Was there any mistaking it? Could it have been anyone else? I mean, seriously.

As luck would have it, I had been sleeping, ungracefully sprawled out underneath some low-hanging branches of a big-ass willow in the meadow. It wasn’t an easy sleep, though—sleep doesn’t usually come easy to me, and it sure as hell didn’t come easily to me then, what with all the undead trauma ‘n everything. Y’know, the usual shit. Usually, though, I would toss and turn and have some gnarly nightmares and maybe snore a little but I’d still be able to keep my eyes closed and get some rest. At that moment though, it felt like this...I dunno how to explain it. Like some metaphysical blindfold of sleep were being tugged slowly and irritatingly from my eyes, gently enough that I didn’t wake up immediately, deliberately enough that waking up was unavoidable. Whatever wack-ass nightmare I was havin’ sort of just…slipped away, and before I knew it, I was blinking open my eyes and yawning a gross yawn and feeling it even as I woke up, before I even understood what it was.

It didn’t take long for me to guess, though—and when I did, I sighed, I took a huge gulp, and I rocked my ass up onto my feet and got steppin’. Cuz that was all that could be done.

Yup. Dad needed somethin’.

It was…this…tether. Yeah, I guess you could call it that. A tether of shock that I felt really deep in my breast or my chest or my tummy or wherever the hell, it was in my body, but it was super ingrained so it…it felt like it was all of me attracted towards this one direction, like my stomach and my legs and my hooves and my eyes and nose and ears and my horn and my tail and just…everything, all of me, needing to go that way, so I went that way. I didn’t hurry though—I wasn’t in a hurry to see Dad. I ran, I trotted when I was winded, and I zap!ed when I had the energy, but I didn’t run myself ragged. I…

…I didn’t know how to feel.

I wasn’t even gonna try and attempt to sweep away all the fury and confusion and the fear, the goddamned fear, the resentment and all the other shit I had been feeling for the past…has it been a year, now? I wasn’t gonna ignore the shame I felt when I woke up with all this leg and ass and I panicked; I wasn’t gonna ignore how much of a fuck-up I was am. I wasn’t gonna ignore all the times I shouted at him in my head, or outside of it either (yeah, we’re talking about that one time at the Veins now, I’m allowing it). I wasn’t gonna ignore what I felt about discovering I had a father and that he was a god, even though I didn’t even know what the hell a god even was or what it meant or…whatever. I had let go of it when I attacked that Jiji-beast; when I decided I didn’t care anymore. I was done worrying about what I needed to do and knowing damn well I didn’t know what to do or why or what. If Dad needed me, he’d show.

And I…guess he showed.

That tether-shock-thing led me to this place I guess I had missed the last time I had run through this area—a thingamajig made of stone and bitchin’ glass pieces, all of it covered in snow to give off this rustic-ass effect. Thing is, I had all eyes for the black stallion standing in the center of the whatchamacallit, the dark stud that was shorter than I remembered and a lot more frightening than I anticipated. I gulped one more time; I zap!ed myself closer to the thing-a-ling but I didn’t step within it, because whatever Dad was or what he had done or what he wanted from me, he was a god.

So I stood there. I looked at him. And I didn’t know what to feel, or what to say, or what I should say, because dammit I’m still not sure what a god is, exactly, and standing there looking at this short-ass stud told me that I was a lot less prepared for this than I thought.

“Pa.”

It was tiny thing coming out of my mouth, almost hesitant—because, for once, my voice was matching the rest of me.




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It was an ultra tense moment, with me looking at him and him looking at me and the both of us just…sorta staring each other down a whole bunch. I watched him steadily, my eyes on his black face and those sparkingly blue eyes of his, wondering who he was, what was happening, what would happen here. He was an unknown quantity and I held my breath waiting to see the waterline, cuz it felt like I had jumped head-first off of the edge of the world and all I was doing was flying through empty space…

*"I am sure that you have questions.”*

…But then he had the nerve to say some of the dumbest shit I had ever heard in my life, and I was livid at the drop of a pebble; I snorted hard through my nose, breaking my stare by tossing my head roughly to the side, so roughly that my whole body shifted and I think I cricked my neck and my ass was thrown a little to the left. What the hell, man!? I was born on the W day of the T month in the F year and my Ma gross-birthed me under the great Question Mark Constellation of Great Shat but I’m sure you have questions, Roskuld. And what was this crap with his voice? That drop in it, after he said my name all powerful and majestic ‘n shit, but suddenly it felt like he was being….careful? Dare I say…hesitant? And I rejected the idea at once, breathing hard and lashing my non-existent tail and still kinda snorting, angry at the merest shadow of an indication of my Pa not knowing how to talk to me, his sperm-child-thingamajig, because there can’t be two clueless bastards running the universe and dammit I’m sure he has more of a liability suit on his side if shit goes awry.

