Cerrit: “Kir, listen to me! Get Maya and get home as fast as possible! It’s an emergency!”
Kir: “Yeah, Dad, I can do that.”
Cerrit: “And remember? Code names.”
Kir: “I love you, Dad.”
Cerrit: “I love you, too.”
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In the aftermath, Maya Agrupnin doesn't get time to breathe.
She chokes on the smoke in the air and the panic in her throat and the tears threatening to fall.
She holds her little brother and thinks about how, moments ago, her greatest concern was having been caught drinking.
During the day, Maya sticks close to Kir. She promised her father to keep an eye on him, and she intends to keep that promise.
At night, Maya stares out the window, wondering how long it would take to fly from Avalir to Gwessar. She holds her breath, and she waits.
--
In the aftermath, Maya Agrupnin doesn't get time to be afraid.
She has a little brother to take care of. She knows that the more scared she is, the more scared he will be.
Kir spends the next few weeks asking, "When will Dad come back?" After a while, he stops asking.
Maya notices that he hasn't changed their code names since. She may not be a trained detective, but she has her father's eyes. She knows he's scared.
She has to look strong for her mother. Wrayne Agrupnin, who has been with her father longer than she had been without. Who doesn't know life without him at her side. But Maya can be at her mother's side, and so she is.
--
In the aftermath, Maya Agrupnin doesn't get time to rest.
She has years, if not decades and centuries, of memories and knowledge to go through. She has magic to learn, in a family that has always valued science and logic first. In a family whose wizard friends are gone.
Maya learns what the stones were, that her father gave to them. She wonders if her father always thought of her mother as his sanctuary.
She has always loved reading history books. Who will write the history of Avalir and the Calamity? Who will survive to tell this tale?
She grows up so quickly, after the Calamity. And there is barely anyone to notice.
--
In the aftermath, Maya Agrupnin doesn't get time to grieve.
That would be admitting defeat, and she hates losing.
One day, Kir runs around calling for help, getting a healer for a labouring mother. The new baby girl is named Kiri. Even with all the destruction, life continues.
She explores the Por'co library, watches the memories taken to keep Avalir safe, and wonders who gets to decide where knowledge is kept. She transcribes Uncle Quay's last broadcast amongst the scrolls, trying to preserve the knowledge of the comeuppance of a corrupt administration.
Maya reads, and reads, and falls asleep dreaming of librarians who won't settle for anything less than everything.
--
In the aftermath, Maya Agrupnin doesn't get time to hope.
She holds her brother and supports her mother and studies, and studies, and studies.
It is only the late night reading by candlelight and the parlour tricks learned from her father that she is the first to spot the last of the Eyes of Avalir.
Cerrit Agrupnin, keeping his eyes not on a magical city, but on coming home.
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Maya doesn’t have a future anymore. It was ripped from her hands before she knew what was happening, and all the adults are starting to give up on fixing it. They’re leaving it to her generation. She knows this because everyone talks about running like it will happen. They talk about fixing like it might happen. The difference burns in her chest and settles, panicking, in the back of her throat. She is thirteen years old and has discovered the future of ashes isn’t going to be fixed. It is hers. Hers to drown in, hers to be buried in, and hers to inherit if she survives long enough. Every adult in their camp has nearly given up.
It’s hard to be angry at them. It’s hard not to be angry.
(Briefly departing my regular nonsense for a mildly late father's day moment.)
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Maya: “Wingspan, this is Clear Eye.
Cerrit: “I hear you, Clear Eye.”
Maya: “What’s happening?”
Cerrit: “You sound so afraid. Don’t be. Are you with your mother?”
Kir: “Dad, Dad, it’s Talon, we, we’re back in
Wrayne: “Darling, we are in Gwessar, all is well, let me speak, let me speak to your father.”
Kir: Okay, there are codenames.”
Wrayne: “Wingspan, I’m here. We’re all here.”
Cerrit: “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry I was never there. I’m so sorry I never saw you or them. I promise if I can I will make it up to you.”
Kir: “That’s a promise, Dad. That’s a promise.”
Wrayne: “Darlings, I want you to go inside. Everything will be alright. Darling, is this goodbye?”
Cerrit: “No. No. Those children are the best thing we ever did and it’s gonna take a lot more than this to stop me from getting back to them and you.”
Wrayne: “Darling, I want you to know, I don’t want you to feel regret. I know you see the moments you weren’t there. Our children love you and I do, too. You’re a great father and a great man, and I don’t know what-”
With the eruption of energy, the stone goes dark.
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