by Loki Renard
“Her eyes are blue,” he says. So he did notice her.
“In color, yes, but in shape and expression, they’re yours.”
He looks at me with an expression rarely seen on his shrewd face. He looks completely and utterly flummoxed. I’d laugh, if he didn’t also look like he was about to, as the humans would say, lose his shit.
“She’s mine? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I… was angry. And scared. I thought you’d done it on purpose, left me there, and I didn’t know that you wanted her. When you looked at her, you didn’t recognize her. I didn’t want to tell you and have you reject her.”
“Why would I reject my blood? Do you think so little of me, Raine?”
“I thought you had abandoned us. I was tired, exhausted from surviving. I have looked after her on my own for years, and I didn’t know… I was protecting her.”
He nods slowly. “Is there anything else I should know? Who is the human male who was…”
I know exactly who Tanuk is asking about.
“That’s Magellan. And you should restore his memories. I know you can. Sapphire will be very sad if she doesn’t have her Magey as bodyguard. You owe him her life, and mine. That man put himself before us and took the brunt of Entity’s wrath more than once.”
“So he loves you.”
“Not that way, Tanuk.”
“Why would he do that if he did not love you?”
“He is not capable of the physical love you speak of. Entity gelded him. It does so to almost all males. It is supposed to make them more compliant.”
“Gelded? As in…”
“Magellan is a eunuch. He cannot have offspring of his own. He cannot make love to a woman. But he offered his body for us. He put his life on the line for us. Time after time, though it would have been easier not to. I could not have raised Sapphire on my own. It took many others. You have a lot of humans to thank for us being here today.”
There is more silence. I lie back and wait for Tanuk to process all he has heard. I suspect it will take some time. I have had a decade to come to terms with all that has happened. He has barely had a minute.
“I think I should meet this daughter of mine,” Tanuk says. “I will come back to the golden palace. Helios and Ragnar can attempt to sway the humans to their worship if they wish. I doubt it will be terribly effective. I was the one who brought you to the planet, and I was the one who saved them all. If Helios and Ragnar believe they are owed allegiance by these little humans, they are wrong. These people know who saved them.”
It is typical for a god to worry about the dynamics of power. I could get angry at him, but there is no point. Tanuk has been wrapped up in these games for far longer than I have been alive.
“I don’t care,” I say, bluntly. “Worship doesn’t matter. Family does. Your daughter has been waiting her entire life to meet you.”
He smiles at that thought. “Yes. My daughter.” He kisses me deeply, and thoroughly, reassuring me that perhaps he does care. Maybe he will be a father to Sapphire, albeit a latecomer.
When our lips part, he has just a few more words to say. “The power here is all yours to do with as you see fit. Don’t let your fathers use you as a pawn. They did not lift a finger to save any people on that horrible little planet, they were happy to let them die in all the ways you know Entity kills them.”
“That is true,” I admit.
“When I have met my daughter, I want you to both come here and live with me.”’
“I can’t agree to do that… not yet, anyway,” I say. “Sapphire doesn’t know you. She has to be happy.”
“How hard can making a little human happy be?”
“She’s not human. She’s more god than I am.”
13
Raine
If there is anything more awkward than having the god who stole you away from your parents ten years ago come back to meet the love child he failed to recognize as his own, I am yet to experience it.
To say the reception when we come off Tanuk’s vessel is frosty is an understatement. The sky turned dark and the air became cold, and the humans who gathered around to welcome us have begun to shiver.
My fathers reclaimed them, but seem to have left them on the beach again. It occurs to me that Tanuk is right. My fathers might love me, but they treat the humans from Earth like nothing more than pawns. They have no food. No shelter. At least on Tanuk’s island they had the basics covered. They may have been forgetting everything they had been through thanks to his enchanted fruits, but it is better to lose memory than it is to starve in paradise.
I was on Tanuk’s island for just over a day and already they are in dire condition. It looks to me as though they have been left out in the elements to fend for themselves.
“Raine! Please! Mercy!” They run to me and beg me for help. “We are hungry! Feed us! We are cold. Clothe us!”
I am deeply ashamed. Where is my mother? Where are my fathers? Where are all those who should care for these people as I do? I have spent so much time trying to save these people, but Ragnar and Helios see them as poor livestock at best.
“Tanuk, get some clothes on them,” I order.
He raises a brow. I guess he's not used to taking orders, but I have become accustomed to giving them, so that’s something we’re going to have to work out.
I storm to the gates of the golden palace, Tanuk trailing in my wake. The walls open just as I arrive, and Helios and Ragnar step out to greet us. I notice that they are both wearing shining armor. I have never seen either of them prepared for war before, but there is no doubt that the gleaming breastplates and pauldrons spell anticipation of trouble. I know instantly why they are dressed that way. They are planning an attack. That means they were going to come for Tanuk. Kill the man I love, the father of my child, because they feel he took something from them. To them, I am still little more than a possession, and these people of mine, they are even less.
“Why is he here?” Ragnar growls the word over my head.