Also.

Way to spot the obvious, oh Father of mine! I’m sure you have questions. Nevermind your entire existence is enough to speculate about, but no, Ros, no, let’s not assume things here, let’s take it slow and give you the chance to untangle your tongue and have a pleasant conversation like the rational strangers we are, nevermind this is the first time we’ve seen each other eye to eye since you was a foal, nevermind I’ve never even given you the slightest hint of what to do, where to go, who you are. Nevermind I never bothered to check on you, my only daughter (Only?), even when I took your body from you, shifted it, made you older with bigger shoulders to carry bigger question-marked responsibilities with bigger monsters and bigger, scarier sicknesses. No, NO, it’s fine, no really, it’s all awesome and hunky-dory and whatever the hell, and even if I never sought you out, it’s fine. I swear it’s fine, Ros, that your Ma didn’t even give you a whisper of what a god was or that you were the daughter of one, or that I never tried to fix that. It’s all good, yo. And now that we’re standing here, eye to eye, heart to heart, ass to FUCKING ass, I think it’s implied I don’t need to say “Hi” or “Hello there, daughter” or “What’s up, shithead” or a pat on the back or a whisper of pride or a sneer of disgust and a cuss-word or two or anything, anything at all, indicating that you’re the fuck-up I’ve always wanted or the perfect daughter I never needed, or whatever, or that you’re doing a great job or that you’re making a mess of things, or anything--

--anything--

--anything, a touch, a smile, anything saying “You’re my daughter and I guess we gotta deal with it”. No, I’ll let you fall through space and time and there isn’t any water at the bottom so get ready to hit sheer pavement, darling.

(That was my sarcastic Time God tirade, by the way.)

And I stood there locking my jaw, chewing my cheek (me, actually me, Ros) my spine trembling even as I continued to snort, because even though my Pa gave me “permission” to ask questions, I couldn’t. It was turmoil inside me, a roiling mass of thunderheads and sparking anger and fear and everything, everything all at once, and it was moving too fast for me to grab so it just sort of…swirled there, on my tongue, and I knew if I opened my mouth I was just gonna end up screaming AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!! at my dad and I didn’t think it would’ve been as great as an ice-breaker as I believed it would be at the time. So I tried to swallow it back but it was too big for my throat, so then I chewed it in my mechanical jaw as my Pa kept talking about shit and more shit and the more he talked, the more something else inside me welled up, a question that made sense, and when I opened my mouth I forgot about manners and maybe it was about to kill me.

“And why can I do this?” I spat roughly at him, my words a literal lougie that I couldn’t control, sticky and green with all my disbelief, relieved or otherwise, at his request. He needed my help? Mine? Hasn’t he been watching this particular tragicomedy that was my life? Was…there truly no one else better qualified than me? (now THAT thought was scary) “What—why can’t you? How can—what makes you—why….Why me?”

Why. That was the question, wasn’t it? I swallowed hard; I looked back at him, finally, because before now I guess I had been awkwardly staring off into snowcovered nothingness and muttering through the side of my mouth. But now I looked at him. Really looked at him, and as I did I fought back the rising storm that had started creeping up on me again (AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH) but this time I had the question on my tongue and I could use it. “….Why?” I asked, hard and soft at the same time, quiet and loud all at once, a bite and a spark on my teeth and just the tiniest hint of wetness in my eye as my gaze bore into his own. “Why, Pa?” A little louder, a trifle harder, but not angry. No. I just wanted to know why. Why did he knock Ma up with gross sex like that—why’d he put his thing in Ma’s other thing—why was I born? Was I just some mistake, the product of some wild-ass party a god decided to have because gods can do that kind of thing? Or did he….was I a thing he was trying to accomplish?

He said I could ask questions if I wanted to—well, I’m askin’ them. Time for some answers, old man.

(Heh. Time....But seriously though.)




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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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