Forty Years of This [Monster Hunter World]

Chapter 45

There is a stage of grief not unlike mourning a death when a loved one leaves the continent for the New World with the research commission. There is the understanding that they may never see their family again, be it due to the danger inherent in the New World or the simple fact that a lot can happen in the typical five year contract of a commissioner. Illness, age, and simple lost contact can part a family forever. The Commander had made his peace with that in his first year in the New World, but it was much harder the second time around.

He tearfully pressed kisses to his grandchildren's foreheads and nearly squeezed the life out of his daughter and son-in-law. Even the Quartermaster, who hated touch so much he was infamous for it, was holding their soon to be distant family. There was one consolation in all of it: their oldest grandchild was staying behind.

Little ████ was not immune to the tearful goodbyes, but he had every intention to return to his mother when the Fifth Fleet arrived. It was only five years away, and he could finish his training under the Huntsman by then. When his mother and father sailed away, he saw them off with a smile. At fifteen, he didn't quite understand why his grandfathers grieved the parting so intensely.

"So!" The boy looked towards his grandfather. He was already almost as tall as the Commander and building a fine amount of bulk even if he was only fifteen and had the face of a child. A very tall and wide child. He could tell his grandfathers were both quite melancholy, and he wanted to do what he could to change that. "Can we move my stuff out of your place into my bunkroom now?"

The hunters' bunkroom was a gutted ship with beds stacked on top of each other positioned in such a way that little living spaces were created between them. Old carpets were laid out between the beds with an eclectic mish mash of furniture that gave it an oddly homely if nomadic feel. Most people didn't remain in the bunkroom for more than a few months, but with the Fourth Fleet repopulating Astera, it was alive and well populated.

The Quartermaster held one end of the trunk while their grandson carried the other. He thought the boy's parents should have been the ones to do this rite of passage, but he kept that to himself.

"This brings me back..." He idly mused.

"Huh?" Both the Commander and their grandson looked at him.

"What are you talking about?" The Commander's brow furrowed. The First Fleet had been one ship, and even then the Quartermaster (being the quartermaster ) had his own room. And their daughter had gone straight from the Commander's quarters to her own quarters.

"Hmm? Oh. It's a lot like taking your kid to school. I remember helping my mother carry my trunk with me when I was seven years old. It felt like it was filled with wooden blocks... I thought I was going to die carrying it up those stairs. We did the same thing every year until I went to secondary school. My cousins and I helped each other then. After I finished that, we only had to move like this once."

They dropped the trunk at the end of one of the empty bunks. The boy brushed his hands together, then puffed out his chest. "Good work, Pops!"

"Good work Kiddo."

By the stars, the Commander did his best not to let the loneliness get to him, but even the Quartermaster's warm arms and soft words couldn't fend it off. His daughter, his little girl, was gone. She was alive, and she was presumably well, but she was gone. In the Old World. The first night after he was able to drop the act of Stoic Leader Man, he began to blubber and cry. It was an ugly cry. The kind that puffed the eyes and stuffed the nose. That turned the throat into a painful mess and left the body with an ache. The kind that gets everywhere.

He fell asleep in the Quartermaster's arms. It was one of the worst sleeps he'd ever had, but he slept in the arms of the man he loved with his head resting against the Quartermaster's chest. There was a slight rattle in the man's breathing, but the Commander quickly realized it was from the Quartermaster's own tears. Holding each other and lulled by the breaths and heartbeats of his lover, the Commander eventually fell asleep.

The Commander didn't see it coming, but the Quartermaster knew. The first night, their grandson had no complaints. The second night, he seemed just as chipper as ever. The third night, they saw the sails of a Fourth Fleet ship, and they knew the bunk room would be filled again, but the next day the boy was melancholy. He sulked about until mid afternoon where he joined the Commander for lunch.

"What's the matter?" The Commander knew what was wrong by now. He felt it himself. But the boy was quiet. He just sort of pouted. "████?" He poked his grandson with his spoon.

"I miss my mom..." He began weakly. "And Dad... And my siblings..."

"It's only five years. Then you'll be missing me. And your grandpops." Five years was an eternity to a fifteen year old, but it was a flash in the pan for a man the Commander's age. "But I think I have news that might make you a little brighter..." He pretended to think with his spoon tapping against his chin until the boy took that bait.

"What's that?" His big brown eyes looked so soulful and so much like his mother's that the Commander had to collect himself.

"The Fourth Fleet ship will be docked by this evening, so you'll have bunk mates. Better yet, you'll have peers. Some of them are as young as sixteen. You'll have friends your age. People with your interests who will look to you for advice and guidance."

"What?!" He brightened immediately, and the Commander couldn't help but feel a little smug. The boy jumped up, and immediately began brushing off his shirt. "I gotta! I gotta-- oh I'm going to have friends!"

The Commander watched him run off with such an intense affection that even the Quartermaster softened in his radiance.