Alder's Grove

"All right. This could get messy, but if we do it right, it could also be fun."

Leia was sitting cross-legged on the coffee table in the middle of the suite, studying the group of them. She looked, Saga thought, a bit like their Aunt Ruki. Blonde, of course, and with the feathers on the sides of her head, but it was more in the way she carried herself.

Of course, Saga would never be considering this with Aunt Ruki. Not and be contemplating breathing next week too.
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2011, just as the war began. Fae Apoc, for lilfluff's prompt

They had a Ranch.

At the moment, they were a bit crowded on said Ranch. It had one old farmhouse and a small cabin, and they had all of Mom's crew, and-then-some.

Yoshi and Viddie were sharing a tent, sometimes with Ruki, while Mom and Uncle Howard worked on building new houses - cabins, Uncle Howard called them. Yoshi thought they were awesome.

He knew, in a fuzzy way, that something bad was going on with the world. Sometimes he'd catch the grown-ups taking about it - Uncle Leo, usually, but sometimes the others. They'd talk about the gods that had come back.

He'd asked his mother, when he caught her attention between moving-supplies-around and building-buildings. "Gods? I thought we didn't believe in gods." She coughed and changed the subject, thus indicating to Yoshi that he was going to have to try harder.

He tried Uncle Howard next, only to get not only a brush-off but a half-hour lesson in house-building.

He knew better than to ask Uncle Leo, at least if he wanted an answer based in reality. Uncle Leo told the best stories, but they were still stories.

So he cornered The Refugee, Mom's latest Kept. He was still new, and didn't know, yet, how to avoid being cornered.

"So. Gods."

"Um." The Refugee - Gaheris, that was his name - blinked at Yoshi. "The ones in Vegas?"

"Yes. I thought gods were a myth."

"Oh." This one had also not yet learned to tell Yoshi to ask his mum. "Well. That's what they're called, because they're old. But they're a lot like your mom's crew, really. Just bigger and more powerful."

"Bigger and more powerful than Uncles Leo and Howard?"

"And smarter than your mom, and more clever than your Aunt Zita." Gaheris nodded solemnly. "They're very old."

"Wow." Yoshi wasn't sure he believed him. He wasn't sure that such creatures could exist. But it was something to think about, at least.

Sometime after Yoshi's time at Addergoole

"You..."

Yoshi watched his mother's voice move without sound for a while. From long experience, he could tell that she was angry and trying not to show it, probably to protect the skinny cat-boy... cat-person at Yoshi's side. The cat-person wearing her collar.

"Son, when I asked you to watch my Kept while I was out, this is not what I had in mind."

"I know." He couldn't help squirming a little bit, and not just for said Kept's sake. "But you said we could play, and he's very good at Tlaca... the body Word, and so we thought we'd..." He gestured with his hands, not really explaining anything.

"And then you just, I don't know, happened to get lucky, and you impregnated my Kept?" She raised an eyebrow. She knew as well as he did that he was always lucky. Although this one was sort of iffy on the positive-luck scale.

"Yeah?"

"Mmm...." As uncomfortable as it was, Yoshi had to admit it was kind of interesting watching his mom not have a plan. "We'll figure it out. This is not what I meant by wanting more grandkids, by the way."