Reunited... [Zaria and Masozi]

[Menelie]

Masozi had been thinking a lot lately. Mostly about his childhood, which seems so far off as to be merely a distant memory. He had so many questions....like, he knows that two parents are required to have a child, but he has only his mother. Neither her nor Aunt Elizabeth seem to have parents, and Kieran was adopted.

So where had he come from?

The thing is, he remembers things in snippets. Like how there used to be more than just he and Mom. He remembers a girl sometimes. But he'd never gotten up the guts to ask Mom about her, since whenever he mentions his infancy or childhood, she gets all weepy.

Maybe I'm just crazy, he thinks to himself as he walks along the beach, dragging a stick behind him. He's friends with Miniel, so maybe that was her that he remembers. Except he swears he remembers their first meeting, so it couldn't be. He sighs and runs a hand through his mop of red-brown hair. Exactly the color of his mother's.

And that was another thing. Mom has black and red stripes, but Masozi himself had black and red and yellow. And his wings looked nothing like his mother's. And where did his blue eye come from? He stops and stares out at the surf, shaking his head. Maybe things would clear up when he was older.  

[Seiana_ZI]

Vague memories? Everything was rather vague to Zaria. Days blended into each other, weeks were fluid and mutating; perhaps the only thing that allowed Zaria to figure out what time it was was the position of the sun itself.

The sun was mid-sky. Must've been afternoon.

When sleeping wasn't something she could do all that often, it was rather hard to tell. Her sleepiness, though, wasn't something that was obvious by the way she was skipping along the beach, humming happily with wings fluttering. She didn't seem to have a care in the world! Nothing seemed to worry her, and not even the other teenager whose wings her own wings brushed against seemed to really catch her attention.

Well, until a couple moments later, when she realized she brushed off a Pae'il. People! Her blue and red eyes lit up like burning hot stars as she swirled around. "HI BOY!!" The eager waves, the ear-to-ear grin, the jumping up and down... for anyone in a less cheerful mood, she might have seemed to be nothing but absolutely insane.

Zaria hadn't seen Masozi since they were toddlers; it never quite occurred to her that Masozi might've been the bumblebee that went off with that stupid person named Amapola. And even if it did occur to her, that probably wouldn't've changed the way she thrust her hand forward, snatched Masozi's hand, and shook it rapidly. "I'm Zaria! You're pretty! And shiny, like me! Let's sparkle in the sunlight together! We can be beckons of light!"  

[Menelie]

Masozi's eyes widen as the red-and-black-and-yellow girl suddenly shakes his hand. "I--you--we--" he splutters incredulously.

She didn't seem to remember him. But he was as sure as he'd ever been that this was the girl he'd been thinking about. She looks just like him, in her way. With two different eyes, just like him.

Quickly he composes himself. "Z-Zaria? That's a....nice name." He smiles a bit. "I'm Masozi."  

[Seiana_ZI]

Zaria cocked her head to the side and watched as the stripey boy went all bug-eyed and started sputtering random nonsense. I? You? We? Yes, they both sparkled. What was the point? A lot of the people she had met sparkled, except for her friends! Lisandru was a little armory and Vangelis was just kind of furry with weird feet. Actually, Uncle Texy didn't really sparkle either. It was just her father that sparkled. And her.

It struck her as odd momentarily, but soon enough she was distracted by his name. "Masozi? Cool! I like the zi at the end. I'm gonna call you Zi. Unless nicknames make you mad. Nicknames make Lisandru mad, but I call him Lissy anyway because his face kinda scrunches up every time I say it and it's really funny. What're your friends like?"

How she skipped from topic to topic so fast was absolutely baffling. Still, it wasn't because she particularly recognized Masozi. She only knew that she had a brother and something about him looking like a bumblebee. But Masozi didn't look like a bumblebee to Zaria. From Zaria's eyes, Masozi looked like another sparkly kid with cool stripe designs. And he had the opposite eyes of her! That was so cool. She had never met anyone else with dual color eyes! Lisandru's eyes were this lame purpley-brown or something, and Vangelis' blue eyes were going to burn holes in people's heads.

Randomly, she vocally observed, "Your eyes are like mine, except opposite! That's so cool! Everyone else I know has same eyes, and they're boring because our eyes are more awesome."

Really, Zaria acted like a little kid with far too much energy.  

[Menelie]

Cripes, she really didn't remember him. "Um, yeah. Thanks. Zi is fine...I've never had a nickname. My aunt Elizabeth hates when Mom calls her Lizzy," he says, trying to find something in common with her. What if she hated him? How could you hate your own twin? Still, they hadn't grown up together or anything so maybe they almost weren't related anymore.

"So....do you have any brothers or sisters?" he asks. Then, bolder, "What are your parents like?"  

[Seiana_ZI]

"Ooh, you have an Aunt Elizabeth? I have an Aunt Esmee!" commented Zaria, as if this was actually somehow related. "I've got an Aunt Aysu too. Aunt Aysu is a naiad. She's blue, but not like our eyes. More like the blue you see in water. And Aunt Esmee is all purple with swirls. She's an angel! Apparently I'm part angel, according to my father, but he doesn't really like my angel momma. I guess that's why I never see her."

