text;

[redwinekindofgirl]

What are your families like?

Just curious. I mean, I guess most of us must have them.

Comments

[text; un: longinmouth]

[abheirrant]

[Carlisle normally doesn't answer queries like this, but he's feeling disconnected from people these days, and missing the family he once had something fierce.]

My family were hunters, generations of brave and skilled individuals who dedicated their lives to protecting the valley we called our home. In terms of immediate members, there were my uncles. I looked up to them like the heroes they were, always wishing I could be more like them. They were good people, better than I felt I could ever be.

[redwinekindofgirl]

I get that.

I could never live up to my dad's expectations either.

[abheirrant]

I admit that I could have lived up to my uncles' expectations. They supported me when no one else would.

My father's expectations, however, are a different story. What is it yours wished of you?

[redwinekindofgirl]

To be less like my mom.

[abheirrant]

Ah.

I think mine would have preferred me to be more like my mother, but it is only a guess. He never said that to me directly, in any case.

[redwinekindofgirl]

What was your mother like?

[abheirrant]

I am told she was a fire that blazed unchecked. She was simultaneously beautiful and destructive, and her magic equally so. She was an enigmatic goddess too proud to mingle with mere mortals. Only my father was good enough for her, and her for him. They needed no one else.

[redwinekindofgirl]

Wow. She sounds badass.

[abheirrant]

I could not tell you, as I never met her. She was said to be powerful though, so I have no doubt she may have been.

[redwinekindofgirl]

You never met her? Rough.

[abheirrant]

[It is rough, in some ways. Carlisle never quite knows what to think about her, or how he should feel about someone he, logically, should care for. However:]

I imagine we would not have gotten along, so perhaps it is for the best. If nothing else, her death kept me from knowing what expectations she would have of me, and how much I would fail at living up to them.

Tell me of your mother. What was she like?

[redwinekindofgirl]

Artistic and gentle, but really strong, too. She had to be to handle my dad. But she needed to be able to feel hopeful.

[abheirrant]

And what would your father have preferred? That you were less hopeful?

[redwinekindofgirl]

Less of a dreamer, I think.
Really fucked me up in the end.

[abheirrant]

That you were a dreamer? Or that your father had a far different vision for you?

[redwinekindofgirl]

Both, I guess.

Did you ever want to be something other than what everyone else expected you to be?

[abheirrant]

Always. I was expected to do great things, and it's not as though I did not try, but I'd have been happier if no one expected anything of me at all.

[redwinekindofgirl]

Yeah, I guess I can understand that. I don't think dad expected anything great out of me, but he sure had expectations. That kind of pressure has to suck.