Thunder Disfunction

[faecolors]

[Kellan was feeling listless and uninspired. He and Amalia had mapped a good chunk of Thunder Junction, and for the first few weeks, it had been fun. But now he was restless. He thought he had been ready to settle and rest his feet for a while, but now he wasn't so sure.

He was still looking for his father in strangers' faces, wondering if they were him in disguise. Suppose Oko was missing him as much as Kellan missed him.

Kellan sighs and thumps his head lightly against the cliff's rock face. He rests his head against the warm stone for a moment before pulling back and putting his hat back on.

Amalia had decided to spend the week in a little town with vampires from various planes of the multiverse, those who didn't fit in with the vampires of their plane for one reason or another. Kellan had stayed for a day before feeling restless and deciding to do some scouting ahead. And maybe that had been a mistake, as now he had too much to think about and no one to distract him from his own thoughts.

Allowing himself the luxury of a sigh, Kellan gave his shoulders a roll and summoned his magic, lifting into the air a bit. There was a small cave higher on the cliff face. He could camp there tonight. In the morning, he'd go to a spring and wash up before heading back to the vampire town to see if Amalia was ready to move on or not. If she weren't, well, he'd figure something out.]

Comments

[elking]

A few weeks was nothing, in the grand scheme of things. A drop of water within the tide of the ever-shifting expanse of possibility. Oko had other plans, and with the bickering remnants of his little crew coaxed away from each other's throats and toward more profitable horizons, there was no cause commanding him to stay in Thunder Junction. He could have left already.

The problem was that he didn't want to. A thought kept returning to his mind, unbidden, and he'd turn it over and then cast it out only for it to come fluttering back again, gratingly persistent. Kellan, his son, who wanted so much and understood so little. Whose arrival had somehow come at the perfect time to complicate things beyond even Oko's ability to disentangle the measure of help from hindrance.

He told himself Kellan was safe here, in the lull that came in the wake of the successful — if unsatisfying — heist. He told himself that time would inure the boy to the wounds they had dealt each other with their parting at Maag Taranau...but Oko could feel his own festering even as he considered it.

Discontent had set in him like rot around the splinter of a buried thorn: if he ignored it, the steady sickness of it would madden him. Leave him weak and vulnerable to the callous hunters of the Multiverse. That was unacceptable.

So he lingered.

It had been unsurprising to find the boy had settled under Annie's watchful eye; the two had bonded far too quickly for Oko's liking, and he didn't doubt she would turn her rifle on him the moment he made his presence known. One night he prowled the ranch's boundaries as a coyote, another day drifted overhead as a crow, but he kept his distance out of an abundance of caution — until Kellan left with his new companion.

Someone as young and naive as he was, it seemed, a vampire with a courtly bearing. At least that made them easy to track, careless as they were in their eager adventuring. It could almost be nostalgic, if Oko cared to think of it that way; there were days when he'd observe the two of them in their travels and idly wonder if they were paramours, though the relationship seemed absurdly chaste if it were so.

For a time the bitter ache was almost soothed by this, indulging a strangely fascinated curiosity by simply eavesdropping on the life his son led when he wasn't tying himself in knots around an imagined caricature of his father. Then Kellan's gaze would linger a little too long on a passing stranger, searching, and that ache would come back twisted with something between pity and resentment.

Did he really think it'd be that easy? That he'd catch Oko by surprise again, or that he could outmatch him if he didn't want to be seen? Or did he think if he wished hard enough, he could make his ideal father out of anything he wanted?

It didn't matter much when the stranger was just a stranger, a vampire whose head was turned not by recognition but by the lure of potent and exotic blood. When his real father lingered just at the periphery, committing that face to memory before shifting to follow him from the town.

The open desert provided little in the way of cover, but Kellan hardly made himself inconspicuous with his tendency to lift himself plainly onto the wind at the slightest convenience. Between the two of them, a brassy-feathered hawk alighting at the mouth of his chosen cave to bask in the lateday sun is decidedly subtle.

