Welcome to Gaia! ::

She walked with a purpose. Her heels made a hard clack against the tread worn stairs, the paint peeling from the walls resounded with the impact. Each footstep gave her confidence the way high heels were want to do, the firm almost gun shot sound of them that rang through the hallways. It didn’t matter that there was a sway to her walk that had nothing to do with seduction, but everything to sobriety. She was wearing heels, she was still dressed from work and she was going to see her god damned son.

Such a wretched little s**t hole he was living in. Even the air felt dirty, nothing like her nice little home It’d been so promising there when he brought that young woman home, but she hadn’t seen her again since. Frustrating, he was a failure, JUST like his father. She stopped and shuddered at a memory, if it was peasant or terrible it would have been hard to say from the outside. She looked back up the stairs, grim-faced and marched onward. She didn’t pause again till she reached the door that showed the number of his apartment. Her knuckles rapped hard against the door then she mashed the doorbell and heard with some satisfaction the bawww of the electronic bell. She shifted her purse higher on her shoulder and waited for Zachary to open the door.

Disgust registered instantly and clearly in her face. Her lip curled back to reveal whitened, straitened and capped teeth lightly stained from coffee and perhaps nicotine. She panged of alcohol and perfume, expensive but too much to have been tasteful. Her hair was slightly darker than Zac’s, leaning almost towards black where it wasn’t streaked with white and grey with age. It did not lend her dignity, and the abhorrence written so clearly on her face aged her a decade at least with it’s creases, and lines.

“Who the ******** are you?” She demanded almost spitting out the words like she’d found you at her own door instead of the other way around. It never even crossed her mind that she might have had the wrong door when she saw an unfamiliar face. “Where the ******** is my god damned Son, Where is Zachary? This IS his flat, he hasn’t said s**t about a room mate.” There was more unspoken there, she wanted to order him out but there was at least some thin margin of civility there like a rut, hard to jump cleanly over into the rude and coarse demands she wanted to make.

She made a disgusted sound like she wanted to spit, then pronounced her next words with over done care, the edges just slurred by a mix of some half smothered accent and booze.

“I SAID, WHO THE ******** ARE YOU?” It was a loud and punctuated snarl. He had over a foot of height on her but it was like a lap dog snarling at a greyhound. “Where the HELL is Zachary.” She added, the curling lip did nothing to distance her from the image of some small yapping nipping creature, taught that it was adorable no matter what damage it did.

Her gaze swept over you, judgmental like even the material your clothing was made out of was offensive. Maybe like touching anything here contaminated that very surface. “He would like someone –dense-.” She growled again through clenched teeth. “To make himself seem –smarter.” The words were almost poisonous, and she moved as though she would use her small stature and determination to duck into the apartment and take over regardless of your attempted physical barricade.

“I’m here to talk to Zachary, not his latest DELUSION.”

“THE mother? I am HIS mother!! What’s he been saying about me?” She raged, everything Zac tried so hard to keep boxed up and simmering was laid out for the world to see with her.

“MOVE” She demanded as though she expected you to tremble. “You don’t belong here! ZACHARY!” She bellowed trying to lean around you. “ZACHARY GRIFFEN BANTOCK I KNOW YOU ARE IN THERE!!” She had the voice and pitch of a harpy.
Since he wasn’t there was no reply to her nearly glass breaking shriek. She stamped her foot and turned her gaze back to you. “MOVE!” She demanded again and then followed up with “Move NOW, get out! Get OUT! He was seeing a NICE GIRL! She railed against you, maybe it wasn’t hard to assume that you were ‘together’ or maybe she was just a little insane. “Your SICK, You’re making HIM Sick! Just like the other one!”

It seemed she was determined not to move, even with the discomfort written clearly on her face. “You LIE.” She said determined as they bumped together, it seemed she might stay there, uncomfortably close but after a moment she moved back just enough to put a breath of space between you. “You LIE, He’s just hiding, he always HIDES, and I’m his MOTHER I know that!” Her offence at your afterthought of ‘Ma’am’ was an after thought it seemed, it took a moment to filter past the current offence and add to it.

She slapped you, or did her best. The angle was poor but if she struck it was a loud crack of her palm against you’re cheek. “Don’t you dare talk down to me! Don’t you threaten me! WRETCH!! Don’t TOUCH me!!” She snarled as though somehow it was your fault she’d slapped you.

“So CALL him you worthless little SNOT.” She steamed, he wasn’t reacting nearly the way she wanted, neither like her son did or with any of the furious passion she could invoke from others. “Call him and MAKE him come, I’m here! SO HE SHOULD BE TOO!” She didn’t show any sign of calming down but she did give a dagger like scowl at the door that cracked open, watching them, watching her.

Some part of her understood the trouble of it. She gritted her teeth, incensed and scowled up at him. He’d won, that was the feeling, he’d won and she hated him for that more than she hated him for being in her son’s apartment. She wanted to grab him, shake him, or get something more out of him than the tense calm he offered. She wanted to make him avert his gaze or be angry, something! “You… I am not going to forget you.” She informed him pointedly. “I will be BACK, you you better not be here!” She shook her fist under his nose, a worthless effort, trying likely to make him overstep, to grab her or smack the hand away before she turned and stomped her way back towards the stairs, her heels slamming like hammers with each step she took.

Zac’s voice on the other side of the phone went from a relaxed hello to a tense, almost breathless ‘what?” of alarm. “I’ll be right there.” IT was no answer to where he’d been, but when moments later he was descending from the room it left little doubt how he’d returned. He’d have to go retrieve the dilapidated moped later.

He glanced between you, the door to the apartment and then the stairs with a reserved anxiety. “Gone?” He asked tensely. “Your cheek is…” He started and then stopped, sighing heavily. “She didn’t….” he winced already knowing that she very well –had-.”

“Little bit.” He said with more than a little sarcasm as he walked forward to reach and brush fingers over the reddened cheek. He shook his head looking bothered, a little tired. “She’ll come back.” He said and rubbed the bridge of his nose. He clearly didn’t want to talk to her but was contemplating the consequences of not doing so.

“Did she say what she wanted?” He said and glanced to the window that Ever had been looking out of. It was then he pieced together the differences in expression, not quite ‘Ever’, but more Ilmenite. He didn’t ask, he wasn’t sure he wanted to know, or if he cared.