[private] Suddenly I was a lilac sky; then you decided purple just wasn’t for you | Chryseis

[Leilan]

Leilan

Glaciers melting in the dead of night
and the superstars sucked into the supermassive

He can’t afford letting her out of sight. And yet she tries so hard to. Did the universe want to punish him like this? Make him feel like killing himself, then bring him back to raise a daughter, only to watch her die at her own stupidity?

Jaw clenched, he watches her back more than he ever watches any other thing on her - she ignores him, and she turns out to be as stupid and stubborn as himself. Ugh. He paces, wondering what Briseis would have done. Probably nothing. Apathically let the girl make her own mistakes and if she died nobody would ever be the wiser.

Perhaps she should never have told him about his daughter. She’d been such a perfect little thing, of course she’d never stay that way. Now she just... he just doesn’t know any more. Not someone he remembers, for sure.

His own mother would say not to intervene. But how did her children turn out without her? Like him, for one. He never intended to sire someone so exactly... stupid like himself. But here she was. Thinking all the worst things of her father, just because he wanted to keep her from making his exact mistakes again. Was that all for nothing? Nobody to learn from it but himself and then as a reward, watch others do the same thing?

He snorts. ”This is stupid.” he mutters to himself. Then, before he can change his mind again, he walks straight up to her. ”Chryseis.” he says. His tone doesn’t reveal anything much, but at least it should be clear he’s not as mad as he was earlier when he told her that she would be grounded.

you set my soul alight

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@[Chryseis]

[Chryseis]

you were a vision in the morning
when the light came through,
i know i've only felt religion
when i've lied with you
and i'm still waking every morning
but it's not with you

.

Needless to say, she had been avoiding her father. Even though he was there at every turn, anytime she glanced over her shoulder, or even shifted her gaze to the side, but she hadn’t spoken to him. She had, however, obediently stayed within Nerine. It wasn’t usually like her to actually do as she was told, but there was a part of her that was afraid she was pushing her father to the point of hating her. She was able to understand the kelpie situation – she supposes it was stupid, even though she was still convinced that Ivar wasn’t that bad. But, her father had warned her repeatedly to not seek them out on her own, although in her defense she had met the kelpie man completely by accident.

But Rhaegor...that, she couldn’t agree with her father on. Rhaegor had been apart of her life since childhood. He knew her mother, and she knew his mothers. They had just been friends, and even though she had always been utterly enchanted by him, she’d had no way of knowing that their relationship would continue to blossom into what it had. And even once she had realized it, she didn’t want to parade him before her father without being sure of it. He had never given her that chance though; he had condemned him without meeting him, all because of a mark on her shoulder sparked by a heated moment that had begun to slip out of their control.

As if her father was a total saint.

He calls her name, and she purses her lips, steeling herself to whatever he was going to ream her for now. She angles her gold-blazed face towards him, her dark eyes watching him carefully as he walks up to her. His voice doesn’t sound as angry as it had a few days ago, and her own stance softens in response; a mirror of him, usually, feeding off whichever energy he displays, and matching it with her own. She is still cautious, though, her eyes only flickering to his as she asks hesitantly, ”What did I do now? I’ve stayed in Nerine, like you asked.”

chryseis

[Leilan]

Leilan

Glaciers melting in the dead of night
and the superstars sucked into the supermassive

He can’t do anything right, at least not right away. First of all, technically, she shouldn’t even exist. Of course, that thought left a strange taste in his mouth, and then some. Ophanim shouldn’t exist, even though, with Jenova not really caring much, he was the least to worry about. Thorgal definitely shouldn’t exist. And Naia... where would he even begin to explain.

Second, he probably shouldn’t have brought her to Nerine to live here. In fact he should not have visited that day when she was just a yearling, tempt her with his stupid ideas and stories of roaming the world and getting nearly eaten by a kelpie. He should have let her grow up with her mother, and then her having a boyfriend would not have been known to him either but at least Briseis might have known about it, and he’d have to trust her judgement.

