#zepheera

And now for something completely different...

Yes indeed, Kpop Demon Hunters has taken over my whole brain same as the rest of the world.

Does demon!Zepheera make any sense at all? Not even a little. Does my brain do big hurty things when This Scene comes up and Those Lines are uttered? Absolutely.

Things had happened so fast. Only a year ago, she and Orrick made the trek to the house that had offered Zepheera shelter so many years prior. For her, at least. In real time, she had only been gone a month or so, and her old friends Ceillo and Toffer were quite surprised to see her back.

Meeting Orrick and hearing Zepheera's full story for the first time left the two young men in shock, but they understood why she was in the state she'd been in when she was staying with them. With no reason to disbelieve her tales of time travel and her ageless nature, they agreed that raising little Day as a unit of four loving parents could only do her good.

That was only solidified when Orrick finally met the baby and broke down from the sheer joy of her existence.

Over the following weeks, they worked together to get Zepheera and Orrick settled under the floorboards. Their new place was essentially annexed to Ceillo and Toffer's, just enough that they could have their own private space and still be close enough to be there for the baby.

Day quickly adjusted to all the extra love and attention. Her time was spent equally with both sets of her parents, and she seemed quite happy with all of them. Though Zepheera couldn't help being anxious about actually committing to being a mother after so long, Orrick's perpetual joy to have his daughter in his life made it all feel easy.

And only a few months later, Zepheera discovered she was pregnant once again.

The reality of it was scary at first. It had been nearly two centuries since she'd experienced this, after all, and it didn't take long for Ceillo's midwife mother, Elany, to inform her that she was likely carrying twins.

