Parenthood Ch.2
Once they had changed little Kalen—the act a terrific struggle considering he had a pair of strong legs on him, Shen had passed the tiny sangheili to his father.
Daen held him close to his chest, speaking with thrumming alien words, something that sounded almost sweet from what she could make of it. His lingual interests had gotten him a job in the colony, and allowed the two of them to meet. Realizing the one-sidedness of it all, she sometimes felt guilty that she didn't try harder to learn his own tongue.
Maybe they could learn together. Kalen could connect to his roots, and Shen could close the small gaps between her and Daen.
There was something truly beautiful in being in this moment, finally having a complete circle. A complete family. Being a mom.
Shen sighed as she stepped through the threshold into the kitchen, tousling the hair at the back of her neck. She felt tired, but happy. Happy tired. She felt light on her feet, and cheerful in a soft, lax sort of way. It was a good feeling.
Then there was the faint smell of food and she was also reminded of her biological needs as her tummy gave a little rumble. She patted the flat of her stomach absentmindedly. Whoops.
They had left in the middle of lunch prep, so most likely it was all garbage, spoiled. She blew air out through her lips and moved to clean up the mess. They would probably have to order Chinese food for the night. Daen would probably order something that wouldn't agree with him again, and then that would be another issue.
At least if you happened to share a bed.
Bed…Shen still had to get that situation figured out. The small bed they had in the spare room would not work for an infant. They would need to acquire a crib. The thought of their new baby rolling out of bed and cracking his noggin made her queasy.
Shen placed dishes into the sink and pulled open the cabinet with the trash bin. She dumped in the spoiled meat and mess of vegetables. Chinese it was. She didn't feel up to doing the dishes right now.
When she was finished with cleanup, Shen ventured back to the living room and was surprised to see that Kalen was sitting on the floor. Daen stood over him, their child framed in his shadow.
"Shen." Daen said when he saw her. "He has found a way to entertain himself. Come see."
Shen walked closer until she could see Kalen from the front, and saw that he was carrying an object between his slender fingers.
She laughed when she saw what it was. "My hairbrush."
The baby was currently smacking the brush against the floor. Kalen's long head was turned down, his mandibles still in concentration. He seemed eager to test the hardiness of the item, and Shen was surprised when his arm came down harder, the brush head thudding against the thin carpet.
"He will be a fine warrior, won't he?" Daen said proudly. "A strong arm on our son."
"Warrior?" Shen rolled her eyes. "Let's not encourage violence hon."
Daen snorted. "You used to think it was sexy."
"So we're molding a little Casanova then?" Shen teased.
"What does that mean?"
"Later hon."
He was still adapting to human culture and its mess of cultural randomness. She would have to host another movie night, maybe invite some of his sangheili friends for laughs. That or hear criticism from his more argumentative friends, who thought most human videos were stupid and a waste of time.
She shook her head at the thought. They would probably just end up talking all night about the absurdity of human media. The closest the sangheili had to public entertainment were fights, called burn blade tourneys. Pretty much classic sangheili interest in slicing each other into ribbons. That or cliff jumping or hunting both prey and predatory animals.
Usually three times their size even. Humans were puny in comparison, but Sangheili seemed to manage just fine. They had, after all, time to adapt to their own world.
She had to admit, the image was kind of hot. Daen like some kind of sexy warrior wearing the hides of his prey, wielding a spear or some kind of shining blade at his back.
Shen smiled and shook her head at the thought of their little man, their Kalen, hunting wild beasts, then returned to the topic at hand. "So I guess we need to figure out the sleeping arrangement?"
Daen's third eyelid flashed in a subtle blink. "Kalen? With us of course."
Shen frowned. "What? He can't. You'll roll over on him."
"We share a bed, do I roll onto you?"
"He-he's small!" She spluttered.
Daen only chuckled, bending down to stroke a finger across Kalen's smooth head. The childing didn't seem to notice, continuing to test the brush against the floor. "He will be fine sleeping between us, like being in a solid keep. Walled in."
"Human infants don't typically sleep with their parents, they're really fragile." Shen told him. She was worried about every aspect of parenthood. Kalen didn't seem human-fragile, but he was still just a baby.
"Wouldn't that be more of a reason to keep them close?" Daen asked. "It seems strange to place a little one so far from the arms of their caretaker."
"I guess." Shen sighed. "I probably won't be able to sleep though."
"The only issue would be if we were to mate." Daen said thoughtfully.
Shen couldn't help laughing. "Quiet you."
