04.08.98; 00:25; the great hall:
The hall had filled with most of the clan, as they were very interested in their sister's newly discovered family, like in her herself. But most of the clan's attention was paid on Gem, since she was the only infant gargoyle in New York yet and such she was handed to other gargoyles very often who liked to cuddle the hatchling.
Even Jarred had much fun by talking with the other hatchlings around his age having gathered around him and standing a bit aside the mass of the older gargoyles circled around Demona, Darlene with Gem and Lana.
Darlene enjoyed this very much, having found some gargoyles she could talk with. Most of the clan had questions about her life and how it had been to be human for so long... even when most of them didn't understand why she would have wished it.
Shade sat a bit away from the trouble, studying it bored and not being interested in Bronx's urgent requests to play with him.
Demona and Lana formed the other end of the scale. Lana felt so alone since she was besieged by practically all mate-less members of the Manhattan-clan who all told her of their glorious deeds in fighting Vikings and bandits or even the Pack... Lana wanted nothing more than to be back home, even when this just meant her grandmother's mansion.
Lana's grandmother was not really besieged since most of the clan gave their interest to Darlene, but her cold face proofed that she didn't wish to be here either, since parts of her former clans, mostly her siblings, wished to know of her life. By this way, Demona gave the word taciturn a new meaning.
"So, you seemingly have had some fun in the last few centuries, sister." her sister Arnadela asked Demona. She was a blue gargess with a beak, blue green hair and a bony knob at the end of her tail, wearing a white tunic and Demona remembered that she had once been very much after Goliath.
"Occasionally, sister," Demona replied, holding the border of not sounding impolite, but asking herself at the same time if this sister of hers had listened to a piece of the history of her life Goliath knew and had securely told them by the Awakening.
"I mean," Arnadela corrected herself, "you surely have met interesting gargoyles in your life.... males for once."
"Occasionally," Demona replied. her face even and cool like her voice.
Arnadela exchanged looks with her other sisters around her.
"No mates out there besides the one we know?" Fuchsia asked her sister, not letting it go. "And did you have no other fun than you had seemingly with one of your clan?"
Demona studied her sister intensely; even she didn't know if this tone was hostile.
"Well..." Demona began and an image flashed through her mind, "it was occasionally like I said. I didn't meet many clans over the centuries and for decades no one, so there wasn't much possibility for such."
Agamemnon starred at his rookery-daughter.
"You haven't met some of our kind for decades?" he asked unbelieving. "Lass, with whom have you talked in all this time?"
Demona gave no answers, but her eyes, now centered on him, proofed the truth… with no one.
At once she saw pity not just in her elder's face, but also in that of her siblings and continuous others. She would sooner see that they hated her than that they felt pity for her.
"But this wasn't so bad." she lied to them, as if she was talking about the weather. "The problems began when I met clans."
This definitely did not help much, as she saw in the faces of the gargoyles surrounding her, now not just pity, but even so curiosity.
"Maybe I will talk about this another time." Demona explained which was the greatest lie since she didn't plan to be here long enough to do so. "But why don't you tell me how life is for you here now? Surely it had been hard to wake up in a world so different of what you... of what we knew back then?"
Her sisters gave each other looks, as they knew it was senseless to ask their sister about something when she didn't want to answer... she always had secrets.
Meanwhile Darlene, having Gem secure in her arms, talked with Deborah.
"Thanks again for allowing Jarred to take part in your training." she told the older gargess "It means very much to him."
Deborah nodded.
"It is a pleasure for me, especially since your hatchling seems very eager." the older gargess explained "He can come every night, but he has to be here exactly at 10-0-clock, this is around the time when I usually start the lesson."
Darlene nodded, she would take care of that and since she couldn't let her son glide alone, she had the perfect reason for visiting the clan every night if she wanted to, if not then she could ask Lana or her mother to do so.
"You know your son could even visit our literature class." Goliath suggested "They have already learnt much and I think some of this literature might interest your son."
