Emery

We had been home for a couple weeks before normalcy seemed to return. Admittedly, things were different with more kids around, but it wasn't necessarily bad.

After Kord, Enrik, Briar, and Karn ended up looking for bedtime support a few nights in a row without deviation, we decided to push a few of the beds together in the master bedroom and all collectively sleep in there, Cierra and Stena included. It wasn't perfect, but it worked out for the best and helped all the kids get solid nights of sleep, mostly.

There was still the occasional nightmare or general discomfort, but it was still better than everyone waking up and running to a different room. Instead, the kids would just sit up, look around, then burrow into the blankets.

Awkwardly, as the kids started to sleep a little bit better, Avuri and I got worse. With the kids in the room, we couldn't cultivate, which worked somewhat in our favor. Like with the kids, the lack of any immediate issues let our regrets stew and then spill out over the quieter nights.

I still couldn't reconcile with what had happened to Luin. My feelings on the matter were a complicated mess of would haves, could haves, and should haves. Had we known how weak the enemies were, we could have easily stepped in and saved him. We should have been more careful. We should have been more direct. The thoughts regularly conflicted with one another, but all ended in a regret I couldn't shake.

Then there was the incident in Resin. Neither of us had expected the people of an outpost town to react so violently, let alone so quickly. It was a similarly fertile field for regrets to grow, between the choice we made to leave them alone and go shopping together, the way the entire standoff in the street went, and the injuries our side received.

In the same way our emotions fed off one another on the trip back, any time we were stuck in our emotional mire at night, it was a difficult cycle to break. It got to the point where we felt lucky when one of the kids woke up from a nightmare, because caring for them was a welcome distraction. And that made us both feel worse afterward, too.

On top of that, Avuri was reckoning with her own feelings of rage because of Resin. She had kept a cooler head between the two of us when we were in the city and escaping, but when we were alone, she said she sometimes regretted doing nothing. At the time, she knew she needed to remain calm because I wouldn't, so she had actively done her best to look at things rationally during the incident.

Now, weeks later, she found that a small seed of rage had blossomed into something like regret over just leaving the town. When we were connected, it felt a little strange to suddenly feel a surge of indignant anger surge over the connection while we were both struggling with despair, but it often stoked a similar fire in me.

One night, Avuri had even asked me outright if I had killed the guard as we left. I had, and told her the truth. I could see a sliver of satisfaction in her expression in response, which likely ended up feeding into her desire for a retribution we had walked away from at the time.

That night, I had worried about the effect I had on Avuri, and whether I was turning someone who had somehow managed to become such a loving person despite her awful family into a dangerous avenger.

On the following night, she broke down again, muttering to herself about how we should have done something then. But that night, I noticed that she was holding Briar, who was rubbing her head in her sleep, right on the same spot that she had gotten hit with the rock.

The sight was enough to blow away some of the anguish that had been clouding my head as well, and I decided we needed to do something to offload some of the emotional weight we had taken on before it crushed us. The worst part of it was that I knew, despite my first instinct of wanting to help, that helping each other was probably not going to work this time. We could soothe each other's hurts all we wanted, but with the way our emotions were so entangled, I didn't think we'd be able to work through any complicated emotions together.

We needed a third party.

I spoke to Vale about it the next morning, and he offered to be our sounding board. While Avuri was initially hesitant to have such serious talks with her father-in-law, I was able to convince her to talk to him with me first.

Despite Vale's typical jovialness and friendly attitude, I knew that he could take things seriously when the situation called for it, and not only in a 'I will torch you and everything you love' kind of way. He was genuinely a good listener and an emotional support when he wanted to be, something I had learned over and over again growing up.

While I hadn't needed his support quite that way in a while, I knew he would be there for me. And for Avuri, too, if she allowed it.

Our first talk was a blur. A messy, crying mess of a blur. Avuri and I had let the kids out to play in the barn so we could be "alone". Vale was using his Qi to keep an eye on them while Avuri and I both completely shuttered ourselves to cut off our link and try to keep our feelings separate as best we could. Emotions often triggered Qi to leak, which would likely cause a complex mess of emotions between us as usual, but every bit helped.

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While Avuri sat away from me and just listened to our discussion, things devolved pretty quickly into tears. Vale helped me talk through some of my regrets, all of which Avuri had already felt deeply because of our link. While that first talk didn't resolve anything, it did convince Avuri to talk with Vale about her own feelings.

Over the next few days, we were both having a daily chat with my father, completely separate. While it wasn't an immediate offload of all of our emotional baggage, it did help us both process things. Even in just a couple days, we were at least able to make it through most nights without any sort of emotional turmoil. It may not have been an immediate fix for everything, but it was an immediate bandage that helped avoid any further infection or festering.

However, more importantly to the two of us, it helped us both be fully present and functional for Stena, whose "birthday" was quickly approaching.