"It has been some time. I believe I'm forgetting exactly what you look like naked." Daen continued with a smirk on his mandibles. He was a naughty boy as always. That was one thing about him that drove Shen crazy…that and he had double the abdominal muscles of a human man.
She knew how to pick them. Daen was a stud.
Of course, she was confident in her own allure too. She knew how to move, how to catch the male gaze. She had made the first move after all. Drunkenly, but still…
"Oh really?" Shen swaggered over, purposely lifting her arms a bit to bare a slip of her belly. "I guess we'll have to make time later babe. For now though, we should probably think about lunch."
Daen chuckled. "We spoiled our meal I take it? We can always order in, perhaps Kalen will share his father's love for sugary meat." Shen could already see the glaze of hunger coming over his eyes at the thought.
Daen loved his orange chicken, in all its fried glazed, glory.
"He'll definitely be rounder." Shen teased. "You both will have that in common soon enough."
"I have high stamina dear heart, you know me." Flirting tone again. Of course he didn't know how to stop.
She rolled her eyes. "Yes, yes I do. Now, grab our kid." Shen moved past the couch towards the phone, tipping her shoulder to gaze back at him. "I'm going to order a late lunch and you're going to save my hair brush."
"He can't keep it?"
"No Daen."
00oo00oo00oo00
It turned out that the recovery of the hair brush was not so simple a task as Daen thought. He had allowed the infant a few more whacks on the floor (and one on his palm) before moving to grab ahold of the handle.
Kalen immediately tugged back, and they found themselves in a struggle of sorts. A duel even, dark eyes looking up with almost a glower of defiance.
Daen chuckled, using his free hand to brush at the top of his son's head. "That is not yours Kalen, your mother needs it. For her lovely mane. Do you want mother's hair to tangle up?"
The baby said nothing, only peered up at him with those dark wet looking eyes. Like two pools of dark water, like the shell of a beetle, or a kamdil, from Sanghelios. Large beetle like creatures that dug pits in desert regions, hiding until they felt vibrations in the ground, the tilt of sand, their bodies erupting from the soil to capture prey.
Kalen seemed just as ready to make his move as the kandil, and Daen shrugged his mandibles lightly as the childling pulled back on the brush again with surprising strength.
"He won't relent Shen." Daen called over to his wife. Shen was currently on hold for their food order. She merely turned a shoulder to frown at him.
"Those bristles are sharper than they look. Might take an eye out or something."
"This is why sangheili don't have hair." Daen snorted.
"I know you like petting it sugar, so if you want to keep the privilege, you better get my brush back."
She was right of course. Daen enjoyed touching her hair, it was a thick mane of ebony and seemed to collect all the colors in a room. It was soft and smelled like her. Womanly, fresh, with a hint of something woodsy.
Back to the task at hand. "Kalen." Daen said to the childling. "That is for your mother's mane. Do you want it to tangle and fray? I think she will be quite upset with the two of us if you don't relinquish it."
Kalen of course, continued to attack the floor, paying him no mind. Daen sighed, and reached forward. Once again there was a tugging match, but this time Daen forced his hand.
That is when the fireworks started.
"What the hell?" It was a screeching sound that had the phone tumbling free from Shen's grip, hands clapping over her now throbbing ears.
Kalen was making a sound that was split between a fire alarm and a nightmare unleashed from the fiery depths of somewhere deep and terrifying. Shen was pretty sure she had heard the same sound in a horror movie…or that time she had dropped a bracelet in a blender accidently.
"He is a loud one!" Daen had to yell over the sound.
Shen gritted her teeth, and she felt them vibrate. Hell. "Give him the brush, now!"
"But—"
"Daen!"
Finally, the brush had been returned, and the sound ceased. Shen stared, dumbfounded, slowly removing her hands from her ears. It had ended as quickly as it had begun.
They watched as Kalen continued his game of 'smack the brush against things' which was currently his father's leg. Punishment dealt by a tiny stubborn sangheili. Daen just allowed it to happen, his skin thick enough that it wasn't even close to painful, and he knew the babe would feel empowered by the action. He knew enough to expect that.
A painful memory came up of events in the past, of the last time he had played with other young sangheili, a child himself. He remembered how he had been forced eventually, to leave play behind, and work inside with his uncles. Studying, being knocked over with hard sticks in the training room. The brush would stay, for now. He didn't want a sour note to ring again.
It reminded him too much of a time when he was denied as a child the innocence of play, and of being young and free from responsibilities.
