WHO: Adaine and Catrin Abernant WHAT: Mum and Daughter go for a hike and have a little heart-to-heart about the future. WHEN: Afternoon of November 1 WHERE: Hiking trail out in the forest WARNINGS: None, really!
“It’s just a little bit further!” Catrin promised, calling over her shoulder to her mom who was approximately two years older than her which was absolutely wild. It had taken Catrin about an hour to have a ‘yikes on bikes’ freakout but it had really been more for Adaine, who looked so unsure she was the one Catrin was calling ‘Mum’, rather than herself. Catrin tended to take everything in stride–now, at least. Being raised with Bran in a home with love and happiness and support had done wonders for her. Once Catrin started talking, Adaine liked to say, she wanted to make up for the lost time of her quiet, insular beginnings.
Crobby tick-tacked right at Catrin’s side, Boggy riding on top. His harness hadn’t come through, but Catrin was good enough with ropes and knots to make something secure. Her Boggy was used to being carted around, having gone on a bounty of childhood adventures. This Boggy? Looked a little more unsure.
Up a rocky hill they went, and how Crobby could get by was a wonder of magic and engineering and experience. Catrin never questioned it, but Catrin never questioned much. “I came camping here last week, it was so beautiful!” she continued, this time turning around to face Adaine, meaning she walked backwards with a natural ease and grace. “How are you doing with water?” Catrin shook a metal bottle and then extended it out as an offering. “Even though it’s cool, we’re still working out, so it’s important to stay hydrated!”
Adaine's life had been a bit of a whirlwind since Catrin had come crashing into it, but in the very best of ways. Once she had gotten over the initial freak out, mostly by way of eating a lot of ice cream and doing a lot of frantic pacing in her bedroom after Catrin had gone to bed that first night, the situation had begun to feel more real, more possible. Though the idea of motherhood still felt so completely foreign to her as an eighteen-year-old whose primary focus was her spellbook and classes, each day and moment spent with Catrin left her understanding just why she might decide to one day pursue it.
It wasn't that Adaine didn't like kids or didn't like the idea of having a family, just that the idea of family was a complicated one for her. The family that she had been born into had only hurt her again and again, and she had only just started to try and heal the chasm between herself and her sister back home. The family she had chosen were a completely different story, of course, and Adaine could understand, even now, why she might have liked the idea of expanding that and giving a home full of love to two young sisters.
She was still struggling to full wrap her mind around it, though. Though she could rationalize why she might like the final destination, it was the journey itself that she was surprised by.
But Adaine didn't want to dwell too deeply on any of that, not when she and Catrin were having a nice day out. Though she enjoyed the outdoors, Adaine wouldn't have considered herself an outdoorsy sort of person; she was enjoying that being around Catrin meant exploring that side of herself. She took the offered bottle of water and took a deep drink, holding it back out to her daughter (her daughter). "Thank you," she said, then looked back out in the direction they were headed. "I'll be curious to know if it's any different in the future, so you'll have to do a comparison for me."
“Oh, it will be!” Catrin chirped, but again, she didn’t seem all that bothered by it. “It’s a different time, right? Different season too. But I think that’s what’s exciting, even if you go a week later, things will have changed.” And there was something really poetic about that, Catrin thought! Some things were never consistent and never could be.
She skipped up the rocks and turned back to offer Adaine a hand up a particularly tricky area. It was out of habit, automatic, watching out for her mum. Sometimes when she looked at this young version, she could see Adaine, curious, responsible, polite, but the woman Catrin knew as Mum always seemed to be so put together and confident. For Catrin, someone who was definitely not put together, it was both reassuring (see?? She might not be a disaster for the rest of her life!!) and sad.
“So, um,” Catrin started. “We do this a lot? I mean, me, more so, obviously, but you–my mum?” Boy, that was weird, trying to talk about her mum without directly calling Adaine her mum. The effect sort of made her brain go cross-eyed–cross-brained? Mostly she could do it when she thought of Adaine as not her mum but a friend, but when she was directly referencing her to her, well. “Taught me how to pitch a tent, because Fig’s mom taught her.”
At that, Adaine's mind immediately took her back to when Sandralynn did, in fact, teach her how to set up a tent. It certainly wasn't something that either of the Abernant parents would have considered teaching her, but then again, it wasn't as though her parents would have willingly done something like camping and hiking, either. It did something in her heart to know that the knowledge she had gotten from one fo the better adult figures in her life was something she had been able to give to herh own daughter, someday in the future.
Sure, Adaine was still grappling with the knowledge that she even had a daughter (daughters, as she'd been told), but it felt more real and less ill-advised with every anecdote that Catrin told her, with each glimpse into the seemingly well-adjusted and happy child that some future version of herself had a hand in raising.
"That's actually lovely to hear," Adaine admitted, carefully stepping so as to not trip and fall. She definitely wasn't quite as nimble as Catrin was on her toes. "I can understand why you enjoy it and think that I would, too. It seems like a good way to spend time together."
