Missed Signals
Chapter 2
(Sir Bate)
Chapter 2
(Sir Bate)
“Mira–”
“Nope! Off you go! I’ll see you later!”
“But what about–”
“Don’t worry! Shoo! Have a good day, Sir Bate! Thank youuuu!”
Bate is left outside with a bag of medicine in his hands and the most befuddled expression on his face by the time the exchange is over.
For a bit he just stands there, out in the warm morning air. Bate feels of the bag’s contents, over and over again, and he knows everything is there. He knows his medicine pickup like clockwork. He knows Mira is never one to just forget someone’s medicine - too sharp for that.
Everything is fine, by all rights.
But available? Sometime tonight? She had said?
Bate stares at his refill. Stares some more.
The bag sits rather innocently in his hands and doesn’t do so much as a thing in his grip. Everything is very, very normal.
“I don’t get it.” He mutters to himself.
Someone clears their throat gently beside him.
Bate jumps maybe half a foot in the air before scrambling to the side to let them enter, a frantic apology on breathless lips. They give him a genial, if idly confused look on the way in. Another note to add to his reputation in town, he supposes.
…He doesn’t get it, he decides, but it’s probably nothing to think about. Mira is pretty sharp with her work, but maybe she just had a slip of the tongue. She’s busy, after all.
Bate sighs and puts the medicine back under his pauldron before reaching up to rub at his face briefly. The sun shines overhead, still making its way steady to the crest of the sky. Morning, still, and filled with the bustling of townspeople starting to go about their day further in the distance. Kalmari, lively as always.
It’s a nice day to spend with someone, part of him thinks quietly. Old, familiar, a voice he waves off with many, many years of practice. None of that. Everyone is moving and he certainly should too. Hop to it.
Bate sets off as has been his way for the past decade and some change.
Many would have called Bate a fixture in their town, for all that he seemed to do the same thing each and every day. As long as he’s been around, it wasn’t uncommon to see him go by the same shop for the same breakfast sandwich, to see him take the same ambling stroll through the streets doing whatever it was retired folks did at his age.
He enjoys his routine much as most of those his age tend to too. Regardless of whoever might giggle or scoff at it, he takes a calm, quiet enjoyment from it. The army days are long gone, and good of it too.
The shopkeep, though, gives him a mild look as he rings up the usual order for breakfast on the way through town. As common as it was to see him around, it was just as uncommon not to, when it happened.
“A bit late there, Sir Bate! Those years in the army finally starting to weigh you down?”
“Bah, just a talk with the pharmacist got me held up is all!”
And he keeps on, his meal in his free hand, to be eaten in the rest of the interim for lunch.
It’s peaceful, in its way. As busy as it is - buying breakfast as he had done, talking to the townsfolk as he passes through the plaza, catching up on the latest local happenings and saucy rumors, making his way out of town to bask in the quiet of the forest and tend to Ellie’s grave - it’s a good routine that keeps him busy and involved.
There was a time that, honestly, he thought he never would have made it past thirty. He’s lucky, far luckier than most were in his profession. Many warriors didn’t survive this long. But here he was - a retired soldier, a teacher, a father, a grandfather… He had everything that he’d only dreamed of before.
He had so much. He had a life. He had friends. He had a family.
Stars. His family.
Bate loved his family immensely. His children, students, their partners, his grandchildren. He always stopped by to visit someone if he could, ordinarily. Normally, catching up with them - most of them - all at once was quite usual.
A small town, this was, and only Meta lived farther than Bate could trek in a day. He loved hearing about their day and watching the youngsters grow, bit by bit. If things were normal, he would have gone off to check on one of them at about this time. Arthur, maybe. See how Atticus is doing.
And he hadn’t seen hide or hair of them in…a few days now!
A disruption to his routine indeed, and one that he wasn’t very happy with.
It’s nobody’s fault, and Bate is not the kind of old, senile man to pitch a fit about things that couldn’t be controlled. Nonsurat and Marlo, their son alongside, they’d been busy bringing in shipment for the festival and had been clear out of town. Flying was in their blood, and so was mail.
Falspar and Pyrell and their Tula, they up to their eyes in fireworks and pastries, and it was all he could do to at least get a word in for them not to overwork themselves in preparation of the festivities. They had ushered him off with a snack cake and a “Don’t worry, we have it!”
And Arthur, Petta, their boy Atticus. His poor grandson, kept to bed with another cold during the summer months. Arthur and Petta couldn’t receive visitors for his weak constitution’s sake. Bate had hardly begrudged them. He only hoped his grandchild a speedy recovery, as he always did. They had been deeply apologetic, but it was no matter.
Life and the festival had certainly gotten most everyone into gear, Bate thought. The townsfolk and his family alike. Bate didn’t mind it. But, well.
Absence did make the heart grow fonder. In many ways.
Here, now, he sits on a bench surrounded by the shade of the forest’s many trees. The sun overhead can’t quite penetrate to ground floor, and Bate finds as always that it gives him a steady sense of peace that nowhere else can. Afternoon, by now, he knows. He doesn’t need to check the time for it.
