Page 45 of Resurrection
“Yes.”
“It happens sometimes.”
“A bird got the mommie.”
Ah, the circle of life. Beautiful and horrific all at once.
“I looked it up on the internet. Ki helped. Kura too. We tried to save the babies. Feed them…”
“And they didn’t make it.” Seiran hugged him tighter. Had they told him, he might have been able to get the bunnies to one of the nature societies for help. But he’d ask his older two about it later. For all he knew they’d contacted someone, and tried to care for them while waiting for a reply.
“No,” Kaine snuffled. “Everything here dies. I hate it.” His tiny fingers dug into Seiran, hurting, but Seiran said nothing. Kaine didn’t always remember he was stronger than normal humans. And nothing he could do would permanently hurt Seiran. Seiran tried to let him feel, no matter what it was, and work it out. It was one of the few ways to really help Kaine understand the differences between the worlds.
Kaine wasn’t bound by a mortal form. Having been born of magic, rather than mortal birth of a being, he pinged around, trying to feel and learn, but still free to try things most would never even dream of. It was a bit godlike, which Seiran always found disconcerting. Though since his tie to the earth gave him a lot of similar traits, he tried not to get too worked up about it. But training Kaine at a very young age, that other people were more fragile than him, had been difficult. Seiran thought they’d done a good job, but maybe it still needed to be reenforced.
“I’m sorry,” Seiran said. He kissed Kaine’s hair and rubbed his back, continuing to rock him gently. The human world wasn’t really any less cruel than the world across the veil. But Kaine didn’t need less hope. “Would you rather stay with Bryar?”
“No,” Kaine said fiercely. He pulled back to put his little hands on Seiran’s face. “You can’t die.”
“I’m not going to die,” Seiran said. Not any time soon at least. The earth made it uncomfortably clear that She was fond of having him as Her advocate. She wanted him to do more, but seemed to understand he was one being, and limited by the brutality of the world at large. Humanity was working hard at killing the earth and therefore themselves. The Goddess would send more disasters, and Seiran’s warnings were only heard by so many. They were all on a runaway train.
“If I go… and come back, sometimes the time is different.”
“Yes,” Seiran agreed. The first time it had happened, weeks passing without seeing his kid, he’d panicked. And he had not been kind to Bryar, who informed him that not all things ran linear like the mortal realm, or as slowly. “It’s why when you’re here, it’s important that you spend time with us.”
“I’m not like Ki and Kura.”
“No,” Seiran said, “But not all that different, either. You’re still mine. And I love you. You understand that, right? You will always have a place with me. I will always love you, no matter what.”
“Even if it’s my fault the bunnies died?”
Ah, the missing puzzle piece. “Why do you think that?”
“I tried using my power to help them.”
But Kaine didn’t have power over living things, or at least things with souls or esoteric energy like souls. His abilities ran similar to Seiran’s, almost a pillar level control of magic. Which make plants grow, but the only real control on the living it had was to take them back to be used as fodder for rebirth. He could imagine what terrible accident must have happened. The earth snatching the babies from them, or even the babies decomposing in an instant. Heartbreaking, and devastating, but an accident.
“And you didn’t mean to hurt them,” Seiran said.
“No,” Kaine promised.
“Did your uncle talk to you about why that happened?” Because if Jamie was good for anything, it was explaining science and magic in terms anyone could understand.
“Yes,” Kaine said.
“And you understand? We don’t have that power. Not you, not me, we can’t bring the dead back to life. Energy given has to be taken from somewhere else, it’s a balance.” The bunnies had to have been very near dead if the earth had accepted them easily. It didn’t normally steal life just because someone willed it to. Though on the rare occasion it could be merciful. The earth was often swift and cruel, that was true enough, but not even Seiran could demand it kill someone and expect compliance. They called him the Green Man because they reasoned he was married to the earth. A partnership, not a dictatorship, and certainly more a matriarchy than a patriarchy. If he started killing people at random, without Her consent, She’d take him back without a moment’s notice. Fuel was one thing, unnecessary fodder another. “Had they already passed? The babies?”
“The littlest one wouldn’t move anymore,” Kaine admitted softly. “Uncle Jamie wanted us to go inside. Wash our hands.”
Because Seiran’s many years of OCD cleaning had ingrained itself in his family. And Jamie had known those bunnies weren’t going to make it.
“They weren’t dirty,” Kaine whispered. “No more than I usually am.”
“You’re a bit of a pigpen,” Seiran teased, still rocking Kaine lightly. “If rolling in the dirt were a hobby…”
“It feels good,” Kaine admitted.
“It does sometimes,” Seiran said. He looked around at the huge space. The arboretum itself larger than the house, extended to give them all room to run, but warded, because beyond these walls, outside and into the woods, Seiran still had trouble not letting the earth take complete control of him. She was more than willing to steal his free will, and make him Her puppet, whether that meant the rest of his life as little more than a lynx, or being used to demand change through mortal violence, he’d never wanted to know. They played inside to keep him sane. “Do you want to run with me for a bit. Looks like we have the space to ourselves.”