The Underlying Story of Taliny Jeauxsephine Frost- Tina

Chapter One: Birth

Merylyn Frost was woken up in the middle of an amazing dream. She was surrounded by moisture from the base of her red-gold tail to the white tip at the end of it. Her round tummy had begun to have sharp pains all over it. She began screaming in agony.
Merylyn, born Merylyn Loretta Clayborn, bore the markings of a vixess, or Fox Woman. She had the ears and tail of a red fox, and her other features remained human.
Her husband, Edmund rolled around like a flash.
Edmund Isaac Frost was the son of an overlord Vampire and a Baroness of the same nature.
Merylyn was in labour. He bagan yelling for Cairo and Genna, Merylyn's handmaids. He stroked his dear Mery's chestnut hair and kissed her sweating forehead which was whiter than it's usual pale shade. It was almost the same color of his by now, which was so white it almost looked gray. The only color that ever ran through his face was a light tint of pink. It only showed when he was consumed with passion for his wife.
She looked into his shining gray eyes with her bright green ones, breathing heavily. She tried to concentrate more on him than the pain, and it worked in between contractions. As long as she could concentrate, she was surrounded by warmth and comfort.
The handmaids finally arrived with hot water and towels. The eldest, Genna, showed Cairo how to measure when the baby was supposed to come out. When Merylyn's cervix reached 10 centimeters, the baby was pushed through, fontanels moving closer together to help it get through, until finally, it crowned and Genna let Cairo pull out the screaming infant. Once the umbilical chord was cut, the baby was cleaned, and the placenta was pushed out of Merylyn, both parents were able to see their little girl. She had her father's sand colored hair and an eye from each parent, left green and right gray. She had her mother's tail and ears.
"She's so beautiful..." whispered a very sweaty Mery, who felt as if she needed a shower.
"Just like her mother." Ed replied in his light voice. Mery looked at him with her "Yeah Right" face and turned back to their daughter.
"Taliny Jeauxsephine," she said quietly.
She had named her after her father, Talon, and her mother Josephine.
Finally, their love had taken it's form.

Chapter 2: Daddy Color

Taliny's second birthday had come! She had gotten her Vamp Fangs, inherited from her father when she was 6 months old, mastered walking and talking at an incredible rate from 6 months to a year old, and was beginning to learn how to conjugate verbs in Morlenian.
I should probably go into explaination about now. The world they live in is called Jiwn (pronounced June). Their country is Radialyn (Ray-dee-Allen). The particular country Taliny happens to be learning the language of in this chapter is called Morleni (More-lenn-eye). It's about the same as Russian, just as their own language, Radish, is basically English with a few extra words.
Back to the story.
"Ed, honey! Come here! I need your hand!" Merylyn called through the house. Currently, she was trying to put the Frosting ((get it?!!)) on the cake. It was a blue cherry flavored icing for Tali's cherry cake.
Ed came in through the padio door. "What is it hon?"
She pointed at the stylus. She was trying to make the cake artsy and wasn't succeeding. Ed smoothed out the frosting that was already on it and began writing "Happy Birthday, Tali-Butt!" on the cake and making little swirly bits.
Out of nowhere, it seemed, a little toddler with pink hair stormed into the kitchen looking really angry.
"I was looking in my mirra' and my hair was Daddy color and then I looked at my ballerina in my moozic box and I thought her pink dress was pretty and I shaked my head and then my hair wasn't daddy color no more. It's pink and I dun know howda get it back." she said in her demanding little tone. "I wan my daddy hair back!"
Edmund, knowing what had happened, kneeled next to his baby girl and said, "Stare at my hair and think about it. Then shake your head again."
The little girl did so and looked at her hair. "DADDY COLOR!!!!!" she wailed happily. "Dankyou Daddy!"
Another thing she inherited from her father's side ((not her father, exactly, but her Grandmother. That trait was dormant in Edmund.)) was the ability to alter her hair color at will.
Out of spite, the toddler stared hard at a peice of silver ribbon hanging from the counter and shook her head as hard as she could.
She strutted around for the rest of the night with her hair glaring every little bit of the light from the lamps. When she went to bed, it faded to it's original color.

