Disclaimer: I do not own the Underland Chronicles.
Author's Note: Okay, this is my first fanfic in this fandom, but as a lover of the series I was seriously amazed by how few stories there are about Hazard's mother so I thought I would write this. That said it isn't singularly about Hamnet, Hazard, and his mother. There will be Gregor, Luxa, and a lot of the others too. So, about updating, I have no planned dates or anything and have another fanfic still in the works and also I have tons of homework this tri, but I'll get to this one when I can. On the topic of Hazard's mother's name there was a logic to the way I picked it. As many of you know Hamnet was the name of Shakespeare's son, who was believed to have been the influence for the character Hamlet from, duh, Hamlet. Now in that play Hamlet's love interest was Ophelia, therefore I figured that Hazard's mother's name probably would've been Ophelia had Suzanne Collins told us that. I hope you enjoy reading this; I appreciate feedback and reply to most reviews.
How long had he been wandering through the jungle? Were he to be asked that question he would have trouble giving an answer, for he only knew it had been long enough that Regalia now seemed a distant memory in the back of his mind. Now faded to the point it seemed more dream than reality. The water surging through the gates flooding the garden and the screams and chaos of the dying that followed, now a nightmare from a past life that was no longer his own. He was nobody now. No longer was he the perfect, obedient son of Solovet, her best man. He was never going back. How could he bring himself to face that woman he was supposed to call mother ever again? Was there ever a more wretched creature in creation than she? Solovet. Her very name sent a shiver down his back, a month's worth of memories of the suffocating black of that dank cell void of all light attacked his fragile sanity, resulting in yet another migraine. What kind of mother could treat her child so?
So distracted by his thoughts he was he didn't hear the rustling of leaves on the branches until it was upon him. Fervently he reached for the dagger tied to his leg, but drew back his hand upon seeing what it was, well who it was, for it was another human. But it was not a human like himself. Her skin was golden tinted, and the hair, long, curly, and tangled, but most definitely black. She was not alone either; the rustling of leaves forewarned him of the presence of at least one other and what an other it was. A hisser, twenty feet long nose to tail and at a height to almost his shoulders.
They must've been there several minutes, just staring at each other in blatant shock. So far he had run into a number of unexpected things, but of all the things he had seen she was the most unsuspected of them all. With green eyes and black curls she could only be one thing, an Overlander. An Overlander who hadn't been brought to Regalia or captured by rats? The odds were slim of avoiding such fates; not to mention, she ought to have been dead by now. Funny thing was she was looking at him as if he were the outsider and not she. Then again, he wasn't the one with the 20 foot hisser as his companion.
"Do you think he knows how to speak?" the hisser asked the Overlander, who softly chuckled.
"I can speak," Hamnet stated.
The Overlander woman nodded her head, "So I see." Those green eyes were vigilant in their duty as well as quite mesmerizing, beautiful, in fact. Were eyes like hers common in the Overland? Her smile was quite enamoring too, yet awkwardly restrained. She was weary of him. He wondered if he was the first human she had seen in... Hmm... how long had she been down here? If he were the first human she had seen in awhile though, he could understand the weariness. He didn't look like her, their accents differed, and this wasn't home to her like it was to him. Her eyes had moved down to his leg, locked on the dagger there.
He bent over and removed the dagger from its bindings. Her green eyes widened in questioning intrigue as he handed it to her. As she tested its weight it all too clear she had never held a weapon before, nor did she care to as her crinkled nose hinted.
"Well, who are you?" she asked suspiciously.
"Who am I? Who are you?"
"I asked you first."
The hisser's set stare unnerved him, so he answered. "Hamnet, yourself?"
The girl seemed to have not caught the last part of his reply as with tilted head and a furrowed brow she whispered to herself, "Hamnet? What a peculiar name?"
He coughed, and she flashed him a look of quick annoyance. "I've introduced myself, would you care to follow suit."
She shrugged. "Ophelia Katsoros."
He smiled, though, he didn't know why. "Well, Ophelia, may I walk with you and your hisser companion."
"Hisser?"
He pointed to the blue-green scaled creature beside her.
"Oh, Frill." She looked to her companion and politely inquired, "What do you think, Frill?"
The hisser's eyes looked him over before giving a brief nod. "Well he's a killer." For some reason the Overlander didn't even flinch. She hadn't known the word for hisser, but she knew killer? That was a sad commentary on the perspectives held by the other creatures of the Underland of the humans.
"He's seems decent enough," Ophelia spoke in his support.
"Hmm…he looks interesting."
"He does."
"Polite."
"Certainly."
"Very well."
Ophelia nodded and turned to Hamnet, "You can join us."
Fifteen years, and not one word. This wasn't something you kept secret for fifteen years. If the crash had never happened would he ever have known?
