About this project

Greetings, reader.

A few things about this project:
I am using a list of prompts, it works well to keep me going so far.
You can find it here.

PoV are bound to change back and forth, depending on how the prompts calls to me.

I will be doing my best to keep things PG-13. However at times there might be some sexual themes, violence, language, etc. Nothing detailed but mentioned.

At this point, those who will be part of this project are Quentin and Yael, Alexis and Eoghan, Agni, Mira and Zora with a hint of Armin and Cyrille now and again. Others may eventually come and be added but this group should be the main souls seen within.

January 1st post is here. It might be best to start from the beginning as everything is written in chronological order as it comes.

You can look through the posts either through the calendar or archives both on the right, or just scroll past this post, however please note that these posts are in descending order from most recent to oldest. There is a single post added every day, usually around 8am EST.

And this is it

Wow, what a year. These boys (and girl) have kept me wondering as to what they’d do every new day. It’s been interesting to write them down. I’m aware that there are some mistypes here and there but I hope that it hasn’t taken away from the pleasure of reading about their daily little adventures.

Zora turned out to be very distant and it wasn’t too difficult to phase her out though I had been hoping that she would eventually change her mind about things, it seemed to not be the case. If anyone might wonder why she didn’t pop up as often as the others did.

In the coming months, maybe just next year over, I’ll be going over my texts correcting them and maybe fixing them up a little. Those fixed up texts might be published, might not, this is still a mystery to me.

I hope you’ve all enjoyed the past year, thank you for reading. :)

being bold

They had all been more than a little curious as they had left after the viewing of the painting. Everyone snagging a cookie or two before they went on their way. Yael had waved them off, leaning lightly against Quentin as he did. He looked exhausted and Quentin knew it wasn’t all that surprising. This had been a lot of stress for a single young man to go through, after all.

“Why don’t we get some rest? Tomorrow is going to be a big day, all the setting up and preparing. We have to decide what we’re preparing for that meal. It’s been some time since we’ve last cooked for so many people.” Yael still was leaning slightly against him at that point though once the door closed and the last of their guest was one, he turned to his companion, one brow quirked slightly.
“What are you preparing?”

“That’s a surprise, love, please humour me and go with me on it all? Just think of it as having everyone over, it’s been forever and I feel like preparing food for everyone, something simple but delicious.”

“Hot pot?”

“The one with the meat and veggies and at times tofu where everyone cooks their food themselves in the broth? Rice and salads on the side?”

Yael nodded, rubbing his eyes as he started to walk away from the door. He felt absolutely exhausted at this point and he knew that sleep would do him some good.

“That is actually a wonderful idea, we’ve never done that before, not even with Eoghan and his trips around the world, we’ll just need to get at least two pots but that’s something I can do tomorrow. I can get some beef, some shrimp and veggies. I’ll look online to find more information and I’ll do all that shopping. On Friday afternoon we can start slicing and dicing stuff, sounds good?”

“Sounds good.”

So that was it there. They had sliced and diced, prepared plates, put them back in the fridge to keep certain four-legged fur balls from getting into the plates, they had prepared enough sauces they knew they’d have more leftovers than they knew what to do with it all. They had set up the table, prepared the broths (conveniently they used the broth Quentin had been preparing when Yael had finished his painting two days back), set everything up.

By the time their guests started arriving, the broths were beginning to bubble. Seats were taken at the table, plates handed out and, for this particular occasion, an occasion no one but Quentin understood the significance of yet, they even had wine. Even the twins were handed slight cups. Mira scrunched his nose at his own and was offered a glass of water instead.

The meal was eaten, the air filled with chatter and discussion about everything and nothing of importance, as usually was the case for their shared suppers. Several times over the course of the meal, Quentin left the table, looking into the fridge, as if to check to make sure that whatever he was worried about still was where it was meant to be.

Once the meal was done, he shooed everyone to the family room where the new painting had been hung onto the wall. Eoghan stayed behind along with Mira to help put things away, to help clear up the table. Once the table was clear, it was Eoghan’s turn to gently shoo Mira off to join the other, telling him they would be joining the lot of them shortly.

