Meadowlark

Chapter 1

Sundays were the worst, and it was Lemoine's fault to begin with. He'd known that disappearing off with a mysterious heir would leave his family upset, so he proclaimed that on that day he'd write letters for updates on his life. Of course, it had been 6 years since he'd been "stolen" and out of the thousands of drafts he'd written, he'd only sent around 20 of them. He could always do it electronically, but nothing beat the satisfaction of tearing up the paper and balling it up angrily before throwing it in the steadily growing pile of discarded messages that had once been a trash bin. 

He chewed on the back of his pencil, and decided that the 10th attempt he'd write that morning would be for Bellamy:

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Dear Mother,

I hope you're well. I've been thinking about you. Have you decided to move on from...

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Nope.

That didn't work. It sounded like a demand. He didn't really have much to say to her, because he was getting so much information about what his father's life with his partner had been all this time, but he'd never gotten a single reply from her. Or maybe it was just that the carrier pigeons that his Pascal had sent out for him had been so horribly deformed and deranged that they ate anything that remotely smelled like her, even their own kind if it came to it. Yeah. Maybe. Zeal would train them to do that. 

He scribbled over everything he'd written so far, not even bothering to use an eraser, before hurling it across the room in annoyance.  It was as if the tattoos on his arms sensed this, and glowed under his sleeves, as if testing him. The energy in them was so powerful that it knocked most of the items off his desk and out the open window. It hurt like hell. He wondered how Pascal managed to live with them on a daily basis.

Shit. 

This hadn't been the first time. He'd tried to discreetly search up some tattoo removal, but no matter how many establishments he'd snuck out to go to, they just stuck, as if they were truly imbedded into his flesh. 

Most of the papers had landed in a tree in the courtyard. It was close enough that he could probably reach for them, but the stomping of boots told him that he should probably head down there anyway. Eloise was angry about something, and instead of working it out like most adults, she preferred to take laps, stomping around dramatically and bothering anyone that got in her way. 

Lemoine rolled his eyes, scoffing to himself, before promptly making himself a cup of tea and sauntered outside. It was best to just sit there, staring smugly for a while until she was able to bring herself talk things out. Sometimes it took hours. He flicked the door open and perched on a chair on the far right side, amid piles of flowers that everyone seemed to be allergic to but kept in for sheer laziness. There was also a fountain in the middle of the yard, although it has been taken over by a mob of amphibians. It wasn't too much of an upgrade from where he was living previously, but the caretaker, Pax, hated everyone there and tried to create horrible conditions to force them out. It didn't work. Yet.

Eloise kept going around in circles, making elaborate grunting noises, especially loud when she neared him. She was the type of person to clearly have something on her mind, but say nothing when people actually show concern. Sometimes he felt like he was the mentor, forcing her to choke out the words.

"What's gotten you all agitated this time?" Lemoine said calmly, trying to look disinterested by picking on a scab on his elbow. "I hope it wasn't something I did. I've been trying to give you 5 ice cubes like you've asked, but sometimes they stick together and it gets up to 6, 6 and a half. My bad."