Disclaimer: Psychonauts © Tim Schafer

A/N: My first Psychonats fanfic in a few years. Be kind please!!

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The Gift that No Aquato Should Bear

I'm what you might call a "bastard" child. My father never married my mother, although he did feel free to fill her thought with false promises and hopes that would never come true. You see, my parents were the Sasha Nein and Milla Vodello of their generation. That's right, my parents were Razputin Aquato and Lili Zanotto. My father never found out about me. My mother never wanted him to know. I was an accident, a mistake to both the Aquato family and the Zanotto family. But my mother never even considered an abortion or adoption, even though she was two weeks shy of her eighteenth birthday when I was born. When I was little, she was more like my best friend than my mother. We lived with my Grandfather in Texas in his 6 bedroom 3 bathroom house. During the summer, however, I sometimes traveled with my Grandapa (my father's father) and my father's siblings, my aunt Ophelia and my uncle Raphael. My mother's family is very small...and, besides my mother and grandfather, hated my guts for almost ruining the Zanotto name, even though I took my father's name. But my father's family, especially two of my cousins, Justin, who was 17, two years my senior, and Alora, ten years my junior, loved me to pieces. Justin was Aunt Ophelia's eldest son. He was the "artistic" one in that part of the family. Which is pretty weird because I grew up (partially) in a family of acrobats, lion tamers, and elephant caretakers. I didn't really talk much to her other children because the older ones were busy working on their techniques for that night's show and the younger ones were too busy clinging to their mother and father to pay me any mind most of the time. Alora was the youngest of my Uncle Raphael's family. She was five years old and simply adorable. Justin had his father's dirty blonde hair that reached his shoulders and my grandpa's "tallness" gene which made him tower over most everyone in our family. He had my Aunt Ophelia's dark blue eyes, but my Uncle Dominique's smile and tan skin. Alora had my uncle's (and father's) jade green eyes and her mother's pale skin.

There was one thing that Alora and I could do that no other psychic in our family could do. We could move water and make ice with our thoughts. Which were called hydrokinesis (the ability to manipulate water) and cryokenisis (the ability to manipulate ice). That made us a little...weird. That also made me a bit of an outcast in my mother's family because few people could do it in the world. Then we found out that the Galochio's, my father's family's enemy, were particularly famous for that ability. When we had time, Alora and I would put on water shows for the younger kids and Justin when we were bored. She was pretty good at it, but I was much better. I could twist the water and ice to make people and animals and icons. I could easily walk on water and dance along it.

I loved to dance. Dancing made my problems go far, far away. The more I danced, the further into my imagination I soared. Alora called me "the maiden of the sea" because my water "bending" reminded her of an old legend Grandpa had told us when we were little. Also, it was what my name meant in Russian. I had an embarrassing habit. I liked to strip my clothes and dance around invisibly while making ice and water figures dance around me. It was relaxing, but thankfully no one knew I did it, not even Alora. Things were so perfect in my life. I may not have had many friends, but I was happy. Then my grandfather, my mother's father, got a "wonderful" idea. One that my mother, my grandpa, and my Uncle Raphael agreed with. One that I hated with every fiber of my being. They decided that Alora and I would be the first campers to participate in the two month reopening of Whispering Rock Psychic Summer Camp, the camp where my parents first met.

0O0O0

I threw my bags into the back of my mother's car with aggression. I was angry with my entire family, except Alora. Even Justin had betrayed me by giving the idea to my Grandpa and Uncle Raphael. I wasn't talking to anyone except my sweet, loyal cousin. She was scared about going to a camp. She didn't have any friends, she never had. Not many people want to be friends with a "circus freak". My mom tried to tell her that at this camp she would make new friends, but I couldn't tell her otherwise. I wasn't that cruel. I knew in my heart that it was only a matter of time before she too turned against me. I wouldn't blame her.

"How long are you going to give me the cold shoulder?" Justin asked. I ignored him. He punched my shoulder playfully and grabbed me into a choker hold.

