2024-01-16: .the children still long for their motheR
- Cutscene: .the children still long for their motheR
- Cast: Yuliana Kafim, Elisa Kafim, and their family
- Where: The Silent Castle, Kaffeklubben Island
- Date: 2024-01-16 (ICly early March, 0098)
- Summary: Yuliana and Elisa are woken up by a sad child, and the wives find themselves soothing the spirits of two young boys who still remember their mother.
It's not the usual nightmare which Yuliana is roused from, when their door cree-e-ea-aaks open and little feet pad in. (Or, rather, it was her usual nightmare, until...) "Auntie?" A voice pierces through darkness of the room, lit only by the fireplace -- owing entirely to the blackened curtains, across the windows, barring the eternal twilight-light from filtering through.
With a quick glance down to make sure her green nightgown hasn't shifted in the night, she lifts herself from her wife's arms, propping herself up on the pillow, and pulls the poster-bed's veils back to see Maksim standing there. Luckily, the light is too dim and flickering to catch the way her brow twitches over the midnight interruption, before she smooths her expression out to something more sympathetic. "Sweetheart, what's wrong?" She asks, gently.
"Kara keeps asking when Mom's coming back," Maksim says, glowering, as he relates Makar's condition. "I'm sick of it! Tell him she's dead, Auntie! 'Cause he keeps crying and I don't never wanna SEE HIM AGAIN!" He stomps his foot, which doesn't really do much against a stone floor, and only makes him yell louder. "NEVER! NEVER! NEVER!"
"Hey," Yuliana calls, disentangling herself more fully so she can sit on the edge of the bed. "Hey, come on. Come here." And he does, and Yuliana picks him up, hoisting him up onto her lap. She uses his kind of language, when she describes his brother: "Your bratan's younger than you, sweetie. He doesn't know what life's really like yet, you know? Has he ever known anyone who's died before?"
"Nuh," Maksim shakes his head, rubbing at his eyes.
Yuliana tilts her head up in thought, before she gives him a squeeze, and asks: "When Mr. Pisarenko next door didn't come back from his soldier job, do you remember what you thought?"
"I thought he'd moved away," Maksim frowns. "But it was weird, 'cause he left his family behind. And they were all sad."
Yuliana hums, and smiles, sympathetically. "And then, when you were out travelling with your Mom and her friends, and Ms. Lebed was killed by those nasty Spacian terrorists when that building you were hiding in was damaged... how did that feel?"
"It was scary," Maksim says. "She didn't get up."
Yuliana hugs him, again. "The adults figured out how to stop fighting that war," she says, "and Makar was still really young, when it happened." Maksim's just turned seven himself -- but that's old enough for him to feel bigger than his little brother. Yuliana exploits that without blinking, and says: "It's a good thing that he wants your Mom to come back, sweetling. I know it hurts to hear him remind you of it, but it means he doesn't know how scary and permanent death is, yet."
"I don't like it!" Maksim yells, shaking his head and pounding his arms against Yuliana's darker skin. "It feels bad! He should just shut up!"
"Shh," she lets him strike her, holding him steady. "Come on. It's okay. I'll talk to him, so you stay here with your Auntie for a while, all right?"
"Nnnh," Maksim rubs at the tears on his face, again, before he looks up at Yuliana. "Mom said you were a soldier, too, Auntie... I thought you were gonna die, too. I wish you'd died instead of Mom. That would make sense..."
And Yuliana has to laugh, shaking her head. "Oh, sweetheart. That's how it would have gone, nine times out of ten. Civilians shouldn't die easier than soldiers do... I don't have to still be serving to say that." Behind Maksim's back, she lifts a hand, palm-up, in a 'stop' gesture to assure her wife everything is fine.
He sniffles, and grasps at her nightgown, looking up at her with wide blue eyes. "... are you gonna die, too?" He asks, a fearful tremble in his voice.
"No, Sima, no," she assures him, giving him another squeeze of a hug. "Your Auntie Elyuska's protecting us, and she'll keep me safe, no matter what. And you and Makar too, okay? Right?" Yuliana smiles, to her wife. "Come on, sweetie... it's okay."