Daen sighed, rolling a hand against the back of his neck. "Well, I suppose we will need to replace it."
Shen laughed. "Yeah." She cleared her throat, giving him a wary smile. "So do all sangheili give that…level of sound? It was something…I thought we were going to have to replace some windows."
"His voice will change as he grows." Daen said. "But the volume stays the same.
"Goody."
"Giving up already Shen?"
"No, but how the heck are we going to get him to listen when he does…that. Is this the terrible twos? He's supposed to be like, what, a baby still?"
"Infancy yes, but he's growing into his second year, I can tell." Daen said.
"Shit."
Sometime later the baby had given up on playing with the hairbrush, and was instead, moving about on his own. He did not crawl however, he ambled like a toddler, which had Shen following him around, trying her best to block his path to more dangerous zones, like the kitchen or bathroom.
Shit, they still had to baby-proof the house. How were they allowed out the door with this kid? Shen didn't know when it would feel second nature, this parenting thing.
"He's good at walking, huh Daen?"
"We are capable of much movement out of the shell."
"You don't say." She sighed.
The next twenty minutes continued the same until the doorbell rang, and their food order arrived. Shen made sure to leave Daen in control of baby following, and moved to get the door.
It was usually Shen who had to greet visitors.
Unfortunately they had an issue often where people did not expect a sangheili to answer the door, and ensuing chaos often occurred. So it was always Shen at the door, and then a slow introduction of Daen if it had to reach that point.
Most of the time, when Daen answered, it was food thrown into the air, dropped, or having the person retreat a few awkward feet before accepting that the 'monster' in front of them was just another kind of person, and one who had ordered food and expected to get what they paid for.
It was difficult, being in an interspecies relationship especially. People were quick to judge them, and they had been attacked via mail and internet by hostile strangers. With an investigation, the police found the messages to have originated from Sapian Sunrise members.
Sapian Sunrise was a group who believed in human supremacy and constantly preached against friendly alien relations and encouraged distrust and war against the 'alien menace'. Most of their material originated from dark historical accounts, of the war between the long-dead Covenant and humanity…a war that very nearly destroyed all sentient life.
Instead of trying to unite all sentient species, Sunrise agents stood only for one. They were radicals who saw no benefit in human-alien relations, and aggressively attacked people in situations such as Shen and Daen's.
At one time they had received threats in the way of unmarked boxes and emails thick with racial slurs and violent suggestions. The boxes usually contained dead animals, usually lizards or amphibians, one time it had even been some kind of alien fish. It was a message to Daen specifically, but Shen had also received some distasteful imagery online, of human men threatening to rape and 'fix' her.
Psychotics, the whole lot of them. Shen was happy, she loved Daen, and she loved Kalen. She wanted other people to see Daen as a person, as a man deserving of respect, but in this day and age, there was no helping it.
Shen carried the warm brown bag of food stuffs into the dining room, inhaling the scent of chicken and vegetables with relish. She dropped it onto the table and went to find Daen and his tiny charge.
She heard Daen laugh and followed the sound of his voice into their bedroom.
The sheets were still a mess as they usually left it. They both didn't see much of a point of making it when they used it so often. It was a good place to cuddle and read together, watch holo-vids, and…other things.
Daen was currently sitting on the bed with Kalen. The infant sangheili was in his lap, almost climbing up the older male's torso, legs sliding as the childing sought to sit up straight.
Shen smiled at the sight. "He just can't get enough of you." It was true. The way the baby's hands touched Daen, grabbing at the material at his front, head twisting about, as if he was searching for something.
Daen turned his neck to look at her. "He is curious. Learning." He motioned for her to come over, using his other hand to hold the babe steady on his lap. "Let him touch you."
"Okay." Shen felt nervous. What if he didn't like the feel of her? He would know she was alien. He had to. Did sangheili babies reject parents they felt were inefficient…different? She could perform as a mother, surely, she could feed him, hold him, love him as if he had originated from her own body. What if he didn't feel that way, though, instinctively?
Shen took a seat carefully by Daen, little Kalen immediately noticing the new presence as her slight weight settled on the mattress. Daen moved his arm and allowed the infant to move towards his wife, who he knew was nervous by the way she smiled like she was grimacing.
"It will be fine Shen." Daen promised. "Kalen just wants to know his mother."
Mother. Shen felt something like pride, and she wasn't sure why. She hadn't birthed him, but the idea of being his mother made her happy. That was enough for confidence to take hold.
