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 Posted: Tue Mar 31, 2009 6:38 pm
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Posted: Tue Mar 31, 2009 6:41 pm
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Posted: Tue Mar 31, 2009 6:46 pm
A key turned in the front door's lock as it eased open and then closed quietly once more. Yeande's fins keened to the air at the noise, but she didn't move from her seat on the sofa, or look up from her book. As the days had worn on, she had jumped into action less and less at the sound of someone entering the house, having once too often bewildered her husband or daughter.
Despite what she'd told Talon, it had taken some convincing on her own part that Zhane would come home when he was ready to and not before....and that until then, they should just keep faith that he'd do the right thing.
A dull thud of something heavy being set down caught her attention, however, making the bottom drop out of her stomach as she looked up. Did she dare be hopeful...?
"Talon?" she called hesitantly. When there was no immediate reply, she furrowed her brow, moving to stand. "Talon?" she said again, a little louder. Still nothing. ".....Phae?" she tried next, though she dismissed the idea immediately. The little drow nymph was never out at this hour.
Footsteps crossed through the front hallway and paused just short of the doorway to the living room. Yeande watched it steadily, feeling like she may jump out of her skin at any moment. After what seemed forever, a figure stepped into view.
Taller than last she'd seen him, maybe a little thinner too. .....what had he done to his forehead and hands....??
Zhane blinked at the wide-eyed and considerably-paled face of his mother, pulling himself up short. She didn't look happy to see him, but she didn't look angry, either....which was encouraging, at least. She looked like she'd seen a ghost.
For a long moment, they simply stared at one another.
It was Yeande who moved first, approaching him slowly, one hand extending to reach out and touch him, as if confirming he was real. Clawed fingers trailed over his cheek for a split second before she pulled him to her, hugging him furiously.
He was home. Her son was alive, and he had come back.
"Where have you BEEN??" she whispered, muffled against his shoulder. She was equally elated as she was furious with him, drawing back to give him a withering glare that drilled into bewildered green eyes. "Your father and I died when we couldn't find you!!" she hissed, giving him a shake before just as quickly diving back into the hug once more.
For his part, Zhane didn't really know how to react. He'd told himself all the way home that she and his dad had every right to be angry with him, and likely were. But being in the middle of the torrential downpour of emotions was something different entirely.
His arms went around Yeande, hugging her tightly as she clung back to him. He was aware she was crying, and it made him feel a bit like doing the same as he steeled himself against it.
He had not gone through all of this just to regress back to being a child.
"I missed you, Mom." he said around the lump in his throat.
"I missed you too...." she murmured, giving a sniffle before pulling away from him, looking him over once again now that he was closer, the questions flying, unbidden, before she could stop them. "Where did you go? What happened to you?"
She reached up to touch the dimly-glowing blue rune on his forehead that peeked out between dirty clumps of golden-and-black hair, making him shy back and away from her touch. It was getting better, but the flesh was still tender.
"Mom...?" he said, giving her an apologetic, and exhausted smile as he placed his hands on either of her shoulders. It was so -weird- to actually look down to talk to her now. "I'll tell you everything, okay? But right now, all I want to do is take a shower."
He'd not had a bath -- a proper one -- since he'd left home. The rinsings in rivers and lakes didn't quite cut it and he was aware of the fact he probably looked as filthy as he felt.
Yeande felt a spark of anger in response to his words. She felt he was really in no place to be making demands after the emotional hell he'd put her through the last span of weeks. The late nights worrying, the crying, the fretting, the warily keeping an eye on the news headliners to make sure that latest body they were pulling out of a ditch didn't belong to him....
But just as quickly as it ignited her rage, she quelled it. Something between them was different now. She couldn't quite put her finger on what it was, but it made its presence known in the most aggravating way.
Her throat worked as if to speak, though she said nothing for a long moment. "All right." she allowed at last, stepping back from him. "Afterward, though, we're going to have a very, VERY long talk. Do you understand me?"
