Daddy Issues.

[Vega]

1st Vhalar, 719
Just past midnight

Vega had woken a few moments before, bathed in sweat and gasping for air. She had slipped out of bed, not wanting to wake Arlo, and gone to the prow of the Wanderlust. It was pitch dark here, the familiar shores of Rharne - their latest destination - was there but they were still a few hours away from arriving. There wasn't any sense of it being colder, although this trial was the first of the Cold cycle, but still Vega figured, it could be like Viden in Zi'da, and she'd not know anything resembling cold. Thanks to her father and his curse.

She heard, and felt, Arlo coming towards her and then his arms wrapped around her. Vega leaned against him and smiled slightly. "I was tryin' not to wake you up," she said, softly. There was a time when she would have not accepted his embrace so easily - because she was agitated. But, these trials, she at least was more or less calm all the time around him. Except for when he annoyed her, or she was grouchy. Or when someone else annoyed her so much that she was grouchy. Clearing her mind a little, Vega took a moment, then solemnly lifted her hand and placed his hat on his head. Quite why she'd been holding it ... well, that would become apparent.

"You remember what happened to you, when you suddenly remembered all that stuff wot had happened with Cassion?" He would know what she meant, she was sure. Vega sighed, then turned around, wriggling in his arms to make sure she stayed there. Her hands rested against his chest, apparently distracted, but he knew her better. Vega breathed in and then, all in one it came tumbling out of her mouth.

"Right, so, I jus' remembered everythin' what happened when we 'ad that weird dream an' the stomach ache, an' the dancin' an' the doors?" Her eyes were swirling a mass of different colours, not ever still, always shifting. "Well, when you disappeared, my father was there. Not my Papa. An' there was this well pompous dweeb called Zanick Venora, or somethin' an' I told him off, cos he were well patronizing. Delusions of adequacy, he had. Any'ow. Righ' so, there was Daia, right? An' my father, an' Moseke. So, Daia was dead, but then she got woken up an' then I sang. You remember all that?" he'd been there, after all.

"Well, what I suggested in that song, it worked. An' we brought Daia back, but did it by givin' her some of our essence. That's why I've been lookin' so much older. But, Arlo... I've changed. Look." She had changed - she looked like herself again, the right age. She didn't know that yet. Moving her hands from his chest to her own night-gown, Vega pulled the lace down and revealed what appeared to be a tattoo of a burning heart on her chest. "Daia's mark," she said, softly. That caused a slight sigh, but not much of one. Then, though, Vega lifted her gaze to him.

"I've changed, Arlo. I'm a mage. I've got this... I can feel it," she breathed in and glanced around. "I can hear the water, Arlo. It's singin' to me. The heat, the air, the earth at the sea-bed. It's beautiful." There was something she knew, and she looked conflicted as she said it. "It's what they tried to force on me, in th'docks. It's what I fought, then. But no one forced it on me this time, it's jus' there." She raised an eyebrow. "It's a bit weird, an' I can feel it, Arlo, righ' inside me, in my soul. But I can hear 'em, an' they're everywhere. It's like... oh, it's like nothin' I've ever heard before - they've each got a diff'rent song."

She watched him, warily, concerned for his reaction.

[Arlo Creede]

"How could you not wake me up?" Arlo had teased Vega in the very early breaks before dawn when he opened his eyes beside her, and curled in to place a fond kiss on that little hollow behind her ear. "I was dreaming I was lost in the sweaty jungles of Scalvoris," he grunted quietly, but with a grin. "and then I realized it was you all hot and bothered." And then she pushed his hat down on his head as he rose up on one elbow. Surprise lifted one brow and he reached up to run a finger across the brim. "There you are old friend. Where have you been?"

