Two for One [Open Audio Network] [Closed Action]

[vernal_miss]

Date: October 21st
Characters: Network Number {235 13 892 33} ; Action for Mary Ann, Ornella, and later Feste

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[Action - Joint with Ornella and Mary Ann]
{Nel} In a family of seven, finding those quiet moments to speak to only one other in the household tend to be rare. As the second youngest in the family, Ornella is not quite old enough to suffer a shift towards a nocturnal schedule like her older siblings, and this provides an opportunity. Slipping from her shared room, she heads out into the hallway and downstairs with one hand clutching to a stuffed toy. For a few days now, a number has been quite intrusive in her thoughts, and regardless of her thinking of it every hour awake, cannot recall the reason it feels so important. When it had popped back into her head before she even opened her eyes this morning, she had lost any chance of returning to sleep for a few more minutes with irritation rousing her all the more quickly.

Reaching the living space, she’s relieved to find a mother present. Bare feet carrying her quickly over the last of the distance, she comes up beside the chair to insert herself into Mary Ann’s space without hesitation, sliding one hand under her arm in semblance of a hug to lean in and bury her face in against her shoulder for a breath. Grasping at the calm granted by the contact, she lifts her head to prop her chin on that shoulder and plead for assistance, “Mum? I remembered someone’s number, but I don’t know whose it is.”

{Mary Ann} "A number?" That sounds familiar. Very familiar indeed. Because there's this number that's been on her mind since yesterday, and she feels like she's known it for a long time but she can't put her finger on where from or what it is even for. It doesn't seem to be a phone number... Perhaps she came across it again while Nel was there? That might be something to narrow the source down with. Assuming it's the same number, even. "What is the number?"


[Network]
“That’s funny… It’s not even ringing,” comes the voice of a young girl. There’s no image to be paired to the audio, but she is certainly not alone.

The voice of a middle-aged woman responds, sounding puzzled. "There isn't even a ceased number intercept message." That's what she had expected, quite honestly. After all the number did not sound like a phone number at all. But it was worth a try... is what she thought.

((OOC note: Mary and Nel will respond unevenly in various threads))

Comments

[dragoonrouge]

"It took a month for my eyes to change fully. The tapetum lucidum formed first and then over the course of the month my iris coloured changed from blue to Amber, the pupil shape changed, and I went from being quite short sighted to being incredibly long sighted." She explains to the young girl.

Mary's question gives Sadie a moment of pause, this was something that her, Ben, and Walter had spoke of but hadn't really talked about with anyone else... No. She'd mention all of it, it was safer if everyone knew as much as possible.

"The first big Echo for a lot of us was triggered by the Aurora a few months ago. But some of us were talking about it and realised that that wasn't actual our first Echo.. My first Echo was actually in January when I first moved into Mossgate."

"Basically,if you've lived in Mossgate for a while, and there's something just a bit odd that you've felt, or seemingly remember with no context, or even something physical, something that would be considered 'not normal'... That might have been your first Echo, and it could have happened years and years ago."

[catted]

"Well, Nel was born here, and we never moved away." So this thing could have happened to her at any point in her life.

...and technically before her life.

She frowns and looks down on the crown of her daughter's hair, where strands fall out of the makeshift braid. "So anything that has absolutely no scientific explanation, we can just chalk up to this Echo thing?"

[vernal_miss]

The tease gets Nel giggling and she smiles to her Mum to answer with coy humor, “Maybe!” Although she appreciates the prospect, the girl thinks other sorts of eyes are possible - if her own change at all. Brown irises suit her fine otherwise.

Nothing seems amiss to her as her mother runs a hand over her hair, the contact a familiar form of affection. Her hair has always grown more quickly than her siblings, but it had long become part of her normal life with her mothers managing it through a weekly trim. Plenty of girls her age keep long hair, even if she has the largest volume of it.

