Chapter 15: Grammar Lessons and Anxiety oh My

[H1]Chapter 15: Grammar Lessons and Anxiety oh My [/H1]

Life continued after we tended the graves. 

It wasn't that we forgot. Mom certainly didn't with how often she stopped to stare off into space. A simple glance outside often showed the graves and Celia's in particular. Sadness and a feeling of loss like I'd stepped before a gaping hole lingered, but, well, we still had things to do. We needed to eat and sleep eventually, so we did, and fell back into routine.

We ate, we slept, bathed, we checked and harvested from the garden, we played Mom, did repairs, and I had more lessons. 

Sometimes there were basic lessons in math I probably knew too well for a kitten my age, other times there were more lessons in writing and grammar.

I stared at the tea green paper and chewed my bottom lip as I thought. 

Today, Mom had me working on my letters. Letters here were loosely similar mechanically to the alphabet from my old life, but they had more quirks, particularly context sensitive moments that added extra meaning instead of just sounds. We hadn't quite touched on these yet, but if my old life's logic held true, then a sentence structure might flow similarly enough. "I think…" My hand moved through the letters, drawing the curves out just right to finish each syllable off. "Like this?" I showed Mom the paper. 

Mom stopped her own project-tinkering with a big grayish box with a clockwork exterior-to look. Her expression was blank for a moment before abruptly smiling. "That's not quite right, kitten, but you're definitely on the right track. Here, let me show you." 

As it turned out, I was not as clever as I thought I had been. In fact, it wasn't even entertainingly wrong like I'd accidentally declared myself "Princess Floppy of the Doodle Kingdom". 

Instead, it was just plain old boring. I'd kept the structure and order of verbs from English and applied the same thing here and wrote something out that, in the English equivalent, would be "Are my I Gwen name?"

I will forever deny making growling noises. Perhaps I made some refined noises indicative of a disgruntled mood, but I did not growl. 

Mom stretched with audible creaks. "You know, Kitten, I think I need to brush your hair."

"Just a minute, I've almost got this." I never took my eyes off the paper or my charcoal pencil as I tried to better understand sentence structure. It could not be that difficult. It simply couldn't.

Mom hummed. "No," she sang.

Before I knew it, I felt strong claws grab me. I shrieked as we flew across the room in a spin. Then, somehow, I was seated in her lap and she had a brush from somewhere in her soft, fuzzy paws. I had just a few seconds to protest before she went to work and my mind promptly melted in bliss as the brush's stiff bristles did their work.

By the time I regained any awareness that emerged from a state of syrupy happiness, we were sitting by the hearth, and I was cuddled up to Mom. The flames burned steadily, neither too hot nor too cold, giving the entire room a wonderfully cozy feeling. 

This coziness, combined with being so close to Mom, feeling both her warmth and her scent, and my instincts were screaming I was in an ideal place for a catnap.

Cold, Mom was so cold, heartbeat so slow, the hearth fading, the wind howling louder and louder, nothing I could do, nothing I could do but sit and wait to…

I didn't quite jolt, but the memory did make eyes shoot open to confirm I was in Mom's lap, the hearth was merrily burning, and everything was fine. I sighed and leaned into Mom's touch as she stroked my hair. Fortunately, she didn't seem to notice my moment as she spoke up.

"Gwen, have you ever thought about things off this island? Places beyond our… home." She placed an odd emphasis on home, as if the word had caught her up for a second.

I wiggled to get a better look at her, and saw she wasn't looking at me, but rather into the gentle flames in the hearth. I tilted my head, ears perked up in interest.

"Back in my homeland, in Illiana, we had great, sweeping forests all around misty mountains on our islands. Trees so big you could have entire homes carved into them and they'd hardly notice. Mountain springs with water so pure it's unbelievable, sometimes water that's already as warm it's like you could take a bath it even when everything else was covered in ice and snow. Winding valleys so green and thick with trees you could wander them for a thousand years and not find every secret they held." As Mom spoke, melancholy seeped into her tone, turning beloved memories into something bitter I could see through her tone alone.

I patted Mom's arm and she smiled. 

"But, all that is far away from here. Gwen, this island is so, so tiny, it's unbelievable. It's no place for a girl your age to live, or grow up in. That's why—"

"We're leaving on Sandy soon?" It took considerable effort to keep my tone entirely and obscenely innocent.

Mom's hanging mouth and gobsmacked expression — and smooth furred red ears pointed straight up — told me everything I needed to know. 

"How did you know?" Mom finally asked.

I started ticking off my fingers. "You keep sneaking off to talk to Sandy when you think I'm asleep. We've been working on Sandy almost every day for a week. We've stopped foraging almost entirely except for sweet grass from the garden. You've been staring out to sea more and more often. The last time we were onboard you fixed something and did a happy dance saying, 'Yes yes yes thank you yes!'"

I hopped off and proceeded to emulate Mom's happy dance. It involved lots and lots of feet tapping and bouncing in place. I broke into giggles half way through as she had been really, really happy and silly looking.

Mom flushed. "You are far too clever for your own good, you know that?" Despite the situation, she didn't hide the fondness in her voice. "But yes. We are leaving soon. I have been too complacent. You shouldn't have had to grow up so long and nearly alone with only me for company." Mom reached out and hugged me close.

"But aren't you enough?" Memories of another life flitted through my mind. 