Only this time, it was different. This time, she had her husband by her side. She had friends who had seen her at her lowest point, and a trusted midwife to guide her through the ups and downs of this new pregnancy. She wasn't alone, and that was a blessing.

~~~

Time passed in a haze for Zepheera following the birth. When she became aware again, she was cleaned up and lying in a different bed, one that she recalled was just off of the delivery room for the sake of ease and comfort. This time around, she had company. Orrick was snoozing just beside her, and the babies were asleep swaddled in little baskets next to the bed.

Zepheera tried to sit up, but only partly managed it before she let out a startled hiss of pain. This roused Orrick from his light slumber. He blinked blearily, but saw right away what was going on.

“Easy,” he murmured, practically jumping up to help support his wife’s weight. “You're still recovering. Even you can't heal that fast after all that.”

Zepheera couldn't argue with that even if she wanted to. The long years had nearly made her forget what it felt like for her to give birth. Even with her healing factor, her body still took its time to properly heal major wounds. Bruises or cuts could heal in moments, sprains and other stress injuries in minutes, but childbirth was another story.

She managed to nod wearily and let her husband hold her up as he rearranged their pillows so she could lie back on them while remaining somewhat upright. Realizing quickly what she was trying to do in the first place, Orrick got up to ever so carefully lift the baby baskets one by one and place them on the bed, practically in Zepheera's lap.

Her breath caught. She'd been too exhausted to fully process what her new children looked like when she first held them. She barely recalled feeding them, but she must have for them to be so content.

Even now, Zepheera had to blink back the mistiness from her eyes. She wanted to take in every detail and remember them forever.

They weren't identical twins, it was already plain to see now that they'd been cleaned up. The one in the basket across Zepheera's legs had a few wisps of copper-red hair, while the one lying more toward the middle of the bed had darker brown hair that was already growing in tiny curls. Little distinctions in the shapes of the teeny faces that peeked out of their swaddles, or the slightest contrast in their complexions, made it all sink in for Zepheera. They were real, and she and Orrick had brought them into being.

“They're so beautiful…” she breathed.

Orrick smiled warmly as he sat gently back down on the bed and scooted in to wrap an arm around Zepheera's shoulders.

“This one is a girl,” he whispered, pointing to the basket closer to his side of the bed. He gave a quiet chuckle and pointed out, “She's got your nose.”

Zepheera shared a soft giggle with him before letting her gaze slide to the other basket. “And this one's got your hair.”

At that, Orrick gave a lighthearted scoff and murmured, “I wish.” He leaned in to carefully brush back said hair, already a bolder shade than Orrick's had been even before it started going grey. “That one's our boy.”

After a few content moments, sitting quietly and watching the little sleepy movements of their newborns, Zepheera pointed out, “Probably time that we named them, eh?”

Orrick nodded. They'd discussed names several times over the course of her pregnancy, each coming up with options for boys and girls since they couldn't be sure of the sex beforehand. “How do we decide?” he wondered.

Zepheera went quiet before gently pulling out from Orrick’s soft embrace. “If you want… I think you should name our daughter.” 

Orrick blinked at the suggestion; it was her tone that surprised him more than anything. Like she'd thought about this a lot, and yet hadn't brought it up until now. And he saw exactly why when Zepheera gave a sheepish shrug and said, “It's only fair, right? Anything you want, that's what we'll call her.”

Nearly two centuries had changed a lot about Zepheera, but there were still things Orrick could read so plainly in her. This was one such thing: her attempt to make up for leaving him out of naming their first daughter. Even though it wasn't something he'd ever expect of her, he did appreciate the thought.

It did still ache a little that he'd missed any time with Day, but now that they were all together it hardly mattered.

“Okay,” Orrick agreed. “But only if you name our boy something good.”

Zepheera managed a weak smile before she nestled in against Orrick’s chest once again. His arm fell back into place around her shoulders.

“You first,” she insisted.

Though he took a few breaths to ponder, he'd had a favored name for a while now. One he was confident could work no matter the baby's gender, and that held a special place in his heart.

Seeing his babies’ first moments sealed the deal. When he held his daughter for the first time, he caught glimpses of her absolutely gorgeous light purple eyes. They were a perfect match to the flower that had long since represented his and Zepheera's love.

“Let's call her Madder,” Orrick decided.

Zepheera smiled, instantly recognizing what the name came from. Not proper madders, but the lesser weeds that sprouted bunches of absolutely tiny four-petal flowers in perfect borrower-sized bouquets. She couldn't remember where or when she'd learnt it, but she never forgot that those weeds were called field madders. Her heart swelled with pride as she looked to her freshly named daughter.

“It's perfect,” she agreed.

He gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze and leaned down to kiss the top of her head. “Your go.”

Unlike her husband, Zepheera did have to put some thought into it. She'd tossed around a few ideas, same as Orrick, but actually choosing one that fit a brand new person carried much more weight in her mind.