Chapter 3: 14 Years Old, but Still Not All There

Taliny pawed at a fish swimming by her in the creek. She stretched and yawned in the mud of the bank and stuck her hand back in. Her mother and father had to go to Morleni to attend to some business. She was staying with her mothers best friend since gradeschool, Miss Abba. She had been there for about two months now.
Carlene Abbalicht lived in a large, wooden plantation house about 56 miles away from the Frosts. She had one son, who was three years older than Tal to the exact date, named Jacen Isaac, and a servant named Torka. Torka was more of a daughter to Miss Abba than a servant.
As Taliny moved her hand in the water, she noticed footsteps behind her.
"Hi," she yawned.
"You're going to get your clothing all muddy." It was Jacen.
"Eh. They're washable."
The redhead grinned. "Are you washable?"
"I should hope so." Tal yawned again. Then she noticed that she was being picked up.
"What are you doing? Stop that this instance! Eek!!!" she shreiked as he threw her in, and grabbed his shirt so he fell with her. It was deeper than either one of them had thought. Tal swam to the top and looked around just as Jace came up behind her.
"You are such a dumbface!" she yelled at him.
He laughed and swam toward her. "Well, I must admit, I did deserve it. You look really good wet." He grinned. His tan face seemed to be trying to blend in with his hair, but failing.
Taliny blushed as well. "Well... you... have red hair so mnyuh!" she said sticking out her tongue.
She almost managed to crawl out of the creek until a hand caught hers. She spun around in the water to see a face closer to hers than comfortable. More out of reaction than anything, she slapped Jace. He laughed at her as if it didn't really affect him at all.
"You're such a boot." he said to her.
"I'm not a boot. I don't belong on feet. You'r-"
She was interrupted by his face pressing against hers. She couldn't really do anything but melt into it. When he finally pulled away, Taliny's eye was twitching. He laughed at her again and hugged her. She hugged him back as hard as she could, which at the time wasn't very hard.
They walked back up to the house together through the feild.
When they got back, Miss Abba was peeling potatoes on the front porch roof. She always liked it up there. It was high up and no one bothered her. She looked down at the children passing underneath her.
"You two get cleaned up in a hurry before I sick the cat on you!" she yelled.
She was enjoying the view over the hills until she saw the two muddy creatures coming up over it.
Torka stuck her head out of the window. "Mada'a,m, Pepper's givin' birth. She got some perdy pups."
Pepper was Miss Abba's Rotteweiler. Lord knows how she got pregnant, but daft if anyone cared.
The puppies turned out to be Collie-Rot mixes. There were eight of them. The one that looked more like it's mother was named Seargent Pepper. The smallest one was named Corsette, because it was all black except for a white part that went all the way around the middle of it. The rest were to be given away.
That night as Taliny was laying awake, she thought about what had happened with Jace. She remembered how she wanted to slap him again, but she couldn't bring herself to do it. He made her so angry. Since she got there, he was always picking on her and teasing her and wrestling with her - and losing. And now, it turned out he liked her? She screamed at herself inside of her own head. "Why didn't you just hit him? Sure, it was fun being thrown into the creek, but you should have slapped him when he... when iit came to that." She kept thinking and censoring certain parts so as to keep herself from freezing in mid-thought. She thought about his red hair and how she hated it. Then she remembered that brownish pink shade he turned. She thought about it for a while and decided to embarass him with it, so she shook her shoulder length hair out into it. She lit a lamp and looked into the mirror. It didn't look half bad. It was kind of a light cherry wood color. She pulled the book out of the bedside table droor and began reading it.
'I should like to think that it wasn't a horrible experience.' she read. 'I've never seen anything like it before, and it was quite beautiful. But the beast was dreadfully mean and it nearly bit my leg.'
She couldn't catch any interest, so she put it back. She watched the flame on the candle flicker. It had to be four in the morning.
Someone tapped lightly on the door three times. She didn't want to be rude, so she opened it. 'Who else would it bloody well be?' she thought as she let Jace in. A feeling in her stomach that had been there in the creek came back. She held it in and decided it was anger.
"What are you doing up at this hour? And why did you come here?" she inquired in a whisper.
"I need to ask you something." he replied, looking rather worried.
"Well, what is it, and as well what time is it?" she looked at him and in the light of his lamp, she could see that his face was back to the color it had been.
"It's three fifteen. I need to know something. Yesterday, at the creek, did you feel anything?" He was looking her straight in the eye and it scared her.
"I-... What do you mean?" She didn't know how to respond.
"What I mean is Did you have any emotions while we were in the creek?" Though he was whispering, he sounded very upset about it.
She stared at the blanket underneath him and she noticed a "Yes" escaping the confines of her knotted stomach. She sat down next to him and shook her hair into the red color of his hair. She hoped he didn't notice it, but he did and wasn't effected by it.
"Of course I did." More of the knot disappeared. "And I believe I've been trying to pass it off as anger." she didn't want that to come out at all. She put her hand around her chin with the middle knuckle of her forefinger pressing on her lips before she said anything else.
"I see. Were you angry with me at all, do you know?" He felt as if he needed a hug, but didn't want to take one without permission.
She looked at him and noticed something running down his face. "Well, I was peeved when you threw me in, but after that I didn't have a reason to be mad at you."
He looked at her eyes again. "One more question. Why did you slap me?"
She smiled when she remembered it. "That was pure reaction. When you turn around and something's right there, one's first reaction is to put a hand up."
He laughed a little as well. Then she leaned over and put her head on his shoulder.
"What exactly did you feel?" he asked her.
She ignored the fact that he had said that "Why did you slap me" was the last question and replied. "A kind of happy scared feeling."
"Me too," he said quickly, hugging her tightly.
She felt him shudder a few times and looked up at him. He had been crying. His face didn't move from it's military expression, but there were tears running down his face and he was stifling sobs. She didn't want him to have to cry with his face out in the open, so, like her mother did her, she hugged his face to her neck and let him cry for as long as he could.
They fell asleep holding eachother knowing well that Abba wouldn't see them. She usually sends Torka to wake everyone.
This, by the way, was one of her only two jobs: waking people up and telling different things to Abba. She thought Jacen and Taliny were cute together in their actions and dared not mess up her amusement.
When Torka knocked on their door that morning, around 9 o'clock, Taliny jumped out of bed, remembering that she was trying not to like him. He didn't seem to be awake because he wasn't moving. She looked at his face. He was still asleep. "Goodness he's so beautiful..." she thought, just before thinking, "Why does he have to be so bloody tempting?!"
Thus she finally gave in and laid down next to him and stared at him until he woke up.
When he did he smiled at her, and she at him, and they walked downstairs to get breakfast.

