#caiden park

[shannonmanorart]

For Pride Month, I'm gunna do a bunch of OCs! I've got a lot of sketches ready to go, just gotta finish them up! Hopefully I can get one a day but we'll see!

Sequinox (pt 1)

Caiden, Harmony, Danny and Marcus having a good time for the 5 minutes their school isn't being attacked by monsters

[withlovingregards]

Sequinox: Another World

With each footstep forward, there was a loud crunch as the red and orange leaves that littered the streets crumbled under her boot, creating a familiar rhythm to the empty air. Fall was in full swing now, with the trees bare down to the bark and the pre-winter chill swirling through her hair as a reminder of what was to come. Another season of snow and cold with a side of family gatherings to warm them and bring smiles as their most precious gifts.

And it would be the first winter without him. First snowfall, first snowball fight, first Christmas dinner… all missing him. That was something she was going to have to get used to, wasn’t it? A dinner with too many plates, a movie night missing snarky commentary. So many first without him, until they would be the norm.

Elena pulled her jacket tighter to herself from a chill that had nothing to do with the weather and continued on the familiar path towards her son’s grave. She still found it incredulous that she hadn’t worn a trail through the grass as many times as she’d walk this path. It took no time to find the tombstone, and the woman couldn’t help but smile at the gifts resting against the engraved stone. Things from his friends, and from what she had recently found out, his partners in crime.

 “You have some explaining to do young man,” Elena chastised as she sat in front of the plot, not caring about the dirt and rotting leaves, “I can’t believe you were part of Sequinox. Not only that, but I had to find out from the… Sequinox from another dimension?”

 A warm breeze rolled low across the ground, caressing her fingertips and making some of the smaller leaves on the ground roll away.

 “Yeah, I’m just about as confused as you are. But I believed them when they told me. They didn’t seem like the other girls you used to complain about. They seemed… nice. It looks like they knew you well in their world anyway.”

 Taking in a deep breath, Elena clutched onto the end of her jacket and slowly looked over the etching of Caiden’s name in front of her.

 “I can’t help but think though. Is the only difference between their world and ours is that they got to keep you?”

 Tears fluttered down the woman’s cheeks, warm for only a second before the air chilled them, leaving trails of salt on her skin. Elena couldn’t even muster the energy to wipe them away, could only focus on staying strong enough to keep herself together.

 “After everything was said and done, and they were gone from my life, I couldn’t help but be jealous of them, of their version of me. They have you. They get to see you grow up, get to see you smile every day, get to deal with your moody days.”

 She laughed at that, which was a sound eerie enough to belong in an almost empty grave yard. Elena moved one of her hands, touching the smooth stone in front of her and feeling a swirl of emotions run through her. There was of course the ever present feeling of loss and despair, of loneliness that comes with closing yourself off, of confusion of what to do next, but there was also a large swell of pride in her chest. Of a love so strong and warm that it pushed the cold from her shoulders and dried the tears in her eyes.

 “But I can’t be mad at them for what they get to have. This is our life to live, and we are set in stone. I’ll always wonder what life would be like with you, of what you’re doing over there in a world that still gets to see your light. But in our world, at least I get to know that you weren’t just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Now I know you laid your life on the line to save everyone in this town, and I guess even the whole world? I don’t know, this is all still a little bit new to me. I haven’t been brave enough to go up to those girls and tell them I know everything.”

 The woman dug into the deep pocket of her coat and pulled out an item before she laid it between the other gifts in front of her, and secured it tight enough to where it wouldn’t blow away in the wind. She brushed her fingers against the grave before her again, like she was pushing that mop of curly hair from Caiden’s face, and smiled.

 “It will take a long time for things to get back to normal, or our new normal. There will come a time when your sister forgives the world for what happened and what it took from her, it will take time for your father to stop going down stairs to bother you with some silly meme from the internet, and it will take me a long time to stop hoping this is all just a bad dream. We’ll get there eventually, but you’ll still be with us. Always.”

 Elena leaned forward and pressed her lips to her son’s name, brief but releasing all the feelings she’d been holding inside for the past couple months. It was finally time to start healing. She stayed there for a little bit longer, talking about nothing at all, like she used to, and imagined her only son rolling his eyes when she made a stupid joke. When she was done, she said a quick goodbye before heading back to the home that needed her help rebuilding.

 Leaving behind, for the time being, a small grave covered in gifts and a lone red feather that gently swayed in the breeze.