Still Alive [Dark] [Finished]

[Bee]

Thalia stared a Senka for a long time, even as she unraveled the key from her hair, even as she slid it carefully into the slot in the chair. The lights around Miss Arborea went dim. The faint breathing was no more. The machinery seemed less fascinating now and more eerie, like they were wandering around in someone's tomb. Which, she supposed, they were.

Thalia thought and thought and said nothing as they made their way down the hallway, out of the building and into the street, where it was now night. It felt somehow inappropriate for such an elaborate death trap of a building to have such a direct escape route. Perhaps for fire safety or something, but Corvies rarely tended to bother with that sort of thing.

That was hardly the most perplexing part of the adventure, however. She chewed on her lip. This was all so very strange.

"You know," she said, with careful cheer, "I never fully introduced myself. It's Thalia D'Allesio-Eumeleia."

[Dark]

Senka stopped, and stared. The dreadful hurt she had been feeling since they left Miss Aborea to her eternal rest was pushed to the side in favor of sick astonishment and disbelief. What was the coincidence, unless Miss Aborea had picked and manipulated the two of them specifically for this reason; to what end?

There was no way she could possibly be related to this bright, cheerful, genetic anomaly, but it was rare enough to have a family with a surname; to have two, and have them be identical to one another, was hard evidence to rebuff.

"Do you know--Hadyn?" She didn't want to know, but she was nearly sick with dreadful curiosity. The man had always been awkward around her, but she had always attributed that to general social retardation and not something like the secret knowledge that she was his--daughter.

Miss Aborea had to have been lying.

[Bee]

Thalia tilted her head. Curiouser and curiouser. The real question was: how in the rolling green hills of whatever did this young woman know Hadyn? She apparently hadn't known that she was--potentially--certainly--somehow--one of Thalia's people. There was of course the possibility that Miss Arborea, bless her rapidly cooling corpse, was just a liar liar pants on fire, but...she knew Hadyn, and the names...And their family clan was certainly large enough that maybe a member or two slipped the general notice...

"Of course," she said, dredging herself away from thoughts and into speech. "He's my half-brother. We have the same mama. I didn't really know him growing up because he was out the house by the time I was born, but I've seen him enough. He's kind of mopey but I know there are rainbows in there somewhere."

[Dark]

Mopey? That certainly described the man Senka had come to know growing up, and this final statement convinced her that they were talking about the same man. Which meant that Miss Aborea hadn't been lying. Hadyn D'Allesio was her--father--and that meant Thalia was her...aunt? What sense did that make; they were practically the same age!

It was hard to wrap her head around the sudden appearance of an apparently extensive family she had never known existed, but were they really family? They shared the same blood, certainly, but--Uncle Ezra was family. These strangers were nothing of the sort.

For the first time in her life, Senka wasn't sure what to do. She stared at Thalia in indecision, torn between wanting to pretend like nothing had happened and morbidly curious about the not-family.

"Would you...like to meet for coffee, some time?" She felt awkward asking, but she couldn't make herself break off all contact. Not yet.

[Bee]

The level of Senka's awkwardness was pretty palpable, and Thalia knew not how to respond except with increasing levels of good cheer. She really was quite genuinely excited, now that this seemed less confusing. A new person that she hadn't even known existed was now her...niece! Her niece twice over! Thalia felt a very real and warming rush of familial affection. She decided immediately to be the most doting and wonderful aunt ever, even though this girl looked to be about her own age. Age did not change the facts!

She was a little sad that--if she was Hadyn's child, and all signs pointed to yes--that her brother had kept this from them. She couldn't imagine why. Maybe his haze of Angst blinded him to their love and acceptance.

"Oh I'd love to," she said, happily. "I can tell you all about everyone!"

And maybe she could root out who had provided the Eumeleia genes to the equation...