Hollow Immortal

Family Ties

A loud bang resounded as the doors to Caine's bedroom slammed open on their hinges and Mercedes rushed into the study, her eyes wide. Ragnar came in after her, seemingly trying to discourage her from entering the library.

She saw Alastair and, hastily, walked over to him. She put her hands on his face, her fingers trembling. The look on her pallid face questioning whether or not he was really there. Once she'd seen him and felt him She seemed to register that he was. She stepped back, her expression changed from one of shock to one of... of disappointment. Evelyn pressed her lips together, eagerly awaiting what was about to happen. The family was together again and that was probably just as bad as it was good.

"You're alive," she said, her lips curling in apparent disgust.

Evelyn's father, who had been smiling up until this point, crossed his arms over his chest, "So lovely to see you too, Mother."

Mercedes slapped him upside the head and Evelyn began to understand why he was so hostile towards his parents.

"You're a bloody idiot, you know that?" she scolded.

"I had absolutely no intentions of beating him," he replied, "I knew what I was doing."

"That's not what I mean and you know it," she glowered at him.

"Oh," he said as his eye colour intensified, "you want the prolonged apocalypse, is that it?"

"No," she said, "you could've done a lot more if you'd bloody well stayed here."

"And miss an opportunity to cause chaos among his people?" he retorted.
Mercedes pointed at Evelyn, "That is your daughter, Alastair. My granddaughter. Take a good long look at her and tell me you don't regret that stupid decision."

He cast an over the shoulder glance at her before turning back to his mother's onslaught, "Of course I regret that but I didn't know, then, what I know now."

Mercedes snapped, "Which is exactly why you should have asked!"

"You were dead," he said calmly, "at least, I thought you were."

"Oh?" she plastered an incredibly wide, incredibly false smile on her face, "That makes it all better. Alastair, whose fault was that?"

"I thought you were working with him," he tried to defend.

"Thought. Thought! Thought!" she shouted, "You know what thought did?"

"Kicked me in the arse, apparently," he mumbled.

She shook her head and stomped angrily back towards the door.

"Mum?" he called after her.

She stopped but didn't look at him, "What?"

"I'm sorry," he said.

"Hmph," she began walking again.

"Mum?"

"What?"

"Would you meet Evelyn and I in the ballroom later?" he asked, "There's someone I'd like you both to meet."

She didn't answer. She left, leaving the rest of them to stand in awkward silence. It wasn't easy watching a grown man get told what's what by his mother. Especially when that man happened to be Evelyn's father and over two hundred years old.

Ragnar looked at the three of them, apprehensively. She could tell he wasn't quite sure whether he wanted to stay and face what they were talking about or an angry Mercedes. He nodded to each of them and left. Evelyn smiled. Seeing Ragnar in any from of indecision was usually quite uncommon but seeing him in nervous indecision was downright rare.