Good Intentions

"Disappointed? In you? No, not at all," Zora stated honestly as she got down on her knees beside Jeremiah. "You haven't disappointed me. I am upset though and shaken; what you did could have killed you," she said as tears welled up in her eyes again.

As Jeremiah spoke, Zora purposefully refrained from pointing out that he was part elf, and who his father was. She suspected that all this had a lot to do with his ease of travel to Svaltalfrheim; and besides, how could she blame him for his youthful arrogance? Hadn't she done something similar by trying to heal herself? And hadn't it backfired, and left her immortal, cursed to see those she loved to die around her?

"Raising the dead is extremely complicated. So very much can go wrong," she told her son, not flinching at all when he brushed her hair out of her face.

"Your grandfather is the strongest mage I know, honey, and I know it's one of those spells he refuses to do anymore... he says it's finicky, and requires very powerful mages to pull it off. Mages as powerful as himself," she explained calmly and simply, her tone devoid of judgment.

"Besides, the Broen you may have brought back, may not have been the Broen who died," she added gently. "What if his soul was incomplete, or corrupted in some way?" she asked as she touched Jeremiah's skull-like "face", while meeting his gaze, the one thing that told her that this creature was definitely her baby boy.

"It sort of does. A little anyways," Zora admitted wanly as she looked at her son, her gaze still full of concern as she blinked away tears again before they started to fill her eyes. Her son might not be in any pain physically, however, she suspected that emotionally he was not in the greatest of places.

"We need, at some point, to let your grandfather and your father know what has happened though," Zora told him as she laid a gentle hand on her son's "arm".

"Alright, then," Zora said, now wondering if she still could contact Matthias. It had been so long since she had even tried. Fear had kept her at first from trying, then as the years passed, she felt oddly guilty about not contacting him sooner and then as her son got older, she had decided that it was probably for the best. He was probably better off without her - or so she had assumed.

"Maybe we can see about crafting a better charm for you?" Zora suggested when her son told her about his problems with his current human charm.

"Heaven knows that between all the witches in this family, someone can craft you something more fitting, or more comfortable, or., or ..something," she remarked, feeling slightly frustrated and lost and with an overwhelming need to want to protect her son, or make things better for him somehow.

Zora smiled a little at his attempt at a joke. She knew he was trying to make light of what had happened, though she suspected it was a laugh or cry thing with her son at the moment.

"You aren't a scary beast, not to me, and you won't be to your family," she assured him as she got to her feet and did the very thing she'd been wanting to do for the last little while - she gave her son a huge hug.

"We won't tell your grandfather or anyone else til you are ready, okay?" she told him as she held him tightly, probably tighter than she meant to as her fear and relief mixed together in an irrational need to make sure somehow that her son was still there and okay.