The Worst Regret

[Laehval tTemarr 0]

The Worst Regret

A venom-induced log by

El’Riov Laehval t’Temarr

 

 

“Laehval, look at me when I’m talking to you!”

 

The sound of her mother yelling yanked her from the computations in her mind. Her mother was standing in the doorway of Laehval’s small workshop, hands on her hips and a scowl on her face. She was surveying the room’s clutter with a disapproving frown, which did not bode well.

 

“I’ve been talking to you for the past five minutes, and you have not heard a word I’ve said.”

 

“Sorry. I’ve been trying to rework the power-flow matrix on the industrial replicator. By my calculations, I can bring the efficiency up another seventeen percent!”

 

“We could order a replacement part for it and have it working perfectly by tomorrow. You’ve been in here for hours now, Laehval! How many times do I have to repeat myself? Stop tinkering! You’ve other things to do besides waste your time on silly engineering projects! It is a beautiful day and you’ve not stepped foot outside.”

 

“But this is important! I can fix it without the replacement part and you won’t have to spen...”

 

“Enough!” Her mother made a chopping motion with her hand as though to sever the protest before it even started. “I will not tell you again! Your father and I don’t mind you having a hobby, but this is turning into an obsession.”

 

Laehval sighed, her shoulders sagging as she slumped in her seat. It was useless to try to talk to her mother when she was in one of her rants. She hated the thought of Laehval becoming an Engineer and was determined to see her stationed with her sister Nalhven in Ra'tleihfi. Laehval, of course, had other plans for her life and they did not include spending large amounts of time in her bossy older sister’s presence.

 

“We’ll talk more about this later. For now, I want you to go outside and enjoy the nice weather,” Au'rial said as she pointed in the direction of the door. “And while you are out there, I want you to watch Lilet. She wants to go pick some flowers for your father. Be nice!”

 

Inwardly, Laehval groaned. Her sister Lilet was the youngest girl and the youngest child in the t’Temarr household. One of those alone would have caused her to be spoiled, but the two combined made her insufferable. She was such a sweet and charming girl that everyone always went out of their way to do what Lilet wanted. Everyone loved Lilet. Everyone worshiped Lilet. Lilet could do no wrong. Only Laehval was disenchanted with her younger sister, but only because she was jealous that she’d never been doted upon as much as others doted on Lilet.

 

She stomped out of the room to broadcast her displeasure and slammed the door behind her as she stepped outside. Laehval squinted against the bright sunlight and held up one hand to shade her eyes as she searched for her sister. Her other hand patted the ISD she’d slipped into her pocket and smuggled out with her. If she were lucky, her mother would not have noticed.

 

“Laehval!” The joyous exclamation was accompanied by much bouncing. “I knew you’d come with me! We’re going to have fun, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun!”

 

She couldn’t help but smile as Lilet grabbed her hand and tugged her along, still bouncing with endless energy. It took her a moment to remember that she was supposed to be annoyed and she yanked her hand away, frowning.

 

“Calm down, Lilet. We’re just going to pick flowers. It isn’t as though we’re going for some grand adventure.”

 

“But we are! The greatest adventure of all time!” She bounced in front of Laehval and grabbed her hand again, swinging it. “The flowers, you see, are really aliens and we’re going to pluck them from their natural habitats so we can do grand experiments and discover that we are the only intelligent species in the Universe.”

 

“I would hardly consider you to be part of an intelligent species, Lilet,” Laehval teased as they walked, letting her sister yank on her arm.

 

“Don’t be silly, Laehval. I’m much smarter than the alien flowers. They aren’t even smart enough to know when to run,” she said matter-of-factly.

 

Laehval just sighed and shook her head, knowing better than to get into a discussion with her sister about that was smarter, prettier, faster, better. Lilet always won. And if she didn’t win, she would dissolve into tears until you told her over and over again that she was the best of everyone in the entire Universe. It would take even the hardest of hearts to ignore Lilet’s teary-eyed expression of hurt.

 

As the two of them neared the river, the manicured lands of the t’Temarr estate gave way to the wilder plants and trees at the fringes of their property. The area, a “cultivated wild” as her father called it, was tended only to make certain that no harmful plants flourished. Flowers of all types and colors bloomed in scattered groups, even taking hold in the cracks and crevices of the piles of smoothed boulders that littered the grassy area of the river bank. The river itself was turbulent as it crashed and rolled over rounded rocks, foaming and frothing in ever-changing eddies.

