“Oh, Indra, I am not enthusiastic about this.” His mother, Jiyana sat at his kitchen table, chair pulled to the side so that she was turned more toward Indra at the cupboards than she was toward the small, empty table. Her legs were folded at the ankles, one hand curled around a steaming mug as her steely eyes leveled very firmly at him.

And… Indra had certainly anticipated that the woman would be ‘not enthusiastic.’ He gave a noncommittal shrug of his shoulders as he continued plucking glasses from the cabinet, folding a swath of newspaper around each individually, and then tucking them into a box for moving. Because Indra was moving. He’d pretty solidly come to that conclusion a few months ago, after he’d spent a few peaceful weeks in the woods. Minimal attacks. Attacks that had promptly resumed the moment he was back in the city.

Why?

Who was he to say? Indra didn’t know ‘why.’ He just knew that that was how it was. And if he had found the means for even a moment of peace, the ‘why’ was secondary to the sheer relief. He could figure out the cause once he’d taken some time to settle and recover from the now-eighteen-months where he was constantly plagued by monsters.

He’d rented that peaceful cabin in July. It had taken longer than he would’ve liked to find literally anywhere similar that he could afford and that didn’t look completely like a shack on a plod of nice land, but with all the loans and negotiations and closing arrangements squared away, he could finally, finally, find some peace. “I know it is not what you expected.” Indra moved on to shuffling through the dinnerware. “But I think it will be better for me. …I think I will be happier,” he intoned quietly.

“Happier?” Jiyana repeated. “To be farther away from us? You already have so many complaints about how little time you have, how tired you are. You expect that will improve with a longer- and more dangerous!- commute? The snow this season. The ice! The roads will be worse and worse the farther away from the city you get. We will never see you during the winter. It will be too dangerous for you to go anywhere!”

Dramatic? Sure. But not inherently wrong. Indra’s current apartment was hardly more than a few blocks away from his business. The trip was easy, and if anyone at work needed him, it would take him roughly four minutes to make it in.

It would probably be more like twenty or thirty minutes with the commute from the cabin nearish to the reservoir. Longer if the weather was terrible, with the snow like it was, as of late. Less ‘time to himself’ if he had to make that drive, as far as Indra’s mother was concerned. But she, of course, didn’t know about the toll the youma took while he was in the most populated areas of the city. The commute was longer, but if he could spend less time actively at war, there wasn’t much argument that could sway him.

Another shrug. “It is farther,” he agreed. “But it is more peaceful, and the area is beautiful. Or it was over the summer, while it was green. I am sure it is beautiful in a different sort of way at the moment. It is quiet. It smells nice. The birds sing you awake in the morning, and the frogs hum you to sleep. It is different than being fully in the city, and there will… be some adjustments I need to make.”

He didn’t like change. It would be obnoxious not to be in range of ordering from his typical restaurants. It would be weird to not be able to just ‘run to the grocery store’ in under ten minutes. The internet was probably worse, and that could make doing his job tedious. Maybe it would be more difficult to call on his friends and allies for help, if he needed it… It wasn’t like Breanna could teleport to him when he did face a crisis. Indra saw enough of the cons to be wary, but they weren’t enough to outclass the lure of freedom and relief from the paranoia, and the people around him- being that there wouldn’t be any- would be safe.

His mother’s face didn’t look as convinced as Indra felt, and he heard her huff quietly into her mug. “You have never lived more than a few minutes from us.”

“And I am not moving across the world, as you did from your parents. You can visit whenever you like. It is hardly far, in the grand scheme of things.” Across the city. His street and zip code were changing, but his address still read Destiny City, Virginia. Barely worth a complaint, as far as Indra was concerned. “Would you like to see the pictures?” He offered, slipping his phone from the countertop and turning away from the cabinets to face his mother.

“Fine,” she hummed in consent.

As Indra pulled up the listing, now labeled ‘SOLD,’ he continued conversationally. “There were very few options in the area, and even fewer actually in my budget. It needs very much work, but look at the brick fireplace. Look at the stream running through the back. Just there- you can see it.” He pointed out one of the pictures. “Do you think Poppa would help me renovate?”

Jiyana was quiet as she flicked through the pictures with a methodical tap of her fingers. Their family was not extremely outdoorsy in the way some were, and for Indra in particular, she had never really anticipated that he would be interested in living anywhere besides the heart of the city, where everything would be conveniently accessible to him. They’d lived in a peaceful neighborhood his entire life, with trees obstructing most of the neighbors, and shielding the worst of city blight from view, but… that was the most she expected him to want. Not something so distant, where she doubted the snow plow even went.

“We will always help you,” she murmured. “No matter what you do or how far you go. I wish it felt less dangerous, but if you think it will make you happy, I will try to complain less. But I will need to test your phone signal out there, you understand. You think it is safer, but if you slip down your driveway and fall onto a treespike and no one finds you for a week, how safe will it be? None.”

“That seems a little unlikely.”

“Until it happens!” His mother barked. “But it is fine. I trust you, and it is not so far that if you fail to answer your phone, I would be unable to come find you.”

Not for the first time, Indra wished he could explain exactly what he was dodging by settling in a less populated area, but for now, it was enough to hear his mother lightening up with her variety of teasing. At least, he hoped she was teasing.

[WC: 1183]