Mothers and Fathers are equally likely to leave their household to either adventure, work, or anything else. It is common for the leaving parent to be intimate with another person during their travels, but it is also common for the parent staying with their children to become intimate with a neighbor during that time. They are, however, expected to leave their lover once the two halves of the marriage reunite.
P.S. Look, I don’t get it either. Sure, there are plenty of civilizations that practice polygamy, but this just takes it to a whole new level of trust. I have seen no civilization out there that puts as much trust in their fellow people like these guys do. It’s kind of beautiful, in some sort of debauched way.
-Report of %^#^(#!@, seer of $!(_(!$_##*
*=====*
Fanrik Notchings was a patient man. Most of the time. The days before were certainly not one of those times. After hearing the news of a Hive in the Vast Dust, he rushed back home to check on his wife and daughter. For some reason that eluded him as he sat there, in that sandstone hall waiting for any of the big players to make their appearances, he took along a friend he had made out in the charred fields beyond the wall, Juka.
He sighed to himself, ‘I must be the worst husband ever… this is the second time something like this happened,’ he thought. After the incident with Atuk, that chimeric woman who had made him want to protect her, he had sworn to not bring any other companion back to his little homestead in the sands.
He looked towards the lizardman woman and tilted his head a bit, “So, you really think we can get important info from here?” he asked Juka. He had his doubts. Putting aside the numerous joke scenarios one could make light of, the room was filled with wandering mages, Hunter captains, and would soon be occupied by the representatives of every city in the Vast Dust.
Juka shrugged, “Dunno, honestly. But hey, it’s better to hear about this stuff now than to hear it later when we come back,” she said. He was about to question how she knew he would come back, but she gave him a chilling smile, “You will come back, right?”
Fanrik sighed, “Fine, fine, I was planning on it, anyway. But seriously, where the hell are they?”
Raising half her brow, Juka leaned forward, “Okay, what's with that thing you keep saying? What’s ‘hell?’” she asked. For a moment, Fanrik smiled before looking around the room. No one was paying them any attention, so he leaned forward.
“Keep this under wraps, alright?” she nodded, “Good. My great something grandfather was actually an otherworlder, from his planet called Earth. Apparently, he was a part of this fringe religion called christianity, and it was being eradicated. Something about men of the north spreading mythology of some sort or other. It was kind of weird. Stories about it were passed down from generation to generation through my family.
“Well, knowing what I do about the Creators, it’s all not real, but the gist of it was that bad people were sent to hell to be punished. Or to redeem themselves. Even with just a few thousand believers, back then, opinions were divided. Well, either way, I still get an advantage from it.”
“And what’s that?” Juka asked.
“Neither me nor my daughter have to spend a Trait slot on [Sole-mana Casting]. It’s a perk that comes with being the something-something-great grandson of a otherworlder. It’s nice, I think.”
“Sounds like it. I’ve never bothered with magic; too complicated, too much thinking. I prefer to do things the old-fashioned way.”
“By what?” Fanrik asked, “By burning it?” Juka gave a serious nod, and just when Fanrik was about to say something about her problem-solving skills when the door to the hall opened and a procession of people filed in. Most of them were like the other mages and Hunters in the room, going to one of the peripheral tables, but another, smaller group made their way to the table.
Something that Fanrik noticed, however, was that there were two oddly-dressed people in the group at the table. One wore a full set of odd, green armor whose metal was completely unknown to him, with carvings that were both familiar or foreign, and the other wore a standard mechanic outfit, but with a mask on her face. As they passed through, he noticed one stare at him for a while, but was brought to the table by her friend.
After a great deal more waiting, the other big players got together and they began the meeting. That was when the first of surprises hit him. It was when the masked woman introduced herself as Fara Notchings. His daughter.
Juka eyed him for a long moment, but he was far too shocked to reply. That was when the second surprise revealed herself. The armored figure with his daughter revealed herself to be a lich. Fanrik hoped to the Creators that there was some sort of joke being played on him, but the meeting went on as if the two surprises never happened.
Then came the third surprise; the lich said hell. She was an otherworlder. He could tell that Juka did not notice her verbal slip, but he most certainly did. He would have to learn about that. After he caught up with his daughter.
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Though he felt a bit numb to it all, he forced himself to pay attention to the meeting. Good plans were made, even for a group of people not used to fighting against Clockworks, and he sighed as everyone began filling out of the meeting hall. That was when the lich appeared at his table. “It’s good to finally meet you, Mr. Notchings. My name is Mori Athanatos,” she said with a grin on her skeletal face.
He looked at her, then to his daughter following beside her, with her silver, nervous eyes, and knew that she was his daughter. He stood and took her in a crushing hug, taking her by surprise, “I’m so glad you’re alright…” was all he said.
