It had been a long time, to long, since Matteo had so thoroughly enjoyed the vast expanse off his own estates at such speed. It was rare, in any sense, for him to travel anywhere without employing that teleportation and yet he had known Aiden would readily enjoy those trail bikes. His adoptive son, for as long as he had known him, relishing in those more adrenaline based activities. Aiden had always been bold. Even as a child. Matteo long since suspecting that very aspect of his nature had contributed in part to his very resilience and yet he made no further mention of it now. That grin on the younger mans features was by far the most satisfying reward for that wayward adventure he was determined to take them on. The ancient Fae unable to prevent that equally bright simper finding his own features, that laughter that parted his lips entire genuine in its delight as he shoved at his companion. He had no intention of losing that next game, whatever it might be, Matteo suggesting Aiden treasure the memory of this one and that victory he had managed to pilfer (but luck Matteo was sure) before gesturing toward that forest trail that was their next destination. That tease still on his lips. After all, for as much as he had surely parented the boy he had too- been his friend. The very sort of friend whom knew just what teasing he could get away with. One Aiden was quick to give back. Old! He'd show him old. Matteo snorting playfully.

"Oui, we will."

He pressed easily off from the ground then, that bike picking up speed beneath him as he led the way along and beside the fence line, that slower, more sedate pace affording his companion every chance to truly eye that terribly vast estate. Even Matteo himself prone to forget how truly far his own lands spread. Even despite that bustle of activity so required to keep that very farm running their was a serenity to it, a peacefulness, the world inclined to move a little slower upon that estate. A speed Matteo and his own near notorious lack of time seemed to find far more personable in its reach. His own silver gaze glanced backward several times to eye his companion. Aiden's very features giving away what the panthers words and emotions so often refused to admit to. The simple look of....confused awe perhaps not unexpected. Matteo so considering for the first time that he had, perhaps, never truly offered his adopted son that information on just what and who he had been in those days before he had taken up that position of ambassador Aiden had known him to hold for most of his young life. The Were appearing decidedly shocked perhaps (and rightly so) at that singular realization that Chambord was very much a farm. Even if somewhat of a glamorous one by farming standards. The softest of chuckles tugged easily at his own throat then at that singular look upon the man's features. Matteo content to inquire after his own contemplation. Aiden shrugging lightly before uttering that classical 'maybe'. The Were had, he suspected, never truly given any great depth of thought to what Matteo did when at home in France and yet he so hardly blamed him. Children rarely considered such things. Whatever decisions Aiden had made about Matteo's own work having clearly followed him into his adult years- prompting that very shock that seemed to hold him now. Yet- surely the boy was old enough to know that truth? In the very least to know....something more of himself.

It was a desperately rare thing indeed for the Frenchman to offer those more...personal details off his existence. Matteo notoriously private and yet there had been little he had ceased to share with Aiden over the years. After all, what did he truly have to hide from a man he saw as his own son? Matteo spoke rarely of that life that had existed....several lifetimes ago and yet it was hardly for the presence of any terrible memory or some measure of disdain. Rather it had simply existed so terribly long ago that it had come to feel like another life- one long since gone. One that existed in memory alone. Still, those accented words found his lips all the same, coaxing to life that memory now. Matteo pointing toward that very place he had been born before France was France and the modern world had not yet even been contemplated let alone imagined. The near ancient Fae offering that very explanation behind his own farming habit and the business that had been his families own on two separate occasions in his early life. Matteo hardly having anticipated that question on how long he had been gone. The Frenchman paused then to consider that very inquiry, his features frowning slightly in that contemplation.

"I joined Clovis' army first, before Alexander conscripted me into his own and we had several campaigns together then. It would have been ten years I was away- before I came home to them."

Such a length of time was not, in any sense, unusual when it came to ancient warfare. An army could travel only as far as it could march or ride. Many of those conquests leading on from each other. The army marching further and further away from home each time. The Commander alone permitted to declare when they would begin that march home and even then- how much time each man would be given to spend with his family before they were called together to be sent off again. Alexander, in the very least, had always been fair- or as fair as he could be in those early years of unrest when the world was full of armies and each was determined to grab what land it could. The higher in rank Matteo had risen the better that army life had become and the more money he had been capable of sending home. That soft query in regards to his parents prompting that sudden simper to his features.

"I will show them to you."

