Dariel entered first, opening the door and meeting Dusk’s happy hops. It looked like a dark mop rebelling against its handler, sprouting a tongue solely to be able to pant. Behind the dog came Sihea, a human tick holding onto the animal’s matted dreads.

“Dad! Dad! Up up!” She gestured with her hands, closing and opening the fingerzss as if to grasp the air once and again

Daried grabbed his daughter from under the shoulders and lifted her up. “Up you go, Darling.”

“Uncle Tedus!” She said when, with her head resting on her father’s shoulder, she saw me following behind.

“No memory issues on your part, little girl.” I tousled the delicated threads on her head, and she giggled.

“Do magic. Bizzard! Boosh!” the little girl elaborated.

I shifted past Dariel and gently tapped Sihea in the back of the head.

She turned scared at first, and then laughed. She began clapping. “Again, again!”

Finally, Orphela came out of the bedroom, dressed in her floral-patterned, worn out bedgown. She didn’t stop yawning. “What’s all the ruckus about?” After seeing me, she revealed her teeth, as if suddenly waking herself up. “What did I tell you the other day.”

Dariel stepped ahead with determination and launched a killer glare towards Orphela. “Stay in the room with Dusk, Love, mommy and I have something go talk about with Terus.”

Orphela growled, “No, the girl stays here and listens whatever you have to tell me, my dear husband.” She said with an affected voice. It was one I had never heard from her, as if it were a thin cloth hiding boiling rage underneath.

I picked up Dusk like Dariel had his daughter. It felt like the right course of action, and the dog wasn’t particularly opposed to it. “It’s licking me,” I decided to inform the obvious. What a fancy creature they had adopted. Maybe its odd behavior would help release the tension in the atmosphere.

“Terus, put my dog back on the ground. Carefully. Don’t drop him,” Dariel said.

I thanked him silently with a single nod for being so specific on the order, and then promptly obeyed. Once on the floor again, Dusk began describing circles while hopping. I took note of it.

Dariel did the same with Sihea and she immediately ran for the dog, as if there was some sort of magnetism pulling child and pet together.

“Can I take Dazz to play oudside?” the child asked. She was not exactly fluent in her native tongue yet.

“You may, love.” said Dariel

“None of that, you are staying here, Sihea!” countered Orphela.

“Is this merely a difference of opinion on how to raise the child or are you weaponizing her against me, Orphela?” I asked with a calm, kind tone.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

That sent her hissing and probably cursing inside. “Get out of my life, Terus, out out out! Haven’t you done enough damage already?”

I had to be honest. “No, I don’t think so.”

Dariel grunted and grabbed the bridge of his nose. “I cannot say what I want to you with Sihea here, Terus.”

“Can we go out?”

“Let her go, Orphela, or your dear daughter is going to learn a new word that will drive both of us mad,” Dariel pleaded.

“Fine, but keep to the house’s yard.”

“Yeppy! Come, Dazz.”

And she marched to the backdoor, while the faithful mound of dog escorted her. As soon as they made sure the girl was playing with the dog among the potted plants, Dariel turned to me. “You retarded son of a retarded bitch.”

Orhphela was more bewildered than I at her husband’s words.

“Darling, there is no need to be foulmouthed with him. I just want him gone from our lives.”

He walked up to her and grabbed her hands at the height of their waists. “Orphela, I, better than anybody, know how much you suffered due to Terus’s absence. But I suffered too, and he suffered too. I took him to his grave, and you know what was his first reaction?”

“Mockery,” she said without a trace of doubt.

Dariel let her go and gave me the cue to answer. “Confusion, then anger. There will come the day when you die, and I don’t see either of you anymore. A day where flowers will rain upon you as they rained upon them. But I will be unchanged. Sourer, dispirited, but still as trapped in my eternal state of being. Dragons live for millennia on end. I will see you die, and I will see Sihea die, and I will see the children of Sihea die, and the children of her children, and so forth. And to have these precious moments with you snatched away due to the whim of my dreamer… let’s just say that it hurt a lot. I have enough with the cumulative loss of the days or weeks when he wakes up, I don’t believe myself deserving of further inexistence.” I began crying once again, and, when I became aware of it, willed the tears away. “Yet, it was not my fault. I am subjected to an higher power you can blame if you want, Orphela , but—”

“And yet you called me fat first thing after meeting me. And know that, had you not vanished, Sihea would have a brother by now!”

“Gods guidance, Orphela!” Dariel strode to my side, and then placed his arm around my shoulders. “You cannot blame Terus for our miscarriage, woman.”

“I can and I will, the truth is the truth is the truth!”

“And the truth is that you put on weight and therefore are now fat.” I calmly told her.

Indignation washed over Orphela’s face and she went silent.

Dariel punched me in the face. It hurt, my nose bled a little until I shifted it back to its normal state.

“Buddy, why are you so adept at persisting in your idiocy? Can’t you lie as I told you to?” once again Dariel tried to persuade me.

Orphela straightened up, eyes opened wide, staring at his husband as a lamb stares at the dragon about to scoop it up from the field.

“Lie? Dariel, do you consider me fat?” She asked after a moment of awkward silence.

“Well love, you see, Terus can lie according to his worldview which I may not share but I nevertheless have to consider when speaking with him.”

“That wasn’t a no, Dariel. How fat am I to you?”

I shifted between them to examine Orphela’s face up close. The question made no sense. “We are not talking something that can vary, Orphela, my dear friend. I have opinions about you: I like how you teach; I think your voice is sing-songy, that I will never understand why you chose Dariel as a mate.”

“Well, thanks, Terus.” Dariel dropped.

“I aim to please, Dariel. One minute.” I answered him with all my sincerity. Now that I know more about men, I think that was an instance of sarcasm on his part. “Orphela, I do not think you have gotten fat. I witness it just as I can witness the arrival of winter.”

Orphela slapped me. “You two are mean. Mean and… mean and right,” she said sniffing. “I will go to the room and oink oink the day away like the sow I have become.”

Then she walked into the bedroom absentmindedly.

“Is this a good or bad outcome, Dariel?” I found myself forced to ask after being unable to accurately judge the situation on my own.

He sighed and then, dragged his feet out the back door. “It’s surely an outcome. Come next week Terus. Do whatever until then. You did enough for this one.”

“But—”

“No buts, Terus. Just go for now. For a while. Go.”