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Molly looked at the young man who had once been her son. Swift held her gaze, almost defiantly. She knew though, by the ways his shoulders curved inward, that he was merely trying to look confident. His earring glinted in the soft light coming through her window.
She had gone cold when he had left. Shivering and crying and shouting hysterically as her house fell to pieces around her. It didn’t feel like the end with Fitz had, all those years ago. The actions were similar but the emotions behind them were incomparable. Fitz had made her so angry that she felt she had been running a fever that whole last week she spent at Buckkeep. It kept her going for a while, after. If she just got angry again she could imagine that Fitz would come back, that they could argue about it and make-up like always. That the grief would end.
She knew when Swift had come back, that there was no hope of seeing her husband again. Nothing to get angry about anymore. It hadn’t felt shocking like it had the first time. Shamefully, when she first heard about his death, Molly hadn’t really felt anything at all. It was the same hollowness that had been living with her the entire time her son had been gone.
The grief had come eventually. And then Fitz was alive again, and Nettle knew the truth, and what was left of her small home in the countryside crumbled away.
It was the closest she had come to understanding Fitz’s decision. That desire to let everything go numb, let her whole life fall away. Surely she’d been through enough at this point, yes? She’d had her sorrow, and she’d had fifteen years of stability. Where else was there to go?
Web snapped her out of it.
He came to speak to her about her son, who had not said anything more than he had to for weeks. She hadn’t known how to speak to the boy. How do you speak to the son you failed?
Because it had meant something, that he had never come to her about being Witted.
“He’s not sure how you feel about it.” Web had said.
Truthfully, Molly didn’t know how she felt about it either.
It was one thing when she found out about Fitz. It had stung, yes, but it was just one more thing she hadn’t known about him. When it came down to it, assassin had been more shocking than Witted . Molly hadn’t known how much was true anyway. There were all kinds of tales that spread around after his death, many of which she knew couldn’t be.
Burrich had been hesitant to talk about it. It was easier for him to talk about himself than it was for him to talk about Fitz, oddly enough. She thought maybe that was because Burrich viewed the Wit as a stain on his past, rather than a part of who he was. It seemed that wasn’t the case for Fitz, but Burrich would never give her a straight answer either way.
“I don’t know how I feel about it either,” she admitted out loud.
Web gave her a gentle smile. “Well, that’s not a bad starting place. You could tell Swift that.”
She frowned. It didn’t feel like enough. Web seemed to read this sentiment on her face, and nodded like he had made a decision.
“What do you know about the Wit?” he asked.
“Not much. I know… I know that it’s passed down from parent to child.” she said.
Web nodded. “That’s true. It’s not always a direct line, but yes. It’s why we refer to ourselves as Old Blood.”
“And you can take… companions,”
He looked a bit amused at this, but kept his tone in the same pleasant neutrality that he had been using.
“Yes. Once someone is of age it is customary for them to seek out a bond. Different communities have different ways of going about it, but they often look rather similar. Your son is too young at the moment, but he has told me he wishes to have a bond when he is ready.”
Molly nodded. She would be lying if she claimed that this didn’t make her nervous. Much of what she knew about the Wit was how dangerous it was to have it. While the Queen had made many strides in changing that, it still wasn’t a guarantee that her son would be safe.
Even if she hadn’t been privy to any sort of news at all in the last few years, she remembered what it was like after Fitz had died. It would never leave her. People said all sorts of nasty things, most that she didn’t think bared repeating, even in her own mind. Worse than the lies and stories was the truth. That he had died, alone, beaten and tortured by his own Uncle. That Patience and Lacey had been the only ones willing to bury him.
“Not a proper death for something like that," she'd heard a woman say at the market once, “should’ve been quartered, burned, and drowned. That’s how we always did it.”
That the woman had found herself dealing with a honeybee infestation in her shop a few years later was neither here nor there.
Yet, it was a relief to know that Swift was in this man’s care. For all that his father had failed him, for all that she had failed him. He had someone to guide him through this.
