#kirin the forgotten child once again

[himmimimimi]

[dinglesugden-af]

Honestly I think this baby is Adams through and through and I'll never change my mind on that. The way vadam wanting a baby ties in so much with rebecca. First of all their baby story started AFTER rebecca had come into the show. But after that completely ended up being forgotten about. Their baby storyline only started up again once rebecca was pregnant and each time something's happened their baby storyline kicks off again. Why have Adam find the test? Wouldn't it of made more sense for Robert or Ross to find it? Considering they were the only ones it could of been? They decided to go for fertility tests AFTER rebecca had given birth. Why not before? Their marriage literally ended because of this fertility thing but the doctor did say adam needed more tests which he never went for. Doctors aren't always 100% and one fertility test doesn't mean you're firing blanks. You need more information. Throughout this whole storyline victoria has been so pally with Rebecca which is baffling. She never even liked rebecca or acknowledged her. She hated the whites but since the pregnancy seems to have forgotten what they did to andy. At first adam was on roberts side 100% and even he saw Rebecca having vic wrapped round her little finger but all of a sudden changed. Yes Aaron self harmed and he knew but he changed his attitude towards rebecca. He was sat having a drink with her. Why has he never acknowledged the fact she slept with his best mates husband? Vadam got back together just as another baby is born. Their adoption storyline starting up just as Rebecca's about to give birth. When rebecca came back out of all people why go to Victoria? The woman desperate for a child? The supposed auntie? If you didn't want robert involved why go to a member of his family for help? Why did she have to go for the scan? Your sister was supporting you. Your dad even left messages confirming he was supporting you. Why go from "I'm doing it on my terms" to "I want to put you on the birth certificate". Since Roberts been doing his scheming victorias sort of took a step back but now she's about to give birth she's back heavily involved again. I honestly think rebecca has planned this whole thing. If she really didn't want this to cause trouble she wouldn't of flaunted this pregnancy. Everytime something happens either vic or aarons there. The miscarriage scare? Vic was there but it was aaron who got the phone call. The scan? She flaunted it in the pub but aaron was there. The second scan? Her care breaks down aaron tries to fix it persuades Robert to take her. She goes into labour? Aaron's there. Aaron's a mechanic. He doesn't need to drive the car to find out what's wrong with. That's just completely stupid. There's been so many hints robert isn't the dad and I still stick by that. Surely when robron reunite the biggest thing would be to question coparenting and how aaron would come round to the baby? But there's literally been 0 mention of that. Normally in soaps when they do this they don't keep the couple broken up till after the birth. They reunite them then the struggles start. Victoria has been far too heavily involved in this storyline for her to just be an auntie. When has she ever obsessed over jack and sarah?? It coming out adam was he dad would be perfect. I don't know how adam would leave but surely Victoria would need to hate him to not end up going with him? If he gets framed for Emma's murder I don't see aaron allowing him to go on the run. He didn't even want andy on the run and didn't get involved with it till it was too late. Victoria? She would never believe that or allow him to go on the run after the andy situation. Why would she stay and just leave him to run for the rest of his life? Kirin Andy and Rakesh all went on the run in the space of a year they surely don't need another? Adam has a business a mum a bestmate and a wife. For him to leave that behind them he would surely not be wanted at either place for that to happen. Moira will have her own focus with the post natal depression but there's more to his exit and I think this will be it. It broke aaron. It broke his marriage. Adam will leave because he's lost everything and sees no way back and not one person will be sad to see him go apart from moira. Surely for him to leave everything behind something big will happen for Victoria to stay. I'm 100% convinced either way this baby isn't roberts. There's been so many hints about him not being the dad and the fact their having him accept the baby so quick after birth is enough proof it's going to be snatched from him. My prediction? Lachlan hiding in the attic will bring it all to the surface. He knows everything about his family. He knows about robert and Lawrence that's no secret to him. He'll hear rebecca talking to the baby about vics baby obsession. "If only you're auntie vic knew who your daddy truly was. But how can you tell her? They've just got back together. She thinks he's infertile. How do I tell her adam is your daddy?" Or something along those lines. Lachlan will waste no time in telling him. Robert will want to tell Aaron because that's what broke them apart but when he goes to talk to him chas or liv will end up saying something to him so he decides to leave it. He'll end up in the hospital because Rebecca has told Lawrence what he's done and lawrence will be the one to put him there. No one will know about the baby's paternity till he wakes up. Everyone will be sat there begging him to fight for his son but they don't know. Vic will have to deal with choosing Rebecca over her brother and a close mate. Aaron will have to deal with the fact his marriage broke down because of his best mate. Rebecca and Vic. One sadly and pathetically in love with someone who doesn't want her and one who's desperate for a child have been so happy and got their own way through out this storyline something has to go wrong for them. Why has a DNA test NEVER been brought up? They'll surely have to do one soon? Why question paternity three times? Why have Lawrence Chrissie and Victoria all been involved in DNA storylines never questioned it? Normally when it's a characters first pregnancy it's NEVER this straight forward. They either loose the baby or there's a dna issue. I'm so down for the adam theory. It will cause the drama we all want. I just think it's highly suspicious both times roberts told her it's not her he wants she's suddenly "pregnant". She knew Aaron was coming home that day. Why take a test in HIS house? Why not do it in the ladies like priya and vic both did? Why do it on that specific day? Adam Barton is gonna be a dad and noone else will tell me otherwise. It's the only thing that makes sense. It's been made obvious from the start this baby would stop robron being together and for emmerdale to have aaron accept the baby would just make the past few months pointless. How does Aaron go from "it's too late for us" to being back with him? Something has to give. Something has to change. There has to be a twist. If this baby was roberts it would be premature. Yet despite the fact both robert and lachlan have mentioned her being early not one of the spoilers mention that?

