Even though the wind was bitter cold, he didn't feel it; no mind at all was paid to the hard, cold ground that he was sitting on, or to the fact that his stomach was sort of empty. He had forced himself to eat his chicken and dumplings, and the other things that were on his plate that evening—due to his excitement, he didn't feel as if he had eaten anything. His interests for the afternoon and evening hours, and his appetite, had all been zapped away after he learned what he had that late morning, which was now just two minutes away from becoming tomorrow's late-morning.
How could he of been so blind and dumb over thinking that his and his family's "tormentor" was just that, a tormentor? His mother's words had slapped him in the face with such force that he had come close to both falling and losing his breath—when they had been younger, he and Guyunis had had a great relationship; with their getting along as well as they had, they had really taken on the role of being Big Bro and Little Bro. Their music tastes were similar, and so was their interest in films, and, if he recalled correctly, the kid had also had the same interest in the opposite gender too.
Guyunis, the son of Lisa Ann Wahlberg and his own great-great grandfather, ShaamVile Kondee Surfeit, was the one trying to contact him and his family... and all they had done was see his attempts in doing so as nothing more than bad dreams or as some demonic force trying to take possession of them.
In a way, he had known that something was up after coming upon his mother that late, near-tomorrow morning; along with having a certain glow around herself, and a wide smile on her face, she had had an aurora around herself that had taken him by complete surprise. Hearing her say that he had a new sibling had sure knocked him on his keister—you're pregnant, he remembered asking her; no, he's already in his teenage years, and has gone through more than enough to make one of your age look low, was what she had said in response. Only when he asked her who it was that was his new sibling had he gotten the wind taken from him.
"You remember a young fellow by the name of Guyunis Durr, Bile?" his mother asked him. He recalled just standing there, with his thumb up his butt and with his tongue lolling out from the side of his mouth; when he didn't answer her, she came up then placed her hand on his shoulder.
Guyunis Durr... that name sure seemed familiar—uh, the Guyunis part, not the Durr. After giving his head a shake, he had found himself as being told to go up to his room and then put on some music; it'll come to you, Biley, was what she had said after telling him to go to his room and then listen to some music.
Boy had she gotten that right; he had only just gotten through listening to the fourth song on the Twisted Sister Stay Hungry album when it came to him. Durr had been Guyunis's surname three hundred and eighty years ago—from before he had come to be with him and his mother and from before he had been sent to school, he had been the "adoptive" son of Ulla Durst and Falco Durr, who had been a German couple. The Durr's had taken him on as a "son" after his former "family" were killed in a plague.
The Durr surname was what had been placed as Guyunis's surname when he had been enrolled as a student at Pronghorn Academy of Sorcery and Magic, and then at Goboshu's Academy of Meanness. While the kid, back then, was shorter than he he had sure had a motor in his legs—if he recalled correctly, he had shattered around six track records when he went to the latter school.
Guyunis, he remembered, had run away from the Durr family; they hadn't been treating him right, was what he had been told. Along with locking him in the basement, the man of the house had beat him with sticks and belts whenever he saw him and his wife had only "the heart" to feed him once a day—it didn't matter about the food because, whenever it was given to him, it was as cold and as inedible as could be; the kid had only eaten what he had been given to survive. After running away, he hitched a few rides on two or three trains before dropping himself a few levels in begging a few humans to "smuggle" him onto a plain so he could go to Canada; with the humans saying no, he had made the decision in trying to do the "smuggling" himself.
By way of putting himself in a box, and then taping that box up from the inside, and then mailing himself to an airport, he had hitched a ride across the Atlantic and then to the building that handled his and his family's area's mail. No one had ever noticed that he was on the plane, or that he was in the box—seeing as there were specific protocols that airports had to adhere to, he was still surprised over the kid's feat. After being plopped on their doorstep, and then seeing that the mailman was away from the apartment's imminent area, he did a Jack-In-The-Box routine then rang the bell; ma had been so very surprised and happy to see him and, really, so had he.
After being taken into the apartment, ma told him to take a hot bath, and then a nap, which he had done. A big meal had been made, which he had consumed like he had never eaten anything in his life, then he was given something to wear—he remembered Guyunis as wearing nothing more than a garden gunny sack, which had been fashioned to look like a tunic of some sort; he gave him items from his own wardrobe to wear, which had all looked rather baggy on him, then he suggested that they go to his room to listen to some music and "rekindle" themselves.
After remembering who Guyunis Durr was, he left his room in a mild charge; he hadn't had to go far before finding his mother and then asking her how Guyunis was his new sibling.
"Because I adopted him, sweetie. The young man, who's been acting as our "tormentor" since the early to mid part of December, is Guyunis—when we were taken from Earth, we sadly left him behind."
Guyunis, before being adopted by his dear mama, had been a ward of some couple by the name of Lenora Falkenrath and Mathis Meyer Jr.; with his hearing that Guyunis was his new sibling, and that he had been formerly adopted by his mother, he had started jumping. If not for his mother's action in telling him to stop, and to calm down, he would of started cheering and hooping and hollering over the fact of his family gaining a new, yet not-so-new, member.
"You going to get him, ma?" he remembered asking. "You gotta! You gotta go get him, and bring him h—"
"I would if I knew he would be safe after I did so, Biley." his mother replied quickly, yet somewhat quietly.
A huh had come from him before the explaining occurred on why Guyunis couldn't be retrieved and then brought to the house; apparently, the man who was behind Guyunis's creation claimed that he wouldn't accept anyone who was born illegitimately and, apparently, the man who was Guyunis's older half-brother didn't want to have any brothers and sisters, and, apparently, his ma was worried about the two doing something that could hurt Guyunis.
