*”Ophelia ... is my sister.”*

……oh.

And that’s all that was in my head. Oh. It fell empty, a void filled with dust-bunnies and tumble weeds, while the urgent anger fell from my face and all the heavy shit along with it so I stared at this jittery bastard with my whole face shaped in a perfect O.

Oh.

He’s Ma’s brother.

Ma has a brother.

And it was so stupid cuz I had called it, right? I had seen the similarities between them, so striking I had picked them out on sight; I had felt that itching, annoying thing in the back of my head that reminded me of Ma every time I saw this blue-tinged bro, and it only made sense that he would be Ma’s….blood.

Her brother.

But the idea was so…it was so…

Alien.

And something sick kinda twisted my gut too, some guilt wiggling its way in there, cuz I’d never even known Ma to have any other family than Auntie ‘n me ‘n Jiji ‘n Hototo. I’d never even asked; I’d never even thought of it. But I was starting to learn that not knowing something made it nonexistent.

And like, she could’ve told me, right? She could’ve mentioned that there was a whole branch of family I might’ve never even heard of before—because, oh shit, I’d never thought about it before but Ma had parents too, she wasn’t godspawn, she wasn’t some angel or whatever morphed out of nothing—she was born like the rest of us with blood, so that meant someone had birthed her and someone else had stick his gross disco stick in there and spawned her from his balls and I’m not sure how often they did it but I knew they at least had made Ma and Auntie—

--and now, I was looking at another one, too. (He said his name was Vadim.)

And before I had been so mad at Ma from keeping…well…so much shit from me when I was younger, for keeping the world and my blood from me, to keep me safe to keep the pain away. But at that moment I didn’t feel that kind of rage anymore—guess I was sick of feeling it. Or maybe there just wasn’t any room for it, since all of me was steadily filling up with the bemused, wondrous idea that I had an uncle.

“…You’re my uncle?” I asked him—my voice so much different than how it had been before, when it was rash and rough all over. It trickled out of me in a curious whisper—a prodding towards him, sticking my feelers out gently to test the waters and this strange, radiant idea that I had an uncle.

You sensed the change in me—you noticed how the other pup had changed to, her gaze turned away from you and your game of tag. You’d come see me—eventually, I’m sure. But at that moment you nipped for her ear, eager to return to the game and the beautiful discovery of a friend that was blossoming in you, too.


"talk"
@[Vadim]