~ You don't know Jarred ~ Darlene thought, knowing that her son maybe couldn't even spell 'book'.
"Well I don't think this is a good idea. On top of the things that Jarred likes about being a gargoyle, is that he doesn't need to go to school." She said this with a smile, but just got honest confusion from Goliath. Seemingly this gargoyle had no idea of how human children hated school.
"Besides, mom already teaches him magic in the week and I don't want it to become too much." she added.
What Darlene had thought was a minor matter, brought her the absolute silence and the attention of the eyes of all gargoyles surrounding her.
"Ähem, did I say anything wrong?" Darlene asked, looking around.
Deborah was the first who got back her voice.
"You let her teach him magic?" she asked unbelieving.
"Well, yes." Darlene admitted. "Mother trained me in this when I was young, so I don't see a reason why Jarred shouldn't learn it too."
Deborah's eyes stayed wide while she looked on the gargess speechless.
"The clan is a bit careful by magic." Angela helped out.
Darlene nodded, as she could understand this, considering that a part of them had been forced to sleep 1000 years through this.
"I understand, but there is nothing bad by being able to do magic." Darlene explained. "Magic is just a weapon, mother has taught me."
Deborah was going to say that it was definitely not so, especially when Jarred learned magic from Demona, but bit her lip since she knew it would lead to nothing.
It followed an ugly silence in which no one knew what to say.
"What are you doing with your time since you are back here?" One of the generation above Goliath's asked finally if just to end the silence.
"Well," Darlene began, "I think first I will spend time exploring the city. Besides this building, there are sure a lot changes here."
"Yes, but I warn you to be careful." Goliath explained. "The Quarrymen have been disbanded, but there are still people who think like them and they're are reporters who are seemingly hungry for pictures of members of our race."
"I could accompany you." Therisities offered Darlene and on her surprised look he added, a bit stumbling. "I... I mean I could show you the area and could show you the best places to hide if one quarryman, the pack or any mad clone comes up."
A bit startled by his offer and surprised when she heard the good-hearted laughter of some of the gargoyles surrounding her, Darlene just looked on him until she finally nodded with a warm smile.
"I would like this very much." she explained warmly, causing Thersities's skin-tone to change from grey to light red.
"Seemingly our brother has finally found a female who is interested in his best ability." One gargoyle, one who looked like Brooklyn but with a beard, whispered to another by slightly elbowing his stomach.
"Yes." replied the other, who was called Javin, grinning. "Who would have believed it?"
Darlene noticed these whispers in wonder and made a mental note to ask her mother about this special brother with the twisted horns, of hers. But her thoughts were stopped when she noticed that there, leaning on the wall of the hall, actually stood the gargoyle that she had been looking for the whole evening.
This special gargoyle was rather large, had a brown-grey skin, white hair, a beak and, how Darlene had lately discovered, was the father of her half-brother... Some when she would kill her mother.
He stood beside another gargoyle she had never seen before, a grey one who was hairless with two horns growing out of the sides of his head and most obvious was an iron breastplate and they were both talking, most likely about her mother, as they were both looking at her.
Darlene turned to Angela, who had just talked to her.
"Sorry, can you repeat that?" Darlene asked her, since she hadn't listened.
"I said that I am happy that we haven't had any greater trouble in the last month." Angela explained, asking herself what might distract both her mother and her sister so. "Even the Pack seems to have disappeared."
Darlene nodded, but without really having understood the meaning of these words, since she saw how the gargoyle she had searched for just in this moment left through one of the floors. This was the moment when Darlene made her decision.
"Sorry, but where is the WC?" she asked, looking rather a bit uneasy, hoping that they would understand this simply, as embarrassment over the question than as sign for the fact that she wanted to go after the nameless gargoyle.
"Well there are many WCs in the castle, but the closest is there." Angela explained, showing right into the direction Darlene had prayed for. "I could show you."
"No thanks." Darlene denied her sister's offer politely. "I always had a good sense for finding rooms, but could you hold Gem?"
