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There were many small kindnesses that the Abernant sisters had not be granted while under the so-called ‘care’ of the Abernant parents. Not the intentionally ignored birthdays, or the punishments for less than perfect grades, or being sent to their rooms without any food because they had failed to thank their parents for the dinner they hadn’t even made. No, those were some of the large cruelties, things that had resulted from Angwyn and Arianwen actually paying attention to their children.
The lack of small kindness generally came from the Abernant parents being unaware of, or indifferent to, their daughters. Neither Alewyn nor Adaine had ever gotten a kind word after a hard day. Instead of a doting parent with a gentle hand on their back, unseen servants had taken care of them when they were sick. There were never any impromptu stops for fries and milkshakes, no spontaneously ditching school to go see a movie, no grabbing a new color of nail polish and having a playfully slapdash salon night. In short, they both had unhappy childhoods under uncaring parents.
Jawbone and Sandra Lynn were both determined to be the parents that the girls should have had. They purchased the little trinkets the girls clearly wanted but would never ask for. They not only permitted but encouraged the decorating of their rooms (separate rooms, now, sharing a small antechamber, since the choice to have their own rooms came from the need for privacy rather than their parents imposing isolation from each other upon them). Hairclips and tampons and makeup and other things easily lost or used up no longer had to be submitted to the bi-weekly shopping list (and no, there would not be any extra trips; miss the deadline and make due until the next one) but instead were replenished before they got too low. Sandra Lynn did things that mothers were supposed to do, like painting nails and brushing hair. Jawbone made sure that the pantry always had their favorite snacks, and had put plastic totes in their rooms with snacks and sodas and bottles of water since going to the kitchen in the middle of the night was something that still caused both sisters anxiety (there was also a mini fridge with drinks and things like yogurt in the antechamber, but even opening their bedroom door at night could be a problem for them). Living in Mordred Manor was chaotic, but Jawbone and Sandra Lynn refused to let a single child in their home slip through the cracks when it came to little shows of care and attention.
On this particular day, Sandra Lynn was carefully cleaning, repairing, and oiling her bow on the front porch when Adaine got home. She was alone, unaccompanied by a single other Bad Kid or former Rat Grinder or anyone else, because she had been off doing some wizard project that Sandra Lynn honestly didn’t understand.
As Adaine approached, Sandra Lynn looked up at her with a bright smile. “Hey, sweetie, how was your day?”
“Fine,” Adaine replied curtly, scowling, “I’m going to go shower.” She brushed right past Sandra Lynn and headed inside.
Sandra Lynn was taken aback. Adaine was never that short with them. Something must have happened while she was out. Sandra Lynn put her bow back into the case it lived in while she was working on it and went inside herself. It was time to spring into action.
********
About half an hour later, when she heard the water shut off, Sandra Lynn picked up the tray that she had prepared and went to bring it upstairs. Adaine generally didn’t eat much in the afternoons, so it was just toast with a cup of tea. Expect that she clearly needed some extra care today, so Sandra Lynn had done some extra. The toast was thick, buttery pieces from the roasted garlic loaf that Lydia had made, and the tea was the special Fallanise blend that Adaine almost never took the time to make ‘properly,’ simmered in milk and sweetened with stardrop berry syrup.
When she reached the top of the stairs, Sandra Lynn took a moment to re-compose herself. They weren’t difficult for her, she was a ranger and an adventurer and at least once a week had far more demanding tests of her fitness than too many stairs, but they were annoying. Shifting the tray to one hand, she knocked and then opened the door just a crack, just enough to talk through.
“Adaine?” she called, “Can I come in?”
“Um, yeah, hang on a sec.” Sandra Lynn heard the sound of fabric swishing and a moment later Adaine pulled the door the rest of the way open, still tying the sash on her robe. “What’s up?”
Sandra Lynn held the tray up in front of her. “I made you a snack. Come on,” she said, stepping into the room and setting the tray on Adaine’s vanity, “you eat, and I’ll brush your hair.”
The shower had clearly helped whatever mood Adaine had been in. “Thank you,” she said, tucking her robe under herself as she sat down. She took a bite of the toast and sighed. Lydia was such a good cook.