 

“Have fun, but don’t wander off. And stay away from the river, Lilet. The floodwaters have made it much faster than usual.”

 

Laehval plopped down on a smoothed boulder, watching Lilet for a while as she darted about the rocks, choosing flowers on some random system of her own devising. Plucking a bluish flower from a nearby cluster, Laehval rolled the stem in her fingers, watching the petals blur as they spun. Her eyes widened slightly as the movement presented her with the solution she’d been searching for to increase the replicator’s efficiency. With a brief glance to make sure Lilet was still in sight, she pulled the ISD from her pocket and entered the data into her program. The input helped, but the solution still seemed just a few steps out of reach.

 

She had lost track of time staring at the screen when she heard the first shriek. Her head snapped up, eyes automatically scanning for Lilet. Her sister was nowhere to be seen. A sick, sinking feeling burned through her stomach, making her legs weak as she scrambled to her feet. She darted to the river, searching frantically for her sister.

 

The second scream sounded closer, but was cut off in a coughing gurgle. Laehval twisted her ankle on a rock as she sprinted, but ignored the pain and kept running. She reached the bank of the river just in time to see her sister’s head slip under the rushing water. Lilet clung frantically to one of the larger rocks, but the force of the water continued to pound against her tiny frame, making it impossible for her to keep her head above the surface. The little girl slammed again and again against the rock, coughing and sputtering as she swallowed water. Streaks of green blood poured down her forehead where she’d been struck.

 

A cry of anguish ripped from Laehval’s throat as she searched for something, anything, to reach out to Lilet, but there was no time. Another swelling eddy caught her sister and pulled her under, ripping her away from the boulder and carrying her downstream. Laehval ran parallel to the river, searching for any sign of Lilet and was rewarded as the younger girl surfaced, coughing. She jumped unthinkingly into the turbulence and was immediately caught by the rapids, but just managed to grab hold of her sister’s tunic as she passed by. The river had them both and Laehval found herself fighting for her own life as well as her sister’s. The water flung her time and time again into the path of protruding rocks, leaving her bloodied and bruised. With all her might, she swam sideways against he current, letting it sweep her diagonally to one of the banks.

 

As she neared the shore, Lilet’s sodden form swept past her, nearly yanking her arm out of socket, but Laehval kept her fingers clamped around the fabric of her sister’s collar. In one mighty heave, she flung herself onto the bank and hauled her sister up out of the water to lie beside her. Lilet didn’t move. Her eyes remained closed. She wasn’t breathing.

 

Panting, Laehval pulled the girl into her arms and pounded on her back to make her cough up the water. She lay her back in the grass and pumped on her chest to push the water free. But Lilet still did not move. Blood oozed from several cuts on her forehead, streaking the young girl’s face.

 

“LILET!”

 

The shriek of terror came from her mother, no doubt drawn by Lilet’s screams for help. She fell to her knees and pulled the tiny form away from Laehval, attempting the same procedures to bring life back to her daughter. Laehval’s older brother Pritus, and younger brother Mornot, arrived a few moments later and clustered around the three females.

 

“She fell in…” Laehval sobbed, gasping for breath. “I told her not to wander! I told her not to go near the

river! But she fell in!”

 

“Let us take her, mother. She may yet be saved.”

 

Au'rial shook her head. “It has been too long. She’s gone…”

 

“Let me at least try.” Pritus gathered up the limp body in his strong arms and took off at a run toward the village, Mornot only a few steps behind.

 

Her mother continued to kneel in the grass, robes soaked with water and her daughter’s blood. She stared at the river, unfeeling and unseeing. Trembling with overwhelming emotion and exhaustion, Laehval crawled forward to touch her mother’s hand.

 

“Mother,” she whispered.

 

“Two children of mine are gone. Two children, and both of their deaths are on your head.” Her mother turned her head to gaze at her, hatred marring her features.

 

“If I had not been pregnant with you, I would not have lost Jalen. I would have been with him the day he died and could have saved him! And now you’ve killed Lilet! You! I told you to watch her, but you ignore her for your precious replicator project.”

 

She pulled Laehval’s discarded ISD from her robes and brandished it at Laehval like a weapon. “THIS! My precious daughter died because of this!” She flung the device against a pile of boulders where it shattered into dozens of pieces.