But then, even without the extra prompting, he remembered. He'd lost it out in that strange place on the seas, where the waters moved in a curly-q fashion. Just poof. Gone. "Where'd you find it?" Then there was the strange dream that they'd shared. Except that in a sense, he'd gone the way of his hat. Without said hat. "I remember," Arlo said. "I've heard the name Venora. Not sure of that one in particular though." It didn't surprise him though that her Immortal father had turned up. His own tended to pop in unexpectedly, and in the most unexpected of places. His own tended to be more welcome, however.

"Vaguely," he said when she asked if he remembered. Arlo remembered the first part clearly. His memory about the latter was foggier. Her looks had changed, most definitely. More mature. Arlo knew better than to use the word older while in earshot of any woman. But inside, she was the same Vega, and it made no difference. He loved her inside and out. But now? He looked at her, narrowed his eyes, and tilted his head. "Well I think the night has shaved twenty arcs off you again. Looks good on you, but so did the other."

The flaming heart on her chest, Daia's doing, that was also new, and Arlo grinned as he dipped down and placed a kiss there. "Well placed, I'd say." He lifted his head again, however, a brow lifting up again in surprise. "A mage? How do you know?" That was certainly unexpected. "You mean all the world, the...elements have a voice?" he asked. A singing voice, of a sorts, from what he gathered. "Can you stop hearing it?" he asked, now fully awake and intrigued. He'd never thought much of magic, at least not in a sense that he wanted to practice himself. But that didn't stop him being curious. "You can identify each of them, the wind, the water and so on, when they're all going at once? Sort out and isolate them?"

[Vega]

"It's been 'ere, all along, I think," Vega said,motioning to his hat. "When you disappeared, I was frantic wi'worry, an' I caught hold of it an' shoved it on my head. I'd have given anyone who tried to touch it a right tellin' off." And if there was one thing that Vega knew how to do, she would have to admit herself, it was give people a telling off. "An', as soon as I remembered, it was there. I think maybe it's been there all the time?" She shrugged and grinned, tilting her head slightly. "An' if you spend any amount of time there, Arlo Creede, you'll never get no sense out of me."

He listened, and then said that the night - or the return of his hat - had shaved twenty arcs off her. With a frown, Vega lifted her hand carefully to her face. Then, she gave a grin. "Am I all young an' freckled again, rather'n my freckles bein' hidden by wrinkles? Well, see, I never doubted it." Yes, that was a blatant lie and they both knew it, but he would play along, she was sure. At his 'so did the other', though, Vega shook her head. "It were disconcertin' an' I looked well haggard. I don't think you love me for my looks to begin with, an' I know you didn't love me no less. But lets just celebrate the return of the freckles, shall we?" Vega's grin was genuine, and she meant what she said entirely. She knew that she was beautiful in his eyes and that was all that mattered to her.

"Yer well feisty tonight, you are. Aren't you tired?" Vega asked and grinned as he kissed her chest, where the new mark was. "Or is it because I got my youthful good looks back? Or!" leaning forward, Vega tapped the brim of his hat "Is it cos you missed this an' knew there was somethin' missin' but didn't know what?" Either way, Vega was far from ready to complain.

However, her gaze turned more serious when talking about the magic. How did she know? Vega shrugged slightly. "It's.. there's something more. Maybe it's always been part of me, or maybe it's new, but it's... it's inside me. I think ... I don't know Arlo, I really don't, but..." Vega frowned, trying to explain and then then grinned. Grabbing hold of his arm, she tugged him until they were sitting, perched on barrels, next to a bucket of water. Vega frowned and looked down at the water, a smile playing on her face. "It's everywhere Arlo. The air is quiet, an' almost mournful right now. The water all around us, it's .. it's all beautiful, Arlo." She held her hand out over the bucket, not touching the water.

"But I can feel it, an' it can feel me, an' it's beautiful," as Vega's hand moved, she trailed circles in the air and there, too, the water in the bucket which had been still - after a few moments - it began to swirl too. Just a little, a gentle movement with her. "It's ... well, I'm jus' learnin'. But I can feel them, an' them me, an' I think they'll maybe look after me a bit, you know?" There was a fluttering sensation which Vega couldn't fully describe, but Arlo might notice that, as Vega stopped swirling her hand around and lifted it to his cheek, it was accompanied by a slight breeze.