“Really fun,” Catrin confirmed with a wide, sunny grin. “Mum’s a professor, and that’s pretty set hours which is nice! And then like, I go to school and work and volunteer, Bran goes to school too, so we’re busy but it’s not overwhelming, you know? Just like, normal busy! So it’s good to specifically do something.” And, in case it wasn’t perfectly obvious, Catrin had a lot of energy to harness. Even in the short time she’d been in this Vallo, that was easy to see, she was constantly in motion with big gestures and sometimes just zenning out to a song only she could hear.
It wasn’t much further up to their destination, the top of the hillside. Directly in front of them was the sea, more of a blue-gray color given the time of year and choppy with the breeze. Catrin crouched down when Crobby click clacked to her and she pointed out something in the distance to him. “He likes looking for dolphins,” she explained. “Sometimes I just chill on the beach and he hangs out in the water.”
Behind them was a forest, the leaves in hues of crimson, goldenrod, and orange, rustling together thanks to the sea breeze. Catrin could smell autumn in the air, the world in transition. She straightened, beamed another sunny smile to her teenage mom, and went to climb up on a boulder flattened at the top which made for a most excellent bench. “I thought too, maybe we could talk-talk? Like if there was anything you really wanted to know? I’m sure you have a lot of questions, and I want to answer what I can!”
It really was a beautiful spot, Adaine had to admit. It made her wonder what else she had been missing during her time in Vallo, given how she spent so much of her time either in the city thanks to home, work, and school. She did go into the forest, but mostly only for dinners with Caleb and the others or the occasional babysitting job. She didn't explore, at least not like this. That might have to change.
Adaine followed Catrin up onto the bench-like boulder, taking up a spot next to her. She looked once to Boggy, just checking to make sure that he was relatively content yet from where he was strapped to the back of Crobby, before looking back to Catrin with a small smile. "I'd like to talk-talk," she admitted. "I do have a lot of questions." It was only her nature.
The biggest question she had--am I a good mother?--immediately surfaced, but she didn't want to ask it right out of the gate. She didn't even know if that was something she could ask. Instead, she went a little bit safer. "So I adopted you and Branwen, yes?"
Catrin leaned over and nudged Adaine with her shoulder in a familiar way, one that said without saying it that she knew Adaine would have questions, which was why she extended the invitation in the first place! She really had tried to keep things to a minimum, even though doing so was all but impossible if Catrin wanted to contribute to a conversation instead of just having Adaine talk.
She nodded at the question and pulled off her backpack, digging around for a moment before retrieving a bag of trail mix, which held a good blend of fun (m&ms! Marshmallows!) with the healthy (almonds, sunflower kernels, banana chips, dried strawberries!). “When I was five? Bran was two,” Catrin answered. “I don’t really remember our parents.” In the very beginning she had, of course, their disappearances had been traumatic to the little girl who would force her eyes to stay open at night fearing that her sister and the adult who was meant to take care of them would disappear too. “Caleb and Essek had adopted Luka, and they had friends who had adopted too, and so they were familiar with it all, and I think you talked to them a lot about how everything worked and what needed to happen. Probably took a lot of notes,” she teased, because that was exactly how her mum was, needed to have all of the information at her fingertips, organized, cataloged, and sorted, before she came to any decision.
Catrin popped a handful of trail mix into her mouth and offered the bag to Adain while her gaze went to the water. “I remember coming to this big house and I mean, now, it’s like, the coolest house in the world, I love it, but at the time it was so big and so scary. And Bran and I had our own rooms that you said we could decorate however we wanted. But the first night, I found the secret passage to get to Bran’s room and hid out there, and then you came in and slept on the floor with me.”
Adaine felt her heart melt, even as she chewed on an almond that she picked out from the handful of trail mix she had accepted. She remembered what it was like to first move into Mordred Manor herself. Though much older than Catrin had been, it had still been daunting. It was full of people that she loved, but that in and of itself was different when compared to the stifling atmosphere that she had spent the first many years of her life in. It had been a good change, one that she was so grateful for, but it had still been a change and that could be scary, no matter the situation.
Catrin and Branwen, of course, came to the manor under different circumstances, but Adaine could understand that trepidation. It was clear that Catrin eventually became comfortable, otherwise Adaine couldn't imagine she'd be so readily willing to spend time with her, but she didn't know the journey that led to that point. At the moment, she didn't know if she needed to know. She was just happy that they'd gotten there eventually.
"The house was pretty scary for me at first, too," Adaine said after a brief moment of contemplation, voicing her earlier thoughts. "I'm glad that Branwen had you. That's an important bond. Are you two very close?" As she spoke the words, her mind lingered on the complicated relationship between herself and Aelwyn.
“We’re really close, for sure,” Catrin said, smiling. She was an elf if the pointed ears alone gave it away, but not the same type as Adaine. Her features were rounder and softer, so even though she was an elf, she wasn’t from Fallinel. Likely Catrin didn’t know exactly either, she had been so young it wouldn’t have occurred to her that there were even other types. And now, with so many other types of people, she’d probably never find out. But whatever it was made her more expressive, less of the high elf still, calm waters.
