Time didn't exist where he was. Moments passed, but somehow, nothing really changed. It was everything he'd ever known simultaneously, floating in a place that neither physics nor metaphysics could never explain. He couldn't remember how he'd gotten there or why the fog was so thick. After all, the only place that had fog like this was gone. How strange. Laruku was aware that he was lying on the ground and that his body was warmer than it should be, but he could no longer remember that he was ill or that he was, possibly, dying. He understood without understanding anything. It was exactly like a dream.



A warm hand touched him and he shuddered. Red eyes snapped open, but they were hazy and dull, refusing to focus. A blur of colors and a shape. He couldn't smell anything; his nose was stopped up. But her voice was loud. He could still hear; he could still feel. The bitterness in his mouth said that he could still taste too. Rachias, he said, smiling a little though he didn't know it. I'm glad you're okay. He couldn't remember whether or why she'd been gone. Or why anyone else was gone. Where were all the people in the world? He missed all of them. Did you find your brother? It was funny somehow, he spoke like he knew what he was saying, but he didn't really at all.

He wasn't really sure when anything had changed, and maybe it never had to, but like many other things that had come to him since the fever had caught him, he was, for one reason or another, acutely aware of the fact that he loved his daughter. Nevermind that a slut and a monster had created her, and nevermind that she'd been a burden he'd been unwilling to bear. The initial touch had almost hurt, but the ones that came afterwards were oddly comforting, if not a little terrifying. Touch was something he often deprived himself of; it had been, and still was to some extent, his belief that the only reason anyone would want to touch him was to kill him.



You're a good girl, he said, though he wasn't sure what he was responding to. I'm fine, the hybrid continued, I can walk. He laughed, though it was a weak and strained sound. And it was a joke no one would understand, though it wasn't that funny anyway.

He couldn't see her smile, just a big cream blur and the glint of blue eyes. Where had she gotten those from? They grew up fast. He was glad she didn't really look like him or her mother. Laruku had thought about death while clinging to the tree outside the cottage in the woods, but he wasn't really thinking about it now. If he cared to consider it, he had considered himself dead many times over already, not just from all the incidents that should be resulted in it. The world had taken things from him that he didn't even realize, had stolen away pieces of him in the night and never looked back. It was all the things that made him feel like a ghost wandering through the forest, like no one could see him or touch him or hear him.



But he walked to walk somewhere, he wanted to protest, except that he couldn't think where somewhere might be. A little voice had to keep reminding him that he had no where to go, no where to belong anymore. The hybrid shuddered and squeezed his eyes shut at the cold water. In reality, it probably wasn't that cold, but the contrast to his body temperature made it feel like ice. Was he thirsty? His throat was dry and clammy. Yes, he said, opening his eyes again. Laruku shifted and rolled onto his side, trying to push off with his arm into a sitting position. His muscles felt like they hadn't moved in ages and needle-like pinpricks ran up his arms like a thousand spiders. Still, he managed to sit himself against the wall and squinted, trying to focus on Rachias more clearly. Y'r not back at Inferni, are you?

He had always been afraid that somehow, he would end up hurting his children like he had hurt Ire (you killed him, darling). It had terrified him more than the prospect that Kaena would brainwash them into hating wolves, like some of her previous litters. It had terrified him more than the prospect of them growing up to hate him (you would have deserved it), or otherwise becoming psychopaths, products of a diseased monarch on a bloody throne. It was the main reason he had worked so hard to keep them on the desolate beach. It was true that he had also wanted to avoid responsibility, that he remained in partial denial well after they had been born, but he had come to accept everything else he had done, and his children were no different. In the end, he always took responsibility for everything, even things that were arguably not his fault.



I'm glad you didn't go back, he murmured, focusing on nothing. After all, things had changed. Ryoujoku had not appeared for many months already, but besides, she had grown up. She could fend for herself if she had to, though the innate fear would never go away completely. I never wanted you to grow up there, he whispered, tone gradually deteriorating into sadness, But there was no alternative... I wasn't safe. I'm still not safe. He was reminded, all of a sudden, that he was sick. Why are you here? his voice was cracked and uneven, What if you catch this? Forgetting completely about the water and the dryness in his throat, he turned to her, You gotta go.. he said, You gotta get out of here...

Laruku had always figured that no one would miss him when he died. Gabriel had told him as much once, that he was useless and better off dead. The scarred, tawny male still believed it. He had done horrible things, unforgivable things. By any god's laws, he had sinned hundreds of times over and continued to do so. If anyone deserved to have Clouded Tears's old curse on his head, surely he did. A violent death was the only thing that was fitting. Or an embarrassing, pathetic one that no one would think twice to mention in the future. He had betrayed everyone that had ever loved him, that he had ever loved. No one would miss him when he was gone.



Her touch was still a surprise, her continued presence, her voice. It was difficult for Laruku to accept that she was willing to put so much on the line just to see him. It had always been hard for him to accept that there were still people that cared about him (none of them knew the truth). He felt guilty for putting her through whatever grief she was going through. Rachias had already lost her mother, her sister, her brothers. She had left the rest of her family. For what? To be with him? He didn't want her be alone. She deserved better than that. She deserved better than him. Was he all she had left? Why was that so unfair?



The lucidness of his thoughts ended when a sharp pain shot up from the base of his neck. He put both arms around his daughter and looked up at the empty white above him. I'm sorry, he said, simultaneously know and not knowing why he was apologizing. Or why he was crying.

Laruku had more guilt than anything else. More than he wanted to die, he felt guilty for not trying harder. And yet, this was most likely the first time he had ever really wanted to survive anything. He didn't want Rachias to be alone. He knew he wasn't much, but if he was all she had, then he wanted to live for her. Having failed at everything else, wasn't it the least he could do? The hybrid could not feel the tears on his cheek; perhaps they were evaporating immediately from his burning body. But he could feel the warmth of another body pressed against him, the warmth that he usually pushed away. Hadn't that been the story of his life? He had pushed everyone away. His adoptive family, his real family, distantly related as they were, his fairy tale lover, again and again.



Thank you, he said, swallowing the fireball in his throat and fighting the pain spreading from the back of his skull now. A hundred years of missing gratitude. For everyone. For everything. I love you. He meant it.