The baby in question sneezed in his sleep before she could even begin to decide. Seeing him grow fussy after being woken up so rudely, Zepheera reached forward to gently rock the basket in place to soothe him. His little cries slowly quieted down, and he trepidatiously blinked his little eyes open.

Zepheera's breath caught when the baby's gaze fell on her. It was already plain to see that her genes combined with Orrick's to make his light ginger hair a bit darker on their son. Now she could tell that they also gave the baby much deeper, richer blue eyes than Zepheera had ever seen before. They were like little gems, looking up at her with a mix of curiosity and caution. As though he already anticipated that the world he'd very recently become a part of was going to be a lot to take in, but he knew he had to see it anyway.

Already she could see so much personality in her son, and that in combination with his red hair made the choice clear.

“Noble,” she blurted.

Orrick hummed thoughtfully. “Noble… Like that friend of yours?”

“Mhm,” Zepheera nodded, finding herself suddenly choked up. Donna Noble. Eight decades had done nothing to dull the memories of the one human Zepheera had become truly close with. In the end, it felt like they could share almost anything with each other without judgement. And though she'd forgiven the Doctor for making Donna forget about him and Zepheera and everything they'd been through, she couldn't really make the pain of that loss go away.

Not when she never got to say goodbye.

It hadn't gotten to her like this in years. Considering her body's recent turmoil, though, it wasn't a shock that she was a bit sensitive to her emotions. Even so, Zepheera tucked her face into Orrick’s shoulder for comfort as she sniffled, “I miss her…”

Orrick let his arm slide down to rub at her back. He couldn't say it was easy to sympathize with such strong feelings of trust and friendship with the bigger folk, but he believed in Zepheera's judgement of character. Toffer, Ceillo and his family turned out to be incredibly friendly folk, just like she'd said. And by then he'd heard quite a few stories about Donna Noble and that Doctor.

“I like Noble,” Orrick reassured his wife. With a soft grin, he reached out to take over gently rocking the baby's basket to keep him calm. “Strong name. Suits him already.”

Zepheera gave a wet chuckle, glad that she could at least honor Donna this way. She wasn't even sure if her friend had been born yet, and already someone was named after her.

She drifted in and out of sleep for what felt like days after that, utterly exhausted. Orrick did his best to minimize disturbances for her, but there were occasions when it was best for Zepheera to be conscious.

For instance, Ceillo’s younger sister Coda came in a few times to check on Zepheera and the babies. Coda’s focus was mostly on the latter since Zepheera's healing factor not only sped up her recovery, but also gave the girl a poor sense of the typical state of a freshly postpartum mother. Studying under her own mother would have to suffice moving forward, and it was plain to see that Zepheera would come out the other end just fine.

Then came the much-needed visit from Toffer, Ceillo, and most importantly little Day. The toddler had been worried sick for her mama and needed to see she was okay. Zepheera managed to be alert enough to put her mind at ease, and introduce her to her brand-new siblings.

Seeing her little eyes light up in awe put the biggest smile on Zepheera's face and nearly made her tear up all over again. Moments like this reminded her that she was really here, with her own odd little family at last.

Clearly Donna didn't buy it. Her brow jumped up as her lips pursed, and her weight shifted to free up one hand, which planted on her hip as her head tilted skeptically. All motions Zepheera had also witnessed larger than life, oftentimes dodging cascades of red hair from her perch on Donna's shoulder.

“It's just…surreal, is all,” she tried to explain to Donna. Out of all the strange things she'd seen and experienced so far, this was the most bizarre by a mile. “I've never felt big before.”

Donna's expression softened as she gave a nod. “Believe me, the feeling's mutual. Only in the other direction.”

A loud spark, immediately followed by what sounded like expletives in a language the TARDIS didn't bother to translate, drew their attention away from one another.

“Alright in there, brainbox?” Donna called.

From within the nearby machine, the shrunken Time Lord snapped, “Peachy keen!” 

“He seems to be taking all this well,” commented Zepheera under her breath. His current frustrations notwithstanding, being shrunk hardly seemed to be more than a minor inconvenience to him.

“He's the Doctor,” Donna shrugged. “Things like this don't shake him up a lot.”

Zepheera gave a thoughtful hum. She'd gotten to know the Doctor and Donna mostly by spending time with them inside the TARDIS, but she was still relatively new to the zany situations they found themselves in seemingly often. It stood to reason that being shrunk down to a borrower's size wasn't the wildest thing to happen to him in over 900 years.

Her musings came to a screeching halt when she felt Donna's weight against her arm shift again. In the corner of Zepheera's eye, she watched her hoist herself up and twist herself around to very purposefully take a seat on Zepheera's forearm. This time, Zepheera's head popped up in surprise, and her hands clenched into fists before she could think to stop herself. Donna's balance swayed slightly as she braced herself, weathering the movements of her living seat.

“Whoa,” Donna breathed in astonishment. “That is so weird.”

