Her exit of the Spa Room wasn't very dignified; due to how bad her headache was, she came close to tripping right after leaving it. A repeat was done two to three minutes later, when she was going up one of the house's staircases—unlike the first time, where her feet got caught up in one another, her legs gave out on her; if not for the banister, she would of gone tumbling down the stairs. Tazir, after coming upon her struggling in the hallway that their bedroom was on, had helped her in getting to their room. Along with placing her on the bed, and throwing the sheets over her, he took a small syringe out and then used it on her—according to him, he gave her a mild sedative that would make her sleep for a short while.
What she hadn't known was that the sedative given to her wasn't mild—her husband gave her something that'd not only conk her out for the rest of the day but that would also keep her in bed for around half of the following day. Once she was up, and noticed that it was nearly ten in the morning, she knew that something had happened—when she left the Spa Room, it was heading on three in the afternoon. After waking, then showering and throwing some clothes on, she left the room to find her husband, and to see how her children were.
The hallway that she entered was cool and quiet, which made her feel a little uneasy. With it being the hour that it was, there should be people walking about, making their various sounds and noises, and talking their various conversations—instead of finding this, she found the hallway as utterly quiet and still. Eldass, she remembered, had been given the chore of watching her yesterday; with today being a new day, he had probably been given a new chore to do. For a small second, she wondered if another in her husband's staff would be appointed the task of being her shadow or if she was to be left alone that day.
"With me sleeping off what I had yesterday, I'm able to see a lot better. And the lights, and certain sounds, aren't effecting me either, which is good." she thought while going down the hallway.
With her husband being "caught" in rummaging through the box of old family photographs, that he had found in one of the old apartment's closets, the hallway had a few extra things in it now. The man, a few days before shoving off for Ssaavoo, had asked if he could hang some of the framed photographs that were in that box up and she, knowing full well that he wanted to both spiff the house up and close a chapter in his life, had said that he could.
The first picture that she looked at had all of her sons in it. Naturally, they were on Earth—at the time of the picture's taking, they were in Egypt; the soft, orange-yellow sand looked lovely, and the sky was nearly devoid of clouds and was a nice blue color. Bile and Lhaklar were running around, chasing one another around in the photograph's near-center; her oldest son was six hundred and seventy-three years old while her second oldest son was a hundred years younger—Hazaar and Lazeer weren't in the photograph but there was another that grabbed her attention right away.
Running behind her two older sons was a very small boy; along with looking to be in or around his three hundreds, he had very black skin. It looked like he had glowing yellow eyes in his face. The hair, that he had on his head, was black and soft in appearance. She stared at this boy for a few seconds before moving on—thoughts of her headache being so bad that it had left some effects that were still being felt came to her for a few seconds before dissipating.
"My boys weren't even in school yet, where'd you come from?" she asked after stopping and then turning to look at the next photograph that grabbed her attention.
If not for the fifth child in the photograph, she wouldn't of stopped or wondered what she had. After stopping to give the photograph a double-look, she automatically knew where it had been taken at.
The five boys were on one of the islands in the Caribbean; four of the five were there because she had brought them to her last scheduled shoot for the film, Water Works. While everyone was boarding the plane, and getting ready to go home, she and her sons remained on the island—the boys, along with wanting to see what mommy did when she was away from home, had wanted to spend some time on the beach. She remembered giving out a series of conditions before gathering them around her and then teleporting to the location where the shoot was to take place in—along with telling them to be quiet, and to not make any distracting sounds or noises, she had also told them to be on their best behavior and to not create trouble. They had been a good bunch of boys who had more than deserved to partake in what they wanted to do.
She remembered that the final scene for the movie was done very quickly; the director had said for the actors to climb onto a spit of land, that had been missed by the rising water, and then look around at their surroundings. After taking a gander at their surroundings, they were suppose to speak on how different things were and then comment on how things were never to be the same again—due to how simple this one scene was, it had been done in one take. Of the film's depicted human population, only five survived the disaster—two women, one who had a very young son to look after, and two men. A lot of animals—birds and ocean-life, meaning—had been required for the scene and both she and the on-hand crew had made the best of effort to gain them for it.