"I guess," Maksim sniffles, rubbing at his eyes again.
"Come on," Yuliana hefts him up, to place him on the bed beside Elisa. "Tell your Auntie Elyuska all about it, Sima. I'll sort this out."
"'Kay," Maksim mutters, crawling over to Elisa on the bed.
Yuliana has no fear that she'll harm him, of course, even with the unwise things he's said; she's always said that Elisa would be an excellent mother. She throws on a cloak so she won't freeze in the halls, and disappears, out the door, leaving Maksim alone with his new Aunt.
Yes, Maksim has had some very unfortunate things to say. But Elisa can forgive such things of a child.
"She is right," Elisa says seriously to Maksim. "I will protect her, and you. That you may rely upon."
A pause. "...But do you wish to tell me of your worries?"
Yuliana told him to; that's not the same thing.
And Maksim hugs his knees to his chest, on the bed. "Mm... not really," he shakes his head, his mint green hair tumbling over his face. "It's not 'cuz you're weird, though. I just don't wanna think about it. That's why I'm mad at Kara... he keeps bringing it up."
"I see," Elisa answers him, her own dark purple hair worn loose at this hour. "It is natural, normal even, to shy away from what scares and distresses one. I do not blame you for not wishing to think on it."
"I'm not scared!" He says, voice raising, as he shakes his head vigorously. "It's just done already! I'm not a stupid kid any more," he's still seven, "so I'm fine! I'm really, really, really, really really really really..." Tears well in his eyes as he keeps tripping over the word, until he wails: "FUH-IIIINE!!"
It's just done, is it? Elisa shakes her head slowly in turn. "No, I do not think you are a 'stupid kid'. But neither do I believe this 'fine'. However... that is all right, too. You are young, yet. It is not expected of you that you defeat the difficulties of life."
"...But if you wish to be strong, and brave, you may face up to them. Do not believe that you can vanquish these worries alone, just yet. Your grandmother will be your shield and sword, as will your Aunt Yuliana and I."
"But it is no 'stupid kid' behavior to be sad, at loss. It is brave."
Maksim sniffs, rubbing at his face, and looks at Elisa when she speaks. (This isn't so much a mark of the terror she commands as it is the politeness he's been taught to provide all adults; he's a good child, in the style of the Republic.) "Uhhmmmm," he wibbles, embarrassed to be crying in front of someone he only met a few months ago, even if she is family.
But Elisa is being nice to him, and it's not as if her advice doesn't make sense, either. And so, Maksim -- who is far too young to have caught the nonverbal hints that Elisa isn't a touchy person as far as everyone aside from her wife is concerned -- scooches over to her and wraps his arms around her waist, burying himself in beside her. "I miss my Mom," he sniffles, morose. "I hate it when people die. Why'd she have to go and die?! She said the fighting was over!"
(Lyubov wasn't a casualty of war; she had a heart attack, and her heart condition meant that even though she was only in her thirties, she still didn't make it. ... it's concerning that such a thing runs in Yuliana's family, isn't it?)
He is a very good child! Elisa will say so later. But right now...
Right now, Elisa is being hugged, and she pauses as this happens to listen to the boy. She is a little stiff, and most of her warmth at the moment is borrowed from her wife and the furs, but she does not push him away.
"Yes," Elisa tells him. "...That is well. To miss her... It is testament to your strength of feeling. To admit this feeling, it is strength itself."
"I have no answers to 'why'. But I also hate it when those I care for die. We are the same in this, Maksim."
He doesn't seem to notice that she's stiff, though; he's too busy clinging to her. (He's gotten used to his aunts being cold. It's probably because this place is way colder than home.) He sniffs, and looks up to her, all buried against her side. "Did you ever lose someone, Auntie Elyushka?" He asks, and knows not what he asks.
"Yes," Elisa answers at length. It takes her a long few moments, but she does answer. "When I was very young," she says, "About your age, perhaps younger. I had a sister."
"...This taught me never to shy away from what I valued. Never to hold back, when it was most important. Because you can never return to a day that is gone."
