The Panda Bear

I seemed to remember... something about my father. A warm glow. A smile.

. . .

It was a silly stuffed toy, but Percy had carried it a long way.
He was kind of fond of it.

. . .

A small child laid in a plastic cot. The sounds of trolleys being pushed and voices of nurses echoed off of the pristine white walls of a hospital. The only sign that the baby was still alive was the slow rising and falling of his chest. The sounds of a trolley stopped outside the door and light flooded in through a crack as the door slid inwards, a midwife poked her head in to check on the baby. It didn't stir but kept on breathing. She nodded in satisfaction and left. The baby slumbered on.

Down at the reception of the hospital, the electronic doors slid open. A tired receptionist looked up to see why the doors had opened but nobody was there. The receptionist blinked as the smell of the sea assaulted his nose. Looking down at the energy drink rested on his desk, he blinked and through it in the bin. I'm nowhere near the sea, he told himself.

The breeze seemingly had a mind of its own. Despite the fact that it was, well, a breeze it left a warm feeling inside the people that it passed. Like a hug from someone who meant the world to you or that warm breeze coming in from the sea on a hot summers day.

Winding up through the corridors and leaving nothing but a salty smell in it's wake. The breeze came to a stop outside a room an entered. Now don't go thinking that the breeze blow the door opened and slammed it into the wall -no. That was too loud, too dramatic for its liking. Nobody could know that he came. No one. So, instead of opening the door, it went under it.

If anoyone saw what happened next they -to this day- would not be able to explain how what happened, happened. The breeze seemed to swirl and condense until nothing but a a puddle was left on the floor. Yet this was not the strange part, no, from the puddle emerged a middle aged man in midstride. The puddle rushed up to form his features until the puddle no longer remained.

The man was tall, he had a Hawiian tan and dark black hair stuck up in different directions on his head. But what really stuck out about the man's appearence (well, if you were to ignore the trident that was clutched in the man's right hand) were his eyes. The man's sea green eyes shone in the darkness, swirling with emotions and hidden power.

He marched foreward, not once hindered by the fact that he had just emerged from a puddle. The man came to a stop once he had reached the side of a crib, looking down at the baby he could see that it had a small tuft of black hair sitting on the top of it's mostly bald head. A smile crept onto the man's face.

Still smiling the man reached inside his large puffer jacket and pulled out a small panda pillow pet. Fumbling with it slightly, he placed it down next to the small baby, careful not to touch it's pink-ish smooth skin with his tanned corroded skin. Not want to taint something so pure, so innocent with his presence. And yet his efforts were in vain, the baby's eyes flickered open. Wide, curious sea-green eyes met the man's own solemn sea-green eyes. The man's smile widened, he was positively glowing in happiness.

The man and child only stared at each other, not cooing or wailing. Eye contact was only broken when the man heard rapidly approaching footsteps. Casting an annoyed look at the door the man looked down at the small child that had yet to look away from him. Once again smiling at the child the man whispered,