Bile was the only reason to why she had done the film; with his being one thousand and eighty-two years old, he had been closing in on the age appropriate to go to school—with tutelage at Pronghorn Academy of Sorcery and Magic being set at $100,000, she hadn't had any other options to go by in collecting what was needed for her son to get the education that he needed. With the film being expected to make big bucks in theaters, she had latched onto the notion of setting her own salary and the ones behind the film had honored it.
Due to the area being chilly on that day, all of her sons were wearing jackets. Bile and Lhaklar were running about on the shore; they were both chasing and using their powers to throw water on one another. Hazaar and Lazeer were wrestling on the beach; Lazeer's black and blue jacket was almost off of him, and Hazaar had sand in his hair. Her attention wasn't drawn to the four boys that were hers; in the photograph, caught in mid-jump above her two, younger sons, was a boy who looked eerily similar to the one that was in the photograph that she had seen earlier.
His outfit was very different than that of what her sons were wearing; his brown pants were pretty well torn up, his green t-shirt was in ribbons, and his jean jacket had a patchwork on its upper left arm and was missing a cuff and its collar. If she had to make any guesses on how old this kid was, she'd have to say that he was around seven hundred years old—he looked older than Hazaar, who was five hundred and eighty-two years old, but younger than Lhaklar, who was nine hundred and eighty-two at the time of the picture's taking.
The kid's mouth was shut, while his eyes were half-shut; going by the half-open eyes, she could see that they were of the scalene triangular type and were a bright glowing yellow color. Going by how he was positioned, and by the mood that was coming from the photograph, she knew that no harm was being done to her sons—the fifth kid, who also had midnight black skin, looked to be about to join them.
After looking at the photograph, and reminiscing about its forever frozen past, she figured that the fifth kid was just one of the locals who had gotten into more than his fair share of black paint—kids did do the stupidest of things sometimes, after all. With her view of the photograph being over, she continued on her way down the hallway.
Instead of picking a location to go to, she let her feet take her to where they wanted her to be.
"Looks like the man went a little overboard on the photographs." she thought while going down the hallway. From what she was seeing, it looked like Tazir had put all of what had formerly been in that box on the walls.
A photograph of Hazaar, from when he had been three hundred and eighty years old, was given a passing glance before she moved on; her young son was wearing a pair of dark green and blue footie pajamas, and was coming down from the upstairs portion of their old apartment. The photograph, that was beside that one, was of Lazeer—it had been taken a few minutes after the previous one.
Lazeer, who hadn't had all that grand of control of his legs yet, was depicted as being a little clingy with the banister of the stairs. Due to his two hundred and eighty year old self being afraid of tripping and then falling down the stairs, he was refusing to come down on his own.
Here was a photograph of Bile; he was six hundred and forty-one years old, and he was depicted as holding a one hundred and forty-one year old Lazeer. The one beside that one depicted Bile as holding both Hazaar, who was two hundred and forty-one years old, and Lazeer. The next one over depicted a five hundred and forty-one year old Lhaklar, who was holding Lazeer. The photograph beside that one had Lhaklar holding both Hazaar and Lazeer in it while the next one over had her and all of her children in it—a professional photographer had taken all of these photographs.
"Before the man had a chance to rummage through that box, I went up to do a spell on it—the pictures that have Dione and her family in them no longer have them in them now." she thought before stopping to take in the next few photographs.
A photograph of Bile, from when he had graduated from Pronghorn Academy of Sorcery and Magic, was beside the professionally taken ones; her son looked dashing in his black and gold robe, and she looked right proud of him. The next three photographs were of Lhaklar, Hazaar, and Lazeer from when they had graduated from Pronghorn Academy of Sorcery and Magic while the ones above them were of when they had graduated from the University of Telepathy.
She was in each of the photographs but there was a visible difference to her in each of them—her hair was a different color. At the time that her sons were doing their forms, they had put her down as being of the Chamaleon people, which were a race of people who's hair changed color all the time. With their being "missing" at the time, this was more done so the school wouldn't know who her sons were and so they could get the education that they needed to get without having the press breathing down their necks.
The next set of photographs were of Bile and Lhaklar from when they were running track—above these were a few from when Bile did his wrestling meets. She was just walking by the photograph from when Bile was assuring his "title" of the school's wrestling champion when she stopped and then turned to look at the one that was beside it.
