Better to Light a Candle: Cara's Family

Better to Light a Candle:  Cara's Family

There's something of a truce that forms when one side is trying to stop a nosebleed.  I think that's part of proper rules of war.  Dad just sort of stands there, stirring his coffee while I try to dam the flow.  It's only when I can take my hands away from my face without releasing the flood that he finally talks again.

"So then, I, uh, take it things didn't go too well with Evette."
Now it's my turn to stare, confused, at him for a minute.  "It went fine."
And now we're both just staring at each other.  He looks confused by me, which in turn confuses me enough that I stare quizzically back at him.
He draws himself up slightly to give a properly condescending lecture.  "Listen, son, I know you want to put up a strong front, but this just isn't how it works."
I'm not in the mood for this after my perfect evening.  "What the hells are you talking about?"
"Language," he chastises.  He takes a deep, weary sigh, "Son, you're mother and I both saw you this morning, and you were spent.  Now, human beings just can't," he starts to say.  I can see the gears turn as his brow threatens to collapse in on itself, "You didn't-"
I answer as flatly as possible.  "I didn't and you know it."  Nothing's different.  He always has the same suspicion, and I'm tired of dealing with it.  "You know, someday you're just going to trust me and it'll be great."

And the cold war of staring begins again.  This time, though, it ends just as quickly.  He deflates as he looks back to his coffee, and the mood shifts almost immediately.
I decide to test the waters.  "You shouldn't drink coffee right before bed."
His shoulders bounce with the single snort of amusement.  "Yeah, I know."
I give it a moment before I decide that whatever was happening is over now, and we're back in the clear.  I'm about to turn and head off when he snorts again.  "You're a weird kid, y'know that?"
"Yeah, yeah I do."

He finally takes a sip before asking "So how's Evette nowadays?"
"Still not French, despite her best efforts."
To his credit, I can only barely make out the muscles going taut at the corners of his mouth.  He keeps looking expectantly at me.  I sigh, because I don't like being his line to the rest of the family.
"Why not ask her?"
"She hardly even talks to her mother, let alone me."  There's a sort of distant look.  He gets that way sometimes, when he realizes just how different he is from the rest of his family.  When he starts to feel separated from us.  "I don't know if she talks to anyone except for you and those friends of hers, and I don't know what sort of influence they are."
I'm just gonna head this off before it gets any more depressed.  "She's eating well.  I think she was going hungry to try to spare me any more discomfort, but now she's eating well."
He nods slowly, almost seeming content with that.
"She wants me to marry her."

He takes a long, slow breath, but continues nodding.  He does that thing where he pulls his lips in so that the skin between his upper lip and nose balloons outward.  "I guess I saw that coming," he finally admits.  "And Safiya?"
"Warm and comfortable.  I think I've been enough of a jackass that she isn't interested in me."
He looks at me.  His expression is so utterly measured and controlled that I immediately feel my stomach sink.
My arms drop to my side, "Oh for fuck's-"
"Language."
I haven't done a damn thing that hasn't made me seem like a complete asshole.  So why?  Every single time we talk I end up insulting her or just ticking her off.  But then, she still thinks that I'm "sweet," doesn't she?  Why?  When I finally get done racking my brain to figure out what I did I turn back to him.  He shrugs.
"I just overheard her talking with her mother."
Oh hells, I know why.  "This morning?"
"Yeah."
I cringe internally a few seconds before I start cringing externally.  "About?"
He takes a hand off of the cup to make a dismissive gesture, "Nothing too worrying.  Just," he pauses, "I don't know.  Ordinary things a girl would ask her mother about a boy she likes, I guess.  How to broach the subject, what to say, things like that."

I feel like some strange experimental subject.  Or maybe a bomb.  How do you deal with the people you know discussing you behind your back like you're some kind of weird obstacle to be carefully navigated around?  I've got a family trying to piece together how to reprogram me like I'm a VCR, and I guess I was somehow okay with that when they were all doing it separately.  Now, though, the idea that I'm some sort of group project just makes me want to head back into the cold and keep walking 'til I reach Ushi-Oni territory.

