Theme 04: Devon - Week 2

So tired =.= own fault for going to bed past midnight. But, but, First Wives Club D: and tonight there's a chat event at Project Comment on DA. =.=

So, trying to get back to the writing bit. Slowly. It's hard. But. Life goes on. :)

So, week 2 of Devon! Week 2 meaning a chapter :D and today I thought I'd bring you the first chapter of a Life Story in which Devon plays an important part. Enjoy :)

(Also: dear god this writing NEEDS editing. e.e oi)

Every spare moment snatched between the catering to travelers and the tending to his girls' needs, Devon spent at the feet of a tall tree with branches like frozen green rain. With his hands on the large tombstone's curve, Devon wept in silence and solitude. "Selessannea…"

The creak of feet upon dead leaves roused his senses. He bore his fangs and hissed towards the intruder who, by the light of an akwardly swaying lantern, came quietly into view.

Devon immediately flattened his upper lip and dried his eyes with his thumbs. "What are you doing here? It's well past your bedtime."

"Is heavy…"

Devon smiled. He straightened up to take the lantern from the arms of the young blonde girl of about eight years of age and set it gently down next to the tombstone. "You should not be here."

"Kassy snored."

"Did she now," Devon said with a laugh, "And you thought it appropriate to leave the house on your own, without supervision?"

"I couldn't find you, uncle Devon."

"Ah," he stated, bereft of amusement, "Then I must apologize to you, Cassidy. I'm sorry you had to look for me."

"Is that mom's grave?"

The sudden change of subject left him speechless. Slowly, he turned his head towards the overgrown, mossy tombstone upon which the fading words 'devotion' had been carved. He swallowed back the memories. "… no," he quietly said as he mentally ran his fingers along the edge of Selessannea's dying face, "It's a placeholder."

"Oh. What's a paceholding?"

Despite grief consuming his heart, Devon managed to smile. "It means… that I come here to remember her."

"Oh," Cassidy said, unconvincingly wiser. She stared a moment longer at the piece of rough stone shaped almost like a grey egg covered with grass. "Can I remember her too if I sit here?"

"You didn't— well," he sighed, then he sat himself down in front of the grave and invited Cassidy to sit next to him, "perhaps if I tell you about her, you will form memories of your own."

Cassidy smiled, her bright blue eyes glinting with excitement and appreciation. She came and sat next to Devon, who immediately picked her up with no effort at all and seated her in front of him so he could wrap his arms tight around her. He rested his head against hers, side to side, and eventually started gently rocking her.

For as long as she could remember, Cassidy had gobbled up his excessive affection and returned his care by being a good child and never causing him any trouble – unlike her 12-year-old sister Kassandra who, it seemed, only lived to make Devon's life miserable. But as Cassidy sat in his loving embrace and stared at the dimly lit grave rising from the ground like the silent ghost of times past, a sudden thought struck her. A thought that was so simple, so full of sense, that she wondered why she'd never stumbled upon it before.

With all the innocence that characterized her, Cassidy stated, "You loved her very much, didn't you."

Tightened, trembling arms revealed that she was right. And she stared longer at the grave, at the word etched on its surface and the meaning of its existence. She placed a hand on Devon's arm and felt him twitch at her touch.

He was all she had ever known of her family, aside from her sister. He was all she had ever cared about, for caring about Kassy was as difficult as catching a wasp in flight – and just as painful. It had happened on occasion that she'd caught some of their stinging exchanges of words and blame. A few times, Kassy had blamed Devon for killing their father, but Cassidy had never paid any attention to those accusations: to her, Devon was love incarnate, and incapable of such a horrible act. … right?

"Uncle Devon," she said, shifting in his grasp and sliding so she could look into his wet eyes, "Did you love my dad too?"

Cassidy judged, from Devon's longlasting gaping silence and absent gaze, that she'd never know the answer.

She slipped quietly from his grasp while Devon, frozen nearly solid by the unwanted question, reminisced.

Love him? How could I ever 'love' him?

Devon, please. Forgive Daeron.

How could I ever forgive the man who killed you?!

Blue dust, shimmering on his bloodied sleeves; trembling hands, twitching, still holding onto the waning ghost of unrequited love; her smile, her face, her warmth replaced by the cold stare of death; the silence; his doing, all of it his doing.

No body left to inhume. Selessannea's corpse had vanished in a cloud of brilliant blue dust.

Daeron's he burned, along with the house they'd lived in.

The house Selessannea died in as Cassidy was born.

Cassidy…

"Cassidy!"

Devon yelled as he snapped out of his waking nightmare. Panicked he glanced about himself, seeing but darkness and fearing for her safety. He was about to yell for her again when the quiet rustle of cloth caught his attention.

Sleeping peacefully against the placeholder grave, Cassidy held onto it as though onto her favorite toy. Devon did not have the heart to tear her from her slumber.

He sat next to her and held onto the little girl, falling asleep with his head leaning against devotion.