Welcome Distractions

John re-entered the house somberly, with his lovers on his heels, save Orria who had ventured off to check on the temple ahead of their visit and keep an eye on where Vallya strayed. For the first time in a while, John was greeted by silence, able to walk into the house without being assailed.

For the first time in a long while, he missed those demanding paws and needy faces. The faces now sitting in a silent circle around their mother and aunt, gazing up at him with sorrow tinged by hope.

“What happened?” Maera asked, eyes narrowed with anger. The unspoken question was clear.

“It’s complicated,” John admitted, grumbling with the dissatisfaction of his own answer. “She gave me reason enough to be merciful, or she’d be out on her ass immediately, let the Abyss have her if they want her. For now, she’s banned from the house until further notice… and even if the kittens wander from the house, she’s under direct orders to keep well away without explicit permission, something I don’t intend to give without good reason and active supervision.”

“I’m sorry, John. I wanted to stop her, but…”

Farrah’s voice had come from John’s side. Though the kittens had not mobbed him, at least one person was still there to grab onto John now that he was home. Farrah clung hesitantly to his forearm, looking up at him with grief in her eyes. He’d seen her at the side of the room, though he was admittedly a bit surprised she’d chosen to approach him and speak up, much less actually grab onto him. As she paused mid-sentence, John reached over with his free hand and gently squeezed her hands with his own.

“You don’t have to apologize, Farrah. None of us expected this, and I’m not sure what you could have done against Vallya anyway. You have absolutely nothing to apologize for… I’m just glad you’re okay too.”

Farrah didn’t say anything, but gave a thankful nod. She still looked quite disturbed, but a ghost of a smile touched her lips, which was enough for him. The same could not be said of the kittens, all of whom were staring at John with various amounts of anxiety on their faces.

“Papa… are we safe now?” Miriam asked. The look of innocent worry on her face broke John a bit, but he fought to keep his expression even when he responded.

“Is she coming back?” Mika asked, with Miya nodding behind her.

“Of course you’re safe now, Miriam. And Mika, Vallya isn’t allowed near this house anymore, or any of you, and we’re going to make sure that she follows those rules. But I know how it feels to not feel safe in your own home, to be hurt when you should be the most protected. It’s not going to be easy, and it won’t happen overnight… but your mother and I, and all the rest of your family, will be here to help however we can. If any of you need anything, even if it’s just to talk, please come and tell us.”

“Why did she do it?” Midoriya asked, eyes laden with guilt. “Was it because of me?”

“Like I said earlier to Magnus, this was no one’s fault. This was her choice, and she’s the one who has to take responsibility for it, not any of you. But that doesn’t mean you won’t feel the consequences of it. Midoriya, come here,” John said, holding out a free arm. “You too, Magnus. If you’re feeling up to it, come give Papa a hug.”

The two of them looked between themselves and John for a few moments, hesitating slightly. But eventually, with the slightest of nods, they both stood and walked toward John, eager yet filled with uncertainty. Most of that hesitation faded as John released Farrah’s forearm and wrapped his now-freed arm around the two of them together, lifting them up and eagerly pulling them to his chest. Slight gasps of excitement escaped the two kittens despite their somber moods, giggles intensifying as John snuggled his face against theirs and laughed out loud.

“Papa doesn’t like it when you two fight… but even though I never had any of my own, I know siblings are going to fight, that’s just a part of life. What’s important is that you learn from it and try to be better when that kind of thing happens again in the future. I know I lecture you or discipline you two sometimes when you butt heads, but I only want you two to get along and become better people together. I would never do what Vallya did. And I hope you two know I would do anything in my power to prevent something like that from happening again.”

“I… I know, Papa,” Magnus said, nuzzling himself further into John’s shoulder. Midoriya remained silent, but nodded as he tucked himself more tightly against John.

“I know today was hard on you two. On all of us,” John half-whispered, as he embraced the two nerve-racked kittens. “So how about we all take a little field trip together? Yvara, the dragon woman who showed up here a couple days ago, has been hard at work making a new building called a temple. How about we all go take a look at it together?”

“Papa, what’s a temple?”

“Does it smell funny?”

“Can we play games in it?”

There was a certain hesitance in the eyes of the young Nekos as they spoke, but John chose to ignore as much of that as he could and revel in the sudden interest and curiosity he saw lighting the eyes of his children. Though there were plenty of pressing, important issues that had arisen from the recent events, John took a proper amount of pride and satisfaction in distracting the kittens from the unexpected trauma of the day.