"That kid looks awfully familiar..." she thought aloud.
The photograph that she was looking at wasn't a real recent one; if she had to make any guesses, it had been taken over three hundred years ago. There were just two people in it, but only one of them had her attention.
The photograph's background was of the old, Canadian apartment that she and Bile had lived in during Lhaklar's, Hazaar's, and Lazeer's years in being at the University of Telepathy. Due to there being a sink in it, she knew that the apartment's kitchen was where it had been taken in. The window, that was over the sink, showed that it was about to storm—thick, black clouds hung all over... even though it was very dark outside, the photograph wasn't dark at all. A happy feeling, or a feeling of contentment and happiness, was what she felt after turning to look at it.
Bile was just one thousand, eight hundred, and twenty years old; he was just starting to move from wearing non-ripped or torn shirts to shirts that had a rip here, a tear there, and so forth. His arms were really starting to fill out with firm muscle. At first, she took the kid, that was standing beside him, as being one of his old school friends who had decided to come by for a visit—she was fast in retracting this; due to both a feeling, and to knowing that all of her sons' old school friends had moved on, and had no further contact or association with her sons, the boy couldn't be someone from their old schooling days.
When Bile had been one thousand, eight hundred, and twenty years old, he had been six foot, one and a half inches tall; using him as a scale, she guessed that the kid beside him stood five foot, eight and a half inches tall. The complexion of the kid's skin was as black as night, and his eyes were in the shape of scalene triangles and were a bright glowing yellow color. He was tall and thin; there was little to no muscle on him. The kid was smiling; his crooked, milky-yellow teeth were showing in a pitch black face that had a snub-like nose, thin to medium-sized lips, a right gentle-looking brow, and a square-shaped jaw in it. His hair was long and, just like his body, black; it was very well kept, and went to his shoulders.
At first, she thought that there was something off about the kid's head; there were two "points" sticking up from the back of his head that were a green color. When she looked closer, she came close to laughing—the two points, that were sticking up from the back of the kid's head, were her son's fingers; Bile had given the kid a set of rabbit ears right when the photograph was being taken.
"Odd photograph to be put on the wall." she thought after looking at the next photograph.
The same, unknown kid was in it but, unlike the other photograph, he wasn't happy. Bile was also in the photograph; like with the kid, he didn't look happy. After staring at the photograph for a few seconds, she saw that she, too, was in it. Like with the kid and her son, she also didn't look happy.
After seeing these non-happy people, she drew in closer to see the picture a little better. While at this vantage, she was able to see that it was winter—the ground was covered in snow, the sky was a white-blue color, and there was a steam coming from each of the picture's depicted peoples' mouths. After drawing herself so close to the photograph that she was nearly planting her lips on it, she saw that there was another in it—a woman, who had long, black hair and who looked to be five foot, four or five inches tall. The woman had the black-skinned kid by the wrist, and was pulling him along behind her; the kid was facing the camera, and looked to be either yelling or screaming at both her and Bile.
It honestly looked like she was both yelling and either about to cry or was crying; the moist look, that was in her eyes, was unmistakable and so were the wet areas that ran down her cheeks.
After giving her head a shake, then blinking her eyes, she went on her way down the hallway; all while following her feet to wherever they were taking her, she thought about the photograph that she had just looked at. Why had she been so upset, and why had Bile looked so unhappy, and why had that kid looked the way he had and what was with that woman? She wondered all of this before, finally, looking up from the floor.
"Alright feet, you've gotten me here. Why did you bring me here?" she asked herself after seeing that she was both in her husband's office and was before his desk.
Her husband's desk had a shitload of envelopes on it; either the man had been doing a lot of mail-reading lately or he had made out a bunch of letters but hadn't had a chance to put a stamp on them or mail them out. Going by there being a few packages behind his desk, she guessed that it was the former rather than the latter—the pair of latex gloves, that were beside the envelopes, made this guess seem more solid; Tazir was a creature of habit... he always wore them gloves whenever he was dealing with the mail and, she remembered, he also had her and Eshal don the gloves whenever something came in the mail for them. Due to the man's habit in paying the bills with a hand-held device, she knew that the envelopes didn't contain a check for a certain company's bill.
