ciɳɗy (ciɳɗɛʀɛʆʆɑ) ѵɑkɑʀiɑɳ (silvershoes) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2017-09-12 18:28:00 |
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The sun felt like honey, it felt like nourishment. It was a giant hand pressing on Cindy, the breezy whispers like fluttering fingers, and a salve for her spirits - considering she’d been grumpy because of the latest zombie-demon-alien, ‘insert X-Files entity here’ invasion, and how she physically couldn’t be out there fighting. Someone else she trusted would have to man her pumpkin carriage of war, and that seemed like the end of an era. Not permanently, of course. After she wasn’t pregnant anymore, after the twins were born and had some sturdiness to them, she planned to get back out there. She’d always been involved - even her career as an FBI agent had her out in the field, doing a variety of things. Though a day on the beach in the polka-dotted maternity bikini she’d ordered (this was the inaugural first wearing), that seemed like good medicine. There were sunglasses on her face, a hat on her head, and she was slathered in sunscreen that was considered ‘pregnancy safe.’ Believe her, she’d checked multiple times. Helpful that Katherine lived right on the beach. Also helpful that she had a piece of jewelry to ensure she didn’t crisp out here. Like, literally crisp. “How was Prague?” Cindy asked, putting down her In-Touch magazine. Celebrity gossip was lame this week. “Break a lot of hotel furniture?” It’d be a terrible idea to live on the beach if she didn’t have the means to properly enjoy it - but the magic imbued in the amulet was reliable, currently resting on cleavage accentuated by an itsy-bitsy-non-polka-dotted-kini. Katherine couldn’t tan, technically. Not unless she bathed herself in some kind of temporary bronzing lotion her skin didn’t absorb the rays like it did when she was a citizen of the living - but there was still the feeling of sand between her toes, the rush of ocean water on her skin. Mundane experiences enhanced by her transition, and it reminded her of all her heinous party nights (rolling on ecstasy and whatnot because duh, she was a model, drugs were as common as women shoving their finger down their throat after dinner) where everything just felt amazing. And like she could ever give up a good bikini, pfft. Please. How else to be vainly show off her body at any given moment that didn’t involve bare nudity? It was also lovely to lay exposed to the sun while internally taunting the celestial ball of fire with thoughts like can’t set me on fire, asshole, muah. “Mmmmhmmm,” answered the vampiress, Gucci sunglasses over her eyes and beachy curls all undone. Her condo was literally behind them should they want to go back for more refreshments - oh, the convenience. “Nothing like vacation fucking and not worrying about the world around us falling apart. Well, sort of vacation. I worked for half of it.” Katherine almost wished she never left. It meant coming back to face reality, and at the moment her reality consisted of the return of her righteously perfect twin and a smarmy titty baby. “Then you come back and it’s like...” Cindy pantomimed an explosion. Ka-boom. “Well, at least you didn’t leave and then come back for the demons or whatever. It’d be awkward to walk in on but I’m sure it’ll happen again eventually.” Or something would. She didn’t trust this place to be ‘regular’ for more than a month. And it had been doing so well lately too. With her, she had a mocktail that she picked up and sipped - actually, it was a variety of juices she was consuming but there was a little umbrella in her drink so it worked. Gave her that extra ‘lying on a Caribbean island’ feeling. If only she had assistants alongside her to fan her off with huge palm fronds. “Dreams still a shitshow too?” She could sympathize. However, it was unlikely she’d have anymore of her own, being dead and all. No, she’d just fade off into the ether - her fairytale living on. If it could sort of evolve so Prince Charming fucked off and became inconsequential to the story though, that’d be great. “Preach it, honey.” Cindy couldn’t see it but she was rolling her eyes behind those pricy shades, hard - but she vowed she’d mind her own business, watch any bullshit unravel from afar unless it knocked on her front door. Provoke the cat, and the cat will scratch. “And of course they are, because there’s suddenly a cure for vampirism and it’s one single dose - one - and then I’m fighting Elena in a high school hallway like a supernatural teen show. Boo.” Katherine didn’t trust it. The cure involved strings, it had to - and she was just waiting to see what those were on the other side. It was magic, and magic had a way of fucking people over no matter what the intent was, good or bad. To undo a curse running rampant for over a thousand years had to come with a price. But enough of that. She rolled over onto her stomach, which brought her inches closer to her adorably pregnant friend and the girls. A reference to her belly, currently occupied by twins. Her hope was that the two little blobs in there were little princesses. “Do you feel anything yet, Cindy? Aside from gas and cramps, anyway.” Well, damn. A cure for vampirism? Cindy never heard of that - to her, being saddled with a thirst for blood did seem like a curse. There were benefits but also a lot of drawbacks that one had an eternity to come to terms with. A fix would obviously change all that. “If there’s a cure, would you take it?” she asked, lifting an eyebrow, turning her head to peer over the top of her shades - which slid down her nose a bit. Beach days always made her feel so relaxed and loose. “And, hmm, I kind of feel some flutters on occasion? Not a lot though. The doctor said in a couple more weeks.” The ones she did feel were faint, due to being slender and naturally not having a lot of ‘padding’ on her abdomen to begin with. “She also said that I’d feel more pressing than kicking - like, at first I’d be able to tell which twin is kicking but then it all just starts