Finally alone with Quentin, Eoghan tilted his head somewhat to the side, a curious note escaping him. He looked down to the very nervous looking Quentin and set his hands on those shoulders. Quentin stopped his almost pacing and looked up, his eyes wide. There was a tiny hint of fear in them but Eoghan refrained from digging into the other’s mind.

“How about you tell me what this is all about?” He kept his voice low, knowing it wouldn’t carry over the talking being done in the family room.

Quentin licked his lips to moisten them as best as he could. He swallowed around a lump in his throat. Instead of answering, he opened the fridge and brought out a beautiful cake, already sliced in eight portions. Along with the cake he brought out a bottle of champagne.

Eoghan looked at both items, still confused and Quentin stepped closer. He moved to stand on the tip of his toes and once his lips were as close as he could manage to his friend’s ear, he whispered something. As he leaned back, Eoghan’s eyes widened. “Really?”

Breathing in deeply, Quentin nodded. He rubbed the back of his neck and rolled his shoulders. “I think this is the single boldest thing I’ll ever do in my life and I just want it to be right.”

Eoghan chuckled, patting Quentin on the shoulder gently. “Here, let’s just set the cake, along with the plates, the flutes, the forks and the champagne on this tray, we bring everything down to the family room. You do your thing and we pop open the champagne, sounds good?”

Again, Quentin licked his lips to try to get some moisture to them. He patted his pockets and nodded. “Okay.”

Eoghan smiled down to him once more and gathered everything onto the tray. Quentin walked to the family room, Eoghan nearly at his heels. The tray was set down and Quentin cleared his throat gently. Silence settled over their guests.

“Yael, could you come here, please?” Eoghan stepped to stand next to Lex, leaning comfortably against him. Yael moved away from the window and stepped closer. Once he was close enough, Quentin took Yael’s hand in his and eased down to one knee. Eoghan hid his grin as best as he could and the rest of their company stood, eyes just a little wide. Yael’s eyes were widest of them all.

“Yael, some people would think I’m crazy. A lot of people think I’m an asshole, I can’t stand most humans. When you entered my life, you changed me. You made me a better person, you helped me learn patience. I know our relationship hasn’t been an overly long one but every day, as I wake up, I tell myself that I couldn’t spend my life with anyone else. You’re all I want in life.”

He paused them, looking up to those icy-blue eyes, a film of tears covering them. “I don’t even know if we can make this work here but I don’t really care. I’m honestly doing this so you know how much you mean to me, so you know that I want to spend the rest of my life with you and that if you ever decided to move on, I think- no, I know I wouldn’t be able to let you go.”

As he offered those last few words, he clicked open the box he had been keeping in his pocket all meal long. It was a slim sort of box, black and velvety. Inside, a ring. It wasn’t overly fancy, it was a simple band with a long stone embedded into it. Inside, a few words engraved in a language long lost.

“Will you be mine until the very end of times?” The room was silent, eyes wide from all parties, even Eoghan who looked on, breath held as a single tear ran down Yael’s cheek. His lips pulled into a smile and he nodded. His other hand was in front of his mouth, as if unable to really believe what was going on, it didn’t seem as if it could be real, not at all.

Relief flooded him at that nod and Quentin slipped that simple, but oh so beautiful ring onto Yael’s finger. The fit was perfect.

He eased to his feet, Yael nearly throwing himself at Quentin and they hugged. Applause rose from their mock-crowd.

“This is so very wonderful, I’m almost jealous that Yael is the first one of us to get a ring.” He shot a glance to Lex who looked to Quentin and Yael in turn, the laughed and Eoghan blinked. “You guys are going to have to tell me what’s so funny. Later though, much later, for now, cake and champagne!”

