take me with you :: uncle paydon

The week had been a short one, but then again, every time Uncle Paydon came to visit the time seemed to fly by. Her parents and uncle had gone out to dinner tonight ("just the grown-ups this time, Kinley!"), so Kinley had taken the time to escape Renata, her bodyguard. She was pissed, to put it lightly. Pissed that the so called grown-ups had thought to exclude her, and pissed that her parents wouldn't let her leave with her uncle when he left tomorrow. She didn't want to stay in Solas. Didn't want to live with her mom and dad.

Why did Uncle Paydon get to travel the world and have an awesome time, and she had to sit around like a bump on a log with Mom and Dad?

Kinley was in the orchards, currently. It was off limits, and thus was one of her favorite places to escape to, when she could. She loved to climb the trees and chase the animals that were penned in the neighboring fields. She loved to eat the delicious fruit after she plucked it from the tall branches just as much as she loved to collect the rotten apples and peaches and store them under the beds of some of her least favorite estate employees.

Anyway. Tonight she had slipped away from Renata and had picked up a fallen branch and was smacking it against a pear tree, watching the unripe fruit fall. Some of the pears fell on her, and she could feel the bruises forming on her arms, but she didn't care. She kept whacking away.

It was Paydon's last night in Solas before his trip to the Ughdarrian marshes, so he, Amerie, and Max all went out to dinner together. It had been a decent night, they had a few drinks and dinner was delicious. There were only a couple awkward moments of quiet between he and his brother this time. Paydon hoped that maybe this meant Max was getting better, but his daemon reminded him that it was most likely a false hope. Max hadn't been "getting better" for years now.

When the trio arrived back at the estate, they were informed by a frantic body guard that Kinley had, once again, escaped. Paydon had glanced at his brother and sister-in-law. They both looked so tired, so exasperated, so old.

"Don't worry guys," he had said to them. "I'll find her."

Paydon had an inkling of where his rogue niece might have gone. He recalled her telling him about her secret hiding places before, and he was sure he could find her in one of them. He decided to check the orchards first.

Sure enough, when Paydon had flown overhead, he saw his small niece banging a branch against one of the trees. He slowed his flying speed, and started to lower himself until she would be within ear shot of him so that he could shout out playfully, "Hey! What's that tree ever done to you?"

Kinley looked up sharply when she heard Uncle Paydon's voice. "Go away!" she shouted at him angrily. She couldn't see him through the branches of the pear tree, but she swung her branch defiantly in the air, anyway. "I'm picking pears and I don't want to talk to you!"

"That doesn't look like picking to me," Paydon replied, while revealing himself from behind the tree. He stayed in the air, keeping his distance from the swinging branch. "Looks more like tree abuse."

He landed on the ground, and approached Kinley slowly, a gentle smile on his face. "C'mon Kinny," he said. "Is that any way to treat your uncle?"

Kinley dropped the branch and crossed her arms. "You must not have picked many pears," she told him. "Look how many I picked, and with barely any effort at all!" She looked at the pears littering the ground and then back at her uncle with a sassy, defiant look on her face.

"And I don't talk to my uncle anymore," she added to his second remark. "He decided to go traitor and I don't talk to traitors." She stuck her chin in the air and looked away from him.

Paydon looked down at his feet, and all around at the pears that littered the ground. Most of them were rotten. He bent down to pick one up and studied it. "Okay then," he replied. "Then I'm not uncle Paydon, I'm just Paydon."

He tossed the rotten pear from one hand to the next. "If I'm not mistaken," he continued. "Clio usually don't pick rotten pears." He held the pear out to show her how misshapen and brown it looked then said, "But if you think it's good enough to be picked, then it must be good enough to be eaten." He started to slowly bring the rotten fruit closer to his face, mouth wide open to bite.

Kinley looked at the pear out of the corner of her eye. Indeed, it was gross and brown. She waited to see if he would really eat it, watching out of the corner of her eye. When he stopped right before it reached his mouth, she could tell he wanted her to stop him but she was glad she hadn't. She wished he had followed through and taken a bite.

Instead of commenting on it she unfolded her arms and bent to pick up a very unripe pear. "Rotten pears fall from trees on their own, they don't need to be picked. The ones I was smacking down are green, see?" She stood up on her 8-year-old tip toes and held the pear as close to his face as she could. "Seeeee?"

