Chapter 33 : Winter storm part 3

"Tell me a story, mother," I said to Sherry, Dramatically throwing myself on her.

Irene had started a fire, and Sheri was lounging on the couch next to the fireplace, wrapped in a thick shawl. "A story?" She asked lightly, drawing her attention from her book and towards me.

"Yes! Please, mommy!" I cried.

"Hmm. A story. Irene, what story should I tell, darling?"

"Oh, hmm... You could tell him about the time we met?"

I lit up like a Christmas tree, "Yes, please!"

Sheri laughed, "Alright, alright. hmm. Your mother and I met when we were quite a few years older than you, but we were no more than thirteen, I believe."

"I was fifteen!" Irene calls from the table, her voice accompanied by the sound of shuffling papers. because she brought work with her on a holiday, like the workaholic she is.

"Right, so I was thirteen-- nearly fourteen, mind-- and Irene was fifteen," She started. "I had been having troubles with my fathers, teenage rebellion, and whatnot, and I wasn't dealing well with my body's changes. Hormones and... well, you'll find out when you're older, I suspect. You seem to take strongly after my fathers..."

"The story, Sheri," Irene said, looking up briefly.

"Oh! Yes, sorry. So, to reconcile with me, my fathers decided that a family vacation in a foreign country, Tenque, I knew nothing about and didn't speak the language of, was the perfect way to accomplish some bonding time. Yeah... so, we got separated, and I accidentally took a merchant wagon to the village your mother is from. I wandered for hours, and it was so hot that I was dying. I'm from a region that's almost constantly freezing, so I was naturally freaking out and dripping from every pore." She paused to take a breath.

"So there I am, in a jungle next to a village, sweating, dehydrated, and desperately wanting to go home, when your mother bursts out of the trees like a Jaguaro and attacks me!!"

Irene let out a sharp barking laugh. "Scared the daylight out of her too!"

"Well, you would also be scared if you were suddenly attacked by a ruffian with a spear!"

"I was only teasing you! You looked a little rabbit, shaking and scared." Irene grinned and made her hands in the shapes of claws, and went rawr.

"You're horrible!" Sheri huffed, but it was a loving huff.

"And yet you married me!"

"Yes, yes I did."

"So... what happened next?" I spoke up when they stopped talking for too long.

"Your mother passed out," Irene said.

"Again. Spear!"

Irene laughed. "So I carried her back to my hut, and tended to her for days, because of course your mother had somehow gotten a fever."

"I wasn't used to the climate and I was dehydrated!"

"Even so," Irene started. "When she woke up, she looked at me like I was the Goddess herself, and proclaimed to have fallen in love with me."

"At first sight," Sheri interrupted with a happy sigh, "She was like a ruffled, regal cheetah. She was mystifying. I couldn't take my eyes off her."

"That doesn't sound like love."

Irene laughed. "It's not. Love at first sight, which some call lust at first sight, is really like becoming obsessed with the way someone looks."

"Well, I fell in love with your personality too!" Sheri said, "And I fought for you. Defied my fathers. Made many choices for us and this, right here, and I don't regret any of them."

Irene came over and kissed Sheri's forehead. "I don't regret it either. I love you, I love our life, and I loved you when you were this adorable little thirteen years old kid telling me she was going to battle my father for my hand in marriage."

Aww. Wait- what?!

"What?! Mommy fought?!"

Sheri looked offended at my tone. "Yes, I can fight. I was taught from adolescence."

"My father beat her so bad, she limped back to my hut and cried while I tended to her booboos."

"Well, I tried again and again until I won. So."

"He let her win," Irene stage-whispered, and Sheri hit her on the shoulder.

"But yeah, that's how we met."

"If I hadn't gotten lost while on vacation, and had your mother not tackled me, I wouldn't have met the love of my life, and I wouldn't have experienced the world with her. I'm very glad I met you, love." Sheri said, holding Irene tight.

Awwwwwww.

"I live for you, I'll die for you. You and our children," Irene said, cupping Sheri's stomach.

Really, that should have been little me's first clue. But I was too busy cooing.

"I cannot handle this cuteness, mothers," I told them, which caused them to break out in smiles before suffocating me in something that resembled a hug.

"I'm dying," I attempted to wheeze out, but they simply ignored me.

Cruel humans.