He reached for the bottle, popping the cork and managing, surprisingly, to not get champagne foam everywhere. He filled in glasses while Lex took a moment to place the cake to the plates. He stepped to Eoghan however, a soft chuckle escaping him. “Thing is, I thought about putting a ring on that finger of yours, last Christmas. It’s what all that jewellery was meant for, I didn’t think we were ready for the ring itself.”

Eoghan looked up to him, his eyes widening again though he laughed in turn, handing out flutes as Lex handed out cake plates. This was a day that was meant to be celebrated to the very end and back.

what you see

He couldn’t really remember the exact moment he had started working on this portrait. For its size alone, he figured the term ‘mural’ was best fitting but that wasn’t right either. It was on a large canvas, thus not a mural and it wasn’t simply a painting of one person from the shoulders up so a portrait wasn’t right either. He had no terms for it and it didn’t really matter. What mattered was that he was done.

He looked at it from all possible angles and he couldn’t find anything that might have seemed wrong or missing with it. The more he had worked on it, the more he was afraid he was doing too much but now that he looked at it, now that he saw it in the clear light of day as it poured into his studio, it was perfect.

Yael looked down to his paint covered arms and laughed. This wasn’t new. This was as far from new as it could ever had been possible. Working on this particular painting had left him with paint everywhere on his person, from his arms, to his face and up in his hair. He shook his head and wiped his hands clean on his pants, those were as stained as the rest. He opened the door to his studio and looked briefly out to see if he could spot his companion.

“Quentin?” He called out, voice thoughtfully quiet, almost afraid the other demon might have been busy in his own work room.

From the kitchen, the blond head peeked out, curiosity settled clearly into that face. Yael’s own brightened and he grinned. He almost waved his arms but managed to keep himself standing as still as he could manage. It wasn’t much, he was nearly bouncing on his toes. “Come see!”

Quentin, curiosity piqued even more, wiped his hands on his apron, having been in the middle of preparing some broth, and stepped out of the kitchen, to Yael’s studio and stepped inside once the other moved to the side. He didn’t have to wonder long about what he was supposed to look at, the painting was right there, almost life-size, almost. He stared at it for a long while, his mouth hanging slightly open at the sight.

“Yael that is so beautiful.” It was. As far as he was concerned, it was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. “Want me to see if we can gather everyone in for a while after supper? I bet I can tempt most of them with the offer of hot tea, coffee or hot cocoa with some of those too delicious cookies you’ve made lately. I know we still have plenty of them.”

Quentin was rather pleased with himself, he’d managed to not eat his way through all of said cookies though it had been so very, absolutely tempting.

“Would you do that? I really want all of them to see it. I could show it to them Friday when we all get together but I don’t really want to bring it outside and to Eoghan’s place just for that.”

“I’ll call them, don’t worry. I’ll call Eoghan and he can see about everyone else. Why don’t you have a shower, you’re colourful again today. I’ll call while you shower and we can set it out in the family room once we’re both done with our current tasks and set it on the couch. It’ll be just perfect there. After that we’ll have to figure out where we’re putting it.”

“I’m almost done with the smaller one too, the one with the older type of clothes. I tried to stick with the clothes I imagine everyone wearing when they were younger and preferably from where they were born. It’s not as clashing as I thought it would be.” He laughed again, looking down to his arms. He really was covered, this time.

“I can’t wait to see it. Go on, get washed up, if I finish with the broth and the call before you’re done, I’ll head in to help you scrub yourself clean.”

The painting looked beautiful in their family room, sitting, for the time being, on the couch. There was a wide open space above it, right on that wall though it would have taken a bit more time than they could have spared right then to set it up. Later, they could hang it up and be reminded of the beauty that was their family, though only two of them blood-related, every time they stepped into that room.

Yael fidgeted, wringing his hands together as he waited and paced. Quentin had left him be for the time being, knowing that nervousness was more than likely to abound and there wasn’t much he could do about it. Yael needed the approval of their friends as far as this painting was concerned and it was out of his hands and into theirs.

