A/N -- This song was recommended to me by @lillysevillana . It is literally Hench's anthem, I believe. Also, three more days for the contest!
Renna read the name five times. With each time, her heart beat faster and faster. She looked from the parchment up to the large woman who just stared her down. Hench's lip quirked upward for a second. Renna almost didn't believe it, but it was all in the face. She surely wasn't a little girl anymore, but she was Rhalla. Rhalla who, now that Renna really looked at her, resembled Elliot quite a lot.
"You gonna say something?" the older Cricket said. "Or am I gonna have to be forced to say something cheesy and tell you that the furniture was fine where it was to begin with?"
Renna shook her head, more in disbelief than in a definitive answer. Her next word was almost so quiet that Rhalla couldn't hear it. "Cricket?"
Hench uncrossed her arms and answered in her rich accent. "Been hearing that name flying around a lot lately. Have to say I don't go by Cricket too awful much anymore. Don't quite fit the bill, I guess. But aye. Name's Rhalla." She paused. "How you doing, Aunt Renna? It's been a long damned time, hasn't it?"
Still, nothing was said on the other end. Renna just started sniffling and stumbled over to the mighty woman. It was safe to say that the frazzled woman was completely overwhelmed.
Hench chuckled, greatly touched. "Alright. Come on then." She opened her arms. Renna said nothing, just snatched Rhalla's waist with both of her arms and squeezed the breath Hench had been holding right from her lungs. Large arms encircled the old woman as well, though the embrace was both gentler and far less vigorous on Hench's side of things. She couldn't crush her aunt, after all. Rhalla shut her eyes and moved one of her hands up and down Renna's back as Renna just cried openly into her chest. They stood there for ten minutes like that.
When her aunt finally could speak, she managed to choke out. "I... thought... I'd never... see you again. I can't believe... it's actually you." The words were broken up by forceful sobs.
"I know," Hench shushed. "I know."
"I am so sorry," Renna spluttered into her niece's chest. "I should have... watched you better that night.
"Hey, none of that," Rhalla laughed softly, and the low tone of it reverberated through her aunt. "I'm here now. That's all that matters, alright?" Hench pulled Renna to arm's length and her eyes roved over her aunt's splotchy, damp cheeks and trembling body. "Alright?" A large hand wiped away the tears.
Renna met Hench's gaze. "Everything was all my fault. You don't... you don't have to forgive me. I wouldn't forgive me either."
"You're only half right," the mighty woman corrected. "I don't have to forgive you. But only because none of what happened to me was your fault. I ran away from you. But even then," Hench paused, and something clicked in her head for perhaps the first time since her kidnapping. Her next words were more to herself than to Renna. "It was my actions that night that led to my abduction. But you know what? I figure that's not even my fault either. The only ones at fault -the only ones to blame- are the men who took me away." And breakthrough. Hench almost stumbled, as if her new awareness had just come out and physically struck her. Something in this reunion had caused some dark, dusty corner in Rhalla to just heal up.
A light broke through. It was a light that diffused some of the dusk that had been a part of Hench for so long. The pain and the memories were still there bleeding in her chest, to be true. But suddenly, she, for some unfathomable reason, didn't blame herself at all for what happened that night. Because it wasn't her fault.
Her train of though was broken by a soft sensation on her cheek. It was Renna's mouth that kissed her lightly. She moved to the other and kissed it too. Renna's next words were enunciated and tearful. "I have missed you since the moment that you left. Oh my gods, it's really you."
"I've missed you too. More than you can ever know," Hench replied. "And it's me. I'm here now. No one is ever going to take me away again."
Finally, Renna's hiccups let up, and she allowed herself to smile. Bony fingers traced down Hench's arms and swirled with the tattoos. Rhalla squatted so that her aunt might better see her face. As if on cue, Renna's fact-finding touch moved up to brush the floppy hair away from her eyes. Hench felt two of the fingers graze her cheekbones and linger on the set of small, silver spheres in her eyebrow. It was then that Renna clucked her tongue in amicable disapproval, still through her happy tears. "And here I thought we'd raised you better than this. Your dad's going to be rolling over in his grave tonight."
Hench let her lip turn up at the teasing. "I think it looks pretty dangerous, myself."
Renna quickly grabbed up Hench's hands and showed them to her. PAIN. RAGE. Hench read her tattooed fingers. "I think you made your point with these."
"Should've known even the kidnapping wouldn't stop you from cooking my goose," Hench chuckled. "Wanna walk back to the village? Believe it or not, this isn't my favorite spot in the world."
Renna nodded. They walked and kept talking.
