Can we all agree that Ur's children need to interact more? Yes? Ok, glad we're in agreement. I own nothing except a dysfunctional computer.
Ur never planned on starting a family. At least not until she met Ethan Hudson.
He was a young man, who had the same college courses as her and the same interests. She started to have a crush on him in their second year, but he didn't formally ask her out until after graduation. Ur thought that she might be falling in love after six dates, and that maybe this was who she wanted to spend her life with And then he left her, after the worst night of her life. What was worse was, she still had feelings for him. That was unfair (yes, considering how things had ended that was a petty complaint but she felt entitled to it).
A week later, Ur began to wonder if she was pregnant. It would be just her luck. The one time she decided to have a one-night stand, (well, or at least what ended up being a one-night stand) she'd get pregnant. Though even her luck wasn't that bad, right? The pills would work, right? Maybe?
Wrong.
At first she wasn't sure if she could keep it. Ur didn't want children yet. She wasn't sure if she ever would. Besides, she was only twenty two and trying to find a teaching position. But she kind of… wanted a kid. A tinier version of her, running around and playing with her. Ur decided to keep it.
Being pregnant was awful. All of the sickness and vomiting and wild emotions… it was the worst thing Ur had ever gone through. One day, about seventh months in, she woke up to find that something was… wrong. Something just felt wrong. So she drove to the doctor.
The baby was coming early. And if Ur thought pregnancy was bad, birth was even worse. She didn't know how long she screamed before finally, a tiny speck of a girl was born. And Ur loved her instantly. She hadn't known it would feel like this. The kid hadn't even done anything, but she would die for her.
Other doctors took the baby away, and a young woman in a lab coat came in. "Ms. Milkovich?" she said, smiling with thinly-veiled pity. "Your child will need to be kept here for several months, since she was born early. You should probably stay here too. I'm afraid there might have been… complications."
"What kind?"
"The birthing process was so traumatic, that I don't know if your body can handle it any more. I'm afraid it would be a risk for you to ever become pregnant again."
Ur swallowed. She didn't even have the energy to sit up in her hospital bed. "Will… will my daughter be alright?"
"She's a strong one."
That wasn't exactly an answer. Ur just nodded. The doctor smiled at her as she was hooked up to machines and had blood drawn. She was fine with possibly never giving birth to children again. But she didn't want her daughter to die.
Three months later, Ur got to hold Ultear. The girl was still small, but finally she could go home. Since she'd been released from the hospital two months ago, the woman had spent almost all her time baby-proofing her apartment and setting up Ultear's room. Not that she ever used it. Ur would move her baby's crib into her room so she could watch her sleep.
Ultear's first word was "Mommy". She was only nine months old. She took her first steps at eleven months. The little girl was intelligent and relatively well behaved, though she did have more attitude than any baby Ur had ever met.
Having a child was terrifying, stressful, and tiring. Ultear was always awake at weird hours, and always getting into things. Ur loved her, but was almost glad when she started pre-school. It gave her a chance to get back to work. She'd gotten a job as a second-grade teacher at the elementary school. It was a lot of work, but she loved the little kids.
Ultear was five when she had her first seizure. The little girl started jerking and screaming, as if something was locked inside her, trying to get out. After Ur could the ambulance, the doctors couldn't figure out what was wrong. None of the medicines they prescribed worked. Every three months, the kid would have another one. Ur was pretty sure she knew what was wrong. And she resolved that she'd always try to protect her daughter.
Because Ultear was her world. The woman would never need anything besides her daughter. Her life was hard, yes, but it was perfect to her.
When Ultear was nine, Ur noticed something strange about one of her students- Lyon Vastia. The little boy always came to school with strange bruises and he was always tired. While grades didn't matter much in second grade, his were terrible. The teacher met him one day after class. "Lyon," she said, smiling in what she hoped was a reassuring way, "What's wrong? Do you need help in class?"
"I'm fine," the boy muttered. He was obviously not fine. There was a huge bruise on his shoulder that the, and Ur suddenly made an awful connection.
"Do your parents ever hit you?" The little boy flinching backwards was answer enough. Ur did not think she was equipped to deal with this, but she had to help the kid. "Lyon. I need you to come stay at my apartment tonight, ok?"
"No! My parents will… no. I'm fine."
"You're not fine. You need to come stay with me tonight. You can play with my daughter, and it'll be lots of fun! Your parents will be ok with it!"
After thinking about it for a few seconds, the boy nodded nervously.