Angela nodded and took over the hatchling, who seemed to have no trouble of being held by her aunt, while Darlene ran rather than walked over the floor and when she had reached it, she went over to run on all fours.
"Seemingly she has a pressing urge." Javin noticed smiling.
"Well I saw that she and her children just ate something when I came." Angela defended her and fussed Gem. By doing so she noticed, or rather smelled something. "And seemingly she is not the only one who has eaten well."
This was the moment when the others who surrounded the hatchling in Angela's arms, noticed the smell, too.
"Urgh." Javin commented, making a face of disgust while studying Gem. "She has definitely eaten well."
"Well we will smell this soon every night when our own hatch." Hudson replied, smiling a knowing smile in union with his mate.
"Oh joy." Thersities commented desperately. He knew who had to change them.
"Well I think I should change her before Darlene comes back." Angela explained, tickling Gem on her belly. "This would be better?"
The hatchling gulped which Angela took as a yes and took her away. Luckily they had prepared for their hatchings already by buying masses of diapers alike with other equipment, so that there would be no lack of this when needed.
"The lass seems to be training for her own rookery." Hudson noticed.
"Funny, considering that the lass and her rookery kin should have been the next to hatch." an elder of the rookery above Hudson's noted beside him. "Fate really has played pranks to us."
"I wouldn't call it fate." Deborah noticed icily, looking at Demona who stood amongst the gargoyles surrounding her, trying not to look as bad as she felt herself.
04.08.98; 00:42; a floor near the great hall:
Darlene had just passed the corner and feared already that she had lost the gargoyle she wanted to speak to, in the labyrinth of floors, when she saw him directly in front of her.
"Hey...." she hesitated shortly, reminiscing what her mother had taught her how to speak to others of their kind. "…friend."
The gargoyle of Demona's former clan turned around to her, looking surprised.
"Ähhh, yes?" he replied.
'How often have you slept with my mother?' was the first thing she wanted to ask him, but then she realized that this might be a bit too direct.
"I just wanted to ask you something about my mother...." Darlene began, looking around for other gargoyles on the floors, but there were none. "Your former leader."
"What?" the gargoyle asked; still perplexed.
"Well I know that you both have a son, Connor, my half-brother," Darlene began, "and I wanted to know if you have any further children... like maybe one of the eggs in the rookery."
The gargoyle looked even more perplexed on the strange, but magnificent looking gargess, who reminded him so greatly of his former leader.
"Well the lad is my rookery son like hers and it isn't our way to....." he began, but was stopped by Darlene's snarl.
"LISTEN!" she snarled with blood-red eyes, as silent and as threatening as possible while grabbing his clothes. "I'm not interested in this old excuse! Have you and my mother conceived an egg for this rookery or not?!"
The gargoyle tried unsuccessfully to move a bit backward, having got the absolute proof that this was his former leader's flesh and blood.
"No!" he replied, speaking the absolute truth. "We have not. It was just the one breeder's moon."
Darlene felt herself relaxing, until she felt a small rumble in her stomach and took her claws from his loincloth.
"I'm sorry." she apologized for her outburst. "But I already have trouble with my mother about this and...." she sighed. "It got through to me. You won't tell her about this?"
The gargoyle looked on the strange gargess carefully. She looked calm now, but he knew now of her temper and he definitely wouldn't be the one who would try to oppose her, especially since this was something between her and her 'mother'.
"No, I won't." he assured her. "Is this all or are there any more questions?"
Darlene shook her head and so released him. She wanted to apologize to him one more time, but he had already turned around and obviously fled.
"Mother," she spoke depressed to an imaginary Demona, "if there have ever been any doubts about me being your daughter, then there are no more."
Sighing, she turned around to walk slowly back into the great hall when she had the feeling in her stomach again.
~ Uff ~ she thought, stroking her stomach, ~apparently I really have to go to the WC. ~
Darlene swore herself not to eat so much of her mother's 'snacks' anymore.
