One Year Out (Part Two)

“We’re almost there, right?” Mason asked, looking around at the scenery change that had greeted the pair when they’d began their approach on the animal sanctuary. “It’s not too far once things start looking alive, but it feels like we’ve been going this way forever.”

“Eh, we took a detour in, we’ll be there shortly though.” Jayde’s voice was booming as she was still in her beast form, allowing for them to continue moving faster than they could if they were both walking. “And maybe, just maybe, we’ll still beat your father there and then we won’t have to worry with—“ She was cut off by a giant shadow covering them overhead, that disappeared as quickly as it came, her words being lost when Mason kicked her in surprise at what he’d just seen. “—ow! What’s that for, Mason? See a ghost?”

“Not a ghost,” he answered after rushing an apology for hurting her. “A wyvern, though, and I’m willing to bet that it’s my father’s. So much for beating him there, huh?” At that news, Jayde broke out into a faster run, nearly knocking Mason off her back as she charged off, leaving him to apologize further about how this had been his fault, because he’d figured another person would be welcome to come along.

By the time they arrived outside of the small, shoddily-built hut that sat rather central to the animal sanctuary as a whole, both of them were out of breath for different reasons, one from running and one from the constant stream of apologies he’d been giving. The sight of the two of them, especially once Jayde had turned back into her human form, completely exhausted by their manner of journeying was enough to elicit a smile from the person there waiting for them. “Mind explaining to me how I managed to be at home doing work this morning, yet still got here before you two?” Green asked, looking amused as he saw them both flinch as they came up with no way to explain. “Did it involve getting distracted by something?”

“We, uh, don’t have the way to fly through the sky like you do,” Mason replied, before noticing that his father was looking towards Jayde, her beaststone in her hand as she was tucking it away for safekeeping, now that she was somewhere safe. “Okay, but she has to follow the rules of the ground, we can’t ignore everything and just go. Plus we started the day in a bar so…that might explain it.”

“Don’t lie to him, we didn’t *start* in the bar. We just went there before we headed out.” Jayde gave a hollow laugh, patting her little bag as she gave a glance towards the house they were going to have to enter. “Figured maybe a drink or two would be helpful, thought it might tell me how to handle what I’m going to have to face.”

Nodding as if he understood her logic, Green motioned for both of them to come towards him, his child much more receptive to the idea than the rabbit girl was, as she wasn’t looking in his direction and didn’t see he wanted anything until he coughed to get her attention. Once she’d bounded to in front of him, and right next to Mason, he held both arms out for them to come into, a gesture they both hesitated on. “Come on, it’s clear that none of us know how to deal with what we’re going to walk into. Working together might be best.”

“I’m sorry, but I’m not getting touchy-huggy with someone when it puts one of you on my bad side,” Jayde said, backing out of the encounter as quickly as she’d come into it. She knew that she was disappointing both of the guys by doing so, and out of the corner of her eye she did see Mason taking up his father’s offer, but she couldn’t waste her time on something like that, especially when them both being there was only going to make what she had to do be that much harder. She needed to play the role of comforter to her mother, she couldn’t let there be any distractions.

And then the wailing started, and for someone untrained to the situation (like Green or Mason), they would have assumed it was one of the babies inside of the house crying. But Jayde knew the sounds of her so-called siblings too well to know that the wails she was hearing didn’t belong to either of them; something must have set her mother off already and she was audibly letting it be known. That caused her to dash into the house, almost taking out part of the wall in the process, but she wasn’t going to allow there to be any crying while she was around.

By the time she’d found where her mother had slumped over, the only sign that she was alive being the loud crying she was doing, the two babies near her had started to scream as well, cognizant that something was amiss but being unable to do anything to fix it. “No, oh no, this cannot be happening,” Jayde muttered, casting an apologetic glance towards the twin babies before dropping to her knees beside her mother, trying to shake her back to reality. “Mom! Snap out of it! Everything’s okay, you just have to not think about what’s wrong!”

She was given no response, only the sound of the three crying beings filling her one usable ear. Grimacing, she shook her mother’s shoulders a bit harder, hoping that she’d be able to accomplish something before breaking down into tears herself. This was a strong woman she knew could go through and handle anything—why was she so fragile and broken like this?” “Mom, please, I can’t stand seeing you cry like this,” she pleaded, her shaking not stopping. “I need you to stop, you’re hurting yourself and you’re hurting me and you’re definitely hurting Kayde and Kodie right now by ignoring them.”