"So, you got twenty years to catch up on," Hench pointed out. "You're free to ask anything you want."
"What happened to you?"
Hench quirked her brow. "Meaning?"
"Second Commander," Renna elaborated. "How does the cute little girl I used to know turn into who I'm looking at now?"
"I'm plenty cute," came a joke from Hench. They shared a laugh before the mighty woman went on. "Exercise. Lots of it. But I figure you want a better answer than that, don't you?" She didn't give Renna time to respond. "Eh, when Iris called me bat-shit insane earlier, she wasn't entirely kidding, I guess. I used to be a real piece of work -well, more of a piece of work. You said earlier that Zayn told you what happened to me, is that right?"
Renna went somber. "Yes. He did."
"Every night before I was, eh, sold to the masses, so to speak... they'd do me up in powder and dresses. They'd brush and braid my hair and make me all prim and perfect so I'd be chosen." Hench didn't care to look at Renna's reaction to those words. "I figure once I got out, I kind of went off the deep-end. And once I got out of the stage of being completely crazy, that part still managed to stick with me. I guess since then, beauty hasn't been much my thing. Neither has being small and feminine. Too many bad memories, so you get this. My strength and my guardian position are both the result of years and years of hard work."
Her aunt was silent for a second. 'That makes a lot of sense, you know? I'll bet you built yourself up to make yourself feel in control again, didn't you?"
Hench spared Renna a look. "Uh oh, we going to start digging into my head? Iris has been doing that a whole hell of a lot, lately."
"Language," Renna warned half-heartedly, though it wasn't the first curse she'd heard from Hench's mouth. "And I sure am. That's my job. I'll bet that it's more than you just hate being pretty; I bet it runs deeper than what you even said. I bet what happened to you messes with your head sometimes, doesn't it? Makes you feel weak. So you compensate with physical strength to try and make it better -to try and make yourself feel in command."
"Well then," Hench shut off the conversation in its tracks, not wanting to admit that her aunt's statement might have been entirely accurate.
"Did I hit a nerve?" Renna asked. "Forgive me, dear; I didn't mean to do that. You know I was never good at mincing my words. I only said it so you knew. The first step to feeling better is understanding yourself. Take it from someone who has lived it. Maybe not to the exact degree that you have, but I've lived in a world where I've displaced my pain. The words that help are the hardest to hear."
"I don't know if it ever gets completely better," Hench allowed herself to say after a long minute. "I'm working on it."
"Then do," Renna clutched Rhalla's shoulder. "But I hope you know that it doesn't matter what you do to yourself, you're always going to be one of the most beautiful girls... no, women, in the world. At least to me. And I want you to know that that doesn't make you any less strong. You've been tough since the day you were born."
Hench chuckled, truly moved at the words. "Thanks."
Her aunt switched the subject. "Your friend said you got out of that bad situation. When you were thirteen." Renna did the math. "That means that you've been free for sixteen years. Why did you never come back?"
"I was... afraid," Rhalla admitted. "I didn't want to be a disappointment."
"How could you ever think that?" Renna breathed. "We would have never, not for a second, have thought less of you."
Hench cut straight to the chase. "I was pregnant. How could I have ever explained that to you? Especially when I wouldn't have been able to tell you why. Back then, I couldn't bear to. By the time I'd come to terms with it, per se... well, it was years later. There was never a right time, I guess. It had been too long."
Renna remembered now that Elizabeth had told her and Zayn that Cricket had become with child during her adolescence. "We wouldn't have asked nor judged," her aunt said. "We would have given you River Tonic with no words askance and let you get rid of it. I know that stuff is painful to take. I wish we could have been there for you and helped you through all of that."
River Tonic. The less formal term for that stuff was 'baby poison'. It was what most medics gave to little girls, sick women, or old women to drink in cases when labor had great potential to be fatal. It was a concoction that did exactly what it sounded like, it got rid of children far before they were born. It'd make it to where they'd miscarry and pass a small mass instead of a whole, live baby. It was mildly expensive, true, but far less dangerous.
"I don't know about all of that tonic stuff now, Aunt Renna," Hench said with snort, figuring now was as good of a time as any to spill the beans. "But it would have been pretty nice to have you all there to help me through childbirth. That part hurt more than you can even imagine."
Renna's eyes nearly popped from their sockets. "You gave birth? That young?"
"Uh huh," Rhalla's voice rumbled. "I became a mother to a newborn babe at thirteen years old. I remain a mother today at twenty nine, though it feels like I was just in labor a year or two ago. They grow so damn fast."
Renna stammered. "I'm a great-aunt? I have a... a what?"
"You are indeed a great-aunt," Rhalla said. "To my son."