"It's not too weird, is it?" She smiled as she asked it, because if it was? "I mean, I've got a list of your weirdness to compare it with, an' I'm prepared to fight dirty, if needs be." Leaning forward, she kissed him swiftly and then leaned her warm forehead against his. "So what're we gonna do in Rharne then?" Vega wondered. "Now that you've got yer hat back, an' all?"

[Arlo Creede]

"All along?" Arlo quipped, grinning as he rolled into Vega, pulling the sheets with him and aligning his planes with her curves. Then raising up again on his elbow again, he grinned. "Like in some otherworldly dimension, right beside us, all around us, that can't be seen, heard, smelled or touched by mortal hands?" It was ridiculous of course to think that such things existed, and naturally he was only teasing her. Then Arlo shrugged. "Things just weren't the same without it. I knew it was safe in your hands. I wouldn't have wanted to be the one to cross you." He'd been that one before after all, and pitied the fool that would knowingly run afoul of Vega's temper.

They'd have to agree, he'd added, that her freckles while still as prolific as ever, during the time that she'd aged, had taken on the appearance of smudges rather than dots. He wasn't stupid enough to say that. But he could honestly say, "I'll have those freckles any way I can get them." But she had not looked haggard, he insisted and meant it with all his heart. "You have and will always be the girl I spied on the path underneath that old tree, and the one that I fell in love with."

He wasn't tired, he told her. He never was tired, really, thanks to his Immortal father and the gifts he'd been given. Then again, as he'd said once before, he hadn't quite been all of himself without that hat. She might be right though, about the magic, and it had only been laying in wait, dormant until such a time when it sprung into being. At any rate, when she grabbed hold and tugged him away, Arlo was forced to snag a pair of trousers along the way, and hop into them awkwardly as they went. And then there they were, sat on a pair of barrels, in front of a bucket of water.

He didn't hear or feel what she did. At least not in the way that she was. He could feel a nip in the air that promised that colder weather was just around the next turn. He could smell it and feel it when a storm was on it's way. But it wasn't the same. "Well you're in tune with them then. Nature, the elements. They recognize their own, so why wouldn't they watch out for you?" he asked. "I can't hear what you do, but I felt that breeze," he added with a surprised grin when she touched his cheek, and a breath of air came with the gesture.

"We both know you have your quirks," he teased. "No ground for disagreement there. So this new thing....What do you do with it?" As for Rharne and what they'd do there, well, it used to be that when in Rharne, he'd visit with his mother and mortal father. But his mother was gone then, and his father traveled with them. "Not sure," he said honestly. "Do a little exploring as usual I guess. It'll get cold soon, and then colder still. I suspect we'll be spending a lot of our time lying in."

[Vega]

She'd always be the girl he spied from his tree? Vega looked at Arlo and her eyes swirled with a hundred shades of love for him, as she thumped him companionably on the shoulder and gave a lop-sided grin. "Shurrup, you dweeb," she said. Then, with the slightest of frowns, a thought started to permeate its way into Vega's brain. It would show itself shortly, but for now it needed to percolate. Instead, she made her way outside, unceremoniously tugging him along with her.

Arlo was, of course, supportive and teasing in equal measure regarding her newfound mark and magical ability and Vega frowned, considering it carefully. "Well, Daia's mark is about dancin' an' I can make things, an' meself, younger. As for the magic, I don't rightl'y know jus' yet. I feel like I need to get to know it. Like... you know 'ow you can hear Lyova, an' she's there an' only you can see her? It's a bit like that, 'cept I can't see it. I can feel it, though." She looked at Arlo and her grin was genuine and showed the emotions swirling in her eyes. "It's a bit scary, if I'm 'onest. I mean, I've got a curse from my immortal father, blessin's an' now magic. My body's not my own what with magic freckles, an' what not. But... I think it's about dacin' too, Arlo. I think.. I mean, I don't know how, yet, but it's singin' and I wanna dance to it. I want to play the music so's you can hear it, because it's well beautiful it is."