And, of course, he should have seen this coming and not overreact to the boy’s existence. It had been the compilation of information - the fact that she had been marked and claimed not just by the boy but also by a kelpie male; the very one that never met with anyone in Ischia but who’s suddenly appearing daughter proved that he had in fact one or more mares out there that nobody ever saw. Of course, Leilan made the assumption that one so overly-attractive to the other sex, had more than one mare. The fact that nobody in Ischia had known about them however, really was the scary part. Naturally, he did not want his carefree daughter to suffer that fate.

Had she delivered the news of Rhaegor some other time, preferably before she had had a bunch of teeth in her shoulder, he might not have panicked. But what’s done is done, he’ll always be a brash idiot acting on emotion. Just like she.

Which was why he was so stupid - of course she would hate him for grounding her; he would too. And she would out of spite, search out Rhae. And who knows what else she would do. At any rate, it’s no solution.

The root of the problem lies with himself - he’s caused her to exist and then caused her to be too much like himself, and now he’s caused her to be angry with him. Great. Good parenting, Leilan. The realization had come a little too slowly this time (unlike when they first met, instinctively avoiding the word ‘no’ - damn, but even the happy memory was now tainted). Numb now, the last of his anger directed at himself, he had called. And seen the damage. A hesitant girl in front of him.

Deflated and blue, he just looks at her a while. Wondering where to start. The beginning maybe? Yes. Perhaps she’ll learn something after all. ”I shouldn’t have yelled. Of course it has the opposite effect.” he sighs. Then, with no other way he can think of to force her to learn about the world (too early! Or too late?), to learn from his mistakes instead of repeating history. He forces out the one question. ”Where do you think you came from, Farfalle?” Darling butterfly, you’ll get hurt out there. And pregnant. And lost. I don’t want any of that for you.

But he had already lost his daughter, in a sense. The only thing he can do now is tell this new young woman who came in her stead, why she must be careful where boys were considered.

you set my soul alight

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@[Chryseis]

[Chryseis]

you were a vision in the morning
when the light came through,
i know i've only felt religion
when i've lied with you
and i'm still waking every morning
but it's not with you

.

She can’t read her father’s mind, of course, but if she could, she would have felt terrible. She didn’t want him to feel like he didn’t do anything right; she still loved him unconditionally, and even with imperfections, she wouldn’t trade him for anything. But even without being able to see into his thoughts, she can feel what radiates from him. She can see the look on his face, and it makes her heart clench, and she softens herself even more as a response. In a single step she curls against his side, just as she has always done, her golden-tipped muzzle laying against his shoulder. Her body is still feverish, and the winter chill of Nerine made her skin shiver, but being able to steal his warmth was like a blanket over her shoulders.

”It’s okay,” she says softly, and then, after a hesitation, she adds, ”I’m sorry, too, for getting mad.” She still felt those feelings, though the anger was not as red-hot as it had been. For all her frigid qualities, her temper had a way of flaring, sometimes beyond her control, but it always quieted down – especially when faced with someone she loves. She is sure that this was not the last thing she and her father would not see eye to eye on. They were too similar, with he being quick to react, and her unable to keep from feeding off of it. Maybe as she got older, she would be able to remain calm in the face of agitation, but for now, she was still chaotic, reactive. Like him.

She frowns a little at his question, and she pulls away from him to tilt her head inquisitively, and ask, ”What do you mean?” She pauses to consider it, not entirely sure what he is asking. ”I came from you and...mom?” The perplexion in the way she says it is obvious, reading his reaction, trying to figure out if she was on the right track. ”And I was born in Hyaline.” She blinks up at him, slightly wondering if this was how she was going to find out she was adopted.

chryseis

[Leilan]

Leilan

Glaciers melting in the dead of night
and the superstars sucked into the supermassive

He’s dreading. Stalling. He could have told her right away but had thought perhaps her drawing her own conclusion was better, but... she just didn’t understand. So naive and innocent? Perhaps. He knows, she knows, something must have happened when she was with Rhaegor however. She wouldn’t have told hime that they “didn’t do anything?” otherwise.

Yet.

It was a matter of time and for that, before that, she had to know what could happen if she laid down with a boy. Her being the girl in that situation, she might make his mistakes indeed - and worst case end up like Noori (though that was unlikely, but still the point was she would be the one bearing the consequences whil he himself had taken nothing with him after being with her mother. And others.)

