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Relaxation had been the last thing on Azura’s mind since winter started (the middle school concert, upcoming student recitals, the seasonal symphony performance, god, the tide just never ended). Cold winds brought out heated blankets and couch cuddling which meant Azura was content to pass winter in bundled bliss. Her family, however, had other ideas.
Park brochures carelessly left around the house, the Amazon family wish list loaded with outdoor gear and winter coats, her family was definitely scheming. Her Mom Senses told her it was only a matter of time before the big reveal.
It happened at dinner one day. The kids pushed Corrin practically on a silver platter while she cursed them in PG appropriate language for making her their sacrifice. Such brave souls, their kids. Getting someone else to do the dirty work for them.
Alas, Corrin was the Fun Mom, which suited Azura just fine. She found she liked being the Boss Mom. She was the last obstacle, the Final Stage that they had to clear at the end of the game. To win, they had to dance to her tune.
From the clues she gathered Azura knew what they were going to ask, and knew she would have to say no. Money was tight this month. Kana needed new soccer gear, Shigure needed braces, they did not have enough for a family trip, much as she would love to. When she started to soften them for the rejection, Shigure, sweet child, immediately offered up money he had been saving from odd jobs doing yard work for their neighbors and tutoring classmates. Kana quickly offered to sell their old games and stop asking for pizza every weekend for a whole month. She was so proud of both of them.
Imagine her shock, though, when Corrin chose that moment to reveal her promotion at work. Extra pay and extra vacation opened up avenues of possibilities, and what better way to spend her time than with her family?
As it stood, Azura could not refuse their earnest faces, nor stop a smile when Kana hugged her yelling ‘thank you thank you thank you’ when she said yes. They were going camping.
Kana picked the campground (at Corrin’s discretion): an isolated little place several miles out from Valla, nestled near a lake and hugged in by mountains. Snow had yet to fall this year, leaving the trails perfectly pristine for viewing the last of the trees’ fall colors.
But Azura knew what Corrin was planning. It was too much of a coincidence that Corrin led Kana to pick this place.
Oh god did she miss it, nostalgia leaving an ache in her heart. How long had it been since she last stepped foot in the outdoors? Nature was never more fine than during the change from fall to winter (her favorite season). She could chalk it up to her love of the chilled quiet, the crisp air and smoky breaths, cozy scarves and snug caps, the toe-curling cold that was perfect for fireside embraces, any number of things.
But her favorite seasonal event had to be Kana and Shigure trying to set up a tent with their mother and none of them having any idea what they were doing.
Their reservation placed them at the lakeside in full view of Mt. Fuji. The moment they got to the shore to set up, Corrin insisted Azura take it easy. Cocooned in several blankets and a freshly brewed cup of tea thrust into her hands, Azura sure as hell was noy arguing. She reclined in the lawn chair Corrin picked out for her (big, blue, and with a cup holder, she was being spoiled rotten) content to sip her drink and watch her family struggle.
Shigure was on his phone, most likely looking up a tutorial. Kana stayed rooted to Corrin’s side, alert and ready to help or retrieve anything she needed as soon as she said the word, almost like a puppy.
Kana bounced on their feet, tossing the pole Corrin gave them from hand to hand. “Mom, where does this go? When do we get to start a fire? I want to go biking.”
“We’ll start a fire before the sun’s down. And you can play when we finish up the tent, alright?” It was not rocket science, but Azura found Corrin’s confused expression endearing and worth her silence. “This probably goes… in this thing.” Corrin snaked the pole through a tent sleeve and beamed at her success. Then she stared at it, lost. “Wasn’t there a manual that came with this?”
Shigure presented the manual he googled under their noses. “I think we were supposed to lay the tarp first.”
Kana leaned on Shigure’s shoulder to squint at the phone. “What tarp?”
“Check the bag for it,” Corrin suggested.
“I’ll check!”
“Thank you, Kana.”
“Don’t we need a rain tarp too?” Shigure asked.