Her mother’s crying subsided, replaced by a raw voice softly stating, “Those children don’t deserve anything but to be hurt right now and you know it.” Jayde shook her head, not wanting to take in what she’d heard as the truth, but her mother continued with, “They don’t even know *him*, he doesn’t know them, they’d be better off dead because at least he’d be a capable parent!”

“You can’t say things like that!” As much as she hated dealing with her mother when she had sunk this low into a depressive state, Jayde knew that she had no choice but to be the voice of reason. “Mom, they don’t have him and that’s okay, that’s fine, you can be their mom and their dad and—h-hey, don’t start ignoring me!” While she had been talking, she watched her mother grab her own ears and start massaging at them, to block out words she didn’t want to hear. It wasn’t proper for a child to put her hands on her parent like Jayde knew she was going to have to, but she couldn’t let herself go ignored. “You need to get out of this funk and pay attention to the kids you were given for a reason, damn it!”

“I wasn’t given kids to have to raise them on my own.” Fighting her hands being ripped off of her ears, Signele stared daggers into her daughter’s face, making Jayde recoil back as she knew she was being judged for only having half of something to look at. “I’m a bad mother, wasn’t ever meant to be one by myself, and I don’t want to hear another word of you telling me otherwise. They deserve to suffer for what they’ve done.”

“They’re *babies*, they haven’t done anything except have a father that died before he got a chance to know them. You can’t blame them for that!” Except this was Signele that was being dealt with, and she was going to blame them for anything she wanted to. “Mom, you need to pick yourself up and make them stop crying before someone else does. That’s your job as their mom.”

“And who else would do it if not me? You won’t, you’re too busy with me to try.”

Two pairs of footsteps entered the room, background noise to the wailing of the children but still audible to sensitive Taguel ears. “I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but…” Jayde backed away from her mother, ending up standing right in between Mason and Green, both of whom were trying to make sense of the scene they’d just come into, “I think between the three of us, we can work things out.”

“You invited them here?” Signele asked, picking herself up off the ground and approaching the three people standing there, none of them flinching as her eyes narrowed towards them. “Don’t you have better places to be? Countries to be running?”

“Wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity to check in on an old friend and her children,” Green replied, a coldness to his voice that couldn’t be missed by anyone, even the person directly next to him who was deaf on that side. “Now I’m going to have them take care of those babies of yours for a minute, and we’re going to step out to talk, is that okay?”

Jayde tensed up at the suggestion, glancing towards her mother to watch her freeze at the idea of going anywhere with someone, but she didn’t step in. This wasn’t her place, she had to trust Green to be doing the right thing. “Come on, my father says we should watch your siblings, I think we should go ahead and do it,” Mason said, side-stepping closer to where the two small bundles of fur were writhing on the ground, neglected by their mother in a time of need. “I’ve never been best with babies, but I think he knows what he’s doing, telling us to watch them instead of making her do it.”

“I think you might be right.” Still looking towards her mother, Jayde saw that she hadn’t moved an inch since the idea had been thrown out, and she figured that was how it was going to stay for a while. She shook her head and regrouped her thoughts, looking towards her siblings and heading towards them with Mason at her side, the two of them each taking one into their arms the first chance they could. “Shh, you’re being cared for now,” she whispered into the ear of the baby she’d picked up, their little legs kicking her as they tried squirming away. Normally at this point she’d have been able to tell which one she was holding, but it seemed her mother had forgotten to dress them in something that day, which meant either she’d just woken up, or she’d been neglecting the children a lot longer than just when they’d started crying.

It took a lot of bouncing them, as well as pacing around a small part of the room, but eventually the two settled down, their faces becoming less contorted with their displeasure, and with the initial crying taken care of that meant there was time to start handling some of the other issues they might have been experiencing. First and foremost was making sure that the two were fed, and while Jayde knew her way around the house she hadn’t ever had to be the one to find whatever it was her mother used to feed the kids. “Do you think you can hold both of them so I can use two hands for looking?” she asked Mason, who shrugged. “Come on, I think you can do it.”

