Chapter 3: Home Sweet Home
Finally, they were home. They poured out of the oversized limo in their cramped conga line into the village square. Or more accurately, what was left of it.
The river that came down from Mt. Oriander no longer ended at Osohe Castle's lake-moat. Instead, a jagged fissure went all the way down from there to the leftmost part of the town square where Abbey and Abbot's house, Caroline's bakery, and Bronson's house were supposed to be, then all the way to the edge of the island cutting right through what used to be the sheep shed, which split off their whole farm into its own tiny island.
"Oh crap, are the sheep okay?!"
"Calm down, Claus, they're fine! The Dragon made sure no one got hurt...I wish she could've saved those houses too, though. M'sorry, Bronson, I should've found some way to keep them from getting destroyed..." Lucas said.
"No, you've done enough already..." Bronson sighed. "I don't like losing my house either, but we can always rebuild. Maybe this is karma for abandoning the village in the first place. Lucky thing we did, though, so no one was here when it happened."
"Won't just be houses we have to rebuild this time, we'll need bridges too to get to Flint's house and anything west of the town square." Lighter said.
"We're already rebuilding our house, so we should be able to do this, right? Plus, now we can get the Pigmasks to help us too, so that'll make it go a lot faster!" Fuel said.
"Sure, but it's still gonna take a long time, and I wanna go check on the sheep now! I'll just use my jetpack and fly over there." Claus reached for his jetpack and felt nothing. "Oh...stupid muscle memory..."
As much as he'd abandoned the jetpack, sword, and cannon for a reason, it still felt embarrassing to have to get back in the limo just so it could carry a few of them over to the sheep pasture and their house.
It was only him, Lucas, Dad, Boney, and Grandpa that went there, Kumatora stayed behind with everyone else in case any Chimeras had wandered into the abandoned village before they arrived. They hadn't, but they didn't know that yet.
Their small flock of sheep bleated happily at the sight of them. All the familiar faces were there except two, Fluffy and Curly, and there were two new ones, two adorable little lambs. Well, one wasn't so little and was mostly grown, probably close to a year old, while the other was so small it couldn't be older than a few months.
"Where's Curly?"
"He passed away last year since he got old and sick..." Lucas said with a frown. "And Fluffy-"
"You don't have to say it, I already know. I accidentally read the thoughts of the guy you ran into in Thunder Tower."
"Oh..."
"Don't feel bad, I knew Curly was getting old anyways..." Claus said trying to act like it didn't bother him. "What about the cute little lambs, what'd you call 'em?" Claus said.
"His name's Eepy since he sleeps in so much." Lucas said pointing at the bigger one.
"Hah, so he's like you!"
"Haha, maybe..." Lucas smiled then pointed at the small one. "I haven't thought of a name for her yet. How 'bout you name her?"
"...Really? Is that okay?"
"Yeah, I think she likes ya."
Claus took a few slow, cautious steps closer to the lamb, trying not to scare her. She took a few steps closer, too, nudged forward gently by the ewe that must have been her mother. Aww. He crouched down trying to look as unassuming as possible. "Heyyy...I'm Claus, nice to meetcha. It's okay, I'm not trying to scare ya or nothin'..." She didn't look scared of him being a Chimera like he expected, exactly, just surprised seeing his lack of a second arm and how his left eye was red. "Hmm...how about Lacey?"
"What makes you pick that?"
"I dunno, she just seems like a Lacey. I'm not sure yet. Whaddya think, Lacey?"
"Baaa!" The little ewe bleated happily.
"That sounds like a maybe. Nice. Alright, I'm gonna back up real easy now..." Claus stood back up and backed away. While sheep liked being pet, they had to warm up to you first before they could trust you, and he didn't want to spook her by trying it too early.
Instead, he walked over to one of the older ewes, Ruffly, and scratched her back instead. Sheep couldn't scratch their own backs so they loved it when someone reached through their wool and got just the right itchy spot. There was only around half the normal amount of wool since they were a few months past shearing season in April.
"Baaa..." ("Ooh, that's the spot...it's so good to have you back.")
Claus smiled, it was good to be back. If even the animals didn't think he was some creepy cyborg imposter, maybe it was time to believe them.
"Looks like all the sheep are okay." Dad said.
"We'll still have to rebuild the shed, though, we don't want the lambs to get rained on." Grandpa said.