“Shigure, it’s fine. There are two clouds.”
“There might be more! It’s easy to catch the flu during this season and and the weather can be unpredictable - ”
Azura smiled as Shigure talked Corrin into setting up the tarp anyway. She should probably help if they were going to pitch the tent before midnight, but she was too cozy to get up. Besides, Corrin told her to chill out. That she got this. Azura trusted her. Trusted them.
“Kana, watch where you’re running!” The horrific snap that sounded eerily like a tent pole rose with Corrin’s warning. “Aw shit.”
Trusted them to destroy the tent, that is. Relaxation would have to wait.
“Move over, sweetheart,” Azura ordered as she abandoned her nest of warmth. She lifted Kana off the tent to prevent collateral damage and set them out of the way by Shigure. “I will set it up.”
“But Azumama, Mamarin said you’re supposed to-”
Azura smoothed back Kana’s hair. “I know what she said, but listen. Kids, Corrin, I love you, but sleeping in a tent is better than the car. Believe me. So be dears and move aside.”
Corrin pouted. Oh no. She hated that face. The cute face. The face Corrin weaponized to the point it was deadly on sight and Azura had to force herself to look away lest she be suckered into her demands. No no no no. Not this time. She would not be moved. She was strong. She was immovable...
Or so she told herself until Corrin crouched beside Shigure and had him join in, doubling the effect. Her fate was sealed when Kana (traitorous turncoat) held their hands together under their chin in a doe-eyed plead, resulting in a critical hit right to her heart.
Shigure even went the extra mile and let loose a little lip wobble. “We want to help too.”
Cheating little stinks, every last one of them. What was Corrin teaching them?
She sighed and gave in to a smile. “Oh stop giving me those eyes and hand me the duct tape.”
Thankfully Azura had remembered to pack extra couplings for just such disasters, making the repair easy with a little of mankind’s greatest-if-stickiest-and-arguably-most-annoying invention and some elbow grease. Step by step, Azura patiently explained and helped Shigure and Kana set up camp from pitching the tent to constructing a proper fire pit.
When camp was set - the tent having braced its ordeal with a silvery lump over one of the poles - Corrin and Kana stood by it proudly, hands on their hips as though having conquered a mighty foe. Shigure took pictures of them, no doubt for his Instagram and next vacation scrapbook. Azura, happy they were happy, reclaimed her chair and blankets with a contentful sigh.
“This deserves lunch,” Corrin announced, brushing off the twigs and leaves clinging to her knees. The cooler they brought was loaded with different lunches to suit Kana and Shigure’s wildly different tastes. Corrin popped the lid and pulled out two baggies: turkey sandwiches and what looked like eggplants and mushrooms pureed into an unrecognizable mess (because that’s exactly what it was). “Who’s hungry?”
“I want to go biking!” Kana shouted instead, jumping onto Corrin’s arm so that she would raise them up to swing as though Corrin were their walking jungle gym. “Can we, mom?”
Corrin shrugged. “Ask your mother.”
Azura heard the approaching skitter-skatter of tiny rocks kicked along the shore. She had three seconds to prepare herself for the small hands hugging her arm and the adorably pleading voice. “Mom?”
She did not bother looking at them; experience taught her that two doses of their doe-eyed pout in one day was lethal. “Do you have your helmet?” she asked instead.
Kana nodded. “Got it.”
“Knee-pads?”
“Yeah.”
“Brother?”
Shigure shot them a thumbs up. “Yup.”
“Eat first, then stay where we can see or hear you,” she warned with mock severity, smoothing back their hair to kiss their forehead and blowing one to Shigure. “Go have fun.”
“Thanks mom,” Kana shouted, racing off.
The two of them tore into their lunches like Corrin and her had never fed them a day before in their lives (“For god’s sake slow down!” Corrin had told them when Kana almost choked) then were off, Kana declaring a race to the other end of the lake and leaving Shigure in the dust with a dirty head start. When their laughter faded into the trees, the camp became still.
