PSL: For Grandpa

[not_kenway]

The longhouse had been reduced to smouldering ashes.

Around the village, voices raised in grief, screaming and crying their loss to the heavens and earth. The injured were being sheltered and tended by the river, where water was readily available to clean wounds and be sipped by those suffering burns.

Oiá:ner stood on the small hill, watching her people and clutching their treasure to her chest. When the signal came from up by the pass, she made her way to the gap in the walls, to wait for their newest orphan's grandfather to reach her.

Comments

[lour]

Edward was thankful for the trips he had taken here before, though admittedly fewer than he would have liked (what between getting his daughter back home and keeping this a secret from Haytham, which greatly stung but was surprisingly manageable). He remembers the trees and their branches and despite his age he nearly sails through them, so sharply focused was he on the smoke dissipating over the village.

Alarm had flooded his mind and worry made his blood run cold. For all his training after his coma to regain just a faction of what he had been before, after all his time fighting, he still finds himself lacking and it's near maddening. He couldn't leap or fall fast enough, couldn't run and weave and jump through the forest and her lands as quickly as he pleased. But God be damned if Edward didn't push himself past his limits this day.

He doesn't stop running until he's just a few meters away from Oiá:ner, boots digging and skidding into the earth. "Where—" Edward vainly tries not to spit through his teeth, the breathlessness from all his overexertion making him sound more angry than concerned. "Where are they?" The pause he takes for a quick breath coincides with the anxious shift in his weight. "Tell me my family is safe behind those walls."

[not_kenway]

Oiá:ner showed no discomfort at his apparent anger, maybe because she recognised the signs of anxiety, of the fear that filled all of them. Maybe she simply didn't fear him, which was just as likely.

"Ratonhnhaké:ton lives." She spoke English little, but for a grandfather, she would find the words. She gestured him to follow her, shuffling her way back through the village to where the injured were being cared for. "He has been hurt." She touched her brow, her throat, her hands and stomach and gestured him to go in. She didn't elaborate on Ziio's fate.

Ratonhnhaké:ton was lying on a fur, eyes open but not responding to the noise around him. There was bruising over his face and throat, an adult's hand print clearly visible wrapped around his neck. His hands were blistering from burns from trying to drag the wooden beam off his mother.

[lour]

There was little the man himself had ever truly feared in his life and fewer comforts he took in the demeanor of others before him in, save for those trepidatious moments. Yet in this moment Edward fears and finds no comfort from Oiá:ner—not until she speaks. Even at that, the feeling is overwhelmingly bittersweet.

He regards her with a small nod and tight jaw at her motion, perhaps moving around her a second too soon, too eager to get a move on in an attempt to combat the numbness prickling at his limbs. The silence on Kaniehtí:io speaks for itself, though Edward only faintly acknowledges it. There's something more pressing requiring his attention.

While his clip through char and tumbling ash is quick and the twisting in his gut nearly makes him feel ill, it doesn't stop the man from searching out his family. He calls for his grandson, more than a little turned around at the sight of injured half-strangers scattered amongst the dead and debris. Eventually some point him in the right direction and he takes up a jog for quicker scanning. It picks up to a run at the sight of the boy lying still, alone. "Ratonhnhaké:ton!"

Practically sliding to kneel beside him, Edward's hands hover, torn between helping somehow and not causing further harm. Anger spikes at the handprint at his neck, the urge to shout 'who hurt him!' bubbling before the sight of blisters on tiny hands come into view, suppressing it. Ratonhnhaké:ton was part Kenway, after all. Of course he fought to save her. It broke Edward's heart that this cycle was repeating, again, on an innocent child and mother.

"Oh, lad..." The heavy sigh falls from him, a hand going to smooth over the boy's crown. "—Ratonhnhaké:ton?" He utters once more, hoping to pull him away from that thousand yard stare no young one should ever have.

[not_kenway]

Oiá:ner stands back, watching and not commenting, before turning away and starting to rally the village, to coordinate efforts to help the injured and get shelter up for those who would need it.

Ratonhnhaké:ton blinks, finally, when he hears his grandfather's voice. He was ignoring everyone else fairly successfully, but Edward's voice reached into the coldness and his gaze sharpened. Sharpened, but not like it usually did. The injuries to his face and head were dulling his reactions. "Tóta?"

Grandfather. He recognises who Edward is.

He murmurs indistinctly in Kanien'keha, but one word is very apparent. Ista.

Then blistered hands reach up to Edward