It was something that we had discussed at length as a family. Because the girls didn't know when their birthdays actually were and we had no way to really find out, we chose to celebrate their birthdays on the days we adopted them.

For Stena, three weeks to the day after we returned with her new younger siblings, it would be three years since we had adopted her. And she was counting down the days to her celebration.

Our family, being what it was, hadn't planned on throwing any sort of large party. However, Avuri and I had planned to let Stena pick basically everything that happened during her day. She had free reign of meal choices and activities - within reason of course.

Two days before her birthday, our plans had been finally decided. We'd make eggs and rice for breakfast, then take her into the city. Vale had agreed to stay home with everyone else while we were gone, and the other kids all seemed to be perfectly happy with that, which was a massive relief.

Stena wanted to go shopping with us alone, stop by Lyn's for an early dinner, then return with us for a bath, also just with us.

Avuri and I could hardly say no to any of those requests, so we solidified plans. Vale was able to get word over to Lyn and Cyril, both of whom were more than happy to make a big celebration feast for Stena. Lyn even promised that she wouldn't charge us too much for it.

That night, two nights before Stena's birthday, was the first one since we had returned that everyone slept all the way through the night. It was fitful sleep for the youngest four, but none of them woke up with nightmares or terrified faces. The worst of it was Karn, who was crying in his sleep over something, but he never woke up.

It was also, by a huge margin, the best night Avuri and I had had in weeks. We kept our connection open and strong, but nothing negative flowed between us. Instead, we spent most of the night cuddled next to each other in the middle of the bed, pleasantly leaned on one another with our arms entwined. We didn't say much of anything, just enjoying the company that our regrets had kept jailed for weeks.

That morning, when we all got up a little while after sunrise, the mood among the family was the best it had been since we returned. I had been down and in the kitchen preparing some simple bread and fruit jams for breakfast before it dawned on me how normal everything finally felt.

I could hear everyone at the table, chatting away happily while waiting for the food. When I carried out the massive wooden platter that had three different loaves of bread, already sliced, six bowls of different fruit jams and jellies, plus butter and cheese, everyone stood to see what was actually on the platter. Enrik, Briar, and Stena had even stood on their chairs to get a visual.

"Wow. Fresh jam always smells so delicious." Avuri said.

"Well, since I know we're having a big egg breakfast tomorrow, I felt like I shouldn't include them today, so - hey, careful!" I had to quickly craft a Qi-metal plate in front of Stena to stop her from falling off her chair, as she leaned too far forward to try to see the spread.

She looked properly apologetic when she said, "Sorry…" and sat back down.

"I'm putting it all on the table anyway, just hold on for five more seconds." I said.

"You even went for multiple types of bread?" Vale asked, surprised. "Are you sure there's no occasion today?"

I shook my head as everyone started snatching up their choices of bread and fighting over the jams. "Nothing more than two of those loaves being a little older. That one is a rice flour bread that we haven't eaten much of so I wanted to use it, and that one is a sweet bread that also never gets eaten."

"Well, no one here has much of a sweet tooth besides Cierra." Avuri shrugged. "Well. And me, occasionally."

"That might be changing." I said, noting that both Karn and Enrik both opted for the sweet bread, while Briar took some of the rice bread. "We're going to have to adjust our shopping habits, I think…"

"Agreed."

"Speaking from experience," Vale cut in, trying to talk over the kids passing the various jams back and forth, "you'll want to avoid getting too settled on any particular pattern until you really learn everyone's tastes."

"I know, Dad." I said, rolling my eyes dramatically. "It'll take a little getting used to. I think we're going to need to ramp up our potential options, since we probably can't get away with just making lots of egg and chicken dishes everyday anymore."

"But I want chicken!" Stena said through a mouthful of bread and berry jam.

Avuri chuckled. "I know, sweetie. And we'll still make plenty of chicken, but it won't be almost everyday anymore, that's all."

Stena looked somewhere between angry and upset, then glanced down at her bread. She neatly put it down on her plate before harrumphing and crossing her arms, distinctly grumpy.

I smiled at that; she was really just too cute. "Don't worry, Stena. We'll make sure that when we go to the Celestial Dragon, Lyn and Cyril cook some good chicken dishes for you.

That seemed to do the trick as her eyes lit up. "Really?"

"Of course. It's your day, after all." I confirmed.

Satisfied, she pulled her chair in a little closer to the table, snatched up her piece of bread once more, and munched away.

"Stena, you're getting jam all over your face…" Avuri sighed. "Enrik, you did too."

I couldn't help but let my smile grow as I watched Avuri go into full Mom-mode, making a few quick gestures with her hands to fling water around and clean off the kids' faces. I had to admit, it was a much better cleaning system than trying to wipe them off with napkins.

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