"Hey baby." Shen cooed to the little sangheili, whose head turned up, mandibles pressing together at the sound of her voice. "We're so happy you're finally home."
She swallowed as he began to move onto her lap, moving forward with surprisingly energy. Shen found herself straightening her spine as he sat up, Kalen already moving towards her face.
Shen felt his hand before she saw it, wincing at the light tug on a strand of hair. Oh boy... He had found her weakness. It brought back memories of her mother screeching at her to stop whining as she pulled a thick plastic comb through her hair. She had always had a sensitive scalp of course.
Luckily the babe moved onto the coral beads in a string at her neck, and she allowed him to twist his fingers around the strand, dipping her chin so that he didn't choke her. He was easily fascinated by objects it seemed.
A fantasy played in her mind of buying him new toys, soft ones, hard fun shapes, things that hummed and sang…
Shen smiled at Daen as he wrapped an arm around her.
This was going to be an amazing experience, it was as if her life was truly starting now.
She was ready, scared…but it was the beginning. That was always the most difficult part it seemed.
She was sure now, they could manage. It was the two of them after all, they were a team. It would work out.
But first, food.
00oo00oo00oo00
Problems. There could not be a contrast of what made a day great, without comparing first, the bad. Unfortunately their first night as parents, was going not quite as Shen thought it would.
"He swallowed the whole thing." Shen wrung her hands, still wondering how the hell the kid had managed it. "And I thought your mouth was big." She caught his amused gaze with a glance and made a face. "One sex joke and you're sleeping on the couch bub."
"I said nothing." Daen laughed. "And I ate stranger things as a childing. I once swallowed a light fixture."
"Yeah, yeah, babe, I know. Your race is vastly superior to mine, but humans still invented diapers first, so, you're welcome." Shen shook her head. How did that even work? Shen cringed at the thought. Apparently young sangheili weren't equipped with…anything.
"We don't need them." Daen shot back. "Our young are smart enough to signal their care givers when they are ready to…expel their waste."
Shen gave him a long look. "How? Sign language?"
Daen wasn't looking at her anymore however, and she followed his gaze to Kalen who was sitting awfully still on the kitchen floor. "No, they make peculiar facial expressions."
"You mean like—oh come on!" Shen could already smell the tar like scent of something unpleasant in the air. It…it had happened. Again.
Kalen had already proven his willfulness by sneaking off, after eating his fill of chow mein, into the bathroom to somehow open the cabinet and eat two washcloths and half a sponge. Now he was preparing to fill their morning with yet another surprise.
"Your turn sugar." Shen said before Daen could finish a breath. "I need a drink."
"But you're the female." Daen said. "Have you not been taught about child care?"
"What century are we living in, and yes, that is not an actual question, I'm apparently the only one who really knows." Shen sighed. "Daen, because I love your scaly ass I'm going to pretend you didn't say that."
"Say what?"
"I changed him last time, it's your turn babe. I had him, literally, up to my elbows earlier. Yeah, and just because I have female parts, doesn't mean I'm an expert in child care. If we were stranded in the wild, you would survive a hell of a lot longer than me. That and bugs like me more than you."
Sangheili and their stupid immunity to pretty much everything. Sigh. Shen wondered how the heck humanity had come so far with so many weaknesses.
Daen drew a shoulder back to stretch an arm overhead. "Fine, I'll have him this time, but you're next. In the meantime, you can start breakfast, wife."
"Sure thing honey." Shen stuck her tongue out, and shimmied past him, giving her hips a little swagger to tease him as she went by. Daen and she constantly found ways to prickle each other's nerves just enough to look forward to playing on silent promises later.
Of course with a baby in the house, they would have to find a way to schedule…those times, appropriately.
That or find a babysitter who didn't mind babies who could eat pretty much anything, and eject most of what they ate in less than an hour.
Shen shivered as she heard Daen voice his disgust with a ragged snort from behind her. She couldn't escape to the kitchen fast enough.
Shen filled a glass full of grape juice, her lips twisting into a smile as her taste buds lit up with the tartness of it. She tossed the now empty container into the garbage canister, added juice to the consistently updated grocery list in her brain, and sipped the drink again.
Daen approached her from behind, minutes later, and Shen giggled as she felt his fingers slide lazily over both hips.
"Already done, did you wash your hands?" She asked, turning to move past him to the table, sitting the glass down. He followed, and she could hear the tremor in his voice.
"I did. It was a messy affair." Daen admitted. "I had to put him in the sink."
