Let Sleeping Dogs Lie

[Audel Lesley]

Audel was in heaven, currently having two toddlers to bounce on each knee. Atala and Haldir were four and two, respectively, and the apple of their father's eye. In some ways, Haldir was definitely 'his', whilst Atala took after her mother in more ways than one. He was constantly lamenting over their preference for sweets and fats above any sort of real food. Audel occasionally shuddered to himself, imagining he could hear the twin cries of their livers at him to help. Haldir shunned sweets altogether, and Audel had scolded Atala more than once for trying to get him to take lollipops, which the toddler generally refused.
They were darling children, and they were already showing signs of becoming as heartbreakingly beautiful as their part-veela mother. Their father would have loved them anyway, but as they were, his youngest son and daughter had him wrapped around their little fingers just a little better than Damide had when he was small. It was unavoidable.

He'd planned to have a quiet day as, for some reason, Demeter was puttering about doing Merlin-knows-what. She'd had a little 'project' lately, something that had taken up more of her time than her usual pursuits. Audel deigned not to ask or interfere because he liked this new, ambitious side of his wife. He indulged her all the time she required, and had spent a couple of lovely days off with the little ones whilst she worked. Unbeknownst to the chef, Deme's project had everything to do with him, and he was going to like it a lot less than she'd hoped.​

 

[Demeter Lesley]

Demeter had never intended to go this far.

It all started one generally average day some months ago. Demeter and Audel had a normal conversation about their family and her parents in general. Dying when she was only fourteen, Demeter had never really gotten to have the time she wanted with them and woefully underappreciated them at the time. There were many things she would say to them if she got but one more single moment with them. Time had not been kind to her family, pulling them apart, throwing them together, making them a generally jumbled mess of confusion, hatred, insanity and annoyance, but she loved her family dearly. Though she often thought about changing things to fix her life, she knew she would never have met Audel otherwise. She loved her husband and she loved her children and they meant the world to her.

That being said, Demeter also knew that Audel did not know his family. She'd slowly discovered over the years that he had not looked for his biological parents. He'd never really gone into why and Demeter figured that maybe he was just worried about what he would say to them if he would find them and didn't want to get his heart broken all over again. It had become somewhat of a project for her. Initially, she had intended to just get a couple of the records to satisfy her curiousity, maybe bring Audel in on it and continue on together, but, perhaps it was curiousity, perhaps some hubris on her part, but Deme had gone much further than she intended and had actually found their names and certain other facets of information he might find useful. She believed now was the time to go to him with the information in hand. Surely he would want to find them, she knew she would be more than thrilled if she'd been adopted out and given the opportunity to get to know her parents. Demeter would have given anything to see hers again. One more day just to say goodbye, tell them everything that had happened in her life since she'd lost them.

Walking out from the bedroom with the files behind her back, Deme grinned ecstatically at Audel. "Mon nounours!* I have something for you. You will like this I promise!" She was so happy to give her news to Audel, she didn't even stop to think if he would want to know.
​

My teddybear

 

[Audel Lesley]

Audel's secretive wife suddenly appeared at their bedroom door looking like she'd just won a prize at the fair for biggest watermelon. He smiled at her curiously and set the kids down, who happily gamboled over to the toy box to start mucking about. Demeter was hiding something behind her back, and he opened his arms for her to join him on his lap.

"What have you got there, sweetheart?" the chef asked. It was about time she revealed her project to him. He was beginning to think he was never meant to know, and that would have tormented him with curiosity into the wee hours of the night.​