Short Story: Family

Mara Dullane was once a good woman, Conah remembered. He remembered how she taught him how to sew and use a loom, and he remembered how she used to tell him and Gadriel stories before bed, signing animatedly for him to follow along. He remembered each tender forehead kiss, and warm hug.

But there were other things that he simply remembered more of.

The beatings, for one, where he could have fought back but chose not to. She was his mother and part of him still desperately craved the woman she’d been. How she often forgot or didn’t care enough to feed them, so Conah cooked and tried not to let her know that food had gone missing. How Gadriel woke him up in the middle of the night because Coretha was crying and her diaper hadn’t been changed, and Mom wasn’t waking up.

Her face when she sold the three of them - sold them to Hell - as she held a sack of gold coins, smiling at Orin, that cruel bastard. Conah screamed and fought - fought back for the first time in two years - because he saw Coretha crying and Gadriel begging. All it got him was a knock-out punch in the face, and five years of misery.

When he saw her again, dead in the Underworld, being hacked to pieces and burned alive in the Fields of Punishment, Conah felt no pity. She told him she knew she deserved what she’d gotten.

Conah only regretted that he hadn’t been the one to wring her neck.

~~~~~

Conah remembered the days Gadriel and Coretha were born, and remembered how his heart pounded with excitement over being an older brother.

Secretly, he wanted one of them to be deaf. Wanted a sibling like him. The gods had other plans, but Conah loved them just the same.

And when their father left - walked out, leaving an eleven-year-old Conah standing in the front yard with tears in his eyes and Mara Dullane with a hell of a grudge - Conah protected them with everything he had.

Every beating, he shielded them.

Every scrap of food he could cook, he gave it to them.

Every reassurance and every hug they ever needed, he was waiting.

Looking back on his life, Conah remembered being so frightened of becoming a father at nineteen. But really, he’d done it at thirteen and nobody had told him. 

He’d done it at thirteen, in Dis - the second layer of Hell.

“I raised Gadriel and Coretha in Hell,” he’d often say, not knowing how true it really was.

Every whipping, he shielded them if he could.

Every scrap of food he could scrounge without anyone noticing, he gave it to them.

Every reassurance, he gave it to them. 

And every night, he held them both close to his chest as they slept. Sometimes, they cried themselves to sleep and as much as Conah wanted to cry too, he put on a brave face, held them close, and hummed a tune he’d never heard before. Just so they had something else to focus on other than the heat.

When they escaped and Nyx happened, and Conah found out that he and these people he’d been travelling with - these adventurers - had been gone for 11 years…

Where are they? he thought, panic coursing through his veins. Gods, no, not after everything we’ve been through…

But thankfully, they had been found by their father.

They were both younger than he was still, but still older than they’d been.

Gadriel was shovelling snow outside their father’s house in Norbury. Conah remembered that moment when he’d snapped his fingers in that way he’d always done in Hell, when they weren’t allowed to speak, but he needed to get Gadriel or Coretha’s attention. How Gadriel stiffened, and then turned to look at him. He was so pale, like he’d seen a ghost.

Conah held him, his little brother, and then his little sister, and clutched onto them so tightly, like he might lose them again.

Never, he swore. Never again.

~~~~~

Aedimus was his father, and Conah remembered him fondly, even after he left. Even after he’d walked away from them, and left them with a woman who didn’t know how to grieve, who listened too much to small town gossip.

He was the only one who understood divine compulsion. Aedimus knew why Conah had to go to the Redwater temple and learn martial arts, just as Conah knew why Aedimus had to leave that night. That didn’t make it hurt any less, but it was some kind of comfort.

He remembered sitting with his father that first night, and going through it. All of it. Reliving some of it, sharing his worst fears, and all of his living nightmares.

In his travels, Conah had attached a fatherly role in his life to Kaz, the Life Cleric of his party. Kaz was something like Conah’s father when he didn’t have Aedimus, or when Aedimus couldn’t be there. It certainly wasn’t exact, but it was what Conah needed. Kaz had been such a comfort and although he understood why, Conah still hadn’t completely forgiven his father for leaving his children with that woman. It took Conah some time before he could tell his father that he loved him.

He remembered later on, how he’d rushed home from Westray, Lex by his side, with tears streaming down his face and shaking. He remembered how Aedimus just looked at him, and pulled him into his arms.

Like a father.

It had been so long since Conah had a father… and so long since he hadn’t had to be one…

He unravelled, and what a relief it was.

~~~~~

Conah was shocked to find out that Lex was actually older than he was. Only by a couple years, but that didn’t make it any better, really.

He said that she shouldn’t go with them.

When he thinks about it now, he laughs. “If I had stuck to that… I think it would have been the worst decision of my life.”

Conah knew what love was. He’d seen it between his parents, before Aedimus left. He’d felt it towards Gadriel and Coretha.

Conah also knew what lust was… and that frightened him.

It shouldn’t have. His patron goddess was Aphrodite; if anything, he should have been eager, but he wasn’t. Conah looked at Lex, and as much as he loved her, he was afraid of what loving her meant.

He had nothing to be afraid of, he discovered. Their lust for each other, their sex, it wasn’t like anything he’d ever seen or been told about.

This had to be love.

So, when Conah was nineteen, and his first child had been born, he knew that he needed one thing: an engagement ring.

“Alexi Dullane” would probably sound very beautiful, Conah thought.

~~~~~

His first time in Redwater in six years - longer even, because of his time in Nyx’s Womb - was spurred on by one statement from his dead mother.

She’d taken another lover. She had a son with him.

And that lover… he was a lot like her…

If he’d had a choice, Conah would not have returned to Redwater. Not ever. But a brother was a brother - half or not. If there was one thing Conah was, it was a good older brother. And he was not about to leave this brother behind.