[justinegrotius]

((Long read, one of which I am quite proud – feels.))

“What’s on your mind?” asked Wren. She sat. Her legs dangled over the side of the ship. Once she had situated herself, she dug a cigarillo out from her tunic. She pat her body down. “…damn.”

“War crimes,” said Osprey. She grimaced as she dug into one of her belt pouches, fished out a small coin and her old, battered zippo, and flicked the lighter’s flint striker. A thin tendril of fire snaked upward. She slipped the coin back into the pouch. Wren leaned in toward the lighter, and took a long drag off the cigarillo. The cigarillo hissed, and the tobacco leaf burned away, fast and hot. A jagged red line wound its way around the cigarillo. Osprey clicked her lighter shut, and put it away.

Wren held her breath for several seconds before exhaling grey smoke into the clear evening air.

“That’s a topic…” she said.

“I know,” said Osprey. She placed her hands in her lap and looked out across Menethil Harbor. Fireflies flickered every now and again. Nighthawks cried like distant phantasms as they swooped across the inlet, unseen predators in the thick summer air.

“Any reason?” asked Wren before she took another long drag. The scent of warm leather and earthy tobacco wafted across the ship’s deck.

“Mister Albatross,” said Osprey without a moment’s hesitation.

“Mister Albatross…” murmured Wren. She sighed. She tipped the cigarillo straight upward. Smoke wound toward the stars.

“I’ve done some things,” began Osprey. Wren looked over toward her; Osprey’s face was moulded, shaped out of some imperturbable clay. “But not …” – her lip twitched subtlety – “…you just don’t brand people. I don’t care if it’s going to fade away or whatever bullshit he said, but you just don’t. Not on the battlefield, and certainly not prisoners of war – our charges – after they surrender.”

Wren turned back toward her cigarillo; she turned it on its side and flicked a long pillar of ash into the water. “No, you don’t…” she agreed before she pulled the cigarillo to her lips and inhaled. More hissing, more jagged and burning red lines.

The two sat in silence for several minutes. The nighthawks continued to swoop; the fireflies continued to flash. Fish nipped at the surface of the water. Tiny ripples spilled across the still and glassy inlet.

Osprey tightened her scarf to her neck. “Do you have anything that you regret? Any people who… who have been harmed?”

Wren finished the last bit of her cigarillo and tossed it at one of the ripples. “Yeah, plenty.”

“Any who you regret – any who, you know…” Osprey squinted, as though she could see something in the distance. “…any who still come to you? In the night, I mean.”

Wren wrung her hands. She cleared her throat. “One,” she said. “Out of all of the sideways kills, mistakes, whatever – one haunts me more than the rest.”

“Me, too,” said Osprey. She nodded. Her eyes never left the spot in the distance. Perhaps there was an army there, perhaps nothing at all. She could not tell. Not from this distance. “Who?”

“That kid. The one in Northshire,” said Wren. She grabbed her hipflask and unscrewed the top. Osprey turned her head away from the bourbon’s oaky scent. Wren took a long pull from the flask. When she finished, she wiped the corner of her mouth with the back of her hand. “He was not supposed… I did not mean… I was just trying to knock the kid out.” Wren stared into the black water as it lapped against the hull. She bit her lip.

Osprey reached her arm out toward the bereft woman. Osprey placed her hand onto Wren’s shoulder.

“I almost never flinch, you know? Or question my orders,” said Osprey. She felt Wren nodding in the darkness. Osprey’s lip twitched once again. She took a deep breath. “There was this one mission. Street fighting, straight-out urban warfare. It was right after Brian had been conscripted by the Kirin Tor. Well…” – she shifted her weight – “…he was not the only conscript that day.”