“I might drop one of them if I’m holding two, is that really the risk you want to take?” Mason looked at the bunny child he was cradling in his arms, gripping the poor thing for dear life. “This is why I’m rather glad I don’t have to deal with a baby version of me, I don’t think I’d be able to take care of them right.”

“Ugh, you can do it, if you want to make sure they don’t die on us.” Shoving whichever sibling it was she was holding at him, he didn’t give a single retort as he adjusted how he was holding the one to take both of them in, and without checking to make sure he was going to be okay she was off on her search, walking right past where her mother and Green were still in a deadlock, neither of them having moved at all since the two groups had split. She sighed as she passed by her mother, nudging her in the back to try and get her to move, before she was on her way to search for something to feed the most likely starving children.

“Don’t think I didn’t see that,” Green remarked, giving a smile in Jayde’s direction even though her back was turned. “Even she knows that you coming with me for a quick talk is the best, why don’t you listen to her and do what would make you feel better?”

One of Signele’s eyes twitched, as she had started leaning forward to prepare herself to step ahead and follow with him, and she snapped right back to where she’d previously been frozen. “I’m not listening to any of you,” she said, her voice firm and unwavering. “All you’ll do is make me remember, and I don’t want to remember! I want to forget!”

“Do you think any of us want to remember what happened? You’re not the only one who lost a friend, or a lover, in that whole mess. Think of everyone else for a change, not just for yourself.” Seeing that she’d moved back away from him, Green sighed, stepping towards her to grab her for himself, her skin cold when his hands touched it and she flinched at the feeling of his fingers. “Signele…you need to stop this. You’re breaking down over something far too hard and far too much, and you’re making everyone suffer for it. Including yourself.”

“I don’t matter, and neither does anyone else.” She tried pulling away from him but knew that she had no choice but to let him take hold, her emotionally-weakened state having taken a severe toll on her physical strength. “But okay, I’ll bite, you can have your talk with me that you’re asking for and we’ll come out of this with me being *just as* upset as I currently am. Nothing’s going to change just because you try throwing your so-called wisdom at me, Green, I hope you know that.”

He smiled at her, trying to break her negativity with such a soft gesture. “We’ll have to see how true that is once we’ve come back inside. Now come with me, let’s start talking somewhere no children will hear us.”

The library in the Frarian castle was quiet, most everyone who would normally be spending their time in there off for the day to commemorate what the day meant for their country. The lone occupant of the wing, sitting at a table surrounded with books of his own choosing, flipped through pages of the text in front of him with a curious expression, trying to take in all the words he could in the silence of the hour. This was how he was commonly found, and the fact that it was an important day meant nothing to him. No one was going to be able to remind him that he needed to go home to check on his mother, no one was going to ask him to at least come to the meal provided to all members of the Shepherds’ ranks who might have been currently located in Frar.

For the moment, Bohl was on his own, and he was coming close to what he thought was going to be a breakthrough in determining whatever it was that had made him the way he was. There weren’t many books about human psychology, but the ones he could find were allowing him to dive deeper and deeper into the inner workings of his mind, allowing him to piece together ideas of what may have always been troubling him. Not that it had ever really been a troubling matter, of course, but there were things that set him apart from even his closest friends and he’d been searching so hard for answers for those things.

It had taken him almost a year of looking, plus going through ever book even tangentially related to his search in both the Tostian and now Frarian libraries, but he was beginning to make headway on what there was going on with his head. A little one-year-later celebration wasn’t going to be able to pull him away from what he’d begun to find, and even though he’d later realize that not seeing his mom on such a monumental day might have been a bad choice, he was making the decision based on what was best for him.

Outside of the very castle where he was reading, a small parade was taking place, less festive and more solemn than most parades typically were. In lieu of floats were banners and armed soldiers, their weapons more for show than anything, followed directly by the reigning leaders of the country. On the sideline, cheering for the king and queen of Frar’s houses as they passed, sat a couple and their young son, the boy more interested in the sound of everyone’s steps than who was actually doing the walking. “Couldn’t they have, I don’t know, found a way to include Spencer, *actual royalty*, in this parade?” Chase asked, looking at how the boy didn’t seem engaged with what they were watching. “Surely your people would be all for that, they love you and they love him too.”