Biting back a wince, Zepheera forced herself to start breathing again, to slowly unwind everything that had tensed up under Donna. Though the shifts under the tiny human weren't quite as sudden as before, they were no less noticeable. Donna watched in quiet awe as the muscles of Zepheera's arm relaxed, feeling herself sink ever so slightly in place now that they weren't pulled quite so tightly beneath her.

“See? That's more like it,” said Donna with a knowing glance up toward Zepheera as she patted the space on her arm right beside her seat.

Donna ignored Zepheera's dumbfounded expression, shifting experimentally in place. Her ankles crossed in front of her, and she leaned back on her hands as she remarked, “Always did look comfy when you sat like this before.”

Having it pointed out to her explained why it felt so strange: seeing something she would do from the other side. It felt backwards– wrong was probably a strong word, but it did cross her mind.

She didn't have time to dwell on that, either, before Donna was on the move again. This time, her legs folded under her and she slowly, carefully stood up on top of Zepheera's arm. She now felt that odd sensation of Donna's tiny weight in the slight shifting of her feet as she adjusted to the unsteady, uneven ground.

“What are you doing?” Zepheera managed a bemused whisper, watching Donna carefully side-step towards her elbow.

“Checkin’ the place out!” was the only explanation given. Then before Zepheera could ask what that even meant, Donna made a small hop to the middle of her bicep. Her arms shot out as she recovered her balance. Once she had better footing, she glanced at her feet, bounced in place once or twice, and then gave an exclamation that sounded rather impressed.

“Blimey, you're strong,” Donna muttered, which drew Zepheera's attention to the solid state of her muscles even as she sat mostly relaxed.

Feeling warmth flush across her cheeks, Zepheera mumbled, “Yeah, well, y'know…been getting a lot more practice in with my climbing, so…”

She trailed off when she felt Donna continue along her upper arm, shuffling up to Zepheera's shoulder. With a satisfied huff, the shrunken human let herself drop to a seat right next to Zepheera's neck and out of her line of sight.

Somehow it was even weirder to feel Donna there but not see her. Zepheera wondered how her friends did this all the time without drawing attention to it as she felt Donna shift in her new seat.

“Oh… Look at this place,” said Donna under her breath. With her sitting just below her ear, Zepheera could hear her plenty clear that time. She resisted the urge to follow Donna's gaze, not wanting to knock her off her shoulder if she moved the wrong way.

Then seemingly out of nowhere, Donna gave a gasp and Zepheera felt a tug at the short hair hanging just behind her ear. “I know! We should go check out yours!”

“M-mine?” asked Zepheera, fighting an amused chuckle and struggling to follow Donna's thought process past the whirlwind of her being so comfortable treating a relative giant like a jungle gym so quickly.

“Y'know, your place,” said Donna matter-of-factly. “Your house, back in our room.”

Zepheera blinked and, unable to think of an argument against it, replied, “Erm. Yeah, I guess we could–,”

“Oi! Spaceman!” Donna called out, making Zepheera wince and mutter, “Cripes, you can shout!”

Something clattered within the machine, and the Doctor poked his head out. “What??” he shouted back before sweeping his gaze across the seat and realizing Donna wasn't there. His focus lifted to Zepheera, then swept over to her shoulder, and his brow jumped high enough to nearly vanish into his messier than usual hair.

In the corner of Zepheera's eye, she could see Donna lean forward to wave to him and spare Zepheera's ear some pain as she said, “C’mon! We're gonna go check out Zepheera's place!”

“Er…” The Doctor glanced between his companions and the messy innards of the machine he hung halfway out of. “I'm in the middle of–,”

“Getting nowhere,” Donna pointed out bluntly. “You said so yourself this'll all wear off after a bit. And even if you get that thing working, it's never gonna do this again. So let's at least do something fun with it!”

Rolling his eyes, less in annoyance and more in an understanding that there was no arguing about it, the Doctor hopped out of the machine fully and brushed himself off. “Right. You win.”

Zepheera had to hold back a flinch as the Doctor took up a short jog toward her before he leapt up onto her other forearm. From there he took confident strides up to her shoulder where he plopped himself right down. Like it was nothing, an everyday occurance for him.

She sat there stunned until the Doctor gave her neck a gentle pat. “Well? Up you get.”

“Yeah. Okay,” Zepheera breathed, finally accepting that the day wasn't about to get any less weird. Ever mindful of the two people occupying each shoulder, she gingerly shifted to get her feet under her. She'd had to pick her friends up in order to move them and the machine off of the floor and onto the seat, but that was different. Carrying people in her hands, while still so very strange to experience from the other side, was nowhere near like this.

All she could do now was remind herself to keep breathing as she warned them, “Hang on tight?”

Then she ever so slowly pushed herself up to stand, for the first time since growing to a human's size. She could get away with scooting around on the floor before, when the initial vertigo of a massive change in her perspective was still fresh.

Zepheera had braced herself for more dizziness, but none came. Looking around the console room, she realized that this angle was actually quite familiar to her. Sure, things still appeared much smaller and closer than she was used to, but for a moment she could almost pretend that she was standing on a friend's shoulder.

Only now, she was the one with passengers.

