Foreward
Before my parents marriage started collapsing we would go to family trips to my grandparetns house at Christmas and my uncle's house for Thanksgiving.
Chris's house was more of a ranch. It stretched over a wide distance with sloping hills and grassy fields with a small pond in one pasture for the cattle to drink from and cool themselves off in. A forest bordered a quarter of the property, stretching into a fence to gaurd the sparkling, crystal blue lake within. The lake was always pleasantly cool, not to cool but not very warm, and was clean enough to swim in. A good thing was that it didn't hold all the reeds that any other lake held.
The ranch was host to a small herd of cattle, hords of cats and dogs, a family of geese and even the ocassional swan. Chris had seven horses, all beautiful and different. One was black with white above his hooves. I loved that horse. He was my special horse and Chris told me one day I could ride him on my own.
Chatou de Chris was large with a wrap-around porch with a whicker swing that faced west, towards the sunset. The inside was as bright as it was outside. Bright, cheerful colors littered every room, mixed with calm earth tones. The building had large windows that were mostly thrown open to catch any breeze that happened to pass by. I loved the whole place. It seemed to call to me.
Anyway, uncle Chris sometimes had friends over, but not to many times. It was fun when he did because gramma, mom, dad and some other family members didn't like who he hung out with. They didn't like the fact that his 'friends' were boys. No one but the select few seemed to care he was gay, they were to invovled in living their own love lives. And usualy they ended in disaster.
The fact that most of my family seemed to attract mates that they could never spend the rest of their lives with, and not notice the fact and get married and then divorced, made me believe that being gay was the way to go. Uncle Chris and his friend Scott always seemd so happy and at peace with each other. They were very much in love if anyone cared to look, which they most often didn't.
Because of Chris and Scott, I didn't develop that unfounded hate towards gays like my friends did. I thought they were pretty brave, going against the grain and enjoying their lives even if a lot of people were harsh towards them. They were different and didn't care. I found that incredibly amazing.
I remember uncle Chris placing me on his knee, smiling brightly, and telling me that I would someday meet someone that loved me and I would love that man back. That was probably the nicest thing anyone had ever said to me because then I had the fear of never being loved and going through life like my disfunctional family.
Then. in a conspiratorial whisper, he would add, "If you're lucky, it'll be a man like I got." I would giggle and we'd both grin. We would quickly look around to see if anyone had heard him, knowing that it would be bad for both of us if my mother heard.
I agreed with him, but if Scott heard us, he would say, "It can be a girl, too." But Scott was always like that, saying the logical thing to make me feel like I had choices where an eight year old shouldn't. Scott was always kind and serious and could be blunt or secretive. That had come from years of being the CEO of his software company. Not that Chris cared that Scott was rich, so I didn't either. Chris was my role model.
The last time I went there, there was a sense of finality to the air that I didn't understand but it made everything seem sad. The child that I was didn't want to except what I suspected was the truth. I knew deep down that I wouldn't be returning to Chris's ranch for a long time. I ran to him and Scott, who had been out in the garden, and cried to them. I didn't want to leave them. couldn't they take me? Of course they couldn't, I had known that, but I didn't want to ever forget them and I was scared I would.
Scott seemed to understand this and pulled out his wallet. Inside, in a thin, plastic case was a Duel Monsters card. The game had just begun to be popular and I only had a handful of them. It was a Flame Swordsman. He told me it would be so I never forgot him, Chris or the ranch.
Chris smiled and pulled a shimmery, black and red feather from behing his ear and handed it to me, telling me it would be my goodluck charm. It had been Chris's feather and the one he had had on him the day he met Scott. He told me it would guide me to my Soul Mate.
I always kept both presents with me, never letting them leave my possesion.
I never knew that Chris's feather would lead me like it lead him. It had excaped my grasp one day in the school parkinglot and I had chased after it. I was like a street kid then, the toughness came easy, from having to leave Chris and Scott and then my sister and mother and living with my dad in a bad part of town. But one thing I would cry over was that feather. And I almost did.
I was only thirteen but I knew when I crashed into another thirteen year old that this person was going to be important in my life. I didn't know how or when, but I just knew that wouldn't be the last time I met that sad looking boy with the scowl on his face as if he thought he would get contaminated from being around me.
And I was right. It ended up we went to High School together. And he was the most stuck up guy I knew. It seemed as if he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders. He did in a way, he had to care for his brother by himself and he had a company to run. But he was also cruel and that made me fight back. I was not to be called names. I was not going to be pushed around by the boy who had said I looked like a puppy chasing a ball in a teasing tone when I fell at his feet with my feather landing on my head.
I had forgotten by then what the story behind the feather was. I didn't see the connection. I didn't want to. That boy became my rival, my enemy, the one I had to show up. 'Course that last one never happened. Yet. He would always be the one to call me names and put me down. But he made me learn not to take things seriously.
That man was going to pay, I had thought, for making my teenage years harder then they needed to be. I had wanted revenge, but I never wanted to extract it. I just wanted to beat him at one thing. Anything.
But Fate has it's own way of evening things out. And what I never expected was what happened.
TBC
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Okay. How did this turn out? Does anyone like it? Does anyone know what's going on? And, it's in Jou's point of view if no one could tell that. Please review. I would like to hear what you think about this Foreward part. Any questions on this part, leave 'em in your review and I'll answer them in the next part.
-Empress Mara