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 Posted: Sat Jul 02, 2005 8:47 pm
"No, it isn't that I don't think we can handle another baby, I just...am not very sure about it right now, that's all." Talon sighed, laying Zhane in his crib and getting him situated for the night. She'd brought up this subject after dinner and he'd managed to dodge it, but now it was back and worse than ever.
"I know..." Yeande murmured, her fingers steepled thoughtfully under her chin. "I know we just had Zhane and we're just getting our legs back under us..."
"So why knock us over again?" Talon inquired, quirking a brow at her. "Why not just let us be a family for awhile?"
"Because if we do this, we'd need to do it soon. While Zhane is still a baby, preferrably. If we wait longer than that, there's going to be issues."
"There's going to be issues no matter WHEN we do it, if we do it at all." her husband countered, keeping his voice quiet so he wouldn't wake their son but the tension was still present as he gently pulled the blanket over the infant's sleeping form and excused himself from the nursery, pulling the door almost-but-not-quite closed behind him. He didn't like being nagged...especially not about something this big when their lives had just started to form some semblance of order after a huge upheaval.
"But fewer if we do it now." Yeande continued, following after him. Where Talon was bullheaded, she was just as much so. And she, unlike many people, was not afraid of the other ijiuo's temper. She'd seen him at his worst, after all....several times. He paused in mid-stride and then turned to face her, green eyes sparking.
"I THOUGHT I had that operation because you decided you didn't want any more kids." he growled, still in bad temper about his recent surgery. It had been a necessary evil, but all the same, he hadn't much cared for the ultimatum of "have yourself snipped or I'm never letting you touch me again" she'd given him shortly after they'd brought Zhane home and she'd healed from her ordeal at the clinic.
"You had that operation," she corrected him "because the doctors told us that it could be dangerous if I got pregnant again. That had nothing to do with wanting, Talonfaust."
His ears flattened as he turned to continue on his way to the bedroom. Again, Yeande followed him, feeling much like a mongoose following a cobra into its nest. "And what exactly got this bee in your bonnet about adoption anyway?" he asked, not turning to look at her as he opened the door and crossed the room directly to the bed where he sat heavily on its edge.
"It isn't a bee in my bonnet." she replied, trying desperately to remain patient with him. He made it so easy to just want to haul off and slap him sometimes... "I've been thinking about it off and on since Zhane came home with us. I didn't make up my mind about it until recently."
"Thanks for including me in that decision." he snorted, beginning to undress for bed.
"Damn you, Talon!" she hissed. "Will you stop spitting all over it for just a minute and let me talk??" He said nothing, pulling his shirt over his head and letting it fall to the floor. Taking his silence as an invitation to continue, she went on. "Zhane's never going to know what its like to have a brother or a sister."
"Why does he -need- to know what its like?"
"Because we won't always be there for him." she explained. "There's going to come a time when he's older and is going to need someone else to lean on."
"So he'll make friends." Talon kibbitzed. Yeande glared at him, hating being interrupted between sentences.
"A sibling is more important than any friend he'd ever make." she told him. "Look at the twins."
"Yes, look at them." he jumped in, seeming to have decided that Youko and Karma's hellspawn were just the leverage he needed in this argument. "They're constantly at each other's throats and they do nothing but fight. They had to be separated into two different houses to make them stop, Yeande, and we don't exactly have that option."
"Fighting or not, they're close." she told him. "And they're starting to grow out of that. I can guarantee you that any problem they don't think they can bring to their parents, they'll bring to each other."
"In other words..." Talon muttered, shedding his pants like a second skin and slipping under the bedcovers. "...you want to encourage Zhane into thinking he can't tell us anything when he gets older?" That did it. Yeande's last thread of patience snapped as she grabbed for one of her gardening catalogs on the nightstand, rolled it up, and swatted him over the head with it like a disobediant puppy.
"Forget it." she growled, stalking across the room for the door. "Just...forget I ever said anything about it. I -hate- it when you try to paint something with nothing but good intentions into something sinister!"
"Now wait, I--" but it was too late. With an angry flick of an ebony tail, Yeande was gone. Talonfaust gritted his teeth and slammed his fist down onto the mattress beside him in aggravation. There were certain things she did that HE hated too and this was one of them. This was an issue that he would be just as happy to abandon and never touch on again, and now she was forcing him to think on it some more by having wordlessly promised to remain angry until he did so. In a way, this was exactly the way it had been when she'd discovered her pregnancy, making the entire situation sit badly with him as it was.
But there were other things as well. For one, who was to say that Zhane needed a sibling? He was too young to need anything except his diaper changed, bottles, and strained peas, for god's sake. If he grew up anything like either of his parents, he wouldn't want to deal with anyone he didn't have to...but that was just it, wasn't it? Zhane, so far, WASN'T like either of them. He enjoyed meeting new people, he enjoyed being picked up and held, he loved to play, and even as a baby seemed to have more patience than Talon and Yeande combined.
Stop hiding behind your son and just tell it like it is. You don't want to adopt because YOU don't want another baby. And there was that too, he grudgingly admitted to himself. Zhane's conception had been completely unplanned and, at first, unwanted. It took the realization of the fact that they didn't have a choice in the matter to make them both calm themselves and accept the idea of parenting. Now they clearly HAD a choice and that's what was making him fight it. It would mean twice the lost sleep, twice the money spent, twice the inept fumbling and mistakes on his part....what in god's name had given her the idea that this was a good plan??
He hesitated a moment more and then, sighing heavily, sat up and struggled back into his pants. This wasn't a topic he could rest well knowing that he'd left open-ended and, if he knew Yeande as he liked to think he did, if this was something she'd already set her mind and heart on, she was going to do it whether he approved or not. Half-dressed, he padded out of the room and into the hallway to locate his wife in hopes of settling this.
He found her a moment later in the kitchen where she was going about the motions of making herself a pot of tea, from which she didn't bother looking up. "Go back to bed." she said flatly. "There's nothing more to talk about."
"I wish I could believe that." he said, leaning against the doorframe to watch as she puttered around.
"What isn't to believe?" Yeande asked, twisting on the stove burner. "I asked, you clearly don't like it, why beat a dead horse?" There was a soft tremor to her voice that could have been anger or could have been impending tears...neither were very encouraging.
"Because I think there's more to this than you wanting Zhane to have a brother or sister." he said. The kitchen fell into stone silence for a moment except for the soft hiss of the stove burner coming alive beneath the kettle and burning away the stray droplets of water on its underside. "That's it, isn't it?" he pried, making her turn eyes on him that were angry, upset, and resigned all at once.
"I don't like being told what I can and can't do." she said after a long moment. "I didn't want another baby after Zhane, no. And if you really want to hear it, I didn't want Zhane either when I first thought that I might be pregnant. That changed, though. I can't even remember what life used to be like before he got here, can you?"
Talon thought it might be best to not say that yes, he could remember it very well. Not that he didn't love his son or regretted having him, he just seemed to recall a time when things were far less complicated than they now were. But that was neither here nor there as he remained silent, waiting for her to go on.
"What if someone told you that you could never walk again or it might kill you? Wouldn't that upset you?"
"I think there's an extreme difference between the necessity of walking and having babies, Yeande."
"All the same, wouldn't it upset you to be told that?"
"Yes..." he sighed.
"That's how I feel right now. I feel like someone just slammed an entire chapter of my life closed without even bothering to write it first. What if we DID decide that we were ready for another baby in the future? We could never have one and we'd spend the rest of our lives wondering "what if?". I don't even know how long you and I have to live, but I don't want to spend it regretting."
"That's another thing..." Talon interjected. "What if we DON'T have very long to live? By all rights, you and I shouldn't even exist." They'd both been "born" as adults and had been the result of unstable magic mingling...there was no telling what their lifespans were like. For all they knew, they might begin to fall apart in the next ten minutes.
"Like I've told you time and time again, Talon, then we shouldn't spend what we've got living in fear of dying." she muttered. "If something....happens, then we have plenty of prospects to take care of Zhane or another baby. I've given this a lot of thought, as I said."
The kettle began to whistle and was removed from the burner as Talon stood, deeply in thought.
"I guess I don't see why it has to happen right NOW." he said at last.
"It has to happen now," she explained as she poured the hot water into a cup for herself and deposited a tea bag "because Zhane is too young to feel displaced by it. If we wait until he's old enough to answer us yes or no about wanting a baby brother or sister, no matter how careful we are, he's going to feel like we're jostling him out of his spot as number one. If he grows up always having had a brother or sister, it won't be as big of a deal. Does that make sense?"
"It does." he nodded once, "but that doesn't mean I agree with it."