Molly found herself wondering, just for a second, if Fitz would have fulfilled that role in the life they imagined together. A silly thought. A girl’s fantasy.She didn’t even know how Fitz felt about being Witted. Because he had never told her.
“What should I… Is there anything I need to prepare for? With Swift.” She asked.
Web hummed thoughtfully, tilting his head. Molly twisted her hands into her skirt.
“Likely not. It’ll be some years yet before Swift seeks out a bond. Aside from housing his companion, which Queen Kettricken has happily assured us will be taken care of, there’s not much for you to think about or do. It’s just a fact about your son. Much like it’s a fact that he has brown hair and brown eyes.”
Molly didn’t think it was like that at all really. Not that she had a problem with Swift having the Wit (being Witted? …Old Blood?), but she knew that it meant more than just the color of his hair. Web had probably intended to ease her mind with such a statement. It hadn’t worked.
So, Molly ended up here, awkwardly sitting with her son, choking on her guilt. Swift, harboring both her temper and Burrich’s forbearance, broke the silence for her.
“You said you wanted to talk.”
He was defensive already. It would have intimidated her further, if not for the fact that his voice had cracked.
She felt tears coming at the sound of his voice, and cursed herself for it. Molly had not sent a page to tell him to come see her, because she had no idea where he spent his days, just to cry. But his voice! Oh, his voice. It sounded not at all like her baby Swift. It had changed in the time they were apart. Just a bit.
It made those months stretch impossibly long. As if she had not seen her son in years.
(Patience had listened very attentively as Molly mourned that time lost with her son. As if it could even compare , Molly had said. I don’t think there’s ever an easy amount of time to miss. Patience had said gently, more gently than Molly had ever known the woman to be.)
She cleared her throat.
“Yes. I… I wanted to apologize.”
Suddenly he was her baby again, staring at her with open shock and yearning. His lip trembled.
“What do you have to apologize for?” Swift asked gruffly, his eyes no longer meeting hers.
“For not being someone you felt you could trust. For not sitting your father down and demanding he tell me what was going on. For—“ she felt her breath catch, “for all of it. I suppose. I let you down immensely.”
Her eyes burned at her insistently but she stayed strong, she would not cry.
“I don’t think there was anything you could have done differently, Mama.” Swift said, blinking tears out of his own eyes.
“Why didn’t you want to tell me?”
Molly hadn’t meant to ask that. She wasn’t sure it was a fair thing to ask.
Swift’s eyes flicked to hers guiltily, before finding their place on the ground again.
“I didn’t want you to hate me.” His voice was so small.
To say Molly only felt numbed or grieved after Burrich had died was inaccurate. There were moments, like this one, where she felt so angry she could have taken a boat out to the Outislands herself. She would pull that man up from the deep and yell at him one more time.
Instead, she took a breath, and really looked at her son.
He was trying to be confident, she knew. He was also a bit unmanned by her apology and her question. Her path forward seemed obvious then. It should have been obvious to his father as well. Molly tucked the cruel little thought away. She could be angry later, in her own room. Now, she had something to do.
Molly stood from her chair and stepped to where her son had been sitting across from her. He had flinched when she stood, but had also raised his arms a bit as she stepped forward. Molly embraced him, hard, pulling him into her like she could take it all back, start over again with him.
Swift sobbed into her shoulder. She rubbed circles in his back with one hand, using the other to squeeze him even tighter. She started putting intention into her breaths, taking long slow inhales, holding, and exhaling. He tucked his head under her neck and breathed with her. They stayed like that for a moment.
“First,” she started, voice rough, “There isn’t anything in this world that you could do or be that would make me hate you. Mad at you? Yes. But I will never ever be able to hate you.”
He nodded, small and docile in her arms. Puppy-like.
“Second. I wouldn’t hate you for being Witted, Swift. I really don’t… I have no issue with it. And I would be willing to learn about it with you. If you would like.” At this she pulled back and brushed the hair away from his face like he was still six years old.
“I would like that, I think.”
For the first time since he had run away, her son was smiling at her.