~~~

One of Zepheera's usual haunts was the attic. There wasn't much of anything to borrow, but there was a small window with just enough room on the sill for a borrower. The humans’ junk made a nice and neat climbing trail up to it, and they hardly ever went up there so it was peacefully quiet most of the time.

She kept a sitting cushion hidden up there to make the hours spent up there more comfortable. And as the months grew colder, Orrick brought his own cushion so he could join her in the relative warmth.

The far-off look in Zepheera's eyes was quite familiar to Orrick when he found her curled in the corner of the window, staring out into the sky. If she noticed her husband's arrival, she didn't react, too lost in her thoughts.

Orrick followed her gaze to the outside world. The sun had recently set and the moon hung low, an asymmetrical orb floating just above the distant treetops. Very nearly full but not quite. The rest of the night sky was clear, dotted with the occasional patch of stars.

“Nice night,” he uttered, doing all he could to keep any tremor out of his voice.

In the corner of his eye, he watched Zepheera blink and glance his way, knowing she was still only half-seeing him. When she got that deep in her thoughts, she was slow to completely come back down to Earth. She offered him a small smile before letting her eyes drift back to the stars.

“And we can't even see half of what's out there,” she sighed. “Still, could be a worse view–,”

“Zepheera.”

The unusually firm tone in Orrick’s voice drew Zepheera's attention, and this time she focused on him properly. Her gaze dropped to the hand hanging by his side, holding in a white-knuckled grip a bundle of fabric that she immediately recognized. Her olive complexion paled.

Orrick's tone remained eerily even as he asked, “What's this?”

Forcing a sheepish smile, Zepheera shrugged and tried to assure him, “I was just practicing. Bit rusty with my quilting, and I was hoping to borrow another sock to make us a new duvet–,”

“Please,” Orrick cut in, his desperate tone wiping any attempts to save face out of Zepheera's expression. The hand clutching the tiny blanket lifted to press into his sternum, and its folds shifted so that a section of the back was visible to her. “You promised you wouldn't keep any more secrets.”

Blood rushed back to Zepheera's cheekbones, pinkening them with barely concealed emotion. She slowly pushed herself up to stand and stepped tentatively closer to her husband. Her own trembling hands hovered briefly over the blanket Orrick held before wrapping around his clenched fists. They wavered under her touch as though fighting back against the natural comfort it brought.

“You're right,” whispered Zepheera, who hadn't broken eye contact with the one small word she'd embroidered on the back of the tiny blanket. 

Day. 

“Just…please, sit down. I'll tell you everything.”

He let himself be guided to take a seat on the sill across from his wife, who did the same.  Rapidly blinking violet eyes met his light blues, and he watched her steel her resolve to just come right out and say it.

“Orrick. I… When I left you, I was pregnant.”

The thickness in the air left behind by that statement was palpable. 

Zepheera was quick to add, “I didn't know. Orrick, I swear to everything that is good that I didn't. Not until I had run too far away to even begin to find my way back here, because I never meant to take that from you.”

Orrick shook his head, not to dismiss Zepheera's words, but to silently beg her to stop. She held her breath as she watched a cycle of emotions flash across her husband's face. Hope. Heartbreak. Longing. Confusion. All of them perfectly understandable reactions to what Zepheera had just told him. She could only sit and wait, uncertain of what would come at her first.