I feel a question slowly rise to the surface.  One that I haven't gotten a proper answer for yet.  Part of me wants to just leave it as a lingering, miserable suspicion.  The stronger part, however, is unfortunately curious.  "What does mom think I should do?"
His expression darkens.  I hardly need anymore explanation than that, but I can tell that one's coming.
"She wants her daughters to be happy."
"Yeah, okay."
I get it.

Happiness, to mamono, is marriage.

---

"I'm bored."
I turn in my chair to look at the werewolf laying on my bed and staring at the ceiling.
"You can always head outside."
Her face contorts in disgust, "The snow's all brown and slushy now.  It's like mud.  Mudsnow.  It's gross."
"How about video games?"
She groans and starts kicking her feet in the air, making loud whooshing sounds with her baggy khaki pants.  "I don't know how you stand those things.  If I wanted to sit around and stare at something for hours I'd stop skipping class."
I don't make any effort to hide my annoyance.  "You should do that anyway."
She groans again, louder.  "Why should I have to deal with that when you can teach me the same stuff in three minutes?"

Huh.  Teacher.  You know, I hadn't considered that.  I could teach-
I immediately consider what my teachers deal with everyday at school.
Yeah, that isn't happening.

She doesn't press the subject, instead choosing to go back to laying limply on my bed.  I take the opportunity to return to my game.  It gives me a way to turn off my brain so that I don't have to dwell on anything I've learned recently.

"I'm tired."
"Have you tried sleeping?"
"I'm too bored to sleep."
"Huh, that sounds absolutely terrible."
"It is!"
This doesn't seem like something that's going to be changing anytime soon.  I could kick her out; only Tera's allowed free access to my room.  Still, most of the time she's an exception to that.  I should probably start enforcing that soon, though.  She's around the age where her instincts should be kicking into high gear, and I can't have her thinking that she can just walk on in when her first season hits.

"Hey, let's wrestle!"
The hairs raise on the back of my neck.  That wasn't a suggestion or an invitation, but a warning.  I turn in my chair to find her raring on my mattress, almost like a sprinter right before the shot is fired.
I'm in a bad spot.  If I dodge, my desk is taking it square-on.  If I don't dodge then I'll take its place.  It's time to choose the third option.
Her eyes go wide when I kick over my chair and launch myself over the bed.  It's a ridiculous strategy, but that's also its strength.  Cara's significantly stronger and faster than I am, but she's in a bad position to start with and she's surprised, two elements that are majorly in my favor.  It's only when I've got one hand on her shoulder that she tries to move away, but by then it's too late.  She kicks forward trying to shove me off, but I've got weight and inertia on my side and all she manages to do is send my sheets flying away while I shove forward.  A second kick sends only her lower half forward, allowing me to push down and force her onto her back.  One hand still grips her shoulder while I land, straddling her waist with my knees.

And then she just stares at me, eyes shocked and confused, and yet calm.
"How do you keep doing that?"
"What, winning?"
She smiles like I just came up with something amazing.  "Yeah."
It's too funny not to laugh at her.  "You basically beat yourself there, you know."
"Yeah, well, I mean now I did, but what about the rest of the time?"
"I know a wizard."
She punches me in the chest.

---

She rubs her head into my side.  I start rubbing her head again.  I must've gotten distracted and stopped.  I'm rewarded with a handful of thumping sounds as her tail slaps the mattress.
"Sorry about that."
"Then stop doing it."
She folds her ears back further and the wagging stops.  "You keep winning, so I forget how soft you are."
I stop rubbing her head.  "I'm not soft."  I stop myself before I assure her that I'm actually really hard.  I'd never live that down.  That would be the exact moment that Lythalia would walk in.
I know your game, fate.

I think she must've fallen asleep for a little while.  She probably had trouble sleeping when part of her "pack" was awake a few feet away.  It's her nature to go with everyone else.  Part of her instincts.  I'm forced to remember my conversation with dad last night.  This is why he's as worried as he is.  She can't help her instincts anymore than the others can.  Dammit, why am I suddenly remembering getting The Talk when I was nine?

"Dad, I know about sex, I'm nine."
The way he looked at me when I said that was so pained, but I didn't understand why.  It was just a difference of culture.  I know that pure human communities don't talk about sex much, or even at all.  It seems weird, but I guess they just don't have to.
"Listen, it's not about sex.  At least, that's not the important part.  It's about instinct."
I'd heard the word before, but at the time I didn't really understand.  It was just something that people said.  The way that they react.
He'd talked about a dozen things, but so much of it was foggy and nondescript.
"They're a lot different now from when I was your age.  A lot of terrible things have faded away, but their nature - their instincts - aren't any different."

