fandomhighdorms | 5th Floor Common Room, Saturday Morning

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5th Floor Common Room, Saturday Morning

Kathy was a zombie this morning.

No, really. After staying out far too late in Baltimore last night, she'd come home with the sun well on its way to being up and flopped down on her bed to catch a few blissful hours of sleep. But apparently something had taken her 'few' at face value and decided that a few was all she needed before being woken up by a phone call informing her that she had a kid.

With Ezra.

Oh god.

A weekend of childcare was not something she could deal as sleep deprived as she was, so after a trip downstairs to make sure she hadn't just dreamed that whole conversation, she'd come back up here to try to make herself functional. Which meant coffee. So much coffee. Ridiculous amounts of coffee to be consumed as quickly as possible. And then also food, because she was starving and there were kids and they'd probably be starving and at least Fandom had had the decency to stock the fridge before inflicting small people on the island?

With a second pot of coffee brewing (she hadn't been kidding about needing her caffeine, okay?), Kathy set to work making a decent amount of breakfast for anyone who'd be interested. Omelettes with various kinds of filling, bacon, and toast would make for a decent breakfast for kids, right? And some hoddeok for dessert because she needed some delicious comfort food that reminded her of home right now.

Home, where she didn't have children.

[Open to kids and students!]

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Carys gulped half her juice and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand before shaking her head. "Uh-uh. Is he at the clinic? He said I could go help him but sometimes he forgets."

Or 'forgot.' Some things a healer had to do weren't really meant for 6-year-old eyes.

She dragged her plate over and started poking the eggs with her fork. "You look pretty, Mommy."

"Oh! Thank you!" Kathy smiled at that. Surprise compliments from small children were really great to hear. That was something that she hadn't known. "And so do you. You're adorable."

Whoever she'd had this munchkin with, they'd obviously provided amazing genes. Look at her tiny faaace. It was all Kathy could do not to squeal that.

"Your daddy works at the clinic?" she asked. "The one here in Fandom?"

Did she know anyone...?

"He's a doctor?"

Carys squinched up her nose, because that was a complicated question and she hadn't had nearly enough juice to answer it yet, and why was Mom asking so many strange things anyhow?

"In Darktown," she said, once she'd fortified herself with most of the rest of her juice and decided to go along with the questions for now. "He's a healer. Except one time last summer we got stuck in Fandom for a long, long, long time and he worked in this clinic then."

She scrunched up her face as it occurred to her that she couldn't help Daddy in the clinic if she was a world away. Unless --

"Is he in Fandom now too?"

Darktown? What kind of name was Darktown?

"Well..." Kathy answered cautiously, "I haven't seen him yet today..."

Unless Ezra was this girl's father, too, but she was pretty sure there were no universes where Ezra would be working in a clinic.

"Okay, so I'm going to give you a little quiz, all right?" she said, filing away the 'we got stuck in Fandom' thing to ask about later. "Just to make sure you're prepared in case we get separated. And if you get all the answers right, you get a whole hoddeok all for you, okay?"

This seemed like something she would do in the future. Probably?

"A whole one?" Carys's eyes went wide. Sugar wasn't as cheap in a pre-industrial society as it was in Fandom. "I would answer a million billion questions for a whole one!"

"A whole one just for you," Kathy promised, sliding one out of the pan and putting it on a plate. "You're very smart, I bet you'll get all my questions right, too."

"Okay, so first question. Let's say you're lost and you can't find me or Daddy. But there's a nice police person standing nearby. What do you say?"

She was bribing a small child with sugar in exchange for information and she didn't even feel bad about it.

Carys sat up very straight, trying to look solemn even as her eyes drifted to the cake. "I tell the guard, 'hi, I'm Carys Li, can you take me to Captain Aveline's office?'," she said. "Auntie Aveline would know what to do."

"Very good!" Kathy said, pleased that she'd at least gotten the girl's name out of her. She had no idea who this Aveline was, or why she said 'police officer' and Carys thought 'guard,' but hey. Kathy was taking her victories where she could get them. "You've clearly studied very hard, I'm proud of you!"

No daughter of hers was going to feel like she had to jump over impossible hurdles to win her approval.

"Now, let's say that Captain Aveline isn't there, so the guard asks you who your mom and dad are. What do you say to that?"

"I say 'Mom is Kathy Li and Dad is Anders, he's the healer in Darktown,' Carys rattled off, scrunching her nose. She still appreciated the praise (and the promise of cake) but she wasn't so sure about the line of questioning. "But that's silly. Auntie Aveline's always working, Dad says. And if she wasn't there Donnic would be. Or I could ask them to take me to Auntie Marian's house and Bodahn would watch me."

Someday, in a decade or so, all those proper names might even make some sense!

But until then, they were just bunch of words. Yup. Aveline and Miriam and Bojanges. Sure, kid.

But hey. Maybe they'd make sense to her father.

"That's exactly right and you saw through my trick question!" Kathy said, presenting Carys with the hoddeok, which was almost the size of the plate it rested on. "This is all for you. Ta-da!"

And while he daughter busied herself with that, Kathy was going to fire off a quick text to Anders.

There's a visitor here for you, she sent. Well, both of us. Her name is Carys and she's adorable, and definitely just called you dad.

Anders had turned his phone off so it wouldn't bother Nathan, and then he'd gotten distracted tending to Leo, so it was a few hours later before he answered.