"Now what?" Claus said.
"Let's go inside and eat lunch while we're here, I think we can take a moment to slow down now that everything's settled down..." Lucas said.
So they did. It was so good to be home.
But the place was a mess. The sheets of Mom and Dad's bed were in disarray with one of them halfway on the floor along with the extra blue pillow. His and Lucas's bed was covered in dog fur, and more stray hairs of dog fur were scattered across the floor on the way there. No one had bothered to clean it up, even though Dad always used to do more of the cleaning than Mom.
And there was an empty bottle of beer on Dad's nightstand.
"I'm sorry, Claus, you shouldn't have to see that!" Dad said in an oddly panicked tone. "Let me put that away..." He picked it up and opened one of the drawers of the nightstand.
"What do you mean, what's the big deal? You only drink every once in a while, it's not like you're an-"
The bottle slipped out of Dad's shaky hand and would have shattered into glass if not for Lucas's telekinesis and reflexes catching it at the last second, then putting it in the drawer like Dad had been trying to.
"-alcoholic." Oh.
"Thank you, Lucas..." Dad said, then closed the drawer with his still shaky hands.
"What happened to you, Dad?" Claus said.
"Hinawa passed away and you went missing, that's what happened. Life has been so hard without you the last three years...but that's no excuse, I'm going to quit for good now and stop letting this place turn into a mess. God, I'm making such an embarrassment of myself..."
"It's okay, Flint, don't be so hard on y-" Grandpa said.
"This isn't okay! The way I've treated Lucas is not okay!"
"I know, but you're going through serious withdrawals right now, stressing yourself out will only make it worse." Grandpa said.
"Just sit down and let me make lunch for us, Dad." Lucas said.
"No, that ain't right, that should be my job. Well, it used to be Hinawa's job, but now it should be mine."
"Then why'd you make me learn how to do it?" There was this bitterness in Lucas's voice and a thick tension in the air Claus couldn't hope to cut any more than he could the Drago back then.
"I...well..."
Dad sat down on his bed with a defeated guilty look. Even now, both beds had two pillows side by side...
When did Lucas become such a bitter person? When Dad wasn't there...no, not just Dad, but Mom, and him, too...no one had been there to protect his kindness. It must have hurt so much for him to have to harden himself to survive a world so cruel to him. Lucas wouldn't like being mean to anyone like this.
Claus wasn't sure if it was Lucas reading his thoughts or just seeing the disturbed look in his eyes since Lucas looked at him, then back at Dad guiltily.
"I'm sorry, I wasn't trying to be so cold, I just...it's not as bad as it sounds, Claus, I was just upset and wasn't thinking and-!"
"It's okay, Luke...it's okay to be angry. I think you got every right to be. At Dad, at the Pigmasks, even at me if you want..."
"But I don't wanna be! I don't like feeling like this, I don't like being so mean!" Lucas sniffled. "I'm sorry I'm not the nice Lucas you remember anymore..." So it wasn't just him? He thought he wasn't the Claus Lucas remembered..."I tried to be, but I didn't wanna be a crybaby anymore, but I went too far, I had to hurt so many people and animals...w-what would Mom think?"
"You are still the Lucas I remember, it's okay..." Claus gave him another awkward one-armed hug, and Lucas cried into his shoulder. "You're just braver, that's all. I think Mom would be proud of you, it's not wrong to fight for what's right, I know you didn't hurt anyone 'cause you wanted to."
"But I did! I hated Porky so much, I wanted to kill him, I still do!" Little bits of memory came across their telepathic link, the sheer rage Lucas had felt in that battle with Porky Claus had never seen, that he still felt.
"But who can blame you? I hate him too and you're not judging me..."
"I know, but it's not just him! I'm still so mad at the Pigmasks, everyone in the village who did what they wanted, everyone who called me a crybaby, and even Dad, even though he's sorry and he's trying to be better..."
"That doesn't mean you can't be upset."
"Y-yeah, but...if Mom was still here, she wouldn't be so bitter like me..." Lucas trailed off into more sniffles.
"No, I'm sure if she were here, she'd be angry at how you've been treated too, 'specially if she was the one who lost Flint." Grandpa said.
"Hinawa wouldn't have lost her way like I did if it was the other way around." Dad said.
