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Halloween

Natural Habitat

In the aftermath of Kian's mother's funeral, Autsu takes his lover camping in an attempt to allow them both some time away from the pressures of the world.

A New Family Member

"Father, it is a cabbage." Autsu had inherited the formality of his speech patterns from Kniene. To that, he had added the precise clipped rhythms of a soldier. He spoke with little intonation, but in this one instance it would be difficult to miss the incredulity in his voice.

"Yes. It is." It was difficult to debate the fact. It was a cabbage. It was a big green cabbage sitting in the room that had belonged to Sethos before the older of Kniene's boys had moved out. It would be remade into a nursery, now that a new child was on the way. Today, dropcloths covered the floor, and Autsu was hanging in the doorway, reluctant to pick up a roller.

"We are to repaint a room for a cabbage?"

Kniene had chosen the Guard's colors. Red for the base with accents of brown and gold.

"My son, you are an alien criminal reborn on Gaia as punishment for a ridiculous crime. You landed in a man's backyard in a space capsule."

"But I was not a vegetable when you took me out, father."

Kniene stopped painting, turned to the doorway, and waited.

"Very well." Autsu stepped across the threshold.

"Thank you." Kniene turned back to the wall. He was not experienced in painting. This was the first time he'd felt compelled to decorate. Sethos had seen to himself. Autsu was even now disinterested in the subject. His only stipulation for his room was that there be no mirrors. How the boy shaved was anyone's guess.

"And your Lady sent me this sibling?"

"She arranged it. It must have been difficult for her. She rarely interferes within this world." The cabbage was on a table in the center of the room, and he stopped to admire it, as if it were a child already. "It is to be our child."

"Sethos and I, we are both your children." A note of defensiveness in the soldier's dry tones, and Kniene had to hide a gratified smile.

"You are both my children. She has always regretted, I think, that you have allowed her no claim on you."

Kniene was tall, but Autsu was taller, and he worked with the efficiency that defined him. That said, he was getting paint on his feathers. "I do not care for your Lady, father."

"And I, not for your Prince."

The silence sharpened. The painting continued.

"It is good then, that we can have each other's best interests at heart." Autsu said at last, with the slightest hint of irony in his words.

"Indeed." Kniene did not turn. It was a recent thing, that Autsu's Prince could even be mentioned in conversation. It was still not a subject to be explored in any depth.

They painted peacefully until the sun began to set, leaching light from the room.

"I am hungry, father." Autsu commented, as he picked at the paint in his huge blue wings.

"Bring your sibling, and I will make dinner."

"You have been feeding it?" Autsu asked he tucked the plant under one arm.

"Watering. It is a cabbage."

Gifts Unasked

Autsu's feelings on the subject of his Father's Lady were no secret. They were also, of course, highly hypocritical considering his own relationship with Narin. He was not unaware of the contradiction, and perhaps in deference to it, did his best to keep his thoughts on the subject to himself. And Kniene, for his part, was equally generous with his lack of judgment. And perhaps that code of silence was not so kind as it appeared. Perhaps, if only they spoke, they might find some other, brighter path to walk together.

So it was that while Kniene was in his private room, meditating toward the Lady's touch, Autsu, unobjecting was feeding his younger sister dinner. The same younger sister that was that Lady's blood. He loved the girl, had found loving her bright joy easy, in such a sad household. He did not hold her mother against her. But he did not find any new warmth for said mother, either. Autumn would never be his Lady.

"Apples." Otessa announced, banging her small fists against the table. "Opples. Bopples. Topples. Tables. Tasty."

Autsu, without comment, continued to prepare dinner. Dinner was not, in fact apples. It was bean stew. "Bean stew, small sister."

She looked at him in confusion as he placed the bowl in front of her. "Apples?"

"No. Beans."

"Why not apples?"

He handed her the spoon and she stared at it in mute confusion. She had eaten such food only yesterday. She had liked it. "Why no apples."

"Because we have none. And you have never even tasted an apple."

"I like apples."

The inane conversation may have continued in that vein had Kniene not entered the room, drawing both their gazes. There was something in his arms, things that wriggled and squirmed and showed unsettling colors.

"Father?" Autsu examined the creatures curiously. They were no beasts he'd ever seen on Gaia before, but Gaia had many beasts he'd never seen. They had never had animals in the house, in the past.

"Autumn wishes her daughter to have a companion." He settled the odd, green, mushroom creature on the table and it scuttled across to the girl, who cooed and nuzzled it in instant affection. "I do not know what it is, I fear. It is not from our world."

How like Autumn, having two dimensions to pick from, to grab from a third. The second animal in his father's arms continued to peer out. It looked somewhat like a caterpillar, he supposed.

"And one for you, Father?"

Kniene shook his head. "No, she sends the second to you. She did not wish you to feel neglected."

Autsu accepted the creature as if it was poisonous, which might well have been the case. He was not given to caring for small, helpless thing. Otessa was alien enough in that regard. But the creature regarded him levelly, and if the gaze was not intelligent, it wasn't fearful. He could appreciate that.

"Very well. I will care for it." Of course he would. He just wasn't entirely sure how. Perhaps Kian would know. He had pets.