"Then let's not talk about it anymore." she replied softly, lowering her eyes to the steaming contents of her cup. He sighed again, knowing by now how the game was played. This was not resignation on her part...this was let's change the subject until you forget about it and one day you'll come home to a second baby and it will be too late for you to do anything.
"No, let's keep going. I don't want to drop something like this and have you hate me for it somewhere later down the line."
"I never said I'd hate you." she sighed. "Don't turn this into melodrama."
"No you never said it, but come five years from now, I don't want to have to hear secondhand from one of our mutual friends that you feel regimented and that your husband is a beast."
Yeande rolled her eyes and lifted her tea to her lips, taking a long sip.
"You can't spring something like this on me and expect me to just accept it and agree to it the first night." he went on. "I need time to think about it. See if I can handle it. See if WE can handle it."
"Mm." she made a noncommital noise and still didn't look at him. Setting his jaw in annoyance, Talon sighed. He didn't think he was in the wrong in this...it wasn't unrealistic to want to think over something as big as bringing a new child into the family.
"I'll think about it." he told her, pushing off of the doorframe and leaving the kitchen silently. When he was gone, Yeande seated herself at the kitchen table, her fingers loosely laced around her cup of tea as she stared ponderously down at the tabletop. Why couldn't anything ever be easy?
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Posted: Mon Jul 04, 2005 10:17 pm
Diary Entry Dear Diary,
I really ought to have learned by now that my opinions in this household don't count for much. I present my thoughts on this whole adoption matter to Yeande today, after I thought that I'd actually formed a good solid argument. She listened to me very nicely, nodding in understanding, and then informed me when I was finished that she hoped I was open to suggestion because she'd already filled out an application while i was at work.
Piss...!! Somehow I managed to keep from yelling at her about it. That's what I wanted to do, but then she'd yell back. And then we'd fight. And then Zhane would have to watch it and then twenty years from now, he'd tell everybody at college what dysfunctional jerks his parents were. But god DAMN IT! Why don't I deserve to be involved in this decision? This isn't like going to the humane society and getting a puppy, this is another baby! Another life that will be left in our hands to shape and nurture! PLUS the baggage of eventually having to explain to it why its real mom and dad left!
She told me I was overreacting and that nine applications out of ten are thrown out in most adoption agencies. Those that aren't go onto waiting lists that sometimes take years to move along. On the one hand, that's comforting. On the other hand, that shoots her whole "immediate adoption" thing full of holes. Wouldn't that be fun to explain? "Have a good first day at school, son, and by the way, expect to come home to a baby brother today" Yeah. That would go over like a lead balloon.
I'm just hoping to god at the moment nothing comes of this. I don't think either of us are ready, despite the fact she thinks otherwise. Maybe I just don't understand the whole maternal instinct thing. I don't know. As of now, its late, I'm tired, and I'm going to bed. I shouldn't have to deal with this on a work night.
~T
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Posted: Mon Jul 04, 2005 10:22 pm
Skye Starrfyre Her day had been rather uneventful... Whereas the rest of the family had ventured forth to celebrate by watching the big, sparkling bright things explode in the sky, she had decided to catch up on work at the adoption agency. She'd been ignoring things lately... Far too much for her own good. Applications were building up in her box and many had yet to be sorted through. She leaned back in her chair, bringing a hand up to her eyes after a moment. The words had begun to blur... So many tiny words. What had she been thinking? And then, at that very moment when she had all but given up she heard a voice... One that, despite its softness, housed a great deal of determination. "My name is Morwena D'siad... And I would like these two people to care for my child..." She nodded as rusty locks tumbled down alongside her face, settling a file down in front of Skye. She had looked over it time and time again... Watched carefully as the woman had filled it out... All from her hidden spot. There was something about her. Something enchanting... She knew that the woman she had chosen would care well for her child. (( Congrats to Talon and Yeande! Their mother has 'chosen' them. ))
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Posted: Tue Jul 05, 2005 3:01 am
The sound of a baby crying penetrated the ebony curtain of sleep and made Talon stir and crack his eyes open with a groan. How long had it been since he'd last gotten up to tend to him...? It couldn't have been more than an hour. His eyes rolled in their sockets like a pair of heated ball barings as he peered at the alarm clock and squinted in the harsh light of its digits. An hour and fifteen minutes. Zhane was starting to let him sleep in, five minutes at a time. How kind of him.
"Your turn." his wife's voice muttered from beneath the blankets, making him sigh.
"I did it last time." he complained.
"I had him all night last night so you could sleep for work. Get up." came the groggy reply. Growling obscenities, Talon threw back the covers and slid out of bed, grabbing for his pants. Zhane was, for the mostpart, well-behaved as far as babies went. During the day when everyone else was active and awake, he seldomly cried and was generally good-natured. He didn't seem to much care for being left by himself at night, though, and would awaken frequently, many times needing nothing except to be picked up and reassured that he wasn't alone.
Half-awake and looking much like the title role in Night Of The Living Dead, Talon shuffled out of the bedroom and down the hallway to the nursery. Zhane was awake, laying on his back, kicking his legs and wailing at the ceiling as he clicked on the light and approached the cribside. His son immediately turned to look at him and reached out, grabbing at the air with tiny fingers.
A moment later, Talon was holding him and muttering words of reassurance...or sleep-deprived gibberish. It was honestly hard to say, but it didn't matter as it was serving its purpose. The wails died to whimpers, and soon to hiccups and hitches against his shoulder. The blue-antlered ijiuo blearily checked the kitty-festooned wall clock that had been a hand-me-down from when Raven and Kendall had been infants and sighed. It was about that time.
"What do you think, kid? Ready to eat?" he muttered, looking down at the baby he held against him. Zhane regarded him with large tear-rimmed blue-gray eyes that were just starting to turn green at the edges and blinked. Taking this as a 'yes', Talon carried him out of the nursery and into the kitchen where, one-handed, he began going about the motions of preparing a late-night meal as he fished a freshly-sanitized bottle from the drying rack. He'd never known there was so much science involved with feeding a baby...sterilizers, boiling water, additives into the formula...
As he fumbled a n****e into the white plastic ring of a bottle top, he suddenly had the sensation of being watched. His mind's eye formed a mental picture of a bed-rumpled Yeande or Youko who'd not been able to get back to sleep after hearing the baby cry and was now playing the part of the vigilant spectator. As this was a common occurance, he wasn't bothered. "Go back to bed." he said, not looking up as he set the assembled top down beside the empty bottle and moved to the fridge to get the jug of distilled water. "I've got it covered."
The feeling of eyes drilling into his back didn't leave as he filled the bottle with water and began to spoon in the powdered formula. "I said I've got it." he repeated, growing a bit irritated. They could at least acknowledge him instead of sitting there like some sort of vulture waiting for him to screw up so they could swoop in and take over.
Still nothing.
"Did you hear me? I told y--" he said, turning toward the mouth of the kitchen, only to find no one there at all. No one in the kitchen, no one in the living room, no one visible in the hallway. There was no way they could have left that soundlessly and that quickly, he reasoned. His ears were quite sensitive...hell, from where he stood, if he concentrated, he could hear the deep breathing of the others sleeping.
Being too tired to debate this with himself, Talon readily embraced the conclusion that he must have imagined it and stirred the formula before screwing on the lid. Setting it aside, he cracked the tap and began to fill a small plastic tub with hot water. As he placed the bottle inside to heat, he felt a warm breeze pass behind him....as though someone had very quickly run past.
Against his shoulder, Zhane, who had been fairly quiet for his part, gave a sudden squeal and giggle. Talonfaust turned again, so abruptly this time that he nearly fell over. Again, nothing. He wasn't sure how long he stood there, stark still and listening intently, before his son's fussing brought him back to the present.
Food. Zhane. Right.
He fished the bottle out of the water and shifted Zhane into the crook of his arm to begin feeding him. These late nights were killing him...first nodding off at work, now hallucinations.
As he padded back to the nursery to let Zhane finish his bottle and return him to the crib, a pair of seemingly-disembodied brown eyes watched him go from one of the walls. Perhaps he wasn't quite as fargone as he'd thought.
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Posted: Tue Jul 05, 2005 4:14 am
Had she been short-sighted?
Sometimes it felt like she had been short-sighted all of her life, regarding the world with the same wide-eyed naivety of a young child. But Morwena was far from being a child. She was well into her maiden years - lithe, radiating life energy, and beautiful as was true for most nymphs.
Her people were shy and gentle by nature, hiding deeply within the woods from all others...sometimes even from one another. Some could call it an irrational fear, while most of them would call it being careful. For many years, Morwena had known only the trees that surrounded her and the magic that sang in her veins. It had been good...it had been enough.
Why had she ever thought she'd needed more?