“So you can see better with them too? That’s neat even if it took a while!!” she replies to the description provided by Sadie. A month is quite long to a child.

Listening as her mother poses a different question that draws more serious discussion, Nel finds she has to adjust her understanding. Echoes have been happening much longer than she realized. It’s about then that she catches on to her mother frowning while looking at her hair, and she lets her confusion crinkle her brow as she looks back at her Mum in a silent question. What is it?

[dragoonrouge]

"Pretty much." Sadie confirms that there really wasn't much more she could say on that. "There really seems to be very few limits to this Echo stuff but it's early days right now."

[catted]

"My first echo probably happened almost twenty years ago, then." It's a slight exaggeration, but not by all that much. It must have happened at least nine months before her first biological child was born...

[vernal_miss]

Twenty years ago!

Making no effort to hide her surprise, Nel shifts to lean away and look more directly to her mother, “That long? Mum, what did you get?” There are so many questions she could ask, realizing this means her mother has had something magical for her whole life as her daughter. She never suspected anything was odd.

[catted]

"I have no idea, to be frank." She shakes her head. "I just know that whatever it was caused something that we always could just assume to be a miracle." That is not a sufficient answer, not for herself, not for anyone, but it's all that she can offer right now - and offer without getting very private.

[dragoonrouge]

"... Then why has everything picked up only recently...?" Sadie mutters, this was just another question to add to the pile.

[catted]

"Did anything happen that could have caused it?

Something unusual, or..." She is very far from an expert on this, quite obviously, but 'unusual' seems to be tied to it fairly strongly.

[vernal_miss]

The miracle her mother’s Echo caused may be as important as the Echo itself, and her expectant expression changes into a terse pout at her mother when it is left a mystery. She may not always catch on but right now her Mum is definitely hiding something and she doesn’t care for that.

With a soft huff, she intends to press her Mum for answers after they get off the Network.

For the moment, she’ll settle to listening as a cause for the uptick of magic is sought in discussion.

[dragoonrouge]

"I suppose it was unusual, for most of us this Number stuff didn't really properly start until that unusual Aurora appearance during the summer."

She sighs, and it speaks to her frustration at the lack of solid causes or reason behind what is going on.

[catted]

"So something about the aurora...?" She's not strictly asking Sadie, more wondering out loud.

"...Thank you, anyway, for all the explanations. I think we both have a lot of food for thought for now."

[vernal_miss]

Speaking quietly at the mention of the oddly timed natural phenomenon in the summer, she comments, "I remember that..."

Nel detects the cue to conclude the conversation with Sadie, and she makes no effort to delay as she chimes in, "Yes, thank you, Sadie! I hope we can talk again soon." Sadie has been extremely helpful in giving them a chance to grasp the situation in which they have found themselves.

[dragoonrouge]

"No worries. Good luck to the both of you, and if you need any help then just jump onto the Network and give use all a shout okay?"

[Network to Action with Mary Ann]

[vernal_miss]

"We will!"

Soon enough, Nel and her mother have wrapped up all the conversations on the Network for the time being and have severed the connections to the Network. They have some time before her grandfather arrives to talk more with them in person. She shifts to face more directly to her mother while remaining close in her lap, and asks directly, "Mum...what miracle were you talking about? The one from twenty years ago."

[catted]

...She has no idea where to even start with this. Okay, Mary Ann. Be brave. Try to build on what's there.

"You know how we talked about how when two adults like each other a lot, they often have a child or more? But that if they're two men or two women, they need a bit of outside help with that?"

[vernal_miss]

Wait. This is a review of the ‘where babies come from’ talk.

Nodding slowly, she tries to help her mother along with what she does remember despite being entirely confused about how this relates to something magic, “Uh huh... Cause you have to have a tiny part from a man and one from a woman to make a baby. Then the baby has to grow in a woman’s belly.”

[catted]

"Exactly.

