{"id":3195,"date":"2017-04-12T00:00:12","date_gmt":"2017-04-12T04:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/?p=3195"},"modified":"2017-04-11T18:46:33","modified_gmt":"2017-04-11T22:46:33","slug":"eight-04-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/?p=3195","title":{"rendered":"Eight – 04"},"content":{"rendered":"

[This post is from Hecate’s point of view.]<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n

Hecate looked up from the infant in her arms, her brow arching slightly. \u201cI know that you\u2019re\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe named him after Thom. The middle name is actually from his family, too, a maternal grandmother\u2019s family name.\u201d Marin gave her a rueful smile. \u201cWe call him Lin. The whole name\u2014it\u2019s a little much.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s good to know the irony isn\u2019t lost on you,\u201d Hecate murmured, looking down at the baby again. He was still staring up at her, a clear-eyed, serious gaze, one that seemed more than a little strange from a baby only days old. She took a shaky breath, meeting that gaze, one that drew her back into a time long ago and a place that seemed very, very far away.<\/p>\n

She had held infants before\u2014many of them, in fact, newborns and older, though mostly newborns. She had held them crying, squalling their first cries, naked on the days of their birth. Her stomach felt hollow and a new ache began inside. Tears pricked her eyes again and she exhaled a quiet, shaking breath.<\/p>\n

\u201cCan you sense it?\u201d she asked Marin in a whisper, her gaze flicking up again. \u201cThis baby, Marin, he\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n

Her lips thinned and she nodded. \u201cI knew before he was ever born that he was going to be something, that there was going to be something about him. I know he\u2019s powerful. I\u2019d know that even without having seen it.\u201d Marin leaned forward, resting her elbows against her knees and staring at the floor for a few seconds. \u201cI don\u2019t want that to define him, though\u2014I don\u2019t want his name to define him and I don\u2019t want his power to define him. I want him to have some kind of childhood. I want him to be safe and loved for as long as I can make that happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

A shiver crept down Hecate\u2019s spine. \u201cYou say that like you won\u2019t be here to make it happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause after a while, I know I won\u2019t be,\u201d Marin said softly. \u201cAnd that\u2019s the worst part of all of it. I know I\u2019m not always going to be there when he needs me. It\u2019s going to have to be someone else someday. I just don\u2019t know who.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[This post is from Hecate’s point of view.] Hecate looked up from the infant in her arms, her brow arching slightly. \u201cI know that you\u2019re\u2014\u201d \u201cWe named him after Thom. The middle name is actually from his family, too, a … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[240,249,14],"tags":[150,171,170,194,152,149,148,168,147,165,200,146],"class_list":["post-3195","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-6","category-chapter-08-book-6","category-story","tag-awakenings","tag-fantasy","tag-fiction","tag-hecate","tag-marin-astoris","tag-original-fiction","tag-post-apocalyptic","tag-serial","tag-serial-fiction","tag-story","tag-thomas-merlin-ambrose","tag-web-fiction"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1EBlN-Px","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3195"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3195\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3196,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3195\/revisions\/3196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}