Tears brimmed in her brown eyes as one slender hand stole to the swell of her belly. She had been unable to summon the nerve to introduce herself to Yeande or Talonfaust, losing her nerve the moment she had located their domicile. Instead, she'd hidden herself beside the porch, rendering herself virtually invisible with her powers until someone had opened the door and she had slipped inside.
She had remained hidden since arriving, observing her chosen couple from every angle and at as great of a distance as possible. Her opinion of Yeande had not changed...she was a strong woman who clearly was the chieftess voice of her family. This was exactly the sort of person she'd hoped to leave her baby with...someone that could be trusted to protect as well as love. Someone who could help her child to grow up with the same strength and not make the same mistakes its mother had.
Then she had begun to observe Talonfaust and her certainty had wavered. He was strong-willed as well, but in a way that made her fearful. The anger in his voice made her cringe and, though his demeanor was gentle to both Yeande and Zhane, she could see the potential in him for possible violence. Would he hurt her child?
Had she been short-sighted?
A voice within her told her that it wasn't yet too late to leave. The child would arrive soon, but another couple could be chosen, even in that brief timeframe. ...but...no. No, she'd read over all of the current applications in Skye's absense and had not felt the same draw to any of them that she'd felt to Yeande's.
Her young shifted within her, making her bring her other hand to her belly as well. How much longer did she have, she wondered? She'd spent far too much time hiding away from everyone in the woods, leaving only when her condition had become impossible to ignore and she'd had to come to tearful terms with the fact that she did not want the child.
Not only was she unfit to care for one, but she didn't want to be reminded.
She didn't want to remember the way his eyes had seemed hypnotic in the firelight, or the way his hair had felt eerily like spider's silk when it had brushed against her skin. She didn't want to recall the scent of aged leather and the sweat of many days' travel. She didn't want to equate the sound of distantly-rumbling thunder with the deep resonance of his voice.
Morwena wanted to be done. She wanted to do her part to ensure that the child would be properly cared for and then return to life as though she'd never left it, a bit wiser and much more wary.
Did that make her a horrid person? At times, it felt so. How could she entrust her child to anyone, after all, when she couldn't even pluck up the courage to introduce herself instead of lurking against walls and around corners like some sort of wraith? She stood, listening to the sounds of the now-silent house. The baby had gone back to sleep and Talon had quickly followed...neither had stirred since.
If only Yeande were awake. And alone. That would be best. She felt perhaps she could talk to her if she were alone.
Lowering her head, keeping herself carefully invisible where she was pressed into the corner of the living room, the nymph willed herself to be strong. The right time would come.
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Posted: Tue Jul 12, 2005 1:27 pm
"C'mon, man, is it really that bad?" Terry asked, waiting for the light at the intersection to turn green. The ijiuo next to him in the car gave a noncommittal grunt in reply.
"I'm barely adjusted to the first one, we don't need another damn baby right now." he growled.
"Understandable." the anthro white mouse behind the wheel nodded. "Have you told her that?" The look Talon favored him with was so incredibly vehement that Terry cringed a bit. "Okay, sorry."
"You don't get it, do you? I can tell her until I'm blue in the face--"
"You already are." Mike pointed out helpfully from the back seat.
"--and she won't listen to a ******** word of it. When she's set her mind on something, she becomes just this....I don't know....this brick wall."
"You ever think that maybe standing up to her once in awhile isn't as dramatic as the eventual divorce papers you'll end up filing from letting this kind of stuff fester and mount?" Terry inquired, quirking a brow but not taking his eyes off of the road.
"Thanks. I feel so much better now." Talon growled, narrowing his eyes. "Next time I need an upper, I'll come see you."
"You're awful purdy when you're angry." Mike grinned, lapsing into a poorly-executed hicksville voice as he placed a pudgy hand on Talon's shoulder. "Ya'll wanna find us a high rise so we can go screw?" Talon's ear twitched in synch with his eye as he regarded the hand on his shoulder with distaste.
"....remind me again why I befriended you people?" he sighed.
"Because nobody else would have anything to do with your angsting, complaining pale a**." Terry replied good naturedly as he took a right and continued on his way to dropping Mike and Talon off at their respective homes. "Besides, I don't think I can remember the last time you ever sugar coated anything for one of us, so why should we do the same for you? You know what you have to do, so do it or stop complaining, but either way, get it dealt with."
Talon grunted again...a hateful noise he made when he didn't feel like saying what was on his mind, but you could rest assured it wasn't anything good. He didn't need this right now. With everything that was going on, he found it a small miracle that he hadn't somehow collapsed in the middle of it all. Some guys never got past the "My girlfriend is pregnant" hump without chickening out and joining the navy or something, let alone graduated to the "I'm a father" chasm in which life got really rocky for awhile. Here he'd managed to coast over both of them, skate past the vasectomy plateau and now was being faced with the yawning gorge of "let's have another baby" and, wouldn't you know it, he was out of climbing rope.
"Tal? HEY!"
"Whuh?" he shook himself out of his mental reverie to look at Terry.
"You getting out or am I taking you home with me?" He realized, with some degree of alarm, that they had already reached the house and had been idling outside of it for several minutes.
"Oh...yeah, sorry." he muttered, grabbing for the door handle.
"He can come home with me." Mike grinned, waggling his eyebrows. "He'll just have to earn his keep. On his knees."
"Mike, quit being an a**." Terry sighed, rolling his eyes.
"I'm just messin' with him." the larger human male shrugged. "I mess with everybody."
Talon excused himself from the car without a look back or a goodbye, as was normal for him, and stalked up the walk of the house. He didn't know why he was so prompt about going home these past few days...things were tense at best between him and Yeande ever since she'd informed him that she'd submitted the application without his approval on the matter.
They'd been giving each other a wide berth lately like a pair of old tomcats and, while Talon generally wasn't someone to be greatly bothered by lengthy silences, this one was beginning to make him feel the first twinges of worry. He didn't feel he should be the one to apologize, but from the look of it, Yeande felt the same way. From experience, he knew that if this remained unresolved, things could stay this way for weeks. Maybe months. Maybe forever.
He let himself in, not bothering to announce that he was home as he shouldered out of his jacket and tossed it onto the edge of the couch. This...was getting old, he decided. It didn't seem so long ago before they were married that she would drop what she was doing and come to meet him at the door.
Talon missed those days...back when they had nothing to worry about except each other and their biggest concern was whether or not to rent a movie to watch with dinner. But then, he really had no one to blame for the current situation except himself and that was likely the most aggravating thing of all.
A quick check of things revealed Yeande to be sprawled out in their bed, fast asleep with the baby monitor on the nightstand, its single green eye flickering and alert as it reported nothing but silence from Zhane's nursery. Sighing, Talon seated himself on the edge of the mattress and watched his wife rest before reaching out to run his fingers through her hair.
They needed to have another talk before things got any worse. He still wasn't terribly thrilled with the idea of adoption, but was even less thrilled with the prospect of coming home one day to a "Dear John" letter on the coffee table explaining that she needed to do what was best for her and the kids and that she'd left.
Just as he was working up the nerve to give her shoulder a jostle, he became aware of something. There was not silence on Zhane's monitor...not really. There was something there...barely perceptible, but there all the same.
Someone was singing a song he'd never heard before...in a voice that he likewise had never heard before.
October winds lament
Around the castle of Dromore
Yet peace is in her lofty halls,
My loving treasure store
Though autumn leaves may droop and die,
A bud of spring are you
He sat for several moments, trying to decide if he was truly hearing what he thought he was, or if it was interferance on the monitor, perhaps picking up a passing car's radio. It wasn't until he heard the faint creak of a floorboard, both on the monitor and out in the hallway that he got up and moved, heading toward the nursery at a brisk pace. Had someone gotten in while Yeande had been asleep? His mind's eye filled with all sorts of horrid pictures of what he might find and what could have befallen their son.
As he reached the nursery, however, and threw the door open from the nearly-closed state it was almost always in, he was met with the sight of nothing at all. Nothing that shouldn't be there, anyway. Zhane was peacefully sleeping in his crib on his belly, and there was no trace of anyone else having been there. He keened his ears and stood perfectly still, listening for anything...the rustle of cloth, the shift of a body, the sound of a third person breathing.
When nearly a full minute had ticked by with nothing, he began to relax and ventured into the nursery to readjust the blanket over Zhane's tiny form, pausing a moment to study a spit-up stain on its corner with distaste. Maybe HE needed some sleep as well, he reasoned. This wasn't the first time he'd thought he'd heard something that wasn't there. Padding out again, he pulled the door closed behind him.