"This isn't something that's set in stone.  There are lamiae who'll sleep around and not blink an eye, and succubi who'll only touch one man in their lives.  But for all of them, it isn't just sex.  It's never just sex.  From the sweetest girl to the meanest, they all have the instinct that tells them that the man they were with is their husband.  Now, there are still men out there who'll be with any girl who'll have them, but it's a cruel thing that they're doing.  They'll live their lives hurting every girl they're ever with."

"I just want you to be a better man than that."

I'm painfully brought out of my mid-afternoon nap by Cara bolting upright in bed, ears pointed straight up.
I groan and gingerly hold my bruised rib.  "Slowly!  Not so fast."
She doesn't answer.  She's staring at the window like it's about to make a break for it.  Then her ears go flat on her head.
Dammit.
"Press-"
"Pressure dropped," she whispers.

It takes her a second to do anything else.  She doesn't speak, she just draws in her legs and curls up into a ball.
"You can stay here."
She mutters something.  I only pick out "windows" because I expect her to bring them up.
"It's fine."  I start to lift myself up, stop, then finish doing so more slowly while clutching my side.  I've got a pretty large closet and nothing at all to put in it, so all I have to do is kick most of it to the side and I've basically got a hole to crawl into.

I turn around to tell her to come over and jump slightly.  She's standing right behind me, utterly silent, looking up at me.  Ears flat, tail pointed straight to the ground, like she's trying to look as small as possible.
I hate seeing her like this.
"Come on."
When we're both inside I slide the doors closed and sit myself down in the corner.  I feel her weight as she sits right next to me, practically laying on my shoulder.
"Sorry about the smell; I usually keep the laundry basket in here."
I feel her move slightly.  "I like it.  It smells like you."
I don't have anything to say to that.  I guess it's a compliment.

Sure enough, the rain starts about ten minutes later.  The sudden shift in the temperature caused by that blizzard must've done something to the weather patterns, otherwise there wouldn't be a rainstorm this late in the year.
At least, I hope it's a rainstorm.

With the first crack of lightning my suspicions are confirmed.  I feel her jump before gripping my arm more tightly.  This is going to be a long night.
"It'll be fine."
"I know that."  I feel and hear her taking a shaky breath.  "I know I'm safe, it's just," she takes a moment, presumably to organize her thoughts.  "It's just so loud, and it hurts, and," she swallows, "and I can't stop shaking."
I reach over and hold her closer.

After the second wave of thunder loud enough to make the window shake I hear a knock on my door.
"Come on in."
The door opens.  I don't hear anyone enter, but then, I can barely hear anything over the rain.
"Val?"  Vinata's voice.
"We're in here."
The door to the closet slides open, showing Vee and Lythalia both standing there.  I stare at them for a second before jerking my head toward the center of the closet, "Don't leave it open."
"Right."  They both bring themselves in and close the doors.
Lythalia wonders, "It might get too warm in here with the four of us."
"It'll be fine," I assure her.  "I'll turn off the heat when we're settled down."

Sister settles down on the other side of Cara, and Vee loosely wraps around the three of us, positioning her upper half on my other side.  It's a little tight, and possibly claustrophobic, but once it's done the rain seems much further away.  Cara seems more comfortable, too.

"Mmm, what a thick smell."
"Sister, so help me, if I find my boxers missing I'm taking the shears to your leather."
I feel the tiniest hint of laughter from the trembling form next to me.  She seems to be calming down.  She still jerks and shakes when the thunder cracks, but less so.  She has her pack with her.

We stay that way for all of the evening and part of the night.  It's not until a little after midnight that the storm finally lets up, and everyone is comfortable enough to sleep in their own rooms.  I hit the mattress with a dull thud, immediately regretting it for the impact against my ribs.

I pity her for the pain she goes through, being more sensitive than others.  More than that, though, I think I envy her.  I shouldn't, she has more trouble than I do.  But she's never alone.

There's a feeling of warmth and light as I fall asleep, and a reassuring sense that I'm not either.