Bakir: I Will Find You

Bakir thought that maybe Jasmilia had his best interests at heart—or rather, she thought she did. He knew a lot about his mother.

Jasmilia had no one to talk to, back home, least of all Peter. At night, she would come to Bakir and sit on his bedside and ramble about her life. She’d talk about how back home in Calimport, she used to beat up street kids that were bigger than her when they tried to steal her lunch money. She’d talk about how she used to help her older brother, Renar, by dropping off deliveries to the cartel’s customers, but she was so young she didn’t realize she was delivering drugs, and how Renar used her for profit and dumped her alone in Calimport the first chance he got. She talked about Uncle Kheman, and how timid he was, and how she was always trapped babysitting him. She talked about how Kheman cared more about sailing than anything else.

She’d talk about Luka, and tell stories about how he courted her.

Sometimes she’d talk about somebody named Larkin, and somebody named Goro. Goro was his brother, she said. Goro was off getting bigger, and stronger.

It always seemed like she missed him. Bakir felt… bad, knowing they’d gotten separated.

Larkin was someone else, Jasmilia said. A cousin. Renar’s kid. Jasmilia didn’t know much else about her.

He kind’ve pitied his mother. She was damaged. She grew up rough. She didn’t know how to treat people or how to get along. Bakir figured it was his job to turn the other cheek.

To help teach her.

He needed to show her the kindness nobody else ever did.

Sometimes, when she flew into a rage or screamed and hit him, Bakir bolted and hid outside in the woods out back where it was hard to find him. Jasmilia was terrifying when she was angry. But—it made him feel better, thinking about it like that, reminding himself that he needed to be the bigger person, reminding himself that he grew up with privilege and she didn’t.

It made him feel responsible and mature instead of small and scared. So he kept trying to force himself to think about it like that. He forced himself to think, I need to be kind, and eventually she’ll learn to be better.

--

When Bakir was six, Theodin was born, and he stopped thinking about her as his mother and started thinking of her as Jasmilia.

--

Theodin was a noisy baby.

Jasmilia was under a lot of stress. Peter had gambled them into ruin. She spent all day managing their estate, managing their finances, managing the servants. When Theodin screamed, Jasmilia often snapped and screamed back, and Bakir—

Bakir got it. He understood. She was angry. She had trouble managing her temper. She grew up rough.

He tried to talk her into calming down. Jasmilia listened to him. He was the good child. He’d put his hand over Theodin’s mouth and try to make her stop crying, and that worked, sometimes, and it made him feel so responsible. He learned what to do by watching the nanny. When Theodin screamed, sometimes she was hungry, or she’d wet herself, or she as tired, so Bakir would feed her, or change her, or rock her until she feel asleep.

He was good at caring for babies. Better than Jasmilia, maybe. So he ended up doing it a lot.

He called the baby Din since she made so much noise. It was a good name. Funny. Cute.

--

Theodin learned to be very quiet. Bakir hated that. She used to be so loud and good, yelling and calling out when she was happy like she had to announce it to everybody.

Now she didn’t yell or call out much at all, no matter how she felt. The very act of speaking seemed to cause her anxiety. She learned to talk late. According to the books Bakir read, she was supposed to start talking about age two or so, but she didn’t start saying sentences until she was four.

--

When Bakir was ten, Peter offered to send him to monastery school.

“I know you want to learn,” Peter said fondly, patting his head. “You’ll be such a good heir, ey, Bakir? I see you scribbling and drawing in that notebook of yours all the time.”

Bakir wanted to go. So bad.

But, then he went out to dinner with his family that night, and—Jasmilia lost her temper at the waitress, and Theodin ran away outside the restaurant, and Bakir had to go find her hiding behind some barrels in the alley, bent over and bunched up like a scared and angry dog, and had to talk her out. And Bakir realized he… he couldn’t leave. He couldn’t leave Jasmilia like this, or Theodin. They needed his help too much.

--

Jasmilia taught Bakir the names of his family. At night, she’d whisper stories about them. Renar. Kheman. Larkin. Goro. Family, she said, family, blood family, people who’d be loyal to Bakir no matter what. And if he ever came across them, Bakir would know instantly he could be loyal to them and they’d be loyal to him back.

Bakir didn’t… get it, entirely. It seemed like such a weird concept. Being loyal to someone just because you were related to them. It was probably, he figured, a weird thing Jasmilia learned growing up in a gang and a cartel.

But after Jasmilia had gone to bed, Bakir would sneak into his sister’s room.

He’d whisper stories to her about their cousin Larkin, and their brother Goro. He didn’t know anything about either of them, so he made things up.

Goro was a famous prince. He grew up on the street, so he was hard and tough, but he was also very kind, because he knew what people went through. He got adopted by a royal family one day, when he was seven or eight, after they found him gnawing on a hunk of dried bread in an alleyway and felt bad for him. They instantly knew Goro was special, because he was smart and good, so they took him in and made him the heir to their kingdom. But Goro always missed the biological family he never had, so he searched for them tirelessly.