And a risk, coming this close; the mask would hold, but any turn to draw on his magic would elicit an unmistakable prickle of familiarity. That was the game this time, he'd decided — it wasn't likely he'd need to reveal himself, that Kellan would think much at all of the brief accompaniment before night fell and he could return when the boy had fallen into slumber — but if he did, what did it matter?

For the first time since they'd met, there was nothing and no one else to include in the calculation.

[faecolors]

As much Kellan wished it so, he was not expecting to find his father. He didn't know what to do if he saw his father again. But he knew Oko was not the man he imagined. Perhaps that was unfair of him, but he hoped the man who had once loved his mother would also love him.

He hadn't talked about it with Amalia; he probably should have. The wound was too fresh still to share it with her when she wasn't there. He wanted to move on. And yet he couldn't. The whole thing did make him appreciate Ronald all the more. He had always loved his stepfather, but now he loved him more. Maybe he was homesick. Maybe after mapping out as much of Thunder Junction as possible, he could convince Amalia to go Eldraine with him just for a visit, then come back. Or move onto another plane to explore and map out.

Too many things to think of right now. And he was young. How long was his life expectancy? The faeries of Eldraine were said to be immortal, and Talion had been around as long as human memory. He wondered how long the fae from his father's plane lived. Were they like the high fae? Would he live for centuries? Longer? Good thing his best friend was a vampire then.

He let out a breath, pulled his coat tight around him, and settled against the cave wall, setting his hat to the side. So many questions and so few answers. He needed to be patient. Not one of his best skills, but he could wait. Maybe one day, he would come across the world from which his father came.

He shut his eyes, only opening them when he heard the flap of wings and saw a hawk land at the cave entrance to enjoy the last bit of sunlight. He narrowed his eyes at it for a moment. He had seen hawks throughout the day. Was this one of them? Or the same one all day long?

Kellan knew little about birds. He should have paid better attention to his surroundings, but he had spent most of today in his head. But it was just a hawk—probably. Still, it was a bird of prey, and he didn't feel like having his eyeballs plucked out. "Don't you have a nest you can fly off to?" he asked the bird. His voice was a little rough from not having used it all day. "I doubt I taste that good if you think about eating me. I've always been told I'm all skin and bones."

[elking]

A frankly baffling accusation to level at a three-pound bird that could be easily cradled in the crook of one arm, but the longer he considered it the more Oko supposed it could make sense. Kellan might have learned little of their kind, beyond secondhand stories of knights' hunting raptors, and the ravens that flocked to Eldraine's battlefields were smaller yet far more bloodthirsty.

The boy was right to be suspicious, if wrong about the reason why.

Still, if a bird were capable of expressing something like confusion and disdain with the turn of its head and a slight ruffle in its feathers, it wouldn't be incorrect to say that Kellan's comment elicited such a look — in the brief moment before Oko turned his gaze back down to the shifting shadows on the sands below.

Twilight often stirred the ouphes from their hiding places, regardless of the plane they inhabited, and like many of their kin they were drawn to the presence of greater fae by their very nature.

If nothing else, they were useful little creatures. Obedient and easy to placate. It was the simplest way to keep eyes on a broad range of territory, when he couldn't rely on other arrangements.

[faecolors]

Kellan's still young enough to imagine birds having mortal-like emotions. Besides, hawks have sharp beaks, and chickens have pecked him as a child, and that hurt a lot to a five-year-old.

So he amused himself by imagining that the hawk was giving him an insulted look as if the hawk had better options than a half-human fae boy.

As if agreeing with him, the hawk looked away from him to the ground. Probably one of those better things to eat.

He yawned, put his hat back on, and tipped it to cover his face (the hawk could still decide his eyeballs looked tasty). He took a breath and let it out slowly, letting his body surrender to sleep.

