David's Story: A Surrenderverse Sideshot
Chapter 1: Leaving Home
It started with a telephone call. The uncle I had only met once, my mama's brother, was dead. It continued with a story and a fever burning brightly through my veins. At the end, my world had been turned upside down and my home, my beautiful bayou, where I had once hoped to live and die, was lost to me.
I hated this cold, rainy place I was now tied to. I missed the sun and the warm humid breezes that carried the scents of magnolia, mangrove and my beloved lilies that couldn't survive this far north. I even missed the buzz of the mosquitoes over the waters of the bayou where I was born. Over time and with the help of my Alpha and my pack, I came to accept the life that was now mine, even find some measure of peace.
When my Alpha's mate arrived and one of my cousins was sent upriver, I found something I had lost, a home. Even though I will always morn my lost lilies, I found my place and am satisfied, but that is a different tale, and not mine to tell. This is the story of how I came to be in this cold and lonely place and of how I came to be what I am.
I suppose I should start at the beginning, how I came to La Push in the first place. I was born in Lily Bayou, Louisiana, a tiny town surrounded by bayous, about 15 miles west of New Orleans. My mama, a Quileute woman by the name of Avonlea, came down here from Washington State in the mid-seventies to go to the University of Louisiana. She immediately met my daddy, Micah, who she always says is the palest white man with the most striking eyes she had ever seen. Four years later they were married, and together they produced the oddest looking baby Lily Bayou had ever seen. Me. Due to complications with my birth, I would be my parent's only child, but at that point I am sure they figured one was enough.
Now fast forward nineteen years and you have a 6'5" tall brick house of a man, with strawberry blonde curls, my daddy's ice-blue eyes and my mama's dark bronze skin. Trust me, the first few times you see me, you look twice. So, anyway, here I am, a year out of high school with no plans on going to College or ever leaving the Bayou. I earned my living taking tourists fishing out on the safer bayous and locals out to the deeper ones. I was a legend, nobody knew those waters better than me, I never got lost and I never ran across more trouble than I could handle. It was a good life, working my own hours and making enough money to afford a place of my own, dinky though it was. I had Lyla and Lex in my bed every night, I was even thinking about asking them to marry me. I wish I knew how they are, I wish I could have explained or at least said goodbye, but I hope they are happy wherever they are.
Ahem, sorry, I just… you know what, never mind, back to the story at hand. I knew something was up when my mama showed up at my apartment and started packing me a bag…
"David! What is going on, where are you going?" Lex said, running up to me when I walked into the apartment.
"What are you talking about? I ain't going anywhere 'cept to get Lil in an hour". I said.
"Then pourquoi votre mère in the bedroom packing a bag for you?" Lex practically shrieked. I wrapped an arm around him and pinched the bridge of my nose. Alexis is a bit of a drama queen, but when he lapses into French, he is seriously upset. I took his face in my hands and forced him to look at me.
"Alexis, mi amour, I just got home, I don't know why my mother is here. Just calm down, stop speaking French and we'll find out what's going on." I said, kissing his forehead and leading him to the bedroom.
"Mama, what's wrong? You know you're scaring the stuffing outta Lex, right?" she didn't even look at me, just kept packing the bag. "Mama! Talk to me damn it, what are you doing? Where are we going?" I grabbed her arm and she finally looked at me. Her eyes were red and swollen, I could tell she had been crying, but she still didn't say anything.
"Mama?" I said, my voice breaking, "Mama, please, now you're starting to scare me." When she finally spoke, it was worse than I expected, it was the beginning of the end.
"Your uncle is dead," she said, holding back tears, "we have to fly up to Washington of the funeral." With that, she turned back to the bag she was packing.
My eyes widened in shock. I had only met Uncle Harry once, when I was about 10, but I remembered him, a mountain of a man who taught me to track just about every living thing, how not to get lost and who looked so very much like my mother. Dimly I felt someone pulling me out to the living room and sitting me down.
"Lex…" I whispered.
His thin arms came up around my neck, pulling my head down to rest against his chest. "Hush now, amour, I will get Lyla, you will go with your mother, and when you come back, we will be here. It will be alright. Lyla and I both love you, remember that."
I nodded and held on to him. It was all I could do, I was frozen with shock. Soon enough my mother emerged from the bedroom. With my bag in in one hand and my own hand in the other, she led me to the truck where my father was waiting. That was the last time I saw Lex and Lyla. Even years later, I look back on that day and wonder if, in some weird way, Alexis knew I wasn't coming home.