Not long after they had set the painting up on its temporary resting spot, they came, all together, at once. Wearing light coats and not even the hint of a scarf. The weather had warmed significantly in the past few weeks and just two days away from the solstice, it was easy to see that spring was in the air.

“I’m grateful that you’ve all come here. When I called Eoghan, I didn’t really tell him why I wanted all of you here, why we, both of us,” he motioned to Yael who was joining them, still looking absolutely nervous, “wanted you here. I did bribe him with some of those delicious cookies Yael has made recently and I imagine it might be how he persuaded you all to come this way. So I’ll go and Yael can lead you to where you’ll be at least for the new few minutes. We’re not asking you to spend the night, but this is an important event in our lives, especially in Yael’s.”

With that said, Quentin disappeared back to the kitchen and all eyes turned to Yael. His eyes grew two sizes, the jitters of his first time ever in front of an audience robbing him of most of his thoughts. He stared blankly, his eyes unfocussed and Eoghan was the one to step forward, settle a gentle arm over Yael’s shoulders with a chuckle. “Just tell me where we’re going and we’ll go there, yes?”

Yael licked his lips to moisten them. When he managed words, they were so soft he barely heard them slip from his own mouth. “Family room, if you’d all please.”

Eoghan nodded, turning the wide-eyed demon around and he led him, and the rest of their group into the family room. Once there, his eyes fell on the painting and he released Yael who stepped to the side and went right back on to wringing his hands together. He watched as eyes widened and mouths opened slightly to gaping position. This was a good start, he didn’t see anything negative in anyone’s reaction, he felt already somewhat better, he felt less completely stressed out.

“Ah, I see you’ve all discovered why we asked you to come about.” Quentin’s voice broke through the silence as he weaved his way into the room itself, a tray of cookies in hand that he set down on the table in the middle of the room. He moved to settle at Yael’s side, slipping his arm along that slender waist.

“Yael, this is beautiful, I have no words.” Eoghan was the first to find his voice. He stepped closer, studying the details put into the painting itself. It was amazing. It was almost as though he was looking in a mirror.

The twins finally stepped closer themselves but Yael caught Cyrille’s gaze more than he did the twins’s own. He was confused, as if he didn’t understand how he’d made it into that painting himself. He looked to Yael a moment, his eyes wide, confusion absolutely clear as day before he looked back to the painting.

“I’ve been working on this painting since I’ve met Quentin, just about. On and off, I’d paint it, change it, modify it. Then, Eoghan came into our lives, I sketched him into it. Alexis was added, then the twins and Zora, though when she left I didn’t feel comfortable leaving her in the painting. Armin and finally though certainly not the least of addition, I’ve added you, Cyrille. You’re as much part of this family as everyone else. You’ve done so much for everyone in your own way, I don’t think we’d quite by the same without you. You deserve to be in this painting as much as everyone else.”

He paused, finding smiles all around as they looked at him. Courage settled into his bones then and he smiled, looking to his completed painting. “I was terrified some of you might not like it. This is the first time I’ve had so many people looking at my art and it is such a personal piece that I was terrified of what might come of it. Now I know that it was worth every second I’ve poured into it. Every shower I’ve had to take because somehow with this painting more than any others I ended up covered in paint from head to toe. It was worth everything.”

A group hug would have been symbolic then but perhaps it was asking for too much. Yael did find himself on the receiving end of several hugs by his friends, it was all he needed, they appreciated the work he had put in the painting and that was that.

“Before anyone goes anywhere, I’d like to offer that we do our shared meal this week here. There’s something special I’d like to do myself and I’d feel better if it was done here, if that’s all right with everyone.” Quentin looked around at the group, little nods coming from all parties though there was curiosity in their gazes one more. A curiosity he found in Yael’s gaze as well and that was the plan.

strange children

“I don’t get these kids.” Agni, sitting on the bench at the edge of the park, looks on as several children, almost a dozen really, run around the park, jumping into mud puddles before crouching down to gather that mud and fling it around.

