It was like being in a fever dream, this trip to Vallo. It was just like that one meme from the Fresh Prince: Retha’s a little confused, but she’s got the spirit. She understood what was going on and how Vallo worked. It was a blessing that Lance was around and that she could provide him comfort about what was going on back home. But it was still a lot to wrap her mind around all this magic and the different worlds people came from.
So she cooked her confusion and disconnect with this new reality away. When she felt especially burdened by it, she made a quick trip to St. Agnes and let the comfort of the church blanket her in a peace she felt nowhere else. And some nights, on those especially lonely nights where her mind was too active to go to sleep, she sat out in the backyard with Monty and cried out the ache she felt in her heart over missing her husband, Rafael.
It wasn’t a perfect situation, but she made the best of it. All she could do was focus on the happiness that she felt whenever she looked at her son and saw the joy he was feeling surrounded by his friends and found family.
And the bear cubs.
“I can’t tell if you are playing or if I need to get the medical kit,” Retha laughed, as she watched Atreus and Yrsa roll around in their bear forms with the bear cub that wasn’t Yrsa. She was knitting little socks for Yrsa (and the bear cub, if she was being honest), out in the yard as the three of them played and Lance ran to go get some things from the grocery store for the dinner she was planning to cook for them tonight.
With a gold glow flashing across his body, Atreus landed on the ground with a thud, in his standard body. He laughed as Yrsa stayed one and climbed across his chest, but it quickly turned into a wince as one of her bear claws dug into his arm and pulled out a little blood.
“Playing! Don’t worry!” The scratch on his arm started bleeding even as he said this, and Atreus winced but took a deep breath.
That was really all it took for the scratch to close up, and he could let it out again just in time to have his stomach stepped on by Karhu. “Oof- Really, guys?” Atreus sat up and wrapped an arm around each of the cubs to set them right. “I’m okay, promise. I feel like they’ve already gained ten pounds since she got here.” But they’d at least had Yrsa as a real child for two meals now, so progress was made and he wasn’t actually mad about any weight gained. Proud.
It was also impossible to resist Retha’s food, as they had already learned.
Retha had some experience with shapeshifters before Vallo - Allura, Lance had a type - but it was still amazing to see how Atreus was able to manipulate his abilities so effortlessly and heal at will. At least for the minor things. The First Aid kit would remain unused, thankfully.
“If they’re not little balls of fat and happiness at this age, you’re doing something wrong,” Retha explained wisely, as she put aside her knitting and got up to pour some water in a dish for the cubs. “The fat comes right off them as they get older.” She placed it on the ground within their reach, before picking up and offering a tall glass of batido de lechosa to Atreus. It had been prepped before they had come outside to play, so by now its smoothie consistency had started to separate.
Still delicious, just a little melted.
She returned to her seat, but didn’t pick up her knitting this time, content to watch the trio take a break themselves. It was still chaos, but a quieter chaos than before. “Tell me about these children of yours that I haven’t met yet?” She hadn’t asked too many questions about the future here, but Lance had mentioned it enough times that she had started to piece things together. She could have asked Lance, but she enjoyed getting to know her son’s partner and this would tell her a lot.
“Uhhhh,” For a second, Atreus looked a little panicked. He wasn’t quite sure what Lance had told her about the kids - monster kids or future kids or what. The future kids might’ve been a lot, and Atreus knew they’d already introduced her to Fenrir--
“Well,” Atreus started with just a slight wince on his face. “If Jörmungandr counts, he’s a sea serpent that Angrboda and I-- soulbirthed back home? In a way? It’s similar to Fenrir and why he’s so big. Hypothetically there’s also Hel, but we haven’t actually had her, I just know of her from stories. Then there’s some others we know about from Vallo future, they’re great.”
They came with that same anxiety Yrsa had, though. The unknown of things changing, of not getting them. Some of them. All of them. Atreus pushed through a hopeful grin anyway. “Vallo has a tendency to do the unexpected, though, so we’re hoping for the best there.”
A giant sea serpent. And Hell, apparently? The confusion was clear on her face, but she did the polite thing that all mothers were prone to do when someone said something they didn't quite understand. She nodded her head and smiled to cover the confusion. "Mm. I see."
And that was all she could really say, without worrying about whether she would ask an accidentally offensive question in pursuit of clarification. She loved Lance too much to cause tension with whoever he decided to be with. So she chose the safest route instead of asking more probing questions in regards to the children.
…except for, "You look worried. Why?"
She was as observant as Lance when it came to picking up on Atreus’ moods. Though his heart was often written on his sleeve, so that may not have been a difficult thing to do. Still.
He shrugged, as if trying to brush off any worry that did creep up, and let his eyes keep focus on the two bear cubs as they wrestled near his legs. “It’s just-- Vallo? This place is unpredictable, it’s weird, it’s exciting. We never really know what it’s going to throw at us. You can get attached to one thing and then in six months it’s completely different. Or gone.” Every Outlander here had lost someone to them being sent back, and it hurt every single time. “It makes it hard to do anything other than take things one day at a time.”