Her aunt choked that news down with little grace and sputtered again in a voice no higher than a whisper. "You have a son?"
"I do. He's sixteen years old now," Rhalla grinned in spite of herself. "His name is Dane. Dane Gwenneth."
Renna huffed a breath, and her heart sped up in her chest at seeing Hench grin. Gods, she'd missed that smile. "Forgive me, but I swear one day you're nine and playing wooden swords with your father and sneaking into the sweets, and then the next time I see you you're all grown up with a child." She pinched the bridge of her nose, but then offered a gentle grin. "I'm so proud of you."
"That's good," Hench ducked her head.
"Where is he? Your son?" Renna asked. "I'd really like to meet him."
"My guess, probably in the inn waiting for me to come get him." Rhalla winked. "I'm not the only one who came to visit you. I can bring him to dinner if you want."
"He's in town?" her aunt reeled. "Yes. For gods' sake, bring him to eat. Are there any more surprises I should know about while we're at it? Anything else to stop my heart with tonight? Any secret siblings? Did you become an emperor? Did you write a book?" Her words were humorous, but she wasn't joking about the context.
"Heh, no siblings. Trust me when I say that's one thing I'm only willing to do once. But there is one more thing. Well, maybe. Just one more I can think of right now, anyhow." Here came the big apples. The other big apples.
"Go on."
"I, uh, am to be married, actually. Soon."
Renna held a hand over her heart, as if it would mitigate its pounding. "Well thank gods one of you is. Iris can't seem to make up her damn mind. At least not before someone lays my down in my own grave." Her aunt sucked in a breath and grinned. "That's fantastic news, Rhalla. It warms my old heart to hear you've had some happiness in your life. Why don't you tell me about it? How'd you get to be engaged?"
"Alright, but I can't guarantee you're gonna like the story," Hench forewarned her. "When I went into labor, I had the help of a medic named Sorella. She helped me give birth, and she did her best to ease me back into my rational mind after that. She was a grandmother to one. Her grandchild lived with her, and we were young and roughly the same age. She let me live there during treatment. She helped me raise and pay for my son -in fact, she's been helping me take care of him my entire life. Even after she, err, kicked me out of her house a year after I'd come."
"She kicked you out?" Renna went agape. "Why in the world would she kick a child out on their own?"
"Because I fell in love with her grandkid, and she didn't like it," Hench answered honestly, keeping the gender out of it for now. "That's why I went to the guardian sanctuary. I had a rough start there, but eventually, things turned out. Sorella may not have liked my choices, but she never hated me. She still did all she could for Dane and let me see him whenever I wanted. She just didn't let me see anyone else in the house. Heh, not that that did much good. Fifteen years later, and I and that same grandkid are still together."
"Fifteen years. Gods, that's a long time," Renna still smiled. "That's... amazing. What is his name?"
Oh goody, here it went. Hench erected her shoulders, ready to be thrown out again -ready for another Sorella Havers. "Azabela Stryder."
Renna tasted the name on her tongue, confused. "Azabela," she said. "That sounds like a girl's name."
Hench exhaled. "That's because it is."
"Huh?" was the first word out of Renna's mouth. It wasn't borne of disgust, just absolute puzzlement. "I... you're marrying..."
"...a woman, yes," Hench finished for her, and her lips went into a hard line. "Feel free to hate me for it if you must."
"Shh," Renna shushed, not looking at Hench. "This Azabela," she articulated, processing the new development. "Is she in town too?"
After a second, Hench nodded and silently said. "Yes."
Renna nodded, her expression unreadable. "Then I guess you're gonna have to bring both of them to dinner."
----
Iris watched as only Renna walked back into the Gwenneth home. The soup had gotten done a small while ago, and the rogue was busying herself with keeping it warm and making some bread to go with it. Seeing her aunt alone, Iris stopped her hands and gave Renna her full attention. "How'd it go?"
"I... I'm mad as hell," her aunt finally said.
Iris looked stunned, and her heart dropped. "Renna... what did you...?"
"I want you to tell me just why in the hell you let me have her move furniture all around this afternoon?" Renna interrupted. "Gods damn it, Iris. You could have told me that was your sister. I'm telling you, I oughta whip your ass blue with a wooden spoon. Maybe I'll let Rhalla do it for me." Her aunt put a hand on her hip.
Iris shook her head. "So you're mad at..."
"You." Renna poked Iris in the sternum. And then, she smiled slightly "You good-for-nothing girl. You've made me to look like a fool-woman."
"Harsh," Iris chuckled. "So, if it's me you're mad at then where is... Rhalla? Why didn't she come back with you?"