Zhane nodded in reply, chastised. "I know. Sorry, I just--"
He was cut short by the sound of footsteps in the hallway as he and Yeande both turned their heads in time to see Talon enter the room and stop short at the scene before him, green eyes locking on his son and then flicking briefly to Yeande for confirmation.
"He came back." Yeande explained simply, offering her husband a smile that was not returned. The ijiou's eyes locked on Zhane's.....it was not in challenge, or in anger. But there was a storm in them all the same. Zhane braced himself for the yelling that never came....only brief twinges of confusion and shame that shaded fleetingly over his father's features before they were gone again.
Without a word, Talon turned away and headed back the direction he'd come.
"Talon...!" Yeande called after her husband, to no avail. A moment later there was the sound of a door upstairs closing. Sighing, she shook her head.
"Its all right." Zhane assured her. "I don't blame him."
"No," she said, reaching up to rub at her temples. "Its not what you think. He's not mad at you." She paused, wondering if she should tell him that his father had taken his leaving far harder than she ever could have. "Go get your shower." she said instead. "I'll make some tea, and we'll talk."
He nodded, not saying another word as he moved away to excuse himself into the downstairs hallway. Yeande stood where she was, listening to the distant sound of the bathroom door being closed and the shower hissing to life a few moments later.
At length, she padded into the kitchen to fetch her tea kettle off of the drying rack and bring it to the sink to fill it with water.
Something whispered in an ominous little voice that the hot-headed boy that had stormed out after a fight with his father had returned a man, and she had a sinking notion that things, as she'd come to know them, were never going to quite settle back into the rut they'd been in again.
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Posted: Tue Mar 31, 2009 6:47 pm
The talk with his mother had been exhausting. Not so much the talking, but having to do the mental acrobatics to explain things in a way that made sense to not just himself. Near the end of it, he couldn't tell if she believed him, or if she felt he'd wandered around for weeks in some sort of fever stupor and imagined it all.
Thankfully, he had tangible evidence to prove the contrary to that, at least...
The sun was cracking over the horizon and the tea had been long-since finished when they had finally parted ways for the night and Zhane had retreated to his room to collapse gratefully into bed. He'd taken for granted all his years growing up the simple comfort such things as having a pillow beneath your head and linens to curl up in provided.
He slept deeply and dreamlessly, his body recuperating from weeks' worth of exhaustion and trauma, for once without worry of a sudden and rude awakening.
When, at last, he awoke again, it was to darkness. A glance at the alarm clock reported that it was nearly nine and he gave a sigh of disgust at the ceiling. Sixteen hours? Really...? He must have been more tired than he'd thought.
He stretched, his muscles aching and feeling like tightly-wound coils in his arms and legs. First thing was first....he was going to take as hot of a shower as he could stand to make his body unclench itself, following which he was going to eat some real food. If he never saw another power bar again, it would be too soon.
After that, he was--
Nani.
He hadn't even let her know he was home yet.
Groaning, he sat up and threw the covers off of himself to stand and pull open his dresser drawers, picking out some fresh clothes.