"...Maybe so, but it still would've been awful hard on her. She'd still miss you something awful, and if she did do a better job lookin' out for Lucas, then she damn well wouldn't be happy with how some folks in town have been treatin' him and lettin' him down. If she would've been any better at not being bitter than you, Lucas, then that's only 'cause she's a grown woman and you're still just a boy. But I remember how she used to be a little girl, and if she was in your shoes back then, then...wait...maybe she was, and I just don't remember it yet..." Grandpa looked awfully confused. "Well, I'm sure it would've been hard for her, too, going through so much so young. It's not like she was always the way you remember her, she had to learn all that as she grew up...you've got plenty of time to learn, too, so don't be so hard on yourself."
"I just wish she was still here...then she could tell me what to do..." Lucas said.
"I know, Luke, I know..." Claus said. Once, he'd been the rebellious child who got scolded the most for not listening to Mom and Dad. Now more than ever, he wished he could have her gentle guidance again.
Eventually, Lucas let go and wiped his eyes.
"Thanks, Claus...I really needed that. I'll be okay now, just let me make the omelets."
"Okay..." Claus said. He was never much good at helping in the kitchen anyways, his inattentiveness got his food burnt far too often.
In the meantime while Lucas was cooking, Claus took more of a look around the room. Other than it being messy, there were a few other differences from what he remembered. There were some new books in the bookshelf, a few of the floorboards creaked a little more than he remembered, and then there was the cabinet next to the mirror...
Inside the cabinet, his blue shoes from when he was ten and the red scrap of cloth from Mom's dress were preserved with care. Even after all this time. Like they'd never stopped waiting for him to come back and step in them again, even though they were far too small. As if his own ghost had haunted this house even though he was still alive. Mom wasn't, but she would never want to haunt them or see them to cling to this painful reminder of her death like this...
Claus felt sick.
"Dad, what the fuck is this? Why didn't you throw this stuff out?"
"I'm sorry, I just couldn't bring myself to get rid of them, I didn't want to remind you of anything...I suppose those shoes don't fit you anymore, either, do they?"
"No, they don't." Claus closed the drawer with a shudder. "You shoulda gotten rid of them, Mom wouldn't want us to feel so bad about her. I know she doesn't like wasting things, but you could've given someone else my shoes and reused the cloth for somethin' else...we could still do that." Anything to make them stop haunting him. Well, Dad wasn't much good at sewing, but there were others in the village who could besides Mom.
"Hmm...okay, fine, I'll think about it." Dad said. He looked so reluctant to part with them.
He looked through the wardrobe next. It had almost all the clothes he remembered and then some. There were new things like a DCMC shirt and boxers, a new warm sweater, something labeled an Aloha Coat, an odd cape made entirely of rubber just like the ones he'd seen Pigmasks in Thunder Tower use sometimes to safeguard themselves from the atrocious lack of safety regulations, and a black shirt with a skull on it labeled 'Good Kid's Shirt', not the kind of thing he thought he'd see Lucas wearing. There were some bracelets and other accessories and some collars for Boney too. It looked like Dad still wore mostly the same few cowboy outfits as ever, with some of them being more tattered than he remembered, probably from all the looking for him...
Most of their old clothes were there, too, even the ones Mom had thoughtfully made in advance for when they outgrew the ones they wore when they were ten. One of those cyan and yellow shirts, the one that was around his current size, looked like it had seen little or no use. Lucas left it unused just for him..? Even though they'd never minded sharing clothes in the past?
Something smelled good. Lucas was cooking the omelets while he was busy.
Now he could change clothes while Lucas was looking away. Claus told Dad and Grandpa not to look, either, even though he'd never been the shy one. But it was different now looking at his unfamiliar reflection. Without the dye, his hair was blond like Lucas's, but messy, and there was a scar around his red left eye from when it had been blinded by the sharp rock he fell on fighting the Drago. A thin, surgical vertical line went down his chest over where his heart should've been, its stitches long gone by now. A jagged electrical burn scar split and forked along his torso from the lightning he'd killed himself with. Then there was that uncanny seam where flesh and metal met at his shoulder, and a few smaller cuts and scrapes along his left arm that weren't quite gone. There probably would have been a nasty bite scar on what was left of his right after the Drago bit it off at the elbow, if Porky hadn't had Dr. Andonuts take out the rest of the arm that would've had the scar and some of his shoulder just to have a fully metallic prosthetic.