Or that's how it should be, anyway. There is no recorded instance in human history and science where something else is the case." Sure, there are supposedly some instances with three people's genetic material, but that is a whole different can of worms and also medically induced.

"Or almost none. There are four exceptions."

[vernal_miss]

Attentive listening allows Nel to pick up on a couple key phrases, namely ‘should be’ and ‘four exceptions’. She stares at her mother in silence after as she waits to hear more, but if given a moment, she will put the pieces together herself as her confusion becomes shock as she takes all of this to relate to the miracle brought about by an Echo. Feste had been adopted but her mothers gave birth to four children starting almost two decades ago. Twenty years.

Nel had noticed some time ago that she shares a resemblance with her Mummy much like she does with her Mum, but she had thought maybe they had found someone that kind of looks like Janice to help when they decided to have a third pregnancy.

“Wait. Wait, am I one of the four?”

[catted]

"Yes, you are." She reaches out, threading fingers through Nel's hair, idly playing with a few strands. "And you're now only the third person to know about it.

So don't talk to anyone but me and your Mummy about it?" Her expression is very serious at that, and her hand stills. "Promise me that you won't tell anyone else without asking me first?"

[vernal_miss]

Confirmation eases the disbelief, and Nel closes her eyes as her mother begins to play with her hair. The touch is calming, and it helps her focus. Seeing the serious expression from her Mum when she opens her eyes, she implicitly understands the gravity of such a revelation, and without hesitation she agrees as she makes a gesture of crossing a finger over her heart in an 'X' motion, "Promise. Not anyone."

Her own seriousness fades as a bubble of happiness forces a smile out, "...it really doesn't change anything, but I think it's lovely, Mum." Nel is as much the daughter of Mary Ann and Janice as she ever was, but it's still something special. It is why she exists after all. Leaning forward, she reaches to give her Mum a hug.

[catted]

She smiles at the comment. Good. "You think so?"

She's still not sure herself. It's nice, after all is said and done and figured out, and now even a little bit explained, to have their children be related to both of them. It certainly isn't something that they would have expected to ever experience.

At the same time, it's just... been confusing the hell out of them for years. Not in the very beginning, when they still just assumed that their working with private donors had worked out. Not even when the couple who had supplied the donations had been curious about who the father was and they'd decided to get a paternity test, which came back negative for both - those things just mess up sometimes.

It really only had started getting confused when a slightly buzzed Janice had decided to send in a paternity test with her own samples, and then not long after had discovered that she was pregnant herself.

And then ...well. Four children later, they're very happy about their lot in life, but still not quite sure how they ended up with them.

Until now. Or at least it would be the beginning of an explanation...

[vernal_miss]

Curling up to her mother, Nel nods and tries to expand upon her opinion on the matter, "Absoposilutely! Cause you and Mummy wanted more kids after you got Feste, so here we are. And can you imagine if someone else had us instead? We got lucky! You love us even though we came in a strange way."

Nel doesn't quite understand the need for secrecy around the odd circumstances that led to her life, but her mums must have a good reason. Regardless of that reasoning, she has been happy her whole life thanks to her family.

[catted]

She laughs, with relief and love. "Well, if someone else had you, you might be growing up around less cats." Might - it's not like there aren't many other people who also have a good picking of cats. Good taste comes around.

"But yes, we do very much love you and your siblings. Regardless of how you came to be with us."

Of note, secrecy at home (not outside) is what she’s not sure of from that last tag

[vernal_miss]

Tucked close, the sound of her mother’s laugh gets Nel snuggling downward as she giggles a little herself, “That would be tragic! This is clearly where we were meant to be.” Cats have been all around her since the days in a crib, and imagining a life otherwise seems far less warm and less delightful.

“I love you too, Mum,” Nel says as she lifts her head to look right up at her mother with an expression of adoration. She truly does love everyone in her family. However, right now it is just them. They have a lot to face together, and Nel feels safe with her Mum involved.