Down the hill, the beach was blue, its secluded reaches bathing in the seasonal bioluminescence of the summer plankton and casting its ethereal glow part-way up the hill. Up on that hill, three misfits were gathered in the long grass, speaking sparsely, looking off towards the end of an old dirt road in the near distance, where a tall, dark-haired woman with olive skin stood watch for them, jean jacket blowing in the late breeze — Sheila, Marlow remarked again, as if they could never resist turning the name over in their mind despite the time; it always had a good feel to it. The last echoes of twilight hung in the sky.
“...This is a bad idea.”
“...What?” came Marlow’s response (God, trying to use that name again still felt so strange — not wrong, but certainly not quite right yet, either.)
The computer in their arms, too seemed confused by the sudden timidness of their companion, expression changing to one of unabashed perplexion. “Seriously? Come on, you’ve — we’ve come all this way! We did all this! Everything we lost, we — we worked this whole moment out — you can’t back out now, they’ll be here!”
Sebastian grimaced. “That’s exactly the problem,” he said, his voice laced with nerves. “I don’t know if I can do this.”
“You’ve done everything else,” said Painter, “—and you wanted to do this! It was your idea in the first place, genius. Are you gonna just send them back home? I know what a plane ticket costs, let alone four, and can you even imagine the—”
Marlow’s expression softened — at least, as much as it could, as with a gentle warning growl they cut off Painter’s burgeoning speech. Sebastian huffed in response, crossing two arms and looking away as he fidgeted with his remaining hand. “It’ll be alright,” they began, “you heard them, anyway — they want to see you. You know that.”
“...Yeah.” He replied. “I guess.” — but his face remained concerned. “But— I... they don’t know what I’ve become. This thing that I am. I thought...”
“Does it matter? You’re no thing, I’ll say it a million times, you’re still Sebastian — you’re still... you. That hasn’t changed. They’re still your siblings. You told me they believed in you then, and I’m sure that’s still the case now. Hell, they’re willing to trust in you enough to come here. If they love you, they’ll love you no matter what, right?”
Sebastian only sighed. Anyone with the eyes to see — anyone without, even — could tell just how anxious he was, desperate for an escape from the situation not unlike a caged animal, but there was nothing to do now but wait. Wait — even as the sun dipped its last below the horizon and the light it cast was replaced, in time, by that of the nascent moon and their own glows, whatever they were, beaming a medley of soft colour onto the gently swaying grass.
Absentmindedly, Marlow ran their talons along the chassis of their less-organic compatriot, turning their head to look out towards the sea as the thrall of a deep melancholy yoked their heart. Indeed, what if things did go wrong? It had taken a hell of a lot of planning — of desperate convincing, of fielding questions over and over — to even get to this point at all; after all, their collective story was, in a word, unbelievable (and that was ignoring all their individual problems), and Marlow didn’t exactly blame Sebastian’s kin for not being inclined to believe it. Death was that place from which no one in this world returned, especially a death given such spectacle as his — were it to be expressed in a word, irrevocable. So then, to hear that he had somehow evaded its grasp, had come out the other side of the veil alive, certainly felt like a cruel joke; and they hadn’t even yet seen, could not even know, what had been done to him (or any of them, for that matter), the only photos Sebastian had agreed to let them see hailing in their entirety from the before. The likes of surveillance photos, intake photos, what have you, some proof of a deeper force at play, but — the fat, the excess, that cut out all the heinously gory bits, left them unacknowledged — too painful a subject for them, he had said. Better they don’t know, it’s better not to hurt them. Better to let him solve his problems on his own, others didn’t have to help him all the time — all this, of course, to the much-chagrined reception of his partners.
When they’d suggested reconnecting, and by extension saving up to do so, Sebastian was all too quick to seize upon their interest; both Marlow and Painter wondered, then, what he’d say, how he’d explain the obvious, unignorable as it was, much as he was averse to acknowledging it thus far: yet he assured them he’d have a plan when the time came, and he had seemed confident enough in his problem-solving and, being Sebastian, boar-headed as he often was in a time like this — it was an exercise in stubborn futility to try and sway him from his path. A tale of conspiracy, a hint of something darker, an oath to secrecy, was enough to tide them over, to give him time to plot.
...What he didn’t know they’d arranged in excess might hurt him, they thought now, even done with best intent as it was. Going behind his back was a bit of a dick move, admittedly, but Painter was insistent that it might yield some good results, that it might move things along, that it could bring him the closure he was so desperate to pretend he didn’t want, as it were... all things considered, though, there was no more time now to back out; their impending visitors had arrived earlier in the day up in Alberni and were due to arrive here, somewhere safe and secluded, just off the main coast... soon. Soon-ish, at the least.
They stole the occasional glimpse back at Sebastian, who by now had deigned to shift from his initial upright position to a more comfortable one, relatively speaking, coiled in the length of his own body like a great serpent. The look of palpable terror on his face only grew each time they looked, especially those few and awkward times when they caught his eye and watched his wide-eyed stare narrow.
Finally, they looked again towards Sheila — oh, Sheila. Faithful friend that she was, through everything. Marlow was eternally grateful for her, indebted to her grace — for her dedication, her endless kindness, her capacity for love and willingness to lend her aid to their miserable little group even in the face of their unbearably cruel reality. That she’d agreed to help them at all, hell, that she was even still living in Haida Gwaii was a miracle; but she’d told them, in no short order, that this was her home, that she’d no intention of ever leaving it to the proverbial vultures, and that, most importantly, she’d have waited even a thousand years for the return of her suddenly-prodigal friend — (“I just knew you wouldn’t ditch me without saying goodbye, you asshole.”)
Certainly, once the initial shock and apprehension had faded, and proof of the veracity of their identity was exchanged (God bless all those silly childhood rituals), she’d been so willing to hear them out, to empathize, to listen to them regale her with their tales of Hell — Marlow, out of any of them, was again not even sure they deserved the care and respect of someone so spirited. But it was so, and so it was.
The sound of a vehicle coming down the old, gravelly road pulled them quickly from their contemplation, and through a learned kind of instinct they ducked towards the earth even if it wouldn’t do them much good to try and hide, nor serve to protect them any further. Sebastian, meanwhile, was on alert, transfixed by the arrival of the car — an old looking thing, a storied jalopy of a rental that had certainly long since seen better days. It petered to a stop, headlights shining out into the distant dark far past them, and Marlow watched as Sheila walked over to the driver’s side to meet their guest; the first of them at least, since as far as Marlow could tell there was but one person who’d arrived in this vehicle — as they’d expected, really.
As the stranger stepped forth from their transport and was directed in to stand in front of it, Marlow knew just who it was beyond a doubt now, though to be fair this was just a confirmation of what they’d yet suspected — and so too did Sebastian, whose breath hitched in his throat as he pinned his ears back and flattened himself to the ground, his tail twitching, a growl rising in his throat. “You idiots,” he hissed, with panic-stricken rage. “What the hell — I can’t do this.”
“Yes, you damn well can!” Painter retorted, volume appropriately low to match. “You’re Sebastian!”
Marlow had only met the woman a handful of times, and certainly a few lifetimes ago, but even still they knew just who it was, her resemblance to her offspring plainly apparent in everything but her short and stocky stature, the moon glinting off the lenses of the glasses she wore and her warm, amber skin, even in the lowlight.
...Ah. Yes, the woman of the hour. And hopefully, all things willing, this wasn’t a mistake. His mother had arrived.