Somehow, the striped t-shirt fit on just fine, gracefully covering up all the scars on his chest and his metallic right shoulder. The orange-ish shorts fit too. Putting them on was a difficult process with only one arm and the telekinesis he wasn't trained on using for such mundane tasks, but he refused to ask for any help. Then he tried to comb his hair...
"Lookin' handsome!" Mom said while gently combing his hair, and his seven year old reflection made a toothy grin missing one baby tooth.
He sure didn't feel handsome now with all these scars and teenage acne and the missing arm and eye and those unnatural parts that didn't belong.
But despite that, he still felt the warmth of sheep wool and all Mom's hard work weaving this for him years ago.
Then he smelled the omelets Lucas had made while he was busy.
Grandpa was reluctant to take Mom's long empty seat. It was eerie thinking how long his own chair had been left cold, too, and how much Lucas and Dad were used to his and Mom's absence, that a full table could surprise them like this.
Then he took a bite.
"Mmm, thish ish sho good!" Claus said. "How'd you make it like that, Mom?"
"Remember, don't talk with your mouth full~" She said in that teasing almost singsong voice. "I make yours with a little more salt and cook it longer, since you like it that way and Lucas likes sauteed mushrooms. The secret ingredient is love."
Lucas had never used to be that good at cooking, except in comparison to Claus, so when had he learned to cook just like Mom? He must have looked through her recipe book these last three years and perfected them through trial and error...
"What's the matter, Claus? Do you not like it?" Lucas said.
"No, it's perfect! You've gotten so good at cooking, it's just like if Mom made it..." As if she was still here. Maybe in some way, she was.
"I know, this is delicious..." Dad said.
"I may have taught her some of the recipes, but she perfected them, and now so have you." Grandpa said.
"Thanks, y'all..." Lucas said.
Lucas didn't mention how he saw him tearing up. Claus tried to blink them back to little effect.
And yet, somehow these tears didn't feel that sad.
They went over to the graveyard a little while after lunch.
The jagged path of the fissure that tore up the left half of town and extended the river just barely missed the graveyard veering to its left by some miracle, and the hill with Mom's grave east of the main graveyard was perfectly intact. Claus sighed with relief. It would've been too much to lose her grave too.
Dad brought fresh flowers to put on it, and those hadn't been there too long either. It must have been a daily routine or at least weekly.
"Hi, Mom..." Lucas said, then glanced awkwardly at Dad as if he wasn't used to visiting Mom's grave with him and it felt weird talking to himself like this when he wasn't alone. Was this the first time they'd all visited her grave together as a family? Dad hadn't been able to visit with him before he went missing since he was stuck in jail, so it had to be...
"You've been here a lot, haven't you?" Claus said.
"Yeah..."
"How do you handle it? I miss Mom...it was bad enough before, but visiting her like this...I don't get it, how'd you get used to just...going on without her?" Claus said.
"I don't know...but I'm not 'used to it', I'm just living with it 'cause I have to. It still hurts, just less than it used to..."
Boney whined sadly and nuzzled his head up to Lucas's legs.
"Do y'think it'll be that way for me too?" Claus said.
"Yeah...it'll get better, I promise." Lucas said.
"Wish I could say it's gotten better for me, but it hasn't felt like it..." Dad said with a sigh. "Must be my fault for never moving on."
Claus didn't want to agree with him, but he couldn't bring himself to say he was wrong, either. If Dad hadn't moved on, neither had he. Three years of not even remembering Mom's name hadn't done much to make the pain any less raw the moment it came flooding back. It was different now than when he'd first remembered, he could better process the two lives he'd lived and sort them out along with the passage of time, but his life as the commander hadn't taught him much about how to cope except to shove it all under the rug. So now that it was all swept away, he just had even more dirt to clean up.
"...Wait...shouldn't there be a grave here for me, too? I know I'm alive now, but you didn't know that before."
"That's my fault too, I told Nippolyte not to dig one as long as I was lookin' for you." Dad said.
"Well, you were right, I was still alive..."
"Maybe, but I was right for the wrong reasons: I didn't have any proof you were alive, just my gut and because I couldn't accept you being gone too. If I'd stopped looking and let you have a funeral, at least Lucas could've had some closure..."