Finally, his expression settled. His brow and cheekbones lifted, and his eyes were full of tears when they focused on Zepheera again.

“I'm a dad…?” he breathed.

The spark of joy in his smile opened the floodgates for Zepheera, too, and she grabbed his shoulders to pull him into a tight hug. 

“Yes, you are,” whispered Zepheera in the steadiest tone she could manage. “We have a baby.”

After they had a good cry into the crook of each other's necks, she pulled back to look him in the eye and explain.

As Zepheera had said, she only learned of the pregnancy after she ran away. The realization that she wouldn't age and would outlive her husband was still raw and terrifying, and it was a far worse concept to consider with their child. The pregnancy itself probably didn't help her emotions on the matter. 

The only way she managed to get through it was by finding help. She traveled aimlessly until she came upon a new house, and met incredibly kind and understanding people within. There was a woman only about a decade older than her at the time (though obviously Zepheera didn't look it) who had delivered several babies in her life. She was passionate about making sure Zepheera had as healthy a pregnancy and birth as possible.

She had a son named Ceillo who lived with his long-time partner, another young man called Toffer. They rather quickly grew fond of Zepheera, who they saw as a peer in need. She wasn't about to correct them, finding tremendous comfort in their kindness and willingness to help her even though they knew next to nothing about her.

The more Zepheera thought about her new circumstances, the more she saw the serendipity in it all. At the time, the world was still too vast and dangerous for her to have the first clue how to get back to Orrick even if she wanted to. No matter how unfair it all was to him, it wouldn't be safe for her or her child to try and travel with a newborn. 

The best Zepheera thought she could do was give the baby as good a chance at life as possible. And her new friends just so happened to be a young couple, unable to have children of their own but desired them all the same.

Zepheera slowed down her story when Orrick shook his head again, once again needing time to recover from and process the onslaught of information. The joy of parenthood fell away to the grief of knowing she had given their child up.

“I don't understand,” Orrick finally spoke up, voice thick with emotion. “Why did you keep this from me? We could have tried to catch up to you before it got this cold–,”

“We can't do that, Orrick,” Zepheera insisted.

“Why not?” A frantic edge began creeping into his tone. “We're together now, and it all hasn't happened yet, so maybe there's a way we can fix it!”

“It doesn't work like that!”

Orrick froze when he saw fear in Zepheera's eyes. He never raised his voice like that, and it briefly shook him up to think he'd frightened his wife. 

“Going after me, the old me, won't fix anything,” Zepheera asserted. “Even if you found me and convinced me to stay with you and the baby, my life would completely change. And it might be wonderful for a moment, but reality wouldn't be able to cope.”

It dawned on Orrick, with relief and unease in equal measure, that he wasn't what Zepheera was afraid of.

“Because if I stay with you, then what happened to me might not happen. I might not meet the Doctor and end up in the past to see you again. And even if I do, I might not feel the need to see you again if we had a fulfilling life together. Then you would have no reason to find me and the baby in the first place. It's a paradox, you see? And it's not just a thought exercise that doesn't make sense. There are real consequences when you mess with time and create a paradox. It's never good.”

With a sigh, Orrick let his head hang to press his palms to his eyes. His head hurt just listening to it, but he could at least follow her line of logic. It didn't lessen the hurt in his heart to learn he was a father, but his child was out of his reach.

Then he felt Zepheera's hands gently curl around his wrists, and her forehead press against his as she spoke gently.

“We will see her again,” she promised. “I have a plan.”

That had Orrick's head perking back up, misty eyes meeting hers. Zepheera's vow spun the roulette wheel of his emotions once again to land this time on hope. “Her…?”

With a tearful smile, she gave a small nod. “Eighty years, Orrick. I had eighty years to think about this before I could safely come back here. To make sure I knew exactly where everyone was, and remind myself of exact timelines so we can avoid that paradox.” Her hands slid up to take hold of his and give them a squeeze. “Once the baby is born and the old me leaves, there's nothing stopping us from going there to see her again. To be a family.”

