Petra gave a small smile to the little being that took its sustenance at her breast, her little Portia, her Mother’s true namesake.
Portia’s baby mouth detached from Petra’s nipple, as small arms swam with excitement through the air, and Petra gave the baby’s back a pat.
“Mother?” Aurelia said in a low voice.
"Yes?" As Petra looked at her older daughter, she gave more pats on the back of the younger one and finally heard a burp. Her little girl was probably still moping around for being unable to see her friends from the neighborhood as often as she had used to. Unlike her solitary older brother, whose only friend growing up had been Neiran, Aurelia was a small leader for the local children and the forced separation from her friends fell heavily on Petra's little girl. But it had to be done, considering the circumstances.
Many differences aside, Petra had learned that Tercius and Aurelia shined in an equal light in a few areas, but nowhere was the similarity as striking as when Aurelia was asking questions.
Mother, why is your stomach growing?
What’s wrong with Grandmother?
Where did Father take Grandmother?
When will they come back?
Is that my new sister?
Why are these men coming to our home every day?
Who are they?
What do they want?
Why can’t I go play with my friends?
Why can’t I leave the house?
All perfectly valid questions, but for some of those Petra had no answer and for others, she didn't know how to answer a seven-cycles-old child. Mother would probably know what to say… Petra thought and sent a prayer to her Mother’s Deity. Please, take care of her. Please.
As Petra wondered what question her daughter would ask now, she remembered the curious green eyes of a baby Tercius, seemingly brimming with restrained questions. Even as her baby boy grew up, those eyes had stayed the same.
“Mother, I was wondering. If I can’t leave, can my friends come over? We can play in the garden—”
“Anybody home? It’s me, Tercius.” Petra heard the words, loud and clear, and for a moment her insides came alive only for a rain of doubt to douse her momentary bout of joy.
How could he be here?
Dozens of times now, ever since he had left, over a cycle ago, her son's voice had spoken words like that to her— Tercius came to her in dreams, but it would seem that the dreams were no longer capable of containing the call.
“Did you hear that?” Aurelia asked, pointing towards the currently open window.
“Hear what?” Petra asked in a whisper while hugging Portia closer to her chest and focused on her hearing. Tercius being here was her wishful thinking. Her boy was either with that deceiving dirtbag that was her brother-in-law, or she was wrong about Lux and the boy was with the mages just as he intended. But, she simply had no way to know for sure. If someone was in the house, then it was probably those men. But if those brain-rotten sons of pox-ridden fleas think that they can enter her home without—
Instead of answering her question, Aurelia got up and ran with incredible speed towards the window.
“Aurelia! We need to go and wake up your Grandfather,” Petra hissed in a whisper, even as her heart came alive with fire. Why couldn’t they just leave her family alone?! If she had a way, Petra would fuck them up so much that they wouldn’t be able to sit on any part of their bodies! A few moments in her mercy and she would leave them toothless so that they would only be able to…
Internally cursing her soon-to-be-dickless tormentors while using words which her Mother would never approve of— extremely careful not to say a bad word out loud where her babies might hear— Petra stood up and scooped up Leo, much to the boy's vocal delight.
“That button nose seems familiar…” said that same familiar voice from before, almost playfully, and Petra became rooted in the spot, halfway to the door, as she held the squirming Leo in one arm and Portia in the other. That voice… Her mind must be playing tricks on her. He can’t be here… he can’t…
“Hmm… Who might you be… I know… You’re Aurelia, right?” As if to prove her wrong, the voice sounded again and her heart started pounding.
“Tercius!” Aurelia shrieked and Petra’s breathing halted along with the world.
As Aurelia stood atop her toes, trying to get a good look down into the inner garden, Petra came to stand near the window one slow step at a time, afraid that her mind was somehow playing with her.
Standing in the middle of the garden, wearing a white shirt and light-brown pants was Tercius. He was a bit taller and gone were his beautiful dark locks, replaced by a very short and even growth of hair, but incredible as it seemed, that was Tercius— she had no doubt.
Her mouth opened and closed, repeatedly, even as she came to accept that he was here and her eyes misted over.
“Tercius,” she whispered.
Suddenly a desire took over her and she just wanted to jump through the window to hug him right where he stood. So what if she broke a leg or two? It would be worth it. But the weights in her arms held her to the floor, her two babies squirming as they sensed her agitation.
Her boy was here. It didn’t matter one bit of why or how he came here. That he was here, was all that mattered.
A tear fell on her cheek and she felt it slide down, even as she gave a laugh that sounded like a whimper.