to feel the same as they move more in a tighter space.” They’d grow and get bigger, have less room. It was pretty boggling to her, actually. Twins in that little body. Katherine knew what it was like to lug one around in the human waterbed - but two. It boggled her too even as someone looking in, and she pressed her hand on Cinderella’s belly gently (permission had been given before, she wasn’t a creepy stranger). “I pity your organs already,” she chuckled. “Two sets of feet are going to be wreaking havoc on you. There’s nothing like it in the world, though.” It was something she enjoyed about her own eons-ago pregnancy, and being so close to someone who was expecting (plus the little girl in Hank’s lab enamored with her hair) made her think about those memories more than she cared to admit. “But, I don’t know,” was her answer in reference to that elusive cure. “There, I wouldn’t - I have too many enemies that want me dead, and I don’t think I’d even know what it means to be human after five hundred years.” It’s what happened when you were ‘blessed’ with an immortal lifespan. It changed you. “I don’t know about here. It’s...complicated.” There was a selfish, selfish part of her that reveled in being a dangerous vixen. A reflection that wouldn’t change with age, the strength and speed and freedom. Then the fact that she’d be at a disadvantage among of group of supernaturals that weren’t fond of her for the most part (‘frenemies’ was a term used with Katherine, a lot) if she went human, her blood again a hot commodity. But then, there was Hank. “After five-hundred years, yeah. Everything’s sort of tilted off the axis in a way that can’t be fixed,” Cindy agreed. But here? Katherine hadn’t been a vampire for that long. She could still choose to reclaim her humanity, if the cure ever presented itself in this world. “I guess here you have to decide what’s more important - where the priorities are. And how it would feel to lose the ones you care about - they’d leave you behind. Maybe it’s not so much an issue in your dreams.” But it would be here as well. Cindy wouldn’t live forever, she knew that. Her own death was proof that Fables would and could die - generally, they outlasted the average Mundane pending on the popularity of their story. But she wouldn’t want to watch Garrus die, watch their kids die while she remained the same. A normal life cycle was something people took for granted when that was no longer feasible. It would take some consideration, no doubt. And only Katherine could make that decision, no one could do it for her. “I mean, time’s gonna go pretty quick - you’ll be teaching these little ladies how to properly apply eyeliner before you know it,” she grinned, motioning to her baby bump. Katherine only sought the cure for a bargaining chip, the others a cure for Elena (who was too much of a soggy cupcake to handle being a supernatural killer), or unless you were Rebekah who was sick of a damned life, craving children to raise and a life with natural end. But one dose, just one, made it tricky for anyone to really try claiming it for themselves - and made for an all-out war among vampires to get it. Oh, the drama. “Little ladies, little men - whatever their fancies crave,” she smirked, lowering her sunglasses a tad bit to peek at that growing stomach. It was easy to shove away the idea of people around her aging when she preferred to live in the now, but she knew the years would come up to haunt her - when things suddenly stopped being the same and all those people she learned to love, gone. “But it’s been an incentive to love that much harder and more openly, I guess you could say. I have all the things I wished I had in the dreams. Friends I can trust, someone that loves me. Family, even if mine’s weirdly fucked.” Dead adopted parents, and then biological parents out there somewhere - John (whom they all thought was their uncle) and Isobel wouldn’t be hard to fine. Katherine just wasn’t interested in a relationship them them. Jeremy and even Elena (despite the resentment the bitch was still her twin, and twins had a special bond - Cindy would see that herself one day with her little ones) were all she needed in the blood department. Well, except for… “Can I get your perspective, as a mother?” Cindy wasn’t sure if she even had much perspective - all she knew was that she’d do anything to protect the lives growing with her. She’d studied ‘yes, good idea’ and ‘no, you idiot’ lists when it came to what activities she could engage in, how much exercise she should do, what foods she should avoid and which ones she should consume. Every pregnancy was different, sure, but she wanted to be as healthy as possible. Carrying twins was enough of a risk, and she’d be devastated if anything happened to them. From here and up until the next...oh, sixty or so years. “Sure,” she smiled, setting down her cool, delicious drink. The breeze ruffled her hair slightly, and she brushed her bangs away so they didn’t get in her face. “What’s going on?” Cindy’s perspective at the moment was the most relatable. All this vampiress ever experienced in regards to motherhood was the pregnancy itself, that’s it. Katherine didn’t know if she even possessed a motherly bone after her body after that - her life didn’t seem compatible to ever taking care of a child, and there was a part of her that purposefully set it up that way. “Hank brought up the possibility of looking for my own - uh, child person out there.” Strangest words to ever roll off her tongue, really. It’s a shame that she never picked a name. “Thing is, it was a closed adoption so it’s not the legal thing to do, but then again I suck people’s blood, so.” Legalities were irrelevant. But the thought had simmered, and then slowly came to a boil - it wasn’t hard, when she was laying on hot sand next to someone with twinsies in utero. “Would you just say ‘fuck it’ and do it? Not to intervene with the kid, but to just know.” “Oh, I would do it.” Cindy didn’t even hesitate, she didn’t have to think about it. As a former FBI agent (sort of