 

“I didn’t… I didn’t mean to!” Laehval wailed, clutching at her mother’s hand. “I only looked away for a second! She was fine! I told her not to go near the river!”

 

“DO NOT DARE BLAME LILET! It was your fault! You killed her! It should have been you that died from your carelessness!”

 

The slap her mother delivered to her cheek had enough force behind it to leave an angry welt. Laehval’s face jerked to one side, tears renewed at the stinging sensation. She covered her face with both hands and crumpled, sobbing hysterically as her mother pulled away.

 

“I have lost two daughters today. As Lilet is dead, so are you dead to me.” Whispering coldly, her mother turned and ran, silent tears streaming down her face.

 

 

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"It really was your fault, Laehval,” the shrouded figure beside her said.

 

“I know,” she whispered, oblivious to the tears sliding down her cheeks.

 

“That was rather harsh of mother, though. She did not really disown you. I think she was in shock.”

 

“No, she didn’t disown me, but she has never forgiven me. Even now, I can feel the tension hiding beneath the surface of any of our conversations.”

 

“She loved me…”

 

“Yes. Everyone loved you…”

 

“Do you think she’ll be sad now that you are gone?”

 

“No. I think she’s secretly wanted me dead ever since that day on the river bank. If you had lived and I had died, she would have mourned me, but she would not have been so devastated.”

 

Laehval turned to peer at the veiled figure beside her, wiping tears from her face. She could just barely make out Lilet’s features beneath the burial shroud that covered her from head to toe. A tiny hand reached for her and she gripped it gently in her fingers. Chin trembling, tears began to fall once more.

 

“Do not cry, Laehval. I forgive you. You did not wish for it to happen. You even risked your life to try to save me.”

 

“That day was my worst regret.”

 

She brought Lilet’s small fingers to her lips and kissed them gently, unable to speak through her tears. The younger girl rose from the ground and slowly pulled the shroud off of her head. Once she was free of the confining material, she placed one hand on either side of Laehval’s face and lifted it so that Laehval was forced to look into her eyes. Lilet leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead, then released her and pulled the shroud back over herself. Head bowed, the older sister continued to weep.

 

“It is time for us to leave,” said a third figure. The young boy that had appeared beside Lilet took her hand in his own. He peered down at Laehval. “Will you come with us?”

 

Wiping tears from her eyes, she looked up to the little boy, recognizing him from holovids that her mother kept. Slowly she pulled herself to her feet, sad gaze on the two young children as they moved forward, each taking one of her hands in their own.

 

“Mother was wrong about my death. You were not to blame for that,” Jalen said, giving her hand a squeeze. Dark brown eyes gazed up at her lovingly.

 

“I know that as well. I wish I could have known you in life.”

 

“You will know me now. Come. It is time for us to leave.”

 

The two siblings dropped Laehval’s hands, but still held on to one another. They turned and walked a few steps toward a newly materialized wall. The surface of the wall glowed in a soft golden hue and shifted and changed as thought it were made of water. Her mouth dropped open slightly as the hypnotic wall showed her flashes of wondrous things that lay beyond. She took an automatic step in its direction.

 

“Vorta’Vor?”

 

“Yes. And you have a place waiting with us. We shall all be together from now until always.”

 

“Vorta’Vor,” she whispered, her mouth barely moving.

 

But when she attempted another step, she found that her feet were firmly mired in the white expanse on which she stood. She looked down and then behind her, her gaze following a thin verdant ribbon of energy that flowed from her to another shimmering wall. Beyond the wavering surface, she could see scenes from the Talon and the people there. Swinging her head back to her siblings, she found that they were already to the wall, peering back at her.

 

“You have to sever your ties if you want to come with us.”

 

Turning again to the glowing ribbon, she took it in both hands and pulled as hard as she could. Rather than snapping, it seemed to expand, strengthening and pulling her further away from her dead siblings. She let out a soft moan of despair and fell to her knees.

 

“It is too late. They won’t let you go.”

 

“I know,” she murmured, her gaze locked on them both.

 

“Laehval?”

 

“Yes, Lilet?”

 

“That day? Your worst regret. Why? Because I died, or because you were not able to save me?”

 

“Both… and more. You died and I could not save you. You died because I was more concerned about a broken replicator than my own sister’s safety. I shattered my mother’s heart. And your precious life was cut so short. You would have grown to be something great. I regret all those things, but…”

 

“But?”

 

“… but my main regret was that I lived.”