Shen did turn around, frowning. "You put him in the sink…wait…where is he now?"
"I—. " Daen looked confused. Shen recognized that look, like the time he had forgotten their plane tickets in the gambling room of the airport. They had almost missed their own honeymoon. All that sex on the beach, throwing back exotic drinks they couldn't pronounce the name of…accidental destruction of a vase and one poorly constructed mattress…it had almost never been…
Those were times she was sorely missing now.
"Did you…Daen! Did you leave Kalen in the bathroom?"
He turned around, looking winded, and Shen watched wordlessly as he retreated from the room and Shen watched him go, feeling both horrified and strangely amused. Dammit, they were awful parents.
Much later (once they had retrieved Kalen from the sink, who fortunately was too busy staring at himself in the mirror to move) they sat down in their bedroom.
It was only seven-thirty, but already Shen was exhausted, and she wondered if Daen felt the same way. By the look on his face, she guessed he could do with a nap at the very least. He was making that face where his mandibles folded in a lazy way, something she had determined over time, to be weariness, or mental frustration.
Pleased by her observational skills, Shen smiled as Daen uttered a long yawn, his mandibles sawing with the motion of it.
A moment later and Daen voiced her own thoughts, to her relief. "Maybe it is time to put him to rest. I could do with a short rest."
Shen agreed. "We can try out that, wall, thing you were talking about. He will probably be fine."
"I know he will be fine." Daen chuckled. "You seem to think he's made of glass."
"Hey now, you left him in the sink. We need to be more careful than that."
The sangheili's face scrunched up. "Yes, that. It was my mistake, but I'm sure he would have been fine."
"I guess I'm going to be the un-fun one then." Shen sighed. "Like those stupid movies Aunt Karen watches. The ones where there is the doting overprotective parent who gets kicked to the curb in 'likability' by the fun father figure. It's almost always a woman."
Daen planted a hand firmly on her shoulder, with enough weight she made a face at him. He was fully aware of the effect however, and she squeaked as he pushed her down across his lap.
Shen felt heat wash over her cheeks, and kissed under his mandibles, but retreated when she recalled that Kalen was with them. They couldn't behave badly as usual, and that part hadn't come to mind, before the whole parent thing.
Admittedly, it had been a while since they were…intimate. Shen was getting a bit bothered by that. It seemed even stronger now that they had a child of course…those feelings.
Damn.
00oo00oo00oo00
"You guys have a kid now? Oh my gosh, that is great!" The other woman practically squeaked.
Shen smiled through the straw in her mouth, sucking the beverage airily across her tongue.
It was another new day of being parents, and Daen had insisted that he take Kalen to visit his sangheili friends on the outskirts of the city. That district, the Dobei District, named for an activist for alien rights (who was killed in a terrorist attack many years ago), was mostly inhabited by Daen's people, though there were a few unggoy who didn't seem to mind their much taller neighbors.
The unggoy even had their own small greenhouse like building that pumped methane gas into an environment like an indoor park. Shen had not been able to visit herself, but she had heard about it from an excitable unggoy colleague who had told her it had reminded him of his home world.
There would always be those who wished to disrupt progress and peace, of course, so Shen was still worried about them in that area. Knowing there was no real point to worrying about something that probably wouldn't happen, she tried to appear at ease in current company.
Embry and she had something else in common besides their interest in baser gossip of course. Though they had met originally at the grocery store, both reaching for the celebrity gossip trash that was apparently a common guilty pleasure, they were both dating 'aliens.'
Embry however, was in it with the most conflicting race one could choose to have a relationship with, even many long years after war and social clashes. They were not just disliked strongly by many humans, but also the brasher sangheili members.
The San'Shyuum was already returning from the drink vendor with Ember's refill and his own, both drinks balanced in only a slightly trembling grip.
Jonis was one of the many independents living in New Canson. He did not make use of a gravity belt, like many others, but instead worked with doctors to improve on himself with both exercise and medicine.
He insisted on doing most of anything for his girlfriend, something Shen thought he had in common with most men. He didn't want to appear weak, unable to care or provide for her. In general, his race was known as the most physically weak aside the unggoy.
Of course, if someone had told her that her species had run its course and should just 'die out naturally' she'd probably try to prove them wrong too.
People could be so outspoken and cruel.
"Jonie, do you think it's going to rain?" Embry asked him when he carefully took a seat in the chair next to her own. "I swear no one knows what's going on these days. It was supposed to be sunny skies, but look! Grey clouds."