Corrin and the kids picked a great spot. Azura had a view of the crystal waters reflecting clouds and mountains below yellow-green boughs. Snow dusted the mountains and lent the wind a chill that failed to penetrate her blanket barrier but made itself known by the numbness in her nose and the pink icing her cheeks. A small price for nature’s company.
She closed her eyes and began to hum a tune. Music took up so much of her time for work, and though she loved every bit of her job, she almost forgot how sweet it was to hear the haunt of winter’s symphony accompany her melody. The breeze’s low howl, crackling leaves, gravel crunching underfoot. Winter was vastly different to how it was when she first came here. Back then it was boiling and crowded and when she finally got away she had to sing to force her nerves to relax from the anxiety of being surrounded by strangers pushing and pulling, pushing and pulling. At least, that’s how it felt. Though there was one stranger she had not minded.
“Got room for one more in this party?”
Speak of the devil, and she will come. Azura looked up into Corrin’s grin. With her she brought another chair and an offering of Azura’s favorite homemade trail mix. Dark chocolate and rice chex.
“Hey stranger. There’s room for two on this chair,” Azura said hopefully, opening her blankets.
Corrin did not need to be asked twice. The chair was almost big enough to seat two but they did not mind squishing together. Cozily wrapped up with her love beside her and feeding her treats, Azura could safely say this camping trip was just about perfect.
“This reminds me of camping with my family,” Azura thought aloud.
Corrin rested her head against hers, watching the leaves make ripples in the lake as they fell. “Ah, so you’re an old pro. I never knew you guys camped.”
“In the backyard usually, but yes.”
Corrin snorted. “That’s not real camping.”
Azura pinched Corrin’s thigh, not caring for the offended ‘hey!’. “Shush, yes it is. We set up tents and a fire pit and we roasted sausages and vegetables and played games and were a family. That’s camping.”
“Fine, fine. It’s camping,” Corrin acceded. “Was it fun?”
“Very. Our parents were too busy to play, but Camilla would insist on brother versus sister games. I remember we always won at horseshoes and the knife toss.”
A frown flashed across Corrin’s face, most likely at the thought of children throwing knives for entertainment (which Azura sympathized with), but she remembered who Azura’s siblings were and laughed. “With her on your team there’s no way you’d lose.”
Azura still remembered how, even during her older sister’s pretty-in-pink phase of childhood, Camilla had been almost terrifying in her thirst for victory. But she had been far more loving, her smile filled with pride when Azura hit a bullseye for the first time. Elise was too young to compete no matter how old she got, though she was the best cheerleader in the world. Xander and Leo were also the silliest and coolest brothers she could ask for. Xander always knew the right moment to pull a marshmallow out from the fire for the perfect s’more, and Leo shared in her hobby by competing to see who could bring the scariest stories that night. Camping with them had been some of the best days of her life.
Azura knew there was even more to love about camping than before from the little thrill she felt when her wife held her hand and waved at their kids from across the lake.
“I wish our family had done stuff like that. We usually just hung out at McDonald’s on Saturdays and called it bonding.” Corrin drew slow circles into Azura’s palm with an idle finger,. “Except that one time we finally begged our parents to take us rowing out on a lake.”
“What a coincidence,” Azura continued her story with a smile, “our parents conceded to a real camping trip that happened to be by a lake.”
“But you said -” The second pinch stung before she could argue ‘real camping’ again. Corrin rolled her eyes and held up a raisin for Azura to nip. “Okay okay, go on.”
Gladly. “We went out to a lakeside where the sky was bluer and the stars were clearer than anything the city had to offer. It was summer, frightfully muggy, and there were an overwhelming number of people that make you go crazy trying to find an unoccupied space, so I spent most of my time in the shade near the shallows to stay cool.”
“I remember. That’s where I saw you.” Corrin smiled and held up a pretzel for her this time. “How many years has it been?”
Azura sighed wistfully. “I would rather not think about that. Only the part where I met a very strange girl hiding in a bush.”