Shaam, for all they knew, might hurt or even kill Guyunis, or he might take their mother to court just to get the adoption revoked—and just so he could get Guyunis away from them too. Duru, for all they knew, might do something to really hurt Guyunis—he might get jealous, or grow paranoid in his fear over no longer being his father's only surviving son and child. And Tazir, his adoptive father, might hurt Guyunis after either misunderstanding or misinterpreting him, and he might also not like the idea of his ma adopting a child that wasn't born through him too. There was also a chance that the two, latter people might stop his ma from being a mother to Guyunis too.
Before his mother said that they were headed to Earth, like he had figured they were, she had said something about telling Lhaklar to go down to the library and then "lift" a book on reversal spells and potions—ma couldn't teleport, thanks to his adoptive father making her take Jaboa a week ago, and she needed to know what was needed to be done so that the edible potion's affects were lifted from her. Lhaklar, Hazaar, and Lazeer had already been told about Guyunis, and about the adoption, and were just as ecstatic as he was on the "new" sibling.
" 'When do we go?' " he remembered hearing Hazaar saying at around two in the afternoon.
" 'Can we go now?' " Lazeer was heard as asking at around five.
" 'I'll go find and then get the books now, so you can undo what's been put on you... and so we can go to Earth to get him.' " he envisioned Lhaklar saying before going down to do as their ma had asked of him to do.
"At night... we leave after everyone's bedded down and is asleep." his ma said just before they sat down to eat supper.
Her plan was a brilliant one; they had started looking forward to it right away. No one had asked why they were eating so slowly, or looked to be forcing themselves to eat, and no one had wondered about what their plans were. Everyone had just eaten their supper and then gone to some other part of the house.
"Take a duffel bag out from your closet, Boys. Fill it with a week's worth of clothing—that means the whole works: shirts, pants, underwear, socks, and you best put two or three pairs of shoes and a pair of boots in there as well. If you wish to take anything else with you you best put it in the bag as well." their mother said to them after supper was eaten and they were momentarily alone to speak in private.
He had all of that and more in his dark green duffel bag, which was lying on its side right beside him. Along with the clothing, and shoes and boots, he had his music player, some of his best music, and some magazines—just in case both he and Guyunis wanted to listen to or read something, of course. The hazel green winter jacket, that he was wearing, was a last-minute add to the bag—as was the scarf, gloves, and the light red, thin-quality jacket that was also in his bag. Even though the items hadn't been disclosed in being packed, he hadn't had a desire in freezing his butt off.
Lhaklar's duffel bag was leaning against his feet; Hazaar's duffel bag was lying across his lap; and Lazeer had his duffel bag between his legs. Each of them probably had the same assortment of stuff in their bags—Lazeer was probably the only one to have something different in his; ma had instructed him to put all of his spare goggled glasses, and their cases, and his eye drops in his bag too.
All of his brothers were smart in taking a jacket from their closets and then donning them; none of them had their coats zipped or buttoned up but, judging by how excited they were, they were probably not all that cold. Before leaving Moas, he and his brothers had made all of their smokes appear above ground; all of their smokes were on their persons, they were just not being smoked right now.
Before leaving the mansion, ma took a trip to their father's office; she spent all of two minutes in the room before leaving—at the time of her leaving the man's office, she had been stuffing some bills in one of her pants pockets. Judging by how much money she had been stuffing in her pocket, they guessed that the man who was their father would find himself as lacking somewhere around two to five hundred dollars tomorrow, after waking up and then making his rounds in making sure that his office was as it should be.
"Okay, we're all out of the house. Where are we going?" Lazeer had asked after they followed their mother to an area in the backyard, and after their smokes were evicted from their hiding places and then put in their bags.
Nothing was said after that question was asked; with their using the mode of teleportation to get to Earth, they couldn't just go to the planet without thinking of a location that was on it first. Teleporting didn't work that way—a location had to be the locked on, and thought of, before it could be used. Ma, after putting her thinking cap on, had been quiet for a minute or so being snapping her fingers and then going to Hazaar; he had been asked if he remembered anything about the campsite that he had seen when his spiritual self was removed from his physical self and then pulled to where Earth was.
Along with saying that the place was very non-American, and that he had seen a store called Wellendorff in one of his dreams, he had said something about how fluent Guyunis seemed in German. It wasn't until a minute or so later that he said, and rather loudly too, that he had seen the "silver" shine of what he thought was a river in one of his dreams too. Apparently, the "silver shine" was something that he had only just remembered because he had said something about his "only just realizing it now" about it. With this being no help, ma had turned her attention to Lhaklar and Lazeer—a list of trees, like Norway spruce, Douglas fir, Scots pine, and European silver fir, was said then she waited for a response. Of the two that she had turned her attention to, only Lhaklar had said something pertaining to an area where them types of trees grew.
"I only know of one area where all them trees grow in—the Black Forest, which is a wooden mountain range, located in southwestern Germany." was what Lhaklar had said after hearing the list of trees.
Before telling them to gather around her, ma had nodded her head; she had teleported them to the location then she had said for them to find a place to sit in, that was in an open area, and then wait for her to return.
He had built the pit for a fire, and Hazaar had lit it for them, then they had taken to sit around it. They were doing as they had been told to do in waiting for their mother—they hoped that, when she returned, she'd have someone, who was both younger and older than they, with her.
Hazaar was reading a magazine; along with it being on his lap, its pages were being turned by the wind rather quietly. Whenever this brother of his heard a sound, he'd jerk his head up and then look every which way before going back to look at his magazine. Lazeer had the knife, that he had let him borrow, out and open; he wasn't doing anything with it other than having it open and in his hand—like Hazaar, he was on high-alert. Lhaklar was the only one of them to be standing; along with standing like a statue, he was looking out into the vast darkness that was around them.