"Gregor, she's coming up. Do you want to get your sisters or for me to?"
"Could you, Mrs. Cormaci." His elderly neighbor nodded, and went into the next room to ready his younger sisters. Sisters…well that wasn't completely true anymore was it?
There was knock on the apartment door. It was her. Previously he had known her only as a once student of his father's. Ahem his adopted father's. Now, it was complicated. He stood and walked to the door. Deep breath, his hand wavered over the knob. Was he trembling? After all the things he witnessed in the Underland, it was humorous that this had the ability to make him shake as he was.
He swung the door open, and paused. She was beautiful, and younger than Grace, only thirty-one. Well, duh. She had him when she was sixteen. Ms. Cormaci informed him her husband had died when she was eighteen, they were only married only three months.
"Gregor?" the woman gasped, tears were in the corner of her green eyes.
He nodded.
The smile that instantly flashed upon her lips quickly washed away by guilt.
"Would you like to come in?" Gregor offered.
She gave a small nod. He pulled a chair out at Ms. Cormaci's table and she obliged, thanking him, and went to get two root beers before he sat down opposite her. Neither one spoke, though, there was so much to say. There was a strange intimacy in the silence. It was interesting how they could be both strangers and kin. His eyes lingered on her smile. His mother…Grace smiled, but never so often and never ever so warmly, and her eyes lingered on his scars.
"Why did you leave me?" Ever since he had found out from the lady he had grown up believing was his grandmother the truth of his parentage he had been asking that question to himself.
She shook her head. "I didn't, Grace took you."
Gregor frowned, "Why?"
She studied the grain in the table's wood. "I was sad. Eric... so recently dead." Eric, his biological father. The love of her life as the news article describing his mysterious death had claimed. "But, I'm better now, and I tried to see you, but Grace said it wasn't a good idea and to stay away because you were going through enough already, and that if I wanted to do anything I ought to send money."
"Which you did." Every Christmas, a thousand dollars. Every Christmas just a generous friend whom he'd never met. Now he guessed he'd be spending the rest of his Christmases with her and her relatives, maybe Eric's, too.
"Of, course," she sincerely replied.
"The counselor told me I had a half-sister."
She nodded. "Lydia."
"And that you live in Denmark."
She nodded, "I'm planning to move back to New York."
"You don't have to," he protested.
"Don't worry I already have a good offer for a job here," she replied. "So you've been living in Virginia?"
"Yeah."
She left it at that, and sipped the root beer Gregor had retrieved from the kitchen for her. "I know where you got those scars, Gregor."
"No, I don't think you do," Gregor remarked. Everyone looked at the scars, so many had assumed he had got involved in a gang or something. Well, he guessed the or something part of that thought process wasn't that far off. He didn't expect what his biological mother asked next.
"So you're not the warrior?" she asked, and barely a second later in a puddle of root beer on Ms. Cormaci's pristine linoleum tile floor the glass Gregor had just been holding was reduced to a pile of broken jagged glass.
Vikus shook his granddaughter awake. "Luxa, Luxa, Luxa," he urgently called.
"Hmm…oh, Vikus." She pushed herself up, yawning. Had she slept late? If so, her body wasn't feeling the benefit of any additional rest. If anything it felt robbed of potential sleep.
"Get dressed; you're needed in the council room," he urged as she pulled her from her bed.
"What's the matter Vikus?" she worriedly asked. Had the alliance with the rats gone sour? Was there another conflict between the rats and the mice? Another Bane?
He kissed her forehead, "No, no...don't worry. It's...you have to see them yourself. You will believe me a raving lunatic otherwise."
Luxa frowned but dressed. Once dressed she followed him to the council room where a regal pair waited for her. Her mind and body froze in disbelief. "Mother, father?" She was crying. It was them, but hadn't they died? Yes, Luxa, we did, they said to her and she asked why they were alive now, and they were unable to give her a concrete answer. They just were, and she willing to except it. She would be only a princess from now on, but she could live with that; she had them, her parents.
In the entirety of the Underland a great mystery had returned so many of the dead back to the living, yet at the end of the day there was no Pearlpelt, no King Gorger, no Henry, and no Solovet. Only those who had died for the sake justice or were innocent at time of death returned. Only them. Amongst the others that filtered in were her uncle, Hamnet, and Frill, and even Thalia. As much as Hazard was thrilled to have his loved ones back, one didn't return. His mother, yet he knew she had to be alive. His father was, and Frill. His mother had died of a sickness; she was an innocent and the innocents had returned. Why hadn't she? Unless the mystery miracle had excluded Overlanders. He hoped that she was just lost, then daddy could find her, and they'd all be together again. She'd be so proud of his linguistic talent and tell him he looked so dashingly handsome, wouldn't she? He would ask his father if they could go to where she was buried tomorrow. Perhaps she would be there?