Ellie, a new supply of flowers to memorialize her grave, isn’t far from him. He’d only need to take a small walk to visit her again, if he so wished. The shrine, nearby, waits for him, as it waits for all of its visitors.
He’s calm. The air is quiet, and cool, and comfortable, and Bate is at peace. Bate is content, with nothing to stress him. Bate is happy.
…
And he’s alone.
He slams on the thought the moment it whispers to him, but now that his brain has willed it to existence, it simply won’t leave. Content and calm. Happy and at peace. Surrounded by nature and– alone.
The feeling that weighs heavy in his heart is an unfortunate familiar one, honed and sharpened into a fine point over his years of love and loss. Bate squeezes his cane, as if the pressure might will it away, knowing that it won’t.
He was happy for his family, well and truly. They had grown up well, warriors and parents their teachers would be proud of. Children of their own. A new generation of hearts and minds. A large, happy family. He was hardly alone with so many faces about him. He simply…
Bate tries to think. Of something. Anything better than where this old, worn path is leading him.
Arthur was well enough. So were Nonsurat, Falspar. Meta, who he had not heard from in a day or two, so far out in the expanse of the universe, was…
Coming here. Very soon.
Of course. Of course. How could he forget such a thing? Meta had made plans to come visit just for this year’s summer festival - he always tried to visit at least once a year, if he could permit it. And Kirby had been so excited by the prospect of the summer celebration, he had practically begged…
And they were staying in his home, as they had always done on visits like these.
A home which he had still not prepared for their arrival.
Bate would have jumped out of the bench if were still in his power to do so. As it is, he simply braces and moves to stand, surprisingly quick for someone his age with a pair of massive wings.
What is he doing, sitting here and moping and pondering the hours away? He had things to do - guest rooms to clean up, food to prepare, candy to buy. They would be here in just a few short days, and that was no time at all!
The smile pulls bright on Bate’s face as he sets off down the forest path, back towards town, the warmth in his heart lighting giddy through his veins.
A routine is wonderful, but a disruption certainly isn’t a bad thing sometimes.
He’ll be seeing one of his boys soon enough, and a grandboy that he hardly ever has a chance to spoil the way he could his cousins. He had to make up for lost time!
Bate hurries his pace as well as his body can take him, and the scenery shifts and blurs and changes as the forest thins and he returns to town. He had to stock up his foodstuffs, first and foremost. He was eating for one, mainly, and he hadn’t a habit of eating too much, but with two extra mouths, one of which was quite the bottomless pit, he had a lot of work to do.
It’s good. Pleasant. Even if the shopkeep gives him an absolutely bewildered look when they witness old Sir Bate with an absolute mountain of food and goods in the cart, Bate is caught up in himself, counting out change, slamming down the extra to tip, taking it all out in hand and talon alike.
The candy store, as well, of course. A hearty helping of snacks for his grandson. He wasn’t sure if Kirby’s favorites had changed, so he simply indulged and grabbed a bit of everything. There would (hopefully) be plenty left over.
The summer festival is a few days away. A celebration for friends and family alike, and Bate wonders through it all just what would be in store this time. What was new this year? The same? It would be busy for certain.
Kirby was going to love the games. And Meta deserved a break from his boy’s antics to enjoy himself. And Bate is going to be right there with them, having fun no matter what they did.
His heart flutters with the thrill of it. It makes him feel thirty years younger. It feels good.
By the time Bate actually has everything he needs in hand - medicine, cleaning supplies, oodles of food and too much candy - the sky is beginning to turn with the setting sun, and he knows he needs to return home in time for rest and food.
The forest is there to greet him as it always is when he makes his rounds back to his abode. The sound of birdsong has given way to the noisy sonorous cries of crickets, frogs, creatures beginning to stir for the night. Where the sun has begun to turn, now the greenery has dulled to near black, and Bate is only able to traverse it all by virtue of sheer rote memory.
The scent of cool pine and wood, the sound of frogs, crickets… How nostalgic.
The forest had been here since before Bate could remember, and had been here well before anyone else could remember either. It was a fixture of town, their culture, in some way. Where the shrine was kept, and overall a place of peace. Where people came and went, the forest remained. Simply changed.
He could remember as if it were yesterday Ellie at his side, talking on and on about their plans for that evening, the following day. Gordon and he on a slow amble back from the bar, going nowhere at all in their stupor, silly secrets whispered in the evening dark before he tripped on a hidden root. Their wives would have flailed them when they saw them the next day.
Meta and Arthur, so little back then, chasing each other with sticks as their teacher called after them not to wander far! Distant, distracted replies - we woooon’t! - promptly forgotten in three seconds. Sometimes the others would join as well - a camp-out or some field trip beyond the periphery.
He remembered being so exhausted by those little rascals. Now, Bate can only miss it. What was. How things were. The forest always inspired that kind of sorrow, in its way. In all of Kalmari’s residents.
He is happy his children and students have young ones of their own, lives of their own. Life goes on. It’s good that things turned out this way. He is too lucky to not be grateful.
