forthedog | (no subject)

It's still cold, the wind still shouldering its way through bare trees, and the ground still hard. All the grass is still brown and dead, and muddy in patches from so many days of snow and freezing and thaw. It's been a long winter, longer than any others he remembers since the Realm. Long and cold and dark.

But right now he's in the yard at the side of the house, in the sun, and it's warm on his back.

It's late morning, the girls in school and Neil at work, and he knows he could go back to work as well, but he's taking the time. Everything is back to the way it was, except it's not. Everything is different. He's different.

Born again. He laughs silently and rocks back on his heels, bending over a small notebook in which he's jotting down things to buy. Rocks for borders. Seeds and bulbs. Maybe a sapling or two, some fruit trees. Fertilizer. Stakes and some lattices for frames. Tools. He wants flowering things, things that will attract butterflies and hummingbirds. He might even get a feeder. He's always sort of wanted one.

And dawnflowers. He definitely needs some of those.

He has a lot of work to do.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"People are all that do." In his experience. He can see himself coming unmoored so easily. Has come so close to that. Always, there's someone holding him down in the end.

"Got no idea what I did to deserve so many of 'em, but here we are."

"I don't know if it's ever been about deserving," she says with a shrug. "Not that I think you don't, but I'm just not sure that's quite how it works." There are people all over this city, she's sure, who deserve a real family and who might never have that. She's thinking of Ellie and Clementine, girls who've lost everything and while she tries to do what she can, she knows she'll never be able to take away the pain of Clementine losing her parents.