Once he was gone, Morwena slipped out of hiding beneath Zhane's crib, her heart fluttering in her chest like a caged bird. Why did he always need to look so mean, she wondered? Zhane had awoken fussing a few moments ago and, knowing how tired Yeande had seemed when she'd gone to lay down, Morwena had seen if perhaps she could get him back to sleep without the poor mother having to sacrifice her rest.
The lullabye had worked wonders and the way Talonfaust had looked, one would think she'd done something -wrong-. Drawing her knees to her chest as she sat on the floor, she trembled miserably. She'd meant to introduce herself to Yeande today. She really had. As usual, this had not happened. At the rate things were going, it may never happen at all, she thought with chagrin.
The door creaked open again suddenly and without warning as Talon reentered the room with a fresh blanket. What happened next was a blur. He had no sooner registered that there was something strange on the floor than his vision suddenly flickered and went out. The ijiuo froze, blinked, and then began to wipe futilely at his eyes.
Blind. He was BLIND!! He gave a cry and dropped the blanket to the floor as Morwena, mortified at herself, immediately melded herself against the wall, fading from view. She hadn't meant to use her magic in such a way, it was sheerly a reflex by now...a spell she'd perfected and used on countless travellers and wild animals over the course of the years when they'd drawn too near to her for comfort and she'd felt threatened.
Its effects only lasted a moment or so, but that was plenty of time for the person it was cast upon to panic at the temporary loss of their eyes, as Talon was demonstrating as he staggered sidelong into the dresser, cursed, and then nearly fell over. The noise immediately awoke Zhane who, alarmed by the commotion, began to wail.
A moment later, Yeande appeared in the bedroom, dishevelled and looking deeply puzzled as she tried to make sense of her son's and husband's respective yowling. The young nymph mother-to-be took the opportunity to shamefully slip out of the nursery and find a more remote corner of the house to relocate herself for the moment. She hadn't meant to make MORE trouble...
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Posted: Tue Jul 12, 2005 8:13 pm
He didn't like being told it was nothing. Talon had never experienced problems with his eyes before. Ever. The incident in the nursery had rattled him rather badly and now he sat perched in front of the computer, combing various medical sites for what it meant when your vision temporarily cut out on you. The articles about brain tumors and blood clots had not been particularly encouraging, nor had the recommendations for a CAT-scan when he knew full well that they cost more than he made in a month.
Yeande had tried to assure him that he was likely just tired...she'd even tried to coerce him into bed early since Zhane had agreeably konked out after dinner with the vague promise that she had more than sleep on her mind, and he'd told her he'd be along shortly. That had been nearly two hours ago and he was fairly sure that the window of opportunity had closed by now...which was really a shame, when he thought about it.
His interest in the medical document before him began to waver as the mouse cursor strayed over to Google and his mind wandered back to the other odd occurances as of late. The strange noises, the singing on the monitor, the maddening idea that he might have seen the figure of a woman huddled on the nursery floor just nanoseconds before his eyes had cut out on him. What were those all about? Obviously they could be credited to strange hallucinations linked to a problem with his brain circuitry, but the fact that they lacked a certain randomness bothered him.
You could loosely link it all together. A woman could have been doing the singing and been responsible for the strange sounds and presense he'd felt. Talon had not worked up the nerve just yet to ask Yeande if she'd seen or heard anything unusual lately...the last thing he needed was for her to tack "insane" onto what must have been a growing list of reasons to dislike him as of late.
Casting a self-conscious look over his shoulder, as though expecting someone to emerge from the woodwork to mock him for his paranoia, Talon entered his query.
P-A-R-A-N-O-R-M-A-L O-C-C-U-R-A-N-C-E-S
Looking up a topic that was as vague and broad as ghosts on the internet was like opening Pandora's box. Amid the vast sea of craziness, hoaxes, delusion, attention-whoring and lies, you might find occasional useful bits of well-informed information. As it appeared, over four thousand people on Google considered themselves to be paranormal experts and all were ready to bestow their wisdom upon web browsers far and wide via their geocities and tripod soapboxes.
Choosing a link at random, Talon clicked on one and waited for it to load, watching as the appropriately cliche black background appeared and the browser raced to catch up with the text and, no doubt, many unnecessary animated gifs and midis therein.
His face reflected back at him in the black void of the screen, the monitor's light playing off of his pallid complexion and only accentuating the disinterested look that had warped his features. What are you doing? he seemed to be asking. Unfortunately, he didn't have an answer for himself. It was roughly at the same time that a poorly-rendered midi of "Past The Point Of No Return" began to filter out of the speakers that Talon noticed that his face was not the only one in the monitor.
Another disembodied face...undeniably a woman's...was staring intently at him from the wall. He froze for a moment, staring at it in the monitor's reflection, observing it carefully. Was it part of the site? A trick of the light, perhaps? It looked to be a negative on both fronts.
Right, then.
He spun around forcefully in his chair, staring directly at the wall where he'd seen the reflection. The plaster appeared to ripple as though someone or something had tried, a moment too late, to vanish from sight. Bristling, he rose and crossed the room, aware of the faint sound of pattering footsteps on the carpet. Someone WAS here and had been watching him, Yeande, and Zhane....and he found that he didn't care for it at all.
Whoever it was moved quickly and he had to struggle to keep his ears trained on them. Making a guess of which direction they seemed to be moving in, he lunged.
His fingers grazed something that felt oddly like insectile membrane and crisp fall leaves all at once...
and then the world went black once more as the hidden nymph's magic once again blinded him.
Talon staggered backward, tripping over the coffee table and ending up in an unceremonious heap on the floor. He began to get up and, instead, laid there in reluctant resignation. Throwing another fit was only going to wake up the household and end up with him hurting himself as he realized that there were a startling number of things to crash into and trip over in this house. The last time his vision had cut out, Yeande had guided him to the couch and was in the process of getting him a warm compress for his eyes when his sight had faded back into view as though it had never left.
A minute ticked by. Two. The edges of his vision began to prickle with light and color as the magical haze slowly broke away and faded from his eyes. Sitting up, Talon scanned the room for the intruder and could hear or see no one at all.
Maybe the incidents and his loss of vision WERE linked to one another, he reasoned. He knew firsthand that the brain was a powerful instrument and could summon some very strange and very real-looking things when properly motivated by something.
Like cancer
He shoved the thought away angrily and got to his feet, deciding that he'd take Yeande's advice, no matter how belated, and go to bed for now. He certainly wasn't going to be caught scanning the walls for invisible bogeymen.
You felt it, though...don't deny it, you touched SOMETHING when you were chasing those noises. It can't -all- be bullshit. his brain reminded him as he returned to the computer briefly to shut it down for the night.
Scowling, he headed for the bedroom where Yeande was sleeping, head lulled to the side and a book tented on her chest. She'd tried to stay up for him, it looked like...not that it mattered now. Even if she could be awakened and gently primed into an amorous mood, he didn't think he could very well rise to the occasion. Not tonight.
Quietly undressing, he slipped under the covers and reached across her body to click off the lamp on her side of the bed before closing his eyes as well.
It was nearly two hours before he slept, unable to shake the maddening feeling of someone watching him.
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Posted: Sun Jul 17, 2005 8:39 am
The day was quiet and calm... which usually meant that Talon was at work. Today was no exception, Yeande having escaped to the backyard shortly after noon to work amid the plants and give Zhane some fresh air. She knew better than to just let him run around in the sunlight... he DID have his father's fair skin after all. The playpen was netted along the sides and had a sunshade top that zipped into place.
In a way, it was more like a babycage than a playpen, but if it kept him from eating the grass, she was all for it.
Yeande herself was dressed in little more than a bikini top and a pair of shorts that Talon would likely KILL anyone who looked at her while wearing. It was hot out, sunny, and she was loving it. Her wings were splayed behind her, soaking up the heat as she hummed to herself in the garden.
That was when she caught sight of motion from the corner of her eye...
Morwena had been observing again... quietly and keeping to herself. It was easy to stay hidden out here, the trees welcomed her into their grasp and made it far too simple to hide, even in the direct sunlight. Still, there must have been something that had given her away. Perhaps it was just that Yeande was well attuned to HER land... or perhaps it was just a mother's protective instinct.
Whatever it was, Yeande dropped the garden trowel immediately and moved towards Zhane, her hands resting on the top of the playpen as he babbled away incoherently beneath it. "Who's there..." she whispered, violet eyes scanning the area.
There was no answer... Morwena kept herself completely still in the hopes that Yeande would simply ignore it or dismiss it, as Talon had so many times. It turned out, however, that Morwena wasn't to be so lucky this time. Once Yeande had an idea in her head, that was the end of it. And she now apparently had the idea that someone was watching her and her baby.
Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned... or a mother threatened. Yeande's wings flared slightly, an instinctive reaction to what she perceived as a possible danger. SOMEONE or SOMETHING was here, she knew it. Even the whispering of the breeze was enough to set the Ijiuo's earfins on end.
She had to do something, Morwena knew. At this point, Yeande was apt to go into sheer defensive mode if she didn't at least say something. Steeling herself and taking a deep breath, the nymph finally spoke. "Don't be afraid," she whispered, watching Yeande's reactions carefully. If she needed to flee, she'd best pay attention. "I... I chose you. From the Agency."
Agency? Yeande's mind went through a methodical line of reasoning until she remembered the application and breathed a heavy sigh of relief. "Please come out where I can see you," she said, still hovering over Zhane, but relaxing enough to fold her wings behind her. Whoever this person was, they were obviously scared.
Morwena waited a few moments, then stepped away from the trees, fading into view as she watched the Ijiuo mother carefully. Her movements were hesitant, still... and she just kept telling herself that in all sh'ed seen of Yeande the woman was NEVER violent. "My name is Morwena," she said, pausing an arm's length away from the playpen as she smiled down at Zhane. "And I had chosen you to raise my child." She stopped then, looking to Yeande nervously. "That... that's alright, right?"
Yeande was taking this all in and suddenly registered the woman's question. "Of course it's alright!" she exclaimed, wincing when she saw the nymph flinch back. "I'm sorry. Would you like to sit down with Zhane and me?" She unzipped the playpen cover then, scooping Zhane out and motioning towards the shaded area by the trees.
It was a long tense moment as Morwena watched them, the 'flee' instinct running rampant in her mind. She moved to follow then, curling up in the grass near the spot that Yeande had chosen to set Zhane between her knees.
Almost immediately, the boy let out a squeal, waving his arms towards Morwena. HE knew who she was! It wasn't HIS fault that every time he'd told his parents about her, they didn't understand. And as he explained all of this in great detail to the nymph, Yeande simply ran her fingers through his hair.
"You startled me... I'm sorry if I frightened you," she began, watching Zhane with a smile. "We'd be more than happy to give a home to your child, and I'll bet Zhane would love to have a sibling around, wouldn't you?"
Morwena brought a hand to her mouth, holding back a soft giggle as she watched Zhane trying in vain to tell his mother all about her. Her fears were assuaded, at least with this one. Talon might be a bit more touchy to be around, but at least Yeande was agreeable to her presence... and that of her baby. The two chatted well into the afternoon, about Zhane, about each other... until they both heard Talon's car pulling into the driveway.
Before Yeande could turn back to Morwena and invite her in to meet Talon, the nymph was gone. Sighing, she scooped up Zhane and called out, hoping the other woman would hear. "Morwena, I look forward to speaking with you again." She then headed for the house, to try and figure out how to tell Talon about all of this.
Morwena leaned against the tree once more, smiling softly to herself as she watched the house. For what seemed like the first time in a long time, she knew she'd made the right choice. This family would welcome her baby, and care for him or her as if they were their own. Now... she just had to think of a way to make amends with Talon.
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Posted: Sun Jul 17, 2005 12:17 pm
Talon trudged wearily down the hall in what was now a well-traced path to Zhane's nursery. He didn't have work in the morning which meant that it was now his turn to deal with the baby while Yeande got some sleep.
Just a few months and he'd be out of this stage, Talon promised himself in a weak attempt to make himself feel better, though it wasn't working very well. Months were like years and each day seemed to have no end. He'd never been a coffee drinker before Zhane and now it was the only thing that kept him awake at work after three hours of sleep. He'd found that nothing quite pissed off Dolphin's customers like nodding off in the middle of their tirade about not being able to run the free CD of AOL they'd gotten in the mail.
As he nudged open the door and clicked on the light, the familiar sight of Zhane, bleary-eyed and red-faced, greeted him. The baby sniffled, hiccuped, and attempted to pull his hands and knees beneath him as his father entered the room.
"I'm here, its all right. Quiet." he said, picking his son up out of the crib. The statement could have sounded offhanded and cold if were said in his normal tone of voice, but as it was, he delivered it gently enough to make it sound soothing. For all of his posturing and nastiness, much could be said for the disposition that Talon adopted when in the company of his wife and son.
Zhane calmed almost immediately, recognizing the timbre of Talon's voice, the warmth of his skin, and his vague loamy scent. Likewise, Talon calmed as Zhane quieted. He'd found that there was nothing quite like a shrieking baby to make you feel utterly helpless and he was grateful that his son wasn't one of the kids that never shut up.
As Talon carried Zhane into the kitchen for the familiar ritual of preparing a bottle, he was being watched...just as he had been every night since Morwena had come to stay.
The nymph, at present, was torn. Knowing that Yeande, at least, was aware of her presense and unbothered by it made her feel worlds better than she had. However, she was still very wary of Talon. In the little rest she'd gotten, she'd been plagued by nightmares about her child being unwanted...uncared for....used and cast aside as she had been.
What bothered her, though, was that Talon was hard to pin an exact disposition down on. There were times when he was utterly horrid and raised his voice in such a way that it made her flee for the shadows, despite being cloaked by invisibility. And then there were times when she found herself pitying him...the times when he was by himself before others were awake and he seemed to be very withdrawn and sad about the sudden twists and turns his life had taken. And then there were times like now...the shows of paternal bonding that he kept well-hidden to all but his closest of inner circles.
Yeande had been relatively easy to pin a disposition down on...she was strong, maternal, and knew precisely what she wanted from life as it currently presented itself to her. She carried an almost-tangible air of confidence about herself which is what had drawn Morwena to her in the first place.
Talon kept her guessing. And she didn't much care for it. Guessing meant risks and risks were not something she was prepared to take at the moment.
"Come on..." Talon coaxed, trying to get the n****e of the bottle into Zhane's mouth as he stubbornly turned his head away from it. "You and I both know how the game is played by now...you're just going to wake me up in an hour wanting to be fed anyway."
"Myehh..." Zhane grunted, pressing one tiny hand against the n****e and forcing it away from his mouth. Talonfaust made one last attempt to get him to take it, and when it was refused, he sighed and set the bottle down on the counter.
"All right..." he muttered, sounding groggy, cranky, but not angry. Morwena moved back a bit to allow him space as he carried Zhane out of the kitchen and into the living room where he plunked down in the recliner/rocker with the baby in his lap and reached for the TV guide. In turn, Zhane made a grab for a lock of his hair and gave it a hearty pull.
The nymph's breath caught in her throat as she watched this. What would he do? Would he yell? Punish the child?
Talon winced and absently reached up to pry the miniscule fingers off of his hair. "Don't." he said simply as Zhane giggled and reached upward to grab onto something else. The "game" lasted a few moments until Talon resorted to leaning backward out of his son's reach so that he could browse the late-night/early-morning program listings in peace.
Zhane fidgeted, fussed, and then, seeming to become interested in the blue flannel of his own pajamas, poked the sleeve of them into his mouth and began to gum them contentedly.
The nymph gave a sigh of relief as the tension passed out of the air and debated her next move. By all rights, she wanted to remain hidden....she somehow felt that once Talon was aware that she was there, had been there, and would continue to be there until the child was born, he would not be at all happy.
Had Yeande even told him that the adoption was now a definite? She didn't think so...she would have heard his inevitable explosion if that had been the case.
Her belly twitched as the baby within her gave a kick and Morwena winced, realizing that she really didn't have much choice in the matter. Talon simply would have to meet her before much longer...if she waited until the child was coming, that would make things far more awkward.
Moving to what she believed was a respectable distance away, she watched as Talon reached for the remote control and aimed it at the television.
"Please do not be afraid..." she said in a soft voice, watching as he stopped short, both ears keening. "I have been here for nearly two weeks now, Talonfaust. I've been watching you and your family."
She flinched as Talon immediately drew his knees up to curl defensively around Zhane and flared the small mottled wings on his back. That was not the reaction she'd wanted.
"Who are you?" he growled at the thin air, looking past her, at her, and then sharply to the left as he tried to pinpoint the source of her voice.
"I don't--I don't mean you any harm." she stammered, shrinking back against the wall. Oh gods, what to do? Fleeing seemed more and more appealing by the minute, but it was too late now. This was a bit much to pass off as hearing things.
His head swiveled back in her direction, his eyes focusing on her...or where she was standing at least. "Please don't be angry..." it sounded like a whine more than a request.
"Why are you watching us?" he demanded, the edge not leaving his voice.
"Because..." she tried to formulate an explanation and failed. Sighing, she cast aside her cloak of invisibility and blinked into view. If Talon were not already sitting, he would have toppled over backwards from surprise at the strange woman suddenly standing in the living room. "Because I've chosen you." she said, timidly taking a step forward and placing a hand gently on her belly. "My child and I."