But.
…
Well. The summer festival can’t come soon enough.
By the time Bate finally arrives within eye distance of his home, most of the sun’s light has left the sky, leaving it a calm blue black that threatens to swallow the world whole into the dark. Everything is just barely visible, and Bate has lived here long enough to navigate the path blind, and so he isn’t worried about tripping so much as he is about–
The lights are on.
Within his house.
Bate had not left the lights on when he left. He never does.
He stares, uncomprehending, at the sight of his quaint house illuminated by glowing windows keeping the night away. Wrapping his head about it.
It’s hardly a threat of any sort - there had been no threats here for years, and this side of Kalmari was as safe as any other. It was just that…
Someone, some way or another, had decided simply to…visit and await his arrival. There could be no other reason. Which meant he had guests.
Oh stars. He had guests.
Bate speeds up his pace as well as his aging body will allow, fighting through the aching in his joints and the struggle in his breathing. He uses his cane to anchor himself and flutters his wings just barely as if it would offer any speed at all, burdened with groceries and age as they were. Anything to get there any faster.
It wasn’t an emergency. Hopefully not. But to have guests at this hour when he was woefully unprepared was terribly embarrassing, and the mark of a bad host on his end. Who would even be here this late? Arthur couldn’t. Falspar? Why? Surely not to just catch up.
Who? Why?
The thoughts are a clamor in his mind as Bate reaches the door of his home faster than he has in farther he can remember. There is the sound of…chatter, maybe, on the other side, but he can’t quite make it out. Young. One of the grandchildren?
He opens the door.
“Hi, grandpa Bate! Where ya been!”
And.
Who all to look at him, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, but Kirby, right there on the couch.
Bate blinks for a moment. And blinks again.
Kirby waves with a cheeky grin on his face, a red crayon in his hand. “Surprise! We got here early! Cool, huh!” There’s a coloring book in front of him half scribbled in. He has, evidently, been here for awhile.
Bate takes a good three long steps over and scoops the boy right into his arms without any fanfare at all, cane dropping to the floor with a weak clatter. Kirby, ever go with the flow, goes right into it with a peal of laughter, squeezing back into the hug that threatens to smother him.
“You–” Bate tries for words and can find none. Why? How? How long? What? What? “Kirby, I’m– It’s so good to see you, my boy! I missed you so much!”
He’d missed this, having one of his grandchildren to coddle and spoil; had missed having Kirby around to dote on. He’d missed–
He’d missed this.
Bate ignores the pointed little sting of something in his eyes and just savors, hugging the boy close, listening to him giggle and hug back with a kick of feet that Bate doesn’t mind at all. He’d be happy to stay there the rest of the night, if only–
“Teacher?”
Bate looks up.
Meta, sans his armored mask, steps through from the kitchen area with a small plate of fruit and a drink in his hands, a soft frown of idle concern on his face. And well he should, Bate is starting to realize.
Everything aches.
His wings ache from holding groceries and the effort to use them earlier had not helped. And now, without his cane, standing still and regaining his breath, everything in him feels a bit…wobbly.
“You should probably sit down. You don’t, uh. Look good.”
“...Yes, I probably should.”
----------------------
It takes no time to get settled in, thankfully.
With Meta now making himself a guest in his home, all of Bate’s daily chores are snapped up in hardly half an hour with no effort on his part. Meta takes the groceries, sorts them out into their proper places - “Teacher, you need to stock up more. Teacher, what is all this candy for? Don’t give me that look!” - and Bate hardly needs to do anything but get settled at the kitchen table and allow Kirby the run of their conversation.
Kirby, who is always so full of words, so much akin to Tula and yet somehow more precocious. A shining star of energy that takes every second to fill Bate in what they had been doing since before they came.
Bate is more than happy to save his words for later, allowing his family to fill him in as they both please, nodding and asking a clarifying question here or there if just to hear them continue on. Nova, he can still hardly believe that they’re here, in his house, at this second.
Having someone to talk to, a youngster to fill the air, a son to help him out occasionally, it warms his heart and his home immensely. The tea, when Meta offers it, is savored - not so different from how he himself makes it, but cherished nonetheless. He couldn’t ever be more grateful.
And Kes, he asks? South Nova, is the reply. She’d tried to visit, but this weather was no good for an Ice Leo. She sends her regards though, and really wants to meet personally very soon.
Bate seconds the sentiment. She reminds him, he thinks, of some of his old compatriots in the army, and is a stalwart figure for their family. Bate admires her greatly.
But eventually, things have to wind down. He isn’t sure how much time passes before Kirby finally lets out a yawn and sags over the kitchen table, his fruit plate long polished clean.
“Time for bed,” Meta says with finality, and Bate chuckles when he hears the boy let out a grumbling protest as he gets picked up. “Tell your grandpa goodnight.”
“G’night, grandpa. Love yoooouuu…”
“I love you too, grandson. You’ll have a great day tomorrow, so go ahead and rest up!”
