Busy

The period of where I didn't want to get up to do anything lasted about a week. I had to thank nana in a away for forcing me to think about how little time Maldor had left. The constant thoughts had prompted me to call him as much as I could before the inevitable happened. That inevitable was bad enough, but what really brought me down was how quickly Naldir had followed. I hadn't even been aware that he had been sick. Apparently, his wife and children hadn't wanted to worry me. None of them expected his illness to take his life so suddenly. But it had. I had lost two sons within a span of several days, and there was little anyone could do to cheer me up. It wasn't as if cheering me up was possible anyway. I wondered if I had ever been truly cheerful since Elrunamir's passing. I might have thought I was happy, but there was that pain always underneath. It was endless and deep, and it only grew more so with each day that sped by. The number of children left to grant me temporary joy was rapidly dwindling while the number of deaths that caused my heartache mounted ever higher.

It was sheer guilt that got me out of bed once that week was past. Just like I hadn't been able to be selfish for so long, I couldn't be selfish now. My time to wallow in my pity and depression would be once my children had all been lost. Until then, I had to continued to be the supportive mother they needed. I did what I could to gather my strength once again so I could go on my way as normally as possible. That the children were so happy themselves made things a bit easier. Maldor and Naldir were really only names to them as had the rest of their older siblings who had passed were. They were able to move on quickly with ease.

I found myself watching Celendel the most. His choice of clothing was such a drastic opposite from how he truly acted. More than Cugu, he was the one outside raking the leaves so he could jump in them and play with them like a younger child would. He was the one who played with the tiny chicks every morning. You wouldn't think he was steadily nearing graduation at all from his everyday behavior.

I didn't know what to feel when I could confirm my pregnancy. I was torn between being excited over the new little life and dreading bringing into the world another child I could only lose. To cope, I pretty much locked myself in the nursery to play with Abrien and Anawen to avoid slinking off to my bedroom. It was comforting to be with the young ones instead of, say, calling Ranna and hearing how tired and soft her voice had grown.

She had plenty of energy at the feast party we threw, which was reliving to see. I hoped a miracle would occur and that she could indeed live at least until her youngest graduated school. Ranna naturally didn't want to talk about such things at the party though. She kept everyone entertained by telling old stories of what right terrors Aewen, Alcarien, Delerith, and Delindir had been when they were toddlers. They were stories I had never told before, so after a while light blushes appeared on my two sets of twins' face due to the relatively high level of embarrassment each story caused. The four of them laughed along with everyone else though. It was a right good time, and the fridge was stocked full of good food for the days to come.

Cugu began pestering me for a pet. He had gone over to a friend's house and had met their dog. He then became obsessed with having an animal to call his own as well. I did what I typically did when my child wanted a pet, but I did not want to have a cat or dog running about. I took Cugu to the pet store, and we found a pygmy komodo dragon that he became enthralled with. Cugu took inspirations from his new friend's species, and named his pet PK. His case was more expensive than I would have liked. However, PK was kept upstairs where he would never get underfoot like Ral had done, so I was happy to spend the extra bit of money.

We managed to take all the leaves surrounding our house before winter hit for once. It helped that there were far fewer trees in the yard. Isebrilia was the first one to notice when the snow began to fall. She rushed outside so eagerly that she forgot to grab any sort of coat or jacket. I'm sure she would have stood out in that cold air forever if I had not eventually ushered her back inside a few minutes later to get the proper outdoors clothes on. I would rather her siblings' have her attitude about the change though. Celendel and Cugu barely glanced up from their video games to see the snow.

Then the amount of snow grew quickly, and it was all I ever heard about. That was because most of what was said was complaining. Probably one of the lone days when I didn't hear any muttering about the inconvenience of the season was when it snowed so much that school was cancelled. There had been a nasty storm that had raged all night until well into the morning. The air began crisp and clear once late morning hit though. The children wanted to go to the winter festival. I originally planned to take them, but I told nana she should take them instead. I was going out and doing things and making her babysit far too often for my liking. She never said anything about minding, but I could tell she was ecstatic about getting to make that trip. I heard when everyone got back that they spent most of the time ice skating.

In the end, it had been a very good thing that I had let nana be the chaperone. I had not been known as "the woman who went into labor at the festival" for centuries, and I was determined to keep it that way. If I had gone, I would have had to take on the title I did not want. The daughter I was carrying chose to start coming perhaps only half an hour after nana and the others left. Blessedly, Abrien and Anawen were taking their naps. It was only the crying of my new daughter that woke them up. I was able to get Saviel settled before I went to get them up and ready for the rest of the day again.

After that, it was birthday after birthday. My head was spinning at the end of it all. There was also a lot of cake packed away in the fridge. The first birthday was Anawen's. I laughed when she took immediate fascination to the spar easel. I joked to nana that nana must have done something to influence my children. Ever since she had come, more and more of my children had instinctual interest and talent in art. Nana simply laughed along with me. Anawen quickly became her new pupil.