Child. Strange very-pregnant woman. ....suddenly it all clicked into place. This had something to do with that damned adoption center.
"Yeande....!" Talon called, ears flattening and eyes narrowing in anger.
"Please...!! Please, Talon, she already knows I'm here!" Morwena was two shades shy of grovelling.
"And when was somebody going to tell me??" he demanded to know, moving to stand, remembering that Zhane was still in his lap, and gathering him up first. The child gave an irate squawk at being disturbed and began to cry again.
"I--I only revealed myself to Yeande yesterday." she admitted.
"And you've been here two WEEKS?" he hissed. "What have you--where did you--" he faltered, not knowing what he wanted to ask first, so great was his outrage. He felt he was justified as well...no one liked the idea that some nameless third party was watching them go about their daily lives. Watching them eat, sleep, and...good god, had she been playing voyeur to he and Yeande on the couch two days ago?? "What have you been watching? Tell me!" he demanded, moving toward her.
"Please don't..." she managed to eep out in a tiny voice, shrinking back. "I don't want to have to blind you again."
Well, -that- seemed to get his attention as he stopped short, his eyes first looking blank and then shimmering with reproach.
"Its been YOU!" he said accusingly. Morwena's lip trembled and tears spilled from her eyes.
"I didn't--I only--" she tried to say and found her words cut off by hitches and whimpers.
They stood off for several moments, Talon glaring icily with his tail lashing, Zhane fussing, and Morwena softly weeping. The tension mounted, swelled, and then broke as Talonfaust gave a deep-chested sigh.
"Since my wife, apparantly, doesn't see fit to clue me in on these things, would you care to...?" he grated out between clenched teeth. He didn't especially like to make people cry...especially not a frail-looking woman who clearly had enough to worry about as it was, but god DAMMIT...!
Morwena hesitated and then nodded once, opening her mouth to speak.
"No, not right now. Calm yourself first." he relented, deciding the whole ordeal would go over a lot better if she wasn't in tears at the time. He suddenly became aware that Zhane had stopped making noise and looked down to see the infant asleep against his shoulder. His eyes wandered between his son and the nymph before turning from the room to go put Zhane down in his crib.
Morwena's rattled nerves couldn't take any further contact with the male ijiuo and as soon as he was gone, she retreated back into the comforting cloak of invisibility and fled the room to hide herself someplace else in the house until later.
Tonight had not been a good night to discuss this....perhaps it never would be.
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Posted: Thu Jul 21, 2005 5:59 pm
The next morning, the table was very quiet as Talon hovered over his cup of coffee and Yeande made an attempt to get Zhane to eat a small bowl of Gerber's oatmeal. He seemed to be doing a better job of shampooing with it than he was in actually ingesting it.
Every now and then, Yeande would pause to shoot her husband a look from across the table, finding that his eyes were still firmly located on the rim of the cup.
"You're going to be late for work." she said at last, trying to alleviate the quiet that was beginning to pinprick at her nerves.
"Mm." he muttered, lifting his coffee with an almost mechanical motion and taking a long drink of it.
"Didn't you say you had to pick up Terry today?"
"Probably. I don't know."
"....Talon?"
"What?"
"Would you tell me what's got your tail in a knot? Either say what's on your mind or let it go, but you're driving me up the wall."
This time he DID look up at her. She'd been prepared to see the sullen look on his face, but not for the reproach in his eyes.
"Why didn't you tell me?" he asked quietly. Yeande blinked, arcing one fine black brow.
"Tell you what?"
"We're married. That's supposed to mean that we trust each other. How can I trust you if you go behind my back wi--"
"Talon!" she said sternly, cutting off his tirade and setting the half-full spoon of oatmeal back in the bowl. "Tell you what?" she repeated.
"That you've already been assigned a mother! That's she's been living HERE for the last two weeks?"
There was a moment of silence as Yeande blinked, surprised by the accusation.
"How was I supposed to tell you, Talonfaust, when *I* only found out yesterday afternoon and you were at work?" she asked, keeping her voice calm and measured to counteract the tight anger that was already in her mate's.
"You couldn't say anything when I got home??" he sputtered, already losing steam. He didn't like confrontations with Yeande as they generally left him feeling worse than he had before initiating them. Not only was this the person he had to sleep beside at the end of the night, but she had this aggravating way of making whoever was arguing with her feel like their points, no matter how valid, were worth nothing.
"No. I couldn't. And you know why?" she said, the tip of her tail slapping irately against the leg of her chair. "Because you came home and immediately went and laid down, grumbling about how miserable your day was. Do you honestly think that would strike me as the right time to come and tell you about Morwena? You would have gone ballistic and guess who would be left to smooth feathers down after you were done ruffling them?" She pointed a finger at herself, not giving him a chance to answer.
He was silent for several moments, glaring, working his throat as though he wanted to speak, and finally rising from his seat in a huff, storming out to get his coat from the arm of the couch.
It was tempting to just let him go and stew in his own juices for awhile until he came to terms with the fact he'd been a jerk and collect the inevitable apology, but Yeande had found herself moreso interested in making attempts at keeping the peace these days. She knew he hated his job, she knew that he'd not wanted a second child, and she knew that she'd forced the issue more than a bit.
But she also knew that she was not going to lose her marriage over schoolyard squabbling. What was done was done. Morwena was here, they would be adopting the child she would birth, and there was no point doing anything other than accepting it.
"If I'd known it was that important to you to know right then and not wait a day, I would have told you." she informed him, standing in the mouth of the living room and watching him grab up his things for work. "Talon?"
He gave her a cursory glance as he strode toward the door.
"Call me on your lunch break after you eat and we'll talk this out like rational creatures, all right?"
He muttered something and then left, closing the door firmly behind him. However, before he even made it down the front walk to the driveway, he knew that he would do exactly that. He always did.
Unbeknownst to him, Morwena watched him leave, hidden by invisibility as she huddled by the side of the house. She'd let herself out early that morning to bask in Yeande's garden and had not yet come in. She'd heard the argument, brief as it was, and felt horribly about it. Destroying their marriage had not been her intent at all when she'd come here, and now it was too late to leave. They both knew she was there, Yeande was eagerly anticipating the arrival of her child, and with how active the baby had been these past few days, she felt it would not be much longer at all before she would birth.
She could only hope that things calmed themselves between now and then in the meantime.
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Posted: Fri Jul 29, 2005 4:04 pm
Yeande's garden was the only place in the entire house that lent her any peace. Morwena walked among the rows of shrubs, trees, and blossoms, breathing in the scent of greenery and occasionally stopping to extend a hand to a plant that was growing crookedly or seemed to be ailing to instill it with a bit of her magic.
Yeande truly was a gifted gardener...she had to give her credit for that much. Nowhere did she see any weeds or any trace of aphids. This was truly a woman who had dedicated herself to her plants. With a baby of her own and a husband to look after, that was very admirable, the nymph mused.
As she extended a hand to a blush-colored peony blossom that was beginning to turn a bit brown at the tips of its petals, she froze. Within her, there had been a painful twinge, followed by a rush of warmth. Morwena's hands went immediately to her belly as her eyes widened.
Oh no...
Oh no!!
She bit her lip, tears stinging her eyes as she looked frantically about the garden for someone -- anyone -- who might assist her. There was, of course, no one. She had carefully waited until Talon had left for work and Yeande had taken Zhane out shopping to slip outdoors and now cursed herself for her stupidity.
The baby was coming...
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Posted: Thu Sep 29, 2005 10:37 pm
((note: A lot of things have not turned out the way we'd originally planned them and, as such, now there are plot discrepancies...the story had to be modified to fit the fact Zhane was now a toddler since we got so behind in everything.
Please excuse any plot holes or continuity errors.))
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Posted: Thu Sep 29, 2005 10:40 pm
"Leeeeeeafs!" Zhane squealed, happily kicking out at a pile of raked leaves and scattering them.
"Don't make a mess." Talon sighed. Apparantly the words "I'm off today" translated in Karma's mind as meaning "Give me menial work to do and b***h at me until its finished" because he found himself tasked with raking the back yard after the recent cold snap had caused all of the trees to shed their leaves at once. Cleaning up the disarray his son had just made of the leafpile he'd been putting together, Talon again let himself drift into thought.
Zhane blinked up at his father and frowned a bit. What good was making a big cushy pile of leaves if you couldn't spread them all out again? And they were all such pretty colors too! They used to be green but now they were brown and yellow and red. Had somebody come and colored them in while he was sleeping? Bending over, the young ijiuo plucked a choice one from the pile, a broad yellow maple leaf, and turned it over in his fingers as he examined it up close.