He was sitting on a log; the thought of going out to do a quick hunt had crossed his mind once or twice but he didn't dare disobey his mother, or miss out on seeing Guyunis after he was found and then brought to where they were. Hunting would come later; he and his brothers would get their fill of the hunt, and of fishing, soon—and they'd have an extra brother tagging along with them while they did so too which, come to thing of it, was also rather exciting. He could see Guyunis asking and then being allowed to join him in a hunt, and he could also see him going with Lhaklar to fish some water source too.
"He's younger than both me and Lhaklar..."
Yes, but, even though he was three hundred years younger than he and two hundred years younger that Lhaklar, he was probably more mature than both of them. He gave it a good consideration about keeping his cool around his soon-to-be little brother, and in getting to know who he was now, before dropping both and then concentrating on what he had already planned to do with him, which was be his Big Bro and in including him on the things that they had a mutual interest in right away.
"Momma says that he goes by Meyer now—Guyunis Meyer." Hazaar broke the silence that was present between them.
"Don't expect it to stay as being that... he'll probably drop that surname." Lhaklar said. "Guyunis Surfeit or Guyunis Vile or—"
"Didn't mom name him GuyunisVile Lytro Surfeit after he ran up to her from out of nowhere?" Lazeer asked. "Named him traditionally, I think."
"How long has it been since ma went off to look for our brother?" Bile asked. With his calling Guyunis their brother, he heard a clicking sound go off in his head; he viewed the clicking sound as a piece of puzzle finding its place on the board, which, for him, was both exciting and a little spooky. "Seems like forever."
"Ten... fifteen minutes." Lhaklar answered.
"I hope she finds him. I hope that, when she comes back, she has him walking either beside or slightly behind her." Lazeer said.
"Same here." Lhaklar, Hazaar, and Bile said in unison before returning to being quiet. Hazaar followed in their example in doing the same.
They started thinking right when their mother resumed her yelling for Guyunis. Bile thought of how much he was going to miss Zanra, and his adoptive father and sister, and of how angry his adoptive father was going to be after waking and then finding that they weren't in his house; Lhaklar thought of how he hadn't been allowed to be him all while living on Moas, and of how he was going to miss his father and sister, and Granddad Cheshire and Grandma Ashaklar and their kids; Hazaar thought of all the times where he had been yelled at, and where he had been told that his hobbies weren't appropriate for him, and a small part of him also pulled him towards missing his father and sister too; and Lazeer thought about all the missed opportunities that he could of been funny, or made certain people in his family laugh, and, like Hazaar, a small part of him also called him into missing his father and sister as well. They were just shifting their weight, and in becoming a little less stiff, when their mother put a small pause to her yelling—she couldn't believe how many times she had called Guyunis by name, or had plain yelled for anyone who was in the area, and she couldn't believe that no one had come to her yet.
She couldn't help but feel a terror rise in her; while she knew where her sons were she also knew that they weren't in an area that they knew—so much could happen during her absence from them! There were things—animals—in the area that they weren't aware of that could hurt them and it was right dark and cold out... She hoped, for their sake, that they'd remain where they were, and didn't do anything rash, until she returned with, hopefully, Guyunis at her side.
Trees stretched up for what looked like miles; there were bushes that looked big enough to hide bears; and there was a small creek rolling by her—due to her not knowing if it was the one that Hazaar had spoken about, she was half-so ignoring it. The wind was very bad; it wasn't so much as howling as it was just plain cold—it almost felt like there were daggers striking her face, and the exposed parts of her body, that was how cold it was in her current area.
There were wolves; they were baying, and it seemed that with each step that she took they grew louder and closer. She heard the hooting calls of owls, and she heard the sounds of deer running through the underbrush around her. Whenever she yelled, she heard the sounds of the deer as they ran from where they were to someplace else—for some reason, her ears were placing the sounds that the deer were making on another creature; she envisioned a bear of some sort prowling the area, looking for its next meal or looking for the one who had disturbed it from its restful, winter-time slumber. Only by stopping, and then taking in two, deep breaths, had she managed to stop her over-imagination.
"With it being so cold out, and with there being a slight hint of snow on the ground, the bears wouldn't be up and about right now." she had thought while stopping to take them deep breaths. "The sows would of already had their cubs, and both they and the male bears would of lost around a quarter of their weight. It'll be another month or two before they make a return to being awake and alert so don't worry about one of them coming out to get you."
When the sound of something being beat against a tree reached her ears, she turned to see where it was coming from and what was making it. She halfway expected to see Guyunis, standing by a tree with a rock or a big stick, or maybe even a pipe of some sort; instead of seeing this hoped-to-see sight, she saw a little red Squirrel—it was pretty thin, and was probably only out of hibernation to replenish itself before making a return to sleeping, and it looked like it needed a haircut too. In the time since she had entered this forest, she had jumped and wheeled around with the hope of seeing Guyunis as being either behind her or somewhere to the side of her a total of ten times. She was beginning to wonder if all the sounds were being made as a way to distract her from finding her son.
With the exception of the owls, wolves, and deer and squirrels, the lack of wildlife scared her. What had Guyunis done in the fifty-five days that he had been forced to live on his own? Did he know how to hunt? Did he know how to follow game trails, or how to use his instincts to find prey that was scarce? Did he know how to purify water, so it was safe to drink? Had he kept warm when the nights grew cold, and had he kept himself cool when the daytime hours brought in the heat? Hazaar had said something about seeing a Mountain Lion pelt, a Lynx pelt, the skull of a wild boar, and two sets of antlers in Guyunis's camp; after telling her this, he had said that they had looked like hunting trophies so, maybe, Guyunis did known how to hunt—that or he just scavenged them from animals that he had found lying about.
She also remembered Hazaar telling her about the man-made cooker, that had been over the fire in one of his dreams, too. If not to cook something that he had either hunted or found then what could that be used for?
