I raised you, like it or not."

"I *like* it! God, Ma."

"And here we are, on your wedding day. I'm so proud of you, sweetheart. So proud." She gave him one last squeeze and stepped back. "You look so handsome. Hansel's going to light up when he sees you."

Goro grinned and ducked his head, turning pink. And that was how Amari left him—shy, and excited, and full of joy. She broke down in tears as soon as she stepped inside.

Later, she watched her son stand at the altar with the man he loved, and listened to them proclaim their commitment to one another. Goro was pale and shaking as he read his vows, but determined as ever. It had been so important to him to do this, scared though he was to be vulnerable in front of people. When Amari had mentioned the idea of eloping, or even exchanging vows with Hansel in private, Goro had objected strenuously. It seemed he felt he had something to prove, even though anyone who knew him and Hansel would think it obvious that their love was real, robust, and built to last.

Watching him up there, though—watching the way Hansel carried him away, and then back to finish the ceremony; seeing how he fled afterwards, then willingly came back to the reception—Amari changed her mind. He wasn't trying to prove anything to anyone. He was just… being brave. He wanted to have a special day with the people he loved, celebrating his new marriage, and he wanted to do it even when parts of it were hard.

That was the way he lived his life as a whole, really. It had been ever since the day she first met him. Always, always, her boy kept going, kept fighting, kept living.