Set sometime after this RP that isn't finished yet, but whatever, if I don't post this now it'll just sit on my computer for months.
Word Count: 885
She found him on an old, rusty swing at a small, unkempt park near the house they had once both lived in with his father.
Henry's house, the one he'd purchased with the last of his savings, the place that had been her home for ten years that then felt so long, but now seemed so brief.
She came to a stop by the chain-linked fence, and looked on in sadness.
Now that she knew, she could look beyond the magic and see through the glamor. Curly blonde hair that skirted the ground when he leaned back. Turquoise eyes, his father's eyes, trained upward on the moon. Gloved hands gripped the rusted, screeching chains, as a long red train dragged through the woodchips beneath him. His shoulders were bare, his pale skin luminous in the moonlight, a red collar draped down his upper arms. A golden brooch glinted on his chest in the shape of an eagle, and his long legs, toned from years of dance, skidded along the ground in high, high heels.
Scrape, scrape, scrape.
His beauty was exaggerated by his attire, by the red color on the lips, but it brought to home an unavoidable fact she had spent so long denying.
He was an adult.
Not a baby any longer, nor even a child.
“I know you're there,” he said.
Of course he did. Distracted by the sight of him, by the white wings upon his lower back, Palatine had forgotten their innate ability to sense one another. She'd tracked him down by following the aura of an Eternal in an area of town she thought he might visit. Naturally he would be able to sense her as well, when she stood so close.
He righted himself, pulled on the chains to hoist himself up to sit, lowered his gaze from the sky to spy her by the gate. For a moment another image overlapped the sight of his graceful movements—a small child in bright clothing, wide eyes and a large grin beneath a head of blonde curls, and a high, young voice full of laughter as he called her name.
But it was gone in the blink of an eye, with nothing to show for it but her memories.
She almost called to him but stopped herself at the last moment, closed her mouth around the “Baby...” that would have surely given her away.
It was better like this, she thought. To face one another as strangers.
“What do you want?” he asked, part defensive, part curious.
“You're Ganymede,” she said.
“Yeah, I am,” he agreed, and then, “Who're you?”
“Palatine.”
“A page.”
“Yes.”
“Who told you about me?” he asked, suspicious.
“Sessrumnir,” she said.
He rolled his eyes and kicked at the ground to set himself in motion again.
“Is this about the Jovians?” he asked.
“No,” she said.
“Then what?”
“I wanted to see you.”
He stared at her critically, eyes narrowing in further suspicion. For just a second she worried he might know who she was. She looked no different, she knew, unrecognizable only by virtue of a magic she didn't quite understand and therefore could not fully trust; she felt no immediate compulsion to rely upon it. Perhaps Michael had gone against her wishes and told him, or perhaps he had some added power as an Eternal that allowed him to know his own mother.
But he said nothing to question her or force a confession from her, and eventually shrugged off any suspicions he might have had.
“You just going to stand there?” he asked.
“I might,” she said.
“Suit yourself.”
He leaned back again, hands gripping the chains, train dragging along the ground.
Swish, swish, swish.
Palatine remained by the gate and watched him as he watched the moon, listened to the creaking chains, the drag of his heel, the sound of his voice quietly humming beneath the chirp of the night insects and the noise of a distant car. He was here, alive, close but so far, distant but near enough to touch if she chose to cross the space between them. She could take him into her arms, cup his face, stroke his hair, hold him like she used to when he'd been little.
She could do better this time—not fix the past, not even make up for it, but she could make the most of the present.
Not a child, she reminded herself. Not anymore.
But still her Baby.
Later she would leave, when she felt the approach of a Knight—Chris?—and knew she'd overstayed her welcome. Then she would return home, dig a box of photos out of her closet, and spend the night slowly going through them, one after another after another. Her heart would ache for the child who was no longer small and a man who was no longer living; her conscience would lament so much lost time, and she would enter the room of another baby and stare into the crib, and wonder if it would be any different with this one.
Had she changed enough? Or not at all?
Would it even matter now?
For the present Palatine stayed where she was, quiet, protective—the silent vigil of a regretful mother.