When he did:

Seriously? My SON with Nathan woke us up. Leo. He's cute too, but this is bloody insane. Where should I find you?

Common room, 5th floor, Kathy sent. We're watching cartoons.

"Hey Carys, sweetie, I'm talking to your dad. Can I get a smile?" Kathy snapped a quick picture and sent it to him.

I have another son, too. With Ezra. Eventful morning.

There was only one possible response to that photo of Carys, and Anders sent it.

OH SWEET ANDRASTE THAT FAAAAAAAACE.

Barely 10 minutes later, he appeared in the common room, small bag of candy in hand.

"Hello," he said formally to the girl, though there was a twinkle in his eye. "Carys, is it? Is your mother being nice to you?"

"Hi Daddy, hi Daddy, hi!" Carys said, bouncing a little in place. Kathy's genes had bred true and between that and the sugar from the whole haddeok, Carys managed to stay airborn for almost a full second between bounces. "Mommy's letting me watch the magic box--the tellyvision!" she corrected, remembering the word from the year they'd been stranded. "And I had a omelette for breakfast and a haddeok and grape juice!"

There were traces of all three on her shirt.

Next to their daughter's ebullience, Kathy just looked exhausted. It had been a long night and a very early morning. "Hi," she said with a wave. "Sorry to take you away from Nathan and...Leo? Leo."

"Leo," Anders agreed, looking at Kathy with some concern. "It's all right, I wouldn't want to miss this. What's yours with Ezra called? And do you want me to get you more coffee?"

To Carys, he added, "Wow. That sounds like an amazing morning. I didn't get a haddeok."

Not that he knew exactly what one was; he vaguely thought it might be some kind of fish.

"More coffee would be great," Kathy said, grateful. "Late night in Baltimore. Gorgon showed up unexpectedly and gave me a ring, so I bailed on prom and went out there instead."

She was completely unaware of the small smile she wore when thinking about that.

"I mean, next year's the important one, right?" she asked. "Oh, and Zeke. Ezekiel. That's the name of the kid with Ezra."

Carys decided she would far rather help Daddy in the kitchen than continue to sit on the couch with Mommy, even with the excitement of the magic television to hold her interest.

"Mommy made the haddeok for me!" she reported eagerly. "It was so nummy and delicious! I never had a whole one for myself! But I would've shared with you! Where were you? At the clinic? Was somebody reaaally sick? Or were you hidin' from the Templars?"

Anders smiled back at that tiny smile from Kathy, though not without a faint tug at his heart.

"I was with a friend," he said,perhaps a bit vaguely. "Everyone's healthy, and there aren't any templars here. I was safe. Is that -- something I do a lot at home?"

He had to know.

Carys nodded. "Yeahyeahyeah. We gotta be smart and quiet, that's what you said. 'Specially after I had the accident." Her voice dropped to a whisper when she said that. "That's why we got the back door to Auntie Marian's right from the clinic and everything. Cause even if the Templars come and the Air-shock and even grumpy old Seneschal Bran, she won't let anyone take us away."

Kathy looked up from the couch, looking to Anders to see if any of those names made sense to him.

Anders knew what a seneschal was, but that was as much as he got from it. He shook his head at Kathy.

"Mages always have to be smart and quiet, and have good friends, like Aunt Marian." Who he was no doubt going to owe many, many drinks. "It helps us stay safe. Now, I know this is a very, very silly question, but what's the name of the place where we live?"

He'd ask about the accident later, but he thought he knew what she meant without asking. Stupid mage blood.

Carys rolled her eyes at him. "Is this another test like Mommy's?" she asked. Parents were silly today! "We live in Kirkwall! And we have a house in Lowtown and sometimes we stay in Hightown, and the clinic is in Darktown, and sometimes Mommy takes me to the alienage, but then you get grumpy and she calls you a...short-sighted bigot!"

She looked very pleased at herself for remembering that part.

"You figured us out," Anders told Carys. "It was a test, and you gave the best answer. I wish I had another haddoek to give you. Now, just give me minute to talk to Mommy..."

He went to sit next to Kathy on the couch, and, in a rapid whisper, said: "Kirkwall's a city-state in the north, I've never been but their Circle's supposed to be awful. No wonder we hide. Alienages are neighborhoods for elves."

He wasn't touching that 'bigot' bit with a 10-foot pole. It wasn't bigotry in his mind to know humans got robbed and worse in alienages, but he didn't expect Kathy to understand that.

"And I'm a little sad we brought her into a world where she can't live freely."

Edited 2015-04-12 02:45 (UTC)

Yeah, Kathy was still giving him a side-eye for that. She wouldn't be calling you a bigot without good reason, Anders.

"Your aversion to cities really that bad?" Kathy asked. "I mean, I know LA's not the nicest place on the planet, but at least we wouldn't have to hide."

Ahahaha. Haha. Ha.

"Is she talking about the kind of accident I think she is?" she asked. "I mean, unless this Kirkwall has a really strict toilet training regimen that I don't know about..."

"I'd go to L.A. a hundred times before I raised a child like that," Anders told her. "Maybe there's something else going on, or maybe we got stuck, or ..."

He shrugged. The future was unknowable.

"And she probably is," he said. "I hope we're wrong, though. She's quite young for powers." He glanced over at Kathy. "She seems to have gotten a few things from you, too."

Like, the way she was idly raising her foot over her head while watching TV. That wasn't an Anders skill.

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