“Why are they hungry!?” I point back toward the people on the beach.
Helios answers me in that tone he always used when I was young, that fatherly lilt in which he explains how cruelty is actually secretly kindness.
“Humans are more likely to pray when they need something. You can't have them satisfied. You need to keep them wanting more. We decided to let them beg for everything to increase their belief so…”
“You’re an asshole. You’re both assholes.” I growl the words into Helios and Ragnar’s faces.
I turn to my people. Not Tanuk’s humans. Not Helios and Ragnar’s pawns, my people, and I do what I have done hundreds of times before: direct them to safety.
“Go back to the ship,” I shout to them. “We will return to Tanuk’s isle soon.”
They do not need to be told twice. They take the strange array of clothing Tanuk has given them, none of it coherent, from the same period of time, or even in remotely the same style. My hungry people board his vessel wearing top hats and tails, party dresses, one of them appears to be dressed in a golden leotard. Another stamps up the gangplank in waders and a tutu. As always, Tanuk has followed the letter of the thing, rather than the spirit of it. I will deal with that later.
Having loaded the humans, Tanuk strolls up to stand by my side. For the second time in as many days, I am facing down someone I love and yelling at them. This is starting to be a habit. First I yell at Tanuk because my fathers say he is evil, then I return to yell at them because it turns out they’re not exactly wonderful either. I would love to just be able to rest for one single day.
“So this is how it is. You take our daughter, turn her against us, and claim the humans for your own?”
Ragnar is not talking to me. He is talking to Tanuk, who has not said a single goddamn word since we made land, and yet is somehow being both credited and blamed for what is happening.
He is right, I realize. My fathers regard me as a pawn. They know I am older n
ow, but they do not understand how the life I lived on Earth has changed me.
“He does nothing!” I exclaim. “I do something! I saved these people. Guarded these people. I brought them here, and I will take them back if I please. Tanuk is not your problem, fathers. I am.”
“Raine…”
“Why are you dressed for battle? Were you intending on attacking Tanuk the moment I had returned? Is your thirst for revenge so great you could not leave him be? He has never attacked you.”
“He took you,” Ragnar growls. “That is enough.”
“He is the father of my child. The love of my life. He is everything. You harm a hair on his head and you will feel my wrath, father. I can assure you that I have developed a great deal of it over the last decade.”
They do not look surprised to hear that Tanuk is Sapphire’s father. Everybody seems to have surmised it the instant they saw her. Everybody but Tanuk himself, who seems to have a blind spot where she is concerned.
“Where is Sapphire?”
“She is inside with your mother and your sister.”
“Bring her out here. It is time she met her father.”
“Raine, sweetheart…” Helios tries again.
“Do not sweetheart me,” I growl. “I have done what you have not for thousands of years. I have fought battles on Earth. I have been wounded. I have healed. I have earned my right to stand on Okeanus and be treated as an equal. You will not take my people. You will not use them for your own means. And you will not prepare for war against Tanuk, unless you also intend to wage that war against me.”
Tanuk
By the gods, she is impressive.
She is the strongest little thing I have ever seen. I was right when I first met her. Ragnar’s blood runs thick in her veins. She is not a warmonger, but she will defend those she considers family with ferocity greater than any god who seeks mere power.
I watch my innocent girl turned lioness snarl and stare down those who bred her. And I watch them come to a rather delayed realization. Their girl is grown, and she is powerful in her own right. More powerful than either of them, in fact.
Helios looks over her head at me. I see his eyes flash with white fire because he knows she is mine. I have not only claimed his innocent princess, I have been given her heart. While all Okeanus fawned over the golden twin, I saw the value in the shadows. I told him a long time ago he owed me a debt. I now consider that debt paid in full, exacted not by me, but by his own blood. The bad god has won. And now the golden king must accept defeat or see his family torn apart.
“Bring me my daughter," Raine demands. “We are leaving.”
“Raine, please.”
Ever the peacemaker, her mother makes an appearance, pushing the two armored gods aside as if they were nothing more than silk curtains. A human, once loved by the divine, is stronger than any god. Rael understands that. I think Raine does too.
“Don’t be angry,” she says, taking Raine’s hands in her own. “I told them not to do these things, but they don’t listen. They obsess over what they think is power. But they love you, and so do I. Bring Tanuk in. It is time he met his daughter.”
Raine
My fathers are still ready to kill Tanuk, even as we stand in the foyer of the palace. He is beside me, apparently unconcerned by the threat to his life. I like to think that is because seeing Sapphire is more important to him than anything else, and maybe it is. But it could just as easily be his natural arrogance, which means he fears nothing.
“He has no right,” Ragnar growls. “Sapphire does not need him.”
Helios and Ragnar have removed their armor, but their dispositions are not greatly changed. They do not like Tanuk being here, walking boldly over the threshold without taking any form other than his own. He has a right to be here now. He is family. Their family.
“Of course she does,” my mother soothes him.