Corrin pouted, shying away. “It’s not like I meant to hide. I just so happened to be around and didn’t want to interrupt your song. It was really pretty.”
Corrin’s ears burned a lovely red, just as they had when Azura discovered the voyeur in the foliage watching her sing. No matter how the years went by Azura would never tire of seeing Corrin look so bashful, distracting herself with a mission to find some chocolate to please her.
Corrin mumbled, “The singing girl was really pretty too, so…”
Azura smiled, kissing one of the tips of Corrin’s ears. “She thought the same of you.”
They remained that way, Corrin feeding Azura until the bag ran empty and turned to watch the lakeside, small talk on their lips. Corrin began dozing here and there, so Azura hummed that pretty song Corrin liked. She used to sing it when she needed to relax and lose herself in her thoughts. Whenever she thought of that lonely melody now, she was reminded of a cute woodland girl eager to hear her song.
The sun lowered with the last note, bringing a sudden chill that stirred Corrin awake.
“I think it’s time to light that fire before it really gets dark.” Reluctantly, Azura released Corrin from her blanket cocoon, only smiling when Corrin bent back down to give her a kiss. “You want to call the kids in?”
“If I must,” she replied with adequate theatricality. She knew she would have to get up eventually; tragic that it had to happen so soon.
Azura held two fingers to her lips, sucked in a big breath, and let loose a whistle shrill enough to deafen birds. Hardly a minute later, Kana and Shigure bounded out of the trees like the little wild things they were and swarmed Corrin, somehow - an instinct of children perhaps? - knowing that something was about to be lit on fire.
“Hey, hey Mamarin, can I light it?” Kana pleaded, hands clasped beneath their chin like earlier, but the pout mercifully directed at Corrin this time.
“No way, I’m older, I get to light it,” Shigure countered.
“By two years!”
“I’m a teenager, you’re not.”
“That’s not fair!”
“My children, the answer is simple” Corrin spoke sagely, placing a hand on both their heads for silence. She knelt down, a mad glint in her eye. “What say you both light the fire?”
She led them to her area of operation (the one Azura helped them set-up, but whatever): a stone-encircled pit (for aesthetics more than anything) with a suspended metal grate over a freshly chopped pile of wood. Corrin handpicked two thin planks and set them upright on the sand.
“Listen up you two. There’s a few things you need to understand if you’re going to be around fire. First rule: respect it. It’s incredibly dangerous. The littlest spark given the slightest breeze can burn a whole forest down faster than Kana can wolf down a burger.”
“That’s fast…” Shigure muttered under his breath.
“We’re going to make sure that doesn’t happen, right?”
“Right,” Shigure and Kana chorused.
“Good. Second rule: don’t put anything in it without my or your mother’s permission. You’d be surprised how quickly something burns or what can explode given the right temperature.”
Corrin grinned. “Now, technically what we’re doing is an itty bitty teeny weeny bit dangerous, so we’re only doing this once.” Corrin winked and held a finger to her mouth. “Our little secret.”
Kana hopped on their feet while Shigure scuffed the sand with his, his enthusiasm waning. It seemed fire when surrounded by flammable objects was less than ideal to him.
“What you’re going to do is try to make the wood catch. Fire can spread slowly on thicker logs like these so this is the only time we’re doing this,” Corrin warned. “Make the log catch a spark, then throw it on the rest. Think you can do that?”
Kana vigorously nodded. Shigure less so.
Corrin whipped out a lighter and offered the handle to the kids. “Alright, who wants to go first?”
Kana eagerly stepped forward and crouched next to their chosen log while making grabby hands. “This is gonna be lit.”
“That’s the point.” Corrin agreed. Azura frowned, but chalked it up to one of those “meems”(?) her kids kept showing her, or whatever they’re called. “Hold the lighter firmly Kana. Okay not that tight. Yeah, there you go, hit the switch. Bring it a little closer. Cloooser… Blow on it, help it catch. Good job!”
