They stood looking down into the pit, the exploded laboratory out behind the house, the underground facility that Hiru had exploded in his wrath. ‘I had blown it up when I found out about your death. Mother had taken you apart by then, had taken the rest of your body to the catacombs, to her uranium experiments down there so she could radiate you, but she had left your organs here, pickling. I couldn’t let her disrespect your body like that. It was disgusting.’ His voice was flat, matter of fact. ‘Later I had to dig through it all, find your old heart, where the shard was lodged.’ A wince made its way through his stoney expression at the memory. Alene’s heart throbbed. She could imagine it. Hiru, alone, digging through the dirt frantically to find her, his hands literally dirtied, braving the sunlight and the city full of his sins and regrets at the mere hint of her presence outside of the catacombs.
Maybe this was a bad idea. Maybe she shouldn’t have brought him here, maybe he wasn’t ready for it. He looked shut down, dissociated. His face was blank, eyes hooded, heavy and distant. ‘Should we head back? Or would you rather stay here?’ She asked, gently. He looked at her, his expression numb, before realizing himself. ‘I think I’d rather not be here. Can I, can I stay with you?’ Alene was relieved, at least she could give him this, support him by offering her home, if nothing else. ‘Of course,’ she said gently, meaning it wholeheartedly.
They had developed a sort of cadence, much like the one she had previously with Novem, who had still not resurfaced. She hoped he returned at some point, her new guest notwithstanding. She missed him, despite his deceptions.
Unlike with her and Novem, Hiru was the one who would walk the city, gradually overcoming his agoraphobia, and Alene was the one who would come to find him and bring him home. They had strung Hiru up a hammock, so that Alene could have her nest back, weaving a sturdy one out of some colored rope they had found. Alene had insisted on doing a fancy knotting pattern, everything in her home had to be beautiful, and Hiru’s belongings were not excluded. He had smiled fondly when she insisted, letting her have her way. She wondered what their dynamic had been before, when she was Una. She was hesitant to ask about the past, not wanting to push him before he was ready again.
They hadn’t spoken about Sym either, both avoiding the swamp implicitly. Alene missed her terribly, and she knew Hiru did too, having seen him looking off in the swamps direction after Alene had explained Sym’s condition. But just like Hiru, she needed time and space to come to terms, and Alene could give her that, at least.
Their relationship was a budding one, one that Alene hoped would bloom into a beautiful flower, rather than wither on the vine. She did her best to coax Hiru, realizing that he was floundering, too overwhelmed by the new experiences of the above ground to know how to talk to her. She could tell he wanted to, he would open his mouth and close it once again as they sat around the fire. If they were going to have a relationship again Alene would have to be the one to lead it. And she was glad she could do this for him. Was glad whenever he let himself need her. She felt so inadequate supporting him as he pushed himself through his fears, braving the world in a way she could only admire. She could see why Una would befriend him.
He was a well of information about her old self, his fondness for her in his every word, once he had realized it didn’t make her uncomfortable to talk about her amnesiac past. Beyond fruit and sweets she now knew that Una loved flying in all ways, not just soaring herself but enjoyed watching the kite soar in the parks, loving how humans found a way to enjoy flying too.
She knew more on their first meeting too. Una had simply appeared one day, interested in the plants Hiru kept in his own private greenhouse, separate from his mother’s vicious one. His was a glass house of cacti, he admitted bashfully that in retrospect he had identified with the way they needed only a little attention to survive, much like his relationship with his mother Veridia. And then she had disappeared, not returning until he was much older, the reason for which was unclear to him. The loss had been hard on him, alone as he was in the sterile environment that was his home with Veridia. She had been his only friend, special in a way that no other future friends were.
