Shadow Touched: Learning to Walk

He was but a toddler. Both his small chubby hands clutching tightly above his head, around the long and thin fingers of ghoulishly pale figure, towering and hunched expectedly over his small form.
His little body completely covered in his mother’s shadow:
A place of comfortable coolness and a shroud of safety she provided just from her presence.
She took carful steps forward, encouraging her son to take his own steps to match her.
Securely and gently holding onto his little hands and remaining close, as she moved to get him to match her movements.
He eagerly started stumbling forward clutching her fingers tightly before finding his stride. She gradually and gently let go of him and disappeared from behind before quickly reappearing from a shadow ahead of him.
This motivated him forward to rejoin her.
He happily laughed and rushed forward, overly eager to reach his mother.
But he stumbled. She watches him fall, but doesn’t panic or overreact. She is quick to scoop him up in her arms.
Comforting his cries and holding him up to her face kissing away his tears and swaying to calm him, all the while still encouraging the steps he took by himself.
Remembers her face, what should have frightened him as a toddler, covered in tattoos and scars, but he associated with his caregiver, his mother. Her eyes had no white but black sclera and their shared glowing amber iris met. He simply giggles and happily babbles after he calms down from his minor scrap, restlessly wanting to be placed down and get to walking again.