“Now, now, let’s not spoil anything…” John said, his voice laced with teases. “You’ll have to see for yourselves, won’t you? Come on, let’s go!”

“Papa, is it gonna be purple?”

“Papa, is it gonna have snacks?”

“Papa, what does it taste like?”

John was torn between a smile and a grimace as Mika and Miya bounced on his right side, both tugging on one of his sleeves, peppering him with so many questions that he never would’ve thought to ask about a building, of all things. He would’ve been lying to say that it wasn’t a bit exhausting, but having the kittens so quickly rebound from the incident earlier was rather refreshing.

Well… most of them, at least. There were a few stragglers.

Magnus being so quiet was hardly surprising, though John’s heart ached for the poor boy. He alternated between holding John’s free hand – when his sisters weren’t jostling it too badly – and switching over to nestle into his mother’s side, only once during the whole trip venturing as far as Maera.

Midoriya was more alarming. The boy had shown a tremendous amount of guilt over Vallya’s actions, despite the fact that his entire contribution seemed to be a slight bit of pride in his own abilities getting him bullied by his brother. Perhaps it had something to do with how much adoration the young boy had had for Vallya prior to what she’d done, but John didn’t want to press him on the issue while it was still so tender. At least the idea of getting out of the house seemed to have lightened his mood a little.

Farrah was a bit less somber than John’s children, though she was still notably quieter than usual. She didn’t participate at all in the variety of questions about the temple, and she hardly spoke at all except when John addressed her directly. As with Midoriya, John wasn’t sure whether her silence was as simple as it seemed, though he was hopeful she might be a bit easier to talk to about it later.

For now, John just enjoyed the group’s trek. Hiking through the mountains with so many people along was a nice experience. Even when the kittens were quiet, the sound of so many footsteps filled the air with a bit of background noise, something that his world typically lacked. John had almost gotten used to the silence, but going back to the old world again had reminded him of how noisy life usually was. His trip to the west and back had been filled with the noise of crickets, wind, and civilization. Even in the vast expanses of desert and the mountains, there had been wildlife. His world having no pests was certainly a plus, but the silence could be off-putting at times.

When they finally arrived at Yvara’s temple, John was shocked at how vastly the exterior had changed. There was finer work done on the marble exterior, including blue leylines of mana trickling across most of the building’s surface. There was no visible purpose to the flow of magic, but the leylines were woven in intricate and beautiful patterns, adding more depth and detail to the otherwise smooth white surface. Plants blossomed wildly around the perimeter of the building, beautiful and lush flowering plants that blossomed in various hues of blue, highlighting the blue accents of the leylines against the pale building.

“Orria, you got all this done in a day?” John asked, both impressed and amused. “More of a half-day, even.”

“Well, it looks better from the front,” Orria said shyly, blushing a bit and brushing a lock of blonde hair back behind her ear. “We spent so much time deciding what the best arrangement and coloration was that I only had a few minutes to get the actual growing taken care of. I need to come back and touch up these blossoms over here, and these plants are hardly blooming at all, they’re just so…”

Orria walked away from John toward the plants absently, her mind elsewhere. Her voice became such a mumbled blur of thoughts as she pondered the intricacies of garden arrangement. While John was busy admiring the drive and one-mindedness of the elven beauty, a blur of motion descended the temple stairs in his peripheral.

“My Lord, I did not expect you to visit today! Is everything alright? Orria left in such a hurry I hardly heard half of what she called out to me. Is anything wrong? Do you need my services in any way?” Yvara shouted, diving into a half-curtsy as she reached the bottom of the stairs.

“Everything is… it’s been dealt with,” John said, stopping himself before any of the kittens could think he was dismissing their pain. “But we could use a distraction. I was hoping to show the children your wonderful temple and the work that you’ve put into it. You’ve done so much work, even since I was last here. I’m very impressed.”

“Oh! Giving another tour would be wonderful, of course,” Yvara said, her eyes lighting up at the praise. “But… Lord John, the project I was working on is yet unfinished without the proper materials to finish it. Would you please allow me a few minutes to cover up the unfinished works? I would not wish for you or your children to witness the temple as it is.”

