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Her paws became heavy stones and her heart a hard lump that leaped into her throat. Cercelee tried to swallow it down but it only got caught up and caused her to nearly choke. The man's blue-grey eyes seemed the same as she had always known them, as she remembered at their parting, but his face was grizzled and grey—much more aged than the years could account for. Lips and tongue suddenly became dumb, unable to formulate any words. Instead only she could think of him at their last parting. The very last time she had ever seen the man. Nearly five years of time had elapsed since then, though it seemed much longer. It seemed a lifetime.
I can't keep her anymore Laruku. The girl remembered the day, remembered the man leading her to a strange place, being greeting by a strange man and the awful words the two had exchanged. As if Cercelee was not peering up at them the whole time with wide, frightened eyes of a child. Her father had seemed so frazzled, so disheveled. She too of course had been upset at the change in their family, the absence of Lyla, Tuki and Lisi, but she had been more upset at the abandonment that followed. The words that had come from his mouth and stuck with her from then until now, as they came flooding back to her. I hate her.
Now she stared into the face of the man, the father, who had claimed hatred. Slowly the numbness of her face melted and her ears fell flat against her small skull. Almost she wanted to say Do you still hate me? Yet it was so long ago, he hadn't been of the right mind (Cercelee told herself this and desperately wished to believe it) and perhaps it didn't matter. What was done was done. Adrastos had left her and had not seen her life develop. He had not seen and could not know how Laruku dutifully care for her as he did all the lost children that found their way to Clouded Tears. Could not know how Haku, Adrastos's cousin, had borne a girl very near to Cercelee's age and they had become fast friends. How Haku had raised them both, run one off and raped the other. Adrastos simply could not know these things.
Nor could he know how Cercelee found her way back to Laruku, how the fire had separated them once more but she had then built something for herself. Colibri, the grandmother of her cousin, had taken the shaken girl under her wing, and Mew had come along and there had been Hanna. All of them family and together they had planted the seeds that grew into Dahlia de Mai. Then Slay. Always Slay. Still Slay. It had been years and Slay was the only consistent being in her life. Thinking of the burly, two toned man Cercelee let out a breath she had been holding too long and looked hard into the eyes of her father, eyes that had not seen any of this and could never know what had transpired in his little girl's life.
When the numbness left her the flood of anger filled her. He had done wrong. He had not been there for her. He had… he had… he had… and then it left her as soon as it had come. He had not been there in five years and perhaps he was not the same being she had known once. Surely she was not the same. And what father or mother truly saw the fruition of their children? Farore and Din were off doing their own thing and Cercelee had let them go, as adults. Nayru was alive and out there and Cercelee had not seen the girl grow up. Nayru had done the same as she, without a home, rose to the top and made one for herself. Yet Cercelee had not abandoned the girl. She had never hated her own child.
Sky eyes stayed glued to the male, the grizzled face of an old man she had mostly forgotten but had somehow been magically conjured up. Words still tumbled about in her mouth, unspoken. Father? Adrastos? What was his name to her anymore? Yet no words came, Cercelee could make no movement, but finally she was able to swallow the terrified heart that had leaped into her throat and force it back into its proper place—beating far too fast in her chest.