When her feet made her go forward, towards he desk, she didn't put up a fuss or think up any questions on what was going on; Tazir's desk was clean of dust and dirt and any crumb-related matter, as it always was. Her husband wasn't one who liked to consume anything while being behind his desk; only when he absolutely had to, or was prodded to doing so, did he drink or eat anything while being in his office or behind his desk. While walking around the desk, she heard her husband's pet albino bat, Teskon, make a squawking sound; after turning to look at the animal, then noting that he was fine, she went on to doing as now her hands commanded her to do.
"Remember to keep them in a neat pile—Tazzy doesn't like for things to get cluttered on his desk." she thought while watching her hands go to work on the pile of envelopes.
Most of the envelopes had come from the final people who had been sent an invite; everyone had mailed her husband, telling him that they'd not be able to attend the event of getting to see and know her sons and getting reacquainted with her. They promised to be available either during the next holiday, which was to happen in the next three months, or during Family Week, which was to happen during the mid-part of August.
The non-family and associated party envelopes contained important papers from Tazir's conquered realms; the ones under them were from his friends. Here was one from Rilam Salirok, and here was one from Mewokken Khasahu, who were longtime friends of her husband's, and here was one from Gloar and his wife, who had simply wrote to say hello and to do a simple catch-up session.
After looking through these envelopes, then returning them to being nicely stacked, she went to say hello to Teskon; the intent, after saying hello to the bat, was to leave the room and then go to some other part of the house—instead of doing that, she found herself looking down and then going to where the wastebasket was.
"Okay, now my impulses are starting to scare me." she thought after finding herself as dropping to her knees and then sifting through the contents that were in the small, metallic mesh can.
Being as confused, and mildly scared, as she was, she figured that it was time to go; Tazir, if he came in just now, and saw her as rummaging through his wastebasket, would think that she was still suffering from her headache or had grown crazy. What was her purpose in being in her husband's office in the first place, she wondered while going through the can's contents. All she had done was look through a bunch of envelopes, that were harmless and that contained very harmless things, and then say hello to Teskon, and... well, she could add what she was doing now to what she had done after entering the room. She looked through the shredded pieces of paper, that had, at one time, been full pieces of paper, then through the crumpled pieces of paper, the used-up pens, and the two newspapers before deciding to stop what she was doing and then get up.
She was just getting to her feet when her hands shot forward; the basket's contents flew across the room in slow motion for a second before coming to a stop. She sighed after seeing the mess that she had made then started the chore in taking what was on the floor up.
Three balls of paper, and two used-up pens, were returned to the wastebasket when her eye was attracted to a simple, white envelope that had her name on it.
"Ooookay... sometimes when the unknown conscious knows something that the known conscious doesn't you should just shut up and go along with the flow." she said with a nervous titter while taking the envelope up from the floor.
With the envelope having no address on it, she knew why it had been trashed—unless it had the whole works on it, Tazir didn't open it or allow for anyone in his house to open it. For an envelope to be opened, and have its contents read or taken in, it had to have the sender's and the recipient's addresses on it and it also had to have a stamp on one of its corners. Over the years, she had seen him trash more than enough envelopes that were either lacking one or the other of them things—while this could be seen in a bad light he had good reason to do this; who knew what was in or on it and its contents and who knew what would happen after them probable unknown chemicals got on a person.
After taking the envelope up from the floor, she went to the room's couch then sat down; she opened the envelope without having gloves on then she evicted its contents then started reading them. She had no more started reading the piece of paper's words before her heart started slamming in her chest, and she had no more concluded the reading of the paper's words before finding herself as having to suppress the scream that wanted to come out.
I should of known better than to pursue such an impossibility; when I saw that the new forms, that came in about my new adoption, said that Angel Irene was my new mutter, I was ecstatic. I was happy in knowing that someone that I knew, who had helped me and showed me love in the past, was about to take me from the hell-hole that I was adopted into twenty years ago. When I came by the apartment, to take my place among my new family, I was expecting the whole works of a welcome but, instead, found myself walking into an abandoned building that was completely devoid of life.