Is that right...?
"But I will protect Auntie Yuliana. And you, and your brother. This I will do."
And Maksim frowns, when Elisa replies. "Oh..." He's saddened by that, too; he's starting to get to the age where he can imagine how other people are feeling, after all. "I'm sorry, Auntie. That sucks." He curls up around her, and mumbles, "... you can't go back..."
"Thank you," Elisa Kafim tells a small child. He curls up, and... she does not stop him from doing so. "It does 'suck.'"
"...Indeed, though. We cannot go back. But we can go forward. For now, listen to your grandmother. She will steer you true. ...But remember this, too."
"Remember that tonight, you were brave."
As for Yuliana -- well, when she goes to find Makar, he's already in a mother's arms. Sashenka holds him while he cries, and Yuliana pauses in the doorway, for a moment, illuminated by the fireplace before she sweeps inside. "Kara, Kara," she says, sitting down beside them and reaching out to brush a hand down his aqua hair, "what's the matter?"
"I want my Mommyyyyy!!" Makar wails, burying deeper into Sashenka's nightclothes.
And Yuliana sighs, making eye-contact with her mother, before Sashenka pats the four-year-old boy on the back. "Synulya," she addresses him as if he were her own son, tenderly, "your mother is gone, but you're not alone. We'll take care of you."
"I wanna go HOME!" Makar yells, heedless of a line he's no doubt heard many times tonight. "I want my MOMMY!"
"Hey. Hey! Hey, look at this," Yuliana says, tapping on his shoulder with one of her tentacle snakes. It sways back and forth in his field of view, and he laughs, distracted from his anguish, reaching out to grab its grasping fingers. Above his head, Yuliana glances at her mother, and she understands at once that she's going to try and help him.
"You didn't expect that, did you?" Yuliana asks, smiling to him, when he looks up to her.
"Yeah, I did! That's you, Auntie!" But when Yuliana keeps eye contact with him, he admits: "I guess it's new..."
"New things happen all the time," Yuliana says, brushing down the hair on his head. "Sometimes they're surprising, and sometimes they're cool, and sometimes they really, really suck. Because sometimes when new things happen, you can't go back to how it was, before. Even when..." She sighs, and tilts her head, sympathetically. "... you had a bad dream, didn't you, sweetie?"
"Uh-huh," Makar nods. "I couldn't find Mommy. She said she'd be right back, but she never came back..."
"Oh, sweetie," Yuliana sighs, sympathetic. "And when you had a bad dream, your Mommy would come in and make you feel better, wouldn't she?"
"Yeah," Makar tears up, lip wobbling. "But you forgot her, Auntie! Does she even know where we are?! When's she coming to get us?!"
"She isn't," Yuliana says, and musters up a surprising amount of patience, as she says it. She can at least be gentle around small children. "She knows you're here, but she's gone to Paradise, now. That's the place you'll go, when you die. She's very proud of you for being so brave, but she can't come and get you... but at the end of your life, you'll meet her again."
"What?!" Makar cries. "Then I want to go to Paradise, too--!!"
"Don't be so hasty," Yuliana chastises him, gently. "You must live a long and full life. Don't you want her to be proud of you when you see her again?" He nods, tear-logged, and Sashenka hugs him again. "Even though she's gone," Yuliana says, smiling to him, "you're not alone. Your Aunties and your Grauntie and Gruncle are all going to be here to keep you safe."
"If you have a bad dream," Sashenka assures him, "you just come right to me. I'll chase it away."
"She's very scary," Yuliana agrees, perhaps too easily. "No nightmare is stronger than her."
"'Kay..." Makar says, and slumps, in Sashenka's arms. "... I'm really sad," he sniffles, rubbing at his eyes.
Yuliana puts her hands to her knees, and stands. "You know what will make you feel better?" She asks, stretching a hand out to him. "Midnight cake. Come on, we'll go get your brother and set it up right now. We're going to have a party so loud, even your Mom will hear you. Okay?"
Sashenka raises her brow, but Yuliana just grins, to her mother.
Parenting is so easy.