I have not abandoned the fandom and I try my dog darn hardest to finish any fic I start, even if it takes over a year haha. The first chapter of a new mini saga; this time dealing more into Logos's family past.
Enjoy! =)
To Grandma's House We Go
"I do wish you wouldn't all look so disconsolate"
Opal Menkaura sat on the far left seat of the hover carriage, facing away from the course of movement, looking at her sons in a very distasteful manner and gently bobbing a small gurgling baby in her arms. Three of the four boys opposite her sighed and groaned, whilst the eldest of the four stared out the window with no definite expression on his face.
"And you!" She snapped at the tall man sitting next to her.
"What?" He said, his long sleek black hair flopping over his face as he flinched.
"It's your woebegone attitude, Niles that started this all off in the first place."
"It has nothing to do with me, Opal I think it's your parents causing the problem."
"Oh cease!" She hissed, "I'm so embittered; sick and tired of you and your repugnant view of my mother and father."
"Oh what? So I'm supposed to just love them even though they think I'm just as worthy as a pile of shoopuf droppings the flies won't even eat."
The boy sitting second from the window, opposite his father, began to giggle, but hushed immediately when his mother threw him a threatening look. A few quiet moments passed and all that could be heard was the gentle whir of the hover and the baby's feisty exerts.
Logos Menkaura had only turned 16 four days ago, in his family home in Bevelle. It was the summer, hottest summer he'd ever experienced and he'd been granted three weeks of leave (as did his brother, Kanye too) from his Yevonite troop to spend some time with his family, unfortunately five days of this were destined to be spent with his maternal grandparents, as every summer. At this moment in time Logos was trying hard not to think about it, by distracting, himself mainly by glazing round the carriage trying to count how many shades of red he could identify in the leather interior.
"Mummy? Do we really have to go?" Came a high-pitched voice next to him, his four-year-old brother Aslan.
This question he asked every year, thank God he was so young because Logos himself could remember asking that question every year until the age of eight when his mother gave him a right clobbering for placing her parents in such an intimidating light.
"Honestly, you make my parents out to be behemoths! Never, NEVER have I seen such a lack of incivility! How dare you! How dare you! How would you feel if I begun to treat someone you eulogized and venerated as some form of surfeiting vermin? You! You would animus it, wouldn't you? So why should I have to languish?"
Is what she had shrieked, and it had only got worse from there. Only four years from now they would find themselves in the mist of another family feud.
Ignoring her husband's action to point at his son and wear a 'See?' expression, Opal replied,
"Now, now Aslan, grandma and grandpa are going to take care of you and they only want to see you and know how you are. You'll be back at our abode in a few days and I'm sure you'll feel much more meliorated for the visit."
But they never did.
The Menkaura children; Logos and his brothers, were all too aware about what their visits really involved. Their visits to their grandparents weren't so they could know how their grandchildren were doing, they honestly didn't care about that, it was so they could have four extra pair hands helping them in the kitchen and the workshop as well as time to pound the teachings of Yevon into their impressionable skulls.
"I don't think I'll feel more mello-, meli, meliore…erm."
"Better." Opal aided.
"I don't think I'll feel more better going to-,"
"Ah! Ah! Ah! 'I don't think I'll feel better', not 'more better' that's bad grammar."
"Oh for Yevon's sake Opal, he's only four. Give it a rest." Niles jabbed.
"Humph, immaculate grammar and voluminous vocabulary are key for our children's development. It assists them to well-being and consummation."
"Well it helps us when we need to talk our way out of situations that's for sure." Logos snarled, still counting.
Niles Menkaura laughed heartily at his son's jive and gave his wife a playful nudge in the shoulder, Kanye however who was sitting to Logos's left, looked displeased with the comment.
"Well, it'll make me feel better if you all go. And better still if you relish it."
"And why is that?" Niles asked with a teasing tone.
"Because of Yevon."
A groan louder than any other that had been breathe in the past 2 hours suddenly rolled out of everyone's mouth, even the baby seemed to make a strange grousing noise.
"What? What?" Opal look genuinely confused.
"We know all the teachings." Logos moaned, head rolling with annoyance.
"Ha! Now I have a qualm there." Was his mother's response.
"Besides," a deep voice, which hadn't spoken for some time, echoed from Kanye's direction. "They don't talk about anything else."
"They go on and on and on and on," Isaiah (sitting between Aslan and the other window) whined, "and on and on and on and on and on."
