The Divine Mage

The tarot mage closed her eyes as she walked along the path with her little Lethe’s hand in her own. The mage had been emotionally stressed during the time her partner had left for hell. She had cut her hair short once again, but it was growing back already. It framed her face under her hat as she wore a two toned black and blue bikini with a see through white cover over it, all designed by Olga. In her hand was a pair of black strappy sandals that she didn’t want flopping around in the sand as she walked across the golden grains.

Ducarius watched as his twin was playing with his father as Melinda held onto his hand. Melinda wanted to go and run after her triplet brother though. After Kyran teased the children in a race, Gaia gave them a nod, letting go of Lethe’s hand slowly to signal that they could run off after their father. After the nod, Lethe and Melinda were racing after their younger brother, with Lethe staying behind to not let Ducarius be alone.

As the tarot mage walked up towards where her husband was, she looked to his hand. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to take it, but she sighs and grabs his hand gingerly. Her burnt sienna eyes glared over to him as he talked. She was clearly biting her tongue, literally. “Damn straight you shouldn’t have left without me.” She mutters as she looks away from him. She was quiet as she looked over the water. She was like that for almost a minute before she turned her head back towards Kyran. “Do that again, and Hell will seem like a cake walk.” She felt she had every right to threaten him. She had been hurt by him leaving suddenly without a warning. Top it with five young children, who all simultaneously love their father figure deeply, suddenly cry out for him as he wasn’t there got her hurting worse.

She looked over to the kids again to see them running up towards a sand castle contest, and she smiles softly to them. “The kids want a castle, papa.” She says as she glanced down to his hand holding hers. Despite her being mad at him, she didn’t want to let him go again, but with Melinda and Arawn racing back up to her, she had to as she crouched down to their level.

“Mama! We wanna make castles!” The two of three dragon triplets excitedly bounced in front of her.

Gaia’s smile grew on her face as she held her hands out to the two of them and nodded. “Lets get to making sand castles then!” She laughs to the children, who were now cheering as the practically dragged their adoptive mother with them to where the contest was being held. The younger version of Lethe was holding Ducarius’ and Bel’s hands as she smiles to her. Gaia’s smile almost faltered as she knew Lethe was being innocent, but she felt guilty for the other Lethe that came into their lives as she was the older version of this one and had a terrible childhood.

Lethe made Gaia determined to give Adalinda a piece of her mind, and probably knock the snot out of her for abandoning her kids and treating them like so. She already had given Lethe the dragon slayer lacrima she had… so it was only a matter of time before that wretch came back to fiore in her travels. She didn’t care one bit if Adalinda was one of Kyran’s friends or not, she didn’t like the woman who helped him destroy her home once upon a time and dumped her kids like she did.

“How big do we want to make our castle?” She asks the group of children as she holds up two hands to signal to a host of the game how many people there were total with her. The host nearly went bug eyed, but quickly wrote it down and let them start with making the castle. “Start gathering sand for the base, kids! We’ll make it pretty.”

“Like mama’s house?” Lethe piped up, making Gaia smile to her and kiss her head.

“Maybe even better.” She laughs as the kids were already racing around their area and throwing sand in the middle, screaming with joy all the while.

The Divine Mage

Gaia raised a glaring eyebrow towards her husband as he spoke about hell being hell for him, rolling her eyes as he tried to say he was no better than his own father. “You are better than your own father. Don’t you even dare.” She growled lowly before the children had ran up to her and dragged her off towards the contest of sand castle making. Gaia glanced towards Kyran as he came up to the group and stretched out his hand.

It didn’t take too terribly long for the kids to enjoy making their sand castle with their father. Gaia was mostly handing buckets of sand to the kids to let them throw it on. As the kids held up their little medal for winning third place, they cheered happily. Gaia clapped her hands to them, smiling as Bel came into her lap and hugged her as she was handed a lei for their participation in the contest. Then Kyran bribed the children with ice cream. She looked over to where Kyran had pointed them too, and sighs as she would have to keep her eyes on the kids. Melinda asked about getting her and Kyran something, and she smiled. “Mama is going to get her own in a little bit. Mama’s still deciding if she wants fruit or ice cream.” She waves her hand to let Melinda go on with her sister and brother to help the younger twins go.

She watches the kids for a moment before she stands up as well, brushing the sand off of her cover. “Was there something else you wanted to talk about while our kids were away? Do remember that three of them are part dragon and have better hearing than most.” She let her eyes glance to her husband for a brief moment before they were back on their kids. She had taught them to stick together if they were ever not around herself or Kyran or any adult they knew she deemed okay, like the majority of the adults of Sabertooth, the bigger Lethe, or a babysitter that Gaia found that wasn’t either of the former two.

If Kyran had more to say while the kids were away, she would listen to him while she lead him away from the sand castle contest. After he was done, the kids seemed to shuffle back towards them slowly, each with a sticky treat in their hands. A smile was on her face as she watched them. Looking around for a moment to be sure everything was okay, Gaia noticed another game here. Horseshoe throwing. She tilted her head a bit as she watched someone play the game. She honestly had never played it before, so her curiosity was getting the better of her. She looked back to Kyran, letting him get the kids as she walked across the sand towards the horseshoe throwing game.