She found it difficult to look away from her boy, but Petra’s eyes moved to the three strangers that stood behind him, and for a moment Petra didn’t know what to think.
There were no women in the group that came to her door almost daily, and one of the three strangers that stood behind Tercius seemed to be just a little girl—
“Mother,” her boy said with a small dip of his head, his eyes looking up at her.
“Huz dat?” Leo piped in, his chubby finger pointing down.
***
It took barely four seconds for a small dark head of hair to appear in the corner of the window after Tercius hailed the house. Her wide-open green eyes and button nose peered over the edge of the window, and Tercius the words came to him with familiar fluidity.
"That button nose seems familiar…" Tercius said playfully. "Hmm… Who might you be…" The already wide eyes went a size bigger and Tercius smiled. "I know… You're Aurelia, right?"
“Tercius!” Aurelia shrieked, her curious face suddenly coming alight with joy.
Like a ghost, Petra appeared behind Aurelia, holding one curious thumb-sucking three-year-old in her left arm and a bundled baby in the right, both kept close to her chest. Her face kept changing between disbelief and joy, and for a moment Tercius thought that he had broken her somehow.
"Tercius," she whispered, and then her eyes misted over, as a small tear fell from the window. A small sob broke from her and Tercius felt his own eyes heat up.
“Mother,” Tercius said with a forced calmness, as he bowed his head slightly in greeting. His dark-haired mother seemed the same as on the day they parted, if a little tired.
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“Huz dat?” Little Leo asked with wide eyes, one finger pointing at him and the new arrivals.
At that moment Aurelia shrieked his name again and her head disappeared from the window. He heard a door crash and he could just imagine her racing down the corridor and skipping two stairs at a time to get to the ground floor.
“Aurelia, what did I say about running in the house?” his mother thundered with matronly brimstone, even though her voice was tied down with emotion. She realized the same thing he did. “If you fall down those stairs and break your nose again, I will make sure it stays crooked this time! Is that understood?”
“Yes, Mother!” came the loud reply.
Suddenly, Leo placed a tiny hand over Petra’s mouth and whispered something to which his mother laughed joyously. “Oh sweetling, your granddad won’t mind me shouting. But you and your sister can’t because… err… Well never mind that now. Look who’s there! It’s your brother! He came back!” she exclaimed, her voice high.
Tercius heard Seliana utter something behind him and he realized his oversight.
"Mother, we have guests," he said while indicating to the three women who stood a meter behind him.
Petra inhaled deeply and reluctantly removed her attention away from him. "I see that. Welcome to my home, guests of my son. Tercius, take the guests to the living room and then go make them something to refresh themselves. I'll be there in a moment, I just need to wake up your grandfather. He'll be mad from joy when he sees you,"
The next moment his mother, Leo, and the new baby were gone from the window.
As they vanished, his breath was taken from him in a brief exhale. That had been… intense. His heart was still beating in his ears.
After a second of forced composure, he turned and said to the guests, “Please, follow me,”
Tercius had barely gotten past the open door when something slammed into his left side. The top of her head reaching just past his lower ribs, Aurelia held onto him with her small arms, seemingly afraid of this being a deception of some kind. He hugged her back, even as he crouched to pick her up. "Oof. Getting a little heavy there, are we?" he said as he pretended difficulty in handling her weight. "Bigger too. You must have been eating my portions for the past cycle,"
She gave him a small shove and a teary hiccup even as she placed her arms around his neck and nestled her head between his neck and shoulder. Once he was sure that he could still carry her this way and that she was holding on tight, Tercius inclined his head to the three followers to follow after him.
“I’m just kidding with you. If anything, you seem thin and small. When will you catch up with grandpa if you slack now? I know! The shovel you eat with right now is probably too small! We need to order a bigger one—”
“I don’t eat with a shovel!” Aurelia came out of her shell, her green eyes teary yet narrowed with outrage.
"Oh?" Tercius pretended surprise and then he nodded. "Oh my. Well, that explains why you're still so small and leaf-thin. When I was your age, I was a head higher than you are now, because I ate with a shovel.”
His little sister laughed. “You’re lying. You never ate with a shovel. I would remember something like that,” she said, completely sure of herself.
“I’m lying? Just ask mother who destroyed half of the dishes with a shovel, she’ll tell you,” Tercius said, giving her a convincing face. “Later, she gave me a bucket to eat out of,” he whispered and she giggled.
