It’s Koschei’s birthday!

*************

HIS BIRTHDAY PRESENT is one big box filled with all kinds of accessories and goodies; essentially an oversized care packaged, wrapped up neatly in gold wrapping paper (gabriel insisted, as he is the self-proclaimed “king of wrapping”). it has all of his favorite snacks, which may or may not be a subtle way of encouraging him to eat more. some very expensive jo malone cologne is also nestled in there, as well as a new laptop case because she can’t stand looking at the one he’s used so much he’s worn a hole in it. all this, and a velvet box, which contains a very tasteful watch, with an elegantly simple style that matches her own. rolex, of course. more significantly however, the watch is engraved with his initials: K.L.P. the same initials as her father. because all that time ago, she gave him her father’s middle name of “lucien”, in some small effort to start some kind of family tradition after her mother died. they are the initials on his adoption papers, and they are the initials that mark him as hers forever. a note in her familiar script reads sweetly.

happy birthday, pup. i’m so grateful to have finally gotten the chance to see you grow. you make me so proud with each passing year, and even though you’re away at college putting everyone else to shame, you’re still, and always will be, my baby boy. love, mum.

The prodigy who’s finished his undergraduate theoretical astrophysics and engineering degrees in two years, and is now well into graduate school at the age of (as of today) 20, can be felled immediately by goodies from mum. Because mum is his hero. Mum is his model of greatness: merciless, ambitious CEO of the largest scientific corporation in the world. And mum is just, well, the coolest.

The years they spent separated by the circumstances of war were the worst of his life: survival in and out of psych wards and foster care homes that found his manifold mental health woes too great a challenge, on the streets becoming alarmingly proficient at major felonies, and constantly high. Being rescued just after his seventeenth birthday those three Christmases ago, and reconciled to Dr. Pichiner … . he may never be able to articulate his gratitude. He did try, just a few weeks ago, on her birthday.

Still, with eagerness, and a bit of greed, he opens the gold foil he recognizes as his adoptive father’s work. He rolls his eyes good-naturedly. Gabe’s grown on him. Slowly. Mostly because he’s so good to mum. Even though he’s decidedly uncool.

He’s munching on some sweet and sour gummies while he opens the watch. Dark clever eyes dart over the data provided: a Rolex like mum’s, with his initials. He squints, and then his eyes widen with epiphany: has he ever learned his middle name? Curiosity overcomes him and he hops up while distractedly reading the note.

He dials Seraphina on his mobile.

“MUUUUUUUM!” he cajoles, when she answers, with the endearing entitlement of a child who has finally found a home in which asking for something, needing something, needing someone, is not a crime. “What IS me middle name, ey?! Oh, and THANKS, it’s brilliant! This cologne is WAY better than Dad’s!”

@materxnatura

It’s the birthday of Koschei’s favorite person in the universe. His hero, the epitome of all his personal and professional aspirations.

Mum.

He awakens obscenely early to prepare the surprise. He’s on winter holidays already, and it provided him the perfect opportunity to slip into the house just after 3 last night, when his flight got in. He really didn’t sleep after that, ensuring that everything in his multi-media display was set.

He enlists dad’s aid; a note in his handwriting is slipped into mum’s hand just after she awakens. All that it reads: mum, time for a trip down memory lane. I’m in my room. xo Pup.

The door is rigged. Once opened, it triggers a video of massive length and scope, playing from a digital projector aimed at Koschei’s farthest, barest bedroom wall.

From months of archival research into databanks that existed before the global crisis, seeking the aid of family members once involved in the CIA, Koschei has collected photographs of himself as a child with his mother and father; he has included photographs not only of them, but of the ever-blossoming rest of Seraphina’s family: a tasteful, bittersweet and brief nod to Wolfgang, for whom Koschei had once feared he was but a poor substitute; Remiel, Rhamiel, their births, and the videos their father took; countless Snapchats and vines Koschei has made of both kid siblings; the birth of his own daughter, Orla; and finally, the birth of Adriel.

“I’ve only done stuff of you an’ me before,” he volunteers, when the reel has run. “Thought I’d expand the discourse as it were.” He’s proudly puffed up. “Happy birthday, mum.”

A moment passes and that confidence wavers. Was it too much? Will she be overwhelmed? Sometimes her melancholies worry him … .

materxnatura:

WHEN HER ELDEST son doesn’t put up a loving fight, that’s when she knows something is wrong. her chest tightens in the familiar despair that all mothers like seraphina feel when their baby is somehow in pain, but of course she is a veteran parent who knows how to keep that from manifesting on her face. but she does let down her hands from his face and furrows her brow as her once jubilant smiles falls in immediate worry.

‘ pup, what’s wrong? ’

@masterfulxrhythm continued from here.

Koschei’s round cheeks flush violently; having spent the majority of his life in mental institutions, drug dens, and on the street, he’s built a reputation for callousness, for manipulation and for sadism. It’s hard to break that habit, and show his adoptive mother that he can sometimes be plagued with ordinary adolescent insecurities.

“ … . it’s the new baby. Not …! Not that I don’t wanna have another
little sister, I joost.”

He tosses his hair, ridding restless dark eyes of dishwater blond bangs.

“I feel like I ought to make myself small so you don’t … you know,
get preoccupied. With me. When. Well.”

He nods at the swell of her belly and shrugs fiercely.

since this is the theme for the night, she spit finger cleans his cheek and generally squishes his very round elastic face. she did it when he was four and she’s doing it again and clearly, she is going to be doing this until the day she dies. ‘lookit these cheekies! lookit these lil cheekies!’

Ordinarily Koschei puts up a fuss, but lately, he’s been missing his mother. It’s not as if she’s been absent when he’s asked for her, but rather, her preoccupation with yet another new baby leaves him feeling it’s necessary he withdraw and step aside.

“Glad to be a source of unending amusement, mum,” comes his
indulgent remark.

“Hi mum.” Koschei comes to sit beside Sera, without preamble, and work on a project on his laptop, fingers clacking over the keyboard at dizzying speed. They are nearly shoulder to shoulder, the way he’s always liked it, and not another word falls. <3

materxnatura:

SHE DOESN’T FEEL well, but of course she’s still working. lack of sleep and other factors are contributing to it as she sits hunched over a file at the kitchen table, but when her son comes to sit beside her casually, she reaches over to muss his hair in her familiar, handsy manner. his cheeks escape her clutches this time.

‘ hi pup, ’ she greets, seamlessly and happily integrating his presence into her work. she underlines something in black ink. ‘ what are you doing? ’

“ … am I allowed to say you’re worrying me a bit?”

He may be nineteen, but the boy is more world wise than most–put through the meat grinder of disownment, homelessness, crime, adolescent sex and drug addiction–but what’s more, he understands his mother inside and out.

“If you’re unwell, I know it drives you mad to be idle, but you can lie down
for a bit maybe, and help me with my homework.”

Koschei doesn’t need help with his homework; he could probably write most of the math and science courses he takes, already at the graduate school level. But he wields the power of one of Sera’s children whom she cannot deny when they ask for any sort of aid.