The couriers guild was the organization most affected by what happened and while I was convalescing, five of their members had been found missing. They were presumed to have been already dead, and replaced by agents of the Red Fang. It wasn't that they could just walk on to the job but they needed a long term solution.

I had to admit that I felt a bit responsible for them victims. None of them deserved what had happened to them. Therapy was helping most of them but I was getting back to the old social workers way of thinking.

A little bit of money would fix a lot of their problems. Some intractable problems might remain, but not having to worry about the roof over ones head or where ones next meal would come from. I had hoped that the systemic problems that I had dealt with on earth wouldn't have followed me here, but at least with the power I had, I could do something about it.

This brought me to me new private client. The Taoists had heard on the grapevine about the cohort of Moon clan cultivators that had surpassed all expectations and they were ready to get a bite of this sloppy Joe. This and my spirit beast had brought me to the prop section of the Taoist compound. It was, if there were to be believed, the best place to setup stage makeup and hair, and due to the mid day timing, empty.

Old set pieces that looked anywhere from drab to fancy in a rainbow of colors, mostly purple, surrounded us. Yellowing advertisements for past performances dotted the walls, making this place seem like the second trophy room of family already overflowing with accolades. A clan wasn't just a family though as this would just be the Jin clan's holdings. The Sect itself was a mashup of several related theatre families that all loved the scene and had over time all signed on to the same ideal.

Jin Martin was the first man they had sent me. A tall, thin wiry man, he wore his robes like a blanket. He did the same thing that Moon Fei did a lot, crossing his arms inside of his robes when he was trying to relax.

"Joe, I'm struggling because my father is impossible to communicate with. A lot of times, I think that I'm the father and he is the child. It's like he joined the theater as a kid and never stopped being that kid. I keep telling him that I need him to take me seriously and not speak in a character voice and he just doubles down."

"What you have here," I told the man, "Is someone that with low emotional intelligence. He is committed to misunderstanding you. Let me ask you a question. If you were taking people on a hunting party, would you take your father?"

"No. He wouldn't listen. He might wander off in the middle and we would lose him."

"That could be intentional. There's a time to indulge oneself but while you're on an important mission, that is not the time."

"But I really-" Everything he was holding up with his shoulders dropped.

"You have to think about the father that you want and the father you actually have. These are two different men. The man that you want, he isn't really there. He doesn't exist. What does this mean for you?"

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He took a long pause as he reset himself, his thick robes looking comfortable in the way that itchy clothes had to be. He definitely didn't have sensitive skin.

"It means that he's not going to be the father I need."

"He can't be the father you *WANT* him to be. He still can be something in your life."

"I don't need a jester. I need a father."

"Can you you of any men that have these qualities that you wish your father had?"

"I don't even know how this is helping me but sure, I uh always admired the emperor as a character. I think that he is fair and strong, or at least that is how he is always portrayed. My father played him a lot on our last season. The stage hands-there is a family that just works on the set and with the props, the father there, Jun he is, well he is the one that put me up to this. Him and his two sons, they're- they have the close bond that I want with my father."

"It's really tough when people don't live up to what we know they could. Especially when they have a job as a parent to provide and protect you. I used to think that I had to do everything for my girls but do you know what the end game of raising children?"

"What is the end game?"

"You make adults. I was raising *thoughtful, kind, considerate* adults. That was what was most important to me and my ex wife."

"That really is weird, you know that."

I laughed.

"You're not the first person to want to lecture me about how could I leave someone and you won't be the last. It speaks well of you that you care so much. Not that I advocate for it either way, but have you ever thought about how you would treat a child if you had one?"

His look of horror quickly turned back to his comfy neutral.

"Never, I-I, I couldn't have children. I would mess them up! Just like my-"

"Just like your father messed you up? Jun, you turned out just fine. You don't have to have children, but if you do, you don't have to pass on what he did or didn't do. You don't have to be perfect."

"I don't have to be perfect?"

"Just by showing up and being the right person you can be the father or a father figure to someone else. I know you'll never get him to be what you want him to be but, maybe you can work towards accepting him as he is now; and then accepting yourself."

"I-I never thought of it that way. This is something else altogether. I really appreciate this. I'm going to talk to Jun after this."

I smiled. He'd had a rough go of it and I walked him through what it meant to let go of the past and accept what was. Helping the group was great and it got me back to my roots, doing the things that the community needed.These small changes felt like progress; his introspection was directed, identifying a father figure that could fill in for his all but absent dad and his enabler mother. It didn't even take that much, and he was thinkin about how life could look if he wasn't trying to live in a fantasy world.

I wasn't trying to live in a fantasy world, but here I was anyway. We wrapped up just as Min finally arrived with a tentative plan to meet the following week. Min and Moon Lee shared joint custody of my calendar and had made sure that I made it to this appointment on time.

Once he was well on his way out and I was ready to depart the Taoist compound, Min was ready to speak

"We have a problem."