04.08.98; 01:03; a floor near the great hall:
Darlene went out of the WC, a bit relieved but not much since she still felt something in her stomach, which she couldn't quite define.
~ I have to ask mother after the recipe ~ Darlene thought. ~ Otherwise Jarred and Lana haven't complained yet and Gem.... ~
Her thoughts were stopped by a happy cooing very near by her and when Darlene looked around she noticed Angela with Gem in her arms standing behind her.
"I have changed her." Angela explained on the surprised look of her older... younger... of her sister. "Seemingly you weren't the only one who ate well."
Darlene nodded while taking Gem from her half-sister.
"Yes." she explained, ordering herself to remember that she would have to cook if her sister or any one of the clan would ever come to eat at her mother's mansion... She didn't want to let her mother poison her new-found family. "Thank you, sister."
"No need." Angela replied "I like to train for my own someday."
Darlene exposed a smile.
"Well, you will be able to care for some in about a month." she noted. "I hope that I will be able to see them hatch. I mean, them being from mother's clan means that we share something with them."
"Yes," Angela agreed nodding, "but despite this, I think the happiest moments of all will be when I have my own hatchlings."
"For me it was." Darlene explained, reminiscing with an absent smile. "To hold Lana in my arms for the first time... then Jarred and finally Gem..."
She looked on her youngest daughter in her arms and her smile faded until there was nothing then a look of sadness.
"Sister?" Angela asked her softly, touching her sister's shoulder.
Darlene looked up, brought back to the present.
"Sorry." she explained sighing. "It's just that me and Paul wished we could have had even more children and..."
A tear shivered in her eyes, but she wished it away, banning these thoughts, especially since she noticed that Gem grew restless, noticing her mother's pain.
"It is okay." Angela said sympathetically. "I mean gargoyles never have more than three own children since twins are very rare. Even our mother has only us three."
Darlene sighed.
"Maybe," she explained with a half-smile "but I can't get enough of them."
She looked in her sister's understanding eyes and shook her head.
"Otherwise I have just gained a complete clan as family, so I don't think I should complain." Darlene explained with a half-smile "And you will see one day, you will have children by yourself."
Angela nodded, knowing that her sister wanted to end the topic of Paul.
"Yes, but first in twenty years." she reminded her. "I already thought about asking Puck to help me, but then there was the problem that a child of mine would have no one to play with here and after mother brought all the clan back..." Angela scraped on the ground with her feet-claws. "Well I don't think the mass of them would react well on such or even understand why I want such. For them, a hatchling belongs to the whole clan."
Darlene looked to her sister understanding.
"I can't help you with the clan sister, but as a sole-child, I knew it is sometimes hard to grow up alone." she explained and on the sympathizing look of her sister, she added fast. "Oh I mean mum was a great mother and she gave me everything...." ~ Yeah ~ a cynical voice in her mind replied ~ this was the reason you ran away ~ "Everything she could give me, but sometimes I felt lonely and wondered how it would be to have siblings, or just friends."
"And I grew up with many rookery-siblings." Angela explained. "Thirty-one to be exact and the Princess, the Magus and Tom were great rookery parents, but I always asked myself who my true parents were and how it would be to have them around."
Darlene and Angela looked on each other, both thinking the same of being happy to have found someone with whom they could speak about such things.
"Well then we both finally have what we wanted." Darlene noticed smiling, tickling Gem's stomach and leading the hatchling to giggle. "Come, let us go to the clan and see how mum is."
Angela nodded, now smiling, too, and followed her sister down the floor.
04.08.98; 01:14; the great hall:
"... Oh yes and then I threw this Viking against the wall and disarmed the other with a kick of my tail."
This constant story of his heroic deeds came from a young warrior of Lana's age with a crested head on which grew dark-fair hair, who demonstrated this with a gesture of his tail, which lashed wildly in the air.