Chapter 4: She's Only 17

Taliny woke up. She had that dream again. The one she had over and over since she left the Abbalicht house about her and Jacen in the creek. It looked like September again, which meant he would be down for a visit. They had been together three years or so. They didn't get to see eachother as often since the year started, in fact it was only once every 3 months that he came down to West Hale.
Tal yawned and struggled to her feet, then staggered out of her room and down the hall to the kitchen.
Her father smiled at her, stood up, and gave her a hug. "Hey Kiddo!" he grinned.
She looked at him, wild eyed in fear. "What did I do this time?"
"Nothing. I just felt like hugging you. I made breakfast too." He motioned to the magnificent feast of deformed pancakes and torn up eggs on the table.
"Oh, so you got laid." Tal laughed.
Edmund grabbed his daughter's head and noogied her. "No that's not why," he grunted, trying to keep his hold. "It's because today's going to be a good day. I can smell it in the air." He let her go, both laughing.
He was always right about such things. Happiness leaves an imprint on time, whether it be it's past or it's future. Most people get feelings about it, but the Frost family has always smelled it.
A few hours later, after the kitchen had been cleaned and everything put away, Tal was sitting on the back porch, painting an unusually lovely picture. She liked to paint, but for some reason, today's painting strayed from her usual animals and feilds and home life to flowers on water in the moon with waves breaking onto the shore of a distant bay on which stood two shadows, seemingly hugging.
Cairo opened the screen door to tell her mistress something only to find herself staring at the painting. After a few minutes, Taliny noticed she was there and turned.
"Yes?" She watched Cairo give a startled shiver.
"Your dear one is here." she said solemnly.
The door opened wider and Jacen stepped over the threshold.
"Hullo." he said, looking at her with a smile.
"Hi." Tal managed before he leaned over and whispered something into her ear.
They left the back porch and took off across the feild in back of the house and wound up in a little spot in the woods where leaves never fell from the trees, so it was always grassy. They had found it a few years ago and it was now their favourite place to go to talk. They sat down on the fallen, yet sturdy, tree that ran through the middle of it.
"Tal," he said, almost in a whisper. "I'm going to need to ask you something."
Looking at him inquisitively, she nodded for him to go on.
He looke a little scared for a moment, and then uttered quietly, "Vih pozhyehneetyes ya?".
She stared at him, for a little while as tears welled up in her eyes. Of course, it would be emotional, because that is the first language she ever learned outside of that of Radialyn.
"Kahnyetchno ya boodoo!" she whispered in reply.
The two embraced after a second of staring at eachother.
In case you didn't even get the incinuation, I'll explain.
Jacen: Will you marry me? ((or litterally, You will marry me?))
Taliny: Of course I will! ((or Certainly I shall.))
Anyway, the two continue hugging and crying for about three or four hours and finally, they head back to the Frost Estate.

