Chapter 22: It's Okay! P6
~22.6~
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After dinner, Evelyn promised Kye and the others that she would come around more often. True to her world, she visited daily after they got out of school and frequented dinner. There was an awkward silence one evening when Layla also joined them, something Evelyn had orchestrated.
"Layla, how has your work at the academy been going?" Evelyn asked with a smile. "Any progress on your projects?"
"Some, yes," Layla replied. The two sized each other up. There were two generations between them, the order being Evelyn, Edward, Charles, then Layla. "Nothing big in a while. I haven't had as much free time due to certain... events. I'm hoping to seclude myself into my research for a few weeks once this term is over."
"Try not to hole up too much." Evelyn glared at Layla. Despite there being a few other words attached, Layla's relation to her did still end in "daughter". Evelyn had lived in Atlantis since before World War III. In fact, the founders were all adults during World War II. Evelyn herself participated in all three world wars as a medic. After the catastrophic end of World War III, the Atlantis Empire rose once again after the roughly five thousand years of silence following the asteroid shower that brought the planet to its knees. Ever since, there had been peace, and the Barrett family was one of nine that took on a royal position.
Layla and her siblings were born in the 1960s. They were in their fifties before World War III began. In that age, mana and magic were all but unheard of. Everyone in the world possessed mana, but they were not aware of it. There were cases of people discovering it, but they were written off as not real and usually attributed to religion in some form or fashion. In those days, Layla was an engineer. She designed a variety of technologies that had no place in a world filled with magical technology, such as cars, trains, and jet planes. "I'll try not."
"You will?" Evelyn clearly remembered pulling a young Layla from a corner of the Barrett family's private library. "Ever since you were a child, you've always had abnormally strong seclusion tendencies."
Layla took a sip of her tea and replied, "I wonder who I take after." Evelyn did the same with her medical research, as did Edward with his physics research, as did Hannah with her medical research.
Evelyn shrugged. "Our family does seem to have a pattern of bibliophily." Hannah was not actually a Barrett, but she may as well have been. She and Charles had grown up together. Charles studied war strategies from the first two world wars with the same obsessive dedication that the others gave to their own devices. "But you always took it much too far. I remember finding you passed next to a pile of books when you were twelve-years-old nearly dehydrated."
Layla averted her eyes, only to find Kye staring daggers at her. "Hey! It wasn't as bad as she's making it out!" Kye raised an eyebrow. "Okay, fine, it was exactly as she said. But I was on the verge of a breakthrough in my understanding!"
"Which came the next day after I all but forced you to have a proper meal and sleep through the night," Evelyn added.
"What was it like?" Kye asked. "The engineering, I mean. I know you still work on private projects, but you officially switched your focus to medicine after the Atlantis Empire was reestablished."
Layla sighed, but the look in her eyes was solemn. "I enjoyed creating things. I tinkered all the time when I wasn't researching. I was involved in the auto industry a lot. I had a hand in improving fuel efficiency for engines and even took part in developing electric vehicles. I designed a variety of trains and planes. It was fulfilling. Just making things that helped others was all I needed. Your father and I almost had you back then. We came close in the 80s. I was in my twenties, and Evelyn was an old bat that could pass for the same age."
"I resent that."
Layla chuckled and continued, "We decided to wait a few years to have a child, but then things started getting bad. In 1986, there was a nuclear power plant that had a catastrophic failure, and there was a major concern for fallout. We were living in Japan at the time, so we were far removed from that particular plant, but there were nuclear plants all over the planet by then. We were a young couple, and we let the hysteria get to us."
"And so you decided not to conceive at all?"
"Not quite." Layla didn't want to recall every memory, but she couldn't avoid them. "There was a shadow organization back then that began trying to instigate problems all over the planet. Several wars broke out over the next few decades. We waited long enough to see that start before we decided to conceive. And at that point, we were basically forced to move to Atlantis. It got really bad in the 2010s, and in 2020... World War III had officially begun. It ended with nuclear weapons. After the reformation, I had to go to Alcanus with my family, and your father went to Nippon Sekai with his. We were separated for a while. Ultimately, we decided not to have any children. I still don't know what exactly changed... rather, what prompted us to change our minds."
"What do you mean?"
"It was like..." She paused for a moment, not sure how to word it. Half a minute later, "It was like we just... got the urge one day. I felt a strange longing that I hadn't felt since my twenties."
Kye, Alethea, and Michelle smirked. """Yeah?"""
Layla raised an eyebrow. "Yeah... so... now we have a much bigger family. Feels like we've multiplied in the past twenty years. And I have so many cute granddaughters!" She eyed Rei and the others. "And a handsome grandson! And... I wonder what else?"
"Heh." Kye averted her eyes. Layla and Evelyn both were eyeing her.
"Shi-chan, Shi-chan, isn't it great!" Alethea said excitedly. "We're gonna have more kids!"
Kye smiled and rubbed her belly. "It's still gonna be awhile, though." Her eyes glowed white as she eyed Michelle. "But... I can't help but notice there's another mana source here."
Michelle froze, her food dropping from her fork to the plate. She hadn't even thought about the possibility, but now that Kye had mentioned it, she noticed it.
Adele and Alethea raised an eyebrow. ""Oh?""
Evelyn was grinning. "You lot don't hold back."
Layla was smiling wryly. "No kidding." Everyone shared a laugh. "Anyway... Evelyn, why are you visiting so often these days? You rarely visit anyone between your research and your work. You're sacrificing research time to visit here, aren't you?"
Evelyn looked away, "...yes."
"Don't get me wrong, I think it's great you're visiting family, but it's so out of character."
She smiled dryly, "Well..."
"I asked her to," Kye said matter-of-factly. "You see, I-"
"It's okay, Kye," Evelyn said. "I'm a big girl." She turned back to Layla. "Yes, Kye asked me to come around more often, but I'd normally refuse."
Layla nodded. "That would be in character."
"However... I was recently thinking I should visit family more. She asked at the right time, so here I am."
"Ah." Layla was skeptical, but accepted her answer. "Considering our family's tendencies, that's a good idea." Evelyn nodded and Layla glanced at Kye. "So, dear daughter, what's next?"
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Revision: 2024-8-7