"JUSTIN!" I screamed.

"You know that this will be for your own good! Alora's too!"

"Then why doesn't she just go?!" I asked trying to wrestle away.

"Because you need it, you antisocial bitch!" He said. Justin weighed a good thirty pounds more than me, so I wasn't getting away.

"Did you just call me a bitch?" I asked him.

"Yep." He laughed. I threw water at him from the stream next to the campsite. He laughed even more.

"Marina!" Grandpa called from the caravan. "Come here, I want to talk to you." Justin picked me up and shoved me towards the caravan.

I entered the caravan and sat down on the floor in front of my Grandpa's chair.

"Marina, what is troubling you?" He asked.

"Nothing." I said. Of course he didn't believe me. He was a psychic after all. "Grandpa?" I asked.

"Yes?"

"Where is my father?" I finally asked. A safe question. "Why did he leave my mother?" That was a more difficult question.

"Your father is in Australia...at least he was the last time I heard from him. He left because the older he became, the more he believed that he was too good for this life. He wanted to be famous, to have his face plastered on True Psychic Tales Magazine and travel the world doing fantastic missions and save important people. Marina, has Truman ever told you about the accident?"

"What accident?" I asked as a reply. My grandfather never told me anything about an accident.

"Well," He sighed, "From along the grapevine, I heard that my son, your father, was in a terrible accident. There was some brain damage, but it wasn't serious. It just messed with his memories a bit. When your mother tried to contact him, he never replied. He left and no one has heard from him since. That was when your mother was three months pregnant with you. Your father, whether meaning to or not, left her alone with barely anything. She had no where to go but to her father's house or New York. She had 200, a bus ticket to New York City, the necklace that she had gotten for her seventeenth birthday from your father, and the promise ring that he had given her before he left. She changed her mind at the last minute, got a refund on that bus ticket, and moved back into her father's home. Then you were born." He smiled. "And your mother decided that the ring and necklace were rightfully yours." I touched the necklace that hung around my neck. It was a tarnished silver flower necklace with a dark blue stone in the middle. The clasp had been broken even when my mother gave it to me for my thirteenth birthday. It sometimes came undone and the necklace would slide off my neck, most of the time I never really noticed it was gone. The ring was also...broken. My mother said it was like that when she had gotten it. The diamond was missing and the silver was tarnished so badly, it was almost bronze and silver at the same time. It had cost my father every penny to his name, or at least that was what I was told.

"Will I ever get to meet him?" I asked. Grandpa laughed.

"Marina, Fate is a funny thing." he told me. "Some psychics can see into the future, yet they don't know a blasted thing about what will happen! You may meet your father one day or maybe you will never see him in your entire life. It is all up to Fate to decide."

"I guess you're right." I mused.

"You know, going to this camp will open so many doors, Marina." He sighed. "If you just keep helping out here during the summer, you will get nowhere. If you work at strengthening your powers, who knows what the future will hold for you! Besides, you need to at least be there for Alora."

"But Grandpa, it's two months!" I whined.

"Marnia Lili Aquato," He said sternly, "you are going. You are going to make friends. You are going to strengthen your pyrokinesis and dazzle all with your hydrokinesis and cryokinesis. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes, sir." I sighed. He touched my shoulder lovingly.

"Marina, I think it is time." He reached into a drawer in the end table next to his chair and pulled out a pair of red goggles. He handed them to me. "These were your father's when he was a little younger than you. Before he left, he left them in my care. Now it is time for them to be yours."

"Grandpa...I...I don't know what to say." I gasped.

"Promise me that you will write me letters from camp."

"Promise." I said. I slipped the goggles on and used them as a headband to keep my hair back. My mother honked the horn from outside. "Goodbye," I said.

"Goodbye for now." he smiled. He opened the door using telekinisis and I got up and left. Justin was in the front seat with my mother and Alora was in the backseat. I sat down next to her and turned around so I could look out the back window. I watched the circus grow smaller and smaller until I couldn't see it any longer.