A Homecoming of Sorts (Open)

It was eerily quiet in the manor. Either everyone had come to pay their respects already, or they had not shown up yet. Or maybe no one was going to show up at all; it wasn’t as if Edy had been easy to get along with. Then again, Loren had never really tried. He felt a pang of grief at that thought. Though she’d hardly treated him well, the former librarian hadn’t made much of an effort to understand her. In at least that way, he’d been like the rest of his family: he couldn’t accept people as they were and tried to force them to change. He couldn’t go back and change the past. But he could pick up the pieces they’d left behind, and make something beautiful out of the shards. Maybe, just maybe, the Launceleyns could become a force for good, and not just destruction incarnate. Probably not though: everything Loren touched just seemed to fall further apart. He took a step forward and examined the spacious interior. But it looked unkempt, dusty, as if it hadn’t been cleaned in a while and no one lived here. Loren narrowed his eyes. That didn’t match the family he remembered; they’d been sticklers for propriety and for appearances, and such a slovenly home was beneath them. Allowances could be made for grief, but unlike him, most of his relatives didn’t get sad. They got angry instead. He’d never really had the famous Launceleyn rage, though he’d shown sparks of it now and then. But at heart, Loren had wanted his family to be happy, that’s all. He’d just disagreed about what that meant. And towards the end he’d realized he couldn’t, wouldn’t sacrifice his own happiness for there’s. Maybe that made him selfish. Or maybe it just made him a person as fallible as anyone else. A noise caught his attention and he turned towards it, suddenly wary. The big house had been so quiet that the creak of a floorboard echoed. Though he didn’t really think it was a threat, he watched the area it had come from cautiously, pulling a spark of magic from deep within. It was his family’s gift, and it felt good feeling it course from deep within. For the first time in a long time, he felt like he was doing the right thing. Then a familiar head poked out from the shadows and Loren’s jaw dropped, all thoughts banished at the sight. “B-Beatrix?” His voice was raspy, as he hadn’t used it much for quite a while. He stood there stunned at the sight of the child. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen her, nor could he forget the insults she’d lobbed his way. But mostly he couldn’t get over the fact that he had some family left. He felt tears spring to his eyes and he took a stumbling step forward before stopping, unsure how she would react. “Y-yes, it’s me, Loren.” She’d grown since he’d last seen her. But he was mostly distressed to see that she looked wild, unkempt almost. Apparently Loren wasn’t the only one who’d failed to take care of himself. But she was a child. She wasn’t supposed to take care of herself. And surely Zariah wouldn’t have left her precious Bea alone in the manor. “Where is everyone?” Loren knew that Edy was dead—he felt tears flow more freely at that thought—and that Zariah was gone from the board. But…. And then it occurred to him that they might be the only two left. The thought left him reeling; the once proud Launceleyns were broken, dead, defeated. All that was left was their prodigal son and their young daughter. Maybe there’d be no coming back from this for the family after all. But even as he thought that, Loren felt himself squaring his shoulders. Regardless of how he himself felt he needed to make sure someone was taking care of Beatrix, and the gods knew he wasn’t going to be able to. He could barely take care of himself. LOREN Not quite an open book