Private Elevated Episodes: How I Met Your Mother - Jungle Rehash

[Aver Brand]

Joy, unfettered and untainted, was a rare emotion to grace the expression of one Ygdris Val. Co-opted by malice, yes, and often, but in its pure and unbridled form? Likely only in the present company.

Quietus would find her smiling, then, when she turned to face her mate, still ensconced in the circle of her arms.

It wouldn’t – didn’t – take much for that smile to spill over into something different, if only because the pull of a smirk against her muscles felt that much more familiar.

But it wasn’t her fault, really. It was Des, being all handsy and suggestive.

She was only a woman, after all – flesh and bone and a great many weaknesses besides.

Her own hands mapped the expanse of a pale back, devoid of the scars and tattoos she’d known and loved well. Settling on the small, chaste as can be, Aver tugged Qui just that bit closer.

It was the easiest thing in the world, then, to lean down and ruin that resolute grin with an indulgent kiss, trading smoke and sigh.

When she pulled back again, amusement had settled into the subtler, softer lines of her face. They’d not found much use until recent years, frankly, and Aver still found those muscles twitching every so often when she smiled in a particularly soft way.

And you? She gave her flanks a gentle squeeze, mouth quirking before she looked past her mate and to the jagged horizon. How do you...

It would be now that words failed her.

How are you with motherhood?

 

[Quietus]

Contentment spilled from her lungs into the kiss, mingling with the taste of Black Label, Whyrens and wine, steak, and the dessert she'd forgone. Once broken apart she lingered beneath her mate's chin, nuzzling along her jaw and the softened line of her neck, perfectly complacent to indulge in scent and warmth and closeness for the time being.

How are you with motherhood?

The lax line of her brow pinched slightly in a moment of thought. Aver wasn't the most graceful with words at times, especially when they were tied to thoughts or feelings or emotions she wasn't fully familiar with herself. Some seconds spent testing the empathic waters, to try and understand the intent behind the words and find the meaning.

How did she feel about being a mother?

Here she found herself in one of those rare moments that she had also grown a substantial amount over the last several decades. When first they started their journey together, Aver had walked in to a tent in the summer sun to find Quietus sitting on the ground with her own daughter in her lap and her son waiting playfully in the wings. She felt much differently about motherhood then, and even longer before still, than she did today.

Content, Quietus answered at length, her nuzzling having grown still from her musings, I was not a good mother for a long time because I did not want to be for selfish reasons. At some point something changed and I found I wanted to give my children something better than what I had been given as a child.

She smiled despite herself, thinking of her life on Onderon with Arathul, Dahl and Dahn running wild and free through the jungles, then coming home with unfettered excitement to tell her of their adventures. Teaching them all the different lessons that would make them into the adults they were today. They were fond memories.

I'm not as good as some but I'm better than most. I think I've grown to enjoy it.

 

[Aver Brand]

There was a privilege in bearing witness not only to a thought, but the creation of that thought itself. It wasn’t one that Aver had always been able to appreciate, but better late than never.

Her own touch fell quiet in respect of the rumination she could feel under the surface of her mate, her hands settling in favor of small, soothing circles etched by her thumb into the canvas of pale skin.

Uncharacteristically slow and hesitant, Aver pulled back from the embrace just enough to meet those gentle green eyes. Her brow furrowed as she bent wandering thoughts into shapes she could actually voice.

What changed?

 

[Quietus]

I realized I was repeating the cycle of what I lived through with my own mother.

Making them feel the same neglect of being unwanted that I did.

She met Aver's gaze for a moment of honesty. Desdemona Shamalain had lived a long, long time without regrets. It had taken having an infant that wasn't hers forced into her care to see the truth of the life she had chosen in concerns to motherhood.

Then my grandmother did the same thing to Arathul - she pushed him off onto me to raise and wouldn't tell me why. I can only imagine it was for selfish reasons like appearances in the court of Kuati high society. I took me some time to understand what was happening ... and that it wasn't about what I didn't want, it was about what he needed.

A deep sigh leveled her shoulders, lifting a weight of some guilt she had felt for years from them in the action of admittance.

After that it was different. I endeavored to do better and I raised him as my son. That's why I never told him he wasn't. Then Dahl and Dahn ... they weren't a ... planned thing, but once I got past the shock I decided I wanted a chance to do things right from the start.

I like to think I did well.

 

[Aver Brand]

For all her experience in things strange, alien, or extreme, Aver could fall short in the most mundane of situations. The complex dealings of family and offspring were a matter she was only beginning to grasp, and even so would never take the same form they occupied for so the galactic many.

It was difficult for her to relate to the troubles of other people in the best of situations, the most familiar of experiences; this was neither.

At least now she could recognize that even the absence of family was, in its own way, a family issue.

At least now she knew when this isn’t about me.

Aver held Quietus; she held her gaze, her candor, and the weight of the admission, and marveled at the simple revelation that she no longer found any of it a burden.

Leaning forward, she closed her eyes and rested their foreheads together, breathing the same air for long moments.

Apart from teaching them to call me at’atri, she quipped, without heat yet as warm as anything.

It should’ve felt strange, this manner of peace that suffused the body down to the very bones, and on Nadir of all places.

But then, home these days was a who, not a where.

A confession of her own in turn.

 

[Quietus]

An audible chuckle filled the shrinking space between them. Pitched against one another, a simple lean of shared honesty, she drifted in the rarity of the moment. Eyes closed, lips smiling easily.

No regrets there.