If he had died for real that day and Fassad hadn't taken his body away, then maybe it wouldn't have been as hard on Lucas and Dad missing him...
"You're alive now, that's all that matters. You have no idea how happy I am to have you back." Lucas gave him another hug.
"I'm glad you're happy, but it does matter. You shouldn't have had to spend all that time wondering if I was coming back...or if you did think I was gone, but Dad didn't, then you'd be waiting for him...god, what were you supposed to do, tell him to stop?" He said after letting go.
"I did, a few times..." Lucas said. "Well, Lighter did, and I told him to listen to Lighter."
"And I wish I had."
"It just doesn't feel right, like you had to either help me or him..." Claus said.
"Lighter said I didn't have to give up on you being alive to see that spending all my time lookin' for you wasn't doing any good. Now we know the Pigmasks had you that whole time, so the real problem was them, not you getting lost...maybe if I'd spent more time around the village, I could've convinced more folks they were a problem, and we could've gotten you out of there sooner."
"Would that even work? Even if you'd found me, I wouldn't have gone with you willingly. I could've hurt you...I did hurt you..." Claus said with a frown. "And Lucas didn't have his powers back then..."
"Duster doesn't have any either, and he still helped Lucas out, and Boney's just a dog. No offense, boy."
"Woof!" ('I'm a very clever dog!')
"Yes, you are!" Lucas crouched down and pet him again with a smile.
"Yeah, well...you did help Lucas fight Porky in the end, and...me..." Claus said, but the more he thought about it, the more it bothered him. "Look, I don't wanna argue right now, not here..."
Dad just nodded in understanding. Not in front of Mom's grave.
In the lull in conversation Claus looked back at Osohe Castle's lake, which the castle had sunken into.
"If the castle's gone, where's Kumatora supposed to go now?"
"She used to live mostly at Ionia's house, not the castle, and sometimes she'd go to the houses of the other Magifolk, but they must all be awfully empty and lonely now..." Grandpa said.
Compared to her, he was lucky, wasn't he? They were both missing a mom, but she was missing her entire family too. Then again, she hadn't been turned into a brainwashed cyborg for three years, but...apples and oranges, right?
The construction work was well underway when they got back to what was left of the village. People were trying to make a temporary bridge with ropes and wooden planks to the island the house and farm were now on, then the plan was to build a permanent one of better materials later right next to it before tearing the original down. Kumatora had even made a little bridge of her own by freezing some of the water into ice.
"So, uh...how are you holding up?" Claus said.
"Who, me? I'm doing fine, kiddo." She lied while floating over a plank to the other side of the river with telekinesis. "We're gonna have this done in no time at this rate." For once, people in the village were all cooperating again and working as a community.
"But where are you gonna stay now that the castle's gone?"
"You could say the same thing to Bronson, y'know. The Yado Inn's gonna have people packed in like sardines for a while, so what's one more? Besides, we camped out in the wild when we were traveling, so this is nothing. At least with camping it wasn't so crowded..."
"That wasn't what I meant...I know you can take care of yourself, but what about your family?"
"What about 'em?"
"Uh...well..." What was he supposed to say? Imply she couldn't cope with the loss? Way to project. "Sorry...I dunno what to say, but if there's anything we can do for ya..."
"You don't have to do crap except stay alive. Just having you back is making Lucas happy, so that's all I need." How had Lucas become so important to her?
"Yeah, but I can't just sit around doing nothing..." Couldn't she understand? Didn't she throw herself into work and distractions in the same way? Or was that just him projecting again?
"It's okay, Claus, Kuma isn't all alone." Lucas said saving him from his fumbling. "She's got me, and Boney, and Duster, and the DCMC...and now you, too. She kept telling me she wished she could've gotten to know ya once I told her about you, and now she can."
But he killed half her family, brainwashed or not. Then again, Lucas had pulled the Needles too, but he didn't have a choice, either...
"Yeah, just like he said. Tell you what, if you really wanna do me a favor, come over here for a sec." He stepped closer and she used her all of one inch of height over him to reach down and ruffle his hair in the same older sibling way he once did for Lucas.
"Hahaha, c'mon, it's messy enough already!"
"Hehehehe."
He tried not to push her buttons anymore after that, because he didn't want to hear the same kind of well-meaning sympathetic questions either if they just prodded still raw scars.