I was upset for all of a week and a half before deciding to do the contact thing, that they teach at Pronghorn; when contact was achieved, and I found that you had been taken, my hopes on not being abandoned were lifted. I tracked you down, tried to run to you and help you, and tried to rescue you from your captor, and you ran from me. I used everything that I was taught when I was a student in Goboshu's Academy of Meanness to get in contact with you, and your sons, and I found myself as being blocked from doing so. When I was finally able gain a new connection to you five, I found myself as being so forced out that I couldn't see straight, much less be able to stand or hold anything down, for hours. The message has been received on my end, I shall not bother you or your precious family again—the sick joke that you played in adopting me only to cast me out in the shadows like a piece of trash has been figured out. - Guyunis Meyer
Guyunis! Oh shit... it was Guyunis who was trying to get in contact with her and her sons and who had been pestering her and her sons for the last near-month!
After reading the letter, then returning it to its envelope, then stashing the envelope somewhere in her husband's office, she shot up from the couch then left the room. She had only just started down the hallway when she forced herself to slow down; the pang of pain, and anger, that was being felt was immense... she had an issue with breathing for a little while before, finally, getting control of herself. How could she? How could she hurt someone as sweet as Guyunis and how, for the wonder, could she of forgotten him? With her taking him in, and raising him as both her own and among her sons, she should of known who he was—she had even paid for him to get an education for crying out loud!
The anger that she felt was so great that she contemplated throwing herself at the wall; with the act of her actually abandoning one of her children now known to her, she wanted to hurt herself. She wanted bruises and cuts to appear on her, and she wanted to yell and scream, and tear her hair from her head... At the last possible second, she retained this want of hers.
While going down the hallway, she remembered that Guyunis had been born to her scientist friend—Lisa Ann Wahlberg. He had been in the womb for all of eight months before coming out, and then, after being born, he had been sent away to an orphanage, where he had been adopted out to people who had treated him like scum. His date of birth was June 27, 2000... exactly eight months after his mother was rescued from Kuruk's fortress home by Dione, Perniceie, and Azura.
Lisa, she remembered, hadn't had a desire in keeping him; right after learning that she was pregnant, and that she was carrying a baby by the one who had tortured her for all of three weeks, she had gone to get an abortion. Right up to when she delivered her son, she had made numerous trips, about one to two a month, to the abortion clinics to expel him from her—instead of going through with the visit, and getting her child removed from her, she had left the clinics and then returned to Atlas's stronghold. Guyunis was born right when the sun set; two mid-wives had helped his mother with the delivery, and they had tried just about everything with no success to get her to hold him and to change her mind about him. After being sent to the orphanage, he had spent two months in a rather large crib before being adopted by a family who had treated him well—or, at least for the first few years; after seeing that he wasn't growing, or maturing like a normal, Earth-created child, they slacked on the job.
For most of his life, Guyunis had been raised by two to three generations of the families that had adopted him; except for her and her sons, he had been treated very poorly by the ones who had "inherited" him after their folks passed away.
"This is no normal photograph—the security camera, that was mounted on the apartment's exterior wall, took it. It was taken a few days after he graduated from Goboshu's Academy of Meanness." Angel thought while going past the photograph that had the non-happy her, Bile, and Guyunis in it. "Lisa caught wind of me having you two days earlier... after making the trip to where I lived, then calling me out from the apartment, she and I got into a big fight—I tried my damnedest to adopt you on this day... and she would hear none of it. After taking you, she stuck you back in the orphanage; I received a letter from her a few days after you was returned to the orphanage... in it, she claimed that she didn't want me to be burdened with you, which was absurd. I raised you as one of my own, and I treated you like my own... I loved you like one of my own and... and I disgustedly abandoned you after I finally got her to sign the adoption papers saying that I was now your new mother."
As she walked by the photograph that had all of her sons on the Caribbean beach on it, she remembered it all. She had taken Guyunis in three times—the recent one came to a close three hundred and eighty years ago while the second one was referenced in the photograph that she was going past. The Guyunis in the photograph was no more than seven hundred and eighty-two years old—a child who had already seen too much and a child who had already thought of himself as low-down dirty trash.
At the time of her taking him on for the second time, she and her biological sons were in Egypt. The boys had just gotten through training with their powers, and were just running around, having a good ol' time in the sand, when he was seen as running towards her. She, who had figured that she'd never see him again, had dropped to her knees and then held her arms out to him—the caravan, that had been in the process of taking him back to the orphanage, that was in some small, European town, had missed seeing him as he slid from one of their animals and then made his escape.
