Say Uncle
Daneera stared.
Daneera’s street address was 4208, and she nearly always sighed when she saw those four wooden numbers affixed to the side of her house. It meant that she was home, which was often a place she didn’t want to be. If her parents were home, it usually meant some sort of argument was about to happen between herself and them. If they were gone, it meant an empty, hollow, lonely house. There was no winner there, and Daneera believed all fights should have a winner.
But today, she stared at those numbers, at first in shock, until that surprise was replaced by a slow smile. The number 8 at the end of the address had been turned sideways, making the address read as 420∞. This was a sign, one that only Daneera would have recognized. Its meaning was something nobody else could have deduced. It was a pleasant surprise.
Daneera had a visitor.
She quickly unlocked the door, dropped her backpack just inside, then closed and locked the door again without stepping in. Instead, she hurried around to the backyard and proceeded to the fence that separated her parents’ property from the woods beyond. Daneera, as a child, had sworn she would never forgive her parents for putting that fence up, but she had quickly cooled on that thought. Realizing how easy it was to climb through or over made the gesture idiotic rather than insulting.
The young forest mage ran to the fence, debating quickly to herself whether she would go over or through. It had been a long day at school, with a particularly aggressive game of pulseball in last period Phy ed. Well, aggressive on her part, at least. I should probably apologize to Raef tomorrow for that totally unnecessary body check today, she thought to herself. At least I know he can take it. Daneera, while thinking all of this, decided to go through, and immediately went to one of the loose boards – one of the boards she had loosened, more accurately – and moved it aside.
Finding herself in the woods, Daneera looked around quickly. There were only three places he was likely to be: the treehouse, the lean-to, or the pond. She looked along the ground to see if she could spot any tracks, but she knew she wouldn’t. He never left tracks. Daneera smiled even wider and started off into the woods.
She checked the treehouse first. This was the closest to the house, in eyeshot of it, in fact. Still, it had been a haven of sorts for her as a girl. She rarely went there anymore. She was much older now, and had found places deeper into the woods, further from her life outside it, that suited her better. But he had visited the treehouse before, so it was worth the time. She quickly climbed the planks of wood that had been nailed into the tree years earlier by her father, back when he was more active and less, well, whatever he was now. There was nobody in the treehouse, but she noticed that it had been recently swept out of the dirt and dust that tended to naturally accumulate there. Daneera grinned, and leapt out of the treehouse like a cat.
Deeper into the woods was a lean-to Daneera had built a few years back, her first camping build she had undertaken by herself. She had built it into the side of a hill that had partially broken away, and had spent weeks strengthening and reinforcing the simple structure. Looking at it now, she had to admit that it was certainly overkill for a simple shelter, but she had made it very cozy. Rain never got in unless the wind was whipping in circles around the opening, which was rarely the case in this part of the woods, and the fire pit was wide and surrounded by good sized stones she had collected over a span of months. Unfortunately, though, he wasn’t here either.
Daneera turned deeper into the woods still, and, as she had many times before, headed towards water. A few minutes’ walk brought her to the pond, one of her favorite spots in the woods. The pond was fed predominately by runoff from the forest around it, and as such sat in a low depression in the woods, surrounded by rises of dirt and exposed roots on three of the four sides. The other side sloped down a bit more gently, but only a bit. Daneera had brought friends here occasionally as a child, but few of them had liked the trek, all hard dirt and hard angles, and most had not come back. The more she thought about it, the more she realized this was the perfect spot for him.
At first, she did not see him at all. The spot looked as it usually did, just the calm waters of the pond below and the gentle sway of the trees above. The water was low right now, but not so low that the pond was in danger of drying up. At the height of summer, if it had been a dry year, the pond all but vanished. Of course, in the rainy springs and autumns, sometimes the water was as high as some of the exposed roots were. It had not rained in a couple of weeks, so the water was at most waist high now.
