Who: Khione and Boreas What: Father and daughter time before work Where: Boreas' home When: Friday morning Warnings: None
“Good morning, Papa!” Khione said brightly. As her father walked into the kitchen, she smiled and held out his travel mug of coffee. Boreas nodded and added a brief “Thank you” before taking a sip and then setting it down to adjust his tie. When his eyes fell on her, Khione knew what was coming.
“You stay in with your mother.”
“Yes, Papa, I know. I will. I won’t go anywhere, just like yesterday and the day before that, and the day before that…..” Boreas frowned a little but before he could say anything, she rushed to continue. “We’ve been baking and we have our project and I have Uncle Notus’ gift and all those fun things you brought home yesterday to keep me busy. If I didn’t, I’d still stay in like you want me to, really!”
Instead of smoothing out the concern in his face, what she said only seemed to make it worse. She didn’t understand - she had promised not to leave. Besides the fact that she had her mother to catch up with, she knew there were all sorts of things happening with Zeus and the Titans. If her father thought it was safer to stay home, then he was surely right. All Khione had to do was think of Poseidon to remind herself of what was happening.
That was why she was more than happy to stay in as her father told her to, so why did he act as though she was going to run out at any moment?
“I promise you, I won’t go anywhere.”
“You had better not.” It seemed as though Boreas wanted to add something more, but instead he picked up his coffee and left the kitchen.
“Oh, wait!” Moving quickly, Khione picked up a plate from the counter and followed him out of the room. She stopped when he did, at the front door, and held out the plate with a smile. “Can you please bring this with you? I made it for Jonathan, I hope he likes it.”
As Boreas shrugged on his suit jacket and pulled out his keys, he looked down at the dish in Khione’s hands that held a pie all wrapped up and topped with a folded piece of paper labeled ‘Jonathan!’
“He doesn’t need a pie.”
“He brought me my things from the hotel, and he seemed very nice! I just wanted to thank him.”
“You don’t need to thank him, Khione, he was doing his job. He has plenty to do today and a pie isn’t going to help him.”
“Oh, but it -!”
“I said no. I don’t want to say it again. I have to get going and I don’t need to carry that thing along for nothing.” Boreas reached out to open the door. “Listen to your mother.”
“Yes, Papa,” she whispered, leaning forward to kiss him on the cheek before he walked out the door. She waited until the door closed behind him and he was gone before walking quietly back to the kitchen. Taking the note off the pie, Khione set it down on the counter and carefully placed the plate on top of it. After a slow, subdued look around the room to make sure everything was in place, she walked into the living room and curled up in one corner of the couch.
She drew a throw up over her legs and sat quietly, watching the sky outside the window.