He could still remember his mother's face hovering over his bed at night, as though he were the most precious thing in all the world. It was with a heavy heart that he recalled that face. Smooth as the day on which it had been brought into the world, lined with neither crow's feet nor worry lines. Instead pale and beautiful. The most beautiful face he could ever hope to behold, in this life or any other. She'd whispered to him stories of love and hate, war and peace, in the form of songs which no other ears had ever heard. Her gift, she said, to her beautiful dragon who would be as famous a singer as she'd ever been a composer. Koe wanted to believe that story, wanted to believe it with all his heart. What had actually happened was something entirely different. Something he didn't want to think about for fear that he would lose total control of his emotions.
"She was gathering them for me. She told me. She told me all her life, she'd been gathering songs without knowing why. And when I was born she had the answer she'd never expected. My father was never there. In the same way that Minaht was never there, for you. She gave her songs to me and told me she'd been collecting them for all of her life. I still remember the first song she ever sang to me. It started out..."
Koe would have gone on, in words that were common and plain, but for the fact that he remembered every song she ever sang to him. Onainaht had never explained the song to him. But as it developed, she never had to explain. Koe had understood before he was too much older. The memory of that understanding, and the explanation that it brought, was more than he wanted to think about. He sang the words knowing he could never do them justice. He sang the words knowing that it would most likely make no sense at all to Onainat. At least not without the rest of the story. He sang the words because he needed that moment to recover his composure.
Just a moment.
"Cold blows the wind to my true love, And gently drops the rain. I only have but one true love, And in green wood he lies slain. I'll do as much for my true love, As any young girl may. I'll sit and mourn all on his grave, For twelve months and a day."