The roar of his own trail bike was abruptly cut off as the pair crested that small rise above the village. Matteo waiting only so long as it took Aiden to expertly pilot his bike into position beside his own before swinging one muddied leg from the vehicle to kick out the stand and leave it balancing in that precarious fashion all bikes seemed to balance. Those gloves were easily pulled from his hands and tossed onto the seat, the Frenchman readily assuring his companion those bikes would be quite safe there even as Aiden afforded him a near skeptical look and a wholly hesitant query on whether or not he was sure. That very hesitance prompting a soft chuckle to his lips once more as he nodded.

"I'm quite certain I will know if anyone is planning to steal them all the same, though I have little concern. This village is not that sort of place, Mon Amie. Come, I will show it to you."

He could hardly blame his companion in any sense, after all, that very side of town in the very city Aiden had chosen to make his home was decidedly well known for its high level of crime and all other various manners of illicit activity. Matteo himself largely content to turn a blind eye to it if only because so suggesting Aiden make his home elsewhere would hardly be met with any positive outcome. Besides, he so hardly needed any gift for the future to know his adoptive son was more than capable of handling himself on those city streets. For Aiden he held little fear. Indeed, it was for those whom irritated the panther enough to prompt action from him that he truly feared for. Such thoughts of that city they had left behind however were all but cast from his mind as he led the way down that small hill and onto that cobblestone road that wove its way lazily through that perfectly picturesque village. Time itself seeming to have all but stopped within that tourist town. The very village a near perfect recreation of the very France he remembered best and indeed the one he was perhaps more inclined to show Aiden then the hustle and bustle of the Paris streets they would no doubt venture too later in the week.

The village was quaint, quiet and and decidedly calm in every sense. The people that wandered about hardly hurried in any fashion, the absence of cars only adding to that simple tranquility made all the more curious by those age-old stone houses and windowed shop fronts. Each store adorned with a hand-painted wooden sign that swung from the eves above in a fashion near reminiscent of a fairy tale. It was for the very oddity he knew Aiden would find in such a town that he had so found himself inclined to bring him. This was, simply, unlike anything he suspected the WereKing had ever seen before having never ventured beyond that city ors its wilds. It was important, somehow, to show Aiden that such places as this existed. To prove that, perhaps, life need not always be filled with crowds and street sounds and people rushing in the way they did in that city. Matteo himself perhaps the very personification of such a place as this. The Frenchman so eternally seeming to possess an ari of unhurried calm even despite the very exuberance for life he tended to wield in turn. This, he was certain, was the very sort of holiday Aiden needed. One where the world was quiet and free of pressures, responsibilities and servitudes the sort Matteo hardly dared to think on lest he find his own mood decidedly soured. There was little in this world that prompted such....hostility within himself then that thoughts of that vampire woman. Matteo wholly determined that for this week alone she would hold no power over either of them, not even in thought.

His own silver gaze glanced briefly sideward, the small simper upon his companions lips readily prompting that equally warm look to his own and yet he so hardly made a comment upon it. Rather, he simply allowed Aiden to observe that village as they strolled. Several people offering them those greetings as they passed. The pair of men content to nod in turn. Matteo offering that occasional greeting in exchange. Near the entire village seeming to recognise the French fae in one fashion or another.

"Many people have lived here for generations. The houses are passed down. I knew most of these people as children, just as I knew their parents and grandparents and great grandparents before them."

This, in the least, so surely explained that very familiarity the village itself seemed to hold for the ancient Fae. The Frenchman, after all, had lived within that Chateau for centuries. His own presence as much apart of that village as its cobbled roads. Matteo lead the way down one of those small, flower covered streets and towards the wooden stall that rested outside the bakery, it's bench laden with bread and several boxes of those yellow flowers in turn. His efforts to buy that bread however so prompted the insistence of the baker, that brief exchange resulting in Matteo so finally accepting that offered baguette before tearing off the crusted eand and handing it to Aiden in turn. Those crunchy baguette ends so well known throughout France as the very best part of the bread to eat as one wandered. Such a thing very near cultural. Aiden once more appearing near skeptical as Matteo nodded that assurance. The pair continuing down into the next street before the panther so announced it would have been better with butter! His head turned almost warily to eye his son then, that very scowl finding his own features and yet there was little save amusement in those accented words all the same.

"Do you know, I quite think sometimes you say these things on purpose, just to annoy me. Ah, but the boy has no culture!"

Another soft chuckle easily found his lips as they turned into that churchyard. Matteo stepping over that rested, wrought iron gate to lead the way through those rows upon rows of headstones. The Fae following that well worn path toward the back of the cemetery with Aiden in tow before pausing in that near crumbling, forgotten part of the yard and before those two headstones. One, no more than a rock, was so terribly worn it could no longer truly be read. The other, though aged, still far newer than the one beside it. Matteo gesturing easily then to his parents. It had been....years since he had visited and yet, unlike Alexander, he was perhaps simply not prone think of death in quite the same fashion as so many others did. There was little sense in visiting a grave to speak words to those who could no longer hear them. Perhaps he had simply become so very used to death in his endlessly long life that it did not hold for him the meaning it once had and yet his features frowned slightly at that consideration all the same. Matteo simply not the sort to deeply consider the matter of life and death. It simply was. Yet, surely, it was time that another might finally hear those all but forgotten tales off his own youth. Matteo so offering that rarely spoken truth of a life lived so long ago. That story free of those embellishments or bawdy details or grand battles and curious mishaps he so often included within his stories the way any good storyteller surely did. This the simple and honest truth of the farm boy, come soldier, come diplomat. One that ended with that soft query on Aiden's own parents and where their bodies lay. The younger mans head shaking with the insistence those bodies, or what remained of them, had never been buried. Their only markers the tattoos on Aiden's skin. Matteo's own form lent easily away from that stone, one hand lifting to rest easily on Aiden's shoulder in that simple, easy gesture.