A few minutes later, Meta returns from the guest room sans one child, and Bate takes the opportunity to let out a sigh and undo the pauldrons attached to his shoulders. Large things, they were, and each day they seemed to weigh just a little heavier.
It’s a great relief to have them off, and they fall to the floor with a clatter that Bate winces at. “Sorry.”
“It’s fine. Kirby sleeps like the dead once he’s out. I got it.”
Meta reaches down to pick them up before Bate has the chance, and again he finds himself thanking the stars that Meta and his boy are here. To have company - and help - couldn’t make him more grateful. He missed them.
“You can’t forget your medication, Teacher. If I’d known you had been to the pharmacy before you came home I would have put it up.”
What? Ah. Meta holds up a familiar bag of medicine in his hand, looking fondly exasperated, and Bate gives an apologetic chuckle.
“My apologies there. I’d gotten so excited to see you two that I must have forgotten!” He takes the bag with a nod and thumbs over the label as Meta shuffles off briefly to replace his armor back in the living room.
He’d practically forgotten earlier that morning.
“You know,” He mutters, and Meta catches him as he comes back in earshot. “Miss Mira, the pharmacist - you recall her, yes? - I believe maybe she has some of her orders out of turn.”
“How so? Did she forget to give you something?”
“Well, no! No, not that I can recall. Everything is here, exactly as I always get it. But something odd happened today, and it does make me wonder.”
Meta takes his seat across from Bate at the kitchen table and pours him another cup of tea. Bate glances at him, then back down to the bag, and gives him a small shrug.
“Uh huh?” Meta prompts eventually. “What happened?” Because sometimes his teacher did need a bit of prompting to know when he needed to speak. It happened.
“Well, it’s just that, as I recall, Mira had asked if I were available tonight! And to my knowledge she doesn’t usually work quite so late.”
Bate doesn’t look up from where he stares at his prescription label.
It’s a neat thing, tidy, printed by computer and stapled with precision to the bag, detailing who it was for, its contents, the date of his next refill. In all his years at the pharmacy, Mira’s efficiency had never once waned. Quite impressive.
“Do pharmacists give out late orders? But then again, Mira was quite busy at the time, and I had been holding her up.” Bate snorts and shakes his head. “Honestly, it’s probably nothing. Just seemed strange for her to get muddled up like tha– why are you staring at me.”
Meta looks suddenly very, very interested.
It isn’t even so much that Meta is staring at him that pegs him as odd. It’s moreso that Meta is staring at him in a way that Kirby or Tula or even Meta as a child might ought to; there’s a bit of a smirk on his face that says something, a glint in amber eyes that tells something is up, and Bate would be hard pressed to find out what unless he managed to force the issue.
Meta has certainly grown into a fine adult. But then, now, why does he look at his teacher as though mischief were afoot like a sneaky little child?
---------------------------
And why does Meta’s teacher look so flabbergasted by something so obvious?
Meta had never been the most keen child growing up. That title went more to Arthur, or maybe Nonsurat. But he wasn’t outright a bag of rocks, and he could pick up some cues when they were given.
Teacher always got these looks, sometimes, when they were out and about. When he was younger, Meta had just figured others thought they were all weird and left it at that.
But teenager Meta, he figured things out. He knew better. Teacher apparently wasn’t that bad of a catch to some people. Little silly flirting words with double meanings, awkward offers to go somewhere next week. Little glances, hoping to be noticed.
Teacher would never notice any of them. Sharp as a whip when it came to combat and flight but emotions? No thanks. Teacher had only realized something was wrong when Meta broke into crying fits or temper tantrums, just because it was so obvious and he had to. He never was good at the more subtle stuff.
This, though. This wasn’t subtle at all. And man, did he feel bad for poor Mira.
“It sounds more like she wanted to spend some time with you, Teacher.” He tries, very hard, to keep his tone calm and level, but the amusement bleeds through anyway. “Nobody gives medicine out that late.”
“We already do that, though, every month. Our conversations are quite nice.”
Oh boy. Yeah, poor Mira indeed. “No, I mean–”
Meta takes a quick breath. “There’s a difference between dropping by for your medicine and having a quick chat with your pharmacist versus, I dunno…going out to eat somewhere? Taking walks through the forest at night? Meeting up in town for drinks, just because you can?”
“Yes…?”
“...Going out somewhere at night? The way friends, partners, married couples do? Like what Mira is asking?”
Meta doesn’t want to spell it out for him. This should honestly have been kept more between his teacher and Mira - he really didn’t want to intrude. But stars, what was there to intrude on when his teacher didn’t get it?
But he watches, for a second, because Bate doesn’t respond. He just stares down at his medicine, drink halfway to his lips, and Meta knows, then, that the blanks are starting to fill in.
“Teacher?”
Bate’s cup goes clattering to the table.
“Nope! Off you go! I’ll see you later!”
“But what about–”
“Don’t worry! Shoo! Have a good day, Sir Bate! Thank youuuu!”
Bate is left outside with a bag of medicine in his hands and the most befuddled expression on his face by the time the exchange is over.
