Enyi Credensin's Story

Aedelian was having a bad day. It wasn't often that he had bad days-- after all, he was a fairly cheerful fellow, and managed to make light of most things-- but every now and then, everything just seemed to conspire against him, and everything went wrong. Today was one of those days, and his usual cheer was starting to wear thin-- and it wasn't even lunchtime yet.

To start everything off, he'd slept poorly. He would have called it a premonition of the morning to come if he hadn't slept poorly the two nights previously, and had perfectly fine, normal days then. Waking up feeling like he hadn't even slept, though, already put a slightly strained cast on the rest of the day, which didn't help matters when everything else was quite strained on its own and didn't need any further nudges in that direction. If that alone hadn't been enough of a warning for the general timbre of the day, tripping over Vyly's forepaw in his attempt to climb out of their couch-like bed and sprawling out across the floor should have given him a clue. The fact that she'd growled at him for smacking her in the face with his tail in the process should have been another clue.

Breakfast with the children, who were by now past two and a half years old and well over double the height they'd hatched at, was stressful, because Dyva seemed to be feeling rather less than her usual charming, charismatic self. Audaxo, calm though he usually was, wasn't above a little bickering, and sniped back at her sleepy, irritable comments in the way any brother would. It made Aedelian glad that his previous attempt at child-rearing had been single rather than double; he doubted his previous mate would have been very forgiving of the bickering. Vyly certainly wasn't. He might not have been naturally sharp and prone to snapping-- he tended to go silent or panic, instead-- Vyly most certainly was.

At least they had two hours of classes outside the home that morning, giving him some time to take a very long, hopefully relaxing bath in the human-sized bathtub, and Vyly time to go skulking around the station, like she was wont to do when she had free time and he was busy. While the tub filled, he took a moment to stare morosely into the mirror at the face of his human form. Though his natural, dragon-shaped body showed little to no signs of aging-- and would not, because his species didn't age like humans or other dragons did-- his human body did. For someone not expecting age visibly, and yet who was already starting past middle-age, the sight of a few nearly-invisible strands of white in his pale silver hair and fine wrinkles in the dark, bronze-yellow skin, was distressing.

However, staring at it would only make his glum mood worse, so he pointedly fogged the mirror up with a magically heated breath-- magic, after all, was said to slow the aging process-- turned away from the cloudy image that remained, and sank gratefully into the hot water. He soaked, eyes shut, letting his mind wander, for as long as he thought he could stand without turning into a prune, or falling asleep. His mind, for the first time in a long time, ended up drifting to the rest of his family: his daughter Admeredith, and her daughter Enyi, on Avengaea. It had been a long time since they'd visited: a whole half a year, in fact. They seemed to be making annual trips, ever since the hatching. They were due next in about five months. It would be good, he thought, to visit them... feel fresh air, socialize with other Airs, play with his granddaughter... if she was even still young enough to play; last time he visited she hadn't been too old, but adolescence was fast approaching. According to the last letter he'd received from his first daughter, she'd finally, a couple months ago, learned her human form. They grew up so fast.... He could remember, though, a time when she was still young... or even when Admeredith was still young!

He spent the rest of his bath drifting through memories of what would always be home to him, and those were more relaxing than the hot water. By the time he felt remotely normal again, the children would be on their way home, and Vyly was already in the main room, preening her feathers and avoiding him until he decided it was safe to come out. He almost felt like he could, and meet her with a nuzzle and the children with playfulness. All he wanted to do was quickly check his email for any new messages-- he had an old dinosaur of a computer, so he'd been told, but he didn't mind-- and he'd be out to see them with more of his customary cheer.

He should have known even that little bit of good mood wouldn't last.

The first new message he found when he logged in was from the human-turned-biocybornetic-xenomorph Phoenix, real name unknown; just why anyone would do that to themselves, Aedelian had no idea, but she was a nice enough sort, anyway. It had been just two and a half years since Phoenix had taken his and Vyly's little daughter Lha away to adopt and raise. The child was more than half-grown by now, aging more quickly than an Avengaean despite her mixed heritage, due, Aedelian expected, to her taking most of her genes from her mother. Every other month, Phoenix would email him, telling him and Vyly about what she'd been up to, how her health fared, how her life was going. Every now and then she managed to sneak in a picture or even a movie-capture, taken either for other purposes or without the dragonet's knowledge-- for Lha wanted nothing to do with her parents, much to their pain.