Orrick let out a shuddering breath to hear those words. All tension left his shoulders, and he let his (and by extension Zepheera's) hands fall onto the heap of fabric the baby blanket had become over both of their laps. He stared between them and the blanket for a moment before his gaze lifted once more.

“Why didn't you just tell me all this?” he asked as his gaze bore into Zepheera's. He didn't demand this of her like before, but he still didn't understand why this was the last secret she chose to cling to.

Zepheera's face fell as the guilt washed back in like the tide, but she held eye contact and answered honestly.

“For one thing, I just…wanted to spare you the pain as long as I could. I would have told you all this when the time came, but I was hoping to give you a much shorter time with it. The feeling of knowing someone is out there and wanting to see them but knowing you can't without risking everything? It's not easy. It hurts.”

He gave a slow nod of understanding, but his brow quirked when he took note of her initial phrasing. “And…?”

It was Zepheera's turn to slump, and her focus dropped to their laps. Their hands. The blanket. “And, I was afraid that if I told you, warned you about what might happen if you went after me, and if you went anyway… I don't know if I have the will to stop you. Or the right.”

Orrick's heart sank. As scrambled as his emotions were about this new revelation, he'd spent the last six months working through the feelings of betrayal he'd felt when Zepheera vanished. They'd taken it slow, re-established boundaries and trust, and he could safely say that a good majority of those negative feelings were melting away. 

That month without her left him incredibly broken up, but it was just that. A month. Zepheera had been away for nearly two hundred years. All that time, she'd carried the burden of guilt for leaving him– and leaving their child, he now knew– and had probably come up with a million and one worst-case scenarios that might occur if she got a chance like this.

He removed one of his hands from her loosened grip, lifting it to gently cup her tear-stained cheek. When he saw those violet eyes again, he simply smiled and brushed her hair back to tuck behind one ear.

“You've got it all worked out,” Orrick recalled. “How long ‘til we can go see her?”

Zepheera blinked up at him, but let herself smile back and lean into his touch.

“The baby is born next month. I stay with them for a little over a year to make sure she's fed and properly weaned, and a little after that to make sure we're both okay, so…I think we're safe to start making our way there the spring after next.”

She took his hands again and tugged him to lean a little closer to the window, pointing out toward the shadowy shapes of the outdoors. “They live in a village in that direction. There's a road that leads out of this one, and eventually a brook that will take us pretty close to their house. It'll be a long journey for us, with a lot of camping out to do, but there should be plenty of places along the way to take shelter.”

Orrick gave a nod, finding that it all added up. Though it obviously wasn't ideal to have to wait for so long, knowing they had a plan did help. Now they simply had more time to prepare for it all.

“What about your friends?” he asked haltingly. “I-I mean, I want to see her, of course, but… You promised her to them, didn't you?”

“I did,” Zepheera acknowledged. “But they didn't know anything about me. About why I couldn't keep her, about why I was alone. They're very kind people, and… if you're okay with it, I think that if we get there and explain everything to them, they won't mind if we come together to raise her. Y'know, we could all be her parents. We'd all get to be there for her, help her grow up, and no one has to lose her.”

Orrick took a moment to breathe into the idea. It wasn't a terrible one, just…an unusual way for a family to work.

Sensing his hesitation, Zepheera guided one of Orrick's hands down to the blanket once more, this time laying it over the word embroidered on the back of it. “I know it feels like we're gonna be chasing this, catching up to it, and there's nothing we can really do about that until the time comes. But if it helps… you get to be the first person to know your daughter's name.”

Light blue eyes widened and dropped instantly to the stitched letters. He'd suspected it was a baby's name since he found it, but in the maelstrom of information he'd been given he nearly forgot about it.

The joy started flooding back over him as he reread the short word over and over, then clutched it to his chest.

He was a father. He had a daughter. Her name was Day. And he so looked forward to meeting her.

