Chapter 110 - New Life

Elenie woke the next morning having come to a decision during her repeated bouts of nausea in the night.  Life was too short, even if the sickness didn't mean what she hoped it might.

Gathering the family together, she insisted they all head down to the fairground and visit the summer fete being held there.  It was a gloriously sunny day and they all headed straight for the snow cones.  Grabbing a cherry flavoured one, Elenie took a seat on one of the benches and beckoned her mother over.

As Dory sat down apprehensively, Elenie took a deep breath.  "Mother, I forgive you for all the things you did and failed to do in my childhood.  I know it wasn't your fault and you were bespelled.  I don't really want to talk about any of it, but let's try and make the most of what time we have now."

Dory looked down at her feet; "Thank you, I'm sorry for what I put you through and I'll do anything I can to make up for it"

Neither of them really wanted to talk any further about it, so Elenie went to find Ieaun and they all trooped off to get the obligatory summer fete picture taken.

When they were done, and all of them had a copy, they decided to have a go on the skating rink and enjoyed themselves skating round until they started to get quite hot, at which point Ieaun suggested a water fight to cool off.  

He and Dory had begun to head over to the walls which had been set up for people to hold water fights, when they noticed Elenie had stopped after coming off the rink.  As she had taken off her skates, she had felt a small movement in the area of her stomach; pausing and placing her hands there, she felt the unmistakeable sensation of new life within her.

As Ieaun and her mother ran up, she turned to Ieaun first; "You're going to be a daddy!  We're having a baby!"

Ieaun leaned over and placed his hands on her tummy, feeling the same sensation that she had earlier.  As he did so, however, he sensed more than Elenie had moments earlier; a vision swam briefly in front of his eyes and he smiled.  "Cariad, we're not having a baby, we're having two!  Twin girls!"

As the impact of that news sank in, Elenie decided not to strain herself with any of the more strenuous activities around the fete, but contented herself with a little quiet fishing.

Ieaun was asked to carry out a few readings of the future for some of the people at the fete, and it seemed that many of them thought being a living ghost, he must have more of an insight into the future and the spirit world.

Dory had just started a hot dog eating competition when the sunny day changed dramatically, the heavens seemed to open and rain poured down, sending everyone hurrying home as quickly as they could go.

While Elenie and Ieaun headed home together, Dory decided to celebrate the upcoming additions to the fmaily by doing some shopping and paid a visit to the Valley's toy shop.  She spent some time browsing the wares and considering what would be the best items for her coming grandchildren.

Having finally made her choices she took them over to the till to pay and had them nicely wrapped up in the prettiest gift paper the store sold.

Back at home, Elenie had decided to spend some time on scientific research, running various experiments on the plants she had harvested from the garden recently.  

At the end of one such experiment, she was excited to find that the seed she had been running the experiment had changed; she would have to analyse this new find very carefully!

When Dory returned home from her shopping trip, she found Ieaun tending the plants in the greenhouse and joined him in weeding and harvesting.

Later that night, after everyone else had gone to bed, little Ffion decided the time had come to leave her cub-hood behind and sparkles surrounded her.

She aged up into a fine looking vixen and immediately went out to explore the surrounding area.

The next morning, Elenie discovered that she had aged up and made a great fuss over her, feeding her treats and giving her extra toys to play with.

However, she couldn't just leave her alchemical research and spent a good part of the morning mixing up elixirs and testing out recipes.

She then spent the afternoon relaxing with a long bubble bath, pampering herself.

While she did that, Ieaun practised his magic, testing out enchantments on various household items.

A few mornings later, as they ate waffles for breakfast, Dory suggested that they take a trip to the beach.  It was Ieaun's day off, and the idea of relaxing on the beach appealed to Elenie, so they both agreed.

When they got there, Elenie and her mother spent some considerable time sunbathing and relaxing, while Ieaun spoke to his parents on the phone.

When Elenie had had her fill of sunbathing, she decided to spend a little time fishing while Ieaun meditated.

As Elenie's pregnancy progressed, she spent a lot of time reading books about babies; she wanted to be as prepared as she possibly could be, especially since they would have two babies to cope with not just one!

While Elenie prepared for motherhood, Dory did her best to ensure that she didn't have to worry about household chores, or about looking after Ffion, the cats or the unicorns.

She also insisted that she would do all the cooking and that Elenie should just put her feet up and relax, after all, she wouldn't have time to do that soon enough!