He grimaces a bit, before forcing himself to get to the point. A lecture it would be then - not something she was used to from him, he’d bet. ”That you did.”

A sigh. A pointed stare. Dark blue. ”You exist because your mother had nightmares and ran away. You exist because I provided her a fake safe place, so that I would feel better. You came from a single night of lust and me exploiting her fears and dropping her like a stone off a cliff just the day after. Thát’s where you came from. And you know what? Had I found another the next day you would have had more siblings than you do now. I did it again and again and again,” three times for three more siblings. ” and I didn’t stop until I came back home to Nerine. That’s what I did. That’s what most boys do, but we walk away without consequences. It’s the girls we leave behind that get pregnant, have babies, and need to raise them. It’s the girls who get the troubles from a one-night-stand, Chryseis. Or even from just breaking up. Until you’re certain about your boyfriend being otherwise, I need you to be more careful. You can’t go repeating my mistakes without consequences.” A huff follows. ”You should never have existed, and neither should half your siblings.”

There. Let her have it.

”So if you must go and be an adult, then just go.”
And let that be the end of it. Don’t say I didn’t try to warn you. He can’t protect her. Rhaegor can’t either, like he’d told him in not so many words. But if they want to be adults, then he’ll have nothing to do with it.

Detachment was much safer.

you set my soul alight

HTML by Vanilla Custard

@[Chryseis]

[Chryseis]

you were a vision in the morning
when the light came through,
i know i've only felt religion
when i've lied with you
and i'm still waking every morning
but it's not with you

.

He doesn’t give her enough credit, and she is slowly starting to realize that. She is not like most girls, and she never has been. She does not crumble and break when something upsets or hurts her; she hardens, she becomes something fierce and frigid. While she did not consider her mother weak, she was, in a sense, much stronger than Briseis. Situations that would have caused her mother to withdraw inside herself would have spurred Chryseis into a tumultuous mixture of torrid anger and a heart that runs cold, effectively protecting herself from falling apart.

But she listens to him, silent, letting him speak. He says things that she disagrees with, but her tongue never forms the words to argue. Not until he has finished. She has stepped away by then, and something in her facial expression has shifted. It is not the hot-tempered fury from before, sharp and erratic. It is something cooler, and without even meaning to, the almost invisible shield of her frost aura begins to rise. ”I was never under the impression you were in love with my mother. She never even mentioned you, until the day we saw you at the river. She let you into my life on her terms.”  Here, there is a pause, her shoulders rippling in what could have been a shrug. ”And if it’s so common for boys to get girls pregnant and abandon them, perhaps that’s something the boys should be working on.”

Another step, and the gap between them increases. ”Rhaegor isn’t like that. He’s not trying to do anything to hurt me. But even if that did happen, it wouldn’t be entirely his fault. If I willingly made the choice to be with him, how could he possibly be the only one to take the blame?” Even though her voice is level, even though her features are closed off, there is still a sorrow that flickers faintly in her dark brown eyes when she looks at her father – when she realizes that he truly thought so little of her. ”I love you, and you will always be my father. But I’m going to Tephra.”
With that, she turns, and she takes a few steps towards the Nerinian border. There is a pause, her steps stalling, as she turns her gold-blazed face to look over her shoulder, her dark brown eyes locking with his, ”For what it’s worth, you have hurt me far more than any boy could have ever dreamed of.” And this time when she walks away, she does not look back.

chryseis

[Leilan]

Leilan

Glaciers melting in the dead of night
and the superstars sucked into the supermassive

He stands icy still. Listens to the wave of words - to realize they’re the right words. Adult words, not naive ones like the question she had asked before. Good. He’d forced her to grow up.

She takes steps back, tells him how he hurts her. He doesn’t move, the only indication of something happening is the change in eye colour from the deep dark blue back to an icy colour - pulling out, away. He doesn’t belong in her life. She shouldn’t even love him simply because of the fact they are blood-related. But maybe in time, she’ll let go some more.

When she’s gone, he finally says something, for no-one to hear. ”Good. Get away, and live.” Soft words that she’ll never know about - it’s probably for the best that she’ll never know that this last time, he did it on purpose.

So she wouldn’t linger.

you set my soul alight

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