Amused by the images he conjured, Aurelia looked at him— slightly dubious, but no longer as confident. "You're making it up,"
Tercius shrugged to his little sister, even as he waved his guests to their seating spaces. “Think what you will. Aurelia, is there any juice in the house?”
Aurelia nodded. "Yea, but I'm not allowed to touch it. Mother says it's for guests only," she looked at the three guests, probably for the first time since she saw them from the window.
Tercius nodded. He knew that something was always kept on the side, for impromptu guests. "Sister, these are Penelope, my classmate, Seliana, her mother, and Mistress Kalina, my… teacher. Everyone, this is—" Tercius said, indicating with an open hand at each individual.
“Mistress? Whose mistress is she? Not yours?” Aurelia asked curiously.
A sudden dread overcame him and a frantic Tercius whispered harshly, "No, it's not like that! It's a title…" A glance at Mistress Kalina showed a slight frown on her face. He had to apologize, right now. "Mistress I'm sorry, I—"
Mistress Kalina waved him away, the frown barely dipping, as she sniffed the air. “Think nothing of it. It certainly isn’t the first time it happened, and it won’t be the last.”
Tercius nodded, uncertainty plaguing him. Why was the woman sniffing and frowning? The last thing he wanted was to offend Mistress Kalina. The versions of Empire’s Common that those at the Pyramid spoke were nearly identical to the spoken language of the Empire, but some differences existed and while some words were synonyms in one version, in the other they were as far apart as they could be. Even as Tercius regained his bearings and made a note to explain a few important things to his family, he pointed to Aurelia. “Everyone, this little troublemaker—” he gave her a look that even after over a year of separation still seemed to have an effect. “—is Aurelia, my little sister,”
“Tercius! Bah!” a deep voice yelled from the floor above, startling Seliana and making Penelope jump in her seat. In the ensuing silence, spoken in a lower tone than earlier, they heard when Ciron said, “I’m tired, Petra, and in no mood for your jokes. Go away,”
“It’s not a joke,” his mother raised her voice to match her father. “I told you, he’s in the living room! No, don't close your eyes. Get up! Father! Get up now! Ahhhh!”
Tercius looked at Aurelia. “Why are they yelling so much?”
“Grandpa’s hearing is really bad,” Aurelia said, shaking her head in the same way Petra usually did.
"Sister, can you keep company with our guests while I go up for a moment? Penelope here is in the same Academy as I, you know. You can ask her all of your questions… but be polite, you hear?" The more he spoke, the more Aurelia's eyes shone. His little sister agreed readily. Tercius put his almost eight-year-old sister down and she sat near Penelope, immediately striking a conversation.
As for him, Tercius did something he didn't do for a long time. He focused on those sensations in his lower and upper legs, his chest and lungs, and even his arms when Running was active. His high-level skill came to life and for the first time in months, he ran. Aurelia’s cries of not fair entered his ears, and he realized that he shouldn’t have ran, but…
The living room became a blur, followed by the long hallway that led to the front door where he took a left and ran up the staircase to the second floor, heading for the room his grandparents used. The world only slowed when he made a stop in the open door frame.
Ciron’s back was turned to Tercius, as he laid on his bed, Petra standing near Ciron’s head with two babies in her arms. “You stubborn— Look, there he is. There’s your precious grandson,” Petra said, looking straight at Tercius with a smile.
“Let him rest, Mother,” Tercius said loudly. “If he’s too tired to greet me, then he’s too tired to greet me—”
Ciron jerked and rolled over to his other side, now looking straight at Tercius with dark eyes. Without a word, his grandfather got up and took three giant strides towards him, only to take him into his arms, much like Tercius hugged Aurelia. Tercius's arms came around Ciron’s chest, barely touching by the fingertips, and he tried to give as big of a squeeze as he got. “My boy,” Ciron rumbled, his deep voice choking with emotion.
Tercius's feet dangled in the air, as his eyes looked over Ciron's shoulder. He saw a smiling Petra come around them and he felt a gentle weight settle under his left shoulder blade. As Ciron crushed him in silence and his mother rested her head on his shoulder, with a corner of his eye Tercius saw Leo. The chubby baby boy who was looking straight at him, and Tercius got a bout of nostalgia for the game the two of them used to play.
"Boo," he said, and just like before, Leo gave a brief gasp and used his small hands to cover his eyes. Tercius's eyes moved of their own volition to the right, as the baby boy's skill came to life, and he had to push his eyes to remain on the boy.
Giving him a firm push with her forehead, Petra gently admonished him. “Don’t do that. Do you know how difficult it has been finding Leo without you?”
