Cleaning Out the Closet

Zora lowered her gaze for a moment as she let his words sink in, and then looked directly and with compassion, and yes, gratitude at Frederick. It was without a doubt very sweet that he had been taking into consideration how she might react or feel if he spoke about Broen.

"He was your son too, Frederick, and you have every right to mention or talk about him," she told him. "I do appreciate what you are doing, but honestly, any little thing can set me off, and sometimes, it's not even anything directly related to him," she confessed as she brushed a piece of her hair that had fallen in her eyes, out of her face.

"You know as well as I do that Broen often danced to his own tune and did things his way," she told Frederick as she closed her eyes for a moment, and then opened them, staring calmly at him with pained sadness as she spoke, "I suspect it would not have mattered if you had started when he was younger or when you did. He simply did not want to be a superhero, and I honestly doubt you could have ever changed that." she stated sadly.

"Don't worry about it," Zora said with a small smile as she waved off his apology for using the "f" word. She was quite used to questionable language, heck, compared to his son's, Frederick was almost a saint language-wise.

"I get it. Father like son, carrying on family traditions, legacies. That is very much the background I come from. In fact, the next patriarch of the Del Bosque clan should probably be my son now. But I don't see him carrying on the business side, empire or doing whatever is necessary to protect the family ... and so, I will probably assume that role at some point," she said with a sigh, not sure she really wanted it, or was even capable enough.

"The thing is, Broen is, was, "she corrected herself and winced as she did at the lapse of remembrance, "not like you, and I am guessing not like his grandfathers before him. And probably never wanted to save the world. And that is not a failing on your part," she said. "You were just different, and you cannot force someone to be something they aren't."

"You didn't break anything. It simply came to a natural progression. Odds were that someone in the line would not want the mantle," she very simply pointed out, not wanting to enter into things that did not matter anymore, nor would change anything. Zora knew what had transpired between Frederick and his son, and while she did not agree with how things were handled, she slowly began to get a glimpse of Frederick's side, and could understand the pressure to carry on the legacy.

"And Broen, well, he was stubborn, and self-willed at times. I am sure he became a supervillain in part because he wanted to prove that he would be a bad hero," she guessed, not entirely sure if that was the case or not, but she could see Broen doing something like that.

"I don't quite think that's true," Zora said gently as she followed suit and sat down in a chair, also feeling tired once again.

"I don't know much about Broen before he came to the island, so I can't say if he did things out of spite or not," she started as she looked at Frederick hesitantly, not sure where to even begin. "But I can tell you that the Broen I first met was not the Broen I came to love," she told him.

"The Broen, I first met was cold, unfeeling, a hollow shell of sorts. I often felt like he just barely liked or respected me," she admitted quietly as she looked back on things. "He was in many ways what you might think of when you think of a villain, like he was only in it for himself."

"However, that was not really true, he looked out for me, protected me and always made sure I was safe, and in the end sacrificed himself for me at the cost of losing his abilities and potentially his life," she explained softly, staring at the wall as she talked, her voice full of emotion as she tried not to cry.

"There was something extremely evil hiding in your son, Frederick, I felt it leave him when he was mortally wounded trying to save me and my employees..." she said looking at him starkly, tears in her eyes.

"I cannot say what he did to you was out of spite, because I truly do not know, but I can tell you that something bad happened to him back in Halcyon, something that caused him to act horribly to people and to do horrible things," she said, remembering that evil presence again and shivering.

"I honestly don't know about that," she said, shaking her head helplessly, "I can only tell you my side of the story, and what I experienced," she confessed tiredly.

"Although, I can assure you that something, a dark presence, lurked inside of him, and when it left him, Broen slowly became a different person - not radically different mind you - but, it was as if a switch had been flipped and that hollowness was gone," she stated, not sure if she was making sense or not anymore.

"And perhaps you didn't see it because maybe it happened after he left home?" she suggested with some uncertainty, now trying to remember what Jude had told her, but found her overtired mind was not sure anymore of the timeline. For all she knew, it started while he was at home, and it was the reason he left. Though she had a niggling feeling that was not right either. She was pretty sureBroen had left because he didn't want to be around his father anymore.