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Inheritance
Ash 28 119
It was a good day to work.
The sky was grey, the land was quiet. Iakovos reached out with calloused hands and straightened the old plow, grunting as he pushed his hips against it and the rusted wheel wobbled and cut through the hardened dirt. They needed to get this garden set before the rain came and turned the land wet and sticky.
“Iako, put that down.” An old man with leather skin stood under the wooden doorway, gnarled fingers shaking uncontrollably as he waved his grandson to come inside, a toothy smile whistling the words of Kokalath, “I want to show you something.”
“Not now, grandfather,” Iakovos grit his teeth and dug his heels into the soil, the muscles of his arms bulging as he forced the plow further through the small garden patch, outlined by four rods protruding towards the sky in a quaint rectangle, “The bugs are gone.” He huffed, strands of gradient hair falling from his bun and into his face.
“The bugs?”
“Listen,” Iako grunted. Sparing a glance at the old man, he was reminded of the frailty and worried for his grandfather’s memory. With a new weight in his chest, the young warrior furrowed his brow and cast his eyes to the plow’s wheel, crouching to grab an old rock wedged in his path and tossed it towards the wood, “Can you hear them?”
It had been a lesson he had learned as a child, one that the older man had passed down in better health. If the wind smelled like musk and the forest quieted, Atinaw was expecting rain. And if the animals were silent? Grab your weapon; Something bad was coming.
It had proven a faithful truth over the years and he hoped it would be enough of a distraction until Halvar’s mind wandered to something else. Plow still in hand, the blue eyed hunter didn’t expect the persistence that followed. “Iako,” his grandfather, a man who had once been both sailor and warrior, with hair as white as fresh washed linen, began to shamble from the front step, each movement unsteady and sparking rich anxiety, “Put that down. I want to show you something.” His jaw shook.
Iakovos’ hands stilled and he stood up, wiping away the dirt from his palms before reaching out to meet the old man with a stern expression but gentle touch, “Alright,” he sighed, steering the elder back to the porch, “What is it?”
“T...This way,” Halvar raised a curled finger, each step shuffled through the old cottage in need of a multitude of repairs and paused every few steps to look over his shoulder as if expecting Iakovos to have vanished, “Look there.” He pointed to the rickety table in the corner, one of it legs discolored and misshapen from having been replaced, “Our history.”
Brow furrowed, Iako looked past his grandfather's hunched shoulders and walked through the dusty sunlight the filtered through the windows. On the surface was an old book he had never seen before, or perhaps he had never cared to. He stood there, his grandfather watching, and then walked over and picked it up. Its cover was wooden, wrapped in a starched cloth and bound to the thick tome. The pages were rigged, yellowed with age and he ran his thumb along their texture. They had no other books in the house; in fact, they didn't much of anything these days, so he found it a miraculous oddity that he had never noticed it before.
Taking a seat with an achy groan, Halvar patted the old wood, "You work hard," the words felt heavy and Iakovos realized that this was not like the other days. His grandfather was aware again, present if only for a moment, "I am proud."
A silence built between them and Iakovos inhaled, "Thank you."
He set the book down but Halvar pushed it forward again, "Your great great great grandmother made this. She could bind many books. So it says." He tapped its corner, "It tells the story of our kinship. Our history." Halvar smiled, "Look."
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