My father, Ragnar, has surprised me greatly. I thought he would be the last to bond with my daughter, but he was instantly protective the moment he saw her. Sapphire has fallen in love with them too. There is something about blood connection which even a child raised on a brutal planet can understand. I used to wonder if everything Sapphire was living through would break her in some fundamental way. I tried to shield her from the worst of it, but she picked up on the little things we couldn’t hide. The people who didn’t come back, those who did so were often injured. The shortages of food. The difficulties of… I try to put it out of my mind.
“Sapphire does need him,” I say, gently. “She needs to know who she is. There is a lot of Tanuk in her. If you love her, then you love part of him.”
Ragnar growls, even as Tanuk smiles.
“Poetic and true,” he says. “You cannot keep me from my daughter, Ragnar. And if you were to try, I would turn your tree into matchsticks.”
“Careful, lesser god,” Ragnar snarls. “You were bound with chains once, and you can be again.”
It seems for a moment as though the latent war is about to break out all over again, but the tension is shattered when Sapphire enters the room. She is wearing a golden dress, her dark hair cascading over her shoulders in ringlets. She has her father’s face. His eyes. His nose. His chin. And especially, his smile.
Unfortunately, that smile fades when she sees Tanuk.
“What is he doing here?” She points at him. “I don't like him.”
“Why not, sweetheart?”
“Pretty granddaddy told me he was a bad god.”
It would seem that pretty granddaddy is her name for Helios.
It turns out that she refers to them as pretty granddaddy and growly granddaddy. The names are apt.
“Did he?” I look at Helios. “What else did he say?”
“He said that soon the bad god would be gone and then me and you, mommy, we’d live here forever and ever inside this palace, and that I’d be his princess and I’d never leave, not for any reason ever.”
“Did he.” I shoot a harsh look at Helios. He still doesn’t truly understand what has happened. Not enough time has passed for him. I have to keep reminding myself that to him, I was only just stolen away as a teenager. He doesn’t know me anymore. His desire to hide Sapphire away as I was hidden away is probably his way of trying to return to a past which no longer exists. He is not going to get his way.
“Uh huh. He said that the bad god was a no good, son of a…”
“Sapphire, that’s… that’s enough.” I stop myself from lecturing her about rudeness. Lessons about manners are something for another time. Now is about rebuilding our family.
But how do I tell her this news? She has never really asked about who her father is. The humans on Earth never had the chance to form family units, so she only barely has the conception of what a father even is. I don’t know that my words will mean anything. But I have to try.
“Baby, this is your father,” I explain gently. “He’s not a bad god.”
She stares at him for a long moment with her big, blue eyes, then turns and looks at me.
“I don’t like him.” Sapphire makes her pronouncement with the certainty only the young have.
Ragnar and Helios smirk openly. I swallow, and glance at Tanuk, whose expression remains impassive.
“Well, that’s a feeling shared by quite a few people,” I tell her. “But I think you might start to like him after a while. He likes tricks. Just like you do.”
“He does?” She brightens a little.
“He loves them. Why don’t you show him yours.”
Tanuk
Raine is embarrassed because of the small one’s rudeness, but it does not concern me. What does concern me is the fact that I do not see much of myself in the girl. She is the spitting image of her mother. There is much humanity in her. I can see that in her eyes, suspicious and distrustful. I cannot blame her. After all she must have seen in her short life, I doubt she can truly trust anyone or anything.
“Sapphire will have more power than I do wh
en she is grown,” Raine says, ever the proud mother. “A full god and a demigoddess make for a much more blessed child.”
Blessed? I do not know about that. She has lived the formative years of her life, the magic nine, away from all she should have known. I am a stranger to her. And, sadly, she is a stranger to me. Already her grandfathers have been planting the seeds of poison. I have no doubt they intended to remove me from Okeanus, to kill, or banish me. Raine has prevented that for the time being, but I will never rest easy in their company.
The child is still staring at me. I suppose I should say something. I do not know how to speak to small humans. The way they look at one is so naturally piercing. Adult humans see everything through the lens of their own experience. Young ones see what is actually there, and I have never been comfortable being seen. My powers depend on deception.
“Hello, small human,” I say, extending my hand toward her. Sapphire is not sure what to do with it. Clearly that method of greeting has passed people by, replaced by some modern version of, well, I imagine, running and screaming from mechanical flies.
“You shake his hand,” Raine prompts the small dark haired girl. “It’s an ancient form of greeting.”
Sapphire lifts her hand toward mine. Her grip is reluctant. She seems shy and weak and small. I find myself doubting again that she is in fact mine. She seems all human to me. If she were truly mine, I would recognize something in her. I would feel something, surely.
Our hands part. She pushes hers into the pockets of her dress and looks at me with a surly expression.
"You did that wrong.”
“I did what wrong?”
“Shake my hand again,” she says. This time, I see an expression behind her eyes, a fleeting mischief. She’s up to something.
I offer my hand out of curiosity. She takes it and squeezes as hard as she can. A bolt of electric sensation shoots through my hand as I contact some little device hidden in her palm. I drop Sapphire’s hand in surprise and watch as her reserved expression crumbles into laughter.