Kana beamed proudly at the smoking log, the tip bearing a tiny flame that began to sluggishly crawl over the bark.
“Grab it at the base. Yup. Lift it up, you got it. Now toss it on, quick!”
The plank knocked in place beside the others to smolder. Kana crouched beside the pit in that unexplainable excitement to watch flames devour wood and listen to the crackle of burning bark. Azura understood the feeling.
Corrin held out the lighter to Shigure. “Want to give it a try, bud?”
He slowly reached for the lighter, handling it as though it would spit fire at the slightest provocation. It shook as he held it to the plank, but when the bark began to glow orange his eyes lit up with excitement. He blew on the embers as hard as he possibly could. Kana cheered him on, causing their brother to smile when he got the wood to light.
“Throw it on the pile, go go go,” Corrin urged him. Gently, he placed the log next to Kana’s and soaked in the praise from his two adoring fans. Azura even clapped and contributed a polite “Woo” to the accolades.
“This fire looks like it’s missing something, though,” Corrin mused, rubbing her chin thoughtfully while the kids looked to the other to figure out what they did wrong. She grinned like an evil cartoon villain as they fell to confusion. “You know what I mean?”
Kana elbowed Shigure. They whistled horribly off-key (definitely a gift from Corrin) and kicked a pebble innocently when Shigure glared.
Shigure hazarded a guess. “Is it more firewood?”
“No, my son.” Corrin patted his shoulder and shook her head. “It is something far more essential. Something every campfire would be incomplete without. And that is -”
On cue, Azura brought out the plate of patties she’d been preparing, ready for the grill. “Barbecue!”
“Hell yeah!” Kana shouted, earning them disappointed glares from both their mothers. “Sorry.”
“That just cost you dessert,” Azura said with as much gravitas as she could muster. Corrin nodded alongside her as Kana complained.
“I didn’t say anything that bad! Shigure says it all the time!”
Shigure clapped a hand to Kana’s mouth but it was too late, the damage had been done. Both mothers looked to him with an incriminating stare.
“Everyone at school says it?” He says meekly.
Azura knew she and Corrin could only protect them from so much when their kids went to a public school and gave them the freedom to do as they would on the internet. Oh the tragic fate of all little angels to be consumed by such filthy language.
In reality, she was surprised they hadn’t been cursing already. They really were good kids. But she would not be doing her duty as a mother if she did not tease them about it.
Azura looked pointedly at Corrin. “This is your influence.”
Corrin, detecting playfulness in her smirk, held a hand to her heart and faux gasped. “What? Mine? Perish the thought, I am nothing but a paragon of virtue. It must be you.” She hugs Kana’s head to her chest and pulls Shigure close. “All your writer’s blocks have obviously manifested as a foulness that’s polluted our poor children’s hearing. For shame.”
Azura chuckled as their kids vainly tried to extract themselves from their mother, Corrin’s intense workout regimen bearing fruit in keeping the little munchkins glued to her side.
She rolled her eyes and shooed them away. “Go make your burgers.”
Corrin dragged Kana and Shigure back to the fire to show them ‘the way of the meat,’ which largely consisted of Corrin teaching them how not to flip their patty onto the sand. Kana… almost succeeded. It was a good thing they brought back-ups.
While they grilled, Azura relaxed back into her blanket cocoon, watching her breathe puff out in little white clouds as the moon sleepily rose over the trees. She swung her feet toward the fire to keep herself awake and warm her toes. It had been so long since she last looked into a campfire that it was easy to find herself lost in watching the sparks. Closing her eyes for a minute should be fine…
“Azumama!” Kana yelled close to her ear. Azura bolted up, finding Kana smiling at her and clutching a plate. “I made you food.”
“Oh,” Azura said softly, “thank you, sweetheart.”
Kana had transformed their patties (burnt with a distinct crunch) into fast food worthy cuisine slathered with ketchup, mustard, mayo, and sandwiched with the works. When she took a bite, she declared them the best burgers she ever had and loved the plain pride in Kana’s smile. Definitely worth the indigestion.
