The Outlands

By and large, the housewarming party went pretty well. Aside from the slight incident with Alice and Marie, no one made any trouble and generally seemed to get along decently well. Maven’s mother showed up about fifteen minutes after Jacob and his group, and she stayed for about an hour before returning to her duties. Likewise, Life and Dungeons came by for half an hour or so, then left, promising to return when there were less mortals around.

Not that there were many of those to begin with. As it had turned out, the only attendees who weren’t gods or Appointed were Maven’s mother, The Rumors, and Jacob’s group. Maven had been somewhat amused by that, as it seemed that Tess and Ellie didn’t fully grasp just how influential the people they normally associated with were. Fortune had apparently told The Rumors that she’d be hiding her identity from people she didn’t want knowing, but that was literally only Maven’s mother.

Maven sighed as her thoughts turned to her mother. Things had been…strained since her outburst a week or so prior. When Maven had invited her mother to the housewarming, the conversation had been stilted and awkward, neither really sure what exactly they should be saying. Fortunately, Maven’s mother didn’t ask about her husband; it seemed she understood that he wasn’t invited without needing to be told.

Maven feared that she might have permanently burned bridges with him. And, what was worse, she didn’t feel as bad about it as she thought she would have. Ever since she had joined her fiancées’ party, she had found herself growing increasingly disillusioned with her father. It had been small things at first, like seeing how Gramps interacted with the two of them, but once she had begun dating them her disillusionment began to accelerate.

The way they approached relationships and their opinions on intimacy were something foreign to Maven, but in a decidedly welcome way. Maven had known her family life was atypical, but she hadn’t realized just how much she had desired true intimacy until then. And a lot of things began to make sense after she made that realization; why she always looked forward to meeting with her grandmother so much, despite their relatively common meetings, why she was always dissatisfied with her lot in life, and why her father angered her so.

She was truly beginning to believe that her father didn’t love her. Or, at least, didn’t love her beyond her use as a political tool; his behavior in the past week had made that clear. Unlike Maven’s mother, he had made no move to reconcile with Maven, not immediately after the event nor in the following week.

Shortly after the incident had occurred, Maven had gotten in touch with her grandmother, explaining what had happened and asking if she could sit in on a conversation between Maven and her mother as a relatively impartial third party who would keep things from getting heated. Or…rather, she had asked for a meeting with her and both her parents, but her father had apparently denied.

That, unfortunately, didn’t surprise Maven. Her father was a strict man who put a lot of stock in rank and tradition, and by acting like she had, Maven had spat in the face of that. He had barely forgiven any outbursts she had made as a child, and now that she was an adult Maven didn’t think he would find it in himself to give a second chance.

Maven couldn’t help but sigh again, but this time it prompted a reaction from Tess.

“Hey, you okay?” Tess asked, sliding over and placing a comforting arm around Maven’s shoulder.

“I am…I’m fine.” Maven said. “Just…thinking about my parents.”

Tess squeezed Maven a little closer. “Do you want to talk about it?” She asked.

Maven thought on that for a moment. “I guess…I don’t know. I think things might be over between me and my father, and I’m realizing that that doesn’t bother me as much as it feels like it should.”

“Don’t let him get under your skin.” Ellie said. “I’m sure he’s doing it on purpose. I bet he wants you to come crawling back to him to say that you’re sorry and you’ll be better next time. And you know what? I don’t think you should. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the more I hear about him, the less I like him. He’s a tool, both literally and figuratively; a tool for his family to gain influence, and a tool of a person.”

Maven frowned. “What does that mean?” She asked.

“Uh…I couldn’t actually tell you exactly, it’s just sort of a vibe.” Ellie replied. “Um, let me see if someone on the internet has a description…yeah, here we go. This uses more slang you’re probably not familiar with, but I can translate that better. Basically, a tool is a person who thinks they’re better than they are and only cares about themselves. Just generally unpleasant people to be around, lots of bullies fall into this category.”

“Any parent worth their salt would do anything to reconnect with you.” Tess said. “I know Gramps would do literally everything in his power to keep contact with me, or at the least keep me safe, and Mom and my birth parents would too. You’re not the one who should be feeling bad about this, he should be feeling bad for being a failure of a father.”

Maven turned her attention away from the window, snuggling up closer to Tess. “Do you mind staying like this a little longer?” She asked. “I need it right now.”

“I’d be happy to stay like this as long as you need.” Tess replied. “It’s the least I can do.”

“It’s not the least you could do, believe me.” Maven said. “I’ve seen the least someone can do, and this isn’t it.”

“Well, I’m not someone, I’m me, and I couldn’t imagine doing less.” Tess said, giving Maven a smile. “I love you, Maven.”

Maven’s heart did a little flip, as it did every time Tess or Ellie said that. “I love you too.”