((TBC))
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Posted: Sun Apr 12, 2009 1:09 am
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Posted: Sun Apr 12, 2009 2:12 am
"Mail call." Zhane looked up from his computer just as Yeande tossed a small collection of letters onto his bedspread. "Someone actually sent me mail?" he asked, arching a brow at her. "Probably junk." she told him, giving him a wry smile. "If it makes you feel any better, the top one says you may already be a winner." "Great. I'll be able to sleep easy tonight." he snerked, getting up from where he sat to examine them, even as she left. Things, little by little, were beginning to relax once more. The first few days he'd been home, things had been tense. His mother had been reluctant to let him out of her sight as if he might vanish again if she looked away for too long, and his father, despite the talk they'd had, still gave him a wide berth. But it was getting better. Yeande seemed to have settled into the idea he was back to stay, and he and Talon discovered that they interacted much better adult-to-adult than they ever had father-to-son. Time not spent with them, had been spent with Tinania and the kids, helping by day to chase Ren, Seiji, and Lexi around and keep track of them, and by night, taking Nani to bed to wake up warm and entangled with her the following morning. Life, in short, was very busy and fulfilling at the moment. The top two letters were, indeed, junk and were tossed aside. The bottom, however, caught his interest, if only because his name had been handwritten instead of printed. Likewise, he didn't recognize the return address. Arching a brow quizzically, he slipped a finger beneath the flap to tear it open and unfurl its contents. A stray piece of paper fluttered to the floor before he could catch it, and he let it go in favor of reading the letter itself. Probably a coupon promising him 50% off of his next carpet steam-cleaning or something... Exploration & Wildlife Magazine Dear Mr. Zhane Breslin, We at Exploration & Wildlife Magazine would like to thank you for your recent photo submissions to our publication. It is our pleasure to inform you that we will have space for photographs 1, 13, 23, and 56 in an upcoming issue. Please find enclosed a check compensating you for the rights to our company's ownership of said photographs as agreed upon in our submission guidelines. It is our hope to see more submissions from you in the future. Congratulations and best of luck in your future endeavors. --Merrill Lacey He read, and then re-read the letter in puzzlement. Magazine? Publication? He hadn't sent any of his photos anywhere.... His eye fell to the greenish slip of paper still on the floor and he stared at it as if it might bite him. At length, though, his curiosity got the better of him as it always did and he knelt to pick it up, turning it over to read the printed check on its other side. It seemed legitimate, having been signed personally by someone, with none of the usual blatant indications of a dummy check that usually accompanied junk mail meant just to get his attention. Lastly, he let his eye fall to the amount. "Mom....?" he called. There was a pause, some shuffling, and then Yeande drew into view once again. "Yes?" she asked, pausing in the doorway. "Do you know anything about Exploration & Wildlife Magazine?" he inquired. "Why, thinking of subscribing?" she asked, moving to peer over his shoulder and blinking at the check and letter. "When did--" "I don't know." he said, finishing the thought for her. "*I* never sent them anything...guess you didn't either?" His mother gave a faint shake of her head, her hands alighting on either of his shoulders. "No." She clearly seemed torn between being skeptical and being happy for him, not sure which to embrace. "Maybe Nani?" "I don't think so." he said, after giving it some thought. "I mean, I don't think she'd have had time..." Somehow the idea of Tinania having three kids to keep track of on her own for a month yet finding time to come over and go through photos in his room while he was gone didn't form a very feasible picture in his mind. "Maybe it was your father?" The suggestion made him give a snort of laughter before he could stop it, earning him a light swat over the back of his head. "I mean that, you know." Yeande said. "He spent a good amount of time in here while you were gone looking at your pictures." "Really...?" he asked, his expression betraying his surprise as he turned to look her in the eyes. He was met only with the usual no-nonsense sincerity she exhibited when telling him something he didn't want to believe. "Every time I woke up and he wasn't in bed, he'd be down here, sitting at your desk, going through your albums, and kicking his own a** for driving you away. If it was -anyone-, it was him." Zhane felt himself nod faintly, unbelievable as it sounded. They, clearly, were going to have to talk later when he got home from work. His eye fell back to the check he held, biting his lip in thought. "What do you plan on doing with it?" she inquired after a long moment of silence. His mind raced, trying to dredge up an answer before a smile touched his mouth. "....I think I know a good place to start." he said at last.
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Posted: Thu Apr 16, 2009 4:33 pm
Dear Diary,
So. That was unexpected. The fact one of them actually wrote back, -and- the reaction to it.
I guess not so much that the pictures got a response, really, now that I think about it. I knew someone would think the same way I did...that they deserved to be put somewhere other than a binder in Zhane's room collecting dust.
There had been a point where I'd started to wonder if I'd ever see him again. And in trying to wrap my head around that, I also had to try and wrap my head around the idea that, as far as the world was concerned, he might not have ever existed at all. Nobody would have known him except a handful of people, and anything he'd done would have been stuffed into boxes in storage as we tried to forget it was there.
