A/N: These two (very short) stories are from some writing exercises I did a while back using the characters from a novel I started and never finished. I revised them quite a bit and thought that they made nice stand-alone pieces. Any thoughts?
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“Mom, this is boring. Can’t I go outside?” asked a four year old Wolfe. Cole, still too young to speak in full sentences, or even use most words, clapped his hands in agreement.
Their mother momentarily sopped bouncing baby Crispin on her knee to stare him down. “It’s raining outside.”
“So?” he queried insolently. “It’s always raining outside.”
“It’s not always raining,” she replied authoritatively and went back to bouncing Crispin on her knee, making him laugh and clap his hands. “Besides, it’s family time.”
Wolfe glared, able to argue his point even at his young age. “If it’s family time, why isn’t Dad here?”
The Queen’s face darkened and she averted her gaze. The frequency of Crispin’s bouncing increased. “The King is busy, Wolfe.” She always did that. Never once had Wolfe heard her say “your father” or “my husband.” It was always “the King,” as if she wanted nothing more than to distance herself from him in any way that she possibly could. “He has no time to spend on such frivolous activities.” Something about her bitter tone and unfamiliar word choice would have told Wolfe that she was quoting something she had been told had he only been just a little older and a little wiser to the ways of people. For now, though, he just thought it odd and realized for once in his life that perhaps it was time for him to just sit down and be quiet.
Around five very tense minutes had passed by the time the queen grinned (though Wolfe saw that it reached nowhere near her eyes) and looked down at her son. “Why Wolfe, I do believe that this is the first time you’ve ever stopped complaining for more than a few minutes.” Wolfe blushed and almost protested, even getting so far as to open his mouth, but his mouth closed as he really listened to his mother’s laugh. No, he decided. I won’t ruin this for her. She needs this.
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Cole, only six years old, stared at his mother laying on her bed. It was rare that she woke now, and her skin was already taking on the pallor of the dead despite the morbid fact that the kingdom’s best physician had estimated that she still had two days left.
Grimly, Cole left his place in the doorway and made his way quietly to her bed. Swallowing hard, he reached out and gripped her larger, more delicate hand in his own smaller, chubbier one. Biting his bottom lip, he tried and failed to hold back his sorrow. He felt a lone tear slide down his cheek and down to the tip of his nose. More tears soon followed, efficiently blurring his vision. Still, though, he had enough clarity in his vision to watch as that first, traitorous tear splashed onto the back of his mother’s hand. It was then that the queen awoke. Smiling weakly, she lifted her hand to wipe away the tears on Cole’s cheek, all the while keeping his hand in hers. “Don’t waste your tears on someone like me, my son,” she whispered feebly.
Cole’s eyes widened and, confused, he whispered back, “But Mama, what do you mean someone like you?”
In response, she merely kept smiling, staring sadly into his eyes as she gave his hand a squeeze so weak he wasn’t even sure if he had felt it. Then, she closed her eyes and became so still Cole began to panic. Not even sleep had the power to turn one so stiff.
For several awful minutes Cole stared at her, so intent that the tears stopped falling, just waiting for her chest to rise and fall with the breath of life. No such miracle occurred.
He wanted more than anything to cry now, but he used all the self restraint he possessed to keep his eyes dry. The very least he could do was honor his mother’s last wish, even if he didn’t know exactly what she had meant or why she had made it.
