Remembering Brown Eyes

Writers: Heather
Date Posted: 19th July 2016

Characters: Westyn, Deavall, Wesla, Lerew
Description: Westyn relives his wife's death.
Location: Emerald Falls Hold
Date: month 6, day 27 of Turn 8

"Gaylle," Westyn whispered his wife's name in agony, tears sliding down his cheeks as he pressed his lips to her still warm forehead. "What am I going to do without you?" His voice cracked as a sob shook his shoulders. He received no response from his wife's now lifeless eyes. Those perfect lips would never move again to tease him when he was being too hard on himself, or scold him when he stayed up too late going over the accounting books.

A firm hand pressed to his shoulder, "She's resting now."

Westyn squeezed his eyes shut. He knew that was true. Gaylle had been so sick for so long, now she was finally released from that prison. But Westyn felt selfish. Couldn't she have stayed? He needed her. He didn't know how to live without her. What would he do with the children? Gaylle was his best friend, his partner, his perfect match in every way.

"Son." His dad gave his shoulder a little squeeze. "The children are waiting."

"Da, I can't. I can't talk to them... I can't... I can't..." **I can't look at them. They have her face, her eyes...**

Deavall looked up at his wife, Lerew, "Ma, why don't you see to the grandbabies?"

"Of course," she murmured, brushing tears from her round cheeks as she bustled from the room.

"What am I going to do, Da?" He sobbed, turning to his father in a way he hadn't done since he was a child.

Deavall looked into Westyn's eyes with a strength that only a parent can have with a child, "You're going to grieve for your wife, then you're going to let her go, and you're going to be the father your children need. They're looking to you."

**They're looking to me.** The words made him feel panicked inside. He didn't know what the next step was, or how he was going to get there.

Over Westyn's shoulder, Deavall nodded to the healers that stood nearby, and he steered his son from the room as they began wrapping his daughter-in-law's body.

~*~

Dirt. So much dirt. How could she breathe down there? Westyn's thoughts were jumbled as he stood at Gaylle's freshly covered graveside. **She doesn't need to breathe anymore.** He scolded himself, but he could not help but think of his wife's beautiful skin, and what natural decay must be doing to her down in that hole. Her eyes, her beautiful brown....

"Da! Da!"

"Hmm? 'Smatter?" Westyn raised up on an elbow, barely able to open his eyes, which felt gritty and dry.

"I had a bad dream." Wesla's voice croacked at him from the side of his bed.

Westyn scrubbed at his face with one of his hands. "That makes two of us." He told his youngest daughter. The recurring nightmare of his wife's death came to him regularly, even though it had been two Turns since she passed.

"Come here." He pulled open the corner of the blanket, and opened one arm in an invitation that Wesla quickly accepted. The little girl scampered into the bed and under the safety of her father's arm.

"What was your bad dream?" Westyn asked as Wesla tucked into his side.

"Big vtols." She said, and he could feel the tremor that shuddered through her little body.

Westyn smiled a little, he thought he probably had the only child on Pern who was afraid of vtols.

"What was your dream about?" Wesla asked, tilting her head back to peer up at her father in the dark.

His smiled faded. "It was about your mother."

"Tell me what she looked like."

It wasn't the first time Wesla had asked him about Gaylle, she had been so little when Gaylle died that she had no memories of her, unlike his older two children.

"Well, she had long, blonde hair..."

"The color of wheat at harvest?" Wesla pipped in, having heard her father say this before.

Westyn smiled, "Yes, the color of wheat at harvest."

"Like mine?"

He reached down and fingered a strand of Wesla's fine hair, "Yes, just like yours. And she had dark brown eyes...."

"Like mine?"

Westyn swallowed past the knot in his throat as the image of his wife's lifeless eyes from his dream collided with the vision of his daughter's bright eyes in front of him. "Yes, just like yours."

"Mama was the prettiest." Wesla said matter-of-factly as she pulled the blanket up to her chin.

"Yes, yes she was." The ache in his chest felt like a gaping wound as he remembered how scared he had been of being alone with the children, without Gaylle's motherly influence.

"Gaesyn says you might get married again and we would get a new mama." Wesla's voice was a little softer, sounding sleepier.

Westyn wasn't surprised that his teenage son would say something so insensitive to his little sister, he loved to antagonize her.

"I'm not looking for another wife, but if I ever did get married again, no one could ever take your mother's place." How could anyone ever fit him the way Gaylle had? Provide him with something as precious as the three children that he now lived for? It was impossible.

Last updated on the July 22nd 2016

Welcome to Triad Weyrs!

Remembering Brown Eyes