[elking]

There it was, a gangly thing with dull scales and a whiplike tail, crawling out from under the thistle brush before darting across the cooling sand into the shadow of a tall cactus. Oko kept it in his sight, listening to the sound of Kellan's breathing slowly steady to a restful rhythm behind him, before he flexed his wings and took to the air once more.

Kellan could wait, sheltered and sinking further into sleep, while he dealt with the ouphes. Though it struck him as strange to see the boy exhaust himself scouting the desert all day only to bed down without bothering to eat, with only the clothes on his back to ward against the nightly drop in temperature — he was human enough still to suffer such gross discomforts, wasn't he? — Oko decided it was of little concern to him. Either it didn't matter, or the pains of waking cold and hungry would be a firm warning against future carelessness.

He'd return a little more than an hour later, dwelling just long enough to confirm that Kellan remained as he'd left him before the whisper of feathered wings shifted into soft footfalls accented by rattling spurs.

[faecolors]

Ever since being blessed by Hylda, Kellan hasn't been bothered by the cold as much. He still feels it and doesn't like it, but it doesn't cause him as much discomfort.

As for food, he learned how to go without it for a day or two while searching for his father. He's made sure to drink water and has plenty of extra to last him another three days.

His dreams are nothing special, so he doesn't stir much while Oko's gone. With soft rattles of spurs nearing him, though, something inside of him does recognize an intruder, and he stirs; you learned to be a light sleeper when traveling with vampires (sans Amalia and Bartolomé, who had been decent people).

His body sits up a bit, more like jolts up, but his mind isn't quite awake yet and could go back to sleep if Oko kept quiet.

[elking]

The boy had been a light sleeper when they met, something easy to justify then in the presence of unfettered outlaws, his elusive father, a witch and a nightmare mage whose terror still gripped his heart. It's unsurprising that he'd retain the quality when traveling alone. A practicality, the keener sense to have in a world that makes prey of those who trust too easily.

In this moment, his son's wariness is a convenience to Oko as well — enough to draw forth a faint smirk as he reaches for the magic to quell the jackrabbit lurch in the boy's pulse. A dreaming mind is infinitely pliable, but one swaying at the edge of consciousness would be easier to guide to the only subject of particular interest to Oko: himself. He doesn't need to sift through other dreams when he can simply shape them around the fact that he's already here.

So rather than keep quiet, he drapes a gossamer-light haze of dreaming over the boy's thoughts like a shawl, speaking a hushed command in a tone laced warm with honeyed coaxing.

"Go back to sleep, Kellan. There's no need to wake yet."

He could strengthen the spell, press it down on him with smothering force if he needed to, but curiosity stays his hand. The Kellan who came to him weeks ago was eager to please. He left him angry and betrayed. Would he struggle now that his trust had been broken, or was there some part of him still that would surrender willingly to his father's voice?

[faecolors]

"Dad?" Kellan slurred, still half-dreaming. He yawned, so tempted to give into that order, given in a voice warm like his mother's or Ronald's when he has a bad dream.

Oko cared for him.

It was a nice thought, one that stuck out like a thorn. Still, Oko had tried to offer him some connection at the end, didn't he? But Kellan had put the needs of others, the fact that the vault was too dangerous for anyone to have what was in it ahead of his desire to know his father better.

(And for what? Vraska had gotten it anyway, along with the fake-Ashiok)

He teetered, so close to waking, he could slide so easily back into sleep. All he needed to do was decide if his father's voice meant good or ill for him.

[elking]

He put Ral Zarek's word ahead of his desire to know Oko better. Perhaps he'd prefer for the storm mage to be his father?

Something unpleasant crawled through him at the sound of that one word, but he stifled it before it could touch his magic. More importantly, he had his answer: the resistance was passive, hesitant. The boy had almost given in before his thoughts snagged on a worry that was sharp and out of place, an unnecessary doubt giving reluctance a place to flourish.

In an instant, Oko could see the thread connecting it to Kellan's past behavior. Every time he'd spoken up against him. His anger in the vault. It was easy to let his own anger sink back in turn, fading to the depths with such a simple, satisfying revelation.

