rainbowlounge | RP Time? You betcha!

"Lucien? What did I tell you about running off on your own?"

Somewhat unsurprisingly, his son didn't answer him with more than a grin. And a splash, once Claude had drawn closer.

Leave it to any child of his to throw off his nice new boots just to stick his feet in the first likely looking stream that came along.

It wasn't even as if they'd gone that far out of town, but away from the roads, from the other sorcer-sorts and Aethies, even the breeze felt calmer, though it had hardly caught to much all the while they'd been walking. Claude being glad they had any at all, as hot as it had been the past few days.

The storm the night before had left lacy scatters of twigs and leaves and knocked down spider webs. Clean and still damp, the leaves overhead and tangled in the grass, they looked pieces of stained glass. And the trees, when they nodded, they sounded clear as harp strings with nothing else to cut the sound.

Out of farmland use and the whiles of any humans at all, the stream had been left so clear, so delicious looking. Just begging for some little blond imp of a boy to come along and kick his heels in it.

Well, one already had. Claude didn't bother with another sigh. He pulled his shoes off and laid them in the stones at his side, stretching lazy as he reached his own toes towards the glittering surface.

And promptly jerked back with a yelp. "Child of mine? That's /cold/."

"I know," said Lucien. "I think it feels nice."

"Maybe if you're part bear. I've always halfway figured, you know."

They had some teasing hums between them and Claude crossed his legs, feet now on the warm pebbles along the bank where they damnwell belonged.

"I think I got that from your side of the family," his son suggested after a while. "Anyway, why do you think it's like that? I don't hear anybody around."

"That wasn't tagging along?"

"Well..." The boy knitted his fingers in his hair, tugging himself a wingtip curl along his temple. "I think I'd only notice Nene if she was /gone/."

"And as for our new friends?"

"They couldn't have gone far. They know we have candy." To which, he nodded. Ever so sure of himself.

Ah, children. Children had gotten him this far with their self-assured beings. And children had found him what was really a rather strange clearing on closer inspection. The stream wore deeper through some places in the grass than others, showing shifts of rock, glints of moss and tree roots sneaking by. It divided the clearing just about cleanly in half.

Besides, on the edge of the forest easing back into being, a great, old ash stood.

Covered in tiny flowers. Pink and violet and hints of white. All of them, growing in streaks as if the bark had long ago turned to soil, though the tree seemed healthy and strong otherwise.

Besides.

"Papa," said Lucian, voice hushed. "There aren't any birds here, are there?"

"No," Claude answered after a moment. "It's just you and I and /a bunch of stinkers who ran off from us/."

"Oh, so that doesn't include me?"

"Child of mine."

They had a few more hums, there in the quiet of the clearing.

There, before something very strange and very faint began to creep along Claude's Aether lines.

It felt like being tickled almost. Anyway, it made him smile. Lucien too.

And next, there his son darted off again, racing over the grass and into the middle of the clearing, where he stood staring into the sky and whistling. Expecting a giant Gust to come sailing down in the form of a giant bird? It might just be that.

Welcome!

Note that anything your characters do in the clearing may result in posts back of things happening around them, even if these aren't exactly invited. Something's lurking around here, and it wants a snack!

Feel free to bring your own fairies, ghosts, mages and seriously confused regular people.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

If Maria had shared that thought, Johnny probably would have agreed with her. It wasn't as though he and Torey had never talked about it, and he was pretty sure Letta had seriously considered it at least twice. "If we coulda gotten ya away from her sooner, we woulda."

Maria smiled, once again not quite her real one but a more genuine version, a slight sharpness to her eyes. "I know," she said. "I do appreciate it, and everything all of you did for me when I was younger."

She'd clearly turned out fine, at least compared to, say, David or Leo or Stefano, so Johnny wasn't going to say they hadn't done enough. Torey had done--would do?--as much as he could, and Johnny assumed the rest of them helped as much as possible with that.

"Pop's gonna die in 2019?" Johnny asked, voice steady. "Or is it 2018?"

"2019," Maria said, nodding. "In the summer."

She wondered, briefly, if she should be sharing this information, but then she supposed that it couldn't do anything. They inhabited different dimensions, after all.

"What--" Johnny cleared his throat. "What happened?" Was he going to end up having to kill several someones? He'd do it.

"Heart attack," Maria said, purposely softening her voice. She might not have felt the loss as keenly as her siblings, but she had been fond of her father, inasmuch as she could be.

Irreverently, Johnny thought of how much more Matt would be on his case about stress levels and all that shit. "Heart attack," he muttered. "All the shit he's done, an' that's gonna kill him." He wasn't about to fool himself into thinking he could get his father to change any of his habits. For one thing, Pop wouldn't believe that Johnny knew how and when he'd die.

"Yes, it did seem anticlimactic," Maria said, carefully suffusing her tone with just a touch of melancholy.

Since she'd already read his mind once, getting flashes of his thoughts barely took any pressure, and this time she decided to ask, "How long have you and Matt been together?"

He was her brother, she reasoned. Caution was less crucial here of all places.

Johnny gave her a look. "Based on that, 'm guessin' we're not together where you're from. Been... Christ, 'most nineteen an' a half years now." That would make him feel old if he hadn't been fifteen when they got together.

"No, you're not," she said. "He's straight. He's also cisgender. You're married to a man named Michael. He's...peculiar. In a good way. You seem very happy."

Johnny's eyes narrowed. "How the fuck'd ya know he's trans?" He'd think about the Michael thing--and the straight, cis Matt thing, who was apparently male-assigned at birth (which was a hell of a mindfuck, considering)--after he knew what the fuck his baby sister was pulling.

"You thought about it earlier. It was an easy path to follow," Maria said. "My strongest magical ability is telepathy. I wouldn't have pried, normally, but this entire situation is abnormal."

Johnny blinked, considered that, and then just shook his head. "Course it is. So how much'd ya find out 'bout me an' Matt? Or jus' 'bout him?"

"Just enough in flashes to understand the basic differences between our dimensions," she said, shrugging. "Your natural shields are fairly strong for a non-magic-user. I didn't press very far."

"Well, thanks for that." It was fairly polite of her not to, even if she had read his mind in the first place. "So ya know some 'bout me an' Matt. What 'bout ya? Where'd ya go ta college? What're ya doin' now?"

"I just graduated from Columbia's law school," she said. "Studying for the bar. I've been working at the business part time for years. I plan to join full time once I've passed all the bars I need to."

Johnny could only imagine how many she planned to take, especially if the ones that accepted results from other states stopped doing so. "Leo's workin' on bar exams now," he said. "Fuckin' pain in the ass whenever I see him." He smirked. "How's he like havin' ya work with him an' Sable?"

"He's exactly as you might imagine." Maria smirked. "It's rather entertaining, of course."

"Tantrums least twice a week?" Johnny guessed. "Does he piss off even Tore?" He didn't bother asking about Letta or David; their thoughts about Leo couldn't possibly change. Same with Sable.

"At least," Maria agreed. "Oh, yes. Torey has incredible patience, but even he has his limits."

Johnny laughed. "Considerin' he sometimes has enough a David, not surprisin' Leo pushes him too far." Given Torey and David's bond and all. He knew Torey tried with Leo, but he also knew it was pretty futile; Leo was a prick and always had been, and no matter how Torey treated him, that fact wouldn't change. "Any other big changes happen between 2011 an' 2030?"

RP Time? You betcha!

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