The Perk, Saturday Morning

[firstofitskind]

Part of Liam had expected to wake early Saturday and find his mother gone, that it had all just been yet another strange dream. But he'd poked his head into the guest room at the house and found she was still there, asleep. This was real.

She was here.

And now... they were sitting at the Perk, with breakfast pastries and tea, and he was waiting for his girlfriend to arrive so he could introduce her to his mother. Real, maybe, but also very, very surreal.

[ooc: for them that's mentioned, but also open!]

Comments

[arboreal_priestess]

"Siobhan," Verity said with a grin. "A 'good Irish name' as my dad would say. His mother's family is Irish, by way of the Ó hÉilidhe clan out of...Cannaught? I wanna say."

Her father, amateur historian, would know more. And, if he had access to Covenant records, even more than that.

"Though by the time the family came to America, we were just Healys." Probably for the best, because tiny Verity had had enough trouble spelling her name, never mind if it were still Gaelic.

"And yes! Well, we found a male dragon, specifically. His name is William. Turns out we've been living with female dragons for centuries and just didn't know that was what they were."

[tiedtothestars]

Still, as someone who felt very strongly about genealogy and family history, Siobhan could appreciate what Verity was sharing.

And speaking of names... "William," Siobhan echoed. "Not exactly a name that makes you think 'dragon', but I suppose nobody's about to tell him that, now are they?"

[arboreal_priestess]

Of the scant things Verity knew about Siobhan, that she was a) very Irish and b) into genealogy were pretty high up on the list. So as soon as Liam had called her about his mother being on the island, Verity was calling her dad to ask for anything she could use in conversation.

Her dad had taken 'Liam's mom is temporarily back from the dead' in stride. Their family baby-sitter was a ghost, after all.

"That was pretty much my entire reaction," Verity admitted with a chuckle. "I wasn't going to risk finding out definitively that I am not flame-retardant by telling a dragon the size of a bus that his name wasn't draconic enough for me."

[firstofitskind]

Verity's family's experience with ghostly babysitters was precisely why Liam hadn't been terribly nervous about the 'temporarily back from the dead' aspect of this particular meeting.

Everything else, though? Yeah. So he'd visibly relaxed when his mother decided to open the conversation by asking Verity about the dragon.

“An exercise in restraint that I was pretty damned glad for, I’ll tell you that much.”

[arboreal_priestess]

"Flame is not my best color," Verity said, with a grin that welcomed Liam back to the conversation. "I even know that for a fact, thank you, sibling."

[firstofitskind]

Liam supposed he should be surprised, but, well, he’d met Verity’s siblings now.

“Antimony?” he guessed.

[arboreal_priestess]

"Alex, actually," Verity said. "In his defense, it was mostly a mistake."

Antimony had never set anything on fire that she hadn't intended to.

"But if you're ever looking through family albums and see me with a really unfortunate haircut around fifth grade, you'll know why."

[firstofitskind]

The warm, fluttery feeling Liam got with every casual reminder that they really were in this for the long haul? Not going to stop happening any time soon. Hence the soft smile at something as mundane as ‘looking through family albums’.

“Siblings?” Siobhan asked. “Older or younger?”

[arboreal_priestess]

"One of each," Verity said with a warm, fond smile. "Alex is the oldest and the only boy. Antimony is the youngest and the only...Antimony." She cast an amused glance at Liam. "How would you describe her?"

[firstofitskind]

“Oh, no, I think you’re on the right track with the idea that she defies conventional description,” Liam said. There was also the impression he got that she resented her elder siblings’ closeness, but now wasn’t the time to bring that topic up.

“You sound like you’re very close to your family,” Siobhan observed, her tone clearly approving.

[arboreal_priestess]

"I am," Verity said softly. "My family has a long, somewhat difficult history, so we've learned to rely on ourselves over the generations. And my mom is adopted; my grandparents couldn't have children -" since her grandmother was a Cuckoo and her grandfather a Revenant "- so that's really helped solidify the idea that family is more than just blood or marriage, it's love and care and being for each other when you need it."