Humming a short thoughtful note, he crouched before the boy, flexing his fingers against the urge to reach out before beginning to slowly draw power into the spell. Kellan's instincts might have pushed back against a sudden force, but the increasing pressure to succumb lulled with every word Oko spun between them.

"You're hardly awake enough to hold a conversation," he teased, as if the truth of the statement alone made it a compelling reason to obey. "I'll still be here in the morning, but first you need to let go."

As the magic deepened around him, sensation bloomed within the dreaming: cool night air that whispered between the trees, and the scent of nightshade.

[faecolors]

He put the safety of others above his own wants. But no, he didn't Ral as a father. He respected Ral and liked him a good deal, but the storm mage was a grouchy bastard a good deal of the time. (He's told before his marriage Ral was even more of a grouchy bastard, which Kellan can't picture.)

Kellan's body relaxed at the order to let go, and his heart swelled at the promise of his father being there in the morning.

Maybe it's just a dream; wants and desires he hasn't let go of yet. Childish, sure, but still hard to let go. "Kay," he murmured, settling back down, his hat falling off his head. "Kay."

His breathing slowed, and a small smile played across his lips as he slipped back into sleep.

[elking]

Just like that, Oko's hunger was sated for the time being, the taste of even such a small victory sweet on his tongue.

"Of course, you'll have forgotten all of this by the time you open your eyes. But think of it this way: I've spared you the disappointment."

The bare truth of it might have ached if Kellan were conscious to hear it, but the haze clinging to the air revealed Oko's nonchalance for what it was: a simple acknowledgement of fact, devoid of malice or cruelty. He knew a wakeful Kellan's doubt and uncertainty would twist his words before they sunk into him, so he spoke them to his innermost self instead.

In dreams, the heart and mind are open, fertile beds for seeds of inspiration to take root. Kellan wouldn't need to remember hearing them; the idea itself would linger.

"You want to see me, after all." That much was obvious. He'd come so far searching for him, even if it had been with misguided intent. Their conflict hadn't changed that.

Never one to deny himself, Oko finally indulged that curious urge to reach for him, the back of a cold metal nail tracing idly over the arch of the boy's cheek as he continued:

"You want me to forgive those foolish slights, and your betrayal at the vault. So when I come to you..." The nail paused as he lingered on the thought, its tip pressed into the soft flesh beneath a lidded, fluttering eye, and the purr of his voice took a darker tone. "You won't turn away from me."

So it would be, because his will was the stronger between them. He drew his hand away and picked up the hat, setting it back on the boy's head and tipping it to a rakish angle before he bid, "Rest well, Kellan," and generously ensured it.

In the morning, Kellan would wake from the best sleep he'd had in a long, long time, to the warm sunlight and an empty cave, and to the fading, whisper-sweet notes of nightshade and something else he doesn't have a name for.

[faecolors]

Sunlight peeked into the little cave, hitting his foot and slowly warming him up. It wasn't long after that that Kellan began to stir.

He felt rested for the first time since Ravnica, really. Ravnica was a plane mess, but it felt safe there. He stood and stretched, his hat almost falling off, but he caught it in time and secured it. The first order of business was to drink water; the second was to relieve himself. Then, he decided if he wanted to head back to the vampire village or keep exploring.

He pulled his waterskin out, taking a long drink. He'd probably start exploring back toward the town; he had enough water for a few days, but it was better to play it safe when it came to water. His stomach rumbled. It had been a day since he had eaten, and while he did have some dried cheese and sausage, he wanted to hold off on eating until noon.

Letting out a yawn, Kellan prepared to lift off and fly back down to the desert below. He'd relieve himself on a cactus, then go from there.

[elking]

The morning air outside was heavy with the scent of sunbaked sandstone and the bittersweet oils of the cactus flowers, something far from unusual in Thunder Junction, but stark and present in the morning light. Kellan's shadow swept across the cliff face as he descended, and the ouphe peered out from an outcropping at the base of it, tracking his movement with tired, beady eyes until it realized why exactly he'd paused in front of one particular cactus.