As one of a massive clutch of fourteen that Aedelian and Vyly, no matter how much they might have wished to, could never have taken care of on their own, Lha, among the rest of her siblings, had been put up for adoption. Sure that they could keep two to raise themselves without putting any hatchlings at risk in their education or health, they had let the hatchlings themselves choose who would stay with their parents. If Aedelian had, had any idea that Lha would be so upset by what was, to her mind, careless abandonment, he would have never suggested that she leave him and Vyly. He would have taken in a third child, no questions asked... but by the time she actually spoke to him, her first words were to tell him she never wanted to see him or speak to him again. The damage had already been done. At least Phoenix, who had taken her in, had a little sympathy for him, and didn't force him and Vyly to be completely cut off from their daughter.

So he opened the email with a click of the mouse-- definitely a dinosaur computer-- and the familiar sense of sad yet pleased anticipation, wondering what updates and anecdotes his daughter's foster-mother had provided this time. What he got was nothing of the sort, and it left him stunned to read it.

I'm sorry, he read, repeated a few times throughout the text of the message-- the oddly professional message, after how friendly Phoenix had grown with him. He could, he thought, almost understand why.

Lha had found out about their communications, Phoenix wrote. She had been incensed. She insisted that the emails cease immediately, without even notice. Phoenix shouldn't have been sending the email she was sending, but she couldn't in good faith leave him and Vyly without a word. I'm sorry, she wrote once, then again, as if trying to make up for it all: Lha, the accidental discovery, even her own distant tone. I'm sorry.

He couldn't do anything but stare at the screen, stricken. He didn't hear when the children came home, trotting into the dragon-sized room and chattering, too focused on what had to be the culmination of the worst day he'd ever had. Except, perhaps, when his first mate had died-- but even that didn't hurt quite like this, because he knew she'd loved him. He didn't even notice when Vyly poked her head into the human-sized living room-- the only part of her that would comfortably fit-- to peer at him. Her mind-voice, after she'd been watching a moment, startled him. ::You've been staring at that thing for a whole minute now,:: she huffed. ::What's so fascinating?::

"Lha," he managed. "She found out."

The huff turned into an anxious wing-rustle. Vyly might always put forth a strong front to the world, but she was almost as hurt by their hatchling's rejecting as he had been. Not quite, but almost. She wasn't quite as caught up in hearing about her vanished children as he was, but she listened to the emails he read to her, when they came. ::Found out?:: she echoed.

"She won't let Phoenix email us anymore."

Whatever her own sorrow at hearing that-- and right then was probably the only time since they'd met that he wasn't paying attention-- Vyly at least knew that he was so knotted up he could hardly think. ::Oh, 'Del, I'm sorry,:: she sighed, stretching her neck as far as she could reach to nudge his shoulder. There it was again: I'm sorry. He turned to her offered muzzle and buried his face in her flattened crest of feathers, putting his arms around her face.

They sat like that a moment in silence, Aedelian trying stupidly not to cry and Vyly unable to think of anything to say, before Audaxo's head poked around Vyly's shoulder in the hall. He pointedly did not ask what the problem was: either he'd picked it up on his own, or he was patient enough to find out later-- or he simply didn't care. Audaxo could be a strange child, sometimes.

::Mom, Dad, there's somebody at the door. She's got a couple bags. I think she might be a salesperson.::

"Just tell her we're not interested," Aedelian said, muffled by his mate's feathered forehead. Audaxo understood him, anyway, and his face disappeared, presumably to go tell the person at the door just that.

He came back a moment later, as Aedelian was just pulling back from Vyly and trying to think of something to say to her. ::Dad, can your granddaughter change forms, like you do?::

Confused by the change in subject, Aedelian blinked blankly at his son. "Yes, she can. She learned it recently, since the last time we were there...."

::Oh.:: There was a pause, and then the boy added, ::Then it's her at the door. Can I let her in?::

" ... what?"

His day was about to get even worse.