For a bit he just stands there, out in the warm morning air. Bate feels of the bag’s contents, over and over again, and he knows everything is there. He knows his medicine pickup like clockwork. He knows Mira is never one to just forget someone’s medicine - too sharp for that.
Everything is fine, by all rights.
But available? Sometime tonight? She had said?
Bate stares at his refill. Stares some more.
The bag sits rather innocently in his hands and doesn’t do so much as a thing in his grip. Everything is very, very normal.
“I don’t get it.” He mutters to himself.
Someone clears their throat gently beside him.
Bate jumps maybe half a foot in the air before scrambling to the side to let them enter, a frantic apology on breathless lips. They give him a genial, if idly confused look on the way in. Another note to add to his reputation in town, he supposes.
…He doesn’t get it, he decides, but it’s probably nothing to think about. Mira is pretty sharp with her work, but maybe she just had a slip of the tongue. She’s busy, after all.
Bate sighs and puts the medicine back under his pauldron before reaching up to rub at his face briefly. The sun shines overhead, still making its way steady to the crest of the sky. Morning, still, and filled with the bustling of townspeople starting to go about their day further in the distance. Kalmari, lively as always.
It’s a nice day to spend with someone, part of him thinks quietly. Old, familiar, a voice he waves off with many, many years of practice. None of that. Everyone is moving and he certainly should too. Hop to it.
Bate sets off as has been his way for the past decade and some change.
Many would have called Bate a fixture in their town, for all that he seemed to do the same thing each and every day. As long as he’s been around, it wasn’t uncommon to see him go by the same shop for the same breakfast sandwich, to see him take the same ambling stroll through the streets doing whatever it was retired folks did at his age.
He enjoys his routine much as most of those his age tend to too. Regardless of whoever might giggle or scoff at it, he takes a calm, quiet enjoyment from it. The army days are long gone, and good of it too.
The shopkeep, though, gives him a mild look as he rings up the usual order for breakfast on the way through town. As common as it was to see him around, it was just as uncommon not to, when it happened.
“A bit late there, Sir Bate! Those years in the army finally starting to weigh you down?”
“Bah, just a talk with the pharmacist got me held up is all!”
And he keeps on, his meal in his free hand, to be eaten in the rest of the interim for lunch.
It’s peaceful, in its way. As busy as it is - buying breakfast as he had done, talking to the townsfolk as he passes through the plaza, catching up on the latest local happenings and saucy rumors, making his way out of town to bask in the quiet of the forest and tend to Ellie’s grave - it’s a good routine that keeps him busy and involved.
There was a time that, honestly, he thought he never would have made it past thirty. He’s lucky, far luckier than most were in his profession. Many warriors didn’t survive this long. But here he was - a retired soldier, a teacher, a father, a grandfather… He had everything that he’d only dreamed of before.
He had so much. He had a life. He had friends. He had a family.
Stars. His family.
Bate loved his family immensely. His children, students, their partners, his grandchildren. He always stopped by to visit someone if he could, ordinarily. Normally, catching up with them - most of them - all at once was quite usual.
A small town, this was, and only Meta lived farther than Bate could trek in a day. He loved hearing about their day and watching the youngsters grow, bit by bit. If things were normal, he would have gone off to check on one of them at about this time. Arthur, maybe. See how Atticus is doing.
And he hadn’t seen hide or hair of them in…a few days now!
A disruption to his routine indeed, and one that he wasn’t very happy with.
It’s nobody’s fault, and Bate is not the kind of old, senile man to pitch a fit about things that couldn’t be controlled. Nonsurat and Marlo, their son alongside, they’d been busy bringing in shipment for the festival and had been clear out of town. Flying was in their blood, and so was mail.
Falspar and Pyrell and their Tula, they up to their eyes in fireworks and pastries, and it was all he could do to at least get a word in for them not to overwork themselves in preparation of the festivities. They had ushered him off with a snack cake and a “Don’t worry, we have it!”
And Arthur, Petta, their boy Atticus. His poor grandson, kept to bed with another cold during the summer months. Arthur and Petta couldn’t receive visitors for his weak constitution’s sake. Bate had hardly begrudged them. He only hoped his grandchild a speedy recovery, as he always did. They had been deeply apologetic, but it was no matter.
Life and the festival had certainly gotten most everyone into gear, Bate thought. The townsfolk and his family alike. Bate didn’t mind it. But, well.
Absence did make the heart grow fonder. In many ways.
Here, now, he sits on a bench surrounded by the shade of the forest’s many trees. The sun overhead can’t quite penetrate to ground floor, and Bate finds as always that it gives him a steady sense of peace that nowhere else can. Afternoon, by now, he knows. He doesn’t need to check the time for it.
Ellie, a new supply of flowers to memorialize her grave, isn’t far from him. He’d only need to take a small walk to visit her again, if he so wished. The shrine, nearby, waits for him, as it waits for all of its visitors.
He’s calm. The air is quiet, and cool, and comfortable, and Bate is at peace. Bate is content, with nothing to stress him. Bate is happy.