He dispatched his mother’s alcoholic boyfriend, and searched.

What he found was a tiefling boy, not older than four, with terrible scars around his eyes. He was under his bed, shaking like a leaf. When Conah spoke, he jumped and screamed at first, but calmed himself as Conah tried his best to use what little oral speaking skills he had.

“What’s your name?” Conah asked.

“R-Ronan…”

The boy couldn’t see. Two brothers. One deaf and one blind, one angel and one tiefling… what a pair we are, Conah thought. The only difference was that Ronan had been blinded and Conah had just been born deaf.

They brought him home, and Conah watched little Ronan grow and flourish with a family he never knew he had. Briefly, Conah wished Ronan had always been there with them, but then he retracted the statement. If he had been there, he would have walked through Hell too, and that would have been far worse.

They were so rude to me because of my deafness… What would they have done to a boy with blindness? He pushed the thought away as quickly as it had come.

His blindness was healed alongside Conah’s deafness. Once, they sat together and talked about their favorite things they’d seen and heard.

It really felt like Ronan had always been there, and Conah loved him all the same.

~~~~~

Lex’s younger brother, Adonis, reminded Conah far too much of his little siblings. Maybe that’s why, when they met the first time, Conah was delighted to get to know him. Maybe that was why Conah took him flying through the halls of his castle without a second thought.

Maybe that was why Conah saw Adonis’s mother and how she looked at him, and he stood between them. Unmoving. Unflinching.

She had eyes like Mara. Adonis trembled like Conah had under them.

Luckily, Adonis had a father who loved him, just as Conah had Aedimus. She was stopped before too much of this boy - this bright, smiling boy - could have been broken.

From that day forward, Conah added Adonis to his list of little brothers, and was delighted when he joined his family as a brother-in-law.

On the other hand, Conah’s other brother-in-law, Lyre, had a habit of being protective. Conah understood that very well; he too was a protective older brother.

Was it still a little grating when Conah was trying desperately to have a good night with Lex? Oh absolutely, but Conah could never hate Lyre - not knowing that they followed the same goddess and that they were trying desperately to accomplish the same goals: save the world and keep Lex safe. Despite the fact that Conah was taller and larger than Lyre, he still saw him as an older brother, which was an odd change of pace for him.

Everything solidified with Lyre’s Winterscrest present, just after Ava was born and Lex and Conah were engaged.

It was a house, and not any house. The house that Conah spent weeks in in the dreams that kept him from shattering while they travelled through the Underworld. He could walk this house blindfolded. He watched Ava grow up in this house.

He heard for the first time in this house…

Conah’s heart hammered, looking at the nursery that Lyre had fully furnished for Ava and he beamed and cried.

He threw himself down the stairs and into Lyre’s arms, thanking him - his older brother - for literally making his dreams come true.

~~~~~

Brasidas was a king, and Conah had an issue with authority as it was. So, when he found out that his girlfriend’s father was a king, Conah couldn’t help but feel anxious. It didn’t help that Brasidas had a look that could break a man’s heart in a split second and a demeanor that was far too aloof.

He was all of the things that Conah feared, condensed into one man.

Conah remembered the day Brasidas asked to talk to him, when Lex was pregnant with Ava, and weeks away from giving birth. Conah fully expected an argument, one that he wasn’t sure he’d be able to handle. But it wasn’t an argument so much as it was a… vaguely threatening conversation, and a conversation about marriage.

It went a lot better than Conah could have hoped.

As time went on, and as he, Lex, and their children visited with Brasidas more and more, Conah definitely got more comfortable around him. Their relationship was certainly not loving - not one of a father and son - but they seemed to have come to a silent understanding.

Conah often said to Lex, “I love your father because he is your father and the grandfather of my children, and I love you and my children.”

Conah didn’t get involved in Brasidas’s life or his rule, even though Lex was a princess. She wasn’t in line for the throne; they really had no reason (or desire) to be involved.

Until it came to Conah’s attention that Sinner’s Den practiced slavery.

That day, Brasidas sat atop his throne with his son-in-law before him - here as a hero, not as the husband of his daughter - and listened to him.

For the first time, Conah truly was not scared of his father-in-law.

~~~~~

One of Conah’s favorite past-times was sitting on the back porch of his house with Lex at his side. He watched Ava, eighteen now (the same age Conah had been when he started adventuring,) play with twelve-year-old Meira. The two of them were catching butterflies. Both of them, even with age, hadn’t lost their childlike energy. Conah hoped they never would. Roseia, also twelve now, was sitting on the porch swing, reading. Conah looked at her and saw so much of Gadriel in how she looked while she read, and so much of Coretha with her long, dark, curly hair tumbling past her shoulders. Little Callan, the youngest at five years old, came out of the house, and wrapped his arms around Lex. She laughed, kissed him, and pulled him into her lap. He squealed and started signing eagerly about something or other. Conah wasn’t paying attention. He was looking at Callan’s eyes, that same bright blue as his own.

He wondered if Aedimus had felt like this, looking at Conah when he was only five, as he was beaming and telling the kinds of stories only kids could come up with.

His eyes fell on the scene, the whole thing, and he took it all in. For a moment, even though he was only 37, Conah felt so much older. He felt like he should have died a long time ago, and it was only thanks to… some god or other that he was allowed to have this. There was some part of him that was sure he didn’t deserve it.

There was some part of him that still doubted it was real… but it was so small now, and the bubbling warmth in his chest - the divine warmth of Aphrodite - drowned it out. 

She told him it was, it was real.

Callan moved to sit in Conah’s lap. “Dad, why are you crying?” He reached up and wiped the tears from Conah’s face, just as Conah had done for him so many times.

Conah looked down at his son, smiling wide. He signed, “Because I love you all so, so much...”