"Momma," her son, she remembered, had taken her to the side for a talk just after supper was eaten. He had looked rather grave in the face and she had been a little unnerved by that. What he said had unnerved her more. "He had some scars on him... in my final dream, I saw him as having a series of scars on his shoulders, upper arms, and chest."
After going to his room's bathroom, then making some photographs of what he had seen in his dream, he had shown them to her; the connection, between what Hazaar had seen and what was seen in Lhaklar's bathroom mirror, was made right after she saw them. Lhaklar had said something about seeing the dark-skinned man, aka Guyunis, fighting an emaciated Mountain Lion—the lion, while being weak, and malnourished, had fought her adopted son well enough to cause his skin to break! In a way, this was the piece to the puzzle on what some of Guyunis's activities were—while he was hunting, he was doing so in a very dangerous way.
He could well of gotten himself killed by the very animal that he was hunting; no one animal went down without a fight and, by his hunting with having no weapons on his person, or nearby, he had put himself in danger.
"According to Hazaar, Guyunis's camp may be near a water source of some sort..." she suddenly thought. "So, quit ignoring the area's water sources—check to see if there's any camps near them, or if there had been any near them in the not-too-distant past."
She had to be proud of her boys; while trekking on, looking for a water source that looked to either have a camp or the signs of a camp near it, she remembered how excited they had been when they found that Guyunis was finally becoming apart of their family. Her initial plan, should the papers be approved and then processed before Thanksgiving, was that Guyunis would show up and then she and he would fabricate a story on his only staying with them for the upcoming holidays. He would of either roomed with Bile and Lhaklar or Hazaar and Lazeer; he would of spent loads of time with them in either getting reacquainted or in just taking up from where he had left off in being with them three hundred and eighty years ago; and he would of had plenty of good food, love, and understanding going towards him. After Christmas rolled by, and just after New Years was celebrated, she'd have all five boys in the living room; the expelling on what was going on and on Guyunis's stay not being holiday-only would happen, and there'd be a lot of happy faces and jumping boys in the house.
With Tazir taking her and her family on the twenty-fifth of November, all of them plans had been dropped and, with all the stress that she had endured since being returned to Moas, she had forgotten all about them and, sadly, about her adopting Guyunis.
Lhaklar, instead of just plain being excited about Guyunis being a permanent fixture in their lives, had been both excited and helpful in the act of her getting her ability in being able to teleport back. After making the trip to his father's library, then "checking out" a few books on how to reverse certain spells, he had gone to his bedroom and then read up on the subject. When the material that he wanted to read was found, and then read, he made a trip to his father's potion's room—a green potion had been made, then smuggled to his room, then he had tracked her down. Due to her taking the potion down, her ability in teleporting was back—if not for that being returned to its former status she wouldn't of been able to teleport herself and her boys to the planet or be able to find where Guyunis was.
"And, after tracking me down, then giving me the potion, he made the trip to the house's smaller kitchen for some snacks that'd hold both us and Guyunis down until everyone calmed down from me finding and then bringing Guyunis back."
A few jars of peanut butter, some crackers, and several containers of cookies were taken to his room after the first trip was done while, after the second one came to a close, he took a few bags of chips and pretzels, some noodles, a few containers of dried fruit, and a container of water to his room—it had taken him two more trips just to bring an entire container of water up to his room.
After the house's inhabitants were all in their chambers, and were asleep for the night, she made her rounds in "knocking" on the doors to her sons' rooms; they followed her down to the second level before being told to stop and then wait for her to return to them—the business, that she did while being in her husband's office, was done in less than five minutes before she left it and then returned to taking her boys down to where the back door was.
She had a feeling that Guyunis wasn't going to be a very happy camper after seeing her; seeing as she had abandoned him, and seeing as she hadn't done anything in trying to connect the dots on who he was until today—or yesterday, seeing as the clocks had just turned past twelve-midnight—, she was probably going to see one very upset boy when she finally found him. While she knew that she and her family were going to be living on Earth for a while, she wasn't sure if a sixth member was going to be apart of them—if Guyunis was mad or upset enough, and said that he didn't want anything of them after she found and then explained the situation to him, she'd be crushed, yes, but she'd let him be. She wasn't about to plead or beg for him to forgive her, or to turn a blind eye on their up and forgetting all about him; all she could hope for was that he understood the reason to why they had distanced themselves from him and had abandoned him.
Like her sons, she had a week's worth of clothes for herself in a bag; unlike them, who had been able to pack all in one hour, she had been forced to do her packing in small spurts. Eldass had taken up from where he had left off two days ago in being her shadow—she had found herself as needing to be quick and sneaky with her activities and she had also been forced into lying about wanting to take numerous naps yesterday. Her bag, which was in Bile's own, and which had come from his own closet, had nothing fancy in it—just the necessary items like shirts, pants, undergarments, socks, and two pairs of shoes. Her sons had been wise in packing some winter-wares while the thought of doing so herself had never crossed her mind; while it was cold out, and while she was cold, she wasn't much effected by either—the safety of her biological sons, and the chore of finding her adoptive son, were the only things on her mind right now.
"Lass..."
"I'm just asking."
"You asked earlier."
"Really? I don't remember doing so."
"I feel rather violated with you asking the same damn question on what I'd do if one of the Lasses that I had slept with in the past came up saying that I was the father of one of their children, Angel. The answer is the same from me—I'd do nothing. Even after having a DNA test done, and then seeing that test come back as saying that I'm a positive match for whatever child is said is mine, I'd do nothing for that child. If you want to know, or if the question is about to be asked from you on this other item, let me tell you that it's the same if I find that anyone in my family is illegitimate—I'd severe bonds and put as much distance between me and that person as I could. Good blood shouldn't be tampered with the blood of illegitimates, Lass. Remember that."