“They’re a little strange, I give you that.” Cyrille, sitting besides him, tries to remember if he’s ever liked the idea of playing in the mud. He’s aware that mud-baths are supposed to be good for the skin but there’s also the fact that it’s not just every day mud that folks do use for that kind of thing.

“They’re just kids having fun?” Mira isn’t even looking his face is upturned to the sun, his eyes are closed and he’s relaxing where he’s at. The day is warm though it still requires a light jacket.

“They’re throwing mud at one another, Mira. I don’t know what’s so fun about that. Whoever their parents are, I don’t seem them around, I mean, I guess they could be around but I don’t see a single adult anywhere around these kids. There’s this one guy standing at the edge of the park and he’s been watching them but that’s it.”

“Maybe he’s their caretaker. Maybe they’re kids from an orphanage or one of those families that take in other people’s kids when they can’t take care of them themselves.”

“Foster homes?”

“Yeah.”

“I guess they could be but I don’t think they’re from an orphanage, too well dressed and I don’t even know that we have an orphanage here in Dunkerque.” Cyrille shrugs and cringes as one of the kid flings some mud in their direction. It lands several feet away but he feels no comfort in thinking they might just start throwing the stuff at strangers they don’t know because they feel like it.

Mira finally looks down from his sunning position, he notices the mud splat not far from them and then he looks between his brother and friend. “I think they’re getting comfortable with the situation, how about we find somewhere else to lounge at? We could have stayed home and enjoyed the sun from the roof, why didn’t we?”

Agni rolls his eyes though he laughed and he holds up his mostly empty smoothie glass. “We went out for something refreshing to drink, remember?”

“Oh, right.” Mira looks down next to his feet on the ground, his own empty glass sits there, he shakes his head with a soft snort. “Forgot about that.”

“That’s because you drank it all down like an idiot who’d been out in the desert for who knows how long without any water.” Agni snickered as he stretched to his feet, he stepped over the low chain that hung barely to his knees and stepped out of the park. Cyrille followed suit, Mira moving to their side, right as a mud ball splattered against the back of the bench they’d been occupying.

“I think we moved just in time.” Cyrille shook his head, not much caring for the idea of being struck by mud balls. “It’s a shame we can’t enjoy being outdoor in parks without being afraid that unruly kids will throw stuff at us just because they feel like it. I suppose it’s in how I was raised but I never threw shit like that at strangers, just for the hell of it.”

He shakes his head and drops his empty smoothie glass in a recycling bin as they walk passed one, Mira does the same and Agni drinks in the last few sips of his before he does as well.

“So where do we head now?”

“I’m itching for a swim.”

“Mira, you’re always itching for a swim but for once I think I might not actually mind, I think having ourselves a bit of a swim could be nice and we’d be safe away from mud-throwing children.” Agni stretches, his arms held high above his head as he does so. He groans softly as he feels something pop along his back and sigh.

“So we head home?” Cyrille chuckles, things had been going much more smoothly since they all had talked. Just sat down in the living room, on the floor, knees touching and they had talked about everything and nothing. Brought up how they felt about their current situation, discussed worries and other things that had surfaced in their minds, it had done them some good.

“We head home.”

“I’m honestly glad you guys have this pool, you have no idea. I love swimming, Magali would take me swimming everywhere she could when we were out and traveling the world. Even if our parents had planned other things for us, she’d take at least one day out of our trip and we’d go swimming wherever we could. The hotel pool, the nearest lake or river, it was so wonderful.” Cyrille sighs softly at the memories. He knows now that with his sister settled in Spain, he’ll see her less often but it doesn’t bother him. It will make the visits all the more important and wonderful.

Mira pulls him out of his thoughts as he jumps into the pool, splashing both Cyrille and Agni as he does. Agni blinks, looking down at the little drops of water as they run on down his legs. “If I’d wanted to be wet, Mira, I’d have gone swimming, you know? Oh wait.”

He laughs, as though his job is the funniest thing in the world. He slips into the water much more smoothly and lets himself float on his back. He swims better now than he had before though he still isn’t all that comfortable by the idea of being in the deep end. He leaves that for Mira who is an absolute fish while in the water.