Chapter 5: Grandparents

When they got into the back door, Edmund and Meria were playing rock paper scissors on the kitchen table.
"Ha!" Meria had won. She perked her ears with glee and her tail met with his nose.
Edmund sighed and stood before walking to the sink to do the dishes, pausing only a moment to glance at Taliny and Jacen.
"Jacen! Why, it's been so long!" Meri greeted him with a hug. She knew what had happened. In fact, until she saw the two walk through the door, she was beginning to wonder when he was going to ask her.
She looked unusually spirited today. No one knew why, but shee seemed more cheery and lively and the color of youth had returned to her cheeks. Now that anyone thought about it, it seemed the same had happened to Ed. Jace was about to ask about it until he saw both sets of grandparents walk through the door.
"Hello!" said Talon in his loud, tenor voice, mostly to him. He hugged his grandchild as delicately as a large (really tall and quite muscular) old man can. He then gave Jacen the most painful hug he had ever felt. When he was let go, he exploded in a series of gasps.
"Hello" deep breath "Sir!" and another followed by more panting.
"My name's Talon! You must be that Jacen I keep hearing about!" he yelled sticking out his hand for a handshake.
"Yes sir, that I am. Very nice to meet you, sir." he shook his hand the best he could and tried to ignore the pain.
"Oh, Lonny, you needn't be rough. He's not as tough as Edmund." Josephine scolded him. "Hello, I'm Josie. You seem like a very sweet little boy. Excuse my husband's oafishness. He can be a little careless sometimes." She patted Jace's cheek gingerly.
"It's quite alright, mada'am. He's no worse than my mother." he said laughing, knowing he lied a little.
He moved his head to look at Taliny and instead came to face the worst look of death he had ever incountered. It was a cool, calm expression, with a big feeling of "I want you to die" behind it. It startled him a bit, but he gained his composure before he screamed.
"Er-... Hello, Mada'am...heh heh..." He couldn't help but feeling nervous. She was beginning to creep him out with her unmoving face.
Finally she opened her mouth and uttered "You will not address me directly unless I address you."
He couldn't do much but stand there and look at her, wondering if he should say anything.
"Hyuh hyuh hyuh! Ain't that the funniest thing! Becky found herself a friend! Hyuh hyuh hyuh hyuh!" Talon laughed his huge laugh. "Don't worry about her, kiddo. She's harmless."
"The fangs are telling me different, sir."
"Hee hee hee! Hee hee!" It was a tiny laugh coming from the scary lady. "I was only kidding, boy. My name is Rebecca!" She was smiling and it scared him. "And this lanky man over here is my husband, Wesley."
The man who had earlier crossed over to the table and began reading a newspaper glanced up. "Hi." he said before going back to reading.
"Hello sir." He looked around the room trying to find Taliny. No sign of her.
"Oh, we simply must all have a lovely cup of tea. My precious Daughter in law makes the best I've ever dreamed of. Meri, honey, will you be a dear? I can get the water ready, if you need." The small, black haired woman smiled at her.
"Yes, of course! If you feel you must, you may. I still need to get started on lunch."
Rebecca dug through millions of tea kettles to find her favourite one, the black one with the blue rose design on either side of it and a fully bloomed blue rose as the whistler, and filled it with water. Meria had just put the crab fried rice on the stove, and before turning on the burner for that, she put a teabag in the kettle and put it on the back burner. Soon, lunch was ready and after everyone had eaten, they started on the tea.
Josephine took a sip of hers, which was saturated with sugar, and looked at the boy in front of her. 'Well, he's not exactly ugly,' she thought, 'but there's gotta be something wrong with him. There's something wrong with everyone. I'd be dissappointed if there wasn't something wrong with him. Edmund has that sixth toe. Let's find out what makes this kid tick.'
She swished her tail and smiled. "So tell me, what's your mother like?"