Sandra Lynn picked up Adaine’s brush and started to work on her hair. It got surprisingly tangled for how fine it was, a thing that Sandra Lynn knew frustrated Adaine to no end. So she took her time, working through each section slowly and gently, using plenty of the special hair oil that she had formulated for just this purpose. They spent the time in silence for a while, while Sandra Lynn worked and Adaine ate. Sandra Lynn watched as the tension in Adaine’s body slowly dissipated and her shoulders relaxed.
“Do you want to talk about your day?” she finally asked, kindly and with no pressure behind it.
Adaine’s eyes fixed on her tea. “One of the other kids said something mean, is all,” she said quietly, sadly, a tone that let Sandra Lynn know that there was a lot more behind it than Adaine was letting on.
“Adaine,” she prompted gently, still brushing, “I can’t help if you won’t talk to me.”
Adaine started tracing the wood grain of her vanity with one of her fingers. “Wizard shit’s really expensive,” she started, “and it’s mostly fine, now, because Fallinel is paying me, but...” Adaine paused for a long while. Sandra Lynn just kept brushing, knowing that Adaine would continue when she was ready. “...Oisin has been helping me out, some,” she said slowly, “just, if it’s like a paired project, he’ll put the materials in, or if it’s something stupid expensive or rare, because he already has it.”
“Okay,” Sandra Lynn said. She already knew that Oisin had been sharing materials with Adaine. She didn’t love it, but Adaine could take care of herself. She would know where the line was beyond which she couldn’t accept the help. And she knew that her own experiences of accepting extravagant gifts from men were probably coloring her perception of the situation, so she let it be and trusted that Adaine would come to them if she ever needed advice about it.
“One of the other boys, who’s a piece of shit to begin with and I think is pissy because he’s a High Elf and thinks that if I need help I should be asking him, because High Elves are ‘so special’,” Adaine was getting worked up, which Sandra Lynn like a lot more than when she got quiet and small, and the last part was said incredibly sarcastically. “He just,” she paused and sighed deeply. When she started again she sounded tired. “He mumbled something today when Oisin pulled a ruby out of his bag for me, and I couldn’t quite hear it, but I’m pretty sure I caught the words ‘Dragonborn’ and ‘whore’.”
Sandra Lynn stilled. Took a deep breath. Then another. And another. “Sweetie,” she said, measured, contained, “That’s not okay.”
“I know,” Adaine told her, “but I was kinda stunned, and I wasn’t positive that that was actually what he said, so I let it go and focused on the project. I didn’t realize it was festering until I was on my way home.”
“Do you want me to tell Jawbone?” Sandra Lynn asked.
Adaine shook her head. “No,” she said, “I can tell him. I just needed some time to breath. Process. Literally wash it off of myself.”
Sandra Lynn squeezed Adaine’s shoulder, a small display of reassurance. “But you have to tell Jawbone soon, okay?” she asked in that mom-tone that meant it wasn't actually a question, “I can give you a couple of days, but then I’m gonna need to tell him. As a partner and as a parent, that’s not a secret I can keep.”
“I will,” Adaine promised, “I’ll tell him tonight, if he has the time.”
Sandra Lynn sighed. “Sweetie,” she said, slightly exasperated. This was not the first time she or Jawbone had had this conversation with either of the sisters, or Kristen, or Fig, or any of the other children they routinely cared for. “He will make time. If you tell him that you need to talk to him he will make the time. It’s what good parents do.”
Adaine smiled at her in the mirror, her eyes just a little over wet, and placed a hand on top of the one that Sandra Lynn still had on her shoulder. “Thank you,” she half whispered.
Sandra Lynn smiled back at her, then started brushing again. Adaine’s hair did seem particularly tangled today. If she had been pulling at it in anger or frustration, an unfortunate habit that she had developed recently, that could explain all the extra knots.
They fell into silence again, this time comfortable instead of tense. Sandra Lynn kept brushing Adaine’s hair, gently working through the knots and trimming the occasional split end. Adaine poured herself another cup of tea and brought it up to her face, inhaling the sweet, spiced, slightly ethereal aroma, before beginning to slowly sip it. She had long since finished the toast.