Jasmilia said that Larkin was Kheman’s daughter, so Bakir imagined her the way Jasmilia talked about Kheman. Soft, and timid. Jasmilia said Kheman was a coward, but— Bakir didn’t think being scared of violence was really cowardice so much as, well, common sense. Jasmilia said Kheman loved the water and loved to sail.

So that’s how Bakir imagined Larkin. Timid. Kind. A sailor.

Sometimes, when Theodin cried, Bakir would comfort her with stories about their brother and their cousin. He’d talk about how one day, they’d run into Larkin at port, and she’d see what was going on, and she’d be mad at Jasmilia for being so cruel, and she’d steal them away to go sailing with her on her ship. Then they’d go find Goro, who would be looking for them. Goro must be looking for them.

Theodin always fell asleep after that.

Bakir always felt really guilty for wanting to get away. It wasn’t… kind. Jasmilia didn’t deserve to have her children abandon her.

--

Theodin liked Bakir better than Jasmilia. It slowly became apparent over time. She’d cling to Bakir in the market—she’d sit beside Bakir at dinner—she’d only take lessons from Bakir and not her tutor—

And it made Jasmilia so angry.

Bakir got it. It seemed unfair. Jasmilia was her mom; Theodin ought to love her the most. But Theodin was scared of loud noises and shouting and hitting, and Jasmilia had grown up rough and didn’t know better. She didn’t know better. She didn’t. No one had taught her. Her husband had died when she was young. She’d gone through so much. It was a two-way issue.

So Bakir would tug on his mom’s sleeve and try to distract her and calm her down. Diffuse the tension.

And later, he’d take Theodin aside, and he’d explain that… he understood why Theo was scared, but for their mother’s sake, and for the sake of harmony, Theo needed to pretend like everything was okay and stop acting scared of their mom, and she needed to cling to their mom and show affection.

Bakir explained, “A lot of kids grow up on the streets. We have so much more than everyone else. We have a home. We have our own rooms. We have food and safety. We ought to be grateful. So many other people have it so much rougher than us, Din.”

Bakir explained, “She doesn’t know better. She went through a lot, growing up. Her husband Luka died.”

Bakir explained, “I know it’s rough.  I’m sorry, Din. I’m sorry. But sometimes you’ve gotta be the adult and turn the other cheek.”

Sometimes Theo found her voice to argue back. She’d say, “Fine, but Mama’s like, old. Shouldn’t she know better by now?”

Or she’d say, “I don’t want to turn the other cheek,” and she’d cry.

Bakir never knew what to say to that.

--

It didn’t work.

Theo kept acting scared of Jasmilia. She kept clinging to Bakir, and Jasmilia kept shooting Bakir angry glances in the market and trying to peel Theo away from him.

--

The day Jasmilia got rid of him, Bakir screamed and cried.

He used to tell Theo that Jasmilia had their best interests at heart, but—sometimes Bakir thought back on the things she’d done, and he wondered if maybe he was wrong.

--

The pirates were awful. They stank. They cursed. They ripped his drawing book up and used it to roll cigarettes, then made him smoke one. Cormac mostly ignored him, except when they needed him to use magic to make food for the cook or make wind for the sails.

Sometimes, Bakir wondered if twenty years from now he’d be cruel, and he’d tell his children it was because of bad experiences. He’d say his mother sold him to pirates when he was fourteen. He’d say he lost his sister and never found her again. He’d say he spent a year being ignored in the belly of a ship. He’d say he grew up rough, because his mother always screamed and shouted at him.

And a voice in the back of his mind would whisper that he didn’t have it so bad, not really, because he had food on the table and his family was rich.

--

Bakir had never killed anything before. He found dead animals in the woods sometimes, and he’d carefully slice them apart to look at their bones and organs. He loved animals, and was curious about them. And once he was done with the body, he’d gently bury it and say a little prayer to Silvanus.

But on the pirate ship, he was almost killed. They boarded a merchant ship and one of the guards tried to stab him.

“No, I’m not a pirate!” he shouted, dodging. “I’m just here to put wind in the sails! They captured me!”

But the guard didn’t care and kept trying to stab him. Bakir summoned lightning to strike the man down—god, it was the only thing he knew how to do—and then once the man was dead, he bent down and stole the man’s knife from his corpse.

Bakir hid the knife in his boot, where it wouldn’t be seen. If his captors noticed it, they didn’t care and let him keep it. He wasn’t really a fighter. He kept thinking if he was nice enough to them, they’d eventually realize it was wrong to mistreat him and be nicer to him back.

Later, alone in his locked cell for the night, Bakir took the knife back out of his boot.

It was a special knife. It was made of a funny, dark silver metal. Hematite. Bakir had never seen a hematite knife before.

It had words inscribed on it. It said, in Infernal: I will find you.

Huh, Bakir thought, and he tucked the knife away. What a funny knife.