"Shh, shh, ssh, that's enough." Niles spoke with a commanding hand action which he did when he demanded silence.
Opal Menkaura had been raised by her parents, Deena and Josip to place Yevon first: before family, before friends, even herself. However as she had grown from girl into woman she had spent less and less time in the house and thus with her parents; she had usually left for open spaces where she could paint in solitude. Therefore her vision and beliefs in Yevon had become more diluted though she still held great loyalty and respect towards the teachings and had tried mercilessly to get her sons to do the same. However there was a problem with this, Niles Menkaura. Niles had been brought up slightly differently, he had been raised in the city and had been raised to see Yevon and the teachings as a sort of a joke, of course he was taught to see them as a way of life but in all honesty they were regarded more as fairytales. Yevon knows how in Spira Niles and Opal managed to meet and actually like each other let alone fall in love; they were too very different people, one prim and dreamy, the other reckless and spontaneous, then again opposites can attract. Naturally when Opal gave birth to boys they were more drawn to their father and his attitudes thus Opal had found it increasingly difficult to guide her sons to her way of thinking.
That's why she herself liked these visits, because it meant all her sons in an environment that catered to her beliefs and no Niles to interfere, and Niles did not object himself because he knew it would be 5-7 days of just him and his wife and they could do whatever they wished, and what Niles wished for was something that was very mature and not advisable to do around children.
"So if you think these visits are so good for our boys why isn't Zahi going?" Niles inquired after a few minutes of silence. "Surely it would be most beneficial for him to stay, you know, since he's so young; his brain is like a sponge."
"Iii ser [Aye Sir]" Zahi hiccoughed.
Opal scowled at her husband disapprovingly.
"That's my boy." Was her husband's simple response as he stroked the child's head.
"He's not going," replied Opal, "because he's too young."
"Too young? He's nearly a year and a half now; Aslan was barely 14 weeks when he went to visit your parents for the first time."
"I know my parent's are perfectly proficient at looking after young children-"
"Gugh, that's not what I meant at all."
"-but" She continued, ignoring him, "well, I don't really want to leave Zahi with his, malady."
"Malady?"
"You know," she hissed, "ailment."
Everyone apart from Niles was on the edge of their seats, leaning into Opal who was slowly recoiling back, arms growing tighter around the baby.
"Oh Yevon, it's just narcolepsy!"
"Ba! Oh! Ah, SHH!" Opal flailed, putting her hand over her husband's mouth.
She held her fair palm there for a moment and Niles seemed adequate to stay quiet so she slowly removed it.
"And cataplexy."
"Hush!"
Niles swerved out of the way but Opal still managed to strike him on the shoulder with the back of her hand.
"Oh so that's what it is!" Logos blurted.
He'd known for a while that there was something slightly off about his brother but was unable to pinpoint exactly what.
"See I had a hankering it was some kind of parasomnia." Kanye said, "at first I thought it was Hypopnea Syndrome."
"Yes but that was when he had a cold, no a very accurate diagnosis in the circumstance." Logos added, "I was thinking perhaps Jactatio capitas nocturna but it felt far too violent. So I considered periodic limb movement disorder since he goes extremely limp when in slumber."
"So that's the cataplexy. I thought it might be bruxism!" Piped Aslan.
"What?" Kanye and Logos exclaimed.
"Well, he, he grinds his teeth."
"How the hell does that have any relevance to his excessive sleep patterns?" Kanye derided.
"And he's not grinding his teeth, he's smacking his lips! He doesn't have any teeth to grind you lout!" Chaffed Logos.
Niles's smile grew wider and wider till his long face couldn't stretch any further. His pride was welling with each word at hearing his sons talk about something he had taught them so passionately and with such accuracy.
Opal on the other hand looked rather strained and a little pale, she may have been considering whether she needed to be sick. Zahi, almost on cue, had suddenly fallen limp and was now complete and utterly asleep, and he would only awake in his own time. His mother was a fretter, she hadn't always been, in fact five years ago she had been very carefree and almost wild but since Niles had fallen ill, well, there was much to worry about. Sometimes she felt she just wanted to scream she felt so wound up and tense just waiting for it all to happen again and she knew it would, the doctors had said so, even Niles subtly knew his time was limited. Having a narcoleptic son now was just something else to be anxious about and just generally something she didn't need, but, would have to cope with.