She watched curiously before a host came up to her and asked her if she was familiar with the game. After exposing that she wasn’t, the man explained how the game was to be played, then she was given five horseshoes. Gaia looked curiously at the plastic horseshoe in her hand. This was supposed to fly and hit the peg? She nervously brought it in front of her before she tossed it towards the peg. The first shot missed, by a mile basically. She had four more tries. Maybe one of them would hit it. With a huff, she quickly chucked another. And it rung. She gasped at the sheer luck she had! She tried throwing the third, but it too had missed. She scrunched her nose as she grabbed her second to last one and glared towards the peg for a moment. Afterwards she had tossed her horseshoe at it, and it made it once again! Two for two! She took a deep breath as she held up the final horseshoe. This one would make or break her streak. With a decent toss, the horseshoe flew in the air before it landed right on the peg again!

Gaia covered her mouth as she was in disbelief of her achievement of actually getting the horseshoes on the peg! The host was impressed and smiled as he handed her a lei. She grabbed it and went to go show Kyran and the kids.

“Wow! Mama’s so cool!” Lethe chimes to her, making Gaia nervously blush. She wasn’t expecting that from the young girl.

Gaia looked around for a moment. She was trying to find their next game they could do… “Do you five… want to go fishing?! Or play limbo?” She asks as she claps her hands together. The kids were still munching on their treats, and she chuckled. “When you’re done eating at least…” She glances towards Kyran, wondering if he’d have a suggestion of what to do when the kids were done eating their ice creams.

The Divine Mage

Gaia raised an eyebrow as she listened to Kyran whispering in her ear. She turned her head just slightly and pursed her lips just slightly. She was clearly thinking as she let her burnt sienna eyes peer over the top rim of her glasses at him. “I know you feel like garbage for what you did. It will take some time to ‘assuage your wrongs’ fully, but for now, I will forgive you enough to kiss you…” She turns her body just enough to press a kiss against his own lips. It didn’t last long as she wanted to keep her eyes on the kids, but then was distracted by the horseshoe contest.

She played her game and returned, being greeted with the kids around her and a kiss on her cheek for her accomplishment. She nodded as her husband mentioned that horseshoes weren't an easy thing. She picked up her two youngest after putting her lei on Melinda, and let Kyran pick his own activity to do. She blinked at him pulling off his shirt suddenly, and tilted her head a bit. The new scars had her looking concerned for a moment, but she had to grab his shirt now, setting down Bel as she did so before picking him up again. “Well kids, let's go watch papa surf.” She says as she makes her way towards the beach where the surfers weren’t to watch.

“Papa went under the water!” Melinda cries the first time Kyran falls off his board. She gasped though as he was back on and was managing to surf better now. As he went across the waves, the kids were cheering for their father, especially when he came up to them after winning the trophy. Arawn held the trophy up. They didn’t care what place it was, they were only excited for the trophy.

Gaia raised an eyebrow to Kyran as the kids were all cheering, even Bel and Ducarius were trying to climb over to their father, jumping out of their mothers arms to do so. “Since when did you know how to surf?” She questions him as the kids grab hold of Kyran. As far as she knew, Kyran didn’t know how to surf? Unless this was one of the things her husband learned in hell. A frown started to form on her lips at that thought. Part of her wanted to know what all he had learned or gone through there… but also she didn’t?

Shaking her head, the tarot mage looked at her kids, then around the area. They could either go eat, or go to the limbo contest. She thought for a moment before Lethe tugged on her bathing suit cover. “Mama, I’m hungry.” Leave it to the dragons to start saying their hungry first. As soon as Lethe said that, Melinda and Arawn both were chanting it as well. Gaia smiles as she nods before looking to Kyran. “Can papa pick me up and carry me to the food?” Lethe bounced in front of Kyran and was holding her hands behind her back as she was trying to act cuter than she was.

“Lets go get your little bellies some food! Does that sound good to you all?” She asks, making all the children cheer in unison. Bel and Ducarius started tottering away happily as they ran to where they saw the buffet. The dragon triplets got in between the twins and each grabbed one hand of them. Gaia had to stop for a moment to pull out her iLac from her purse and take a quick picture of them all together. She partially wished Noya had come with, but Noya wasn’t one for the beach and stayed back in their temporary residence while on Tolgalen to keep herself clean of the sand. Unlike the rest of her species, she liked herself being clean and tidy and having white fur. The sand would dirty her.

The kids wasted no time while Gaia took a picture of them to get to the buffet table. “Let mama and papa help with the plates, kids.” She says as she grabs a couple small plates for now. She didn’t want the kids to drop their paper plates while traveling to the tables. The kids were bouncing as they were crying for what all they wanted. One wanted shrimp, another wanted pig, another pudding, chips, carrots. One of the dragon children wanted a whole pineapple, in which Gaia quickly shut down and put slices on the plate instead. It took a little bit, but all the kids were eventually sitting down at the table and munching on various foods that was on their plates. She purposely got them the foods that were bigger so they could eat with their hands. She begins chuckling as she sits down at the picnic table as they were all messes already.

“Before we go swimming, we have to hose you all down. And wait to get into the water. Don’t want your tummies to get upset from all the roughhousing in the water.” She didn’t fully believe in the cramp myth where one had to wait a half hour before going into water, but she did believe in making sure food settled before anything. As the family was eating, they were approached by another host of the party. They asked if the group was enjoying themselves and handed Gaia a lei as the kids were stuffing their faces happily.