…
And he’s alone.
He slams on the thought the moment it whispers to him, but now that his brain has willed it to existence, it simply won’t leave. Content and calm. Happy and at peace. Surrounded by nature and– alone.
The feeling that weighs heavy in his heart is an unfortunate familiar one, honed and sharpened into a fine point over his years of love and loss. Bate squeezes his cane, as if the pressure might will it away, knowing that it won’t.
He was happy for his family, well and truly. They had grown up well, warriors and parents their teachers would be proud of. Children of their own. A new generation of hearts and minds. A large, happy family. He was hardly alone with so many faces about him. He simply…
Bate tries to think. Of something. Anything better than where this old, worn path is leading him.
Arthur was well enough. So were Nonsurat, Falspar. Meta, who he had not heard from in a day or two, so far out in the expanse of the universe, was…
Coming here. Very soon.
Of course. Of course. How could he forget such a thing? Meta had made plans to come visit just for this year’s summer festival - he always tried to visit at least once a year, if he could permit it. And Kirby had been so excited by the prospect of the summer celebration, he had practically begged…
And they were staying in his home, as they had always done on visits like these.
A home which he had still not prepared for their arrival.
Bate would have jumped out of the bench if were still in his power to do so. As it is, he simply braces and moves to stand, surprisingly quick for someone his age with a pair of massive wings.
What is he doing, sitting here and moping and pondering the hours away? He had things to do - guest rooms to clean up, food to prepare, candy to buy. They would be here in just a few short days, and that was no time at all!
The smile pulls bright on Bate’s face as he sets off down the forest path, back towards town, the warmth in his heart lighting giddy through his veins.
A routine is wonderful, but a disruption certainly isn’t a bad thing sometimes.
He’ll be seeing one of his boys soon enough, and a grandboy that he hardly ever has a chance to spoil the way he could his cousins. He had to make up for lost time!
Bate hurries his pace as well as his body can take him, and the scenery shifts and blurs and changes as the forest thins and he returns to town. He had to stock up his foodstuffs, first and foremost. He was eating for one, mainly, and he hadn’t a habit of eating too much, but with two extra mouths, one of which was quite the bottomless pit, he had a lot of work to do.
It’s good. Pleasant. Even if the shopkeep gives him an absolutely bewildered look when they witness old Sir Bate with an absolute mountain of food and goods in the cart, Bate is caught up in himself, counting out change, slamming down the extra to tip, taking it all out in hand and talon alike.
The candy store, as well, of course. A hearty helping of snacks for his grandson. He wasn’t sure if Kirby’s favorites had changed, so he simply indulged and grabbed a bit of everything. There would (hopefully) be plenty left over.
The summer festival is a few days away. A celebration for friends and family alike, and Bate wonders through it all just what would be in store this time. What was new this year? The same? It would be busy for certain.
Kirby was going to love the games. And Meta deserved a break from his boy’s antics to enjoy himself. And Bate is going to be right there with them, having fun no matter what they did.
His heart flutters with the thrill of it. It makes him feel thirty years younger. It feels good.
By the time Bate actually has everything he needs in hand - medicine, cleaning supplies, oodles of food and too much candy - the sky is beginning to turn with the setting sun, and he knows he needs to return home in time for rest and food.
The forest is there to greet him as it always is when he makes his rounds back to his abode. The sound of birdsong has given way to the noisy sonorous cries of crickets, frogs, creatures beginning to stir for the night. Where the sun has begun to turn, now the greenery has dulled to near black, and Bate is only able to traverse it all by virtue of sheer rote memory.
The scent of cool pine and wood, the sound of frogs, crickets… How nostalgic.
The forest had been here since before Bate could remember, and had been here well before anyone else could remember either. It was a fixture of town, their culture, in some way. Where the shrine was kept, and overall a place of peace. Where people came and went, the forest remained. Simply changed.
He could remember as if it were yesterday Ellie at his side, talking on and on about their plans for that evening, the following day. Gordon and he on a slow amble back from the bar, going nowhere at all in their stupor, silly secrets whispered in the evening dark before he tripped on a hidden root. Their wives would have flailed them when they saw them the next day.
Meta and Arthur, so little back then, chasing each other with sticks as their teacher called after them not to wander far! Distant, distracted replies - we woooon’t! - promptly forgotten in three seconds. Sometimes the others would join as well - a camp-out or some field trip beyond the periphery.
He remembered being so exhausted by those little rascals. Now, Bate can only miss it. What was. How things were. The forest always inspired that kind of sorrow, in its way. In all of Kalmari’s residents.
He is happy his children and students have young ones of their own, lives of their own. Life goes on. It’s good that things turned out this way. He is too lucky to not be grateful.
But.
…
Well. The summer festival can’t come soon enough.
By the time Bate finally arrives within eye distance of his home, most of the sun’s light has left the sky, leaving it a calm blue black that threatens to swallow the world whole into the dark. Everything is just barely visible, and Bate has lived here long enough to navigate the path blind, and so he isn’t worried about tripping so much as he is about–
The lights are on.