Sitting there, on low barrels, in front of a barrel of water Vega looked out to sea and she frowned. Thoughts ran through her mind and then she turned back to look at him. "I wouldn't change our life, you know." Obviously, something had just occurred to her, but Vega didn't explain what. She didn't feel the need to. "I mean. I know we don't do none of it like other people do, an' frankly that's a good thing 'cause other people are right borin'. " Charm intact, no doubt, for Vega. "But the thing is, Arlo, I know you know, but I don't think you really do. I've never 'ad a friend before you. Nor a boyfriend nor husband, either, but you know the last bit. An' it's the first bit what matters. I mean, I've met people who I thought I migh' be able to like, but ... you're the only one who I've ever met who I actually want to spend time with. " She shrugged slightly and lapsed into silence.

Just when he was about to speak, almost as though she caught the beginning of the thought for the moment just before his in-breath, Vega suddenly spoke again. "An' I know I don't say it like I should, an' I'm a cantankerous old mare, but I love you too. I've been thinkin' you know, about your Ma." Random thoughts, it seemed, were there for her - but then Vega spilled what she'd been slowly building up to for a few seasons now. "I can't 'ave children Arlo. An' I reckon yer gonna change your mind, one of these trials, about wantin' them. It's 'cos I'm the Mortalborn of Children, see. Ironic, in all ways, is my asshat of a father. Way I see it, there's a few options to be 'ad, but we need to do what we always do an' just face it straight an' true. Are you changin' yer mind about wantin' them?" That was Vega. Middle of the night with the easy questions. Still, he knew her. He'd known she had something on her mind for ages and now, it was out. "Cos if you are, then we could go try an' find out what the problem is with me an' if there's a way around it or somethin'?" And if there wasn't - then there were other options, but she wasn't leading with those. He knew they were in her mind, she knew he knew. Some things were best left unsaid.

[Arlo Creede]

A thump to the shoulder, even better when they were walking and one could cause the other to wobble off course, had always been for them as good as a loving peck on the cheek was for other lovers. It had been the case since the trial they had met. If one of them ever stopped, then the other might have reason to worry. So Arlo merely grinned in response. He'd still rather she stopped calling him dweeb, but it was a burden he'd happily bear nonetheless.

"Well making yourself younger is useful," he said when Vega mentioned it, though now that they knew they were both mortalborn, the likelihood of them aging anytime soon was substantially less than it had been before. Still, whether it was that at work or something else, she'd regained her more youthful appearance. One that actually matched the arcs that she'd lived. Arlo had meant it when he'd told her she was the most beautiful woman he'd ever known, no matter what any mirror had to say about it. But at least now folks would stop looking at them funny on the street, as if Vega was somehow his keeper, and he was the happily kept. Not that he'd ever say that out loud.

"Does it nag you and talk back?" Arlo teased her when she explained that what she was experiencing, was in some ways like what he and Lyova shared. That particular diri was as always, snuggled in on the brim of his hat. "Well it's a lot of change that you've gone through, in a very short time. It's going to be unnerving, even scary," he said then. "It's a lot to take in. I think the thing to do is not to resist it so much or push back. If the spirit moves you, as they say, and you sense it's what you're meant to do, then dance, sing..."

They'd lived very different lives during the time before they'd met off in Desnind. Some would say his was an ordinary, even dull upbringing, while Vega's was the exciting one. "When I was a kid, back on the farm, I did a lot of dreaming," he said. "Traveling on the high seas, living on a ship and exploring the world, never putting a foot down too long in one place, that was the stuff of big adventures. Now though," he told her. "You're my adventure, and I'd have it with you, just you, whether it was on the farm or on the sea." And then he leaned in and gave her shoulder a thump with his own, just as she'd done to him.

