A/N: So this is the first of a set of vignettes and short scenes that take place between the end of Arena and he beginning of Contact, and are meant to fill in a few of the details of the intervening years. Other than that they won’t really have anything to do with each other, and might not even be posted in chronological order.
Aunt Thyllia
By JohnnyScribe
Pryvani made her way through her expansive living quarters, with Zhan seated on her shoulder. She was practically floating because Brinn had just delivered some amazing news.
“Thyllia…” She called out towards her younger sister’s bedroom. “Thyllia? There’s something we need to talk to you about!”
She wandered down the hallway and stepped into the doorway of Thyllia’s bedroom. She smiled happily as she saw her younger sister playing with a handful of toys on her bedroom floor.
“Hi Thyllia!” Zhan waved down at her from Pryvani’s shoulder.
“Hi Zhan, hi Pryvani!” Thyllia responded happily.
“Thyllia, dear, Zhan and I have some good news.”
Curious, Thyllia put her toys down and turned her attention to the two adults. Her expression was wide and curious.
“Thyllia…” Pryvani knelt down next to her sister and took the younger girl’s hands into her own. “Zhan and I are going to have a baby!”
Thyllia’s eyes widened.
*.*.*
“I just don’t understand.” Pryvani sighed, collapsing onto the couch in the center of Rixie and Alex’s living room, with Zhan still perched on her shoulder. “I thought Thyllia would be happy about this! She loves children, after all.”
“Don’t ask me.” Rixie shrugged. “I’m a hoplite. This whole family thing is still pretty new to me.”
“You don’t get why she’s upset? Are you two serious?” Alex chuckled incredulously. “It’s obvious neither of you grew up with siblings.”
He turned towards Zara and Brinn, who were both seated at the nearby table, with Nick and Sophia- who was already heavily pregnant herself- on the table in front of them. “You two get what’s happening, right?” He asked.
“Oh yeah.” Brinn responded with a grin and Zara nodded. “I remember when my parents told me Trell was on the way. Considering how she turned out, maybe they should have listened to me in the first place.”
“I’m the youngest.” Taron shrugged. “I never had to deal with a new sibling.”
Pryvani turned her blue eyes on the human sitting on the arm of the chair next to Rixie’s elbow. “You mean you understand what’s going on with her?”
“Of course I do.” Alex laughed as he hauled himself to his feet and began the climb down the side of the couch. “Hang on; I’ll take care of it. I swear you’d all be helpless without me.”
“Watch it pal,” Rixie growled, but wore an amused smile on her face.
“Do you want some help?” Zara asked as they watched him walk towards the door.
“Nah. It’s just Thyllia.” Alex called back over his shoulder. “She’s my buddy. It’ll be fine.”
Alex stepped out of the apartment and onto the small tram car. After pushing a few buttons it sped away on the tracks Pryvani had installed for human usage.
After a short amount of time, the car arrived at Pryvani’s private quarters. Alex used the override code to open the door, and stepped inside.
It didn’t take him long, relatively speaking, to reach the door to Thyllia’s bedroom. He pressed the call button down near the floor.
“Go away Zhan!” Thyllia’s young voice snapped from the speaker.
“It’s not Zhan, kiddo.” Alex said into the intercom. “It’s Alex. Can I come inside?”
There was a long pause before the door rumbled open in front of him. Alex darted inside before Thyllia could change her mind.
As he stepped inside, Alex could see the room’s young resident slumped on the floor by her bed, her knees were curled up to her chest and she clutched a green stuffed toy of some animal Alex didn’t recognize.
She had a pinched expression and there were fresh tear tracks on her face.
Alex’s heart broke a little, looking at her. He swiftly made his way over to her and sat down on the ground next to her enormous shoe.
“Hi.” He said softly.
“Hi Alex.” The nine year old Titan girl mumbled through her toy.
“How you feeling?”
“I’m fine.”
“Pryvani said you got a little upset with her,” Alex persisted gently. “When she told you she was going to have a baby.”
There was a long moment where Thyllia didn’t say anything. At least not verbally. Alex watched as a torrent of emotions passed over the young girl’s face before she scrunched her eyes closed and a stream of tears went rolling down her face.
“It’s not fair!” Thyllia sobbed. “Why does she need a baby? I was here first! It’s not fair!”