When Ur picked Ultear up, the girl was surprised to see a strange boy with her mother. She took it in stride though, and when they got home the two did their homework together and talked. Meanwhile, Ur made a few calls.
Lyon stayed at her house for the next three days until Ur got the message: the boy had legally been removed from his mother's custody for the foreseeable future. Since no one could find any family members, he didn't have a place to stay. Like the sap that she was, Ur offered to become his legal guardian. He got along well with Ultear, and was a reasonably well behaved kid most of the time. A few days later, she was setting up her spare bedroom.
The next year was relatively uneventful, besides for Ur having to adapt to having a new child in her home. Lyon got into a lot of trouble at school. He was rude to his classmates and teachers, fought kids on the playground, had no friends, and wouldn't let any adult touch him. But Ultear adored him, and he was a genuinely good kid at home. Little by little he started to become better behaved, and his grades went up. By the time he let Ur touch his shoulder, she loved him just as much as she loved her own daughter.
The next year, Ur noticed that one of her students, a kid named Gray, wasn't in school. Which wouldn't normally be a big deal, except for his friends hadn't heard from him either and the principal hadn't gotten a call from his parents. Until she did. The boy's parents had died in a car crash, and he was in the hospital.
Ur went to visit him because of course she did, he was her student. Gray was sitting in his hospital bed, staring at nothing. He didn't look ok. The woman sat down next to him and smiled. "Hey, kid! You ok?"
"Why are you here, Ms. Ur? Cana already brought me all my homework."
"I just wanted to check in, see how you're doing, the like!"
Gray rolled his eyes. "I'm fine." He very clearly wasn't. He looked like he was trying to look brave and strong and uncaring, but Ur had spent enough time with kids to know he wasn't. She decided then and there that her new mission was to make this kid feel better. She sat by him for the next thirty minutes, talking about crazy things his classmates had done and Star Wars. And by the end of it, he'd actually talked back. Not much, but it was a start.
Ur visited every day for the rest of Gray's week-long hospital stay. Somedays she brought Ultear and Lyon. He got along well with Ultear, but he and Lyon fought with each other almost immediately. Almost like siblings. Somedays, though, Ur just visited alone. Once she even brought Natsu, Cana and Erza, Gray's best friends from class. By the end of the week, Gray seemed almost back to normal. At least in front of her.
None of Gray's relatives that could be found would take him in, for various reasons. On the last day, one week after his parents died, Ur asked Ultear and Lyon how they would feel about Gray coming to live with them. Ultear was enthusiastic. Lyon… less so, but he got over it. Gray thought that it sounded better than living with strangers, so he agreed too.
It wasn't exactly easy. The apartment wasn't all that big, and since Lyon and Gray had to share a room not a day went by when Ur didn't hear them shouting at each other. Almost every night Gray would end up in a sleeping bag on the floor of the woman's room. Ur didn't blame him. Sometimes she'd find him randomly crying in his bedroom. When that happened, Ur just stroked his hair until he stopped. It took a while, but finally he started opening up about his parents. He became more talkative- not exactly outgoing, but not super withdrawn either. He joked around with his siblings and his friends, and had to smile just watching him.
Six months later, she officially signed the adoption papers.
And then two months later, Ultear walked into the apartment holding the hand of a little girl, about six or seven. The little kid was bruised and dirty, and she looked very, very hungry. "Mom, this is Meredy," Ultear said with no preface. "Can I get her something to eat?'
Ur silently nodded and watched her daughter take the girl to the kitchen. Lyon and Gray looked out of their room curiously before ducking back in. They didn't want to have to deal with… whatever this was. Ur just sighed. This was typical.
Apparently Ultear had found a random homeless child on the street and had decided to take her home. Meredy (or Meldy as Ultear referred to her) didn't talk very much to Ur, but she wouldn't leave the side of the girl who'd found her.
"Mom, can she stay? I'll keep her in my room and-"
"Ultear Miklovich, this is not some pet, it is an entire child!'
"... so can she stay?'
By this point, Ur had resolved herself to having another child in the house. Meldy was a good kid, though. She helped out with chores and was always well behaved. She didn't know how to read, but learned pretty fast. Eventually, she told the group that her parents had died two years ago, and she'd lived with various aunts, uncles, grandparents, and cousins. She'd run away from all of them for various reasons. None of them wanted her. So now Ur was the official guardian of another small child. Ultear helped, but by this point she was feeling slightly overworked.