Within his house.
Bate had not left the lights on when he left. He never does.
He stares, uncomprehending, at the sight of his quaint house illuminated by glowing windows keeping the night away. Wrapping his head about it.
It’s hardly a threat of any sort - there had been no threats here for years, and this side of Kalmari was as safe as any other. It was just that…
Someone, some way or another, had decided simply to…visit and await his arrival. There could be no other reason. Which meant he had guests.
Oh stars. He had guests.
Bate speeds up his pace as well as his aging body will allow, fighting through the aching in his joints and the struggle in his breathing. He uses his cane to anchor himself and flutters his wings just barely as if it would offer any speed at all, burdened with groceries and age as they were. Anything to get there any faster.
It wasn’t an emergency. Hopefully not. But to have guests at this hour when he was woefully unprepared was terribly embarrassing, and the mark of a bad host on his end. Who would even be here this late? Arthur couldn’t. Falspar? Why? Surely not to just catch up.
Who? Why?
The thoughts are a clamor in his mind as Bate reaches the door of his home faster than he has in farther he can remember. There is the sound of…chatter, maybe, on the other side, but he can’t quite make it out. Young. One of the grandchildren?
He opens the door.
“Hi, grandpa Bate! Where ya been!”
And.
Who all to look at him, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, but Kirby, right there on the couch.
Bate blinks for a moment. And blinks again.
Kirby waves with a cheeky grin on his face, a red crayon in his hand. “Surprise! We got here early! Cool, huh!” There’s a coloring book in front of him half scribbled in. He has, evidently, been here for awhile.
Bate takes a good three long steps over and scoops the boy right into his arms without any fanfare at all, cane dropping to the floor with a weak clatter. Kirby, ever go with the flow, goes right into it with a peal of laughter, squeezing back into the hug that threatens to smother him.
“You–” Bate tries for words and can find none. Why? How? How long? What? What? “Kirby, I’m– It’s so good to see you, my boy! I missed you so much!”
He’d missed this, having one of his grandchildren to coddle and spoil; had missed having Kirby around to dote on. He’d missed–
He’d missed this.
Bate ignores the pointed little sting of something in his eyes and just savors, hugging the boy close, listening to him giggle and hug back with a kick of feet that Bate doesn’t mind at all. He’d be happy to stay there the rest of the night, if only–
“Teacher?”
Bate looks up.
Meta, sans his armored mask, steps through from the kitchen area with a small plate of fruit and a drink in his hands, a soft frown of idle concern on his face. And well he should, Bate is starting to realize.
Everything aches.
His wings ache from holding groceries and the effort to use them earlier had not helped. And now, without his cane, standing still and regaining his breath, everything in him feels a bit…wobbly.
“You should probably sit down. You don’t, uh. Look good.”
“...Yes, I probably should.”
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It takes no time to get settled in, thankfully.
With Meta now making himself a guest in his home, all of Bate’s daily chores are snapped up in hardly half an hour with no effort on his part. Meta takes the groceries, sorts them out into their proper places - “Teacher, you need to stock up more. Teacher, what is all this candy for? Don’t give me that look!” - and Bate hardly needs to do anything but get settled at the kitchen table and allow Kirby the run of their conversation.
Kirby, who is always so full of words, so much akin to Tula and yet somehow more precocious. A shining star of energy that takes every second to fill Bate in what they had been doing since before they came.
Bate is more than happy to save his words for later, allowing his family to fill him in as they both please, nodding and asking a clarifying question here or there if just to hear them continue on. Nova, he can still hardly believe that they’re here, in his house, at this second.
Having someone to talk to, a youngster to fill the air, a son to help him out occasionally, it warms his heart and his home immensely. The tea, when Meta offers it, is savored - not so different from how he himself makes it, but cherished nonetheless. He couldn’t ever be more grateful.
And Kes, he asks? South Nova, is the reply. She’d tried to visit, but this weather was no good for an Ice Leo. She sends her regards though, and really wants to meet personally very soon.
Bate seconds the sentiment. She reminds him, he thinks, of some of his old compatriots in the army, and is a stalwart figure for their family. Bate admires her greatly.
But eventually, things have to wind down. He isn’t sure how much time passes before Kirby finally lets out a yawn and sags over the kitchen table, his fruit plate long polished clean.
“Time for bed,” Meta says with finality, and Bate chuckles when he hears the boy let out a grumbling protest as he gets picked up. “Tell your grandpa goodnight.”
“G’night, grandpa. Love yoooouuu…”
“I love you too, grandson. You’ll have a great day tomorrow, so go ahead and rest up!”
A few minutes later, Meta returns from the guest room sans one child, and Bate takes the opportunity to let out a sigh and undo the pauldrons attached to his shoulders. Large things, they were, and each day they seemed to weigh just a little heavier.
It’s a great relief to have them off, and they fall to the floor with a clatter that Bate winces at. “Sorry.”
“It’s fine. Kirby sleeps like the dead once he’s out. I got it.”