Kellan might have had time to finish up and compose himself before screeching creature racing across the sand behind him caught his attention, but probably not. The stooping, lizardlike fink was only about a foot tall at best, and yet the difference in size between them seemed not to register at all to it as it gesticulated in outrage between Kellan and the cactus, shaking its fist while it croaked and chittered in a language that pricked at his ears like he could almost make sense of it.

[faecolors]

(Kellan still got a boyish joy out of urinating on plants. He liked to think he was watering the plants.)

He was tucking himself back into his pants when the ouphe raced by. Kellan stared at it, absently glad that he had finished his business by the time the creature started screaming at him. It would have been mortifying to be yelled while he had his... he decided not to finish that thought and zipped up his pants.

"I was watering it," he said soothingly, offering a sheepish smile. "Water's hard to come by out here, right? I was doing it a favor."

Wait, an ouphe? Here. Probably shouldn't be too surprising, but he hadn't seen one since leaving Eldraine. Didn't they like staying around fae?

[elking]

Saying the ouphes liked staying around faeries (or their vulgar half-human seedlings) was only about as accurate as saying the faeries liked having their boorish and comparatively dim-witted lesser cousins around; they were kin, forced to share nature and the between-spaces they often occupied, but they were also discrete entities.

Kellan had seen faeries living comfortably in the Ravnican ecumenopolis, and it was likely there were as many ouphes just out of sight in the Ixalan wilds. More surprising than it being here, probably, should be the fact that it came out of hiding...but he did just piss on its cactus.

The ouphe glared at him, its scales turning ruddier by the second, and it was probably obvious that it was less appeased by the argument than he'd perhaps have hoped. It dragged its clawed little hands down its long face and stomped in an angry circle, tail lashing as it continued to scrabble in outrage, but despite its huffing and puffing — it wasn't doing anything to him. It clearly wanted to, because it only seemed to hesitate after taking an angry step toward him, but for whatever reason it only tried frustratedly to shoo him away instead of clawing its way up to his face or cursing him with misfortune.

Which was also entirely possible. Kellan was lucky he wouldn't be walking away from this encounter only to blister in his boots or find a hole in his canteen later, given the notoriously spiteful natures of faeries and their kin.

[faecolors]

Ravnica was weird, and he was a bit too busy worrying if vampires would slaughter him to look for ouphes while on Ixalan.

"Okay, okay," he muttered, ensuring everything was in place and comfortable before lifting himself off the ground. "I'm going, I'm going. Should have just peed off the edge of the cliff." This last bit was muttered more to himself.

At least it didn't attack him. Was he growing in power? Or was there something else going on? Something to think about later. Much later. Sighing, he began to fly back towards the vampire town and slightly to the north.

He felt... different this morning. It wasn't lighter. this feeling. But, hopeful? Maybe things would work out if he met his father again, and if he asked for forgiveness, he might get it.

[elking]

The ouphe watched warily as he rose into the air, squinting against the bright blue of the morning sky. It remained where it had been standing until he'd gained a good distance, and then shook its head, casting another disgruntled glance back to the cactus before slinking into the shadow of a different one.

And then another, in the same direction, keeping its gaze overhead as it trailed after him.

Though arid and sparse in vegetation, the jutting mesas and small canyons gouged into the sandstone of the area provided plenty of shade through the late morning, and having a bird's eye view made navigating simpler. Most places water might gather without being baked away by the sun would be deep within caves similar to the one Kellan had rested in the night before, but eventually his eye might be caught by something glistening. Crimson.

The taps and fountains in the town had run the same dark red, slick and heavy in its movement, and though the resident vampires had simply laughed off Kellan and Amalia's confusion — it wasn't blood, no, but it should be safe enough for the human to drink — there hadn't exactly been time to question the nature of it before Amalia had been swept away in the camaraderie of her kindred.