I didn't want to be only one of a few people to know what it was my son did with that camera all day. So, I got to thinking one day at work, somewhere around the third commercial break, that if it was my fault for driving him off, it was also now my responsibility, even if it was too late, that he didn't stay unnoticed.
That sounds really, really, ******** sappy now that I read back over it. But bear with me.
He already had copies of most of his pictures on his computer already, so that wasn't an issue, and I made an afternoon out of looking at any publications that might have a use for Zhane's pictures and sent them in. I thought maybe it might give me a little closure to do something except sit there and hope he was going to come home, you know?
I forgot all about having done that by the time he actually came back. To have him come up to me yesterday, envelope in hand, asking how Exploration & Wildlife had gotten ahold of his pictures....
....for a minute I thought we were going to get into it all over again and that talk we'd had would end up meaning nothing. My son never really struck me as a territorial type, but people are weird about that sort of thing. Yeande wouldn't strike you as the territorial type either, but YOU try taking a piece of her dark chocolate Dove bites and see how many fingers you come away with. Maybe I'd crossed some line getting into his photos without his permission.
He thanked me.
He thanked me and asked if he could take the family to dinner to celebrate. No awkward situations, just me, Yeande, Phaerna, and himself. People talk about that 'deer in the headlights' look liberally, but I think that must have been exactly what I looked like.
Its....weird being talked to on an adult level by someone you remember being able to hold in one arm. I think having to tilt her head back to actually look him in the eye now broke Yeande's heart a little. Its also been hard getting used to the fact that he seems much happier being left to spend his days (and nights) at Tinania's home.
Yeande says, of all the surprises we'd gotten when he came back, THAT much, at least should have been expected.
I'm trying hard to be okay with it.
~T
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Posted: Thu Apr 16, 2009 4:45 pm
I did it.
I bought it.
I keep looking at it every two seconds like its going to up and disappear. Something as small as it is really has no business causing me this much stress.
There's too many possibilities and now I can't decide what I'm going to do with it...aside from the obvious answer of give it to who I bought it for.
That sounds deceitfully easy, doesn't it...?
I shouldn't be doing this so soon. There should be more time. There should be more talking. I feel like this shouldn't be a decision I just make on my own. At the same time, I feel like we've both waited much longer than we should have had to.
I guess we'll see.
I think, maybe, I have an idea....
--Zhane
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Posted: Thu Apr 16, 2009 4:50 pm
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Posted: Thu Apr 16, 2009 6:07 pm
Dear Diary,
I haven't gotten much time to myself the last few days. I haven't WANTED much time to myself the last few days. But things have settled for the moment with the kids in bed and Nani gone to the store, so I'll write for now.
Looking back on it, it was probably one of the scariest things I've ever asked in my life, even going into it with something deep down in me knowing she would say yes. I can't really even imagine what I would have done if she'd said no (wanting to crawl into a hole and die of humiliation comes to mind).
Its been a couple of weeks now since I've come back and settled into my new routine. I've had time to let things sink in, and the scars around the runes have finally stopped bugging me. To the point, at least, I don't hit the ceiling if someone touches them....that in particular made for a disaster when you spend all day around three children who's first impulse when they see something glowing and blue is to want to reach out and give it a poke.
I still don't know what, exactly, their meaning is. I know Farrkhod explained that by embracing the guardian circle, I was agreeing to take a very old and forgotten piece of myself back into who I am now, and that I may not agree with who I was all those years back. I don't feel any different, though, and aside from being told that, when I needed it most, Vartoon would lend his protection, I'm not really sure what to expect.
Maybe I'll never have to find out.
I've, also, become comfortable with the idea of what Nani and I are to each other. I see it in everything now. Every time she smiles at me, every time we touch, every time we talk, I finally have reasoning behind that deep fulfillment. And I know she feels it too. Its nice to know that, as mean as fate can be to people, sometimes it knows when a joke's been taken far enough.
She's gone out to get some magazines. We decided tonight would be as good a time as any to start making plans.