Chapter 6: Realization Hits Hard

When the group had finished talking, it was time for the elders to leave. Grandmother Josephine was quite satisfied with her information ((which was only that his mommy was tougher than he was)) and everyone else seemed to approve as well.
Talon chuckled as he hugged Jacen. "You be good now, y'hear?"
"Goodbye, Dear one!" cooed Rebecca in Taliny's ear as she hugged her and waved at the same time to Jace.
As she stepped out the front door, the heel of her shoe caught on the carpet and she fell. Her knees hit the stone cobbles with a loud thud and a crack from one leg.
"Oh! Oh my!" she exhaled. She was in emense pain. Her leg was broken and both knees had large, jagged gashes in them.
Merilyn and Edmund rode in the carriage with her and Wesley as they drove to the nearest town with a doctor in it, taking Cairo and Genna.
"We'll be back in about five days. Guard the house and don't do anything stupid. I don't want to come back to a burnt pile of nonsense." Edmund instructed before they drove away.
This left Jacen and Taliny to themselves.
They went inside and immediately sat down on the couch and cuddled.
"Your family's funny, dear." Jacen laughed.
"I'm glad we have some alone time now. I missed you so while you were away." Taliny hugged into his chest as she spoke.
"I missed you more than you could ever know. It's about time to retire now. We should get to bed." He hugged her back and the two stood and went into Taliny's bedroom.
As they lay there on the bed, they stared into eachother's eyes. She never noticed how his were more of a golden colour than what she had originally percieved. She scooted over as close to him as she could and cuddled him. He hugged her close to him and kissed the top of her head. Tal moved her head to face his and they kissed eachother repeatedly.
Before Taliny had time to react, Jacen had pulled her hips in tight to his. They continued to kiss eachother as they rolled, Jace on top of Tal.
Shortly after this, the inevitable happened. They hit the breaking point and fell into it. One of the steps to their plan was misplaced. Get married, consumate it, and wait before they thought about children if she didn't get pregnant right off the bat. The consumation part had just happened. Ten minutes went by before Jacen realized what was happening and that he wasn't married to her yet as he had been immagining for fifteen minutes or so.
He stopped and moved away from her, gripping his red hair in shame. The feeling was made worse by an "Oh, my god... what did we just do?..." Tears rolled down his temples and he lunged to hug into her.
"I'm sorry..." he sobbed over and over again. "I'm so sorry..." He lost all respect for himself as he continued thinking over how he forgot to respect her.
"It's okay... Honey, please don't cry, it's okay..." She was crying into his hair. She didn't know what to think of herself. She was going through the same mental battle, thinking that it was more her fault than his while he thought that all of it was his own. The two sobbed into eachother the whole night repeating apologies and consolations. They loved eachother so much, yet in one night, they lost all respect for themselves and grew to hate themselves.
Here's the thing one must understand about hating ones self. Time allows for one to learn to love him/herself again, but it takes a lot of it. You make up for mistakes and work at it until you can get back your self respect. These two loved eachother dearly. That was the condition that went unconditional. The song remains the same.
And so the two sobbed until finally, Taliny drifted to sleep.
"Good night, my love," Jacen whispered as he held her, right arm underneath the small of her back and left arm strewn across her, head on her chest as she lay face up asleep. He istened to the sound of her heart beating and her lungs slowly breathing air in and out. He was so pissed off at himself for making her cry, but especially for taking the thing he was hoping would be given to them on the night of their wedding. He felt like he betrayed the only woman he had ever loved. After a while of listening to his love's heart and breathing, though, he too fell into rest.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Morning broke and Jacen woke up to an empty bed, save for him. His heart still hung low in his stomach as he rose from the bed and shuffled into the kitchen. She had just put the last three pancakes on the stack of about ten and set them on the table in between two smaller plates.