“Oh… that’s fine,” John said, taken a bit aback by the earnest need in her eyes. “Sorry, I didn’t realize you were doing even more renovations. The last time we were here, it seemed like you’d already finished with most of the foundations and basic work. What section did you have under construction?”

“Well, not so much a full section, it’s just… I was busy working on the statues,” Yvara said, noticeably scratching the scales of her leg with a claw out of nervousness. “I finished the detail work on them, but without dyes and pigments I have no way to color the stone.”

“Wait, by color, do you mean paint? I could have gotten you paints,” John mused.

“No, not something as simple as painting it. I’ve spent decades studying many fields of artisan magic. Stoneworking is one of my specialties; I learned a very long time ago how to manipulate the properties of various minerals and stones directly to reflect a desired color of light. It’s easier with outside materials, of course. I have mastered the spells to color and shade stone directly, but doing so requires more mana and time. With all the work that still remains around the temple, I’ve just… never found the opportunity.”

Yvara blushed, her cheeks colored a deeply apologetic red as she stared at John.

“I would have asked Orria to grow some appropriately colored flowers and used them to aid the process, but it seemed so much more important to begin the gardening process. Again, I did not anticipate you arriving today, or Orria leaving so suddenly. I apologize for my lack of foresight, my Lord.”

John waved away Yvara’s concerns as best he could with one hand, while opening up his inventory with the other and beginning to place the various dyes, pigments, and plant materials they had gathered on the ground. “Not to worry. Actually, before things got a little out of hand, we were fighting a lot of plant-based enemies to grind out materials for your temple. There’s not as much as we wanted to bring, but-”

“This is wonderful!” Yvara interrupted, blushing slightly when she realized John was about to say something more. She offered an apologetic curtsy before continuing in a more controlled tone, “My apologies, Lord. It’s just that this is more than enough to finish the statues’ coloration to a satisfactory degree. I will require more to finish properly decorating the temple, of course, but… would you please allow me the blessing of a few minutes alone to finish the statues? I promise it won’t take long. Fifteen minutes, at the most!”

“Uh… of course, Yvara,” John said, smiling widely. He wasn’t sure how well the kittens would take to any kind of delay, but honestly, the idea of Yvara’s spells being able to completely re-constitute stone to color it at a base level had him mildly curious. “Go right ahead. We’ll wait out here until you’re ready.”

“Thank you, Lord. Thank you! I promise, you won’t be disappointed,” Yvara said, bowing deeply as she gathered up the materials John had dropped. She continued to curtsy as she went, always bowed so deeply, until after her fourth or fifth low gesture she turned and ran into the temple with only a very conspicuous web of mana keeping the various flowers and roots and powders John had gathered from spilling out of her haphazard grip.

“Papa, what statues is she talking about?” Moira asked, tugging on his sleeve while he was distracted watching Yvara’s silhouette disappear into the temple.

“Ah… something she said was important to the temple. Apparently they always make statues of their most important figures. I’m not really sure what she’ll be doing, but it seems important to her that things are finished before we see them, so we’re going to respect that.”

John half expected there to be more arguments and impatience, but the kittens seemed quite content to play around the outside of the temple for the time being. Midoriya and Magnus didn’t stray far, but Mika and Miya had already begun to bounce around the exterior of the temple under Orria’s casual instructions, barely staying far enough away from the beautiful floral displays to avoid damaging them. Miriam and Moira were fascinated as well, but content to watch from a further distance, with Miriam as fascinated by the intricate leylines as her sister was by the brilliant blossoms of the rose bushes.

Maera and Mithra busied themselves keeping the kittens fully entertained, as well as coaxing Magnus and Midoriya into opening up. Because of that John was able to mostly relax through the wait, enjoying watching each of his children explore the outside of the temple in different ways. By the time that Yvara eventually emerged once more, sweat dripping down her brow with a satisfied smile on her face, John had nearly allowed himself to forget why they were waiting at all.

“Thank you for your patience, my Lord. The statues are complete. Or… well, one is merely a placeholder, but I hope that it will still please you, my Lord. Please, follow me,” Yvara encouraged, returning to the interior of the temple. The entire group followed her eagerly, curiosity evident on all their faces, especially John’s own. There was something new in Yvara’s eyes, a pride that didn’t quite match with the pride and awe she seemed to have whenever she spoke to John. John wasn’t sure what kind of statues could cause such pride in a woman who had built most of a temple from marble in a single day.