Zepheera's Family

Most of the relevant OCs from this point on are more borrowers (shocker, I know) and relatives of Zepheera, a list that can and will only grow because I am insane. Most of them are featured in Zepheera's Origins, and some also appear or are mentioned in various BTaS stories.

Tack - Father; In life, he was kind and forward-thinking for his time. A man full of so much love in his heart for his wife and especially his infant daughter that it ultimately killed him. Though he carried the healing factor that he passed down to his daughter, he was fatally injured in an inadvertently devastating release of energy from the entity symbiotically linked to Zepheera.

Klerida - Mother; Devastated by the loss of her husband and without the tools to cope with any of it, she turned all that hurt onto her daughter. Blamed her for being the epicenter of the catastrophe that caused Tack's death. She spent Zepheera's childhood swinging between being cold and detached from her, and lashing out aggressively, leaving her child to feel at fault for Klerida's and her own hurt.

Author's Note: While I don't regret taking this angle with Zepheera's mother, I acknowledge that at the time of writing Episode 2: Memories, I didn't have the tools to write an abuser in a way that wasn't extreme and over the top. In what I now consider to be the proper canon, Klerida did put her hands on her child in anger, but never went so far as to break Zepheera in the way described in the Episode.

Boston - Uncle; Though he did not witness and wasn't aware of what Zepheera went through at home, Boston took it upon himself to take the girl under his wing since his brother couldn't. He taught Zepheera about borrowing, despite it being a traditionally a man's skill at the time, and kept her company when she needed a friendly presence. He loved her like his own, even if Klerida kept him at arm's length.

Baycliff - Stepfather; He and his family lived in an entirely different part of the house Zepheera's family occupied. Baycliff met Klerida in passing once or twice before Tack's death, and then properly go to know her years afterward. After their marriage, Klerida's more physically abusive tendencies toward Zepheera died down in favor of the cold detachment; Baycliff fussed more over his wife and...

Kernel - Half-Brother

art by the wonderful @mythical-cupcake (left) and @creatorofuniverses (right)

Kernel was born when Zepheera was 7 years old, and she fell in love instantly. He was a curious, high-spirited boy who looked up to his big sister, a bright light in the family that was snuffed out all too soon. While out borrowing with Zepheera, he met with a terrible fate outside of both of their control.

Klerida was none too happy about Zepheera once again being seemingly responsible for the loss of someone else she loved with all her heart, to put it kindly.

Orrick - Husband

art by quackghost

Orrick is a kind soul, a sweetheart through and through. He found Zepheera outside of his home after she ran away from hers. He and his family took her in, and their relationship blossomed over time. They made a life and a home for themselves and were happily committed to one another for over twenty years. Then Zepheera discovered she wasn't aging and, in a moment of panic, fled from the wonderful life they had. He was given no explanation, and could do nothing but despair in the wake of the disappearance of his wife.

His story is tied to Zepheera's Origins, mentioned in a few others in which Zepheera opens up about her past, and he has recently resurfaced in the Donna Trilogy story, If I Could Turn Back Time.

Day - Daughter; Shortly after Zepheera left Orrick, she discovered she was pregnant. By then, it was too late for her to be able to find her way back to him, and the notion of outliving her child was twice as painful as it was for her spouse. So she found a lovely couple to raise her daughter: Ceillo and Toffer. The two men couldn't have children of their own, and she grew up with incredibly loving parents.

(left to right) Toffer, Day, and Ceillo by the fantastic @guaxinimraccoon

Marcue - Grandson

Art by quackghost

When Day was still quite young, she met and married Brine, and the two of them had a son. He was a quiet, thoughtful boy growing up, especially with his parents' relationship growing more and more contentious over the years. He met a young girl named Laitina who lived in another part of the house, the same age as him, and the two of them hit it off. First as friends, then as something more than that. But one day, after a particularly bad fight, Brine took his son and left for another house. There he remarried and had another child, a daughter. Marcue quickly became protective of the girl, and though he longed to reunite with his mother and Laitina, he stayed to make sure his half sister would be okay.