Of course, Kellan had plenty of time to investigate now if he was curious. He could see the fissure where it seeped down the rock was painted just as deeply red as the water in the town's fountain, but approaching to examine the large pool below — gathered between the stone, settling just deep enough to be sheltered from the majority of the sun — would reveal a curious quality: whatever gave it that rich color seemed to sink down to the bottom, gathering dark, almost black in its depths, becoming a lighter red until it left only a pinkish tinge across the clear, undisturbed surface.

[faecolors]

Kellan had wondered where the red water of the vampire town (what was its name again? It sounded like a Ravnican name) was from. And here, it looked like the source.

He landed by the pool and crouched down. It smelled a little like blood. He dipped a finger in it. He learned on Ravnica that human blood had iron in it. One of the detectives had been in the Simic Combine before joining R.A.M.I. and acted as the Agency's medic. He wondered if vampires had a problem retaining iron, which was why they drank it. He hadn't had a chance to ask Amalia before. If he remembered later, he'd ask.

He put his finger in his mouth and made a face at the metallic taste. Like the vampires had said, drinking in small quantities shouldn't be harmful. Especially since it seemed like the heavier bits of iron seemed to settle at the bottom. If that's what it was.

He straightened, looking towards the source of the water. He wondered why the iron was in the water. Was there an iron deposit or something?

[elking]

If he remembered later. Didn't he trust his own memory?

A raven waited on the outskirts of Bloodwell. It perched, watching the road with intelligent eyes and something stark and red hanging from its beak. When Oko paused below it and glanced up from under the thorned brim of his hat, offering an expectant hand, it rumpled its feathers and dropped the cold remainder of a salamander onto his open palm.

The clue was as useful as it was unpleasant. Letting it fall to the sand, he turned north and shifted midstep into a form that would carry him more swiftly across the desert sky.

Meanwhile, Kellan's investigation of the hidden spring wasn't entirely unobserved. As he turned his attention to the wall of stone the water seemed to bleed from, that same ouphe slunk under the shadow of an arch behind him. Weary, and in not much better of a mood than before, it plopped onto the sand behind a decently-sized rock and peered over the edge at him.

[faecolors]

Lifting back into the air, Kellan went over the cliff face that the water seemed to be coming from.

The iron smell was stronger here. Probably, the iron deposit was in it. How and why that worked, Kellan didn't know, and if he was honest, he didn't care. He figured the vampires probably benefited from the iron if they wanted to be vegetarian. Or something?

Didn't matter. What mattered was that it gave the town its bloody name - Bloodwell! That was it! Why did he think it was Ravnican sounding?

Well, the Cult of Rakdos did like their blood theme.

Anyway, if he told people of the possible iron deposit, a mine would be set up before you could blink.

[elking]

How industrious. Perhaps Kellan was more suited to Thunder Junction than any of them had thought; a little iron baron in the making.

In truth it probably wouldn't even surprise Oko all that much. He didn't doubt the boy's capability, or that he might achieve whatever end to which he turned his willfulness and ambition. To be clever is a hungry thing, and Oko didn't need to spare time searching for himself within the boy when that restlessness alone was familiar. It should have been enough to take the vault.

It would have been, if it hadn't been misdirected.

Kellan could have moved on before the fey found him, but why bother? The breeze was cool, and the stone provided plenty of shade from the high sun. He might not have been able to deduce much about the veins that drew the spring up to the surface, from here, but its impact on the immediate environment left more to consider.

Sharp plants with roughly serrated edges. The odd glimmer of a beetle with a metallic carapace in the sand.

If he dared to reach into the water he might catch one of the little red salamanders slipping between the rocks, or find that the darkness at its depth curled upward like tendrils of smoke diffusing their colour back toward the surface when disturbed.

[faecolors]

It was oddly beautiful in a slightly macabre way, and the way life had adapted around it was strange but also beautiful.

If he ever made it back to Ravnica, he'd have to ask the former Simic detective more about evolution.