That, he knew, was a truly curious phrase and yet it was so designed to be. Matteo chuckling softly as that bike picked up speed, leading the way down and on to that forest trail. A true dirt bike track in every sense of the word. Matteo eager to meet it head on as the bike sped down the path to hit that muddied ground. Those constant twists and turns of the forest were broken apart by sudden dips and rocks in the road. That path requiring both concentration and no small amount of skill to navigate, that mud that flew in all directions threatening to unbalance those tyres at any moment and yet Matteo relished in that very challenge, in pushing that bike to see just how fast it could go or sharply it could turn. That very first, small jump appearing near out of nowhere as he sailed over it. The slam and crunch of tyres behind him assuring him Aiden had made that jump in turn as that carenned up that hill and rocketed down the other side. The world passing in a blur of green and brown before they were all but spat out onto that river bank. Matteo taking that moment to slow his own bike, his thoroughly muddied feet finding the earth again as he turned back to his son.

Those instructions were easy enough to follow. Matteo not unwilling to admit that his first, early attempts those few years ago at this very feat had taken him some measure of practice to master and several various forms of injury. Aiden eyeing that rise from a distance by the boys hands returned to that accelerator. Matteo unable to help that touch of a simper that found his lips at Aiden confidence in this. The Frenchman once more considering how bold Aiden was capable of being before the Were took off. He reached that top speed quickly, swerving toward that hill only to all but catapult himself into the air. Aiden and that bike precariously airbourne for several moments before crashing back to earth in that bone jarring landing, the bike wobbling and yet- the younger man was quick to correct it as he slid to a breathless stop. Matteo's hands lifted from his own bike to clap, his voice shouted across that river then.

"I was at least seventy percent sure you'd make it, Mon Amie. I only saw you crash in three different visions!"

That impish smile had found his lips once more, whether such a thing was true or not remained to be seen. That rich laughter drawn from his lips again and that look upon Aiden's face before Matteo revved his own bike back into life, coaxing it to reach the same speed as his companions own before hitting that ramp and launching himself into the air. His own bike collided with the opposite bank in much the same manner, Matteo more easily keeping that bike balanced if only through the experience of having jumped that very jump countless times over. The thrill of it still delighting him all the same as his shoulders rolled to loosen them. His hand waving for Aiden to follow and he piloted his own bike back into the lead. That track along the bank was narrow but flat, allowing a smoother ride and that return to speed needed to climb the ridge on the other side that would lead them down into town. That downward trail horrendously and outrageously steep, several tree roots providing those natural jumps and yet on such a hill the bikes tended to near fly into the air. Several equally sharp corners forced the pair to snake wildly down the side of the tree line. Any hope of going slow made near impossible by that steepness and yet- it made it only more challenging. That hill eventually levelling out onto that flat, open trail that gave them another clean, smooth run to the very edge of that village his estate rested upon the outskirts off. Matteo slowly piloting that bike to a stop on the outskirts of that forest. The engine easily cut. The entire lower half off his body caked in mud as he swung from that seat.

"We'll leave these here, they'll be safe. I own this land. Come, we will walk from here and I will you show you something. This is the village Amboise. It is, how you say, a historical village. It has not changed very much, not like Paris that I will show you later this week. Amboise is much quieter. It has charm. You will see."

That near knowing grin so lingered upon the Frenchmans features and yet he offered no further explanation as he lead the way through that small field where they had left those bikes and down onto the road. That very road itself constructed of cobblestones and brick. The village he was assured, quite unlike anything his son had surely ever seen. Time itself seeming to have frozen within that place. Those streets were near entirely free of cars, to narrow for the vehicles to travel down. The tall, narrow, stone coloured houses lined the streets, each of them adorned with flower boxes that bloomed in all colours. The other side of that paved cobblestone road was lined with equally tall stone shops that seemed to blend with one another, the difference between each store marked with little painted wooden signs that hung above the doors and blew in the breeze. The river Loire ran beside it and around it, several carved stone bridges arching up and over it to other parts of town. The small streets dotted with people lazily strolling in the afternoon sun or peddling by on bicycles. Those coffee shops a soft hum of sound. That very town itself seeming to have forgotten to keep up with the outside world. Matteo simply leading the way slowly through it, allowing Aiden every chance to simply observe it. Several passersby offering their greetings to the pair. Matteo so clearly well known in that town.