But then she brought up children, and it caught Arlo by surprise. Maybe it shouldn't have. It was one of the things people thought about when they came together, no matter their wants or views on the topic. "I know, Vega." He knew she couldn't have children, that was. They'd said early on that they didn't care to have children, though the topic hadn't come up in a while. Had she changed her mind, he wondered? It was also usual, that minds and feelings could change. His own views had softened somewhat, since he knew that she'd make a mother in whose shadow all others would pale. And besides, "We'd make the finest offspring in all the land, that's for sure. And the most stubborn, just like their mother," he teased her before considering the question more seriously.

"Have you changed your mind?" he asked. "I mean I know we said we didn't want them. Of course that was before we had all this family with us, along wherever we go." There'd be no shortage of caretakers, should they want to go off adventuring on their own. "I used to think I didn't want them," he said honestly. "That's changed to thinking it would be a blessing if we had them, planned or not, and knowing that I'd love them." Happy accidents though weren't the same as planning, and it raised another question. "If we were to have them, are you yearning to carry one of your own?" he asked. Some women, after all, probably found the carrying and the blood connection as important as the actual having.

But there were other ways too. "If we wanted children, we could always adopt them," he said. "Our mortal fathers, are our fathers, just as surely as any other loving father is. And you'd never be able to tell them any different, despite the lack of a blood connection."

[Vega]

When he spoke about her looking younger and keeping young, she grinned. "Not jus' me, I think. Things, too. Livin' things. Like, people." Vega looked at him and she knew that there was a whole realm of possibilities, including his step-father. Her mind was still reeling, frankly, but saying it helped her to be clear. Besides, Vega knew, they'd work it out. There were all sorts of questions, but right now they could only begin to deal with it, she was very aware. It would take time, there was no doubt, but there was no rushing. Slowly did it. As she considered that, she shrugged. "An' you know, at least people will stop lookin' at us like I must be really rich or somethin' to have snagged a bloke half my age." Many women would be bothered by that, but Vega? "Made you look well desperate it did. Like you couldn't get a girl yer own age. " She chuckled, well aware that neither of them gave two hoots what anyone thought when they looked at the two of them.

Arlo told her a story, then, about when he was younger, and the dreams he used to have. But she was his adventure? Vega's expression told the deep emotion she felt and her eyes swirled vivid colours. She knew what his thump on her shoulder meant, just as he knew what hers did. "Steady on, Creede, yer gettin' totes emosh, chill." Her hand slid forward and her fingers entwined with his as she said it. "We both know you couldn't manage without me. You'd get lost an' if someone said somethin' mean, you'd cry. Don't you worry yer pretty head, I'll keep lookin' after you." He had changed her life, as she had changed his, Vega knew. Together, they were unstoppable.

It wasn't an easy conversation, the one they had next. But Vega felt it was necessary. She'd never been able to keep quiet when she had something to say; and between her and Arlo there were no secrets. "Cos my life isn't ironic enough," she said with a vaguely bitter lift of her lips. "One o'the things that I can do now, thanks to Daia, is touch two people an' do a thingie, an' then one o' them's pregnant. Man or woman, don't matter. I just can't do that with me. So, I could make another woman pregnant by you without me havin' to kill you for it happenin'." She looked at him and considered not saying the next thing. Just for a moment, she paused. "But I really don't wanna do that. If we ever have a child, an' I don't know if we ever will, then it needs to be equally ours. Either biological or adopted or whatever. But we need to 'ave the same part to play, an' if there was a third person involved I'd have to beat them to death. Which probably wouldn't be good for the kids." Vega shrugged slightly. "I know it's not rational, but I'm not. So I dunno. I don't wanna do that. We could find another person marked by her an' you could get pregnant, but I'm not sure I could cope with you, yer well emotional as it is."