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The way he spoke about his mother was very different from how Sym spoke of her, Sym’s begrudging admiration incomprehensible to Alene, given her legacy and the visceral memory she had of being torn apart at her hands. He spoke of her negligence, but the occasional kindness that would always send him into a spiral of self doubt as to the abandonment he felt from her. His resentment was clear, however. He seemed so disillusioned, always expecting the worst of her. Unlike Sym he didn’t believe Veridia had been unwilling to sacrifice him for godhood, but rather that she had found it unnecessary. She was a woman of drive and vision, but also of practicality, and the unknowns of godhood, of losing her humanity would have made her understandably wary. It would have been more appealing to be a demigod to a dead god, Hiru explained, familiar with the machinations of his mother’s mind. The zombie god-king was long gone and so the ties that bound a demigod to their deity would have been unclaimed, making it the prudent choice, powerful, but without the unknowns of godhood, as Gual, Iseult’s father had chosen to risk. What had happened to Iseult, Alene ached to ask, but Hiru’s quiet at the memory of her had silenced Alene, unwilling to push him, delicate as his psyche was. There seemed only one possible outcome, after all, and she was unwilling to risk the delicate thing between them for something that seemed assured.
What was his relationship with Veris like, Alene asked, one night, their joviality over dinner prompting her mouth to move before she even processed the question or how insensitive it likely was. He paused at that, head tilted as he considered. A rueful smile quirked the corners of his mouth. ‘She took advantage of me. For sure. She came to me when I was most vulnerable, right after your death, when I realized just what Veridia had done, what humanity had partaken in.’ He paused, stirring the coals with a branch, flipping a log over, embers sparking and sizzling. ‘But she was also the only one that was there for me. I can’t hate her.’ He leaned back on his palms, curly hair flopping from his eyes as he looked up. ‘I suppose the way she manipulated me reminds me a bit of Veridia, but that’s where the comparison fails. Veridia was always absent, but Veris. Well, she never gives me room to breathe. It’s frustrating, but in a weird way comforting, like all the attention I wished I could have as a child. It’s like, it’s easier to believe she wants what is best for me.’ He looked at Alene, ‘Am I a bad person? For caring for her despite everything?’ Alene shook her head, unsure how to answer him. She didn’t want to lie to him, his atrocities were just as bad as those committed by humanity. But she wasn’t human anymore and she couldn’t speak for how a god would handle the question, still caught up as she was with her own similar, smaller scale atrocity with the little fish god Viisvang. ‘I don’t know.’ She responded, helplessly. Hiru nodded, accepting the answer, no matter how unsatisfying, his eyes dark behind his bangs. He looked away, body language tense.
Eventually they slept, Hiru rocking gently in his hammock, his breath steady, and Alene in her bedding, twisting it around in the nest-like structure she favored.
‘Hiru! Hiru!’ A voice called up from the ground below, and for a beautiful moment she thought it was Sym come back, before realizing the voice was too raspy and far too old to be Sym’s. ‘Veris,’ Hiru said, sighing with resignation in his tone. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll send her away.’ He climbed down.
After a moment of hushed whispers, sinking her back towards slumber, she could hear them talking, but was still half asleep, despite their rising voices. ‘I never forced you to kill them all.’ The raspy voice said, reproaching. ‘You lied to me! You said it would bring her back! That it would recondense her soul!’ Hiru replied, his voice intensifying, the anger and anguish at odds with what he had told her last night about his feelings towards his godly mother, though it seemed reasonable a being could feel more than one way. Should she be hearing this, she wondered. ‘And here she is, just as I said’ The raspy voice sounded extremely self-satisfied. ‘Ha! Just because she’s back doesn't cancel out your other lies, hag. I didn’t ask to become your child, I never wanted to be a god. And I don’t care if I am your son now, you don’t own me, and you will respect my boundaries.’ His voice rang out like a spell in the morning air, lingering with the weight of his words. ‘Alright,’ Veris finally replied with finality, ‘alright.’
Hiru returned some time later, his words after having been at a more reasonable volume. The air around him seemed lighter, somehow. Alene was unsure whether she should announce that she was awake or not, was that conversation too private? ‘She is so much like Veridia sometimes it almost makes me nostalgic,’ Hiru relieved her of the decision. But he was smiling. ‘She lies to me and manipulates me, but unlike Veridia, I think she’ll listen.’ She smiled back, her smile hazy with sleep. Tomorrow was going to be a good day, she could feel it.