She frowned thoughtfully and looked at Liam. "Did I ever tell you that, technically, Sarah is our aunt? She was adopted by Grandma and Grandpa Baker, just like mom. Just...thirty-five years later."

Way more than she'd normally tell a stranger about her family, but this was Liam's mom.

[firstofitskind]

"You did not," Liam said, shaking his head. "I can see why you use 'cousin', though. It'd be strange to think of someone so close to your own age as your aunt."

Said the six-year-old who looked to be within a few years of his own mother's age.

[tiedtothestars]

And the look Siobhan gave Liam made it clear that she noticed the irony of that particular statement, thank you very much.

"Blood certainly isn't the be-all-end-all," Siobhan admitted. "Even someone like me, who spent a great deal of time researching her family lines, can admit that."

[arboreal_priestess]

"What sparked your love of genealogy?" Verity asked, resting her head on her chin. "Something specific, or just a general love of history, or...?"

[tiedtothestars]

"My parents moved around a lot when I was young," Siobhan told her. "Always just the three of us, and we never really put down roots anywhere. I wanted to understand where it was I came from."

[arboreal_priestess]

"That makes sense," Verity said. "How long ago did your family come over from Ireland?"

[tiedtothestars]

"Oh, they never did," Siobhan explained. "I was based in Belfast with the UK Companion, but was on assignment in DC when Ha'gel's prison was inadvertently discovered and he was freed. Naturally, I was tapped to join the search party, and, well... I believe Liam's told you how that ended up."

[firstofitskind]

"'On assignment'," Liam said with a snort. "That's one way to put it. You suspected Lili- Captain Marquette- was a spy and you were working to prove it."

"Well, I was right, wasn't I?" Siobhan pointed out. Of course, at the time, she'd thought she was doing the right thing. Now? Not so much. "She was a Liberation spy."

[arboreal_priestess]

"Did you tell her that you saw Lili last weekend?" Verity asked. "And Ariel, too?"

[tiedtothestars]

"He did not," Siobhan shook her head. "Though that's good to hear, as I suppose that means she took my request to watch over him seriously," she added. Yes, literally hours after attempting to get someone arrested for treason, she'd entrusted them with the care of her newborn son.

"And who's Ariel, then?"

[firstofitskind]

"That's..." Liam sighed, trying to find the right word. "Complicated? Sandoval faked Lili's death. Had her sent to Jaridia. Ariel is half-Jaridian." And, like Liam, the last living member of her species.

[arboreal_priestess]

"She also appears to be about seven and ready to eat anything that slows down enough for her to get it on a plate," Verity said with a laugh, trying to ease over the little bit of tension there. Her hand found Liam's under the table. "I think she took it as a personal insult if she didn't try one of everything that was available to eat."

[firstofitskind]

"Her metabolism works much faster than ours," Liam explained, curling his fingers with Verity's. "And she doesn't exactly get that many chances to eat food from Earth, given that she's living up on the Mothership."

Siobhan shook her head. "You'd mentioned that the Taelons were- gone," she said slowly. "Somehow it didn't occur to me that anyone might be making use of their ship."

"That's where I was living, too, for about a year before I came to this island," Liam explained. "Exploring. Which was- I enjoyed it, but it felt like something was... missing." Namely, that chance at a normal life.

He hadn't quite figured out if he ought to mention his own death and subsequent resurrection to her, no.

[arboreal_priestess]

"Hey now, I was impressed," Verity said, still chuckling. "I don't think I had half that determination at her age."

"He's brought some of that tech along with him," she added, looking at Siobhan. "There's this chair that I had to convince him was nice, but not actually a substitute for a decent b--bit of bedroom furniture."

While Liam was puzzling over literal life-or-death questions, Verity was stumbling over whether or not she was supposed to be mentioning Liam's bed.

[firstofitskind]

Siobhan's look at that was confused, as she'd never actually seen Liam's apartment (to use the term extremely loosely) in DC.

Liam, at least, had the grace to look a bit sheepish. "I don't sleep all that much," he explained, and then as Siobhan's face turned concerned, tried to clarify: "Don't need to." Though thanks to Verity, he'd been learning about the benefits of a good lie-in, even if he spent that time while she slept reading or talking to the mice.