Zahi slept for the remainder of the trip; another hour and a half and still had not awoken by the time the family had reached their destination. Opal has spent this time mulling and pondering, forehead against the searing glass, the sun beating down on it relentlessly. Regardless, it had begun to rain lightly, odd pellets of water splattering against the hover and the road through Guadosalam. Niles had squander this time in deep discussion with his boys about medics and pharmaceuticals. Opal kept hearing little scraps like: 'incision', 'forty beats per minute', 'oxidise' and 'Carbon, Hydrogen and Nitric Oxide'. She wished they would just stop.
The hover judder to a halt in a place where many would have believed the phrase, 'The Middle of Nowhere' was coined. The Pocast residence was located in the fair west of Spira, just south of the vicious Thunder Plains and parallel to the extravagant yet eerie domain of Guadosalam. When travelling this way there was only one route and that was to piously follow the main roads down out of Bevelle, around Malcania, through the plains and Guadosalam then forage for the brittle trails to the no man's land of the west. Here inhabitants were sparse, mainly farmers, in fact if it wasn't for the farms more people probably would have lived here; it was far away from the sea and coasts, far away from Sin, but because the earth was luscious and fruitful it had been immediately devoured long ago by the men of harvest and live stock. The Menkaura children hated it, it was so different from the bustling city they had been raised in but it also provided as a reminder of a constant simmering fear for the boys; if their beloved parents were ever to leave them, for the Farplane, and in these times this was far from impossible, this is where they would be sent to live. They hated it, absolutely and utterly loathed it.
"Right, my young loves," Opal announced, glad and willing of a chance to distract her wandering mind, "we have alighted at our destination."
Niles briskly brushed down his coat, giving it a sharp flourished tug to adjust the shoulder pads. He reached out a hand towards Isaiah and beckoned with it, the toddler smiled heartily before turning and kneeling on his seat and collecting, from the mounted shelf behind him, a finely polished black cane, it's handle adorned with a beautifully carved Zu head made from brilliant ivory. He handed it respectfully to his father, face smothered in pride. Niles grinned appreciatively and with a pat on the shoulder to the young one, the door to his left opened and, stealing himself, he stepped out. Niles had not always walked with a cane, in fact it only became an addition to his appearance about four years previously. For forty-six, he was still a very capable and adept man but after his bout of ill-health the doctors had insisted that any form of exertion was to be avoided as much as possible. Niles however was never one for rules and often thought 'sod it all' and went to work at Yevon as if he was as fit as a fiddle, performing all tasks asked of him without a hesitation. But in these circumstances where activity was within personal and informal surroundings he often acquiesced to the strain on his heart and muscles and opted for the assistance.
Indisposition of health however would in no where effect Nile's role of a gentleman, as he strode (though with a slight hobble) around the hover and opened the opposite door for his wife and sons. Within the next few minutes or so the family filed out and each boy was handed their allocated travel bag by the Al-Bhed driver. Adjusting her blue-nose demeanour and with a swelling chest, Opal marched up the thin dirt path.
The wide, expansive mid-afternoon sky glowing bright with luscious sun rays, the trim of snow-caped and forest speckled mountains, the dancing fields of heather and lavender, the locale was absolutely breath-taking, it was just a shame about the hideous, rotted wood blemish before them. The Pocast farmhouse was squat and insipid, squashed down by the feeble and exhausted wood, already splintering in ever area one's eyes could land, threatening to collapse. Stained, peeling shutters framed the dust-coated windows and the roofing suffered from a version of architectural skin disease in that most of the tiles had flaked off.
On the debilitated and over-shadowed porch there was a rickety, old rocking chair and astride it sat a tall, gangly man with a grotesque pot belly, clad in a dark, greyish-blue tunic and thick, russet coloured riding trousers, complete with sharp-toed and besmirched, black boots. Even through the darkness you could see the icy glare from those deep-set eyes, his figure swaying in the chair inactively. To his right, wreathed by the entrance to the house, behind an insect door, stood the form of a equally lanky but slightly crumpled woman. She was wearing a classical, frilled dress of a hansa yellow (a garment common amongst country wives), bedraggled and worn, less than complimented by a long, shabby, sleeveless crimson cardigan, all belted together at her sunken waist. She was forcefully wiping the inside of what appeared to be a glass or cup of sorts with a ragged dish cloth, and from the shape of her silhouetted brow, seemed to be wearing the same stern expression as her husband.
With the youngest of her sons clasped to her chest, who was desperately trying to shy away from the impending assembly, Opal approached zestfully. Her boys, and their father, dwindling apprehensively behind her awaiting the awful moment of reunion with their maternal grandparents.