"She's going to get her family for dinner, and then she'll be here." Now, Renna noticed the bread. "Ah, good. You made some rolls." '
"Do you know about her family?" Iris couldn't help but ask.
"About Dane and Azabela?" Renna asked, and then chewed her tongue a little. "...yeah. She told me."
"And how are you taking it?"
"Little by little," Renna answered honestly. "It's a lot to take in at one time. Right now, it's enough that she's home. I never... I never expected she'd ever come back to us. Twenty years on a cold trail, Iris. And... and now, everything's changed again."
Iris clasped her aunt on the shoulder in consolation, and then started setting the table. Renna helped her, whistling a happy tune. She wore a light smile about her face. It was a little while before Iris spoke up again. The subject spiraled off course for a minute. "You're sober." She couldn't help but bring it up. After all, the last time she'd been her home, her aunt hadn't known up from down.
Her aunt's eyes snapped up, but she didn't look offended. "I am. I have been for at least a couple months now." Renna sighed and dusted her hands on her frock. "I'm sorry, Iris. For everything. It was never because of you. I just... miss my brother."
Iris smiled solemnly. "We all miss him. I'm just glad you're back with us."
Renna let out a single chuckle. "Lot of that going on around here -people coming back."
They didn't get a chance to talk about it more. A knock sounded loudly at the front door, causing Renna and Iris to start quickly toward the noise. They shared one more look before Renna said. "Come in."
The door yielded first to Hench, who walked in as tall and proud as Iris had seen her yet. She met Renna's eyes for a second, held them, and then moved out of the way. The next one through the door was Dane Gwenneth. He was broad and tall like his mother. Time stopped and Renna looked the boy up and down and smiled.
"Are you Dane?" she asked, already knowing the answer. "Are you Rhalla's son?"
He gave her a smile that sweetened his face tremendously. Suddenly, his black eyes were excited and he stepped up to shake her hand. "Yes ma'am, I am Dane. And you are Renna Gwenneth? You're my mother's aunt." Renna only grinned and took the hand quickly in both of hers. A swell of pride bloomed in her chest.
"My gods, you're a handsome lad. I'll bet your mother's fighting off the girls at the doorstep." When a slight blush tainted Dane's cheeks, it shined through the toughness of his physique. "Gods, you look so much like her."
"Well thank you, ma'am," he said respectfully and then winked. "If only my mother was a worse fighter, I might actually get to one of them." It was a small joke. For a moment, Renna's heart was warmer than it had been in a long time. This... this was just more proof of her niece's strength. She could tell from the first glance that this was a kind boy -a kind boy that would never have existed had Rhalla taken the River Tonic. At a glance, he'd been raised well. He was a polite and seemingly well-mannered person that might not exist if she'd left him at birth. Dane would never have had a chance in the world to become anything had Cricket not been brave enough to go into childbirth at thirteen years old.
Renna knew without a doubt that she was looking at the diamond in the rough -the silver lining of everything that had happened. And then she looked at Rhalla, who beamed with a mother's pride at her son. The world... was still good. Despite herself, a small tear blinked from the corner of Renna's gaze.
"Come on, my son," Hench said. "Over here. Step to the side. Let her see Bela."
And so he did.
When the mass of his form was out of the way, Renna's eyes fell on Azabela. Iris's mouth nearly fell right open at the sight of her. Usually, Azabela wore sensible, simple clothes and twine wraps in her hair. Not today. Today, the huntress was different. Her long hair flowed to her hips, and intricate braiding pulled her hair away from her elfin face. There were roses wrapped in the back of the styling and consequently down the long tresses of her hair. She wore a dress the color of light petals that formed well to her slender body.
She almost looked like a fairy from the stories Iris's mother had read to her as a child. Azabela just stared back at Aunt Renna, and she was nervous enough to clasp her hands together. Renna just took a step back.
Azabela offered a weak smile, and she surveyed Renna Gwenneth in return. It was very strange to meet the woman from all Hench's stories.
Renna said nothing yet, just walked a complete perimeter around the huntress and stopped again right in front of her. Investigative hands tilted Azabela's chin up, and then to either side. Everyone was completely silent for the analysis, waiting on Renna's jurisdiction. "Very stunning, I'll admit. Absolutely beautiful woman." Hench's lips twitched a little at that small approval, but otherwise remained neutral.
The rogue couldn't mistake the almost desperation in her sister's eyes. Please let Renna like her. Gods.
Renna took a step back and began the same interrogation she'd given both Shad and Zayn after asking for Iris's hand. "But I'll need more than that. Speak, Azabela Stryder. I want you to tell me why you deserve to marry my niece."