Tercius smiled, content.
Who knew that playing peek-a-boo with a one-year-old on daily Energy intake could create a skill that would make someone's eyes move away from you? Leo's skill was truly strange. Tercius had postulated that the skill was similar to looking at the sun without protection— at some point, you either had to close your eyes or look away.
The best part about the skill was that you didn’t know that the sun was there!
He and his family knew the trick, so they had an advantage. Leo had gotten the skill just two months before Tercius had left Nurium with Lux, and by now the boy most likely had gotten the skill close to its first barrier. I wonder if he has gained any other skills? In the beginning, Tercius had used Mana Sight to find the boy, a method on which Leo’s skill seemingly had no influence, but his family had learned to use that seemingly natural repulsion as a way to seek out the boy. You look for the boy where your eyes don’t want you to look, it was as simple as that. Plus, Leo’s mana pool was small and the skill had been at a low level, which had been barely enough for a minute of use when Leo had just gotten the skill.
"How long can Leo use the skill now?" Tercius asked on an impulse while patting the back of his grandfather. Ciron seemingly had no desire to let him go.
"I don't know. Recently he has started using it to hide away, and then he stops with the skill until someone comes near him. He then uses it until he relocates. It's… annoying. Your sister sometimes searches for him for hours," Petra answered. "Come on, Father, let Tercius go. We have guests to attend to,"
“A minute longer,” Ciron rumbled.
Petra chuckled. “Alright. You stay a minute and I’ll go to— Tercius, who are those women?”
“They are from my Academy—”
He felt Petra’s head leave his back with a rapid jerk. “Did you give them something to drink?”
“I… no, I got distracted—”
“No time for hugging left then. Father, take Leo, Tercius take Portia. I have guests to attend to,” Petra said. “Now.”
Reluctantly, Ciron let Tercius go. As Tercius’s grandfather took Leo from Petra, Tercius gently took his new baby sister with some tentativeness. The baby was tiny, at least visibly smaller than Aurelia or Leo had been at three months of age. She looked at him with wide black eyes, the eyes of his father. Septimus will be pleased that at least one child got his eyes. “Is she—”
Bending over the baby that cradled in his arms, with her arms finally free, Petra hugged him and Tercius used his free arm to hug
her back. He took a deep breath of that familiar smell and he knew that he was home.
"I thought you said that there was no time for hugs left?" Ciron rumbled to their side, amused.
"I'm his mother. I'm allowed to be an exception," Petra stated as she kissed him on the forehead. "Welcome back."
***
“— and this is Mistress Kalina,” Tercius introduced his mother and grandfather.
Petra and Ciron exchanged a brief glance when he said the word, and Tercius cursed at himself for forgetting to warn them, but he released a sigh of relief when neither asked the question that he saw in their eyes.
His guests, on the other hand, seemed completely taken by his grandfather. Ciron towered two heads of height over the tallest of the three guests, Seliana.
The introductions concluded, his mother started asking the polite, standard questions that Tercius always found utterly unnecessary in a conversation. From weather to asking about what Tercius was back at the Academy, the chit-chat took a lot of valuable time.
For example, he could have asked them why the front door was barred and they could have asked how he and the guests had come into the house. He could have asked where Rona, Septimus, and Neiran were, and they could have asked him why did he suddenly appear?
But instead of asking these important questions, he had to wait for the polite part to be over as he watched over his newest sibling. Portia. That was Rona's old name if he remembered correctly.
His grandfather barely spoke a word and the whole time he just kept looking at Tercius. Tercius kept giving him assuring nods, which seemed to mean a lot to the old man. It was as if Ciron was afraid that Tercius would evaporate if he looked away.
“—I saw an inn down the street,” Mistress Kalina said. “We will stay there,”
“Absolutely not. You are our guests and we have more than enough space,” Petra said and got up from her seat. “Let me have fifteen minutes and your rooms will be ready. You will certainly need rest after your journey. Tercius, show them where the bath area is,”
Without allowing another word to be said about accommodations, Petra left the room.
When he turned to Mistress Kalina, he saw the same question that he saw when Seliana had been pushing herself to come with them. He shrugged that unspoken question. Besides, his only true resistance from Petra's and Seliana's kind came in the form of physical distance, preferably measured in kilometers.
When the distance was not an option and to do was usually faster than to argue— it was simply more efficient to go with the flow.
It seemed to Tercius that Mistress Kalina knew that, as well.
“Let me show you.”