Alex watched her work her way through the outburst. He was wary, being smaller than her toy after all, but he wasn’t afraid. He had no fear that Thyllia would purposefully harm him, even in the middle of a temper tantrum.
Finally, the explosion subsided and Thyllia collapsed in on herself again, burying her face in her toy, her body wracked with quiet sobs.
“Thyllia…” Alex spoke gently, but got no response. “Thyllia, can you look at me for a moment?”
Alex waited patiently, and after a few seconds a pair of watery brown eyes peeked down at him.
“Take a deep breath, okay?”
Thyllia did as instructed, letting out a long breath that felt like a small windstorm.
“Okay, now listen to me for a second.” Alex scooted closer to her shoe again. “I know exactly how you feel.”
“No you don’t!” She muttered petulantly, looking away.
“I do.” Alex persisted. “I felt exactly the same way when my little sister was born.”
Thyllia’s head shot up and her eyes were wide with surprise. “You have a sister?! But you’re a human!”
“So?” Alex chuckled. “Humans have brothers and sisters same as Titans do.”
“…Oh.”
“Anyway… yes, I have a sister. And when she was born I was pretty jealous, and I was even a bit older than you are…relatively speaking. I was afraid, even though I wouldn’t really admit it, that my parents would be too busy with the baby to care what happened to me. Is that about right?”
Thyllia bit her lip. “Well…”
“Come on, you can tell me.” Alex patted the toe of her shoe.
Thyllia sighed. “Yeah… I guess so…”
“I understand how you’re feeling okay?” Alex smiled. “But believe me, when this baby comes, Pryvani and Zhan are not going to care about you any less. And neither will I, or Rixie, or Nick, Taron, Brinn, Zara, Sophia, or…” Alex’s voice trailed off when he noticed the small smile or her face.
“Aha!” He crowed triumphantly. “I see that smile! No use hiding it, you’ve been caught.”
“Nuh uh!” Thyllia giggled as she hid her face.
“Liar.” Alex chuckled. “But, hey, you want to know what’s really cool?”
“What?” Thyllia’s head perked up again.
Alex looked around furtively; as if afraid he was going to be over heard.
“The thing is you’re not going to be a big sister; you’re going to be an aunt. And an aunt is an incredibly cool thing to be.”
Large brown eyes blinked curiously. “It is?”
“Definitely.” Alex nodded. “Aunts get to do all kinds of awesome things.”
“Like what?”
Alex grinned. “All kinds of stuff! You get to teach the kid all your favorite songs, show them how to play games. You can color with them and show them where Pryvani hides the candy!”
Thyllia giggled again, holding her toy to her face.
“So, how about it kid?” Alex asked. “You feeling better?”
Thyllia took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Yeah.”
“Are you ready to go talk to Zhan and Pryvani about this?”
The young girl let out a sigh and nodded morosely. “Yeah.” Without being asked, she lowered a hand to Alex and then raised it up to her shoulder after he’d climbed on.
“D’you think they’ll let me name the baby, Alex?”
“I kind of doubt it, kiddo.” Alex responded. “Besides, Alex is my name.”
*.*.*.*
It didn’t take long for Thyllia to walk the distance to Alex and Rixie’s apartment. Before long she was pushing the call button on the door.
A moment later the door slid open and Pryvani, and Zhan, stood in the doorway.
“Hello Thyllia.” Pryvani said softly as she knelt down in front of her younger sister.
“Hi Pryvani.” Thyllia said, clasping her hands in front of her and staring at her shoes. “Hello Zhan.”
“This seems like a family moment.” Alex muttered, jumping from Thyllia’s shoulder to the ground below. “I’ll just go see what Rixie is up to.”
Pryvani turned her attention back to her younger sister, and placed her hand on the girl’s shoulder. “Thyllia, Zhan and I… we want to apologize.”
“We didn’t realize you’d be so upset about us having a baby. We should have been a bit more sensitive about it.” Zhan added.
“It’s okay…” Thyllia mumbled. “I’m sorry I got mad and yelled at you.”
“That’s okay sweetheart.” Zhan told her.
“Alex says it’ll be lots of fun to have a baby around. And that I’ll be able to teach him all kinds of stuff.”