Cyrille joins the twins, sighing at the warmth of the pool. The day above them, beyond the panes of the solarium is bright and clear, a few clouds in the sky but they are rare. It is a beautiful day. Too cold to be out swimming in outdoor pools and that is why he appreciates his life now. It feels like every little detail was taken into account and he can get away with doing things during certain seasons that he couldn’t while he still lived at his house.

From the side, not unseen but mostly left alone, Armin watches the trio swim. He smiled lightly, having waved them in when they had stopped in the doorway upon spotting him. The pool wasn’t a private area and he would not have kept them out. Armin knows that he swims poorly but it doesn’t stop him from appreciating a bit of covered sun. He knows he’s mainly safe from sunburns where he’s at but he can still lounge calmly in a chair and have some of that wonderful sun on his skin without anyone judging him for how he looks.

He thanks Eoghan in his heart every time he comes into a situation like this one. His shorts reveal his legs, both of the, the ‘good’ one and the ‘bad’ one. He feels no shame in letting them be seen, at least by those he now calls his family. This is not something he ever could have managed, or ever will manage with anyone else. Eoghan is the one who keeps on telling him that he has nothing to hide and that he should feel no shame for having been born looking somewhat different from the rest of the world. He’s unique, not a monster and that is all there is to him.

He listens to the twins as they splash one another, Cyrille not far from them and he sighs, it is an absolutely content sound. He closes his eyes, letting the heat of the day wash over him and the pleasant happiness warm him inside. This is a kind of life he knows he never would have had if Eoghan hadn’t accidentally woken up his gift and even if an opportunity to go back in time presented itself, he would not take it.

Yes, he still misses Andoni on some days but the ache is no longer a gaping hole in his heart or his soul. This life is good as it is now.

to be free

The snow was gone. They were free of the snow and it was a wonderful sensation. It had melted all within a couple of days though they had been days of surprising heat and Yael briefly worried that this would be a hint of the summer they would be facing. If the heat was settling in now, it would be hellish during the summer.

There wasn’t much he could do about it so he tried to let it be. Instead, he focused on clearing out what was left of old leaves and dirt that had accumulated in the catio. There had been snow in it for most of the winter, not much of it but enough that the cats had mostly refused to step outside except on a few rare occasions, Areli and Lavi always leading that particular ball.

Astra still climbed up and down places on her own, that ‘fluke’ hadn’t been a fluke at all and Quentin still repeated, now and again, that she had been taken by aliens and replaced. Yael couldn’t complain, they had slowly worked through their set up steps to try to see how the cats handled being up in his garden and it had worked out beautifully. Now he left the door open whenever he was up there, he was joined now and again by one cat, two, three or even seven. When he was done, he shook the tin of treats he kept by the door and they all came running. He counted them out and closed the door.

It was once he was down on the ground floor that he gave them treats, since the tin he kept by the door no longer had treats to it, it had been filled with bits and pieces that sounded like treats when he shook it, it did the job.

Quentin was looking over their yards, taking note of where they might need to make sure the ground hadn’t soaked in too much wetness and would cave in, in some ways, when they walked over it. It had happened the year before, one particular area had soaked in so much of the water from the melting snow that when they had stepped there, he had sunk in nearly to his knees, it had required Alexis’s help to get him out of it. They’d fenced it off until they could find a solution.

As he looked the yard over, he noticed something by the little flag Yael had set out, the marker he had placed for that one tree he’d tried so hard to get growing but hadn’t managed.

“Yael, come out here for a second.” He called out. Yael looked up from the cat tree he was slightly straightening and stepped back inside so he could take the proper door to head outside. He walked up to Quentin, standing by his side before he looked to where that finger was pointing.

He walked over and there, as though it was waiting for him, a little sprout. The tree had broken free of its seed and out of the wet soil. It wasn’t tall but oh it was there and it was wonderful. Yael knelt down next to it, not daring to touch it just yet, not wanting to chance it. He marvelled at it for a long moment. “I’d completely forgotten about this!”

