[prp] son and mother (leila + ezra)

[cibarium]

Leila's building was locked after business hours, so when Ezra called her she knew immediately why and started gathering things in a small panic, apologizing for the trouble over and over again against repeated assurance that it was fine. For the record, it probably was fine -- even with the sun setting, it wasn't unbearably cold out. She had finished up her work ten minutes ago, though. How long had her son been waiting? Her presence continued to radiate waves of apologeticness as she gave a small greeting, made small talk, and lead Ezra through the nearby parking lot to her car.

"Here we are..." she said as she unlocked and opened the passenger side door before climbing in herself. "You ready?"

shibrogane

 

[shibrogane]

Ezra didn't have his guitar. The smaller, rectangular case hanging off his shoulder looked more like it might hold a clarinet or a large flute. Definitely a woodwind, though. "Yeah," he said, buckling up. "Sorry, I forgot the building was locked once office hours ended. Music building's not like that."

cibarium

 

[cibarium]

"A couple of the teaching labs have hazardous materials," Leila offered as an explanation for the difference. She'd been working on campuses for a couple of decades at this point and never considered a building would go unlocked. The mundane mystery was quickly shrugged off, however, as she started the car and maneuvered it out of the lot. "Your cousin plays woodwinds, you know. I think he has a saxophone, but he's all secretive about it, like a skinny Duke Silver."

shibrogane

 

[shibrogane]

"Does he?" Ezra shrugged. "It's not my favorite. But I'm not sure this is playable on the alto flute, so I have to check before I submit it."

cibarium

 

[cibarium]

Leila shrugged again, smiling a bit as Ezra's thoughts trailed over to his work. She could relate to that somewhat.

"I was planning to take you somewhere a little out of the way before getting us to the house," she said. "We won't lose any time we wouldn't have spent twiddling our thumbs on the couch or something."

shibroane

 

[shibrogane]

"Alright," said Ezra. He was curious, and looked it. Even the burned side of his face had an arched eyebrow thing going on. "There's no one waiting for me at home, so whatever you want to do is fine."

cibarium

 

[cibarium]

"Right, then..."

The first leg of the car ride was quiet, but not unpleasantly so. Leila was a little nervous but had it under control by keeping most of her attention on the road or her breathing. Occasionally she glanced over to Ezra in the passenger seat, and a couple of times there was that thing where they made eye contact without expecting to and it was kind of awkward.

Eventually they crawled out of the car and headed to a park not too far from the more popular public beach in town. The time of year made it look a bit underwhelming: the grass was mostly yellowed from dormancy, and the large empty flowerpots along the pathways had small collections of candy wrappers and cigarette butts instead of plants. But there was a nice concrete pathway leading up to a gazebo right up near the edge of the cliff, so when you looked out from inside it you got a clear view of the ocean, and nothing else. Leila wandered up this way slowly but automatically, her gaze sweeping outward now and again -- recalling something about her surroundings.

As she entered the gazebo she leaned over to rest her hands on the back of one of the benches lining the inside of the structure, still smiling to herself. She was glad this place was still here.

shibrgane

 

[shibrogane]

Ezra stopped in the gazebo, looking around. Without the messenger bag or the instrument case, he seemed oddly unbalanced, like he didn't quite know what to do with the weightlessness on his shoulders. "It's lovely here," he said. "Quiet, too."

cibarium

 

[cibarium]

Leila made a humming noise that seemed to agree with Ezra as she sat down on the bench and looked his way again. "Yeah," she said. "I was a little worried this all wouldn't be here anymore, or I wouldn't be able to recognize it."

Because of the reset, obviously.

"Eve and I had our wedding here."

shibrogane

 

[shibrogane]

Ezra gave the gazebo a second look around, maybe a little more closely. He nodded to himself, and stuck his hands in the pockets of his jacket. "Thank you for sharing this with me," he said. "I've seen pictures of the timeline where I was born. I don't think that wedding was here." He paused, for a long moment. "Renard officiated that one. He was like an uncle to me, when I was growing up."

cibarium

 

[cibarium]

"Renard... really..."

Leila was glad Ezra appreciated the small side trip after all, but the smile from that was fleeting. When he turned to recollect his own memories -- and mentioned Renard -- her expression dimmed a little, one of her hands gripping the seat of the bench as she looked downwards towards Ezra's shoes and the floor. She had a look he'd probably find familiar: it was the look she got when something was bothering her and she didn't want to admit it.

"I don't think he'd have done something like that for us in this cycle," she said.

shibrogane

 

[shibrogane]

"No," agreed Ezra. "You've set yourselves up as his enemies, this go-round. You caged his daughter and treated him as if he meant you harm when you hardly knew who he was." He frowned out at the horizon. "And I'm given to understand he stopped reaching out to meet the people he'd loved before the cage, anyway. I can empathize with that. It hurts, to see people turn away from you like that."

cibarium

 

[cibarium]

Leila kept her gaze where it was, shrinking a bit at Ezra's words. "I know," she said. "We were playing the kind of game we were accusing everyone else of playing, so we kind of deserve what we're getting. But..." She slowly fidgeted with her hands. "When Eve met with him, he said something... like what you're talking about. He said that the versions of us he cared about died a long time ago. Eve thinks that means he doesn't believe we're even the same people."

Looking back over to Ezra, she confessed: "If that's the case, I'm kind of worried he's right."

shibrogane

 

[shibrogane]

"He doesn't think of any of you as the same people, not anymore," said Ezra. "We've spoken recently. We've never really stopped, since I came about as you see me very shortly after Sunny did..." He tilted his head to the side, and turned to look at Leila. "You're quite like the mothers I knew. I relish having this second chance. But my life was different compared to his."

cibarium

 

[cibarium]

Ezra was a sincere speaker. His reply calmed Leila, unwound her spine and brought a smile back to her face.

"Eve also said I didn't need to worry," she admitted. "That you'd have faith we're the same people... she suggested it might be because of Walt Whitman." Then she laughed a little, swaying from side to side a little bit on the bench. "I couldn't tell whether she was joking. You probably remember that about her."

shibrogane