In this community, I spam words.

[nottheproblem]

Who: Ziio, Open
When: 06/13 - Evening
Where: The Academy Library - Or in that area of.
What: By way of a fated book, Ziio arrives in Smash Academy. The lesson that we should all stop reading.
Warning: N/A



What is this.

The pointed question and the most direct one. Also the one that didn't provide an immediate answer. Naturally, the obvious answer was a sanctuary of books - a library. Not that it explained the situation any better. To go from a village in one moment to a library in another. Some would have held a vision responsible, but the imagery too vivid.

And the moment Ziio ran a forefinger over the spine of a book, it was too obviously real. So this was reality. Some sort of reality. An unexplained kind.

The lack of clarification was irritating at best. But if opening a book had been what brought her there, then it seemed logical that opening another - the right one - would take her back to Kanatahséton. Which eventually led to an ever growing pile of books that Ziio had opened and found disappointment in.

In other words, someone was going to have a lot to clean up later.

Comments

[mohawk_tomahawk]

That was all kinds of too late. Connor looked at her and wondered how she would accept him being here. Would she be shocked to see he had aged and not she? Haytham died a couple years back, Ziio much longer ago...she would look like his daughter.

Then again, he did just throw at her how much HE had grown.

It looked like in order for this to work, we had to go at baby steps.

"I know, Mother. I know who my father was. We have...crossed paths. Ideals," Connor can't do this now, but he HAD to.

[nottheproblem]

She stiffened when she heard Connor's reply. And perhaps her expression painted her too obvious, because even with the way she tried to lean over and be intimidating, she wasn't really making much progress. Hard to be that authoritative when her son had outgrown her.

Literally. And figuratively. It made her idly wonder what was left for her.

"I see." Of course he did, with the way he was dressed. Again, that didn't escape her. She motioned to his robes and she nodded. Ziio had not forgotten the Brotherhood, or Achilles for that matter. They had never traveled too far from her mind. Odd, and yet strangely fitting to see her son following in like footsteps.

Not that she had been an assassin, for she hadn't.

"Keep your distance from him from now on."

[mohawk_tomahawk]

Again. Connor really wondered how much she knew.

Also he...could maybe stand to be mothered. Some. Just because.

Also...again, he knew for a fact he couldn't avoid his Father. That was just impossible. As much as he was "distant", that was different from "avoiding".

"I know what he is capable of. You do not need to worry about me," Connor replied the fruitless. She was his mother and his father was his father, for goodness sake. They were just dysfunctional that way.

He wondered if he should say he's older now. Much older.

[nottheproblem]

She did not need to, and yet she would anyway. The downside to having a son who was only four. Instead of the son before her who was very clearly not four. It was a very... complicated situation, one that she didn't necessarily know how she felt. She missed her son and still worried what would happen in her absence.

But could there really be two?

"How long have you been here?" she asked Connor, looking away from him to the landscape behind. The academy, she meant. She'd wanted to ask if there was a way to get back, but perhaps he'd already know that was on her mind.

First things, first.

[mohawk_tomahawk]

"Several months...I cannot say that life here is easily settled especially sense it was forced...but."

Well okay, he was getting into something even harder.

He had issues wanting to go back for the passed few weeks. But Mother here? Now it just made it worse.

For the sheer purpose of wanting to be some keeper of justice. Protect those who needed it. Leaving here would be...premature. Leaving allies behind as well was also not easy. Some were even more than allies. But then there were those in the Homestead, his Brotherhood...his people. What were they doing? What was the young America doing?

...Ugh.

"...But I have been trying to find my place with the help of some allies, temporary a stay as it may. Then it got easier."

[nottheproblem]

As she watched and waited, she had to wonder idly if he had gotten to a point where he stopped trying to go back. She had no way of knowing what it was he faced, except the same realisation that she wouldn't be there for him. Contrary to her own life, where the Connor she knew would fret well enough once he discovered she was missing. As would the others.

And as she heard him, she seemed to think she wasn't too far off the mark. Although he had said his stay would be some form of temporary and that was how she felt as well.

"I see." She felt like she was saying that a lot. Because she wasn't sure what to say. Or what else to say. "It's good that you've not been alone." And she did earnestly feel that way, even in her own personal mess of emotions while she tried to take everything in.

[mohawk_tomahawk]

Connor was running out of things to say right now as well. It wasn't coming to him. Every topic that came out, he didn't feel like discussing. For later. Later. We'll talk about it later.

Connor nodded his head. His brain stopped producing thoughts and the small boy started to wiggle inside.

That sounded like the most motherly thing he'd heard, he remembered hearing. He was sure that seemed like a motherly thing to say.

"I am especially not alone now, Mother," he blurted out.

He didn't care anymore. He did not. Care. Ziio, as small as she was compared to him was now locked in an embrace with her adult son.

"...I missed you."

[nottheproblem]

In a way Ziio had expected it. But only in a distant, fleeting sort of way. How often had she held her son? Frequently, she supposed. She fixed his hair, set him about his day, for the most part she had always felt very close to him. Regardless of the past, of what Connor served to remind her of, she found herself only ever coming to adore him more with each passing day.

But saying as much or showing it in her face was a rare occurrence. Ziio was far more a subtle woman.

His embrace... That was not subtle by any means. Yet from the simple way he held her, it wasn't difficult to find that he had spent a good deal of time without her in his life. Not that Connor had clung - or the plans to - but simply that he'd made her absence to him well known, even without grand words.

"...I'm here now."

And though it may have felt slightly strange, her arms eventually came up to hold him, even with the way he slightly towered over her.

[mohawk_tomahawk]

This felt really strange. But Connor didn't regret it. He really did wonder how close they would be at age. How old was she when she passed? They must be closer than he thought. By the smallest of years.

He let go, finally realizing what he did. Afraid once more of what she could be thinking of him.

Even after embracing his mother...being able to TALK to her after all these years...he was so sure he was happy. Happy. But...feeling intense remorse. The powers of this place to make this a reality. To make this happen.

It wasn't natural. Shouldn't. Not with his father either. He really wondered if the dead mattered at all here. Tomorrow he could see another that passed from his past, present, or his future.

The nerve of this place. The damn nerve.

Finally though, he decided to switch to English again. "Sorry..."

[nottheproblem]

Her own thoughts weren't so different from his. On a different level, naturally. When he withdrew, she took many moments to remain in silence. The sensation had been odd and unfamiliar to her. There was a kinship to her embraces with Haytham, but a distinctly...

It wasn't the same.

Ziio had never felt much fear for herself, yet at the same time, Connor held security about him. And she'd expected that.

"You are my son," she replied in kind, her English as it ever was. "That was not weakness you showed me," was motherly reassurance. "When you were younger, we did."

A long past for him, yet something somewhat recent for her. "You've nothing to be sorry for."