She remembered him running into her, and then her arms wrapping around him; after having him in her arms, she stood then turned to tell her sons to come over so she could take them home. He had spent all of two hundred years with them before his real mother learned that she had him again. He had been a fine young man... he had done his best to not cause trouble, and to do good, and she had done her best to undo all the harm done to him over the years.
While walking by the photograph that had the now-known-to be toddler Guyunis in it, she remembered that it had been her who had named him. The ones who had taken him on as a child had never named him, or had given a shit about naming him; it had either been Demon Child or The Demon or That Kid for them. After seeing him for the first time, she had named him—he had been three hundred and seventy-three years old... a toddler who knew just the basics on how to use his body and who was just starting to speak. At the time of their first meeting, the orphanage had been trying to return him to his mother—the ones who had taken him on had all died out in the recent plague, and there had been no one available to take him to and the population, naturally, was low thanks to the plague... they had tried to return him to his mother with no success. While on the way out from Atlas's stronghold, he had seen—
"Bile. He saw Bile, and then Lhaklar—he, who had never seen a non-human child before, was instantly curious about them. After breaking away from the guy who was taking him back to the camels, he ran right up to my sons, who were fast in playing with him. It wasn't until Guyunis ran up to me that I... that I knew who he was. There was no question in my mind then and there's no question in my mind now as to who fathered that kid."
The man who had been leading Guyunis to the camels had come up, and then apologized, before taking Guyunis up; she had done as any other parent who had just gained an attachment to a child who wasn't wanted would—the question on whether the man would leave the boy with her, so she could raise him as one of her own, was asked... and was declined. According to the man, it was against protocol to do that; a child from the orphanage had to be adopted via the orphanage instead of just being handed over to someone that they can't "monitor".
With their visiting Dione and her family, and Atlas and his, they had slept in a tent on that night; it had been very cold, and each of her sons had had two blankets on them to keep them warm. She had just made he rounds in making sure that they were all asleep when the sound of someone crying outside the tent was heard. After leaving the tent, then looking around to see where it was coming from, he had run up—even though the night was very dark, and the moon and stars weren't out to give some light to the out and about peoples that roamed after the sun set, Guyunis had known where she was and had run up to her. After seeing him, then picking him up, she had taken him into the tent.
"I gave him some food, and then some water, then I put him down for a nap—poor thing was really tired, and his feet were really sore too." she said in a whisper. "He didn't want to sleep on his own, so he crawled over to me—he fell asleep after curling up against me. Before I fell asleep, I named him—'GuyunisVile Lytro Surfeit', I said to him; 'you're the son of Lisa Ann Wahlberg and ShaamVile Kondee Surfeit... your name shall be GuyunisVile Lytro Surfeit.' "
While passing the room that she and her husband inhabited, she remembered how both she and her friend had been fearful over Shaam's impulses and over Lisa catching pregnant by him. In the three weeks that she and her sons, and Lisa, were living in Kuruk's house, Shaam had really shown how big his libido was—with his constantly going after Lisa, and making her go through more than one fear-induced session with him, it was no surprise that she had caught pregnant by him. In the three weeks that Lisa was under Kuruk's roof, she had been forced to have sex with Shaam four times—during each session, he'd go on about how much he liked her, and on how he was to take her home with him; after each session was done, he'd take all of what he said to her back and then say that she was nothing more than a "relieving lady", or a woman that a man used only to take the itch from his wanting to have sex away.
Lisa, at the time, had something like a male condom in herself; a friend of hers had invented it and had asked her to wear it. It hadn't been intended to go through a testing session but, thanks to the circumstances, it had gone through one; the device, later patented under the name of The Protective Reverse Condom, had been made as a way to protect women from men who had a wish to rape them, or who wished to have an non-concentual incestuous relationship with them. After Lisa was returned to Earth, the device was put on market; after three months, it was removed from the shelves that it was put on—a big flaw had been noted in it, which revolved around it breaking down after the second ill-done encounter occurred. That was one of the reasons to why Lisa had caught for Shaam.