And that was all before Ultear's father appeared.
All of them were watching a movie on the couch one night. It was a dark and stormy night, which should've been her first clue that something was about to go wrong. Ultear was sitting on one end braiding Meldy's hair (she was determined to dye it pink at some point) and the two boys were sitting on either side of Ur. They'd never admit it, but both of them hated thunder for various reasons.
Suddenly the electricity flickered out, leaving them in total darkness. A fire appeared in the center of the room. Meldy screamed. Ur quickly stood up, but the fire wasn't spreading. It was just… there. Like when… oh shit.
A man appeared in the fire. He was tall, with reddish-purple eyes and fiery, red hair. He smiled at Ur sweetly. "Hey, Ur." He looked around the room, and one eyebrow rose. "Well, you've been busy.'
"Ethan," Ur backed up, keeping her children behind her. Not that it would matter. If this thing wanted them, he would have them. "What do you want?"
"First of all, you know my name isn't Ethan. We've had this conversation, darling. Second, I've come to meet my daughter, of course!" He looked at Ultear and grinned. "Hello, sweetheart! You look so much like your mom… but there's a little bit of me in your eyes. Sorry I couldn't come meet you until now, but because of the curse-"
"What curse?" Gray cut in. "Ur, what's going on? Who is this?"
"You're my dad?" Ultear asked slowly. She hugged Meldy tighter. "I didn't think I'd ever meet you…"
"Well, here I am, darling!" Ethan beamed. If Ur didn't know better, she'd think he was honestly excited to meet his daughter. "I bet your mom never told you about me, right?"
"She… she said you left us. That you didn't even know I existed."
"'Course I knew! I just couldn't get around to visiting you because of your mother." The thing mocked-glared at Ur, but she could see his anger. He hated her. "I'd have met you a long time ago, but-"
"But I wouldn't let you take my child to the Demon Realm," Ur cut in. "You need to go. She can't-"
"She is my princess and heir, Ur. She doesn't belong up here."
"Yes she does!" Gray looked terrified, but he glared at the demon. "She belongs with us!"
"You can't take her away! We won't let you!"
"Please, don't leave!"
The three younger kids stood in front of their sister, ready to fight the king of the Demon Realm for her. Ur had never been more proud. Or more terrified. Ethan (that's how she still thought of him. It was stupid, but she still hoped sometimes…) laughed. "Try to stop me, little humans. I would love to watch."
"No!" Ultear pushed past her siblings and stared at her father. Energy seemed to wrap around her. The girl was terrified but calm at the same time. Her father had to go. She'd never wanted to meet him, and now that she did she wished that she hadn't. Dad was ruining her wonderful life, with her mother and siblings and friends and writing and her home. She would not let him.
The demon started to be pushed back into the circle of fire, propelled by the girl's will. "Ultrear!" he screamed. "Stop this!"
"She won't." Ur stepped up to her daughter's side and began to chant. She knew this spell. It was even more powerful when she used the magic radiating off of her daughter. It was close to the spell she had used twelve years ago, but not exactly identical. She'd spent several years refining the spell, because obviously the last one hadn't worked all that well. "My daughter is strong."
Ethan fell backwards, and disappeared into the circle. Ultear fell onto the couch, and was instantly engulfed in a hug by her terrified siblings. After about a full minute, Lyon looked up at Ur and quietly asked, "What was that?"
"That was Ultear's father."
"Well, yeah, we gathered that! I think he wants to know how on earth Ultear's father is a demon!"
"Will he come back?" the oldest girl asked quietly.
Ur sighed, sitting back down on the couch. "Not for the next three years, at least. But… he will likely come back. He was stronger than the last time I banished him."
"You have to tell us everything, Ur." Gray glared at her. "We need to know."
They would probably hate her after this. She would, if she'd found out that her mother was hiding something this important from her. But what else could she do?
"You know what witches are, right?"
"Oh, he-"
"Like in Harry Potter?"
"Kinda. Well, there's a secret order of witches that kinda… keep the demons away from the earth and in the demon realm. They use energy and spells to lock doorways that pop up all over the world and to banish demons that do get through."
"...Ok. Why not?"
"I'm one of them." Ur waited for her kids to react. All of them just stared at her for a minute before Lyon nodded. "Continue."
"I didn't want to be. I left the order temporarily to try to live a normal life. When I started college, I met Ethan. Of course I knew he wasn't entirely human, but he was so good at masking his energy, I thought he was just a half-demon or something. I fell in love with him, and I thought… I thought he fell in love with me."
