[ussbansheec] Living Strength
- From: Andy Maluhia <CaptainAndy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: ussbansheec@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 17 Oct 2006 13:54:51 -0400
_Living Strength
_by Adam & Ray Laughing Eyes
Water its living strength first shows,
When obstacles its course oppose.--Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
**Twenty years ago...
Under other circumstances, the fact that it was raining might have
pleased Adam. Rain was for stories by the fireplace, experimenting in
the kitchen, or-if it wasn't a serious downpour-a nice walk if you were
appropriately dressed. The thing was that those were all things the
Laughing Eyes family did together and now there was no more 'together'.
They'd just buried their mother, the cornerstone of the family and the
light of the father's life.
The well wishers were finally gone leaving their home in the Black Hills
of South Dakota empty with just Adam and his siblings, their father,
their Uncle Ted and his partner John. They were no doubt on the comm to
Dorvan V, talking to the Swiftwinds. Adam knew they weren't blood
related but they'd known them all so long and had grown up together, so
to speak, so the Laughing Eyes counted them as kin. They weren't well
wishers: they were family. The adults were talking quietly over coffee
in the kitchen. Adam might have gone in for a mugful himself but he
couldn't bear the look on his father's face. Laughing Eyes had been
their family name for generations but Adam always thought it suited his
father perfectly, even more than his Lakota name of Shaking Thunder.
Not now, though. He looked so sad now, so lost.
His older sister was upstairs with their younger one. Adam could hear
Lunei softly soothing Aaya's tears. With a sigh, the second son of
Vincent and Sophia Laughing Eyes pushed himself away from the fireplace
mantel and headed for the door. Stopping at the peg rack there, he
almost smiled. It was one of his first woodwork projects and his mother
had been so pleased with it that she'd told Adam to hang it up right
away. There was another rack for visitors but this one was for their
family, each of the six having two pegs, one above the other, under
their engraved names. Sophia's pegs still had her blue coat and scarf
hanging on them.
Shaking his head, Adam pulled on his dark green mackinaw then, after
buttoning it up securely, popped his dark broad brimmed hat on his head
and stepped out into the rain. With no particular destination in mind,
he started walking, deep within his own thoughts. He wasn't so deep in
them, though, that he didn't acknowledge the man who was suddenly at his
side. Six years older, his brother Ray was as tall as their father, as
tall as Adam would be when he was finished growing, yet he wore his hair
shorter than Adam and Vincent. Still, it was impossible to not guess
that the two were brothers.
"Walkin'?" Ray asked.
"Seemed like a good idea," Adam said with a shrug. "Fresh air's fresh
air even if it is wet. You?"
"Same," Ray admitted, his hands shoved into his own mackinaw's pockets
since he'd forgotten his gloves. "Glad it's rain an' not snow."
"Shut your mouth, man. Ain't nobody be outside then," Adam sniffed with
a rueful chuckle.
As much as it occasionally irritated their mother, both Adam and Ray had
picked up their father's rather peculiar speech patterns. She'd quit
trying to change that eventually, simply accepting the accents as
something unique to the men in her little family.
"Can't splash in the snow either," Ray mused, a thought that seemed so
trivial to him in light of the catastrophic change that had just come
upon his family. Still, he told himself, it's been thought and there's
no changing it.
"Got that right," Adam agreed. A tiny twinge of mischief struck the
younger brother then. He picked up one rather large foot and brought it
down with a decided hard step into the puddle they were passing. "Kinda
like that, eh? What the..."
Ray had begun to brace himself for the splashing, knowing he was too
close and Adam was too quick to avoid it. It never came though.
Slowly, he opened his eyes and saw what had caught his brother's
attention. It was like pausing a vid of water in slow motion. The
water hung in mid air for quite a relative eternity before splashing
down like it should have, soaking both Adam and Ray.
"What was that?" Ray asked slowly.
Adam stood there staring at the puddle, oblivious to the rain falling
around him. Slowly he knelt and removed one glove so that he could
touch the water with his bare hand. "It's not cold enough t'freeze,"
he said, clearly perplexed.
"No and the air's not cold 'nough either," Ray agreed as he crouched
shoulder to shoulder with his brother. "I did see that, right? Not
losin' what's left of my mind?"
"Not unless I am, too," Adam snorted. "Just as I was bringing my foot
down to soak you, I thought better of it. Told myself you better stop
that water before it nails Ray and soaks 'im but good." He glanced at
his own more than wet from the rain state then at his brother's. "Sorry
'bout that, man."