Pryvani pulled her little sister into a hug. “I’m glad to hear you say that, Thyllia.”
“And Alex says you’ll let me name the baby!” Thyllia told them with a grin.
“I did not!” Alex yelled from inside the apartment.
*.*.*
Several months later…
Pryvani was exhausted.
Of all the things she’d ever done in her relatively short life; squaring off against her mother in the courtroom, engaging Trell in a fistfight to the death, walking a tightrope between appearing too dumb to worry about and too smart to underestimate, and everything else she’d done since ousting her mother and taking control of her father’s company. Out of all that, Pryvani decided that giving birth was perhaps the hardest.
But, as she lay in the hospital bed, with her newborn son in her arms, and Zhan looking on proudly, she knew it had also been completely worth it. Now that it was over, anyway.
There was a soft knock, causing both new parents to turn their heads towards the sound.
Outlined in the doorway was a young woman in a lab coat. Her brilliant red hair making her identity obvious at first glance.
“Hello.” Dr. Brinn Pria, personal physician of Pryvani Tarsuss, smiled as she leaned into the room. “Someone really wants to meet her new nephew, if you two are up for a visit.” A pair of curious brown eyes peeked shyly from behind the young doctor’s legs.
“Come in Thyllia.” Pryvani smiled warmly. “Come say hello.”
The young girl grinned and quietly walked around Brinn and into the room. Slowly, she approached the bed, and peered down at the sleeping infant in her sister’s arms.
“Awww…” Thyllia cooed, reaching out to gently pat the baby’s small tuft of blonde hair. “He’s so cute. What is his name going to be?”
Pryvani and Zhan exchanged looks and chuckled. “We decided to name him Odin” Zhan spoke softly to keep from waking the baby in his wife’s arms. “Odin Illios.”
“So…” Thyllia whispered, turning her wide-eyed gaze up to her sister. “Am I an aunt now?”
“You sure are, sweetheart.” Pryvani whispered. “And my baby is the luckiest little boy in the world because of it.”
Odin; they couldn’t have chosen a more badass name.
I am now figuring that Hybrid in Titan:Hybrid is going to very well deal with the Titan-Human offspring of our characters. It’ll be more than Sorsha. Goodness me, literally from two worlds but forced to deal with the implications of being caught between them. It’ll be a nightmare.
That would be entirely up to OHH, but I would have no objections if he wanted to expand the story to include the other hybrids. When he conceptualized the story, there were no other hybrids created besides Sorcha. I can’t speak for the other writers, but the idea of, say, Pryvani and Zhan having biological children didn’t really register for a bit… And then it was like, oh… wait…
sweet n cute vignette!!!
thank you. 😀
Very cute story. The Sophia bit definitely raised an eyebrow given how Brinn/Nick/Zara/Taron’s relationship works. We certainly haven’t seen a hybrid from the opposite end yet so that would be interesting. Hopefully that one gets addressed next.
Agreed. I also like how open minded Thyllia is toward humans. Its refreshing after reading so much of a story where humans are so grossly disrespected.
Thyllia gives us a unique look into a titan growing up with humans as people. Nowhere else do we get that perspective, not even Sorcha who still identifies as human and takes their discrimination personally. But Thyllia is an outsider to that.
Nowhere else…really…you can’t find any examples of a titan who grew up with humans as people? Not…say…Eyrn? By any chance?
D’oh, okay but this time it’s being done off Earth with other Titans around. So still kind of unique.
yeh, and Thyllia know she is a titn while Eyrn grew up without knowing what she was and disconected fom the empire.Thyllia is more of a normal girl in the sense that she knows how humans are treated, and knows her own place in the world as a titan and is growing up with ll of that and with an open, accepting mind. I wonder if she gets along with Sorcha. how much is the age gap between them?
I thought it would be nice to see what happens to Thyllia after Pryvani adopts her, and here we go.
I enjoy writing Thyllia, both as a child and as an adult.
Thyllia is awesome, and only gets more awesome.
Nice story Johnny. Very heartfelt and was very simple.