"If you decide you want to bury them, tell me, I will help you."

That hand that rested upon his adopted son's shoulder afforded it a gentle squeeze all the same in that simple, unspoken assurance off his presence- if Aiden desired it- before his hand returned to his own side. Aiden he knew, responded far more readily to those simple, straightforward gestures rather than those matters of more complex emotion or grand displays. Matteo readily having come to believe that, somehow, Aiden so often believed himself undeserving of the care of others, or in the least as if he was somehow unworthy of it. As if he were not worth the trouble. God how it pained him to see it within that young man and yet here and now was hardly the time nor place to tug at those very complexities. Matteo momentarily caught off guard but that sudden query on his own Mother's death. That surprise so momentarily touching his features and yet that very....concern of sorts on Aiden's own saw the soft shake off his own head. Matteo chuckling softly, the Frenchman readily seeming to have guessed at those thoughts.

"She did not die of age, Mon Amie, fear not. You will have to deal with me for some time yet. Even despite how our family had suffered at the hands of others over the years my Mother believed greatly that if one held the ability to help, they should. She was a gifted healer. It is from her I inherited my own restorative powers. She worked with the UN on many occasions and in 1986 she travelled with an Aid team to Chad after the French Government became involved in the Chadian-Libyan wars. She was there two years. In 1988 her camp was bombed and she was killed."

Matteo paused then, allowing Aiden to contemplate those very words and indeed the very realisation that war still existed within the world even so recently as that. Ah,but how the modern world could forgot the struggle of those developing countries! Matteo's silvered gaze lingering on that headstone still.

"I checked in on her future often, but her future changed in the middle of the night. I was asleep. The visions woke me, the fates of those I am close to will often find me no matter what state I am in and yet I had no teleport location close to her. The closest I could get was five miles away. I couldn't reach her in time, though I tried."

Even with all his own powers- they were hardly foolproof. The future could change so suddenly. All it took was a decision, a chance, a shift in ideas and the paths of so many suddenly diverged. God, how he missed her sometimes! In the very least, perhaps, there was some consolation in the very consideration she had died doing what it was she adored. Matteo reaching effortlessly into his back pocket then, unfolding that leather wallet before letting that near stream of photos flip outward. The Frenchman flicking through those plastic sleeves to find the one he desired, offering that wallet to Aiden then. His finger pointed to a photograph of himself with his arm around a dark haired girl of barely fifteen whom came no higher than the center off his chest. Her striking blue eyes a contrast to her dark hair and yet her grin was just as bright. Bother her arms wrapped around his waist in that photograph taken on the front steps of Chambord itself.

"That- is my Mother. Yes, she looks like a child. If you flick to the next picture, yes, that one, that is my son Dorian and his Husband, Sebastian, on their wedding day not long ago. That, oh that is Herbert as a puppy and that- ah, that one is you."

He rather suspected Aiden hardly remembered that photograph. He could hardly have been more than ten or so when it had been taken, Aiden sprawled out upon his bed with that car magazine in front of him. The grin on his features entirely telling of just how much he seemed to delight in it. Matteo hardly offering that very truth that such a smile had been the first genuine grin he had ever managed to coax from Aiden as a child in those months following his capture. That singular smile, once, so having assured him that some measure of hope still existed for the boy, now a man, who stood beside him. That near impish grin suddenly finding his lips.

"I don't know what happened to your hair between now and then though, this mop is out of control."

The Frenchman's hand lifted easily, offering Tet's head that gentle, teasing push before turning away from those headstones and tucking that wallet back into his back pocket. The toe of his foot taping ever so briefly at the ground as he turned away. Several small flowers at the bases of those headstones restored into life to bloom with that simple gesture.
"C'mon, we've got one more place to see before we head back. Unless there's anything else you want to do?"

He turned briefly, meeting the younger man's gaze curiously than before leading them away from that churchyard and the forgotten past it contained. Matteo hardly prone to dwelling in any sense, at least not in that fashion. The Frenchman leading them back onto those peaceful, bright streets. That sun blissfully warm on their faces. That store he had in mind was hardly far. Matteo paused briefly outside that door before pressing his hand to it, that small bell ringing as the pair entered. Matteo finishing the last of that baguette as he did before pausing to allow Aiden to take in that Sweet Shop. That store, like the town, caught in a far older time. Those shelves lined with rows upon rows of candies in glass jars and hand labeled tins. Those center islands stocked with chocolate bars wrapped in brown paper as they once had been or mountains upon mountains of boiled sweets and traditional french lollies. Matteo reaching to pluck a lemon sherbet from one of the wicker baskets hanging from the wall that was near piled high with the treats. The Fae slipping it easily between his lips to roll about on his tongue. Those accented words slightly hindered by his attempts to chew and talk.

"Choose anything you want, as much as you want. I have, how you say? A running tab? I am getting at least a half a bag of these myself."

Sweets, after all, were an excellent way to chase off those ghosts of the past.



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