"It's only water," Ray hmmphed in dismissal. "Weird." The older
brother stared at the puddle for a few moments then looked at his
brother curiously. "You thought it should stop?"
"Ray, what happened the last time I did that to you?" Adam asked,
looking at Ray as if he'd grown another head. "Or don't you remember
shovin' me in the creek before you went home to change? 'cause I sure
do. That water was awful cold."
"Do it again, Adam," Ray suggested, "but maybe just your hand."
"You don't think I did that, do you?"
"You got a better idea other than one of them freaky shape shifters in
the form of a puddle?" Ray retorted.
"Wrong color," Adam said absently then he shrugged. What's the worst
that could happen? So my hand gets wet. He brought his hand down in
the puddle lightly, willing the water to do as it had done before. "Mon
Dieu..."
The splash stayed airborne, almost, to Adam's amusement, in the shape of
his hand. He looked quickly from the water, still unchanged despite the
falling rain, to his brother. Ray's face was caught in a cross of
consternation and wonder. For himself, Adam shivered inside. That he
could do such strange things could only mean one thing and that
frightened him. He didn't need that now. He'd read stories, overheard
them, about outcasts and freaks...
"Well, i'nt that just the damndest thing?" Ray finally stated. "Kind of
a neat little ability ya got there, lil bro."
Adam stood up, shaking his head. "You think this means I'm a mutant?"
he asked carefully, cringing inside as he waited for his brother's answer.
"Prob'ly," Ray said with an easy shrug. He stood up just as gracefully
as his brother, watching him as he did. Like their father, both
brothers were generally friendly, outgoing souls who usually showed very
little fear of people and a great deal of respect for nature. They were
also rather close personally. "Hey," he added as he slung an arm around
Adam's shoulders, "that don't mean a thing t'me. You're still my little
brother. I still love ya, brat."
"Thanks, Ray," Adam mumbled softly. "I want t'see what else I can do
but...just--don't tell Pop right now or even ever. I mean, now this is
prob'ly a bit much for 'im t'handle. Later, well, I don't want him to
look at me like a freak, Ray. He's all we got now."
Ray nodded slowly. Adam might have been just sixteen but he was often
wise beyond his years. Sure their father was a Starfleet officer, one
who could talk to more sorts of strange people in a day than most people
met in their lives. Sure he could stare down a fully armed Romulan
officer who was pointing a charged disruptor rifle right at him and not
even blink. But Vincent Laughing Eyes was also a man who'd loved his
wife from the day they met and both brothers knew how hurt he was right
now. Who knew what grief would make an otherwise sane man say to his son?
"Fine by me but can we start walkin' again? Might just drown
otherwise," Ray chuckled.
Adam hmmphed softly. The very idea of what he was still frightened him
but his brother's support helped and his comment gave him an idea.
Slowly, though the rain kept falling, a canopy formed, forcing the rain
to fall around them rather than on them. He turned to Ray with a wide
grin. "Maybe this way we don't catch cold," he suggested.
"Yeah but my socks'll still get wet," the older brother grumbled.
Their meandering led them to a nearby stream. They both looked around
and saw no one. Of course not, they reasoned aloud, who else would be
fool enough to stand out in the rain like this? There, they tested
Adam's abilities more, finding that he could actually will the water to
stay in certain forms and that he could move it, like he had with
keeping them dry, in whatever direction he wanted. He could also keep
the water from entering his lungs if he stuck his face under but that
took a good deal of concentration.
"Damn good thing I c'n swim, eh?" Adam asked wryly after the last test,
in which he eventually inhaled a bit too much stream.
"Ya think? You know, it's too bad we didn't bring the poles. Might've
been nice t'catch dinner rather than replicate. Pop likes eating real
food," Ray stated.
Adam stared down at his feet and then his hands. "All respect to the
ways of nature but if I don't take more than what we need, I don't see
the harm in seeing if this'll help me with fish. Just rig up a vine or
stick t'hold something if I can actually do it."
"You go to it, little brother," Ray said as his eyes started scanning
for what they'd need. "Of course this doesn't mean I have no faith in
your ability to fish but I'm going t'be pretty damned annoyed if I do
all this work and we go home empty handed."
Adam paused, one foot just about to enter the stream. "Yeah and my
feet'll be soaked," he said wryly. "Just shut up and set things up,
smart ass. We'' bring home dinner and give Pop something to enjoy. He
could use it."
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