I stood there with this growing pressure, watching my Pa, my throat and chest expanding outwards and inwards and painfully both ways, and it was nothing but that pink balloon filled with all my AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHing and it shunk some, then expanded again, shrunk again, expanded, this thing indecisive about choking me as the epiphany slowly settled itself in my mind that my dad was an absolute asshole.

Which was fine. No, really, it’s fine. Not even being sarcastic this time. He stood there watching me make my faces and listening to my weird, halting words and he knew, the bastard knew what was going on, and he just sat there like this...like…an asshole. He let me fall and watched me hit water, but he watched me flail and twist and growl angrily before it happened—he let me go through all of that not because he didn’t care. It wasn’t because he was evil or dastardly or anything like that. He was just a jerk.

And I could forgive that. I could. I don’t know if I was gonna anytime soon, but I can’t honestly fault someone for being a total asshat. They can’t help it. They’re just awful people, it runs in their blood and it’s how they’re born and it’s something like having clubbed feet or knocked knees—it just happens and you have to live with it. His stony face, insolent eyes, bored cock of his brow—it made sense. It made sense that he was my Pa, and that I was his daughter.

So I sucked in a huge breath, and when I blew it out, the pink AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH balloon flew out with it.

It wasn’t forgiveness but it wasn’t anger, either. He answered my questions, at any rate. He gave me answers that he didn’t even know I needed (or maybe he did because he’s a GOD and that means something, hmm?). The things he said were terrifying, sure—but I wasn’t scared of them. Or angry, or sad or whatever. I didn’t feel anything for them—I didn’t waste any feeling for them—because the scenario he wove offered a choice, unlike the body he gave me. Roskuld, whether you believe it or not, you are powerful, strong enough to change the course of history if you wanted…or you could disappear into the monotony of life, doing nothing.

He blindsided me, though, with a question of his own, and before I could knock something together that was polite and nice and sweet like a little girl should be, I blurted out my answer.

“No.” My eyes were steady on his own, speaking truth to him, since that was another thing I got from him. An asshole and some honesty. “I don’t know you,” I explained, still in that flat, blunt tone. There was no reason to lie—I couldn’t help that I didn’t know him. And maybe he couldn’t help it either, I dunno. I can’t trust a stranger, though. I trusted Jiji, once. And Ma.They were family, too.

I sighed again, smaller and resolute, rolling my shoulders. If there wasn’t any trust, I guessed that I had better start building some. “So, shit’s goin’ down and you need to know what’s up,” I said, loudly, almost normal, going over the mission specs, “You need me to snoop around for you since you can’t thanks to some holy bullshit, and I gotta ask around, see if strange things have been happening, or whatever.” I wrinkled my nose, remembering the black stink of the rotted world. “Well, more strange things.” I didn’t tell him that I didn’t know where the land of the Moon Goddess was; I assumed it was one of the herd lands I had visited. Whatever man, I’ll figure it out.

I took a step back from him, my muscles tensing, getting ready for flight—but then I stopped, another question bubbling from my stomach, one that I was afraid of. “Is Ma still alive?” I don’t know if he’d know that—but then again, I hadn’t consciously known that this fear had been festering inside me for some time. It didn’t fester so bad now, though. Very little did. I didn’t know it, but Ma had her own talisman from Pa, and now I had mine.

He called me his daughter.

Splash.



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