While at supper, she had asked Shaam again what he'd do if he found that he had a child out there born from one of his former flings and he had come back with that; most everyone at the table had either been angry or embarrassed by his saying that, herself included. To her, Shaam had made himself look very immature and irresponsible by saying that he'd not accept a child that was assured as his.
Duru, the older of Shaam's two living children, had agreed with his father; Kuruk had looked a bit offended by what Shaam said while her father had looked downright pissed over what he had heard. With Kuruk having sired a son—her father—out of wedlock, he had a reason to be offended by what his grandfather had said; her father, who had sired her through a simple affair, also had reason to be angry. The two had accepted the responsibility of non-marital fatherhood and, really, so had Tazir, who had made Lhaklar before it was even known that they were picked by the Gods to be husband and wife. Tazir had really stepped up to the plate of parenthood by not only accepting Bile, and raising him as his, but by also adopting him.
"Some men are just plain jerks when it comes to the paternity of their kids." she thought. "I bet that if I was a man instead of a woman I'd of been dropped like a hot potato by my father."
The men who looked past a child's paternity, and continued raising that child, and even let that child call them their father, were what she called the Golden Boys of the Universe; the ones who didn't do this, or who pushed the children of their partners, or children who had been sired by them but by one-night stand means, weren't. To that day, there were still both classes of men out there and, rather sadly, the Jerks seemed to outnumber the Golden Boys. After hearing a confirmation on how Shaam felt about the issue of illegitimacy, she had automatically placed him in the Jerk category.
With Shaam saying what he had on the issue of illegitimacy, she had grown even more fearful of his hurting Guyunis; Duru agreeing with what he had said had solidified her fear on his also hurting him. Guyunis had gone through so much in his one thousand, nine hundred year existence, he didn't need more added to it or be in jeopardy of his life just because he wasn't of legitimate birth.
"A German couple by the name of Klaus and Agatha Ackermann took him in when he was a fairly new infant; while they treated him well for the first few years, they slacked off on the job after seeing and then learning that he wasn't like a typical human child. Thanks to them and their neglects, he's very lucky to be alive."
Agatha had only fed or cleaned him when she absolutely had to; Klaus had done absolutely nothing for him after finding the chore of taking care of an immortal child as being "so exhausting". They had done this for eighty-seven years then, when they died, their daughter, Edda, and her husband had inherited him. She and Manfred Adenauer had done the same as Agatha and Klaus had; they had had him for seventy-six years before dying. Their daughter, Magda Adenauer, and her new husband, Axel Beckert, were the next couple to take Guyunis on as an adoptive child.
Magda, much like her own mother, had placed the blame on Guyunis for her parents having her at such a late time in their lives; with Agatha Ackermann and Edda both experiencing issues with child-bearing, and with certain issues in their family lives, this claim was very absurd. It didn't matter if the claim was absurd or not because Guyunis was still not treated right after being passed off to Magda. Magda, who had been very fertile, and who had birthed four boys and two girls in her lifetime, had seen Guyunis as nothing special; Guyunis had been forced to live in the shadows of the four boys and two girls that Magda bore for her husband. At the time that Guyunis was inherited by Magda, he hadn't had a name and there had been no effort done to give him a name either—he had either been called That Kid, or The Demon, or Demon Child by the couple and their children. During his time with Magda and Axel Beckert, he had been fed nothing but scraps or spoiled food and he had been forced to sleep in a closet, either on or in a small dog bed, and he had also been given nothing but rags to wear. Magda and Axel Beckert had him for sixty-five years before dying and then passing his charge to their son, Augustus, and his fairly new fiancée, who would later become his wife, Brigitte Egger.
Like with the Ackermann's and Adenauer's, Guyunis had received the same treatment from his newly placed family; along with being given nothing but scraps, or spoiled food to eat, and being forced to sleep in one of the house's closets, and being thrown rags to wear, he had also been thrown outside whenever he cried. The abuse history, that was on record for her new son, claimed that Augustus had thrown Guyunis out several times after he got ill and then started crying because of it. Brigitte had also slapped him one day for finding him in her son's room, playing with his toys and having a blast. Augustus and Brigitte had him for eighty years then, after they died, their daughter, Estelle, had inherited him.
Instead of showering him with love, and instead of accepting him as her child, she had thrown him into a shed and then mostly forgotten about him. It had only been her husband, Konrad Feldt, who took to doing the chore of delivering his food and giving him certain, small items that he could use to dress or keep himself warm with. She and Konrad had him for sixty-three years before the decision was made by the adoption agency to try to return him to his mother.
"I took him in after they died." she thought while continuing with her search for a camp or for the signs of a previously used camping area. "He got everything he needed from me—love, care, good clothing to put on his back and food to eat and gain energy from, socialization with both humans his age and with my sons, and medicine for ailments or injuries that he sustained while running or playing around outside."
After Lisa discovered that she had Guyunis, she came by to see her and to take her son away; he had spent all of five months waiting for a new family in the same orphanage that he had been placed in after being born—a Canadian couple by the name of Leon Patel and Nadja were the ones who adopted him. While the two had shown him some love, and care, they, much like the Ackermann's, stopped doing so after seeing that their new child wasn't growing or maturing like a normal human child did. For most of his tenure with them, he had lived in the basement, behind some boxes; Nadja would throw him his food and drink maybe once or twice a day and would only tend him when she either had to or when he got so fussy that she couldn't sleep. She and Leon had Guyunis for fifty-four years before dying of cancer and then passing him on to the older of their adopted children—Eugenia.