Shen cast an amused glance at her friend as she continued to gripe about the weather. It did seem a bit gusty today, but damn if Embry didn't like to complain. She found it kind of refreshing honestly.
Maybe they both were just super outspoken about things.
"Perhaps. I'm sure at least the trees will hear about it before we do." Jonis said in that sweet clear voice of his, something that Embry had admitted, had drawn her to him before anything else. Embry had always complained about how human men had treated her in the past, and had joked about going the same direction as Shen. Interspecies dating.
And here they were.
"Well, I just had my hair done, so if one of those grey puffs floats over here, I'm out."
"Can't you just do a do-over? Literally." Shen snorted.
"Cute. No, this is a new gel." Embry slipped her fingers across her scalp as if trying to communicate the feeling of it. "It tingles something crazy, but it's supposed to turn me honey blond with a few waves."
"I like your hair." Shen said. "Black is sexy, don't you like her hair Jonis?"
The San'Shyuum chuckled. "I'm afraid Embry doesn't see it that way, not as I do."
"You can't take her side, you jerk." Embry said teasingly. "Or I'm not necking you tonight."
Shen choked on her drink. Of course Embry was very outspoken.
Jonis was the one who was embarrassed, averting his eyes away from them, but then he changed the subject, sounding relieved to be able to, "Your husband and child are here." He looked past Embry's shoulder, and Shen followed his gaze.
Shen saw Daen before he had crossed the green near the park fountain. She waved him over, already feeling a smile come over her lips at the sight of Kalen in his arms.
It was due time to introduce their son to fun in parks. Slides, swings…and then Shen's thoughts derailed, and she frowned at the other presence coming off Daen's shoulder.
"Shen." The other sangheili said shortly, barely sparing her a glance.
"Rondo. Hi." Not enthused whatsoever.
Shen didn't understand it to be honest. Daen insisted on keeping him around, even when she was certain her presence bothered him. It was just weird, and slightly annoying.
"I should go." Rondo said to Daen, and Shen watched as he rubbed Kalen across the head. "Good bye Kalen, don't irritate your father."
Without regarding Shen further, the dusty gray sangheili retreated down the walk.
"So, did you two have fun?" Shen asked, unwilling to argue in front of her friend and their son. They would talk later though. She just really wanted to know what was up with that guy, and why Daen didn't seem to speak up about his iciness around her. Bros won this one, apparently.
She almost envied Jonis's sweet mannerism with Embry. He wasn't afraid to talk about these things, all those things. He was actually very emotionally aware.
It was sometimes freaky. Like a sixth sense.
Like the last time she had been grouchy at 'that time of the month,' and visiting her friend, Jonis had made her some tea and told her it would help her muscles relax. Like he knew she was crampy, and bitchy, and hormonal.
And loved tea…
"Han was quite taken with him, and his wife's son was fond of the playtime." Daen chuckled. "I couldn't separate the two at first. It will be good of them to grow up together."
She gave him a small smile. "That's great." Shen stood up, giving her friend an apologetic look. "I should head out Em. Kalen is probably hungry."
Daen sighed. "Yes, I came to fetch you for lunch actually. Kalen wants to eat…things."
"Let me guess, there are new holes in my seat?"
"I wasn't quick enough."
Shen sighed, but she wasn't too concerned. She had already given up on the organization of her past life. Chaos it was, then so be it. She loved their family…and objects were replaceable.
"See you guys later." Embry said. "Might be quick—"She wrinkled her nose. "Ah shit, I told you! Rain drop!" She stood up, raising her cup up like a shield over her hair. "Jonis, that's our cue."
Jonis shook his head, smiling gently at her. Shen followed his gaze to Embry, and recalled her own husband, and felt a longing. Rain gently rang on the concrete table, and in the back of her head she could hear Embry shriek, I knew it!
Shen didn't have to look for Daen, as she felt him come up behind her, and the warmth of his arm wrap her in his embrace.
"Ready to go home?" He asked, tucking her under his chin, Kalen on the other side. Shen rested her head lower, listening to the hearty thump of his two giant hearts.
"You bet."
But we are still having that talk.
Sorry guys! Took a little longer than planned, but you can thank a 'guest' for this one. I had most of it done, but he or she, encouraged me to go on ahead and finish it up.
I'm glad you guys like my work, I'll try and update more often. Just in the midst of Spring semester, so not on as much as I like. Hope you guys liked this chapter, until next time…
:)