"Good morning handsome." She smiled at him adoringly and walked to him and hugged him as tightly as she could, her wet cheeks sticking to his skin as she moved her face back and forth across his chest.
He embraced her and the two fell to the floor in a heap of tears.
"Tal, honey, I really didn't want to hurt you..." he sobbed.
"I know, it's ok-"
"No it's not! I took your innocence!...It's just...I just wanted to feel you... I shouldn't have let it get so out of hand..." He stroked her hair gently as his tears fell into it.
"Love, it was my fault. I should have told you to stop when our hips collided before it happened. I should have payed atten-"
This time she was interupted by his foreginger on her lips. "Honey, no, it wan't your fault in the least," he paused as he inhaled sharply. "You're the love of my life and I ruined everything just because I couldn't remember that we're not married yet."
"It's alright." she whispered to him. "Now, we'll talk about this over breakfast. We need to eat if we're to have the strength to deal with it. I even have your favourite dressings on the table." She looked at him as a mother would look at her child, only in a more loving way than that.
"It'd only be you to remember them." He hugged her again, still crying. When he had finished, he helped her up.
They both sat down to eat, and as she had promised, there were two bowls of two seperate toppings; chocolate shavings and blueberries, as well as a small pitcher of syrup.
As soon as they had their breakfast finished and the dishes cleaned, they took a stroll into the lush green of the back woods. Jacen stopped a few times along the path, each time handing Tlainy a flower or two. Or three. By now, she had several roses, a few daisies, an iris, some foxgloves, and 12 bunches of forget-me-nots. Taliny wondered when he found out that she liked flowers. The thing that amazed her most was the face that he was now picking every white lily she saw, which, she didn't know, was set apart from an entire 50 foot square garden of them that Jacen had planted last year. She was definately curious now as to how he found out she liked them so much. She didn't say anything for fear that it would only make things worse than they already were.
Ironically, as Jacen handed her the bouquet, he said, "In case you were wondering, I could kind of tell that you like these a lot. You tend to stare at them when we walk past them."
'Well, that answers it,' thought Tal. She pulled his face in with her free hand to kiss it gingerly. Before her lips reached his, she noticed a look a panic on his face.
"What if I got you pregnant?" he whispered weakly.
She wasn't exactly sure how to respond to this. She looked him in the eyes. "If you got me pregnant, we're just going to have to deal with the consequences of our actions." It was the last thing she wanted to hear, and probably the last thing he wanted to hear as well, but it had to be said. "The help in the matter is that we love eachother. All we can do is deal with it when the time comes." She kissed him softly, some of her tears merging with his, and they continued on their prominade.
Some of you may be thinking, "What's so bad about having sex?". Well, I'll explain. When you have your priorities in the right order, sex shouldn't be something for fun and games. It's an expression of love - leastwise it's supposed to be. It's something that is supposed to be put off until after you're married. Not many people do that anymore. As well, in this case, it's around the time people started getting electricity into their homes, cars had not been invented yet, and they had nothing in the way of birth control except throwing yourself down a flight of stairs.
Neither of them knew what to do. They walked hand in hand, fingers interlocked. When they got to their tree, the two embraced and Jacen kissed Tali's neck. She shuddered a little before hugging him closer to her.
"I love you." she breathed.
"I love you, too. So much."

Chapter 7: The Naming of the Goo.