Daneera’s eyes were sharp, and she knew this place very well. Despite this, however, it was not until her third visual pass of the area that she spotted him. He was sitting high up on one of the broken hills that formed the ridges around the pond, his feet resting on one of the larger roots sticking out from the side there. His clothes were dark, earthy tones, a deep green shirt underneath a brown overcoat. His hair was combed, but it was already straining to return to its more natural, wild appearance. His beard was massive, even longer than she remembered it, nearly down to his waist. He smiled down at her.
“Took you long enough.”
Daneera scoffed. “Give me a break. We both know most people wouldn’t have spotted you at all!”
The man gave an exaggerated shrug. “Some people would, and some people won’t.”
Daneera smiled. “Some people do, and some people don’t.” It was a shared joke of theirs, from a very long time ago. With a matching smile on his bearded face, he slid down from where he was sitting and dropped several feet to the ground near the water.
“You got my message, I see,” he said. “Glad to see you’re still seeing your surroundings.”
“It’s been a while. Last summer, I think? How have you been?”
“Is that small talk? From you, of all people?”
Daneera blushed slightly. “Come on, give me a break. Like I said, it’s been a while.”
He nodded. “Yeah, it has. Well, since you started it, how have you been? Healthy? You eating right?”
She rolled her eyes. “Yes, I’ve been eating right.” She thought back to the cold pizza she ate for breakfast that morning. “Well, mostly.”
He nodded and looked at her for a long moment, then his face darkened just a bit. Few but Daneera would have noticed. “How’s my brother?” He asked, his voice harsher.
Daneera looked down at the ground. “He’s fine. Still kicking, you know?”
He nodded, almost sadly. “He’s still…?”
He trailed off, but Daneera knew what he meant. “Yeah. Mom, too.”
The man frowned, but nodded absently. “But you’ve been alright?”
“Yeah.”
“Good,” he said, nodding again. “Good.”
“You gonna be around for a while this time?”
He shook his head. “I’d like to, but…”
“But you don’t want to?” Daneera said with a little laugh.
The man laughed, too. “You know how it is. And your father, well, I don’t think he’d be very happy to see me.”
Daneera sighed. “He’s your brother. Hell, maybe seeing you will get through to him. I don’t know.”
“It didn’t a decade ago,” Daneera’s uncle said. “But he and I were never close. As far as I’m concerned, Daneera, you’re the only family I’ve got.”
“So you’re leaving right away, then?”
“I should. I just wanted to make sure everything was okay with you. Oh, and to give you your present, of course.” He reached into one of the deep pockets inside his overcoat and pulled out a stuffed animal about twice the size of his hand. “Do you still like these?”
Daneera looked away and rubbed her left elbow. “I’m not a kid anymore, you know.”
He scoffed. “That’s not what I asked, Daneera. Your age doesn’t have anything to do with it.” He looked at her hard. “You’re not letting people tell you what to like these days, are you? What have I always told you?”
Daneera, despite herself, smiled. “I want to hear you say it, one more time.”
He smiled, and tossed the stuffed animal to her. “Be who you are.”
Daneera caught the animal and looked at it. Her eyes widened as she realized what it was. It was the one thing her collection was missing, something she had been hunting for for years. It was an adorable Wumpus.
“How did you…”
“I have a way with creatures,” he said, then approached her. As he drew close, he held out his hand in a fist. She did the same, and pressed her fist into his. Then she surprised him by moving his arm out of the way and hugging him. He hesitated for a moment, then returned the hug.
“You’re a hugger, now? That’s new.”
“I’m not, but you’re family. And I don’t see you often.”
He squeezed her tighter. “Thanks, Daneera. You’re my favorite niece.”
“And the only one, as far as I know.”
“Me, too,” he said, then pulled away from her and moved to the slope of ground leading away from the pond. “Stay strong, Daneera. I love you.”
Daneera nodded. “I love you too, Uncle Istvan.”
I wasn't going for creepy here, although I suspect that is likely the result. I'm envisioning this as a color-shifted Uncle Istvan, shifted into mono-green, who was sort of like a role model for Daneera.
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Loved the ending realization of the fundamental difference between them (though 
I was saddened by Fanny's loneliness in the menagerie; like, while not as beloved, I expected some other stuffies to have a personality! But maybe not enough of a soul to write poetry, or substitute Fanny's best friend...