--Zhane
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Posted: Thu Apr 16, 2009 6:08 pm
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Posted: Thu Apr 16, 2009 7:07 pm
Diary,
I don't recall my son ever having had an ongoing case of eye trouble growing up, so I have to ask myself why, oh why, he is SO DAMN BLIND??
When he and Nani came over to announce their engagement and she was sick, that could be ignored. Everybody gets ahold of some bad food now and then.
I just got off the phone with him about an hour ago....just checking in to see if things were doing any better. No, they're not much better, he says. Tinania, apparently, is not only still sick, but can't stop herself from eating too much to make it worse.
*I* got it immediately. I expected him to fall in with the same worried and frantic wibblings his father did once upon a time, and I tried to figure out how I was even going to begin to deal with it.
But nothing. He acted like this was perfectly fine.
I asked him, just throwing it out there, if he recalled what it felt like to be sick....how after horking up his dinner, putting anything back in his mouth was the last thing on his mind. "We're all built differently." he says.
Zhane. Honey. I know you're smarter than that. Are you in denial, or are you really that clueless about these sorts of things?
I want to say something. I SHOULD say something. But I am going to keep my mouth shut for now. There's still a chance I'm wrong. I rather HOPE I'm wrong. Its not that I don't think the two of them would be able to handle it, knowing the way they've been able to juggle three kids between them as it is, but....
....I don't know.
What the two of them are doing with the life they've decided to share was out of my hands a long time ago.
Yeande
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Posted: Thu Apr 16, 2009 7:12 pm
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Posted: Sat May 09, 2009 3:47 pm
Dear Diary,
I guess this is the part where I'm supposed to either freak out or be excited.
....except I don't really feel one way or the other about it. I mean, I FEEL, don't get me wrong. I'm not in shock or anything....I feel a lot of things right now.
For one thing, I'm worried. And so is she. We've been taking everything one step at a time up til now, and we hadn't even gotten as far as picking out a china pattern for the wedding yet, let alone whether we wanted to have a baby or not. I guess we don't get a choice. And she doesn't even know if her body will let her carry it to term. YOU try being excited, or thinking you have any room whatsoever to freak out while the person you love more than anything is crying into your shoulder saying she doesn't know if she can take it if she ends up having to relive what were the most painful moments of her life.
For another thing, I'm frustrated. Maybe a little hurt. I feel like the only time she lets me learn more about her is when there's no choice. She gives me the impression that she's afraid if she sat me down and told me the whole story, I would be disgusted with her. Or leave her. I can't get her to understand that I respect she had a life before me, and that neither of us can change the past. I'm not one of those assholes who can't be secure until I've been told I'm better in bed than the last guy. I don't CARE about that. But things like having lost three babies in the past...? I guess its just as much my fault, though....I keep assuring her the past doesn't matter, so what room do I have to complain when she doesn't want to tell me about it?
Finally, I'm scared. There, I said it. Let me just be honest with myself for a second here - what business do I have being a father? I take care of Lexi, but that's not the same thing. She's been self-managing since hatching. I keep an eye on her when she plays with Ren and Seiji, I feed her, and otherwise she's perfectly happy to be left to herself in the lake or in the tub. She's never been dependent on me for anything except to carry her from one place to another. I still call her my daughter, and nothing can change that, but I'm moreso a caretaker to her. Not a father figure. Same goes for Seiji. Seiji is Nani's son....he sees her as mom. I'm just Zhane. He's gotten used to the idea that I'm part of Nani's life now and therefore part of his, but there's always that gap between us.
I'm just trying to picture it. Looking into a baby's eyes -- a life that didn't exist until I helped make it -- and him or her looking back at me, waiting for me to teach them everything they need to know about everything. If I do a good job, they'll be ready to take on the world someday and leave their mark in it. If I do a bad job, I've just ruined someone else forever.
I don't want my son or daughter to look at me someday like I'm everything that's wrong in their life and storm out because they feel like they have no other alternative.
I don't want to be my father.
--Zhane
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Posted: Sat May 09, 2009 3:48 pm
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