As time went by the atmosphere in the house relaxed, dinner conversations became more natural and they began to find it easier to put the past behind them.

Of course, putting the past behind you is so much easier when you have new life to look forward to, and mealtime conversations became dominated by talk about the babies, what to call them and how the nursery should be set up and decorated.

In her spare time, Dory took to training Ffion to do various tricks, never realising that Ffion knew exactly what she was doing and was simply playing along!

Chapter 109 - Regrets

After Ieaun's rebirth, life began to settle into a steady routine in the household.  Elenie spent a lot of her spare time researching alchemy; she had found a number of partially legible recipes and was determined to find out what they were for and she spent hours poring over them to try and piece them together, comparing them to the recipes she already knew.

Of course, as well as testing out the recipes, and experimenting with the ones which were incomplete, she also spent time brewing up batches of elixirs she already knew which she could sell on.

She and her mother still hadn't talked about all the issues which lay between them, indeed they both continued to try and avoid each other as much as possible.

Dory's affinity for animals was one thing which remained unchanged about her, and so, while Elenie pored over musty ancient tomes, she would go out into the barn and play with the cats and Ffion.  Although she didn't feel ready to talk to her daughter, she did constantly think about what had happened and while they played she would talk, half to herself and half to them.

"How could I have been so blind?  Why did I not see him for what he was?  All those years growing up, why was I never suspicious that he was so insistent I never tell anyone about him?  Why did I never think that was a bad thing?"

As she voiced her regrets, her mind wandered;

"If only I had told someone about him, surely the fact he didn't want anyone to know meant he was vulnerable, if only I had said something maybe he could have been driven out before he killed Pete... We could have had a long happy life together if I'd only told someone..." 

Her mind jumping back to the present, she dropped the rope she had been playing with Ffion with and bent down to fuss her.  "Oh, Ffion, I loved Pete so much, how could I have spent all those years with his murderer and never even realised it?  That monster must have been behind all those things that went wrong before he finally succeeded in killing Pete... And I turned to him for support!  Why was I so blind?"

"I should have done something, said something to someone else.  The ******* could have been driven off and we could have moved away and had a new happy life together; Elenie would have known her father and been loved all her life not abused and mistreated, we could have had more children..."

Picking up the rope again, she went outside with Ffion and began playing with her again.

Upstairs, Elenie continued to brew elixirs, unaware of her mother's mental turmoil.  Getting the mixtures right and blending them in the right order took a great deal of concentration and she welcomed the respite from her own conflicted thoughts.

She wanted to forgive her mother, but every time she thought about it, the spectre of all those years when Dory had blindly watched Nicodur treat her like dirt would rise up and she would feel a tears sting her eyes.  Was it too much to think that her mother should have been able to see what was going on?  To be able to fight his evil spells when it was her own child being harmed?

Soon enough, it was time for Dory's birthday, in truth Elenie had been surprised to find that her mother hadn't aged during her captivity, but it seemed that time had passed differently in the realm where she had been imprisoned.  

She decided that even if she wasn't yet ready to forgive her mother properly, or indeed even talk to her about what had happened, she was going to at least pretend for now that they were a normal family celebrating a birthday and spent the day preparing a feast.

When it came to time for Dory's birthday, she was caught by surprise.  She had just walked in the front door when she felt the first signs...

As the birthday sparkles gathered around her, she looked down at herself in concern, what would old age bring for her?  Could she ever put things right with Elenie?

As she aged up, she felt stiffness begin to creak in her back and put her hand there, almost welcoming the pain as a punishment for all her wrongdoings and failures.

The three of them had a relatively pleasant meal, all of them deliberately keeping to small talk and avoiding any mention of the memories which were so painful to both Elenie and Dory.

As Elenie took the dishes into the kitchen to clean them, she suddenly found herself feeling sick.  Her stomach churned as she hurriedly put the dirty dishes down and rushed to the toilet in one of the outhouses.

As she crouched over the toilet, she wondered if she had cooked the pizza properly, or if maybe she was coming down with something...

To keep her mind from that, and from her thoughts about her mother, she spent the rest of the evening in the greenhouse, tending the plants and using her fae powers to make them grow faster.

That night, she woke up abruptly, feeling ill again.

Climbing out of bed, she covered her mouth with her hand and, moving quietly so as not to wake Ieaun, headed for the bathroom as quickly as possible.