~ God, ~ Lana thought stressed, ~ am I the only female gargoyle here? ~
Obviously not, since she noticed the growing group of females, standing away from her, and looking particularly jealous and even angry on her. Somehow Lana knew that while she had gained a lot of *friends* amongst the male gargoyles of her age, now her chances to find female friends were miserable.
"Hey, this is nothing against what I fought already against." Brooklyn intervened, his chest swelled due in pride and to demonstrate his muscles. "There was an army of steel-clan-robots hunting us, masses of muggers who were after their prey, Dem...." he bit his lip, he had nearly added Demona, but somehow he doubted that fighting against her grandmother would be a plus for Lana. "Immortal warriors, clones, mutated..."
Brooklyn was so busy in eagerly counting his deeds that he, like the gargoyles surrounding him, didn't notice the small group of gargoyles looking, frowning at him in growing resentment while talking to each other, sometimes shaking their heads, everyone except Goliath who just talked with his mentor and looked at them.
Meanwhile, Demona was busy to prevent the gargoyles around her to ask further questions she didn't want to answer and so had no eye left for her granddaughter's misery. But she had indeed one eye for the group of gargoyles of all age up from Brooklyn's generation, which she had personally trained to warriors to the oldest clan-members... Not one of them looked friendly on her.
"Lately, many big media empires have even asked us if we would play a role in their shows..." Desdemona noted "By the dragon, Goliath told me that Schwarz even wanted to produce dolls and action figures of us."
"I heard of this." Demona replied. "Typical of humans, trying to make money out of everything, they have no senses of the honor of other races."
Before her sister could reply something of this statement, which proofed that Demona still wasn't the most tolerant gargoyle in the world, someone else came between them who, how Demona had noticed, came from the group looking on her.
"I didn't think that you would mind to produce such things by yourself, Demona." This voice came from one older gargoyle, two generations above Demona's and who had served as her drill-master of her rookery once. "Neither do I think you have any honor or care for that of our race."
Demona's eyes stayed cool, uncaring, but deep down she felt something in her froze, which wasn't dramatically since it hadn't truly melted any time this night or the nights before.
"And what makes you think this?" she asked icily.
Both starred at each other and Demona's keen ears, now like the rest of her body brought on war-mode, sensed the growing circle of silence, growing around her since parts of the clan noticed the tension centered on them both.
"The fact that you are a traitor, who can't even spell the words honor and decency." the older female explained and Demona could see a growing spark of red in her eyes. "Someone who would sooner kill us all than to admit this?!"
There was a voice in her mind, a voice which spoke sadly and as soft as Demona believed she had never sounded.
~ She is right ~ this voice nearly cried, as she remembered how this elder once had caught her in the air when she had lost the control through a sudden updraft, or how she had told her and her rookery-siblings stories of her fights. ~ I should beg for her mercy to her feet since there can't be forgiveness. ~
But there was even so another voice, a voice full of anger and outrage.
~ How dare this old wretch? ~ it said. ~ After all I went through to bring them back.... I am the only reason that she breathes! She should lie at my feet and thank me!!! ~
This voice, which was more dominant than the first, let her mind search for all the weaknesses she knew of this gargoyle.
~ Well she is slow and weak with her left... ~ the voice thought. ~ I could surprise her and grab her neck so fast that she won't even know what's happening and then one fast push... ~
Demona stopped both voices in her head and simply held her look in the older gargoyle's grey angry eyes.
"I should have warned you, yes." she explained, her voice somewhere below zero.
The older gargess looked in Demona's eyes and alone these showed that she wasn't satisfied with the answer, but before she could answer on this, Agamemnon intervened.
"Lass, I don't think such things should be talked here." he tried. "The leader has made his decision in this matter and the hatchlings... "
"I'm not interested in such," the gargess snarled, now with blood red eyes. "She has... "
"In what are you not interested?" a deep and strong voice demanded from behind her back.
The elder turned around to see her leader standing behind her, staring hard on her.
"We were just discussing something." Desdemona intervened before the elder could say anything more. "But this discussion is over now."