Excitement filled him as he stretched back to his feet and ran back to Quentin. His eyes were bright and filled with happiness. Quentin laughed, hugging Yael as the slightly younger demon pressed up against his side. “Oh it’s growing, it’s going to be perfect where it’s at, I’m just going to let it keep going.”

It was the best of options as far as he was concerned, it really was.

He looked back a moment and laughed. “It is a day for rediscovering freedom, here comes the gang.”

Quentin looked back, chuckling as the cats began to file out into the catio, as if they’d never been there before. They went to the edges, sniffed about, climbed up the cat trees, wandered along the platforms as if they were discovering it all over again.

“At first, you know, I was afraid they’d never use the catio at all. It took forever to entice them to head out there.”

“True, Areli and Lavi taught them how to, though. These two love being outside this way. I’m sure we’ll have wet cat tracks everywhere in the house for a little while.” Yael snickered, still settled closely against Quentin’s side. This day was turning out to be absolutely beautiful, despite that it was grey and cloud-covered. He didn’t care. His tree was growing, the snow was gone and the cats were enjoying the fresh air. He couldn’t have asked for anything else.

“We should probably close some of the windows.” Quentin murmured from his spot on the couch where he had been reading. In the distance, thunder rumbled and the sky was now loaded with dark storm clouds.

Yael looked up from the bit of sculpting he’d been doing. Just a little thing he had set out on their low table as he sat on the floor, small bits and pieces of this and that scattered everywhere near him. “I guess we should. I wish there was an automated system for this kind of thing, you know? The windows open when it’s a certain temperature outside, they close under a certain temperature, they open depending on the humidity and close when it’s too humid and when it’s raining.”

“That’d be one way to live but I think that would take out the joy we get from making sure all of the windows are closed.” He snickered as he put a bookmark to his page and closed his book. He eyed Yael a moment, those fingers covered in what looked like sculpting clay. He shook his head and went about their home, closing the windows he knew had been opened. There weren’t that many yet. It would take him more time in the summer, he knew.

As he returned, he found his seat taken by Areli. He picked up the cat, set him down on the other couch cushion and sat down, picking his book up again. “At least, we know that if any of the plants had been in need of watering, they’ll have plenty more.”

“I’m sure the plants didn’t need much water, with all that snow that’s now done melting, they had all they needed. A little more won’t hurt. We can’t exactly control rain as it is.”

“Well, not unless your name is Mira and I don’t know that he can control the rain as it falls. I imagine he could but that’s just one of those things.”

“What do you think?” Yael held up a small sculpture, a little man with white feathered wings at his back. Quentin frowned at it as his mind tried to tell him something he wasn’t sure he understood.

“It’s lovely, who is it meant to represent?”

“Eoghan.”

“Eoghan?”

“I don’t know why, at times when I dream about him, he comes to me looking like this, with beautifully white feathered wings. I just don’t understand it. They fit him though, like he’s meant to have them. What if they’re his mark? I mean you have your tail and I’d love to see it, by the way, I have, I don’t know what I have. I think the twins mentioned having horns and so does Alexis. Eoghan has never mentioned what his mark is, it could be those. My dreams haven’t often led me wrong.”

He shrugged as Quentin studied the little man a bit more closely. The features did resemble Eoghan’s own, the wings were surprisingly detailed. They could have fit. Eoghan never really had mentioned what his mark was meant to be or what it was at all. It was surprising enough. He knew that those who were born in their family, those who knew about their gifts from birth, usually were aware of their gifts.

He had been taken from his parents had birth, he’d discovered his gift and his mark through an accident. Yael had spent his life in an orphanage and Quentin knew that they still weren’t even sure as to what his gift really was so it was natural that they didn’t know exactly what his mark might be just the same. It didn’t change much in his life, really.

“It’s beautiful, Yael. You have no idea how jealous I am of your talent on most days.”

“Thank you.”