"But he's a demon. I thought all demons were bad? They are in books"
"I don't know about all of them, but this one is. He was only interested in me because I was powerful. And he thought that I would be a good mother to his heir. We… slept together-"
"Gross!"
"-and he told me about being a demon and his real name- King Deliora- and that he wanted me to be his queen. I panicked. I improvised a banishing spell, sent him back to his world and locked the door, and prayed that I wasn't pregnant. But obviously I was." That was something Ur had wondered for the past twelve years: did birth control pills work on half-demon children? Apparently not. "That's why you always got seizures, Ultear. It was your father's magic, trying to drag you back to his world. I was able to make it so he was only able to try every three full-moons and I knew that you'd never let him win, but I was still so scared." The woman closed her eyes and exhaled. "So scared."
Ultear was numb. She'd always known that her dad hadn't stuck around, and that Mom hadn't planned to get pregnant with her. But a demon king? Really? It did make a twisted kind of sense. It did explain the way she'd always felt different than her classmate, and the weird things that she'd never told anyone about. She wasn't sure how to feel.
Lyon was irritated. Some idiot king had just tried to take his big sister away. That wasn't allowed. Nope. He glared at the place where whatever the demon's name was had vanished. He wouldn't get Lyon's family. No way. And, somewhere, he was angry at Ur. She'd lied to them for years! Why? She'd been the only person he'd trusted for a long time, and now it was all a lie. Magic was real, and she'd never even mentioned it?
Gray was scared. He'd never admit it, but he was scared. He'd always been scared of monsters and the dark and the scary stories one of his classmates used to tell. They were real. Demons were real. And one of them was coming for his family.
Meldy was confused. That thing was Ultear's dad? But Ultear was sweet and kind! She couldn't be related to the thing that had lit a fire in their home. Would Ultear leave her now? She wouldn't. Meldy wouldn't let her.
Ur wasn't sure how her children would react, but she wasn't expecting Lyon to turn to her and say, "Teach me to fight.'
"What?"
"If that thing's gonna come back, I want to learn how to fight and use magic! I want to get him to go away!"
"M-me too!" Gray called. Meldy looked up from Ultear's arms and nodded slightly. Ur shook her head slowly.
"Not everyone can use magic. It-"
"Can we?"
Reluctantly, Ur waved a hand in front of her eyes, turning on her aura-vision. Ultear, of course, had the strongest magical aura. Meldy's was also surprisingly strong. The little girl had the potential to be a witch, and a fairly powerful one. Lyon wasn't as powerful, but he had enough to learn some basic spells, which, again, was pretty surprising. Gray… he didn't have any magic. Ur wasn't sure if that was good or bad.
If magic was taught badly, it could be a very destructive force for everyone involved. And Ur had never taught anyone magic, much less her children. But they would need to defend themselves if Deliora came back.
"Alright," she said finally. "I'll start teaching Lyon and Meldy magic." When Gray tried to object, Ur quickly added, "And I will also teach Gray hand-to-hand fighting, which can also be just as useful."
"But I want to learn magic!"
"Some people just don't have any, Gray. That doesn't make you any less worthy." Ur could tell that her youngest son wasn't reassured, so she tried to change the subject. "Now, what would you say to some-"
And then she was crying. She couldn't help it. All of what had happened tonight… the fear, seeing Deliora again, finally telling her kids everything… it was overwhelming. All of her children grabbed onto her at once and they stayed like that for who knew how long.
They would protect each other.
Finally Ur pulled away, wiping her eyes. "Well! WHat do you say we go find a restaurant that's still open? I could use something other than leftovers."
"IHOP!"
"Mcdonald's! It's closer to dinnertime than breakfast
time!"
"Pizza Hut!"
"I want Wendy's"
Ur laughed to herself as they walked out the door. She'd never planned on starting a family. But now she had one, and she wouldn't trade it for the world.
Me: Ok, time to write a nice little normal AU fanfiction…
My Brain: Add a demon
Me: Why?
My Brain: You gotta
I swear I tried
Anyway, so this is something that popped into my mind a few days ago. It'll have a plot eventually, but will also be a bunch of little snippets from their everyday lives. Please keep in mind that I am not a doctor nor do I have any idea how custody laws work. Leave a review if you have constructive criticisms, questions, plot suggestions, and ideas for little one-chapter arcs! Later, potaters!