October 24, 2013

In Which Vera Finds Relief in the Mutual Discomfort

July 23, 1183

"There you are!" Vera greeted the dog with a pat on the head, and Whisper licked her nose in turn. The larger and hairier of her babies usually had free reign of the house, but Whisper had been stuck down here while they'd moved Morgan's things, and the poor puppy had no idea why. "Aren't you happy that Auntie Morgan and Viridis decided to come and live with us? Yes, you are. Yes, you are!"

Whisper yapped. Up in Morgan's arms, Viridis giggled--though Morgan herself had been a bit quiet most of the afternoon. Vera frowned. She knew that Morgan's first day was unlikely to be perfect, but she did want it to be at least good. "Are you all right? That chat you had with Lucien didn't..."

"Oh, no." Morgan let herself smile; it grew a little more earnest as she snuck a tickle beneath Viridis's chin. "If anything, it shed some light on a few things."

"Like how you know when perfect strangers miles away need you?"

"Yes, that." Viridis leaned to the side and reached one tiny little arm towards Whisper; Morgan set her down to meet the dog, then joined Vera further in the room. That had been rather... easy. There must have been something else bothering her friend. "Does Lucien have any special powers, apart from the elemental manipulations?"

"I don't know. He doesn't really like talking about it." And after Remiel, she didn't think she needed to ask why.

"Dog!"

Her little niece must have sensed something amiss and resolved to do something about it--at Whisper's expense, from the looks of that grip. "Dog!"

"Yes, sweetie, that's a nice dog." Morgan shot Vera a wink; behind her back, Whisper put on her begging eyes. "But anyway, I can't blame him for not wanting to talk about it, not after what he went through. What about your family, though?"

Her family. Vera swallowed. At least Morgan wasn't alone in her discomfort now. "My family."

"Well, Lucien said that your grandmother was one of us, so I just thought I'd ask. I'm a bit curious as to the, uh... hereditary aspects. For Viridis's sake, I guess.

"And wondering about my own daughter, maybe."

Greta. How tragic it was, leaving the world before even arriving. Vera's second pregnancy had ended before she'd even shown, a strained few hours of cramping and bleeding and the eventual presence of a tiny, shell-shaped baby in her hand, not even formed enough for her to guess its sex.

Was it better or worse, having gone the whole nine months?

"Well... my father can do the thing with the elements, but air's the only one that doesn't give him headaches, so he doesn't do it very often." Maybe that and wanting to forget the whole thing. If only all powers were voluntary. "And I... uh, well..."

"You don't want to talk about it either."

Vera shook her head. The one good thing about mutual discomfort was that it sometimes left room for understanding--never mind relief.

"That's all right. Let's talk about something else."

NEXT CHAPTER:

7 comments:

Van said...

And in the suckiness of this week, I forgot to mention that for Naroni's recent fifth anniversary, I'm applying these aspiration sub-types to the characters on a family-by-family basis. So far we have The Royals (plus Elstraid offshoot) and the Mokonris (plus Torgleid offshoot).

Anonymous said...

Yikes, sorry to hear that things aren't going well for you. But at least the week is almost over?

And WOW, Viridis Jr. has gotten big! And cute too! Surely she must be weaned or close to it by now? Yet she's still with Morgan ... interesting ...

I really hope Morgan and Vera can develop a closer friendship; the two of them do seem to get each other on a really basic level. Hopefully the mutual discomfort won't keep them from really talking and learning to get to know each other better.

And lastly, I really hope that Whispers isn't baby-huggled to death, because Whispers looks like a cute dog. ;)

Van said...

She is getting big and cute! She's about eleven and a half months now; Morgan is still nursing her, but yeah, probably not for much longer...

I'm sure Morgan and Vera's friendship will progress quite nicely once Morgan heals a bit more, and once Vera gets comfortable enough to share her secret. Even if Morgan's living there is only temporarily, I can see them being very close for a long time.

Whisper is rather cute! But she's also quite resilient, and she has managed to survive Vera's son's entire life so far (he's four; she's closer to five), so I'm sure she can handle a Round Two in the form of Viridis. :)

Mimus said...

Poor Whisper! It looks like she's screaming: "Help! I'm being strangled by manic toddler! Somebody help meeee!"

Hm, I wonder if Viridis' attempt to disolve the tension is just little-child-intuition or a glimpse of a possible supernatural power...

Van said...

She certainly doesn't look happy. XD

I haven't thought too much about Viridis's future personality (and/or superpowers), so it might be safe to assume "kids hate tension" for now. That said, I'm not beyond changing my mind. ;)

Winter said...

Whispers is a big dog. She can take a little firm huggling from Viridis Jr.

Morgan and Vera have an interesting connection going on. It's almost as if they're having an entire conversation on the sub-conscious level. In between the awkwardness, there's a familiarity
usually reserved for people who have known each other forever. I'm looking forward to how this is going to progress in the future.

Van said...

I'm sure she'll be just fine. XD

They do seem to "get" each other quite well. I guess they're both used to being somewhat overlooked and out-of-place, and they've found a familiarity there. That's not the only thing they have in common, though, and we'll be seeing that in the near-ish future.