Settling down on a rock, Kellan sat cross-legged, watching and making notes about the critters that made the area around the spring home. He smiled softly as he remembered being a child and chasing the salamanders and frogs around the pond.

"What a wonderful plane this is," he murmured. "So much to discover."

[elking]

The scene awaiting him was almost a kind of picturesque: Kellan lingered near the water's edge, scribbling away in an open journal and all but radiating a soft contentment that something in Oko felt ambivalent to disrupt. Unable to identify the source of the feeling, he allowed himself to examine it only as long as it took to descend on silent wings, turning his attention fully outward as he rolled to shift from his temporary form just before its talons met with stone.

He might have gone unnoticed for however long it took him to grow bored of his observation. Or for Kellan to look up across the spring, perhaps alerted by the subtle brush of feather and fabric in the quiet air. By the reflection of a silhouette on still water. By the sensation of being watched weighing more palpably on him than it had previously throughout the morning.

Either way, Oko lounged on the slight shelf of the cliff face as though it were a throne made for him, chin propped in the palm of one hand and a leg dangling idly over the edge above the pool as he looked down at the boy. His presence was sharp and timeless and predatory, sunlight caressing the silversheen of his bared skin as gently as it had the brassy feathers of a hawk the day before.

[faecolors]

Kellan's notebook was full of scribbled notes and drawings. He wasn't the best artist, but he enjoyed his doodles.

He was about to close his notebook when he saw the silhouette of a hawk. He looked up, hoping a feather would fall from the sky as it passed over him. But it didn't.

It was Oko.

Kellan didn't know what to do. He was glad to see his father was okay after the brush-up with Vraska. Swallowing his nerves, he stood, looking at his father. "Hello, Father," he said, his voice cracking slightly.

He felt shame and hope equally. Shame for his betrayal and hope for his father's forgiveness. Surely, his father would see he wanted to protect others, but that didn't mean he didn't value him.

[elking]

Kellan's demeanour changed, as he expected it would, becoming tense and uncertain the moment he laid eyes on Oko. What he hadn't expected was the way it persisted, meek, almost timid as the boy stood to address him; had he been mistaken, walking away from Maag Taranau thinking the son who sought him had ever been anything but a helpless fawn?

No. He'd seen that defiance, and the cradle of his heart still ached with injury where Kellan struck him. The boy didn't know what he was doing. That didn't make him innocent, and it didn't make him harmless. So Oko's gaze remained impassive and unyielding as he allowed Kellan the opportunity to meet it. The choice to approach his son devoid of the most superficial of masks was a minuscule concession to the fact he'd seen past them once before.

He didn't conjure a smile to soften his expression or put the boy at ease. When he spoke, it was in a voice unheightened by any theatricality.

"You're a long way from your friends, Kellan."

His words were always deliberate, placed with intention. Of course he knew this could sound like a threat, to distrustful ears, but the statement also implied a question. It suggested he knew where those friends were, beyond the distaste for the word on his tongue, as much as that he was aware of Kellan's movement. It asked, Why aren't you there with them? Why are you alone?

He'd get more than one answer, however Kellan interpreted it.

[faecolors]

"We've parted ways for the moment," Kellan answered. And he was glad it was just him and his father, no one else here. It meant they could talk. And things wouldn't devolve into violence. The tone of Oko's words made him think there were layers to the question.

He closed his eyes, breathed deeply, squared his shoulders, and looked at his father again. "I had hoped to run into you again," he said. I didn't expect to be so soon, though."

He studied his father's face, so blank. A mask his father had put on so that he couldn't guess what his father was thinking. Okay.

"I am glad to see you," he said, smiling. "We should talk. I have food; we can eat together."

His smile was a little shakier than he'd like. He was nervous. He wanted this to go well. He wanted to know his father, be in his father's life, and have Oko in his life. But he was putting on a good front. He had no doubt his father could see through it. But, if he didn't try, didn't hold out his hand, make the offer of an olive branch, he wouldn't get what he wanted.

And he wanted to know Oko.