Desdemona's voice was uncommonly hard and the elder noticed that, with the leader near her, this maybe wasn't the best time to contradict, especially since now that some of the young males, caught by Lana's beauty, alike with two of the hatchlings gathered around Jarred, were starting to look at them.
"Maybe," she directed to the leader and then turned back to Demona, "but it will be continued by other occasions."
"I won't stop you." Demona replied icily, but in her voice was more than a bit of challenge, showing that she wouldn't dodge before a confrontation.
The elder held her glare on the young one, whose eyes didn't flinch and then, under the eyes of half of the gathered clan, she turned around to go back to her group.
Demona's icy green eyes followed the older gargoyle until the end and then turned her look back to the ones surrounding her, who was all looking around in an awkward silent. Goliath made the first move by turning around and looking on the gargoyles still staring on this scene. His face gave them the hint that it was better to turn back to their former matters and when all had done so, Goliath turned his attention back to the circle before him and the special gargoyle there.
"Please try to prevent such in the future." Goliath said, quietly enough that only the inner circle of the surroundings understood him and as calm as possible, he knew Demona wouldn't follow on his 'orders'.
"I didn't begin it." Demona replied and her voice dropped even some degrees more, maybe since one voice in the back of her head reminded her that she had started it indeed.
Goliath shook his head slightly.
~ I thought she understood ~ he thought, a bit disappointed.
"It doesn't matter who started it." Goliath said. "I can't condone fighting here now."
~ You could never condone any fighting? ~ Demona asked him cynically in her mind, remembering the night before the massacre when he had sent the trio into the rookery, giving her the same reasons with practically the same words, ~ and you will never change. ~
"I didn't provoke this 'discussion,' Goliath," she explained, her eyes studying her ex-mate's eyes, "but neither will I shrink back from them."
Goliath held the look, but he knew that he wouldn't achieve more without a struggle and he didn't need this now. With a nod, he turned around, going back to the group, including Deborah and Hudson, while Demona held her eyes on his back.
"Lass, you should do what the leader says." Agamemnon warned his rookery daughter. "At the moment it is a tensed situation here and you shouldn't make it worse."
"He isn't my leader." Demona replied and her voice was near a snarl while her eyes grew slightly red.
Agamemnon looked on his rookery daughter in a way that Demona nearly believed she had hurt him and more weird was that a part of her heart felt sorry for that.
"Maybe not, sister," Desdemona intervened, "but our and his authority is... questioned by some."
Demona understood.
"Because of him?" she asked, looking on a muscular black skinned gargoyle with three horns on his hairless head, standing beside her crested brother and who looked on her in return.
Desdemona nodded.
"Mainly, yes," Arnadela replied. "But you should really be more cautious here anyway."
"Like ever," Demona explained icily and the gargoyles surrounding her, looked on each other with unsure eyes.
"Mom."
Demona turned around by the sound of this voice, seeing her biologically oldest daughter with Gem in her arms standing besides her chronologically oldest daughter.
"Yes?" she asked, as calm as she could by what had happened before.
"Well," Darlene began unsure, sensing that it was definitely more silent than when she had first left, "is something wrong?"
"Just a discussion," Demona replied coolly, with crossed arms to make her point.
Darlene and Angela looked on each other, then on the gargoyles around them and they decided to let it be... for now.
Meanwhile, Jarred, sitting on a couch, was caught in an ongoing talk with the hatchlings surrounding him.
"Do you know 'Action man'?" Jarred asked the surrounding group.
"Yeah, the show is cool!" Duncan replied. "But our elders don't allow us to watch TV for anymore than one hour a night."
"Mhhm," Connor assured. "They say it will poison our minds."
"My mom says so too." Jarred noticed depressed. "Especially since in the night there are no good shows. I'm lucky that grandma has a TV-recorder."
"Hey, what do you think about going out and gliding a bit around the castle?" one of the male hatchlings asked.
