Work Text:
How Holes Are Fixed
Edgin is perfectly capable of patching his own clothes. He’s had to do it often enough, especially when an assignment for the Harpers goes a little bit pear shaped.
He didn’t want Zia to work on his clothes, not at first. It felt too much like he was making her a servant, waiting alone at home for word that he wasn’t coming back.
“I love you,” she said, giving him a quick peck on the cheek. “And you’re ridiculous. I might not be an adventurer, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to help people. Don’t want to help you. So let me help you, all right?”
Edgin never could say no to her, not about anything important, so he leaves as much of the mending of his clothes as he can to Zia after that.
She doesn’t just sew clean, neat repairs into sword rents and arrow holes. She turns the proof of his failures—evidence of his near death—into works of art. Starbursts, fields of wildflowers, waves—beautiful bits of embroidery cover the evidence of risk.
Edgin’s fingers trace them as he listens to lectures and lore, and wonders what exactly he is giving Zia in return.
***
Kira is cold.
That’s all that she knows, the screaming child in a well-tended cradle. She is cold, and lonely.
So she does what all cold infants will do: she cries. She wails out her terror, her discomfort, her uncertainty, and she hopes that it will be gentle hands that respond to the cries.
“I’m trying,” the voice that has replaced the expected one pleads. “I’m trying, Kira-baby, your mother had this outfit seventy percent done, but I just can’t seem to—ouch.”
Then someone else is crying. She can hear the sound of sobs underlying her own, and so she does as human infants always do when confronted with another that needs assistance: she cries harder.
That is the only thing she can do. The world is a cold and frightening blur that her eyes can’t focus on, so she cries, and hopes for kindness.
And this time, she finds her faith rewarded. Warm hands scoop her up; a gentle voice whispers reassurance in her ear; warm fabric wraps them both.
It isn’t mama, but babies know to accept any port in a storm, so she snuggles into the warmth and ceases her crying.
At least for the moment.
***
Holga takes the clothes off the clothesline and sniffs them.
Good. Nice and clean.
She dumps them all into a basket. Some of them should probably be ironed, but, well, Holga doesn’t really care about ironing, and she doubts Edgin does right now either.
Some need mending. That’s what enough bar brawls will do for you, she knows.
It’s all Edgin’s clothes that need mending, though. Kira’s are all carefully sewed, the few bits of damage carefully repaired.
Holga glances at the man asleep in the cottage’s single bed, his daughter cradled to his chest.
Setting the basket gently down, not making any noise lest she wake the child and thus the father, Holga sorts the clothes into needs work and fine piles. The fine piles she dumps back in the basket. The ones that need work, she sorts from least to most. A needle, some thread, and she gets to work.
She isn’t sure how long Edgin watches her before she notices he’s awake. She looks over to see tired brown eyes studying her swift fingers.
“You don’t have to,” he says.
“I know,” she says.
And that’s really all there is to say, at least until Kira wakes.
***
At five, Kira decides she’s old enough to be helpful.
One day she’ll fight and lie and trick people like her father, but she’s still scared whenever actual fighting happens, so she’ll start with something simple.
She’s seen Holga and her father mend clothes a thousand times before. But twenty minutes have already passed, and she still hasn’t managed to get the thread onto the needle. Kira wipes at her eyes, and tries again. She’ll do this. She’ll—
“Kira?” Forge asks quietly.
Kira jumps, pricking herself with the needle and letting out a soft cry.
“Sorry,” Forge says, joining her in her corner of the wagon. “Oh, dear me. Look what I’ve done.”
“I did it,” Kira says, sticking her bloody finger in her mouth, unable to stop tears from leaking down her cheeks.
“You’re trying to do the mending, aren’t you?” Forge asks quietly.
Kira nods. “I want to help.”
“Oh, sweet girl,” Forge murmurs, and puts an arm around her shoulders. “Here, let me assist.”
And he does, helping Kira place effective if uneven patches where they need to go.
Kira curls into his warm body, content, knowing she has the best family—best crew—in the world.
***
Edgin watches as Xenk picks up Kira’s jacket, Xenk’s fingers immediately finding the hole left by a too-close sword swipe. “Thank you,” Edgin says quietly. “For saving her.”
“I am a paladin. It is quite literally my gods-given job,” Xenk says, and he’s so earnest, his expression so serious, that Edgin can’t tell if there’s supposed to be a joke in there or not.
“Still,” Edgin says, looking away from Xenk’s kind eyes. “I owe you.”
“I do not work in debts,” Xenk murmurs, and he’s somehow already produced needle and thread, closing the rift in the fabric. “You have saved the world; I have saved you; we will both go on to save others.”
“You really believe the world works like that,” Edgin mumbles.
“Yes,” Xenk says, and he’s somehow already done throwing a neat line of stitches across the slash. “Because we will make it so.”
Kira comes out of the bathroom then, clean body and clothes. Her squeal of glee when she sees the jacket is the sweetest thing Edgin has ever heard.
Picking up Xenk’s tattered jacket, Edgin finds the damage from the fight earlier, takes out a needle of his own, and gets to work.