"Yewwow!" he proclaimed.
"Right." Talon replied absently, not looking.
"Ist yewwow!" Ugh...what did he have to do to get daddy to pay attention? He was PROUD that he was learning what his colors were! "Day-eeeee!" he complained, waving the leaf frantically.
"Zhane, please!" Talon snapped. "I'm trying to get this done so we can go inside, all right?!?" Immediately, Talonfaust felt horrible for yelling at his son...he hadn't meant to, he just...rrgh, there was too much going on right now.
"Yewwow." Zhane said again, more quietly this time as he twiddled the leaf between his fingers and seemed to be making up his mind whether his father's outburst warrented a crying fit or not.
"Its yellow. Yes." Talon agreed, putting a hand on the boy's shoulder. "Listen, I didn't mean to yell. Maybe you should go inside and find something to do."
"No." Zhane replied, shaking his head.
"You still have some coloring books you haven't touched yet, I could find the markers and--"
"NoNoNO!!" he protested, stomping one foot and then hugging onto Talon's leg. "Wanna stay wif day-ee!" Talon watched him for a moment and then resumed raking.
"All right." he relented. "Let me get this done and you can stay out here with me, okay?"
Zhane didn't answer and remained attached to Talon's leg for several moments before letting go and toddling off nearby to investigate the leaves once more, this time selecting a firey spade-shaped one. What was that color called again...? It was a short word, and it had an rrrr sound. Oh! He remembered now!
"Wed!" he announced happily, grinning down at the leaf in his fingers. The grin faded into a look of puzzlement, however, as he noted that, on the red leaf, there were smears of brighter red. Blinking, he tentatively touched the redness and examined the pad of his finger. His eyes widened as he realized that it was the same ucky red stuff that came out of cuts. But what was it doing on the leaf??
His answer came a moment later as the pile of neatly-raked leaves seemed to explode from the middle, scattering them about the yard in such a way that it didn't look like Talon had even -started- raking.
"Zhane...!!" Talon hissed, looking up with fire in his eyes. Didn't he just TELL him not to mess with the damned leaves?? The tirade of holy hell he'd been about to unleash on his son was stalled, however, as something or someone seized his upper arm forcibly.
"Please..." a voice whimpered raggedly. "Please, help me..."
Talon, for his part, could do little more than yank his arm out of the invisible chokehold and back away spastically. What the -hell-?
Zhane's earfins fanned as he tried to place the voice and where it was coming from. It was not an unfamiliar voice...he'd heard it speak to his mother on several occasions while he'd been visiting, but today she sounded upset for some reason. For his part, somehow sensing that this was not a good time to get underfoot, he stood to the side and watched his father scramble away from the invisible assailant.
The air shimmered and a very distraught-looking Morwena faded into view, one hand clamped over her belly and the other reaching out beseechingly to Talonfaust, the tips of the fingers smeared with blood. "Please..." she whimpered again. "Yeande is not here, and--and the child...!!"
Child...? Talon's eyes immediately darted to Zhane, looking him over quickly for the source of the blood. In doing so, suddenly it snapped into place. Not Zhane, HER child. The one Yeande was supposedly adopting. The one that he hadn't ******** been TOLD about.
"No." he growled. "HELL no. I want nothing to do with this!" saying so, he attempted to stalk past her and retrieve Zhane so the two of them could go inside. Both of the nymph's hands clamped onto the back of his jacket in a white-knuckled grip as another contraction gripped her.
"I--I can't...I--please. I can't do this alone..."
"Maybe you should have thought of that before you and my wife decided to plot all of this behind my goddamn back." he told her waspishly. "I mean, I don't know what you people think...that I'm some sort of tank who doesn't -have- any real feelings or something? That you could just make these plans without me and I'd be okay with it?" He bent over, scooping Zhane into his arms and started toward the house.
A brief and ugly flash of guilt played over Morwena's features, and ordinarily, the rebuke would have been more than enough to send her into hiding. However, pain and terror were powerful aids in casting off one's shyness. Didn't he understand? The baby was coming and she had no earthly -idea- what she was supposed to do!! Tears were spilling over the rims of her brown eyes and small tendrils of dark blood seeped down the ivory slope of her legs as she tottered after the retreating ijiuo. "Talonfaust...!" she called after him in a faltering wail of a voice. When he didn't pause in his gait, she slowed to a stop. Why...WHY couldn't he ever do things the easy way...?
As Talon stopped at the back door, opening it and setting Zhane down to go inside ahead of him, the rose bush to his immediate left sprang to life, its sturdy stems elongating into thorny vines that snaked out like tentacles and entangled themselves around Talon's legs from the knee down.
"Day-ee!!" Zhane cried out in alarm, reaching out for his father.
"Go inside, Zhane." he managed through gritted teeth, the thorns digging into his flesh from dozens of different points as he frantically reminded himself that he could not attack a pregnant woman. But Zhane didn't -want- to go inside! Daddy was in trouble and he wanted to help!
"No, day-ee!" he said, stamping his foot in defiance as he had a few moments ago since that had seemed to work when he'd wanted his way. "Day-ee no!"
"Zhane, dammit, go inside!" Talon snarled. He wasn't in the mood for games right now and rightly so.
"NO!" Zhane yelled back. "NONONO!" Great....what a beautiful time for the fact he'd inherited his parents' stubbornness to rear its head.
"I--I was afraid." Morwena's voice spoke again from behind Talon as he tensed, setting his jaw in anger. "I tried to tell you, but..."
"It was you." Talon said accusingly, still not turning to face her. "You're the one who was in my room the other night."
"I didn't know how else to make myself known."
"How long have you been here?" he demanded to know.
"I---" she doubled over as another contraction hit, sweat beading on her brow as she moaned sickly. "Weeks. At least two months. Please, I can't--"
Talon felt his outrage peak, and then deflate out of him with an almost-audible frustrated whoosh. As pissed off as he was about the entire situation, one couldn't exactly stop the birth of a baby no matter how inconvenient it happened to be. And as satisfying as it might be to turn his back on her and go inside to pretend that this wasn't happening, what would happen if there were complications? He could only begin to imagine everyone's reaction if this stranger were to die while in easy reach of assistance.
"I can't bloody well do much tied up this way." he grated. Almost instantly, the loops of rose vines loosened their grip and fell about his ankles like coils of living rope as he stepped out of them without further ado. The tiny punctures where the thorns had scratched him stung and had riddled his slacks with small tears and holes. He eyed them for an instant with annoyance before forcing himself to turn back to Morwena. The nymph's balance faltered...faltered...and then failed her entirely as she collapsed at the edge of the patio in a shuddering heap. Sighing, Talon approached her, shrugging out of his jacket as he did so. It occurred to him that HE didn't know what the hell he was doing either. Being present for one birth didn't exactly make one an authority on the process.
Here." Talon grunted, folding the jacket over twice and slipping it under Morwena's head to cushion it. The nymph didn't seem to notice or to care as she had already begun to focus herself fully on the birth process. There was no preamble into it, there was no grace period of contractions -- the time for that had all long-since past. The child was being born, and it was being born -now-. Her face contorted in agony, Morwena arched her back and gave a choked scream as her body bore down on the impossibly-large obstruction it was trying to pass. It was pain like she had never known before and hoped never to know again...pain that she felt she would surely die from if it persisted much longer.
Talon, for his part, served the purpose of keeping her company, but as far as anything else went, was fairly useless. He was not used to seeing so much blood at one time, just as he was not used to seeing parts of a woman's anatomy stretch and contort in quite that way. He hadn't actually WATCHED Zhane come out at the GMFC, and--oh good christ, what the hell was THAT thing? Something domed and a vague purple-gray in color crowned into view and made him want to retch. Was that the BABY?? The nymph cried out again and more of the purple-gray thing slid into view. Acting more on instinct than on anything else, Talon put his hands out just in time to catch the infant before it would have slithered out onto the patio.
The baby, a little girl, gave a mewl and then began to cry, shivering in the outdoor air. The first thing Talon became aware of was that there was something...wrong with her. Her skin was not the flushed lobster red that Zhane's had been as a newborn. Hers was a bluish gray color that was unpleasant to look at. She was obviously getting air if she was able to cry like that, so why--
"Let me see....." Morwena's tremulous voice floated past his ears. Uncertainly, Talon held the infant out to her, watching as she struggled to sit up and pulled the wadded jacket from beneath her head to gather the blood-grimed infant in. He nearly protested, but bit it back...blood washed out and it was a black jacket anyway.