It was much the same for Guyunis with her; Eugenia had shown him some love and care for about five years before dropping him—at the time she did this, she was married to a man named Norbert Tremblay. Guyunis, being the unwanted child that he was, was forced into staying in the smaller of the house's bathrooms and was only given a very ripped up, baggy blue t-shirt to wear. Eugenia and Norbert had him for ninety years; when they died, their son, Dominik, and his overly dominating wife, Else Gagnon, inherited him. Else had gotten her husband to build a small area for Guyunis to "live" in after finding that she was to inherit him—along with it being in the attic, it was a small, five by seven foot space that had nothing but a very tiny mattress in it. Else's orders were for him to be locked in the room and that was what her husband did; along with feeding him the stuff that wasn't eaten by the family two to three times a day, they had abused him verbally and physically. Else had slapped Guyunis for his simply crying, and voicing that his stomach hurt or that he wasn't well, and her husband had punched him once or twice a day for simply making noise when he came up to clean his area—with the 5x7 area having no bathroom in it, it had gotten very filthy and fast after Guyunis was moved into it.
Dominik and Else hadn't had any children of their own so, when they died eighty-seven years after inheriting Guyunis, Dominik's cousin, Elizabeth Henchman, and her husband, Johnathan Wilson, was given the chore of looking after him. They did much the same to him; they had him for a total of seventy-eight years before passing away and then leaving him with no one to inherit him.
Another case of the adoption agency trying to return him to his mother had happened after Elizabeth and Johnathan died; the woman, it was said, had led the boy to his mother and then no more released him before hearing Lisa as screaming for her to get his carcass away from her. The woman, after leading Guyunis to the camels, then putting him on one, had started on her way to taking him back to the orphanage; she had only just started crossing the desert when Guyunis saw her and her sons. Guyunis had wasted no time in jumping from that camel or in running to her; after seeing him, then picking him up, she called her sons over then teleported them home—he had spent two hundred years with them before his mother got wind of his being with them and then making the trip to split him from them and then return him to the orphanage.
He had spent all of a year in the orphanage before being adopted by Gretchen and Michael Ebner; they had had him for forty-five years before perishing in a natural disaster. They had treated him as nothing more than a common butler or handyman all during their years in having him, and they had also forced him to sleep in the far corner of a cold and damp basement. They daughter, Helga Ebner, and her husband, Ernest Eckstein, inherited him after Gretchen and Michael died—things weren't much different with them than with Gretchen and Michael. From what Guyunis had told her, Ernest was a right mean man who seemed to take a great interest and pleasure out of hurting others. Along with being beat with sticks and belts, Guyunis had been forced into being a sort of servant for them—whenever he wasn't working, he was forced into staying in the attic. Helga and Ernest had Guyunis for all of thirty-two years before dying in a plague; the horrid Ulla Durst and Falco Durr received him after they kicked the bucket. Mr. and Mrs. Durr had Guyunis for all of forty-one years—instead of dying, and then passing him off as a sort of inheritance to one of their relatives, Guyunis ran away; he had just had enough of their abuse.
After receiving him at her doormat, then bringing him in, and giving him the care appropriate for him, she had sent him to school. She had had him for four hundred and twenty years before Lisa heard that she had him and was taking care of him; instead of hearing her out, and letting her adopt her child, Lisa had taken Guyunis and then carted him right back to the orphanage. Other than knowing that his surname was Meyer, and that he had been away from her and her family for three hundred and eighty years, she didn't know who had adopted him after he was returned to the orphanage or on what all he had endured by the ones who had taken him on as a son.
Somehow, Guyunis was able to send her a letter; at around the latter part of August, she had received his letter, which had expressed his wanting her help in getting away from the ones that were currently in possession of him, and she had responded to it by going to Lisa and then declaring her as being a shitty parent and then getting her to sign the forms that'd allow her to adopt him. Lisa, though wanting to keep her from "burdening" herself with her son, had relented to her demand—she didn't really care if she lost her as a friend or not; Guyunis was important to her and by the Gods was she ever going to help him and give him the life that he deserved to have.
"H-to-the-R-Man," Hazaar said right when their mother was remembering Guyunis's past. "A week ago, when he did that dream sequence thing in contacting me, he called me that."
"While we were in school, and were exchanging letters between one another, or when we were at home, on vacation from school, he started giving us nicknames." Bile said. "I was B-Man, or B."
"I was L-Man Number 1." Lhaklar said.
"And I was L-Man Number 2." Lazeer said. "We called him G-Man or G."
"We tried to keep them going on after he was taken away... sadly, we outgrew them." Lhaklar sighed.
"My ass! We got on each other's nerves by always using them." Hazaar snapped.
"What should we call him after mom finds and then brings him to our location?" Lazeer asked. "Sh-should we call him by his real name or—"
"Let's call him by his real name until he feels more secure around us." Lhaklar said. He then made a suggestion. "Let's try to keep the immaturity down—we don't want him to be weirded out or anything."
"That means you, Hazaar. Don't make any fights hap—"
"That means all of us, Bile. Not just Hazaar." Lhaklar was fast in cutting Bile off.
"I'm just saying. Out of the four of us, it's Hazaar who—"
"It is not!" Hazaar shot. "I'm a little hot-headed but it's not just me who causes fights to happen."
"You make a majority of the fights happen." Bile pointed out.
"You and Lhaklar fight too." Hazaar said. "So does Lhaklar and Lazeer, and Lazeer and y—"
"All of us fight—we're brothers... we're not suppose to get along all the time." Lhaklar said.
They, in the time that their mother was remembering the events of what happened yesterday, and then Guyunis's past, had forgotten to keep up with the time; they weren't sure now on how long it had been since their mother went off to find their brother. If either of them had said that it felt like forever, they would of all agreed that it did; the cold was now starting to get to them, and so was the anxiety over their waiting for their mother to return.