“Adaine,” Sandra Lynn said cautiously after a few minutes of that comfortable, cozy silence, “can I ask you something that might be a little uncomfortable?”
Adaine’s shoulders tensed. “Of course,” she said, a false levity in her voice.
“You have been spending a lot of time with Oisin,” Sandra Lynn started, maintaining gentle strokes with the brush. It was only barely a question.
Adaine acknowledged her with a soft “Hmm.”
“I’m not going to tell you to not have sex,” Sandra Lynn continued, fairly certain that Adaine and Oisin hadn’t already, “And you’re a smart girl, so I know that you know to be careful regarding pregnancy and STI’s, but have you thought about the… physiological problems you might run into?”
Adaine set her tea down. She was blushing all the way to the tips of her ears, and her fair skin made the red look all the more intense. “What do you mean?” she asked quietly.
Sandra Lynn took a moment to arrange her thoughts. “Okay,” she finally said, “this conversation is only going to take longer if I try to talk in euphemisms, so I’m just going to use plain language.” Her tone was business-like, but her hands were still calming and gentle. There was a particularly difficult knot in Adaine’s hair that Sandra Lynn needed to work through before she could start braiding.
“We have soft bodies, Adaine,” she said kindly, “and it can be easy for us to get hurt during inter-species sex. Which isn’t usually something you know to worry about unless you already know to worry about it.” She paused for a moment, slowly working the brush through the section of hair she had just untangled. “Granted,” she continued, voice measured, “I was absolutely drunk or high or possibly both, but the first time I got hurt I had no idea what happened. I panicked, and he laughed at me, and told me that it was normal.” Sandra Lynn’s hands stilled and she looked up, making eye contact with Adaine’s reflection. “It isn’t normal,” she said firmly, “It’s common, but it isn’t normal, and it can be avoided. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” Adaine squeaked. She was holding nearly perfectly still, a clear indication that she wanted nothing more than to flee from this conversation, but she maintained unwavering eye contact. “Um… how, exactly?”
Sandra Lynn smiled and shifted her attention back to Adaine’s hair. “You just need to talk to him,” she said, finally setting the brush down and separating the small strands at the crown of Adaine’s head that she would use to start the braid, “There are a few conversations you should have with a person before you have sex with them, and checking in on how compatible your individual physiologies are is one of them.”
“What if we’re not… compatible?” Adaine asked quietly, picking her teacup back up.
“Well,” Sandra Lynn said, eyes still on Adaine’s head as she incorporated more hair into the braid, “you could decide not to have penetrative sex. There are other ways to experience sexual intimacy with a partner. Again, you’re a smart girl; I don’t think I need to go through the other options with you, although I will if you ask.
“But,” Sandra Lynn continued, “interspecies relationships are so common, a lot of aides have been developed to help with sexual incompatibilities, like specialized toys and positioning blocks. There are even potions and charms that can negate specific problems. And condoms, that are made for different body types and different kinds of ejaculate.
“Ask us, if you need something that you can’t just pull out of your jacket,” Sandra Lynn said, wrapping an elastic around the end of the braid, “or, you know Gorgug’s parents have an unfortunate lack of boundaries. Whatever it is, they would probably get it for you and offer to talk you through exactly how to use it.”
Adaine snort-laughed at that. “I’d rather ask you guys,” she said, still uncomfortable but a lot more relaxed since the joke had done its job and broken the tension, “I don’t think either Gorgug or I need that embarrassment.”
Sandra Lynn wrapped her arms around Adaine’s shoulders, pulling her against the back of the chair in a slightly awkward hug, and bent forward to kiss the top of the girl’s head. “You can always come to us,” she said, straitening back up, “whatever you need, we’re here for you.”
Sandra Lynn stepped to the side of Adaine’s chair, gathered the now-empty tray, and went to leave. She was halfway out the door when Adaine spoke again.
“It’s nice, you know,” she said quietly, “having a real mom.”
Tears immediately prickled at Sandra Lynn’s eyes. “I’m glad,” she responded happily before softly shutting the door behind her. She headed downstairs, but rather than going directly to the kitchen, she instead turned and went to Jawbone’s office. The empty tray could wait there for a bit while she cuddled with him and cried happy tears.