After three-and-a-half months of absorbing every storm that came near us we were finally ready to leave. I’d been keeping an eye on the weather, in particular a hurricane headed for the southern tip of Florida. Now all that was left to do was say my goodbyes.

I stroked Jirah’s head; I would have to leave him behind again. While he was a good dog he wasn’t some wolf meant to live his life in battle and the world I was going to wasn’t meant for him. Standing up I moved inside Guinevere was seated at the dinning table with my parents. They all looked at me in the way that people do when they have been talking about you.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Mordred,” Guinevere said. “I’ve been talking with Amanda and Peter and we think it would be a good idea for you to go and visit your parents before we leave.”

“My parents are here,” I said flatly.

Guinevere stood up and crossed over to me putting a hand on my chest.

“I know you can’t forgive them but… you’re going to be a father soon,” she said her voice soft and gentle. “You need to settle your grievances with your own father before then.”

The muscles all across my body tensed and I fought the urge to lash out at her and my parents and tell them to fuck themselves. That was the old part of me, but Mark was gone and I needed to leave him behind in this world fully this time.

“Fine,” I agreed not happy with it but knowing she was right.

I looked to my foster parents. “Do you have an address?”

Guinevere and I hugged my parents goodbye before getting in our car and leaving. It was a six hour drive to where my biological parents lived but it wasn’t to far out of the way. I turned on the radio and listened for a minute as people talked about “the Storm Man” before changing it to a rock station. All the speculations were about government super soldier programs or aliens from another planet. If those conspiracy theorist only knew how tame their imaginations really were.

Guinevere fell asleep and I let her as the miles flew past. We pulled into a small town and I found the cozy neighborhood and the house matching the address we’d been given. It was a Saturday and there were two cars in the open garages and several children were running around in the driveway and yard. I parked in front and looked at the house.

“Are you ready?” Guinevere asked me.

“No,” I said opening the door and stepping out.

I looked at the children, three of them were clearly not related to me but one of them reminded me of a much younger version of myself.

Guinevere took my hand pulling me along as we walked up the sidewalk to the door. She knocked and my mother answered.

“Yes,” my mother asked. “Do I know you?”

She looked different, older definitely but softer, happier. I’d been so blinded by anger when I’d seen them last when I was in court that I hadn’t noticed the changes. Gone was the bags under her eyes and the thin frame with shaking hands and timid voice as if she might break at any moment.

“Its me mother,” I said stepping out of the blinding light of the sun so she could see my face.

“M-mark?” she asked hesitantly reaching out a hand towards my face.

I took a step back. “Is my father here?” I asked my voice completely calm and dispassionate.

“Yes,” my mother said. “Please come in.”

Guinevere and I were seated on a couch as my mother went out to the backyard. My father came in, he to had changed, he looked more fit his hair had developed white and grey hairs giving him a salt and pepper look his face full of the same salt and pepper stubble.

“Mark!” he said rushing toward me.

“Have a seat,” I said my voice filled with the confidence that my words would be completely obeyed that I had learned while in the other world.

My mother and father sat. My younger siblings wandered in, they didn’t sit down but I saw a boy who had to be around fifteen-or-sixteen, a younger sister and the youngest I’d seen outside.

“Where have you been?” my father asked. “You disappeared and the state labeled you a missing person, we thought you died.”

“I’ve been in Talba,” I said.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

“I’ve…never heard of that country,” my mother said.

“It might as well be a different world,” I said dismissively. “That’s not why I’m here.”

“Then why are you here?” my father asked.

“I need to know…,” I said. “Why wasn’t I good enough?”

“Mark you were never the problem,” my mother said. “It was us, I’m just glad your alive and home…”

“I’m not the prodigal son,” I snapped cutting her off. “I haven’t come home; I’ve just come to yours. To be the lost son have to have something to lose, you never gave me anything!”

My nails dug into my skin as I clenched my fists so tightly. Black mist began to drift off my skin but Voidra turned off the passive ability before it could take full effect. Guinevere laid a hand on my arm and I unclenched my fists.

“I asked Mordred to come here and talk with you before we went back home,” Guinevere said taking over speaking for a moment while I composed myself.

“Mordred?” my father asked. His eyes flicked over her hand and mine seeing the golden bands on our ring fingers and the swell of her belly. If Guinevere’s chocker caused him any lust he was able to hide it, which was lucky for him.

“That is who I am,” I said. “Mark is gone, I’m just…paying my last respects to him.”

“Why are you talking like your about to die?” my mother asked. “You only just got back.”

“where I am going no one can follow,” I said. “for all intents and purposes it is a sort of death. I am here to get closure, so I’ll ask again, why wasn’t I good enough? Why did you hate me?”

