MALLOS
Mallos’ first instinct is to point out that he isn’t ‘people’, but indignant interjections of an arrogant (if true) nature are not going to contribute anything positive towards this situation. Besides, in the sense to which Tristan refers, he is another one of these ‘people’. Right here, right now, none of Mallos’ ambassadorial capacities or deity expectations hold any bearing. Today he isn’t the god of Spain or the International Ambassador of Earth, or Shaman’s guardian of the balance; today he is just Tristan’s grandfather.
In all honesty, he had expected some kind of lie or avoidance tactic and is mildly surprised – and touched – by the prince’s outburst. Judging from what Tristan says, it would appear that he’s beyond the point of lying and is too worn down by constant questioning to deliver anything other than the truth. Although he’d expected the kind of sentiment Tristan is showing, having been forewarned by Arthur, hearing the words pour from the nine year-old’s own mouth lends them a heavier, heart-breaking tone. In that moment, Mallos would give all the magic in the world to bring Lilith and Gawain back. He takes a few minutes to carefully construct a reply and check the translation before giving it.
“It was because she loved you so much that she left. There’s nothing in the world worse than for a child to die before its parent, Tristan.” He rubs his temples and sighed. “It made your mother very ill. Up here,” he lightly tapped the boy’s forehead. “Depression is not just being sad, and very few people who have not experienced it can truly understand it. When a person is depressed, they cannot see the world correctly anymore and their understanding of the world becomes distorted. It’s normal after a close loss to blame yourself, but your mother took it further.” He picks up a small rock off the ground and turned it over, showing Tristan the variety of insect life underneath. “She believed that she was so lowly, and worth so little, that these insects were better than her. Her world was so distorted that she saw herself as the most worthless thing in it, and she believed that she did not deserve to get better. By comparison, you and your father were the most wonderful things,” he gently replaced the rock. “Too good for her, she thought. You were so great and she was so bad that she thought she could only ever hold you back. That’s why she left, Tris,” he turns to look his grandson directly in the eye. “She left because she thought you would be better off without her, and her time was better spent trying to bring Gawain back to you. She was very, very ill, and nobody can be blamed for that. Nobody could have made her better or stopped her except for herself.”
He speaks slowly, quietly, with great assurance and a touch of sadness. Lilith, after all, had been his daughter – and the only one who had accepted him openly into her life.
While a gentle breeze plays across the surface of the lake, rippling the brown water, he briefly considers the other problem Tristan had raised. Simply telling him in the typical Spanish way not to worry about things which have yet to come around would be pointless: unfortunately, Tristan has far too much English blood in him. The English spend too much time worrying and not enough time listening. Usually the way to deal with it is to go and make them a cup of tea or something, but the prince is a little young for that and, besides, Arthur might not like him giving his nine year-old caffeine.
“I suppose your father tells you a lot about duty and responsibility,” he adds after a thoughtful moment. “He is right: you are the crowned prince and you have a responsibility to the people of this world. But the only responsibility you have is to try, Tristan – nobody wants more from you than that. If you try and fail, you have the option to pass the responsibility onto someone else and take on a role more suited to you. I do not think that you will fail,” he draws his knees up and rests his elbows on them to try and keep some more body heat in. “You are too good at what you do to fail at it. The only true failure would be not to try, or not to turn it over to another person if you were not up to the job. You should never feel as if you are being pushed down a road which is not right for you. Do you feel that way?” He raises his eyebrows, “or is it just that the road is more difficult than you thought it would be?”
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