The other reason revolved around Shaam himself; while he was a frequent user of a spell that caused him to become infertile during non-marital sex, and while he usually kept that spell on-going for a week and a half to two weeks before dropping it, he had done the counter-spell right after his and Lisa's final act was done. It was this, and the ejaculate being free in going past the broken interior condom, that had caused their child to be created.
"Four days after Tazir, and his family, showed up on Earth, I took a trip to see Miss. Lisa."
She remembered it very well; after going up to her friend, then looking her in the eye, she had said that she was adopting her son and that she had no say on it and that she couldn't stop her from doing so. A fight had happened; it had mostly been verbal, but Lisa had shoved her twice, and she had threatened to burn her dress and lab coat once, before the papers were shown and then the pen was given over. Lisa, who hadn't had a desire in having her be burdened by the child that she had given birth to, had signed the forms and then said for her to get the hell away from her. With Guyunis having been raised by her a few times, and for stretches of, sometimes, two hundred years, and with her being as close to him and seeing him as a child of hers, she hadn't been able to forget him or forget about wanting to have him as a permanent fixture in her and her sons' lives.
Lisa, just before saying for her to get away from her, had said that she didn't want to hear or see a thing of her son and that she hoped that she had "a good time" in taking on what she had given birth to. After getting the papers signed, she sent them to the orphanage, which had become a sort of big-time agency over the years, and then sat and waited for them to be approved and then processed. Apparently, the approval and processing occurred before Tazir took her and her sons from Earth and, apparently, Guyunis received word on her being his new adoptive parent after she and her sons were off the planet.
"The yell! The yell that I heard on the fourth of December...! That was Guyunis—he yelled after coming to the apartment and then seeing that it was empty!" she came close to stopping and then shouting. At the last possible second, she clamped her hands over her mouth; the shout was stifled just in time.
She continued on her way; the task, she knew, was to find her sons and then tell them what she had just learned. They would want to know who their "tormentor" was and they would probably also feel low, and then excited, after hearing that the "tormentor" was to be a member of their family.
" 'Not bother me and my sons again' ?" she repeated the final line in the letter that she had read. "Fat chance of that happening—I'm coming to get you, G. I'm going to Earth... I'm going to find you. There might be a lot of explaining for me to do after your here but you're coming home with me. You are coming home to be with the family that you should of had from the beginning."
While going down the stairwell that wound around the foyer's right side, she suddenly, and alarmingly, remembered that she had been given Jaboa a week ago. She had taken that edible potion, that would prevent one from teleporting anywhere, while Tazir stood over her and prodded her into doing so—how was she to get to Earth when the potion was still affecting her?
She couldn't take the trip to the library to find the book on counter-spells, then find the one that she needed then apply it to herself without anyone finding out what she was up to. She couldn't hitch a ride to the planet—people would notice her, and would put a bug in her husband's ear about her taking a trip to Earth; if her husband found out that she was hitching a ride to the planet, he'd retrieve her and then a fight would happen, which would probably not go in her favor. Having someone teleport her to the planet was out too—if she was sent to the planet by someone, she had no way of getting back to Moas.
Her husband was dead-set on Guyunis being a malevolent force hell-bent on hurting her and her sons; he would probably not accept her claim on adopting a child, and on leaving said child behind, and he might prevent her from retrieving said child after she explained who he was and what he looked like.
Could she go to Shaam, then explain the situation to him and then get him to either send her to the planet or come with her to the planet so she could retrieve Guyunis? She was just giving it a good thought on doing this when she found herself as walking into the very man that she was currently thinking about.
"Whoa there, Lass!" ShaamVile said after walking into her. He was gentle in pushing her from him.
"Sorry, been telling, and getting on Tazzy for the lack of lights and signs that the house's hallways have on them." Angel said.
"You feeling alright? According to Tazir, you wasn't feeling well yesterday." he gave Angel a quick studying before looking her in the eye.
"Must of slept it off because I feel like a million bucks." Angel said.
"That's good—we were all worried about you last night. Your sons were especially worried about you... all but one was given punishment for not listening to their papa—Tazir wanted you to be left alone and they kept wanting to check up on you." ShaamVile said.
"They were punished?" Angel gasped. Just hearing this made her not want to bring Guyunis to Moas, or to the mansion; if Tazir was punishing her kids for their being concerned for her then there was no telling what he'd do or say when Guyunis was in the house.
