And look at that. There he was, struttin’ right out the nether like it wasn’t shit. And—to him—I guess it wasn’t.

I didn’t realize I had been holding my breath—at least, until I was kinda forced out of me when he started eyeing you. I reached for you, then, and you pitter-pattered your way off of his shrine and onto my proffered muzzle, climbing your way up my face and settling into the depression in my horn. “Yeah,” I said quietly, something nostalgic settling on my eyes for a moment. “It was weird as hell.”

I didn’t anticipate how interested you’d be in meeting my Pa. I’ve never felt you be so intense about your curiosity and your scrutiny as you watched him materialize, a being straight out of the thread and fabric of our very universe, all cool ‘n polished like a straight thug. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that you never seen anyone that looked remotely like me before. Short ‘n…awesome, I guess. Or maybe it was because I had told you before we got here that this was my Pa that we were gonna meet, and you still didn’t know what one of those was—so I guess you were thinking a Pa is someone with a peen, too, and they’re pretty much higher-tiered brothers. Somehow, that logic makes sense.

I could never shake this sense of nervousness that I got every time I saw my Pa. Even though this was the first time I had gone to see him willingly, of my own volition—he hadn’t called me here for once—I still felt a chill looking at it, wondering if I were in any sort of position to look the bastard in his eye. He was my Pa—but he was still a god, right? Still wasn’t sure what that meant for me in terms of etiquette. Ain’t like I knew the fucker on first-name basis.

(Does my father have a name?)

The nervousness didn’t help when I saw his ears pin and his whole body tense—and suddenly the world was tense and there was petrichor in the air and flashes of lightning so quick and hot the only evidence of their existence was their imprint in my retinas. Then…he was fine and the world calmed its breath, but that only shook me up even more , because I suddenly didn’t know the playing field anymore and what sort of game piece I had brought before him in the form of a sword.

But then—he told me.

I stood transfixed--mesmerized-- as my Pa wove a tale about something that I’d never really had a chance to learn about—the past. And I ain’t talkin’ about no personal history or any of that shit. I was learning a story about the earth I walked on, about the bones my reality was structured from. I mouthed the name Drolgathaas he spoke it—a title so bad-ass and terrifying, I wasn’t bound to forget the shit any time soon. I got starstruck at the idea of my Pa wielding anything--but especially with the idea that I had found something he had fought with, that he, too, had tied his own blood and sweat into the metal of this thing, long before it was rusted and lost in the north. It felt…it was like there was a tie between us now that didn’t drive me insane to think about, something tangible I could hold onto—something I could feel pride in. The tiny flame that started to flicker in my chest didn’t last long, though; cold reality drowned it.

*”But those doors were closed ... the links between the worlds sealed. That it is here now…is a problem."*

I felt my mouth go dry. “You—I didn’t—” For an absurd moment, I thought I was the one who opened the portal by carving out some shitty glacier up in the north. I snorted the panic out through my nose, taking a breath against the rising tempo of my heart. Had to keep my head straight. Sounded like more shit was coming, and losing my head wouldn’t do anything to fix it. “…Drogaltha could be here, too,” I breathed, finishing the thought, “Or…or whatever the hell else was trapped in that place.”

I looked down to the heap of metal with wide eyes. It had seemed so bitchin’ before I knew its history—and I guess it even seemed better with the tale. But my mind was growing its own personal Drolgatha and she was huge and shadowy and she had a face I didn’t wanna think about—but all that really mattered was that Drolgatha was alive and kickin’ and fierce in my mind, and fuck me if this wasn’t just some heap of shitty rust. “You tellin’ me this piece of shit could take down a monster?” I asked, nudging the pile with a hoof, something urgent crawling into my voice.






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