As the next few days passed, they cleaned the house to nearly spotless. The sheets they had shamed themselves on were boiled and washed and the two didn't really have much to do. Currently, they had two days left of alone time.
As they sat cuddling on the couch, saying practically nothing, Jacen stroked her hair.
'If you are, I wonder what we'll name it.' he thought to her. He wanted to say it so badly, but was afraid it would make matters worse. They had been crying for the past three days about it. He didn't want to cry anymore, but if she started crying, he knew he would.
Little did he know, she was thinking the exact same thing. She didn't know whether she was pregnant or not, but she half hoped she was. He had said just yesterday that something happened that led him to believe he may have gotten her that way, but he wouldn't tell her what it was.
No one had ever explained "The Big Bang" to her before. She knew that certain things could make one or two children grow inside of girls, but she didn't know the dynamics. Her parents wanted to shelter her from that and let her find out on her own. They taught her everything they knew medically, but they never taught her about sects. Or mending bones for that matter, but even they didn't know how to do that.
She was half asleep now, though it was only 4 PM, and she listened closely to his breathing and the thumping of his heart. His breath always seemed to the point of crying now. 'It's probably my own fault,' she said to herself. She was drifting in and out of the waking world.
"I hope I am..." she found herself whispering, and was woken up by his response.
"In a way, I do too. I... I'd like for it to be a girl... you know... if you are."
She was thinking the same thing.
"What do you want to name it?" she said to him, softly. A silence presented its self shortly after as the two thought.
Then, quietly, he said, "Radia... Radia Lynnore".
Taliny snuggled into him. She loved the name. There was one more question on her mind.
"And if it's a boy?"
He looked at her silently for a moment or so. "Isaac Toba."
Taliny was pleased. Her love had just named their future children. Whether it was near future or distant had yet to be determined.
For now the two drifted into their afternoon nap, lulled by the sound of eachother's breathing.
Taliny dreamt she was at something called a "Rock Concert". She had no idea what rocks had to do with concerts, but she rather liked it. The band playing was something called "Led Zeppelin". She liked their music but was ticked off at the misspelling of "Lead".
Jacen's dream wasn't near as good. He dreamed that Taliny was pregnant, which was good, but then, when Jace was calling the midwife, Tali died and the baby died shortly after. He woke up with tears streaming from his face. He squeezed his love as hard, yet as gently as he could.
She awoke to a happy smell. Jacen was no longer there, but had placed a pillow under her head and a blanket over her. It was around 8 now. The smell she had been smelling came from the enormous bunches of white lilies piled all around her, all tied up with pale lavendar coloured bows.
She wandered into the kitchen and he was just putting the spaghetti into a bowl with the meat sauce.
Right down to her favourite food. She knew he was in love with her.
"You just enjoy doing this, don't you?" she asked him, smiling.
He turned around, finally noticing her. "What? Did I do something wrong?" He thought it was anger in her voice and not extreme happiness.
"No. You constantly insist upon making me the happiest person in the world."
He blushed a little, the red mixing with the tan and creating that cherry wood color, like three years ago.
Taliny closed her eyes on the sight and shook out her hair like she used to.
"I like that colour on you," he said before setting down the bowl and embracing her. He knew she did it to embarass him, but he really did love how the color looked against her face. He kissed her again and looked into her eyes. He was still fascinated by them. He loved how the green was brighter than the gray, but the gray still stood out. She amazed him, and he, her.
The two finished their dinner quietly and cleaned the dishes and the table. When Taliny sat down on her bed, she was surprised to see Jacen walking into her room with a guitar. He sat down on the stool in front of her mirror. Taking his pick out of his mouth, he started playing a song that he wrote for her a long time ago. She hadn't heard it since the day of their first year together, and that's what she thought it was. This, though, happened to be a freshly written one that he had been working on for over a year now.

"It doesn't do enough to tell you I love you.
The words just don't explain how I feel.
You mean everything to me and nothing could express
this wonderful emotion I can't figure out is real.
My heart is yours to keep
My love is yours to have
You're everything to me
You mean so much it drives me mad
And we might make mistakes
and I know I've screwed up so much
But I hope it won't take
Anything from our love."

