Heliopath’s World: Outside Ildieu: Quartz: Dreaming of Family (part 2)

[k_a_webb]

This entry is part 23 of 26 in the Heliopath's World collection

Part 1

This entry is part 23 of 26 in the Heliopath's World collection

Even though they had learnt more about Ildieu and the war they still didn’t have the answers to all of their questions. Quartz wasn’t certain they ever would, but their father believed the time would come when they did. Although this was the same man who was out hunting for someone the rest of the family had decided was dead, no matter how much it hurt to think that, and seemed to believe that putting Ash and Kestrel together was a good idea. Of course he had always kept his distance from his only daughter, and Ash had grown up outside the city, so he hadn’t really known what either of them was like, but Quartz had doubted the sense of it before he had the dream. The dream just told him he’d been right.

Some days he thought he knew Kestrel better than anyone else did, with the only exception being Falcon. The two of them were close and there were times when Quartz was certain that Falcon would break the promises he’d made to their father in order to tell her what she needed to know, but he always managed to stop himself, in part because he didn’t want her to have to take some of the weight that had been dumped upon his shoulders. He hadn’t wanted it. Why would Kestrel? Although, the more Quartz thought of the two the them, he couldn’t help thinking that it should have been Kestrel, not Falcon, who had taken on the leadership of the Black Hollow.

It wasn’t as though low level female mages hadn’t done it before. Green level was very low, but Kestrel would have had Falcon there to protect her and she would have been much better at keeping Ash at a distance without making him feel like there was no chance of him ever being able to convince her that something was coming. Of course knowing the truth was going to change things for both of them, and for Falcon, in a way that no one would have been able to predict. Would Kestrel choose to learn how to use her magic, even though she might end up infertile? Who would she ask to teach her? Ash seemed the most likely of the two, but Falcon was still her brother. Quartz shook his head, wondering what he would do if he was in her position, but that, fortunately, was something he’d never have had to deal with.

Being male meant he didn’t have to stop and think about what he wanted more. Did he want children? Quartz remembered Father telling him that having children was part of their duty, but that had never made him change his mind. He didn’t want children until he settled down, although he wasn’t certain he would ever decide it was time, because there was something about the idea of adding more people to their dysfunctional family that made him uncomfortable. It wasn’t as though it was easy for them to even have children, as the magic did affect the fertility of all the males too, but in such a way that it meant they were most likely to be able to have a baby with someone who also had magic in their family, even if they didn’t use it, so he would be bringing more mages into the world to be bossed around by their probably dead great-grandfather.

Mirrored from K. A. Webb Writing.

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[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

>>It wasn’t as though low level female mages hadn’t done it before.<<

That should say "low-level" above.