Dark rainclouds loomed on the horizon, their threatening throng amassing by the minute. Titania was, as she often was, lost in her work out in the little common room, assembling carefully the pages of a book she’d just recently finished detailing the catalog of local herbs and their practical uses. To be completely truthful, though, the main thing she was doing right now was killing time waiting for Ezekiel to come home. The… newest addition to her household had expressed interest in spending time with the hippogryphs down at Priam’s place, and she saw no harm in allowing him some time away from the house with her family friend (Priam wasn’t exactly young now, but he sure was spry, and if he could wrangle and tame wild animals and his kids at the same time then surely he was a pair of safe hands), even if some nagging part of her still felt some nervousness in doing so.
The two were getting along fine, now, sure; but Titania wanted to be a little less “scary roommate” and a lot more “mother figure”, even it had been a good long while since she had, personally, been responsible for a child of her own. It also wasn’t particularly helpful that said kid was walking around wearing a face that was just enough like the face of the dead friend she’d inadvertently gotten killed for comfort, but… that was hardly his fault, and though she had a suspicion she might know the truth of his existence she didn’t feel like heaping another earth-shattering revelation onto his place at a time like this. The kid had nearly been eviscerated a few weeks ago, for Titan’s sake! Still, she felt herself being more distant than she’d like to be (and maybe sending him off on his own instead of, you know, doing something with him didn’t help, but she also wanted to foster a little bit of teenage rebellion in the kid! …Given that most of the time he either hid around the house— or, in recent days, was eerily obedient, always doing exactly what she told him to do, which would have been nice if it was coming from a normal child and not a half dead one with no lack of evident problems).
It was getting awfully dark outside as she sat lost in quiet contemplation; she’d inadvertently stopped working on her book and instead let her chin rest on her hands as she stared off into swirling memories of the past. Her gaze slowly drifting towards the window, she jolted back to attention, standing up suddenly with a muttered curse on her breath. Her sudden and instinctual feeling of worry spurred her into action, a recurrent nagging feeling in her gut coming back to haunt her. It was unlike Ezekiel not to listen— or, well, obey— even when she was trying to foster that aforementioned rebellious streak… and as much as she almost always truly, truly wanted that, this was not one of the times she did.
With a final stretch of her aching bones she grabbed her cane from where it rested, propped up by the front door. Loyal old Oberon, of course, stayed behind where he was by the table, watching her from his post. With a smile and a quickly chuckled “be back soon, old man,” Titania was off, pulling the door shut behind her as she stepped out into the still and warm air, the lack of noise a telltale indicator of just how close the storm was getting.
There was no time to dawdle. Hoofing it down the beaten path and taking a sharp left towards the farm, she was dead set on making it to Priam’s as fast as demonly possible, cursing her bad leg as the stress of unanticipated and panicked exertion brought back old pains. Pushing down the urge to stop, however, was her specialty, and she repeated this notion to herself as she limped up the stones that led up to the other witch’s place. Said place was notably marked by at least a dozen hippogryph scratches all across the ranchhouse’s front, and some of the calmer members of the herd were perched quietly atop the thatched roof. They craned their necks and stared intently at her as she pulled herself up the porch steps and reached out to grasp the door knocker with one strong hand.
It only took a knock or two before the door swung open. Priam’s familiar face was there to greet her, as always. He gave her a quick smile when he looked up at her, but his face quickly fell when he saw the stern grimace etched across her features.
“I suppose you’re not here for a chat, are you,” he said bluntly, not even bothering to intonate it as if it were a question. She narrowed her eyes, studying his face. One of Elan’s descendants, he shared the same familiar brown eyes and a similar style of dress, decked out in simple traditional clothing that stuck out against his strangely-decorated foyer, itself swathed in a plague of tchotchkes and art-plastered canvasses.
“Indeed I am not,” she replied, watching his tail twitch anxiously behind him. “I am here for—”
“Your son?”
“The child,” she finished, a great deal of mostly unintentional and honestly rather detached emphasis on the whole, well, lack of relation thing, a last-ditch subconscious effort to pretend like she wasn't worried sick or experiencing any kind of motherly emotions.
“...Mhm. Gotcha.” He stepped out on the porch beside her. “Kid went out on a ride with one of the hippogryphs,” Priam said calmly, pointing out a spot on the treeline. Before she could interject, he added “A trained hippogryph. She’s trained to go that way, walk the bend and come straight home. If she hasn’t come back with him yet, or come running, it probably just means they stopped somewhere for a bit.”
“You seem awful calm about losing a child in the woods.”
“He’s not lost,” he replied quickly, “nor is he stupid. He’s got an animal with an incredible sense of direction, empathy, and,” he pointed to the sky emphatically, “an immunity to our good old boiling rains to protect him.”
“Regardless,” Titania growled, “you haven’t even bothered to check on him.”
Priam sighed, rubbing his temples gingerly with closed eyes. “I have kids of my own to care for, Ty. I told you, he’s a smart kid, he probably just needs some time alone.” He shuffled his feet nervously and glanced up at her out of the corners of his eyes. “And… between you and me, you need to step up your own game a little bit, if I’m being honest.”
“...Excuse me?” she glared down at him.
He seemed cowed, but did not back away. “I’m talking about your whole deal, your level of involvement in this whole ‘parenting’ thing.”
“What about my level of involvement?” she replied, a cautious but knowing edge to her voice. She already knew what he was going to say, on some level, but it almost hurt to hear it from someone else.
“For Titan’s sake, Ty, it feels like you don’t care! Honestly! Calling him ‘the child’ here, ‘that kid’ there.” He gestured with his hands for emphasis, “You do this stuff and then you wonder why he runs off into the woods like a wild animal? It’s because he thinks you don’t like him.”
“I do like him!”
“Okay, do you love him?”
“Of course! Of course I do, I just—”
“You just what?” Priam looked increasingly nervous, standing up to the village chief like this, but beside her worry and a wounded sense of pride Titania was just grateful that someone was willing to give her a reality check for once.
“I… I mean it’s hard, you know, to take care of a kid again,” Only half of the truth, but not a complete lie. Leaving out the dead friend bit was probably for the best. “I’m not sure I’m so good at this kind of thing anymore, if I ever even was.”
“You were, and you can be again. But if you ask me,” he pointed to the sky knowingly, then over at the treeline again, “If you really want a good place to start, then go and get your kid.”
Titania nodded with a short “of course, thank you”, a slight pang of melancholy echoing through her heart as she turned and made to leave, hopping down the same rocky road she’d taken up and bidding her friend goodbye with a warm wave. She moved with a stalwart vigor now, the pain in her poor leg mitigated by a modified gait and the thoughts pounding in her head.
How could I ever be such a fool? She thought, frowning to herself, I’ve gone and ruined everything, haven’t I?
I just hope there’s still time to fix this.