The agreeing murmurs of Jarred and the others showed that the hatchlings definitely agreed on this and so the group went off into the courtyard... until they were stopped by Arnadela, Desdemona and Othello when they passed the group around Demona.
"Hey, you group of imps, where are you going?" she asked good-heartily, studying them and thinking that the new one fitted very well with them.
"Out gliding," Connor explained, "for just a bit around the castle."
"You know that the leader has ordered that you can fly outside the castle only when an elder is beside you?" Desdemona said, on which some of the hatchlings lowered their heads.
"Well you could come with us elder," Eve suggested, "Pleaaaasse!"
Desdemona smiled when she looked into her large blue eyes and then turned around to look to her mate, now standing behind her.
"Well, why not?" Othello gave into the hatchling's pleading and joined his mate, leading them outside.
"Your lad fits well to them." Aerie noticed, beside Darlene.
She was Demona's rookery sister too, and had a human face with long dark blue hair that had a single streak of white stretching through the middle. Her skin was cloud blue and she wore a tunic mild violet in color, while her tail ended in a turf of hair.
"Yes," Darlene agreed smiling. "It has been some time since he had a possibility to be with children... hatchlings, of his own age. I'm happy that he has found friends so fast." she hesitated shortly. "Is there any special reason for why they are watched when they play?"
"No," Arnadela explained. "We just want to be sure that the hatchlings don't glide too far away and..." she stopped shortly. "We want to be sure."
Darlene nodded, understanding completely what this gargoyle meant, considering all the clan had been through in the last years.
"Unfortunately this means they can just glide around the castle or play in it." Agamemnon's mate noticed. "Xanatos has already offered to take the hatchlings, with helicopters, to an estate he has outside of New York in the woods, so that they can play there unmolested and I think the clan will agree to this soon."
"Aye," Agamemnon agreed, coming up to them. "It hurts the poor lads and lassies in their wings to not be allowed to glide further away from the castle. When I was young we sometimes glided around the whole night... "
Soon he began telling of his sheer endless lair of stories of his youth and already after five minutes of the monotone monologue, Darlene noticed how even the hyperactive infant in her arms fell slowly asleep.
~ By the dragon, ~ Darlene thought, ~ if he taught mum and her siblings. I wonder how they learned the half of what they needed before they fell asleep? ~
Feeling that she had become inattentive too, she looked around, trying to find her oldest daughter and finally discovered her amongst a larger group of gargoyles of her age, seemingly eager to impress her. By looking in Lana's face, Darlene noticed that her daughter was near screaming.
"Sorry, but I have to look after Lana." she told Agamemnon, which didn't stop the elder in his speech.
"...and then I made a looping and landed on his back and..." Brooklyn explained, emphasizing this by letting his claw duplicate the maneuver.
"Sorry, guys." Darlene said, going to her daughter's side. "But Agamemnon is just telling a story and I want my daughter to hear it."
Lana's face lit up and she had to suppress a sigh of salvation when she rushed to her mother's side, while her fans looked rather sad after her.
"Maybe we could talk again next time?" the one with the crested head asked, but Lana just gave a half-smile and shrugged her shoulders, showing that it wasn't her who determined that.
"Unless," Darlene told her daughter, while they had passed half of the way to the group, surrounding Demona, "unless of course you are more interested to listen the stories of those guys than the stories of a grandfather."
"No, no, no!" Lana assured in absolute panic. "I totally love old stories!"
Darlene smiled, her daughter had never wanted her to tell any stories when she had been young, but Lana would maybe even want this sooner than, or to spend a night training with her grandmother, than to stay one second longer around those eager males.
".... and then we soared down into this valley and..." Agamemnon continued in his monotone voice, making the ones around him fall slowly asleep.
"Oh, you old bag of air!" his mate stopped him. "You are driving the others asleep!"
"Mhphf..." Agamemnon grumbled. "You overestimate."
"Oh?" his mate asked with a half smile. "Look at our daughter, she seemingly is already asleep."