Dad and Grandpa hadn't been with them while they were talking with Kumatora, they were over on the east side of the village, for which the bridge to reach it was miraculously still intact. That was where that old folks' home Lucas said Grandpa got put in was.
But the Pigmasks hadn't just built it anywhere...
"I want my house back, damn it!" Wess said while they unwittingly snooped on his argument with Grandpa and Mike in the so-called 'Old Man's Paradise'. It was a pitiful place with creaky floors with a few holes in them and the leaky ceiling too. Three grey doors in the main lobby led to similarly bland bedrooms, with the trio of old men talking in the middle one.
"Listen, what happened to your house was an injustice, just like mine was destroyed by lightning." Grandpa said. "But it ain't just us going through this kind of thing, other people lost their homes too. That's why I'm saying for now, Mike and I can go back to our families' homes, while you let Abbey and Abbot and Caroline and Angie stay in the other two rooms."
"Can't they just go to the Yado Inn like Bronson?"
"The inn's crowded enough already." Mike said. "This is only temporary, once there's more houses built they can clear out of there and leave it to you and Duster. Or maybe just you."
"Just me? He already spent three years fooling around with his band, that's long enough! If he really did forget everything all that time until now like Lucas said, then he oughta come back. If I have to give up my pride for the greater good letting other people stay here, then why the hell does he get to be so selfish abandoning his fami-"
"Selfish?!" Kumatora said stepping into the room. "You're the one who's selfish! The DCMC treated him better in three years than you did his whole life!"
"Princess Kumatora?!" Wess turned in shock. "No, that's not true, it wasn't like that...I know the training I put him through was tough, but it was for his own good, he never could've saved the world if I hadn't!"
"Was breaking his leg for his own good too?" Claus said.
"That was an accident!"
"No it wasn't! I saw his thoughts, it's 'cause you pushed him too far! Doesn't matter if you both didn't want it to happen, it's still your fault!" Claus said.
"Fine, maybe it was! But I already apologized for all that a long time ago, you can't keep beating a dead horse about it forever. I've still done him more good than bad, he wouldn't have survived fighting the Pigmasks without my training. And after everything I did for him, he just went and left me behind. Am I really supposed to believe he forgot everything, and that's why he didn't come home, but somehow he still remembered just enough about his mission to protect the Egg and bury it so no one could steal it? Then still put it somwhere bad enough that the Pigmasks nearly stole it a few years later? All when we should've been using it to get everyone's memories back sooner so we didn't fall for all that Pigmask nonsense? I think what really happened is that moron lied just so he could run away from from his family and his du-"
"SHUT UP!" Lucas said. "He's not lying, he's not a moron, and he's not living with you anymore! Period!"
Since when was Lucas the loud one...
"I just got Claus back...I'm not letting someone else go..."
Oh...
"Even if he was lying, he'd have every right to leave your sorry ass behind after how you raised him." Kumatora said.
Just like Lucas thought, Duster didn't go back to Wess's house when he finally woke up and brought the Egg of Light back to the village. They would've let him if that was what he really wanted, since unlike some people, they knew he was a grown man and could make his own decisions, even if they might be bad ones.
"I wanna thank y'all for calling out my old man earlier, it made it easier talking to him myself...sorry to put the burden on you like that." Duster said to him, Kumatora, and Lucas later.
"It's not like you made us say anything, we could've let him keep saying all that nasty stuff about you if we wanted." Claus said.
"But there's no way you would've."
"'Course not, what else are friends for?" Kumatora said.
He had to wonder if Duster's meek apologetic ways were nature or nurture. Claus knew a thing or two about being trained into quiet compliance...but then again, Lucas grew up shy even when he was raised in a house full of love so much better than Duster's, and even when everything around him conspired to crush his spirit, he kept going through everything and became so brave instead of giving in like the villagers had. But maybe that was because of how Mom had raised him too.
Either way, there had to be something worse about never having had a good family at all instead of having one and losing half of it. Or all of it like Kumatora.
It seemed like OJ, Magic, Baccio, and Shimmy had practically become Duster's new family with how they came to the village with him and had been his best friends over the three years where he lost his memory and played in their band as 'Lucky'. But friends and family were different, again like apples and oranges. No sense comparing them. Duster got to pick his friends, not his dad. Claus hadn't gotten to pick Mom and Dad, either, but he wouldn't pick any different if he could, he'd just gotten the lucky draw.