The Frenchman paused only once beside a stall set up outside one of the towns many bakeries. The man behind it smiled warmly before commenting on the glory of the weather. His little stall decorated in yellow flowers Matteo knew well grew on the hillside that had only before raced over. The Fae gesturing to those baguettes. The seller so insisting he take it for free, that light hearted argument in French carried back and forth for several moments before Matteo so finally relented and allowed himself to be afforded that free meal. The Frenchman breaking off one of those crusted ends then before handing it to Aiden.

"That is the best part of a baguette. We French like to eat it as we walk. It is our habit. This is not bread like you are used too, you do not need anything on it. Eat it as it is, trust me."

Matteo turned that baguette then, breaking off the other end for himself as they continued that easy wander through the streets and toward the stone church at the end of the street. Matteo hardly pausing at that church itself, rather, he moved to lead the way into the church yard and the all-but ancient cemetery that surrounded it. That wrought iron gate, bent and rusted with age, was easily stepped over. Matteo walking effortlessly toward the back of that cemetery then, the Fae so clearly knowing just where he desired to go. This a path he had walked before and yet....not for so many years. There had been no point. Not until now. The Frenchman paused at last beside several headstones, his figure leaning back against the stone cross of another grave behind him. Those headstones he gestured too now were decidedly simple, one so aged it was all but unreadable and overgrown with lichen. The other far newer and yet as equally unremarkable as the ones beside it.

"My Father and my Mother."

Matteo's hand lifted to gesture first to that well-aged stone- no more than a rock truly and the only marker that existed off any sort of grave for his Father. That second headstone larger, the writing upon it and that small drawing of a pelican, of all birds, still clear and carved neatly into its surface.

"We did not mark graves beyond a stone and a name back when I was younger. That is why my father's is no more than a mere rock. My parents were very young when they married, but it was not unusual then. My Mother, Alouette, was fourteen when she married my Father, Noe. He was sixteen. Both were Fae. They had three daughters before me. Two were born Fae, Marchline and Emilie. My eldest sister, Clothilda, was born human. I was their last child and only son. In those days a daughter could not inherit lands and as such my birth was greatly celebrated as security for our family in the future. My parents were both farmers- but they were very hard working, the both of them, we never went without."

"My Father was very charismatic, a good salesman. In time his work was noticed by the local lord, our family was invited to move to his estate and farm his land. Eventually my parents saved enough money to buy more land of our own and through a series of fortunate events my Father was made a lord himself. Such a rise in status gave me the chance for an education- we did not educate girls back then you see. My parents hoped I might go one to be a teacher, a scholar, something of merit- but then the Purge came. People at the time feared the supernatural, desperately so. Fae were seen as spirits of the dead. The authority of the time wished the cleanse the city of all such evils. My family was discovered for what we were. My father was beheaded and my sister Marchline killed in the fighting. We lost everything when he died. I was still young- you know, we never found his head?"

Matteo's own head shook lightly and yet, despite the veritable darkness of that tale some glimmer of amusement existed all the same. It had been so very long that, perhaps, after all this time such a glimmer might be allowed. Matteo's voice remaining easy as he continued.

"We fled the town that night. We had no other options but for my Mother to start farming what land she could with my sisters while I joined the army. It paid better than anything else and if i could send them money they might survive. I hid what I was for as long as I could but when my Father died his affinity passed to me. His gift for future sight. I inherited it only when he died. I couldn't control the visions. People thought I was possessed or mad. If Alexander hadn't found me I probably would have been killed. You know the story from there I am sure. I sent money back to my Mother every month. I became wealthy at Alex's side and my Mother- she was an incredibly strong woman and very clever with numbers and money. She had a keen mind for bussiness. Over time she returned our family to prosperity, safeguarding it for when I came home. Though I was never home long before the army called again. Eventually I could afford staff to run it for us. She only died about thirty years ago. She stopped aging at sixteen you know? She always looked like a child. I adored my parents and my sisters- when they lived. Do your parents have a memorial somewhere?"

It was a sudden question and yet not one Matteo had considered to ask before. The Frenchman taking another bite of that bread before passing more to his companion. He was not fool enough to believe the bodies of Aiden's parents had survived that fire and yet, perhaps, someone, somewhere, had carved a stone for them in turn.

"I do not consider my family gone, rather, I consider my family is now made up of different people- but I have not forgotten them."


m a t t e o
it's tough to be a god