As Lilac held her baby sister up in the air, admiring those wide blue eyes full of glee which lightened her gummy smile, Lilac marvelled at the fact that she had survived to see such a wonderful miracle. The sky was crystal blue over the family courtyard; a rectangular field which raised up into a hill at the centre with a white swinging bench underneath the tree. Lilac was playfully throwing her little sister in the air, catching the giggling child safely. She wore a white cotton vest and dark blue shorts,whilst her shoulder-length hair was tied back with a black hair band.
Only almost a year ago, Lilac thought distantly, she had been trapped in the Resurrection Games; a cruel ruse plotted by an equally cruel mastermind of trickery and deception. Now, glancing to her right, Lilac saw that the said mastermind was now gently cradling the second sibling - Lilac's second baby sister - who, unlike the giggling bundle in Lilac's arms, was red from crying in rage at Abyss. Baron, Lilac reminded herself as she held her baby sister protectively in her arms, he prefers to be called Baron.
Approaching Baron, Lilac couldn't help but find herself smiling a small smile as Baron looked up at her with a look of despair on his face; a face that had been fixed thanks to Sophie's, as she would call it, 'tailoring skills'. He looked to be around eighteen years old, yet Lilac knew that he had lived a thousand mortal lifetimes.Baron's face was unbloated, his previously blinded eye looking up at Lilac and then at the baby in his hands. He looked uneased, Lilac thought, holding the child at an arm's length away from him, both of his calloused hands under her arms. He was wearing a black trench coat over a white shirt with a gray vest buttoned over the shirt. His pants were gray and pressed, although the grass stained the pants green. Around his neck was a silver necklace with a green amulet that was shaped like a rain drop; Lucy had forced Baron to wear the necklace as a sign of a truce and true alliance.
"I don't think Delilah likes me." Baron concluded sullenly as Delilah wailed.
"I dont know," Lilac teased, shifting her baby sister to her hip, "I think Charlotte's more of a pain to handle."
"That's not fair!" Baron demanded as Delilah continued to wail, "I want to trade!"
"You are not touching any of my babies." A cool voice said sternly. Lilac turned to see her mother, Lucy, at the bottom of the small hill, her graying brown hair unbrushed. Her skin was slightly more wrinkled, the signs of age begining to form on her face. She wore a pink nightgown which highlighted her age (although Lucy never wanted to talk about it so Lilac dismissed the topic immeadiently) But despite that, she moved with an assasin's grace as she moved up the hill and with long pianist fingers, snatched Delilah out of Baron's hands. Delilah stopped her screams immeadiently and cooed happily. Lucy then turned to Lilac, noticably ignoring Baron's existance. "Dinner's almost ready, hon," she said sweetly as she turned to go down the hill, "Come down in ten minutes." As Lucy turned away, Lilac saw the glimmer of the gold necklace around her neck with a purple sun-shaped amulet.
Watching Lucy stroll down the hill and disappear into the house - well it was more like a mansion - Lilac sat down with Baron as he stared passively at the sky. "Well, at least she's not slapping you or threatening you with a slipper anymore." Lilac said reassuringly.
"I don't really blame her, I mean, I have done some unforgivavle stuff."
"My dad and uncle did some terrible stuff as well," Lilac pointed out, "yet my mother forgave them."
"Yes, she did, but she did becuase she loved them in the first place. Many don't want to believe that the people they love most are terrible people, so they try to convince themselves that their close ones are, and always will be, the person who they've imagined, who they want to believe exist. So they have the heart to forgive them. But in my case, Lucy hated me from the begining. How do you forgive the person you despised from the very begining?"
"But you're good now," Lilac countered, "you've changed."
"Put rancours in the vessel of my peace only for them," Baron qouted, Lilac noted distantly that it was Shakespeare, "and mine eternal jewel given to the common enemy of man to make them kings."
For a long time, Lilac and Baron sat there in silence until Lilac stood up, Charlotte asleep in her right arm. With her free hand, she helped Baron up, saying gently, "Come on, let's sit with Alex."
Alex was sitting on the swinging bench, his eyes closed and his mouth whispering a lullaby. His brown hair had grown longer and he was wearing a plain blue t-shirt with black trousers. Subconsiously, he was swinging the bench gently to and fro as he cradled a little bundle in his arms; Lilac's little brother - Caine - was the quietest and the youngest of the set of triplets. When he had first arrived home, he neither cooed like Charlotte nor screamed like Delilah. He, instead, stared blankly up into the air, blinking idly. It was almost like Lucy had accidently picked up a doll instead of a human baby.
Fluttering his eyes open, Alex turned his head towards Lilac and Baron as they sat down, Baron sitting in between the two older siblings. Reflexively, Baron reached out a hand to gently stroke against Caine's cheek but then hesitated. Caine had not reacted kindly to other people touching him; he cried, wiggled and squirmed whenever someone did. Even Lilac, when she had attempted to pick him up, was faced with an angry burst of tears.
But for Alex, it was different. When Alex cradled him, Caine appeared to be at peace and would instantly fall asleep. "What kind of magic are you working on him?!" May had asked as she held Piggeh in her arms. Alex just shrugged.
But now, Alex was staring at Caine with somewhat of a fatherly affection. Unlike the rest of his siblings, Caine's hair was a light brown and his eyes were a chocolate brown. Just like Steve, Lilac thought distantly.
Carefully and slowly, Baron used his forefinger and gently stroked Caine on the cheek. Caine mummered in his sleep and then cooed softly, a soft smile on his lips.
"Wow that's the first time he's smiled since Alex first cradled him!" Lilac commented.
Baron's lips curved into a smile.