Lazeer had moved closer to the fire, and Hazaar had put his magazine away—at the moment, he was walking around the area that the fire was lighting. Lhaklar was still where he was; with his stance being the way it was, he almost looked like a mint-green version of the Statue of Liberty. Bile had gotten to his feet once or twice—to stretch his muscles, and to regain the feeling in his legs. While the urge to hunt was strong in him, he was trying to calm it—sadly, he did believe that he was losing the battle.
Due to their being back on Earth, and having no one to show up their parades or anything, they could resume their formerly abandoned activities; he knew that they should settle down somewhere first, and get somewhat accustomed to living with Guyunis before going out to resume their lives, but he did wish to indulge in one of the things that he liked doing.
Ma had no car, so none of them could drive. They had no place to call home, and they didn't know where the closest civilized area was, so it was for the best that they wait a while before trying to make a return to their lives. Lhaklar, he knew, was probably going to get a job and ma... well, he was sure that she'd be getting a job somewhere. Lhaklar, while also wanting to make a return to his formerly forgotten life, and being his old self again, would want to help in taking the burden and stress of the family finances from their ma's shoulders; he'd probably get some opposition for his troubles, and he'd probably do as he did before in going behind her back in getting himself a job, but they'd still appreciate the gesture and his assistance.
"Wonder if we'll be able to achieve a life like that of what he had before we were taken from the planet." Bile wondered.
It had taken them a while to get to where they were before their father took them from the planet; along with it taking several months to get the apartment fixed up to being able to face their daily demands, it had taken months and, sometimes, years for them to feel settle and be accepted by the ones around them. Due to radiation poisoning, and to it being their last-known, Earthly station, they couldn't go back to Green River, Wyoming—they'd have to pick a new place to live in and then start from scratch afterwards.
Was it to be another North American town that they were to live in, or were they to live somewhere else? Along with North America, he had lived in Canada and Egypt—would one or the other of the two, latter locations be picked for them to live in or would they live on another continent? Would their mother pick the place for them to live in or would she let them be involved in their living space? Was it to be a house that they found themselves as moving into, or would they find themselves as living in another apartment and, if so on the apartment, would it have two bedrooms in it—or three or four? Before the place was found, and then secured in their name, would they live off the land, like their mother had before finding herself as being a victim of her father's evil pursuits?
So many questions and none of them had an answer; Bile shook his head to rid himself of the many questions that were bogging him down. After shaking his head, he turned to look at the movement that he had just seen. After gasping, then shooting up from the log, he stomped his foot down; once the ground spear was in his hand, he tore off into the darkness.
His brothers yelled for him to return to them after he disappeared then, when they heard the grunt, and then the squeal of a pig, they became silent. They waited on pins and needles for him to return—when he did, their eyes just about bugged from their faces.
"Geez, Bile! Think you could of caught a bigger pig?" Hazaar gasped after seeing the better than huge wild pig that his brother was dragging into their area.
"Couldn't help myself on this one." Bile said. He felt rather proud of himself; even though he had lost the fight in downing his urge to hunt, he had nabbed an animal that could feed him and his family for days, if not a week to a week and a half. The pig that he was placing before the fire was about five feet long, and it sported some rather impressive tusks on its snout. He set to work on it right away.
While Bile went to collect what he wanted from his pig, and while Hazaar and Lazeer decided to undertake hunts of their own, she was coming across an area where a camp had formerly been at. She was about ten yards from a creek, which, judging by the high, but currently dry, banks, and the water-beaten rocks and roots, was nearly twice its size when the wet season came in. She had started walking along the creek when a feeling gripped her, and told her to turn around and then head in an easterly direction—the clearing, and the makings of a former camp, were seen and then approached three to four minutes later.
It looked a lot like what she had seen on the day that Guyunis snatched her subconscious self from her physical self and then brought it to him. The trees were plentiful, and there were few bushes around the area; what told her that the area had once been a campsite was the fire pit. After approaching the campsite, then going to where the fire pit was, she dropped to a crouch then inspected it—there were small bones, presumably from small animals or fish, in it and, just before her, were a set of prints. Someone had sat and paced before the pit numerous times; when she went to test the prints, she saw that they were a couple of days to a week old. When she went to check into the prints, that led to where two lines of rocks were, she found them to be a day or two old. The ones that she found a few seconds later, which led away from the campsite, were tested as being a couple to several hours old—going by the age of the prints that she had examined, she knew that someone had used the campsite for, presumably, a week and then left somewhat recently.
When she checked to see if the prints that led away from the campsite continued, she found that they didn't—it was like the person, whoever he or she was, had done a jump and then disappeared, which made her feel sad.
"Don't give up—walk around a bit; call out to him, and see if he returns your call, or just walk around until you find another campsite or bump into him." she thought before moving in the direction that the fresher set of prints were pointed towards.
While going in the direction that the fresher set of prints pointed towards, she tripped twice then stumbled once; after finding the former camping area, and then seeing where the prints pointed towards, she dropped the act of simply yelling Guyunis's name—due to how loud her screams were, her sons could probably hear them. For all of five minutes she screamed until her screamer needed a break—by the time it required this break, she came upon another creek. This one was bigger, and was much healthier than the last, and it looked out on a small valley too. In the valley, she saw red deer, wild boar, and plenty of birds; could Guyunis of hunted in this valley or had he just done his hunting in the forest?
She was just wondering this when she found a path then started down it; she had just entered the valley when her legs locked on her. Standing before her was a very beautiful Lynx, that had two cubs either behind or beside her. She and the mother Lynx stared eye-to-eye to one another for a few seconds before the animal turned then moved on—while she wasn't sure, she had a feeling that the animal had spoken to her. It was like the mother Lynx had felt her grief and depression and had said for her to continue in looking for her newly adopted son—she heeded the animal's advice by doing so.