Shigure frowned at his plate of burger. “Aw, I was gonna do that.”
“I have room for another if you made it,” Azura told him, unable to resist the happy spark in his eyes when he served his food (just barely done and saltier than the ocean) and she declared these burgers a must-have for any camper.
“Hey, what about mine?” Corrin waggled her eyebrows like the little shit she knew she was being. “Won’t my amazing wife have some of my cooking?”
“Don’t you even dare,” Azura warned, a hand over her bursting belly. Ugh, too much grease…
“Then would the lovely lady care for a s’more?” Corrin extended a poker full of marshmallow (the ridiculous one she bought online with at least fifteen skewers) along with some tempting choco and honey cracker squares.
Azura looked at her wearily. “You just want to see me explode.”
“Just a little.”
“Fine, but I’m only having one.”
One, however, turned into two that turned into three and so on until Azura could not and did not move. The only thing that would make this night even better would be a movie, but seeing that no one had a television on them, Azura would settle for something equally as good.
Her family looked confused when she sat up abruptly, the three of them believing she was tuckered out for the evening. Oh were they wrong, and they would see as soon as she brought out -
“No!” Shigure shouted at the sight of the hat. “Mom I thought you took that from her.”
Corrin, looking equally as flabbergasted, shook her head. “So did I.”
From the depths of her travel bag Azura withdrew her authentic, one-of-a-kind Storytelling Hat (an old witch’s hat from one Halloween) and donned it with a manic cackle. Silly Corrin, there was no hiding from her true talent. “It’s story time, lovelies.”
“Aw yes.” Kana, the only other family member who could stomach Azura’s brand of horror, scooted closer to her.
“You cannot stop art, dear,” Azura said, giving Corrin’s hand a gentle pat. From the same bag she produced the hat came an old book Azura had filled with original stories since Elise gave it to her on her 13th birthday. “Now, where should I begin?”
“Wait a second.” Shigure got up, moved his chair next to Corrin’s, and put his mother’s arm around him like an extra blanket. Her son was so cute she almost felt bad about what she was most definitely still going to do. “Okay, I’m ready.”
Azura cleared her throat dramatically. “Tonight, our story begins with a man walking home from work one day…”
She had missed this. Little hands and round eyes used to cling to her so many years ago, back when she read to Shigure and Kana before bed, keeping it a secret from Mamarin that a scary story got mixed in here and there. Years later it felt like they had outgrown her spooks, so she turned it up a notch, gathering the family together whenever she finished a new story for a theatrical performance by the one, the only, Amazing Azumama. Eerily quiet woods, a moonlit lake, the crackle-pop of the fire… the perfect place for a tale of utter terror.
At the end of her tale (Azura taking pity on poor Corrin that she ended it with the man befriending the monster under his sink) it had gotten fairly late. Kana stifled a yawn and blinked smoke-reddened eyes, hardly able to keep them open. Shigure had conquered his fear by snoozing half-way through. Corrin carried him to his sleeping bag, Kana lagging slowly behind.
It was about time she slept too, Azura thought, the harsh glow of her phone reading a quarter to midnight. Time to call it a night and pack it in. She looked forward to a full day tomorrow of hassling her kids and rowing out on the lake.
When Corrin came back, she helped Azura put away the chairs and douse the fire. Dying sparks floated up to join the ones in the sky, leaving Azura spellbound.
“Ready for bed?” Corrin yawned beside her, holding a lamp she had yet to light and a hand that Azura had yet to hold.
“Yes, in a little bit,” Azura sighed, soaking in every feeling. There were stars in their eyes, cold nipping at their skin and bringing their hands together, the wind and crickets chirping a soft lullaby. If Corrin had not gently tugged her toward the tent, Azura suspected she may well have slept on her feet. Not that it would have mattered. Corrin would catch her, and be there smiling beside Kana and Shigure the next morning. She could not wait.