papaoutai [Horus]

It was a beautiful day. Sure, to Emma is a bit too sunny, but it was warm and the humidity suited her a lot better than a total absence of it. She kept the windows wide open to let the gentle breeze from the lapping ocean waves come in, but otherwise she had decided to spend most of the day inside if she could help it. She was happy enough with her human form, and it was certain something she had learned to live with hundreds and hundreds of years ago. However, her pale skin was still prone to burning if she stayed out on a bright day for too long. Thank god for the human invention of sunscreen.

Luca had already returned home for the day. It had been the only point in which Emma had stepped foot outside of their home. She adored her son and enjoyed seeing his smiling face hurry out the school doors. However, she was mildly irritated that it was her that had to be the one to pick him up that day and for a whole week before. His father normally did better than that.

Ulrich. Ulrich. Maybe he deserved more credit for taking fatherhood better than she expected, but some years of good parenting couldn’t erase hundreds of years of unreasonable dislike. Her trust in him was slow to build. He might have been the wiser ruler for dividing his time more evenly between land and sea, but she would never dare admit something like that. No, she would rather slowly let the anger grow within her when he took particularly long absences away from Luca. She may have disliked Ulrich, but her love for her son trumped that notion.

When the disappointed child asked where his father was after so many days, all Emma could do was give him a kiss on the forehead and assure him that he would visit soon. And oh, it needed to be soon. She would whisper some archaic curse under her breath as soon as Luca ran off to play somewhere.

She was just putting dinner in the oven when she heard the knock on the door. It was weird how one could predict exactly who it was from footsteps or a knock. If she was in a worse mood she probably would have just sat down and left him to knock a bit longer. However, she was going to try to handle the matter more patiently than that. Somehow. Emma held her chin high when she walked to the door, and crossed her arms as soon as the door was opened.

"Well. Look what the tide pulled in today."

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His response did not surprise her. It wasn’t the very first time he had done this and it was easier not to argue with her. Even her own people, or even perhaps her own people more than anyone, learned quickly that arguing with her over any matter was futile. She had a certain stubborn way of being able to go on and on about something when she felt she was in the right to do so.

Thankfully for Ulrich, this was not exactly an argument. No, it wasn’t an argument until he tried to disagree with her logic, and for now he was taking the safe route by immediately asking where his son was as if he hadn’t been gone for a week.

"Oh, you know. In the same place he’s been all week, playing in his room and wondering where you are," she responded, arms still crossed as she eyed the man. Emma could have invented at least ten good reasons just in that moment for why she wasn’t going to allow him into her home. However, she was still at least trying to remain patient. He deserved a chance to explain himself even if she imagined it was likely going to just be some royal business.

She stepped to the side so that he could come in if he wanted to. It was cooler in the house than it was on the beach. As vividly as she could imagine him just shriveling away on her porch, she wasn’t entirely heartless. That would be a harder thing to explain to Luca than just telling him that his father was busy. "He’s been asking for you. It wouldn’t kill you to give some warning if you’re going to be gone for so many days, would it?"

Maybe it would. Maybe that was his weakness. Hm.

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Another expected answer. All Emma could do was give a heavy sigh in response. Official business. Right. For all she cared, Ulrich could take his official business and shove it down his own throat, but she was holding her tongue. There would be plenty of other opportunities to scold him in the future, she was certain. For now, though, Luca was too close by to start any unnecessary arguments and she preferred not to fight too much in front of him. The older he got, the more he caught on to the situation. But they didn’t need to make their disagreements about him. She didn’t want her son getting the wrong idea.

For now, she let Ulrich enter, gently shutting the screened door behind him. Then it was back to the kitchen to make sure dinner wasn’t burning. She was happy enough to eat raw fish all day everyday, but Luca was a growing boy and she wanted to create the illusion of some normality in their current setting. You couldn’t raise a male living on an island on fish alone when he spent a lot of his time with humans and humanoids. She wasn’t going to go so far as to send him to school wish lunchables, but sending him off with leftover tuna casserole seemed to make him feel more comfortable around his peers than sending him off with a few uncooked fish. It was trial and error with the boy in school, but she learned to at least cut up the fish when she sent it raw.

Dinners were a toss up, but that evening she was baking clams with some random veggies in the oven. She peered into oven’s small window to make sure everything looked fine so far, and even smiled to herself with some satisfaction at the smell. It was amazing how easy it was to prepare a good meal by just tossing some stuff into a pan and heating it up.

The only thing hat broke her concentration was the sudden shriek of her son. Her heart nearly stopped at the sound. She didn’t hesitate as a million worst case scenarios played out in a montage in her mind. No, she immediately grabbed a cast iron frying pan from a hanging rack and bolted up the stairs.

"Ulrich—!!" Emma whipped into the doorway with a fury that many a sailor had seen before their last breaths. And then she immediately sunk into relief at the sight of her son breaking out into giggles of joy. Oh god, maybe the two were secretly teaming up to put her in an early watery grave. She knew it.

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