After a long moment, he heard a cough from the side. He turned to see the lich grinning at him, “I hate to break this up, Mr. Notchings, Fara, but we should probably go back to the Kharon; you can talk there,” she said, pulling the two along. He briefly glanced to Fara, gauging her reaction, but what he found was far different from what he expected.
His daughter had always been the lonely type— the fact that she had never had any friends as a child did not help in that regard— and he doubted she would be entirely fine with touchiness. Perhaps tolerate it, but not feel fine with it.
In spite of that, she had a gleam in her eyes that told him so much. The two trusted each other to the extreme. It was not love, but it was just as profound; such blind trust was rare no matter where one was. There had been some issue with the mail over the preceding months, so he may have missed a letter from his wife, but he wondered what had happened to make them trust each other so much.
He was dragged along through the inner parts of the Base Camp until they reached one of the wall-docks. He was led aboard the skiff and he was, while not floored, impressed by what he saw. It was a walled skiff, something he knew only his daughter with the dream of making the next moving fortress would do, with towers on both he bow and stern of its length, with what seemed to be large-caliber lever guns placed in a crude dorsal turret.
What impressed him more, however, was the mana he could taste and smell all around him. He had, after marrying Molly, chosen a different Variant from his [Otherworlder Blooded Human] birthvariant. The new one was called [Mana-Mind Human], which gave him more instinctual control over the two mana senses he developed: smell and taste.
All around him, he could feel the electric hum of power. It seemed to come from the lich, but there was more there as well. His daughter had a multitude of mana-smells clinging to her as if she had just left a smoking room of the Sugal Empire.
He could smell basic, bland manas like movement manas, but he could also smell the earthy scents of her special earth mana, as well as some other ones. There was something like a flame mana, an air or wind mana, and some mana that smelled to him like a mana of purity or protection.
He also noticed a few undead mulling about. Instead of them being zombies, however, he could tell that they were death knights. The lich had mentioned that she had eleven death knights, a number that would get any other necromancer laughed out of the room, at her disposal, but he was far too occupied to recall it before then.
One of them glanced their way out of the corner of her eye and smiled. Fanrik was reasonably unafraid of undead after his extensive cooperation with necromancers, but looking up at the tall, disfigured undead in front of him was a different experience entirely. What was also interesting was the fact that they did not seem to be struggling against the will of the lich at all. In fact, they seemed entirely relaxed. Normally, a necromancer would need to keep their undead under control, lest the forces that drove them back from the grave control them instead, but he saw none of that in them.
“Hey there, mistress,” one of them said. She was a tall one, with a heavily armored robe hanging off her body, a perpetually vigilant expression, “Who did you bring back this time?”
The lich laughed, leaning against the barrel the two other undead used while dragging him forward, “We found Fara’s dad!” she said with pride. He noticed out of the corner of his eye that Fara was trying to hold back her laughter, “And this other lady!”
Juka, who had been following them the entire time, gave a flat look, “I have a name, you know.”
“As do I, but I never caught your name, so… you know,” the lich replied.
The lizard woman nodded slowly, “I suppose you didn’t. Juka Belks. You said your name was Mori Athanatos? Odd name. I’ve never heard something like it before.”
The lich smiled, “Ah, that’s actually because-” Her words were cut off as a deafening, low-pitched siren blared through the air. Fanrik and Juka barely flinched, neither the lich nor her undead flinched at all, but Fara nearly fell in shock. Before he could even begin rushing to his daughter, the lich dashed over and gave her a side-hug, comforting her.
“Idle, Fury, you two get the others. Aerolat,” she said to the open air, “You keep the other passengers safe here. If they want to fight, tell them to fight with the other soldiers.” She reached behind her, into the black cloak that flowed behind her, and pulled out a mass of slime, wriggling slightly.
As her death knights ran off, she pulled away from Fara, “Are you alright?” she asked.
Fanrik’s daughter nodded, “Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine. I just got startled.” Her words inspired a laugh from the lich, “What?”
“Oh, it’s just that I’ve never seen you get startled. You’re always on top of things.”
Fara smirked, “I try.” She turned to him and Juka, remorse on her face, “Dad, I know we haven’t seen each other in a while, but we have to go deal with that. Come on, I’ll show you to the workshop while I get my rifle.”
Fanrik nodded reluctantly. He wanted to stop her from going into battle with all of his heart, but his baby girl always had her mother’s eyes, and he could see the blaze of determination in them. He could never deny his wife when he saw that, and it seemed he could not deny his daughter either.
The lich smiled at them, lowering her faceplate, “Well, while you two do that, I’m going to get my guys ready. I’m sure they could do with a bit of experience,” she said as she ran off down below. Fara smiled in the lich’s direction and led him and Juka down below.
He decided that, whatever had happened, he was proud of his daughter for becoming so responsible. The only thing he could regret as a parent was that he missed so much of it.