Zaria didn't seem very disappointed about this. No, all she was stating were the solid facts, and too many of them at that, perhaps some that had nothing to do with what 'Zi' was talking about.

Her mind did eventually wander back to his question though. "Nah, no brothers or sisters. Got plenty of cousins, though! I got a cousin Lisandru, and a cousin Vangelis, and a cousin Mikasi, and a cousin Alister, and a cousin Caine, but I don't really know cousins Alister or Caine because Uncle Bneut lost them somewhere. Aunt Esmee doesn't care though; I mean, she's a horrible," that word actually made her sound her age, "mother because she called her children experiments!"

More rambling, and nothing particularly revelant. Perhaps this wasn't what Masozi was expecting when he thought of his little sister. When Zaria had been around Amapola, she had simply been a clingy baby. Quiet, but clingy. Now she seemed over excited, overly open, overly eager, and most of all overly talkative. "My Dad's name is Criofan O'Kane. He doesn't talk to ma anymore because he thinks she's stupid, but my dad's really nice if you can get over the fact that he's rather dull. I can't remember the last time he smiled when it wasn't about things that sparkle in the light."  

[Menelie]

Hm. Perhaps that was why the Guardians had given him children that sparkle in the light. Defense mechanism so he'd pay half a mind to poor Zaria.

"I have a sister," comments Masozi, shuffling some sand around with one foot. "It's been a long time since I've seen her, though. Not since we were babies." He shrugs uncomfortably. "Someone took her away from our mother and me." He doesn't think Zaria will get the subtext here, but at least he'd said it.

"But other than that, I've got Aunt Elizabeth, and her son--I guess that makes him my cousin--Kieran. And he's got little ones of his own now, too."  

[Seiana_ZI]

Masozi was hinting at something, but whatever that something was went right over his over-excited sister's head. Her smile turned into a pout when he commented that someone had taken his dear sister away, and so she reached forward and hugged him close as if they had known each other for their whole lives. "I'm so sorry! That someone must have been a big jerkface." Sometimes, Zaria talked like she was still a child.

"Must've been a meaniepants like my stupid ma was."

Scratch that, she talked like she was still a child all the time.

Zaria cocked her head to the side again while rocking back and forth from her heels to her toes, unable to really keep herself still. After a moment, she suddenly decided to ask, "Do ya know anything about your sister? Was she pretty? Did she sparkle like us?! If we could find her, that would be so cool, right! We could stand on this sparkling beach with the pretty waters and stare up at the sky while the sun shined back down on us and we would light up the entire beach because we all shine so much! I should get Dad too, if we're going to do that. Dad sparkles too, just like me and you."

No, Zaria didn't find this suspicious in the slightest. It wasn't that she couldn't put two and two together, really... it just wasn't something that crossed her mind. "And what's your Ma like? I hope she's not a big meaniepants," and there were the childish insults again, "like my ma was. That would be sad, and then I would totally not blame you for hiding out here!"  

[Menelie]

Masozi lets a little sigh puff through his lips. This charade would get quite tiring after a while.

"I don't remember much about my sister. She didn't sparkle, but neither did I, then. We were twins, so I imagine since I grew up all glittery, then so did she." He shrugs uncomfortably when Zaria calls her--no, their mother a 'big meaniepants'. What is she, a toddler?

"My mother is very nice. She takes good care of me. I bet she'd love to meet you, but I think we should try and find my sister first."  

[Seiana_ZI]

Zaria nodded. That was so cool! She was wondering if anyone else was sparkly on the isle besides herself and her father; it fascinated her to find out that it wasn't a unique trait to just her family. Then she could skip with them on the side of the beach and they could smile at the sun while sparkling!

Maybe Zi would want to do that. Dad always kind of sighed and shook his head at her. It made her sad sometimes, but maybe with Masozi and his sister, whenever they found her...

"Let's go find your sister!" declared Zaria, grabbing Masozi's hand and suddenly heading in some random direction with no particular purpose other than thinking that they would find his sister there. Poor Masozi, dealing with a girl who was completely oblivious to the fact that she was the girl they were looking for...

Suddenly stopping, Zaria let go of Masozi's hand and turned around to face him, placing her hands on her hips with a curious pout. "Hmm. Do you have any idea where to start? An adventure can't start without a place in mind. A pirate ship can't find some treasure without a map, and your sister must be a great treasure!"  

[Menelie]

Masozi heaves a sigh and runs his free hand through his hair again. He's tiring of the charade, but he doesn't want her to run away if he just came out and said it.

"I...I imagine she'd look very much like you," he says, hoping the hint is strong enough. His little glimmer of hope that they could live like siblings again is beginning to extinguish. It's clear she'd been brought up as a very only child, and clearly their father had instilled a disdain for him and for their mother Amapola. Perhaps it was better she didn't know.

Still, he can't help but hope...