I couldn't say I had ever been totally alone there. In some ways it was even similar then. I'd lived with my dad, and he'd done his best with mixed results. My mother here in this life didn't blow him out of the water, but I didn't think they could meaningfully compare. They filled different roles in different lives when I'd needed them. Yet, I couldn't deny that my mother in this world fulfilled a closeness I'd never known from him, or really, anyone in my old world. 

Mom laughed, but she shook her head. "It's not that. I… things aren't right. I'm not sure they ever will be. There's so much I should be able to give you, but can't. However, the one thing I know for certain is that this island, for all that it has sheltered us, is not a permanent home. We need to get out and find other people. There's no future here." Her words felt oddly grim, near the end.

I listened and understood. Her words made sense. From my old life, I knew the potential here was minute, to say the least. There was no school to learn from, no friends outside my Mom to be made, and few adventures to experience. Chances are even if we could live our whole lives here, the day-to-day experiences would not significantly change outside what I'd already experienced in the five short years I'd been alive. We'd continue until we couldn't, and it was as simple as that.

Yet, for all of that awareness, for all of my understanding of the logic of her words, I couldn't suppress the upwelling of trepidation in me. It began slowly in the tips of my fingers and spread up and down my back, like a swarm of icy beetles crawling in my skin. For all that this place was so, so unbearably small even to me, this was still a home, and all I'd known in this world. 

Something in my expression must've given away my thoughts as Mom spoke up. "We'll be fine, Kitten." There was a long pause. "Probably."

"Mama!" I shouted. Her smirk was pure evil.

"Just kidding," she said. Something in her voice caught my attention, but I wasn't quite sure what it was. "Think of it like a new adventure. New land to see, new plants, and hopefully new people, too. Maybe even some girls your age to play with. Doesn't that sound nice?"

I really don't think my look fooled her on the last bit, but to be fair, I didn't try very hard.

Frankly, the last bit sounded awful. I was not remotely certain how to even begin categorizing myself given my memories of another world and another life, but I was fairly certain said memories had well and truly poisoned the well on any patience I might have with other kids my age. Everything else could be okay. That's what I told myself, at least.

Wait, how would adult strangers even view me? I know I didn't act like a normal five-year-old nor did I think I could fake it for any extended length of time. Would I be like one of those creepy kids in fiction who moved and acted nothing like kids should?

I was suddenly struck by the image of myself in a blood stained dress wandering an abandoned hospital and…

Yeah, that was definitely something that'd have unsettled me in my old life. It unsettled me now. I should probably stick to my normal clothes and avoid formal wear.

Still, the possibility of just interacting with other adults other than my mom, heck, just people in general, sunk its hooks into my brain and wouldn't let go. I had Mom to go off of, but what would we even find out there? Would we find Mom's own civilization and move into her ancestral home? Would we be taken in by someone else? Would we find wizards and witches? Grim faced technological barbarians? Peaceful monks seeking enlightenment? Weirdoes in colorful clothes posing against each other?

I had absolutely no idea what was out there. Suddenly, the horizon across the sea felt like a Pandora's Box and I couldn't suppress a burst of anxiety at the idea.

Which…huh, that was nothing new. Anxiety went hand in hand with my old life. I was really wishing it hadn't made the trip here.

Despite my best efforts, my mind raced at the possibilities. I really, really wanted to believe the best, that whatever we did encounter out there, that they'd be nice and welcoming, but that was not how anxiety worked. It only cared for the bad things. 

A number of things could easily go wrong. I didn't know exactly what the state of the world was, but the very existence of a warship like Sandy implied a conflict of some scale, or at a minimum threat of war. We could make it landside and immediately be arrested as prisoners of war and thrown in a camp to rot. Maybe Mom's home kingdom of Illiana had lost and a new regime had taken hold and it wouldn't be happy to welcome an old veteran like Mom back. Hell, it could be we make it back and end up in a bureaucratic nightmare as Mom is registered as dead and she legally can't be a person, meaning just getting food might be near impossible in society nevertheless shelter, clothing, and other necessities of life. Just living out of a dirty and poorly insulated shack might be among the better outcomes in this scenario.

I wished my brain would stop. It didn't.

I'd only jokingly broached the very thought of technological barbarians, but what if that wasn't the case? What if we were all that were left and the moment, we made it to land we discovered we had violated sacred laws regarding technology and they executed Mom before dragging me away to be reeducated?

I couldn't help it, the possibilities kept coming to me, seemingly faster and faster, and—

Mom flicked my nose.

I blinked, briefly going cross eyed before glaring at her.

"It'll be fine, sweetie. I'll make sure of it." She said, hugging me close. 

For a moment, an utterly glorious moment, my brain shut up and let me believe in her.

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[H3]Chapter Fifteen: Author's Note[/H3]

It's kinda odd to be at this point, well over the tipping point of arc one. Mild spoilers, but we are on the downhill slope here.

Makes me weirdly melancholy. Then again, so do a lot of things in writing, so nothing new there.

Obligatory author plug because I'd love to write more but society sadly says I need monies to keep living (and support my growing addiction to commissioning catgirl art)

Support me on Patreon, Ko Fi, or Subscribe Star. Check them advance chapters uploaded every weekend, too. Or check out my website for links to my other author accounts, contact, socials, etc. Anything is appreciated :3

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