Zephrun’s Imperium

“I knew what I was doing there.”

“you already told me that,” he whispered.

Nico bit his lip. “Ya know, maybe ya doesn’t belong in the kitchen. Like I doesn’t belong in the library.”

He shrugged. “I’ll take you up on your offer if I need to.”

He chuckled. "I'm not staying at the motel. I just got here."

Granite raised an eyebrow at her. "I don't think your dad would want a random boy your age staying with you."

"No. Why would I leave? Unless you happen to know everyone in town and I HIGHLY doubt you do, Pink. No offense." He sipped his drink again. "I do need to stay with someone though..."

With an exasperated sigh, Nico said, "Yes. Wha' else would ya cut with?"

Granite raised an eyebrows. "You sure? She was pretty young when she had me."

"She'd be middle aged by now. Blonde lady, blue eyes, round nose. She's my mother. Haven't seen her in almost a decade."

"Ah, lovely! You can go take the tops off of strawberries if ya want. I'm a-gonna stir these eggs." He twirled a spatula in his hand.

Nico cut two slices of bread from a fresh loaf and set the pieces over a low fire to toast. He looked over his shoulder at Alienor, an offhand, "Nice job, miss," slipping through smiling lips. While she cracked the rest of them, he put some grapes into a bowl.

"Actually, I'm looking for someone. Do you know anyone by the name Star Oakenwey?"

"Well, now you have. I hope it's a nice view." He sipped his drink.

"As a matter of fact I am. Why?"

"But of course." He winked, tugging his shirt. "No harm, no foul. It's our little secret."

"I'm Granite Oakenwey. Nice to meet you." He sat back and ran a hand through his hair. She clearly liked him. And why shouldn't she? It was hard not to.

Granite cursed, but when he looked down at his shirt, it was completely dry. Huh. The blonde boy looked up at the flustered waitress who had spilled, intrigued. Had she made the soda dry up? "I'm perfectly fine," he said, grinning. Maybe he wasn't the only odd one here...

"Ah, ah, ah," said Granite. "You may fill my cup." He winked.

Granite eyed her. “No,” he said.

Granite Oakenwey was not a normal boy. This was something he'd always known, ever since Father had chastised him for torturing little animals (a habit both his step-mother and birth mother had found amusing) as a young boy. He'd later come to understand that his big sister wasn't "normal" either and as he looked back on it, he'd realized this his parents were even more not normal than their offspring. Things breaking around Rose all the time? Father having eyes of pure white? Mother never messy or tired or unkempt? Granite possessing a natural athletic ability greater than that of a normal human? No, none of that was normal in any sense. The realization had quickly become an obsession and just days ago he had finally gone into the world for answers. Caden and Riva - his surrogate parents - would miss him and so would his troubled older sister. But this was far larger and more important than them. They'd understand. And even if they didn't, he wasn't the type to give a damn. He picked at his food contentedly, sipping a fizzy, fruity refreshment that his waiter had called soda. Granite had never had anything like it in all of his fifteen years. In many ways, actually, the whole town felt something like this drink - strange and new, yet pleasant. Everything here was so radically different from the small cottage in the woods he'd grown up in. Massive estates made of brick climbed over hills outside and some children were playing at a park. Did people really live so close together out in the real world? And the clothing here... so odd. So wonderful. Perhaps he liked it as much as he did here because it was as strange as he was. Not a bad place to look for his mother if he did say so himself; if she was out there, it would not be anywhere normal. All in all, looking about made Granite realize just how much he had missed growing up in the Praetorium household. It was a sobering thought. This whole time, all of T H I S had existed and he'd never been allowed more than a few miles from home? It seemed such a waste and his adventurous soul shuddered at all his lost time. Sorry, Pops, he thought with conviction, but I'm never going back. Hopefully he had enough spark in him to find where he came from.