Kiernan Manley (wingsofwyverns) wrote in emillion, @ 2014-01-29 10:40:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, !narrative, kiernan manley |
Beneath this snowy mantle cold and clean the unborn grass lies waiting for its coat to turn to green
Who: Kiernan Manley, npcs
What: Tying up some loose ends
Where: A farming village outside Emillion
When: Aquarius 6th - 10th (1/25 - today)
Rating: PG
Status: Complete; narrative
If it hadn’t been for Moira, the place would have been covered in cobwebs and dust by now. Kiernan had certainly slacked off coming back to his childhood home between the holidays and work, but he’d had a free week, and he knew he couldn’t avoid this responsibility forever.
His first day, he wandered from room to room, running his finger along the wooden fixtures and little knick-knacks his father used to bring home to his wife and children after a mission on the other side of Valendia. In the room he had shared with Torin, he dug out the old toy swords that they used to play with, briefly, before they abandoned them for the bamboo poles from Moira’s garden to use as pretend-spears. He went into Elwen’s room and flipped through one of his brother’s books: an anthology of old myths from a faraway culture. Then, in his parents’ bedroom, Kiernan fell into the old armchair and stared at where his mother had spent her last days, and then his father, and he felt a horrible twist in his chest.
He slept on the couch that night.
On the second day, he met with the realtor, and the meeting had not gone smoothly. It ended with Kiernan storming out of his own house and hurling himself into the nearby woods to kill any sort of beast or monster that crossed his path. It hadn’t been the assessment or the offered price that had irked him, but the realtor’s sunny and chirpy personality unsettled him more than he was proud to admit.
That night, he found a cave, started a fire, and camped alone. It was a damn good thing he was well-acquainted with the cold.
The third day, he found himself in the cemetery, a place he only visited once a year. Torin was buried here, not at the Necrohol in the city, by their mother’s insistence; beside his grave were their parents, and a small plaque rested for Elwen. (Not a grave, for there was no body, and Kiernan still held out hope.) Kiernan stared for a while before he fell to the ground and started absentmindedly packing snowballs together before he had a full arsenal. He grinned, oddly proud of himself for his work, before he climbed to his feet and went back to the house. Thankfully, the realtor was gone, though Kiernan knew he’d be back before too long.
He stood in the living room and glanced around. Then, he could only voice one thought, “What the fuck am I supposed to do with all this stuff?”
Moira came over the next day. She didn’t say a word, but Kiernan was thankful for her presence when the realtor returned. He stepped on eggshells this time, and Kiernan found that he was kinder to him than before; Moira’s influence, he knew. At one point, the realtor said something that made Kiernan bristle, and he couldn’t help but see kids running about the house, their long-dead grandparents coddling them and playing with them, and an uncle back to life playing sneaky little tricks on them and the other uncle, reappeared, watching quietly from the couch with a small smile on his face.
It was a future that could never be.
“Are you sure?” Kiernan wasn’t sure who said it, but it was enough to shake him out of his daydream.
With a nod, he said, “Yeah, I’m sure. I can’t raise a family here.” Nor, he realized, did he want to.
It was time to move on.
The paperwork was signed just as the sun disappeared behind the horizon, and Kiernan packed everything that he couldn’t bear to see thrown out or given away: the toy swords, Elwen’s book, his father’s amulet, and the Kerwonian music box his father had given to his mother when he first moved to Valendia to stay. It played a song she often hummed to herself, and it brought Kiernan comfort now.
The first thing the next morning, he bid Moira farewell and left his childhood home for good.