Paydon was expecting Kinley to stop him from taking a bite, but she didn't so he stopped before it touched his lips, and he threw it off to the side. He watched her with amusement, as she picked up an actual good pear and waved it around in his face. He bent down a little, and took the pear out of her hand with his mouth. He reached up to pull it out as he took a bite. It was a little bitter, but still pretty good. Definitely better than the rotten one would have tasted.

"You're right," he replied, his mouth still full. "This is a good one!"

Kinley's nose scrunched up as Uncle Paydon took a bit of the unripe pear. "Ewwww!" she said to him. She shook her head as he chewed. "You're so weird!" she told him, unable to suppress her laughter. "That's gonna give you a belly ache!"

She bent over and picked up another hard green pear. She looked it over and then threw it as far as she could. It sailed through the air before smacking against another tree in the distance.

Paydon smiled with his mouth closed, still chewing on the piece of pear he bit off. He watched his niece pick up another pear from the ground and throw it. How did she become so rebellious? He knew how cautious Max and Amerie had been raising her, how protective they were. Some children were just meant to break free of that, he supposed.

"You've got a pretty good arm on ya, kiddo," he told her. "Maybe you could play a sport when you start at Redfern."

He didn't want to question her moodiness just yet, he hoped that maybe she'd bring it up herself. He knew she was upset about him leaving soon, and about being excluded from tonights dinner, but he wondered if it was deeper than that.

"Maybe..." Kinley said. She pursed her lips and looked up at the trees, staring through the holes the leaves left. The sky was passing through its sunset-ty ritual, and she could make out some pretty reds in the gaps. "I can't wait to go to Redfern."

She paused, thinking about what sort of effect the next part of her statement would have. "I don't want to live here, anymore. I hate it here." She still didn't look at her uncle.

Paydon decided to sit, and he checked the ground before he did, making sure there weren't any pears underneath him. His knees were up, with his elbows propped atop them. He sighed before saying, "I couldn't wait to get out of Redfern." He had a good life there, but the plans he had didn't involve staying stationary for long.

"But you shouldn't hate it here," he told her. "Your mom and dad love you."

"I hate it here," Kinley reaffirmed. She wanted to tell her uncle that she knew her parents didn't really love her at all, but instead chose to ignore his comment. "I hate it when Luce is gone, and I hate being stuck here. I hate being followed. When I go to Redfern I'm going to have Luce, and maybe Nat and I can be roommates (it had been a long-standing dream the sometimes-friends shared), and I won't have a bodyguard, and I can be free."

She plopped down next to her uncle. "Or," she said, prepared to bargain with him like she always did before he left, "you could take me with you." All she wanted out of life was freedom, and Uncle Paydon had that. He had more freedom than anyone she knew--he was an adventurer, a nomad. Kinley loved it, and wished more than anything she could go.

Paydon sighed, he knew this was coming. Kinley always tried to talk him into taking her with him. No matter how many times he told her that he couldn’t. He reached out and put his arm around her, squeezing her shoulder reassuringly.

“Kinny,” he said sadly. “You know you can’t come with me.” He pulled her closer into a side hug. “I’d love to take you and all of your cousins, but you all need to go to school first.”

"Why can't I come with you?" she pressed. "I don't really need school. Mom didn't go to school." Sure, she would rather be at Redfern than here with her parents on this godsforsaken estate, but it would be a dream if she could just travel with her uncle.

She picked up a pear and fiddled with it, cutting designs into it with her nail. "Do you not want me to come?"

It seemed like no one really wanted her. Her parents didn't love her. They could barely stand to be around her, and hired bodyguards to follow her around instead of doing it themselves. The estate workers all talked about her behind her back, and even the ones that seemed nice were paid to talk with her.

Did Uncle Paydon feel the same way, underneath it all? That she was too wild, too unlovable to be around?

Paydon still had his arm around Kinley's shoulders when he said, "Your mom is an overloridian, and she was home schooled." He continued, "And you just need school, I went to school, your dad went to school...it's an important part of life."

Paydon really wasn't sure of a better way to explain to Kinley why she needed to go to Redfern. She just did. It was a life experience that she needed to experience. Although Paydon couldn't wait to graduate when he was attending Redfern, he still loved every day of it.

Kinley wrote: "Do you not want me to come?"

"Kinny," he said sadly. "You know that's not what it is."

It broke his heart, to hear her say that. How could she not understand how loved she was? He knew how protective his brother and sister-in-law were, and he knew how much they loved their daughter. Even Max, who had a hard way of showing it sometimes.

"I wish I could take you everywhere," he told her, honestly. "But not right now, you need to just be a kid first."