"So what it is, is that you think it's safer to not look toward the future?" She could understand it, in theory. Why bother with attachment if there's a good chance it could hurt you? But it seemed like such a lonely thought, to not dream of what could be. "That's a hard way to live as well. Isn't hope and curiosity what makes us human?" Belatedly, she realized her faux pas and clarified. "Or…a Norse deity, in your case?" She smiled slightly, like it was a joke shared between old friends.
"However you choose to approach life, I hope you do so with ease to your mind." And Lance was going to kill her for meddling but… "And love. When my Lance loves, he loves deeply. You make him happy, I can see that. I hope you do too."
Atreus huffed out a little laugh, “That’d be hard to do in my case, I have visions and my people are known for seeing the future.” He could still joke about most things, in a similar way that Lance took humor and ran with it. “I think that safe or not, things are going to happen how they happen and we make the best of it.” He’d lived through several major prophecies about his life already, trying to change things never worked out in the way that people hoped.
That Atreus had hoped, for a long time.
She did earn a blush creeping up his neck and cheeks, flooding in a few tattoos on it’s way. “There’s a lot of love in this house. Place. Everything we’ve built here was meant for love and family. I’m just lucky he wants to share it with me of all people.”
Retha might not have all of the backstory about Atreus and his life, but it was easy to see a post war Lance in Atreus' behavior. The things she and Freya had discussed suddenly started to click a little better.
It made her sad to be surrounded by so many young people that had gone through more than life should have given them. But at least he seemed to be handling it a lot better. His words might have been tinged with worry, but the positive outlook was obvious. And it made her glad to see that Lance had some influence here.
"Be less surprised by that. We may not know each other well, but I can see it as plainly as Lance clearly does that you deserve the happiness and love that you two have built here. Don't…" she couldn't quite think of the phrase in English right then. "El amor propio es la fuente de todos los amor. That is to say loving yourself is the first step in loving everything else better."
If it had been anyone other than Lance’s mother, Atreus would have made a joke about his hotness scale being pretty high on the reasons Lance was with him. But he had manners, ones taught to him by his own parents, and wisely kept that joke to himself. “I’m lucky to have him,” Atreus confirmed, without hesitation or any doubt in his voice. He was lucky in many ways, and Lance was at the top of that list.
So was Yrsa, who took that opportunity to flop against him, claws up. Atreus gave in and rubbed her belly but leaned forward as if they were sharing a secret. He wasn’t really whispering when he talked to her quietly. “Think we could be in our bare skin tonight for dinner? Eat at the table?” It had been a challenge to get her to that point, little feraling that she was, but he was patient.
About this. Not about a lot of other things. But this? He was patient, and supportive. “We can be bears again after dinner, I promise.”
She clearly understood him, because she rolled over again in a flash was her toddler-self. Running was something that seemed second-nature to her as she took off towards the house, still not ready to verbalize anything outside of animal sounds. Atreus knew Lance was just inside the doors, so he stayed in his spot on the ground. “Well. That’s progress.”
"Well deserved progress. You're gentle with her, but firm enough to get what you need out of her. It takes some parents a lot longer to figure that balance out." Luis had definitely been that first born test child for Retha. It was with him that she learned to temper her flare for dramatics and anger.
She looked after where Yrsa had run off to, smiling as she heard the delighted screams of a little girl. No doubt Lance was entertaining her. "What do you suppose the chances are that I can get her to wear a dress I found while shopping the other day?"
Atreus smiled after her, and his grin only grew when he heard her squeal. “I just try to treat her like my mother did with me when I was younger. I didn’t learn to shapeshift until after she was gone, but I was still a troublemaker.” Even when he was sick, when he was weak and frail, Atreus was determined to prove he wasn’t.
Which had gotten him in a number of sticky situations that his mother had to get him out of. But she’d always been soft about it, matter-of-fact in her way, but never made him feel as if he was being punished for being curious.
She’d also made him wear pants. Which had so far been a no-go for Yrsa. He turned that grin on Retha. “Well we can’t get her in pants so maybe a dress has a good shot? Stay optimistic.”
She returned that grin, before standing and nodding at Atreus. "I'll go lay it out and get dinner finished. Join us once you're done playing, yes?" Retha gave the actual bear cub a smile, before turning it on Atreus. "I’m glad we got a chance to speak alone. Even if I know Lance is probably standing right inside that door waiting to interrogate us about it."
Atreus grinned and scooped up Karhu into his arms. “I’ll be there in a few minutes, I promise. I’m going to take this guy back to bed and get everybody settled with dinner.” He easily hefted the chubby bear cub over his shoulder, like it was a wiggly sack of grains. “If you’re vague with Lance, I’ll back you up. It’ll drive him crazy.”
The fact that he’d cave like an avalanche in ten minutes was unstated, but obvious. He was almost certainly going to cave like an avalanche.
"I'm going to look very serious now and start muttering in Spanish, but I adore you and it's to keep Lance on his toes," Retha explained, agreeing to his plan. It was always fun to push Lance's high string buttons when it was a harmless situation. He gave the best reactions.
Dropping her face from warm and personable to cool and blank, she said, "Give the wolves my love," before turning heel and walking toward the cottage. As promised, a wave of muttering in her native tongue started up. A "where's Atreus?" could be heard in Lance's voice, followed by a true, but vague answer from Retha.