He let her tears fall without judgment or calling attention to them, unmentioned but not unnoticed. There was healing to be found in saltwater, as all Mer knew. Life and rebirth that fell in glittering fragments from wounded eyes. Her question did not, as she knew, have an easy answer, but Hadama turned his thoughts to it with the solemnity it was due.
And the Tidebreaker - called because he broke the storms that threatened his people and turned the destructive currents aside - met her eyes with quiet compassion. "To find your purpose," he said simply. "A person or a place to protect... or to destroy." An acknowledgment of the task that had brought them to the fetid swamp in the first place. "A challenge to overcome. Or a task to complete. And when it is done, to find a new purpose." Or perhaps before it was finished. Life, like the tides, changed across days and seasons and years, and the purpose of one season might no longer fit by the end of the next as the world moved forward. Hadama knew that intimately, as one who had once been a smith, certain of his path and purpose carrying on the traditions and skills of his mother's family.
Until he accepted a new purpose, leading first the Mer and then Torchline. And then a third change, when he had been called to Safrin's service and his world had shifted again.
And the Tidebreaker - called because he broke the storms that threatened his people and turned the destructive currents aside - met her eyes with quiet compassion. "To find your purpose," he said simply. "A person or a place to protect... or to destroy." An acknowledgment of the task that had brought them to the fetid swamp in the first place. "A challenge to overcome. Or a task to complete. And when it is done, to find a new purpose." Or perhaps before it was finished. Life, like the tides, changed across days and seasons and years, and the purpose of one season might no longer fit by the end of the next as the world moved forward. Hadama knew that intimately, as one who had once been a smith, certain of his path and purpose carrying on the traditions and skills of his mother's family.
Until he accepted a new purpose, leading first the Mer and then Torchline. And then a third change, when he had been called to Safrin's service and his world had shifted again.