Wren did not say anything. She just continued to watch as unending ripples of dark water splashed against the ship.

Osprey removed her hand from Wren’s shoulder. “That day, everything was bad. We had to round up sin’dorei, push them toward the Violet Hold. Those who didn’t go, were …” Osprey took a moment to choose her word. “…exterminated. Systematically, methodically exterminated. I got separated from Brian. He was stuck in the damned Horde’s sanctuary. I mean, really pinned down. No escape. He and a few others – Aurora, Antonie, Kristian – held out. That’s how we had met those three… that one, bad day.”

Wren turned her head toward Osprey. She screwed the flask’s cap tight, and stowed it on her hip, tucked behind her belt.

Osprey continued: “So my squad had a choice – do we continue to hold our captives and wait for the jailers, or do we cut across the city.” Osprey took a shaky breath. She composed herself. “We elected to cut across the city, but to do that…”

“…you had to kill your charges,” finished Wren, her words grim, heavy.

“We made it as clean as possible, gave them time to make their peace, state their last words. A few of them were defiant to the end, you know? ‘You’ll burn’ was popular, the standard ‘fuck-you’… but there was this little girl, maybe ten years old. This kid had watched as her mother and father were executed in one of the banks. They had been hiding in one of the vaults. So, we take the girl to be processed. But when we make the decision, this little girl…” – Osprey stretched her fingers out toward the darkness – “…she looks at me and says: ‘Can I be with mommy now? Please put me with mommy.’”

Wren drew a quick breath. Now it was her turn to reach out to her comrade; she placed her small, bruised hand on Osprey’s forearm.

“I couldn’t do it. I just… couldn’t. One of the other shooters in our squad, he stepped in and took my gun away.” Osprey dropped her hand and pat the sidearm in her leg-holster. “And he just said ‘Done.’, and then – done: that girl, floating in the water, face down…”

Wren squeezed Osprey’s arm. “You did what you could,” she said quietly.

Osprey sniffled. Her gaze dropped from the horizon to her boots, where they dangled in open space.

“Well, we cut across the city, and extracted the doctor’s squad. The shooter, the guy who took my gun?” She clicked her tongue. “He didn’t make it. Gut shot on the way back to the Hold. Nothing we could do for him. Nothing.” Osprey let the last word hang in the air; Wren knew what she meant. “And then we got out.”

Wren glanced over her shoulder. There, the issue no one really wanted to discuss directly – Albatross – patrolled the ship’s deck. His heavy, plate-bound hooves clomped against the thick wooden planks. Wren shook her head as she turned back toward the water. She dug her hip flask from behind her belt and unscrewed its cap.

“Do they go away – the dreams?” asked Wren before she took a long draught. She held the bourbon in her mouth for a moment before swallowing; it burned the whole way down. “All I see is that kid, you know? Some… beat-cop or something. I can still feel his nose crunch against my palm – I mean, it feels so real that it wakes me up.”

Osprey rubbed the back of her neck. She did not say anything for a long time. The blink of the fireflies had slowed. The nighthawks had retreated to their nests. But the water – the water was relentless, eternal. Like memories that drive actions. Unavoidable, always present.

“No,” Osprey said. She swiped at her left eye. “You’ll always hear them. You’ll always see them. But they guide you, they keep you alive if you let them.”

“How?” asked Wren. She tucked her flask away.

“They won’t let you do the same thing twice.”

Osprey dug into the pouch strapped to her belt. She pulled out the small coin Wren had seen earlier – a trinket, an heirloom one might give to a child. The obverse held a simple raised relief of the Kirin Tor Eye. Wren watched as Osprey turned the coin over in her hand. A beautiful phoenix stretched toward the two moons of Azeroth. She placed the coin in Wren’s hand, and closed her fingers around it. Wren looked toward Osprey, perplexed. Osprey continued to hold the younger woman’s hand:

“…the little girl dropped this,” she said. She turned and looked toward the horizon as she had been doing before. “I kept it – I kept it to remind me that I did the right thing. My personal feelings about that race – those traitors – they mean nothing. Not in the face of who I am, or who I want to be. I did the right thing. You did, too. Sometimes, our intentions are what matter. Let her remind you of that.”

Osprey released Wren’s hand. She swiped at her eye once more before her face settled back into the stoic, blank slate which Wren had grown to admire.

On the ship’s deck, the two women sat in silence. Minutes passed. The gentle rocking of the ship reminded them they were two people on the same journey, bound together in this world for this moment; it reminded them that they were still breathing. They knew it was only through their memories that the forgotten could survive, and only on their breath that those voices could still be heard.

(( Mentioned: @quai-mason, @malorincan, @brian-wellson; Relevant: @monettemason, @juniper-rose-blower, @missducass ))