Maven sat down across from her mother, forcing herself to look her in the eyes. They were currently at their grandmother’s residence, meeting to talk about the incident, and Maven couldn’t help but be nervous. She hadn’t actually directly stood up to her parents like she had in that moment since she was a child, and she was worried she’d have to do so again.

“Alright, I’m glad you two trust me enough to have me mediate this, but let me make one thing clear: I’m just here to stop things from getting out of hand.” Amara said, sitting down on a chair situated to the side of Maven and Abarrane. “If I sense that there’s a misunderstanding, or that things are getting too heated, I’ll say something, but unless that happens it’s up to you two to talk this out.

“Even though I suspect you’re both aware of my stance on many things, I won’t be giving my opinions on anything. This is your matter to resolve, and it’s meaningless unless you are the ones to do it. Understood?”

“I understand, Grandmother.” Abarrane said. “And I appreciate you doing this for us.”

“Me too.” Maven added. “But…I have to admit I’m not sure how to start.”

“I am.” Abarrane said. “I want to apologize for your father. I tried to convince him to come, but…you know how he is.”

“I do.” Maven sighed. “And I didn’t expect him to come. To tell you the truth, I would not be surprised if we never reconnect. I would love to have a conversation like this with him, but I won’t one-sidedly apologize, if that’s what he wants.”

Abarrane was silent for a moment. “It is.” She said. “He told me that he’s expecting you’ll cave and apologize before the wedding to prevent it from being awkward, and he does not think he has done anything wrong so he will not make the first move.”

“Then he’s not invited.” Maven said flatly. “If he isn’t willing to talk this out like an adult, then we won’t interact. I recognize that I could have handled things better, and I’m willing to own up to my mistakes, but if he’s not willing to do the same then I’m not willing to speak with him.”

“I will let him know.” Abarrane replied. “And I will try to convince him to talk things out with you, but…I expect it won’t go well.”

“I’m sure it won’t, but I appreciate the effort.” Maven said.

“Right. Well…I suppose I should start by apologizing for being more distant than I needed to.” Abarrane said. “I…I was unsure how I should treat you, to tell you the truth. My mother is much more in line with Saburo in terms of her views on familial relationships. I was taught that nothing good would come of becoming too familiar with my children, that it would potentially cause me to make decisions that weren’t in the country’s best interests.

“Grandmother convinced me otherwise, to an extent, but I suppose I never fully got over it. I thought what we had was fine since it was significantly closer than my own parents and I, but I suppose that was really just an excuse I made to myself. I…I was scared of messing things up, and I didn’t have a good way of knowing how to act.

“I know this all sounds like excuses, and…well, they are, but I want you to know that I am over them. I’m going to work with Grandmother on learning how to be a better parent, and I am going to try my best. I know I will make mistakes, but I hope you’ll be willing to work through them with me.”

Maven hesitated for a moment as her breath caught in her chest, then nodded. “Y-yeah.” She said. “I…I would like that. And I want to apologize for acting out so much. I resented my lot in life for reasons I wasn’t even sure of until recently, and I vented that stress in whatever way I could. It wasn’t a healthy way to deal with my emotions, and I should have been better.”

Abarrane gave Maven a shaky smile. “You were still growing, and even if you are a princess, you’re still a person, just like the rest of us. I will not lie and say it did not bother me, but I think we can call it water under the bridge. So…would you like to start over?”

“I think I would…Mom.” Maven said. “May…may I hug you?”

“Please.” Abarrane whispered.

As Maven went to hug her mother, Amara gave them both a fond smile, then waited for them to finish their hug before speaking. “I have some food prepared, why don’t we go eat as a family?” She suggested.

“You knew it would end like this, didn’t you?” Maven accused.

Amara shrugged. “I had my suspicions, and more importantly I had faith in the two of you. You didn’t really need me, but I saw no reason not to accept the offer if it would make you more comfortable.”

“Thank you, Grandmother.” Abarrane said. “I would not mind eating together, if Maven has time.”

“I blocked out a lot more time in case things went poorly.” Maven said. “And I’d love to eat as well. Thanks for being so willing to work with me on this.”

“Of course. I love you, Maven,” Abarrane said, “and I don’t want to ruin our relationship over something like this.”

“I love you too, Mom.”

Fighterman481

So, I might have remembered that this was a thing that needed to happen, and plans for this chapter got changed because of it. It feels like it went more smoothly than I had expected, but...well, the problem character here wasn't involved.

I don't have too much else to say, but I do have a fun linguistic tangent I went on while writing. Basically, I was undoing contractions in Abarrane's dialogue to make it more formal, and I was suddenly struck by the fact that "won't" is a contraction of "will not", yet has an o before the n. It turns out this is a leftover from a 16th century form of the word, "wonnot". Learn something new every day, I guess.

Anyway, that's all from me, next time we're going to actually do one of the things I mentioned last time, so...look forward to it, I guess.

And, as always, thanks for reading!