“It’s a little hard because she’s younger than me, so I don’t tell her everything, you know?” She continued, in the very easy, open book way she had. “I don’t know, sometimes she gets on my nerves because she’ll wear my clothes or takes my things, but mostly we get along really well. And,” Catrin grinned again with another glance over at Adaine as that was quickly becoming the sign that she was about to drop some ‘family lore’ on her and wanted to make sure she was prepared. Catrin resisted the urge to make a joke about being an oracle and always being prepared when you could see the future. “We have a really great Mum and we have family dinners and game nights which keeps us in check.”
A flurry of emotions whirled around in Adaine's mind at Catrin's words and the picture that they painted. She knew that Catrin and Branwen had a similar gap in age to herself and Aelwyn, but it was very clear to her even before she asked that the two had a different relationship than she and her sister did. She knew that the environment that she and her sister had grown up in had been far from healthy so the comparison wasn't the best, but it meant more than she could put into words to know that she had apparently made a good environment for these two sisters to grow up in.
After all, Adaine knew that Catrin had no reason to go around calling her a great Mum if she wasn't actually pretty okay at the job. It was a reassurance that she had needed more than she realized.
"That sounds really wonderful," Adaine said, her voice soft with all those emotions that were still floating about. "I--um. I hadn't even really begun to think about ever having kids, being, you know, only eighteen and all, but." She smiled, small and genuine. "It sounds like I won the jackpot with my kids."
Catrin giggled and took the opportunity to wrap both arms around Adaine’s shoulders in a tight hug, as if she could sense that “I know, don’t worry. I’m not expecting you to run out tomorrow and go find us. We’re not even around anyway.” Her lips pursed in thought. “I’m not sure if I should tell you that! No, wait, that part is probably okay, you could have guessed it.” Worrying about things like the timeline changing or whatever wasn’t on the top of Catrin’s list, if anything, she figured all of the kids showing up alone would have done it! “You have time,” she promised. “Lots of time to do a lot of things and study and learn and really, do whatever you want! And then, when you’re ready, Caleb will tell you that there are the two most adorable little girls in the world needing a home…” Catrin trailed off, batting her eyes.
She couldn’t keep the act up very long before she giggled again and squeezed Adaine once more. “We have so much fun! And so many good times. You’re so supportive of whatever we want to do, Bran once said she wanted to be a capuchin monkey instead of a girl and you went to the library with her and learned all about what capuchin monkeys eat and how they live and you were close to finding someone who could transplant the right tree for her to live in.” A slight exaggeration, Catrin was pretty sure Adaine wouldn’t have let it get that far, but it was true that Adaine hadn’t put much in the way of expectations on them, short of normal parental things like being kind, being a good person, that sort of thing. Whatever made Catrin and Branwen happy was what she wanted, even in the most ridiculous moments.
"I'll bet we'd have built a treehouse, so the two of us could move in with her," Adaine smiled, recognizing fully that Catrin was exaggerating a bit, but unable to resist playing along. She loved this picture that Catrin was painting. There were still plenty of lines that needed to be filled out, something that could only happen when she actually, hopefully, lived through the events to be able to know the feelings and details that came with them. But it gave her a great deal of hope to know that she had such things to look forward to in her future. For as much as Adaine dealt with divination and prophecy, this was not something she would have been able to expect of herself--and she was very glad to have the surprise.
Adaine tipped a bit to the side, leaning into Catrin and letting their heads rest together in a gentle press. "That all sounds amazing," she said, because it absolutely did, "and I can't wait to live it all. But I'm real grateful that you're here, right now. You're pretty wonderful, Catrin."
“You’re pretty wonderful yourself, Mum,” Catrin replied, so earnest and sincere even with her beaming smile, one that somehow turned even bigger when Adaine initiated affection. It wasn’t rare in their home, of course, a lot of the time Catrin, Bran, and Adaine were all piled on the same couch doing their own thing but close together. But it was nice to get it from Adaine at this age, her mum who was closer to her days as a Bad Kid and trying to unlearn everything her parents had instilled in her about not being enough and always falling short than she was as the successful, confident, would Ray of Sickness anyone, Professor Mum.
Catrin turned her gaze back to the water, now that she felt like everything had been settled. She hoped her Mum knew how loved she was, how she was the best Mum Catrin and Branwen could ask for–there were plenty of child created cards and drawings telling her that. But just in case, she was glad she had told Adaine too. “You want some ice cream? I could totally go for some ice cream right now. Like, a gross amount of ice cream.”
Adaine smiled to herself, letting those words settle around her. She knew that she was still a work in progress, when it came to believing that she was as good as thee people around her claimed her to be. That journey had started back home with the rest of the Bad Kids and Jawbone, then had continued as she'd made more friends and found confidantes in Vallo before Fig had joined her. Though she knew that she had a while to go until she would be the person that raised Catrin, it felt like she could almost see that point in her future somewhere, like a light in a future shaped tunnel.
It would be a while before she got there, but they had now and that was very good.
"Ice cream," Adaine echoed, sitting up and hopping to her feet. Turning, she held out a hand to Catrin to help her from the rock. She smiled. "After all this exercise, we deserve a gross amount of ice cream, so count me in."