current - she was a liaison of sorts), you’d think that living by the whole book of justice and the law would be her thing. But sometimes you had to be flexible - sometimes there were instances where you could throw the book out the window and then turn away. She shifted a little on the towel draped over her beach chair, just so she could look at Katherine better. It must have been hard as hell to give up that baby when she was born, it must have affected the then-teenager in ways that carried on through adulthood and made Katherine who she was now. There was no way that hadn’t happened. So revisiting that, yeah, it would be difficult. But not impossible. “Your daughter could be with a nice family, in a nice home. But maybe she’s not - not all adoption stories turn out happy. If she isn’t, you would want do something. I know you would.” And with the resources at their disposal, now was a good time to find out. Katherine was never one for rules (she was a rebellious devil, a trait that Jeremy absorbed in his youth too) but this particular one, it was supposed to be there to protect all the parties involved - it wouldn’t be fair for the parents to have her pop up in their business, wouldn’t be fair for the child, and it was supposed to provide her with blissful ignorance but it fucking didn’t, was the thing. Not when it was an outcome she never wanted in the goddamn first place. But Cindy turned a nagging fear of hers into words. Not all adoption stories turn out happy. Those shades were pulled from her face and she chewed on its arm a little (nothing too harsh, they were Gucci for fuck’s sake). “I guess,” she answered, and don’t worry, the nonchalance was an obvious smokescreen. There was no more ‘thinking about it.’ Now it was just peeling away the fear to actually do it - and knowing that she might not like what she uncovered. “You’ve got those mama instincts already oozing out of you, Cindyrella. It suits you. But I’ll figure...something out.” Sigh. “Soon.” Ish. Soonish. There was a cooler of drinks and snacks they’d brought out; mixed mocktails for the glowing essence of twinly motherhood, and refreshing wine coolers for the vampire who needed something to dull the bloodlust. Katherine reached for one of those glass bottles and popped the cap open with the strength of a manicured fingernail. “But, anyway - I don’t want to distract from your whole experience. And as a twin I almost feel obligated to give you a list of what kind of mischief to expect if you get stuck with identical ones.” The smokescreen wasn’t very thick or distracting, so Cindy saw through it - but she wouldn’t comment, or push about the issue. All she said was, “I’m here no matter what you decide to do. I don’t consider it a distraction at all.” Katherine was afraid, no question about it - but facing fears could be healthy. At least once she found out what happened to her daughter, she wouldn’t have to spend an actual eternity wondering anymore. Another mixed mocktail would do this fairytale princess just fine, thank you. Cindy grabbed another to work on - in a minute she might need to put on her flowy coverup, since she didn’t want to get too much sun. Just a little glow would be nice, even on the baby belly. “Mischief like switching places and pranking? It’s probably a rite of passage,” she laughed. “My biggest fear is I’d mix up my own babies at some point, and feel terrible.” What did southerners usually say? Bless your heart, honey? Usually said in condescending ways but Katherine thought it genuinely about her friend here - because she had very few female friends, and it was nice to talk to another woman about womanly things. Particularly intimate womanly things, because she knew no one else who could even imagine relating to the whole…thing. “I impersonated my sister all the time,” she giggled, smiling around the mouth of the bottle. “Mostly to get her in trouble. Yours will no doubt do the same. And don’t be surprised if they start speaking in unknown tongues - we had our own language going on there when we were kids so our parents wouldn’t know. You and your hubby will have your work really, really cut out for you. It’ll be fun to watch.” Auntie Katherine would be there, too. She knew twin shenanigans, and they would not be able to get past her with their mischief if she ever babysat. “I’ve got an idea for a baby shower gift, though, to help make sure you don’t mix them up if they’re identical. It’ll be cute and classy. I promise.” “I think we’ll be able to tell at the next ultrasound,” Cindy laughed too. “If they’re fraternal they have their own placentas but it’s difficult to see in the early ultrasounds, apparently.” But the next one? That’d be the twenty-week ultrasound and her and Garrus would also learn the sex of the babies too. She knew Katherine was rooting for two girls - and Cindy kind of was too, though a boy and a girl (one each, how cliche) might be nice too. Everything on track and healthy was the most important thing, however. “I’ll be sure to let you know what the doctor says, promise.” Especially for the sake of the shower, which she was grateful to Katherine for offering to throw. Katherine’s expertise in throwing celebrations involved the flow of alcohol and, um, some recreational substances because of the Hollywood scene - it was snowing blow constantly there, duh. A gender reveal was new territory but nothing she couldn’t handle, and she was determined to make sure it was a memorable event for the parents-to-be. “Crossing my fingers for you, honey,” smiled the vampire, genuinely sweet - all void of secrets and conniving intentions. She even knocked on Cinderella’s protruding tummy, gently. “Ladies better behave and be willing to show their hoo-has for this appointment, because once we know for sure then the shopping’s on. I already have online shopping carts full and waiting to go.” Never did she think she’d be looking at baby things again, but she had a duty as a friend and auntie - and what she couldn’t get for her own daughter, Katherine would make sure these two would. |