Mrevan was a loving and engaged parent and father to the Tyaeli’s only living child. As he went about his life and his parental interactions, he tried hard not to show the burning agony that swirled inside both his corporeal body and his soul over the loss of Cshrehyi, llhaesa’s older brother by some 10 years.

Llhaesa had not learned of her older brother until she was in middle school. Cshrehyi had died 4 years before llhaesa was born, an innocent child who happened to be in the way of some impatient and unfocused impudent bureaucrat. Mrevan well knew he would forever remember that day. He would remember how the news was relayed to him. He would remember what he was doing as the metro police officer gave voice to the horrific news. And nary would a day pass where he was absent the pain of loss. Mrevan well knew the same was true of Saehressa, but she somehow found ways to cope and channel her mind he found impossible to manage in a similar way.

Mrevan’s greatest fear now was of something happening to llhaesa. She was absolutely fearless, that one. She also happened to be politically interested and politically engaged. Llhaesa was everything a parent would dream their child would be – naturally allowing for the usual annoyances all children inevitably visit upon their parents.

There was one huge problem that just was not going to go away. Even though Llhaesa was heading off to her first year at N’rellia in a few weeks, he could do precisely nothing to protect her, to keep her safe. She was her own person, and llhaesa was going to follow her strengths, follow her vision, wherever it might take her. Mrevan knew he would never stand in the way of such spirit; after all, he played no small role in nurturing it within his daughter. He would surely stand with her every step of the way, through good and bad, through whatever challenge came her and their way. If there was one thing he wished for his maturing child, it was for her to follow her dreams, to be all she wished to be.

That said, Mrevan knew that if anything happened to llhaesa, he would not survive beyond that point. One loss was more than any parent could rightfully be expected to endure in one lifetime. He kept these fears of potential future consequences locked firmly in his mind, and very rarely mentioned anything of his thoughts to Saehry. He knew that to give voice to his fears meant triggering her own memories and her own deep-seated pain, and better to suffer in silence than resurrect all of the old pain while inflicting new pain upon his beloved.

Mrevan was going to have to live with his irrational fear; just do the best he could to guide his child towards wise choices in life. After all, N’rellia was a great school, with probably the best reputation of any school on the planet. Just gaining admittance was a huge honour. Mrevan never doubted llhaesa would one day be accepted – how can you not know the abilities of someone you have lived with for 18 years, watching them learn of the world, watch them start little by little to make their mark on their surroundings? How can you miss the fact she practiced 6 hours a day almost every day of the week?

How many times had he seen llhaesa play since she first started to show interest in music 14 years ago? Daily for the most part, but llhaesa was usually somewhat subdued in most of her practice time, taking the effort very seriously. When visiting guests asked her to play, then she became animated and emboldened, would start traditionally and then improvise, occasionally trying out fancy physical moves as she played. There were times where llhaesa left him feeling dizzy, or left him wondering whether such moves were physically possible. Everyone who knew the Tyaeli’s knew that llhaesa was one talented musician. What most of their family and friends were as yet unaware of was her keen intellect. And most assuredly they were not aware of how llhaesa was moving towards being an activist politically.

Mrevan would have to live with his worry, and he would have to try and be there for his child, unlike that tragic day 22 years before.

What Mrevan did not know, what he could not know, was that he would indeed lose his second child, and there was precious little he could do to forestall fate from laying claim to yet another T’yaeli child.