Cursed - Adopted By Yogscast

Hellstrand's Hell - Rythian Arc

In the morning, Rythian climbed out of his too-big bed and headed to the kitchen to make breakfast after the washing-up routine was complete. He could hear a door opening, and then sleepy voices. He was just barely getting used to hearing one sleepy voice, and now there were two.

"Good morning, girls!" A cheerful, not at all sleepy Rythian called as the two sat down at the table, with bags under their eyes and the echo of sleep still lingering in the form of puff clouds around their half-closed lids. He chuckled, placing two plates and a plate piled with pancakes before them.

"Looks like neither of you got any sleep, huh." He commented briefly, mostly to himself. He pulled a chair and started eating. The two nodded, eating slowly. He could see Jay waking up already, but his own child was still half asleep. He smiled in spite of himself, hiding it inside a mouthful of pancakes and maple syrup. They were reminding him of something important to him, or rather, someone important to him.

'Jennifer.' He thought, remembering. Not like he had ever forgotten about her. It's not possible to forget about things important to you, it's only to seem to be something out of your mind, momentarily.

'And to think you'd be home soon...' Thought Rythian, as he watched Jay feed Kyoko - Well, Akiko, if he wanted to use her legal name - a mouthful of pancakes. He was seeing himself in them, a younger version of himself and Jen. He couldn't help but smile, thinking about the memories. He could remember everything about her, the way she laughed and the way she pulled him along, he remembered how her pale, bare skin glowed in the moonlight and how she always smiled before she pulled him in for a kiss. And he remembered that she was beautiful.

Odd to remember and think of something like that in the morning when his daughter and her girlfriend were having breakfast with him. He picked up his empty plate to put in the dishwasher, and looked over at the girls again. Kyoko seemed more awake now, and the girls were engaging in some sort of cutlery war. He looked over at the girls and saw himself, smiling into a computer screen in the pitch darkness of night as she smiled at him, the golden shine of the sun shimmering as it bounced off her skin.

"So how's our little girl?" She'd ask, when they spoke on lonely nights in beds too big for them, a screen separating them. And he'd smile and say, "She's getting better every day."

Long distance was never easy. It never had been. But he knew he'd see her again soon, and this time she'd be home to stay. No more tearful goodbyes at the airport, no more awkward midnight calls where both of them desired to reach through the screen and touch each other. No more 'I miss you', because she'd be right there, and she'd be home to stay.

'I am dating an angel. An angel named Jennifer.' He realised, one of the hundredth times he had realised. 'I am dating an angel, and she'd be home in a day...' He smiled in spite of himself - He had been waiting for the day his daughter would meet his girlfriend at last. And Kyoko had been looking forward to it. Perhaps, to her, she saw it as a chance to have a proper family again. He wouldn't know for sure. He just wanted to see her again.

When Kyoko and Jay left, as they headed on to the record shop to go on a little date, Rythian fed Pepsi the Snake before he went on to record Nano's Village with Kim and Sjin. Minecraft. It's dull to him now, all the little blocks, all the frustration, and nobody wants to hear him talk about his character's backstory.

I mean - Of course, it's role-playing, nobody really wants to do that. Unplanned role-playing is always fun but there's effort involved and it's exhausting to think of good lines. Plus Sjin, he probably put up with a lot already given that he had done the Blackrock Chronicles with him. And Cornerstone.

But it still hurt, you see. Despite knowing all that, it still hurt. Of course he wouldn't say anything, because what is there to say? That he did not appreciate them stopping him when he was about to accidentally get too excited about something he's so passionate about? Of course not. And even then, it still hurt. It still mattered.