"Don't worry about any of the crap he said, I think you're doing both your jobs just fine, the band and guarding the Egg." Claus said.
"He had a point, though, I wish I could've helped everyone remember sooner..."
"It's not your fault you didn't remember that part. There's no point dwellin' on stuff you couldn't have changed..." Lucas said.
"I keep tellin' you the same thing." Duster said.
"Yeah, I know..." Lucas said.
"It does feel strange, though, now that we finally have the Egg back. Protecting it is the job I've been training for all my life, and now it's done. So now what?"
"Now you finally don't have to deal with Wess bugging you about it anymore, that's what." Kumatora said. "You can just have fun and keep being a rockstar."
"Hmm...I 'spose that don't sound too bad."
The villagers had differing opinions on whether to use the Egg of Light or not. Leder had said before that now that he was no longer ringing the bell as a psychic suggestion that kept their memories altered, they would gradually come back on their own soon enough, even if they didn't use the Egg of Light to get them back right away. They may not have remembered over the course of the past three years, even without Leder ringing the bell, but it was inevitable, especially now that he'd revealed all of this to them. Just as the bell once served as a suggestion keeping the false memories in place, knowing the truth would do the opposite. He left the choice up to each individual villager how quickly they wanted to jog their memory.
"What do you mean, I have to wait?" Dad said. "I've been running away from my problems long enough, I'm not going to do that with my past too. Not anymore."
"Flint, you have to understand, you're going through serious withdrawal symptoms." Tessie said. She was a doctor, after all, and probably had been before Tazmily, too, struggling to treat the symptoms of a sick world. "We don't know what kind of effects the Egg of Light has on the brain when it gives someone their memories back, so you'd best wait until you're sober. Just give it a few days, that's all."
"But I...oh, fine..." Dad grumbled.
Tessie even said Dad would need medical supervision for around 72 hours after whenever he last had a drink until the acute symptoms were gone, because sometimes they could be seriously dangerous. So she listed out all the symptoms they had to keep an eye out for, and which ones meant he'd need help right away. As if they needed more things to be anxious about. Better than blissful ignorance, though...
But there had been one time when it was good she kept them from seeing the ugly truth.
"Um, Tessie..? I...er...I wanna thank you for covering our eyes back when...you know...I'm sorry I was so ungrateful about it back then. It probably woulda felt a lot worse seeing those folks get hurt." She was the village midwife, too, the hands that brought him and Lucas and all the other kids into the world, so in some way she'd looked out for him long before covering his eyes that day.
"Aw, that's so kind of you, but it's nothing special, it's what anyone would've done."
"It wasn't, though." Ollie probably wouldn't have if she was the one getting hit by Dad instead of him: for all the courage he showed trying to calm Dad down, he was never much good with kids when he was barely an adult himself. It sure as hell wouldn't have been Isaac, with the way he just stood there slack-jawed, taking a few trembling steps back when Claus couldn't see. Duster hadn't been the brave rockstar he was now back then, standing there on the sidelines, not that Claus blamed him for Wess raising him to be so meek and timid. Maybe Bronson, if his guilt at his hasty tongue hadn't kept him laser-focused on Dad...it probably could've been Abbot, too, if he too hadn't been hit trying to calm Dad down. Naive, maybe, easily fooled, sure, but no one in town would say he wasn't kind. He hadn't held a grudge against Dad at all. Maybe that was the worst part, that good people could be so easily corrupted by the Pigmask lies.
In the end, maybe Tessie's intervention made no difference since he still followed in Dad's example anyways, but that wasn't on her...and at least now, he only had to remember hearing it and seeing the aftermath. If only the same could go for what happened to Mom. If only he and Lucas hadn't seen or heard it at all and been swept away in the river sooner. If only it hadn't happened at all. No wonder all the grownups had put their memories in the Egg...
Speaking of which...
Grandpa was next in line to get his memory back. They went back to the house so he could get some privacy and sit down before trying to use the Egg, since they all knew it was going to be painful.
Grandpa sat on Mom's chair at the table, put the Egg down in front of him, then Lucas sat next to him and put his hand on the Egg while closing his eyes. It glowed and changed color from its usual white and pink to blue and green with its patterns changing as well until it looked just like the globe from space, except with the continents being greener than they were now.
Just what was he about to remember?