“Not including him wasn’t my decision, it was done just in case someone decided they’d try to crash the festivities,” DJ answered, putting a gentle hand on Chase’s leg and patting it. “Next year, though, we will try to be just as much a part of this as my mother and...” He paused, watching the royal duo pass them by, the queen waving straight towards where they sat, while the king merely looked in their direction. “You know, maybe we’ve been excluded not because of an unnecessary fear, but so that we don’t remind the people of who we lost prior to that final battle.”

Seeing the king’s unhappy expression, the way he didn’t seem as enthusiastic about the parade as his co-ruler did, Chase nodded in agreement. “Yeah, would really suck for him to have to hear all the talk about his daughter being dead. They could have at least called in her future kid if that’s the problem.”

“The invite was sent to him and his father both, they turned it down for an unspecified reason but I’d suspect they’re spending today together and out of the spotlight.” DJ’s hand fell off Chase’s leg as he protectively moved both arms to wrap around Spencer, the boy still enamored with the soldiers and not necessarily the elegant royals now heading off past them. “Although, can you blame them? Spending a year in Tost, just to spend the anniversary in a different country to assist with a different set of royals? Whatever they’re doing, it’s bound to be what’s best for them.”

Nodding again, Chase thought about what he’d just heard before smiling. “Why did I have to marry the smart and cute royal guy? I really did take everything I could get and then some.”

The sky had darkened and Jayde was lighting candles in the house to bring enough light to make sure she and Mason could keep tabs on her younger siblings before the two others came back inside, a tense air between them when they returned. “I’d say that could have gone over a lot better, had someone wanted to open up a bit more,” Green said with a laugh, giving Signele a small hug before she continued on into the house, leaving him at the doorway. He looked towards Mason, who currently had a bunny child clinging to his front, the other one trying to grab him as well, and smiled. “You going to hitch a ride back with me, or will you be staying longer?”

“I think I’ve done all I can here,” Mason replied, removing the child’s fingers from gripping him so tightly so he could slip out to where his father was. Before they left, he gave a small nod at Jayde, who returned the gesture. “It was good to spend the past few days with you! Glad I could be of some help with these kids!”

“Yeah, thanks a bunch, Mason!” She tried her best to wave at him, but as her hands were full with the child that he hadn’t been holding, it was impossible, so she weaved and bobbed her head until he was gone, the house oddly silent even with four people still in it. She pursed her lips together, waiting to see what her mother was about to do, but when she heard nothing for quite some time, she figured that all had been for naught and her mother had sent herself to bed without checking on her children.

She scooped up the other child, letting them both squirm in her arms as she adjusted how to hold them properly, before tracking her mother down in her bedroom; just like she’d feared, she’d curled up in her bed, although she wasn’t crying and she didn’t seem like she was going to sleep. “He reminded me of the good times and the bad,” Signele faintly told her daughter, not moving at all while she spoke. “We spent all that time talking about what had happened, how it happened, why it happened…and why I shouldn’t freeze up when I think about it.”

“And? Doesn’t do anything for you if you don’t listen.” Already Jayde was at the bed’s side, dropping the twins right next to their mother—and they climbed on top of her, snuggling her like they’d missed her. “See, look at that, Kayde and Kodie both need you. They love you, broken or not, but they’d really like it if you weren’t broken.”

“He reminded me that they were named for people that’d hate to see me like I’ve become. I can’t let their namesakes down, just like I can’t let…can’t let…” Sobs were beginning to take hold on Signele, even though she hadn’t been crying moments before. “I can’t let their father realize I’m so incompetent at this parenting thing. He didn’t *die* just for me to screw everything up once he was gone.”

Jayde flinched, knowing what she knew about at least her version of their collective father, information that hadn’t faded with time. She had to remind herself that they were talking about a different man, a caring man, one who would have been overjoyed to have a family rather than plotting how to abandon and murder them. “He died to make sure none of the rest of us did. Now come on Mom, stop your crying and care for your kids for a change.”

A lone arrow sat pointed in the general direction of Mount Vrede, its owner having purposely placed it there along the path as they walked on in the moonlight. They’d only stopped long enough to make sure the arrowhead was aimed exactly where it needed to point, before disappearing alone in the night.

That arrow symbolized so many wounds inflicted in that one battle, wounds that people weren’t ever going to heal from, and as the light shined against it, it played an optical illusion to make it appear as if a hand from beyond was taking hold on it, only for the hand—and the arrow—to disappear when the moon became obscured with a passing cloud.

END