Turning to look at the stars once more, Vega sighed. "Or the truth of it, which is that it'd be weird an' I couldn't cope. An' I'm avoidin' yer actual question." She was, she knew. Breathing in, she was quiet for a moment and then she actually answered. "I don't know if I've changed my mind. Maybe. Maybe I'm gonna, you know? But if I do - if we both do - then I don't care about biology, an' I hate the idea of bein' pregnant. I like my ankles, an' I don't wanna waddle, an' can you imagine how bad tempered I'd be?" It might, in fairness, have to be seen to be believed. "There are kids out there who need people what love them. My Papa, yours. They taught us all we need to know about jus' how important biology isn't."

Had she answered him? Vega wasn't sure. "I might change my mind. Yeah. But I don't want to be pregnant, even if I could be , which I can't." Thumping him no more, she leaned her head against his shoulder and spoke softly. "I don't know Arlo. Not today. Maybe not tomorrow, but realistically? It might be on the cards one trial. Is that ok?"

[Arlo Creede]

It had occurred to him that yes, she might help to enable his own stepfather to live longer, to not age beyond where he was already, or even to go back and start over to a sense. Vega might even do the same for her own mortal father. Arlo in honesty wasn't at all sure how Jonas would feel about that, or if he'd even want it. Jonas Creede was very comfortable in his own skin, and then there was the fact that he still missed Arlo's mother each and every trial. If pressed, he might opt out of the prospect of delaying an eventual reunion.

As for him and Vega, Arlo shook his head and grinned. "If anyone thought anything was out of the norm when seeing us on the streets together," When she'd looked older, that was, "It was envy. They saw and thought me to be the luckiest man on Idalos." And he was, so far as Arlo was concerned. "Then I'll stop right quick before emotion turns to sap. Isn't a good look for me," he teased and bumped her shoulder again. Then Vega went on to explain about why it was she couldn't conceive, carry and deliver a child of her own. She went on in great detail, but there was one point that really got his attention. Not in the way he'd expected, and certainly not one that set well at all.

"First of all, no other women pregnant by me." That was a given, of course, but not the one he felt needed to be stopped in it's tracks. Right quick. "A man? Me?" he asked incredulously, but it was much more than that. "I'm not even going to ask about the mechanics of any of it from beginning to start....And," he said before Vega thought the extra information might be welcomed or well received. "I don't want to. Ever." He'd have a hard enough time getting it all out of his head. "So that's a no."

"I don't know if I've changed my mind, just like you're not sure if you've changed yours. Or if we will in the future. We can't predict those sorts of things. And if we could, would we want to? I only know that if it happened that we ended up with children, I'd be happy, and I know you'd make an amazing mother." Certainly their respective mortal fathers would be happy. So either way, yes was the answer to her question. Whether they adopted one or a couple or came by them by other means, it was more than ok.

[Doran]

Vega:

Knowledge: -
Loot: -
Wealth: -
Injuries: -
Renown: -
Magic XP: -
Skill Review: -
Points: 15

Arlo:

Knowledge: -
Loot: -
Wealth: -
Injuries: -
Renown: -
Magic XP: -
Skill Review: -
Points: 15

- - -

Comments: After this thread, I cannot help but wonder if most Mortalborns have daddy issues (or mommy issues, in case the Immortal parent is woman).

Vega seems to be comparatively calm, considering what happened and what she just found out. I like the way she talks about magic, by the way!

Arlo is a very reasonable man for not using the world “older” in earshot of any woman. I’m also glad that he didn’t react negatively to what Vega told him, but was curious instead!

I enjoy your PCs’ relationship, the constant teasing and the humor. As I wrote in my last review, they are a great couple, and your writing styles compliment each other quite well.

Good job, the two of you, and enjoy your rewards!