She pointed on Demona and so showed the others that this one was simply staring ahead, being anywhere but not in the present.
"Mother?" Angela asked Demona, touching her arm which brought the immortal back in the present.
The immortal looked surprised on her daughter.
"Yes?"
Angela sighed.
"Nothing, mother." she explained, but asked herself at the same time what occupied her mother's thoughts the whole night.
"I see you have made some friends amongst our young warriors, lass." Agamemnon's mate noticed with a smile, looking to Lana.
"Well they definitely want to have more than just friendship with me." Lana complained. "Have you really so few females?"
Darlene looked on her daughter by this embarrassing statement, but before she could rebuke her, the elder female chuckled, showing that she didn't take it as an offence.
"Oh no, the genders are nearly equal in this rookery, especially since there have been just a few new ones from the new part of the clan." She explained. "But you are new and for males who for their whole lives have just seen their rookery sisters, you are exciting... especially dressed like this."
The old gargess pointed on Lana's jeans, which reached to her knee-spikes and the T-shirt, which were quite different to the tunics the clan-members wore.
"Hey, tunics have been out of fashion for a thousand years." Lana replied, shrugging her shoulders, ignoring her mother and her grandmother who both were convinced of something other.
"Don't worry." Arnadela said. "The clan and at least the leader will hold the pack of hot-blooded admirers back when they carry it too far and if this doesn't help, you might ask my caramel-skinned sister what to do. Correct, sister?"
Demona, who had somehow managed to stay in the present this time, nodded.
"Yes, our sister has some experience in such things." she explained and these memories led to something that some would call a smile.
The other gargoyles surrounding them grinned too and somehow Darlene, like Angela, guessed that there were many more stories to be told about the clan than could be in one night.
04.08.98; 05:21; the battlement of Wyvern:
Darlene and her family, including Shade, had climbed on the battlements and now were going to say goodbye to their hostess, namely Goliath and Angela who accompanied them until there.
"This was great." Darlene noted. "I hope we will repeat this soon."
"Well, if there's no one who speaks against it." Angela said. "Considering that we live in the same city now."
"Well, at least someone has to accompany Jarred to his training hours." Darlene said.
"Hey, I can glide this little way alone!" her son protested.
"In ten years, perhaps." Darlene replied, laying a claw on her son's shoulder and so stopping any further protest.
"In any case, you are welcome to visit us at any time," Goliath explained and added with a look to his ex-mate, "all of you."
~ Why do I think you lied for the first time of your life? ~ Demona thought cynically, mainly since his speech prolonged the time she needed to be here, since after she had told the hatchlings two stories she had heard during her journeys, her wish to go had enlarged rapidly.
"We are very happy about this," Darlene replied honestly, "and we will surely visit you soon."
Lana stared on her mother, asking herself whom she meant with 'we'.
"Come." Demona told Darlene and her grandchildren. "The winds are favorable now."
Darlene nodded and hugged her half-sister one last time, on which Angela grinned and tickled Gem in her sister's arms.
"Goodbye." she said to both gargoyles when she climbed on the battlements, where the rest of them, including her mother with Shade in her arms, had already taken place.
Demona gave Angela a last friendly nod and then jumped into the air, falling down one moment through Shade's additional weight, just to draft up afterwards as fast as she had fallen before. Her family followed and soon they were just some small points with Angela and her father looking after them.
"What do you think of them?" Angela asked.
"Darlene seems like a nice person and a good mother." Goliath replied calmly. "And she has good children.... They are clan."
Angela looked up on her father.
"Every one of them?" she asked.
Goliath thought about it a second, he knew of whom his daughter spoke of.
"This is her decision, Angela." he explained and laid his right claw on his daughter's shoulder. "But I don't refuse her."
Angela nodded, enjoying the feeling of her father's touch, not knowing when he had allowed himself such a gesture last time.
"Let us go in again." the leader of the Manhattan clan suggested and his daughter nodded, going with him with a smile, since she thought that finally everything was going to turn out well.
To be continued...