The first verse is all I'm giving you, because it just gets sappier and Taliny gets more teary eyed and at the end, is bawling her eyes out, and that's where we pick up.
"I love you so much," she sobbed into his shoulder. "You make me so happy."
"I love you, too." He was bawling as well. It was hard for him to keep his voice when she started her tears, because any time she was crying, be it happy or sad, you could bet he was crying, too. He wasn't exactly perfect, tonewise and he didn't always have the right notes, but he had the most wonderful voice in the world in her opinion. And that was all that mattered. So Mnyuh!

Chapter 8: A Letter From Mom

When they returned to the house, they noticed the back door open. Jace opened a hole in the underside of the patio and pulled out a small pistol. He loaded twenty five bullets ito it's chamber and went inside.
One wouldn't normally think such a small gun could hold that much ammunition, but it was built by Talon, and he never makes anything without making it useful. To him, a useful pistol held more than six bullets, a useful sword had more than one blade, and a useful cat had steel claws implanted into all four of it's paws. Sometimes, he even defied the laws of space to be able to do things. No one knew how.
As Tal stood outside practically naked, she heard several gunshots, some cursing and the sound of a cart being ripped apart by something.
Jace finally emerged through the back door, some blood on his chest and pants, but not much. He led her inside to her bedroom.
"I don't want you to come out until I say it's alright, okay honey? And put on some clothing."
"Alright." She nodded. As he closed the door she strolled over to her dresser. She got out his favourite pants and a shirt he had never seen her in that she thought looked good. After she was dressed, she looked over at her mirror and began fixing her hair and her make-up.
While this was going on, Jace was calling the police.
"Yes sir. They tried, but they didn't get very far. No sir, all dead but one. Yes sir. Yes sir. He was the only one that didn't come at me with a sharp impliment, sir. One leg, sir. We tripped over eachother and he apologized to me. Right in the middle of the tibia and fibrula, sir. Yes sir. I don't know why, sir, I would have been cursing like a long-shore man, sir. No sir, only a Medic. No, sir, I don't like nuts. Sir, could you please just send someone over? Thank you sir. Goodbye, sir."
When Jace got off the phone, he returned to his guest. "Would you like me to set that for you? We don't want it to heal funky."
"Oh, yes please. Thank you!"
After he had gotten the bone setting screw out of the garage, he set to work on the man's leg.
"So what got you into burglary? You seem like a decent young man. Why would you do something like this?"
"Well, you see, sir, I never wanted to, but it's a family business, you see. Dad thought I'd be good at it, like he and his brothers and father and uncles and so on were. I always wanted to be a painter. Never really liked stealing, you HO MY GLEEMING GOODNESS FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!!!! see. Honestly I aspi- SON OF A LUDACRIS BUREAUCRAT!!!! -ire to be somewhat like Ro- HOLY HELL THAT IS REALLY PAINFUL!!! -naldo Von Dran."
"Oh, well then. I'll be sure they let you go. I'll give you some funding so you can be on your way to art school. It's much more respectable than this."
The police came as dark set and left with the man, taking him to the same hospital Taliny's grandmother was at. Jace sent him off with 2700 dulcians and a book.
He opened the door to Taliny's room just as she had gotten the last pin in her hair. She looked up at him and smiled shyly. He didn't think he'd ever seen her look so beautiful. He walked toward her slowly.
"You know, putting that nonsense on was a bit of a waste." he whispered.
Taliny didn't quite understand what he meant. "Why?"
He paused a bit, staring at her, barely breathing, before answering her. "Because it's about to come off."
As soon as the sentence was finished, his face melted into hers, smearing gloss up to either one's nose, pausing their kiss only breifly to blow out the lamp. Jacen moved her toward the bed and the couple fell onto it. As Jace moved his face downward to kiss Tal's neck, he heard her whisper to him. He lifted his head to look at her and noticed she was trying to sing his favourite song, but the tears in her eyes were holding her vocal chords in place. He lifted himself to sit upright and picked up his love and cradled her, petting and kissing her face.
"I love you more than anything
and I need to be with you
I'd die a thousand deaths
just to make you happy..." she whispered.
His tears were mixing with hers by this time. "I love you so much," he sobbed, gasping for breath shortly after.
"Can we be pregnant, please?" she breathed.
"I don't know," he answered, crying harder, yet quieter.


COMING SOON: CHAPTER 9!!!!