“Son..Ma…Mordred,” My father said stumbling as he tried to find some way to address me. “I didn’t hate you, I hated myself. I was afraid, afraid you’d become just like me.”

“You had a funny way of expressing that fear,” I said flatly.

“I’m sorry I hurt you,” my father said reaching out then letting his hand drop.

“Its too little too late,” I said. “I don’t know what expected, or wanted when I came here but it still hurts. I thought I moved past it but I don’t think this kind of hurt ever goes away but what hurts even more is seeing them,” I said looking at my brothers and sister, complete strangers to me. “To see that you always could change, but I wasn’t worth it; that I was too broken for you to love as your son.”

My father flinched as if I had struck him.

“I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to forgive you,” I said letting out a heavy breath. “but I’m done hating you, I’m not going to be your failure anymore.”

“You were never a failure,” my father said his voice cracking.

“Maybe,” I said shrugging feeling a bit of perverse pleasure at the emotional pain I was causing him. “But I wasn’t who I was supposed to be either. You never showed me how to be a man, how to be father, and I needed those lessons. I’ve had to learn the hard way my entire life and I’ve fought it every step of the way, but it’s not about me anymore, and it’s not about you.”

“I’m sorry Mark…” my father said his voice breaking. “I should have…”

“It doesn’t matter anymore,” I said my voice not angry this time but regretful. “It’s too late for you and me. I wish it wasn’t, but it’s been too long, there are too many things between us, we’ve each changed so much we aren’t even the same people anymore.”

“Mark…” my mom said. “We’re your family.”

“You were,” I said taking Guinevere’s hand in mine. “But I have a new family now. This won’t make any sense to you, but I don’t belong to this world anymore, Mark is gone, I am someone different now. I didn’t come here to mend bridges but to close a door.”

My father met my eyes and managed to not flinch away as he met the otherworldly gaze of my inhumane eyes. He extended his hand.

“If that’s what you needed to say, that’s what I’ll take. I’m sorry son, sorry I couldn’t give you more or change what I did and didn’t do.”

I took his hand so fragile compared to the strength I possessed.

“Goodbye father,” I said.

“Goodbye Mordred,” he said.

---

Exar’kun closed his wings and dropped onto the mountainside. Vone slid off his back rushing to his side and yanking free the glowing javelin from his chest. Exar’kun heaved for breath as she laid a hand on his chest and purged the wound of the curses and debuffs.

“They’re getting better,” Exar’kun growled as he shrank to human size.

Vone looked out over the cliff edge to the forest, or what was left of it of the Ancient Forest. Huge swathes of it had been burned away in the months of fighting. Rumor had it that Lancelot still pursued some of the former forces of the Warlord below ground. The goblin war chief, Juruk, and his calvary had broken out from below the ground and had been waging a guerilla war against the knights of Lunara and Camelot.

“I can’t believe I was on their side once,” Vone said looking at the human and ecological destruction.

She’d helped to rescue the women and children from the Myrmidon clans as the knights had tried to take them away to be ‘re-educated’ and ‘integrated into civilization’ all of which were just code for being turned into vassals and brood mares to be split among noble families with the rest of their spoils of war. Arthur was gone back to Camelot, but he had left his army behind to keep order.

Exar put a comforting hand on her shoulder drawing her close to him. She leaned back as she looked down at the burning forest of the battle they’d just been forced to flee. They had extracted a heavy toll but Exar had still nearly died in the fighting.

“What are we doing?” Vone asked.

“What do you mean?” Exar asked.

“I mean what is our goal?” Vone asked. “We’ve helped people flee, but that’s all they can ever do now. This forest was their home, where will they go now? Dracon even now the knights of Camelot are recapturing cities from the Magi. They can’t go to Camelot in the west or Lunara in the south. There is the lifeless deserts to the east and kingdoms beyond them but…”

“I don’t know,” Exar’kun admitted. “Ever since I hatched its always been a struggle for survival, the thought of not fighting… its never even been a luxury I’ve had. There was always another battle to fight, you had to get stronger, or something would come along to take your rank points and surpass you.”

Vone touched her stomach. She hadn’t planned on getting pregnant, she supposed neither had Guinevere but these things just happened. Vone realized she would never win this game of the gods, she was already to far behind and didn’t have the military or political backing of the other champions but she still wanted to do good. Now that didn’t even seem like it was something she could do.

“Mordred will come back,” Exar said.

“It’s been months,” Vone said. “How are you still so sure.”

“Because he is a man of honor and duty,” Exar said. “And those are his vassals, try as he might to deny it he cares in his own way for them. When he sees how they have been treated in his absence… this world will burn.”