Thyllia is too cute :3
Yup. She’s becoming on of my favorite characters 😀
So everyone just glanced over the fact that about 20 years after Arena Alex is 100% back to his old self? Sure he’s in Contact, but that’s a life time away. Anyway, he did a great job cheering up Thyllia. Based on the updated Wiki, that girl is going to become an aunt several times over. Probably considers Sophia’s kid(s) among her honorary nieces/nephews. Wonder if Nick or Taron is the father on this one. You know a human sized Titan would present a far more interesting set of legal challenges over a titan sized human.
At which point, a lot of people are going to realise how stupid it is to keep humans as class 2 sentients based on size alone.
Just to complicate things, let’s imagine Taron and Nick father at least one child with Sophia, plus at least one more a piece with either Brinn or Zara. So we would have a set of half siblings raised as equals, but in the wider universe, like say attending a university, it would be a legal mess. Pure Titan: no problem, titan size hybrid: slips in no questions asked, human sized hybrid: probably has to jump through as many, if not more hoops than Niall had to, and the pure human sibling would just be shit out of luck. 🙁
I don’t want to spoil too much, so I’ll just say that Nick and Taron do have at least one child each with Brinn Zara and Sophia
Jon and Kate Plus 8 move over. Eat your heart out Duggers, So-Bri-Tar-Ni-Ra is here! Or shall we call them Bri-Tar-So-Za-Ni? I prefer Nicktaronbrinnzarasophia….woo try saying that ten times fast.
I have plans to detail Alex’s recovery process in another story, but Contact had already been delayed for a long time, so it’ll be another “fill in the blank” story.
Brinn, Zara, Nick, Sofia, and Taron… I am very interested in who is with who in that relationship, or if they are all together. They seem like a group of people who could make a five person relationship work, if that’s how it is.
They basically have a five-person relationship. In my writing notes I generally just refer to them as “the clan” lol
Alex saving the day with fatherly wisdom and dad jokes.
It really was a prime example of the dad joke form.
Really touching little side story! Im surprised Alex had the balls to go talk to an 80ft titan child in a tantrum that could turn his entire body into a glob of jelly with minimal effort! I don’t think id have the balls to do it!
Also im excited to read more about the second hybrid child of the series!
Well, this is the guy who threw himself at both Trell and Dorok without a second thought. And… It’s Thyllia, even in the middle of a temper tantrum she can’t be anything but a sweetheart.
Also… Technically Odin is the *third* hybrid child to be born *cough*
I guess Nonah’s child is technically a hybrid.
no… Dhan, nonah’s husband, is human. Their children are not hybrids
So… Just guessing that Ryan is already born, or Sophia is pregnant thanks to Taron… Unless there is another Human-Titan couple (except Naskia and Niall, as well as those from Avalon).
Judging from Rixie’s “this whole family thing is still pretty new to me” I’d say that Ryan has already been born at this point.
Technically… they are. They’ve both been through the process of gene therapy that bridges the gap between humans and titans.
If they weren’t hybridized in some way, they wouldn’t have the lifespan they do.
Yup, she is. The other one…
Who is the “Spoilers” Woman, DX? The BBC icon makes me think someone from Doctor Who.
She’s River Song, who is in fact from Doctor Who (new series, Series 5-6, plus Silence in the Library and Forest of the Dead).
To be a hybrid you must have a parent from each species.
Alesia is still human. She’s from genetically modified parents but not so different that she can be reclassified.
Sorcha is different. She is definitely not human. But given how different her physiology is she’s definitely not titan either. She’s a new classification. The hybrid.
Thanks, AR!
In Arena she was six (right?) and here she’s nine. Assuming Alex has been living on Avalon with them for those three Archavian years, it doesn’t surprise me that he trusts her, even if she’s in a bad mood.
Well, I don’t want to give anything away, but you’ll see at least one Hybrid child for the Exile cast 😉
Js you do heartwarming quite well..I was smiling throughout.. However Odin? perhaps when he gets older he’ll have the urge to invade England (I know I do) ….
Interesting that the boy will take the surname of his father, given the fact that the father is (Probably) not recognized by Titan society as such
Well… Pryvani does have a penchant for naming things from earth myth (Valhalla platform, the ships Isis Hecate and Morgana for example…)
Also, sorry this wasn’t clear, Illios is going to be his middle name. Zhan took Pryvani’s name when they married. (Of course, that’s partially because Avalonians have traditionally traced their heritage matrilineally.)
First…. Yo!