Meta reaches down to pick them up before Bate has the chance, and again he finds himself thanking the stars that Meta and his boy are here. To have company - and help - couldn’t make him more grateful. He missed them.
“You can’t forget your medication, Teacher. If I’d known you had been to the pharmacy before you came home I would have put it up.”
What? Ah. Meta holds up a familiar bag of medicine in his hand, looking fondly exasperated, and Bate gives an apologetic chuckle.
“My apologies there. I’d gotten so excited to see you two that I must have forgotten!” He takes the bag with a nod and thumbs over the label as Meta shuffles off briefly to replace his armor back in the living room.
He’d practically forgotten earlier that morning.
“You know,” He mutters, and Meta catches him as he comes back in earshot. “Miss Mira, the pharmacist - you recall her, yes? - I believe maybe she has some of her orders out of turn.”
“How so? Did she forget to give you something?”
“Well, no! No, not that I can recall. Everything is here, exactly as I always get it. But something odd happened today, and it does make me wonder.”
Meta takes his seat across from Bate at the kitchen table and pours him another cup of tea. Bate glances at him, then back down to the bag, and gives him a small shrug.
“Uh huh?” Meta prompts eventually. “What happened?” Because sometimes his teacher did need a bit of prompting to know when he needed to speak. It happened.
“Well, it’s just that, as I recall, Mira had asked if I were available tonight! And to my knowledge she doesn’t usually work quite so late.”
Bate doesn’t look up from where he stares at his prescription label.
It’s a neat thing, tidy, printed by computer and stapled with precision to the bag, detailing who it was for, its contents, the date of his next refill. In all his years at the pharmacy, Mira’s efficiency had never once waned. Quite impressive.
“Do pharmacists give out late orders? But then again, Mira was quite busy at the time, and I had been holding her up.” Bate snorts and shakes his head. “Honestly, it’s probably nothing. Just seemed strange for her to get muddled up like tha– why are you staring at me.”
Meta looks suddenly very, very interested.
It isn’t even so much that Meta is staring at him that pegs him as odd. It’s moreso that Meta is staring at him in a way that Kirby or Tula or even Meta as a child might ought to; there’s a bit of a smirk on his face that says something, a glint in amber eyes that tells something is up, and Bate would be hard pressed to find out what unless he managed to force the issue.
Meta has certainly grown into a fine adult. But then, now, why does he look at his teacher as though mischief were afoot like a sneaky little child?
---------------------------
And why does Meta’s teacher look so flabbergasted by something so obvious?
Meta had never been the most keen child growing up. That title went more to Arthur, or maybe Nonsurat. But he wasn’t outright a bag of rocks, and he could pick up some cues when they were given.
Teacher always got these looks, sometimes, when they were out and about. When he was younger, Meta had just figured others thought they were all weird and left it at that.
But teenager Meta, he figured things out. He knew better. Teacher apparently wasn’t that bad of a catch to some people. Little silly flirting words with double meanings, awkward offers to go somewhere next week. Little glances, hoping to be noticed.
Teacher would never notice any of them. Sharp as a whip when it came to combat and flight but emotions? No thanks. Teacher had only realized something was wrong when Meta broke into crying fits or temper tantrums, just because it was so obvious and he had to. He never was good at the more subtle stuff.
This, though. This wasn’t subtle at all. And man, did he feel bad for poor Mira.
“It sounds more like she wanted to spend some time with you, Teacher.” He tries, very hard, to keep his tone calm and level, but the amusement bleeds through anyway. “Nobody gives medicine out that late.”
“We already do that, though, every month. Our conversations are quite nice.”
Oh boy. Yeah, poor Mira indeed. “No, I mean–”
Meta takes a quick breath. “There’s a difference between dropping by for your medicine and having a quick chat with your pharmacist versus, I dunno…going out to eat somewhere? Taking walks through the forest at night? Meeting up in town for drinks, just because you can?”
“Yes…?”
“...Going out somewhere at night? The way friends, partners, married couples do? Like what Mira is asking?”
Meta doesn’t want to spell it out for him. This should honestly have been kept more between his teacher and Mira - he really didn’t want to intrude. But stars, what was there to intrude on when his teacher didn’t get it?
But he watches, for a second, because Bate doesn’t respond. He just stares down at his medicine, drink halfway to his lips, and Meta knows, then, that the blanks are starting to fill in.
“Teacher?”
Bate’s cup goes clattering to the table.
-The End-
Artist Comment:
September 25, 2023
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September 25, 2023
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This is a continuation to this illustration and literature below~ ^-^
Bate finally, FINALLY understands what Mira was trying to ask him. (With the help of Meta, of course!) No way Bate would have understood Mira's little gesture. The boy is just too oblivious for his own good, seeing as he missed a LOT of subtle little hints from others in town over the years. XDDD
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The amazing literature written for this illustration was commissioned by my good friend, Dogblog. (dA- Shadowrealmprincess) ^v^
Species © Nintendo/ HAL Laboratory
Interpreted characters created from said species © Rhylem
Interpreted characters created from said species © Rhylem