"Grounded for a week, Tazir says. All but Lhaklar were grounded—good decision, if you ask me. They just kept coming, and they wouldn't listen, Lass. You needed your rest; you didn't need your sons clambering all over you."
They talked for a short while; Shaam told her to not worry about about her sons being grounded, and he told her to take it easy. While Angel agreed to do this, she had no intention in doing so; with what she had just learned, being not-worried about her sons being grounded for an innocent action in seeing if she was okay or not, and taking it easy after learning that one of her children had been abandoned and was on Earth, she couldn't do neither of them things. Before going their separate ways, she asked the man a question—seeing as he was Guyunis's sire, and seeing as she didn't know how he reacted to folk of non-marital blood, she had to see if he would tolerate one in the family who was illegitimately born.
She was slow, careful, and gentle when she asked the question then she waited for a reply; Shaam, after being asked what he'd do if he found that one of his past-time lovers had had a child after sleeping with him, was silent for the longest of time before making a sound. He mused over the question for a short while; tasting it, and running it through his brain, before finding an answer—he had never been asked this question before and not once in his long life had he worried about some woman coming up to him and then saying that he was the father of her child.
"You ever hear of the Utasa Spell, Lass?"
"The spell that makes one infertile? Yes." Angel replied.
"I've been very careful with my activities with the Lasses, Angel. I use that spell with each partner that I take to my bed, so I have no worries on that ever happening." ShaamVile said.
"But say you did the counter-spell to it right after, or a few days after you and your woman did your thing—the life expectancy of semen is between five days to a week, you know."
"Again, Lass, I have no worries on a woman coming up and then saying that I've fathered one of their children. I've always done the counter-spell a few days after a week to two weeks have passed since I've bedded a woman, so I'm sure that that won't ever happen with me."
"And if by some chance one of your sperm did live past that time and you was the father of—"
"I will not accept any child claimed to be sired by me without a DNA test being performed and, even then, I'd have nothing to do with that child. I will only claim a child as mine if the woman that bore that child is engaged or married to me." ShaamVile said before going on down the hall.
Angel gave her head a nod; it was a good thing that she had asked him what she had before either coming clean on her present situation or going to retrieve Guyunis and then bringing him back. The man who was Guyunis's sire would probably be against her going to Earth to retrieve his son, and he'd probably be against her adopting him, and mothering and loving him—there was no telling what he'd do after finding that he had a son who was created out of two people who weren't married or engaged to one another... for all she knew, the man might hurt or kill Guyunis after learning about him or after seeing him as being brought to the mansion and then learning that he was his son.
Guyunis wasn't the one at fault for his being alive; he hadn't made his father have sex with his mother, or had asked to be born. All he had done was be born and then find himself as living in homes that were inappropriate for him.
After learning what she did, she made the decision to leave the mansion and to take all of her sons with her; there was no way that she'd go to Earth without them, or retrieve Guyunis without having them with her, and she wasn't about to leave them in a house where there were people who didn't understand them.
She wanted to help Guyunis, yes, and she wanted to show him the love that the ones who had taken him on as an adoptive son should have, and she wanted to be the mother that he had never had, but she didn't want to bring him to a house where he could be hurt or where everything was in such an upheaval that he might just be taken wrong or misunderstood. If Tazir had grounded three of her sons for their concern for her then what say he'd ground Guyunis for his simply saying something that he frowned upon or misinterpreted; along with all of these worries, her biggest one was of Tazir sending Guyunis away after seeing him and then learning that she had adopted him—while Tazir had let her adopt his daughter from his first marriage he might not like the idea of her adopting a child that wasn't fathered by him.
She also had to think about her great-grandfather too. He seemed so against having a little brother or sister; from what she was able to see, he seemed to want to be an only child. She didn't want Guyunis to be entering a battlefield, or walk into a fight where one member of his family claimed that he wasn't his get or that he didn't like or want him around. Duru's close-knit relationship with his father to the side, she didn't want anything to happen to any of her sons, Guyunis included in the mix.
Angel, the second she entered the smaller of the house's kitchens, started formulating a plan on her and her children's exit of the mansion; when the plan was halfway done in being drawn up, she started making herself a sandwich, and then started humming a small tune.