The Black Forest was a big place; it went a length of ninety-nine miles, and its breadth was thirty-seven miles. It consisted of several mountains, and around eight rivers, and there were many creeks and streams in it that kept the land and its wildlife hydrated. It was hard to believe that, some hundreds of years ago, some of it had been cut down for houses—like with the other structures that were built near water sources, like wide creeks and rivers, each of the houses had fallen and the land had crept in to reclaim what had been taken from it. If the houses were still in the area, they were either very unstable or were housing a different type of inhabitant. The Black Forest, after reclaiming what was taken from it, was now a nature reserve—people could come and go, and camp wherever they wished for a week to a month, but they always had to leave the area and leave it in the way that they had found it.
After seeing the Lynx, and her two cubs, off, she resumed the task in going into the valley. Once she was in the valley, she started yelling for Guyunis.
"Guyunis! Guyunis, if you're out there please answer me! I'm sorry that I didn't answer your calls! I'm sorry that I didn't come to you as soon as you contacted me!" she yelled at the top of her lungs.
The reason to why she hadn't answered his calls, and why she hadn't made an effort in trying to remember him earlier, and in why their connection had come to be broken, and in why she had abandoned him was yelled into the wind.
The protection amulet, that she had made and then worn, had made her and Guyunis's connection to one another be weakened; Trobrencus's act of praying over the amulet, and then saying a spell over them, had weakened it more while his prayers over her and her sons, and the priest, that Tazir had asked to come bless his home, had done the rest in severing it. Upon returning to the mansion on the late afternoon of January 20, she had felt half there... she had felt like a piece of her was missing, or was taken from her, and she had never put the pieces together on why until after reading Guyunis's letter. Depending on Guyunis, the bond, and the connection that allowed for magic-conjured contact to occur, would return and be strong again in time.
While walking along, yelling for Guyunis, and yelling out an explanation on why she hadn't responded to his contacts, she cursed herself. No, letting the stress and pressure that she had felt since moving back to Moas get to her was an excuse—she should of known who Guyunis was from the start; with her having raised him on three separate occasions, and for hundreds of years at a time, she should of been able to recognize him. There was no one else in the Universe who had midnight black skin and glowing yellow eyes that were shaped like scalene triangles—being that he was three hundred and eighty years older than what she remembered him as being, he would be a bit changed but not by much. Guyunis wasn't one thousand, five hundred, and twenty years old anymore; he was a big, strong, nineteen hundred year old. Why didn't she fight Tazir off on that day when he took them from the planet, and why hadn't she gotten on him to get the people that he had invited to his place to get their shit together, and to pipe down and leave her and her children alone, or leave?
She had let Tazir take her and her sons from Earth; she had let him take them from the life that they had lived for so long; and she had let him make the decision on whether their sons continued doing the things that they had done when they had been on Earth. With her letting Tazir do all of that, she had also let him take her from Guyunis—this, in itself, caused her to feel anger towards both of them.
Tazir had said that he was going to take her and any and all children that she had birthed over the years back home with him after she and her biological children were in his ship; instead of doing that, he had kept her from accepting and then taking Guyunis into her home and having him become apart of her family. He had forced her to eat the Jaiboa just to keep her from going to Earth; he had placed a call to a priest, who agreed to bless his house; and he had come close to grounding Hazaar after he reacted to Guyunis's attempt in trying to get in contact with him.
"Guuuuuuyuuuuuniiiiisssss!" she screamed at the top of her lungs after reaching the valley's other side and then going to where a hill was.
Guyunis's name had a loud echo to it for a bit before dying out; Angel, after it died out, stepped from the hill then went into the forest that flanked the valley's other side. She walked for the longest of time, not saying anything or shouting Guyunis's name. When she reached an area where there were three, tall trees, she stopped then shouted the name of the person that she was hoping to find; again, the name echoed throughout the forest around her before dying out. An eerie quiet filled the area, which caused her to pop out in goosebumps and start feeling the cold around her. Her throat made a clicking sound after she swallowed; her eyes, despite the chill that the wind had to it, refused to blink; and her every muscle quivered as she listened to the quiet around her.
Other than the unknown birds, wolves, owls, red deer, red squirrels, Lynx, and wild boar, what all called this part of the forest home? Was the quiet stemming from one of the unknown animals being out, and on the prowl for something to eat, and was she being targeted by one of them animals as a potential food source?
Except for knowing that there was a soft soil under her feet, and trees that looked like that of what she had seen during the event of Guyunis taking her subconscious self from her conscious self being present and accounted for, and the sound of another water source being nearby, she knew nothing of the area around her or of its inhabitants. This lack of knowledge caused her to feel anxious about leaving her sons where they were; was there a possibility that Guyunis wasn't here? Could Lhaklar of mistaken the area, or could she be in the wrong part of the forest? The only reason to why she was here was because of the trees that she had seen—the Norway spruce, Douglas fir, Scots pine, and European silver fir. Could she of mistaken them trees for being what they were when, in reality, they were a different type of tree?
Angel took a step to the side then, from out of the bushes, that were somewhere to her right side, she saw a rather lovely, white-bodied cat that had black spots and stripes on its coat. The cat looked at her, then wiggled its nose, then loped off for some other area. The area's quiet resumed after the animal was gone; it remained quiet for a few seconds before she decided to take in a breath and then try again in calling out for her son.
"Guuuuuuuuyyyyyyyuuuuuunnnniiiiiisssssss!"
"Whaaaaaat?" Angel jumped after hearing the too-close reply to her scream. When she turned towards the area where the response seemed to be coming from, which was directly behind her, her heart started slamming in her chest. The fear, that had her in its grasp, was there for only a second before dissipating; she came very close to sighing after seeing the one that she was looking for stepping out from behind a tree.