Isebrilia's talent was in a different sort of art. She loved all sorts of music, and studied whatever she could about it. For a week she was playing non-stop on my violin. Then she was on the piano. The week after that was the karaoke machine. The cycle then repeated itself.

There was one brief interlude where I did not have a celebration to plan. Unfortunately, I got no rest seeing as something was breaking in the upstairs bathroom on an almost daily basis. I was constantly busy repairing it all. It started with the tub, went to the toilet, passed on to the shower, and then jumped over to the next shower. I started to think I should have took up a job as a repair-woman a long time ago.

Thankfully, things stopped breaking long enough for me to concentrate fully on Celendel and Celenia's birthday. Their was the most bittersweet of all the recent ones due to them graduating school, but more importantly their birthday was most likely the last transition to adulthood I would get to see happen to set of twins of mine. Both Celendel and Celenia had firm paths in mind for the rest of their lives. Celendel had been so inspired by that one acrobat he saw that he decided that he wanted to be an acrobat as well. Celenia wanted to continue designing clothes and dressing others up, but she also wanted to expand her skills to redoing the decoration of houses.

They spent one last night in the house before they moved out the following morning. I noticed nothing strange during the twilight hours, but the dream Celendel told me of after breakfast got my heart pounding. He talked of a strange pull that led him outside. There were bright lights, a blinding flash, and nothing in his memories between then and when he woke up in his bed what seemed like an hour later. Celendel truly passed it off as a dream. I naturally couldn't do the same. I wanted to believe my son had really only had a coincidental dream, but the similarities between his experience and my own was too great to really be denied.

I kept an eye open for any undesirables about for a while, but the strangers from above were silent. As always, there remained no signs that they had ever been around in the first place. I had little choice but to push forward as if all was well. Celendel showed no negative symptoms from his possible taking, so there was little for me to linger on. Saviel's birthday was already upon me, and that was what I had to focus on instead. We decided to use the vast amount of cake we already had to celebrate her birthday instead of getting a whole new one. Saviel aged up with both Leo's hair and eye color in addition to inheriting human ears. Like Abrien, she had a strong attraction to the color pink. She would throw a fit if I tried to dress her in something different.

Snowflake Day fell on an awkward spot this year considering it landed right in the middle of the week. That wasn't going to stop me from making the annual gift giving party I threw a great event. The family needed the good time together. Marty had passed away shortly after Saviel's birthday, which was of course causing the vast majority of us to grieve. His passing meant I had to worry even more about Ranna as well. The party was a great deal of fun though. Even Ranna and her and Marty's triplets were laughing right along with the rest of us. It was then reliving that no one thought to try and sneak any trick presents in. Everyone got something good. More than getting what I already had, perhaps the best gift I got was the realization that all of the birthdays having kept me so busy had made winter fly by so rapidly. The season was almost done, and warmer weather was on the horizon.

In fact, it didn't take long at all for the snow to disappear. It was only a few weeks later when I could go to the community garden without a coat. The plants were still dormant, but I liked going there because it was quiet, had good atmosphere, and had plenty of comfortable seats where I could read a book in peace.

Much like how I had requested to Delerith to nonchalantly spy on Ranna for me, I gave the task to Anawen instead. She had been spending a lot of time over at her sister's house anyway. Anawen was good friends with her nephews and niece, and they liked doing homework together. She would have been over there anyway. The extra treat I allowed her to have when she got home was simply an added bonus.

I tried to delay again on what was required of me, but I discovered that I just couldn't do it. I had built up momentum. If I stopped for too long, I would never be able to start again. The advice ada had given me the first time I had prolonged my waiting period wouldn't work a second time. There was either going forward or failing when I was so close.

The man picked to help me conceive my 98th child went by the name of Mr. Mully Orchid. He was one of the younger ones, and he entertained me thoroughly. We spent some time getting to know each before we went ahead with business as usual. Mr. Orchid was excited about all the many items I had to keep my children occupied and productive. He was most excited about the karaoke machine. At first, he only sang for singing's sake. Then I believe he attempted to serenade me. All it accomplished was making my side split from laughter at his unfortunate but sweet attempt at being romantic. Mr. Orchid shared in my laughter too though.

Cugu had been around watching him before nana had taken him and the rest of the children out as she always did so Mr. Orchid and I could progress with our day without the little ones running about so close by. He thought Mr. Orchid was amazing in all the ways both Mr. Orchid and myself knew he wasn't. His birthday was the first birthday of spring, and he joined Isebrilia in creating a very pleasing sound that helped to distract me from the truth that I had just gone ahead and conceived my 98th child......