"Ucky." a young voice said from directly behind him, making Talon start and turn to see Zhane overlooking the spectacle with his nose wrinkled in distaste as he eyed the blood. In the rush of everything, he'd forgotten to make sure Zhane had gone inside and been spared having to watch the carnage. How long had he been standing there, Talon wondered? And what a hell of a way to be introduced to the miracle of life....to have some random woman drop a baby in their yard.
What a ******** mess....the cord hadn't even been cut yet. Sitting back on his haunches, aware that his hands were tacky with drying blood that was not his own, Talon gave an immense sigh. "How're you doing, Zhane? Okay?" he inquired.
"Ist owwie..." Zhane said, pointing at the blood. He didn't understand what had just happened, only that the woman laying on the edge of the patio would likely need a band-aid or two.
"She looks...just as her father did." Morwena said softly, eyes closed as though looking at the child brought her pain. "Please....take her."
"Just like that?" Talon asked skeptically. "You're not--"
"Take her." the command came more urgently as the ijiuo, one brow cocked, complied, accepting the infant into his own arms again. No sooner had he done so, than Morwena was haloed in a gentle green light. As Zhane and Talonfaust watched, the nymph faded from view completely, taking with her the green light and all traces of the birth. She needed to rest now....badly, so. And after she'd rested, she wished to get as far from here as she possibly could. Away from the fright, the embarrassment, and the pain, and begin her life anew elsewhere.
Perhaps one day she would write.
Talon blinked in surprise at her sudden departure and then dared to look down at the infant in his arms once more. The cord seemed to have dissolved and vanished along with Morwena, at least. Her blue-gray color was beginning to fade into more of a slate and the child had never once ceased crying, as though knowing her mother had left, quite possibly for good.
Hell...now what did he do?
"Bay-bee...." Zhane remarked, peeking over Talon's shoulder at the little girl. He'd never seen one in person, being the youngest member of the household, but he knew what they were. There were pictures in his storybooks and on TV. You had to be careful with babies because they cried a lot. The infant opened tearful green eyes and fixed them on Zhane, whimpering and hitching. "Whuzza name?" he inquired.
"I don't know." Talon said, wincing as a pounding headache set in. He wondered if he yet qualified for the excuse of "getting too old for this s**t". After two years of life, likely not...but it sure felt that way.
"Hiee bay-bee." Zhane smiled, reaching out one hand to the infant. Tiny gray fingers closed weakly around his own as the little girl's crying slowly began to wind down. His father suddenly jolted visibly, as though shaking off the shock of what had just happened and quickly got to his feet.
"We need to get her inside." he told no one in particular, heading quickly for the back door as Zhane toddled after him as quickly as he was able, trying to keep up. He still wasn't sure of what had just happened...or why there was suddenly a baby where there had been no baby shortly before. And where had the lady gone? His young mind buzzing with questions, he could do little more than tag after Talon as he rushed around the house trying to do far too many things at once.
At least it was more interesting than raking leaves.
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Posted: Thu Sep 29, 2005 10:50 pm
Dear Diary,
So, Yeande's not home. Big surprise there. I've had a baby from a near-stranger dumped into my lap who's currently set up in Zhane's crib. Guess it was time to start thinking about getting him a youth bed anyway. I have to tell you that I'm still not crazy about this. At all. Those paternal instincts only kick in when its your own child you're being faced with, I think, and the sooner Yeande and I get this talked out, the better.
Zhane seems to like her...I guess that's all right since its already been made more-or-less clear to me that she'll be staying. God, she's a strange little thing though. Gray skin, brown hair, green eyes, wings, and little blue markings on her wrists and ankles. I don't even know what she -is-.
For that matter, I don't know what her mother was either. I don't know the actual -name- for "woman that sneaks into your room, wakes you up with some freaky hocus pocus, and then blinds you and runs". I just hope this child doesn't continue the tradition.
~T
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Posted: Fri Sep 30, 2005 1:48 am
"And she just....vanished?" Yeande inquired skeptically.
"Vanished." Talon confirmed, watching the baby as she quietly drank from a bottle of formula...or maybe not. He seemed moreso to be staring off into space with his eyes having conveniently fallen there.
"That doesn't sound at all like Morwena." Yeande said, furrowing her brow and readjusting her grip on the little drow nymph in the crook of her arm.
"Yeah. Well." he trailed off, not really sure what he had planned to say. He'd seen what he'd seen...and what he'd seen was a pregnant nymph appear in the backyard while he was raking leaves with their son, give birth, and then disappear all in the span of about twenty minutes.
"It doesn't matter, I suppose..." Yeande said, the tip of her tail lashing slightly, betraying the fact that it did matter. It mattered quite a bit, actually. In the short time she and Morwena had gotten to know one another, some semblance of a bond had formed between them. She didn't know why the nymph would choose to flee instead of staying at least long enough to see her daughter off properly.
But having never given up a child before, Yeande knew she wasn't exactly one to question Morwena's actions either.
The infant had stopped suckling, having dozed off and Yeande gently removed the bottle from her mouth and set it aside. "We need a name."
"Mm?" Talon muttered.
"A name." she repeated. "For the baby."
"Oh." Honestly, part of Talon shied away from this prospect. Once the baby had a name, she would take on a full identity. And once she had a full identity, he would HAVE to face that she was now his daughter. Of course, that would be realized soon enough, he supposed, when he lapsed back into the cycles of midnight feedings, the needless and senseless crying until four AM, the lost sleep...
He immediately got himself off of that train of thought before he got angry again. It wouldn't solve anything at this point now that the baby had been born and was now in their possession.
"Talon, get the book. The one we used to find Zhane's name."
Muttering something under his breath, he complied, disappearing from the room for a moment to excavate the bookshelf before returning with the tome of baby names in the crook of his arm.
"What are we looking for?"
"Something fitting."
"That's helpful." he grumbled, ignoring his wife as she turned a glare on him and beginning to thumb through the book. "I'm just going to start reading these off and you tell me to stop when we find one you like...since you're just going to hate all of the ones I like anyway."
"Give me the damn book." Yeande sighed, reaching for it. "You don't need to be that way."
"Be what way?" he grumped, turning from her so that she couldn't take it from him.
"You're lucky I'm holding a baby right now..." she sighed. "Start listing." Even if it couldn't be done maturely, it was better than not having it done at all.
"Aamara."
"No."
"Abigail.'
"Try again."
One by one, they covered the A's, the B's, the C's, and it wasn't until they passed the O's into the P's that Talon's confidence in this mission was beginning to dwindle.
"Phabara."
"Ugh."
"Phae."
"No."
"Phaerna."
"No."
"Phaerrana."
"Wait, go back."
Talon blinked, startled to hear a deviation from the continuous mantra of "no" he'd been getting. "Phaerna?"
"Phaerna." she repeated, trying it out. "I like that one. Phaerna Breslin."
"Its lacking, I think..." Talon shrugged.
"Of course its lacking, she needs a middle name too." Yeande told him, reaching down to smooth the child's silky brown hair away from her brow as she slept.
"Then I guess I'm starting from the top, hmm?" he said, preparing to turn back to the beginning.
"No, we'll think of something from here...it has to be something that fits with Phaerna or it'll sound awkward."
"I still say Phaerna itself sounds awkward."
"Talon..."
"Fine...what about Rachel?"
"Phaerna Rache--Talon, I like it." Yeande said, sounding genuinely surprised. "Where did that come from?"
"The new girl's name at work is Rachel." he explained. "And I have to talk her through everything three times or more. It was the first name that came to mind."
"Do you think you'd be able to keep from resenting it if we used it?"
"Its just a name." he replied evasively. And I won't be working there much longer anyway... he finished in his mind.
"Then that's what we'll call her....Phaerna Rachel." Yeande said with a decisive nod of her head. "I'll bring her by the Maban clinic tomorrow and finalize her paperwork. Would you mind taking Zhane for the night?"
"You mean like the last seven nights? Sure. Why not?"
"Talon, don't start. Please." Yeande sighed. "You know I've been having headaches and that I'm unapproachable with them."
"I just can't help but wonder what HE thinks of it, that's all." Talon said.
"Well, I'm sure if he didn't like it, he'd let us know one way or another. But if he hasn't signed up for a livejournal account just yet, I wouldn't worry about it. This is just temporary, all right?"
"Right." he nodded, not sounding entirely convinced.
"I mean it." she said, rising carefully from the chair, Phaerna cradled to her chest. "We'll get this sorted out, don't worry. It'll be rocky at first, but we've had worse."
"I suppose."
She leaned in, planting a soft kiss on his lips. "It WILL be fine, Talon. The world isn't over, I promise you."
"Tell that to my internal sleep schedule."
Yeande rolled her eyes and shook her head faintly as she turned to go. He'd come around. He always did.
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