#Old Fae and Little Dragalina

[hriobzagelthewanderer]

Lyth immediately hides behind papa Krakonos! No tossing for this dragalina!

The Elder Fae definitely was going to keep his charge safe from fling-happy-hooligans, don't worry.

[hriobzagelthewanderer]

There's the tiny skitter scatter of feet hitting stone – the sound of hummng from a little dragalina as she tried to set things out as she normally did. However, today, on this very special day, there is something different! At first, everything looks normal at the breakfast table. Lyth waits patiently for him to sit before it’s nudged to dear old Krakonos ( well, it was kind of obvious with its bright red packaging! ).

“Found it!” She chirped, “Fixed it!” She’d taken to finding random things and ‘fixing them’, which typically meant getting frustrated and abandoning it halfway, but not this time! Lyth had been determined to get it completely fixed – which meant she spent many a moon and sleepless nights fussing over it. All without his help!

Once the box was opened it would reveal a pocketwatch, but this one was a bit unusual in all respects. Instead of telling time, it had the solar system in its face. The clock hands were small, and presently one was pointing between Earth and Mars, with the other pointing at Venus. It seemed it was more or less made to tell where the stars and planets were presently aligned, though it may be a bit off given it was made with the rudimentary knowledge of a young dragalina and not a refined goldsmith that dabbled in astrology.

“For you, Papa.” She said with a beaming grin.

( for Father's Day, from smol Lyth to papa Krakonos. )

The Old Fae had been in his study, as was his wont. It was morning, not that it was clear this far down inside the Mountain he called home...

His thoughts, distant and often troubled as they seemed to those able to observe his countenance, were thrown off at the unexpected... though not in the slightest bit unreasonable appearance of a certain little albina, holding something out to him...

For a good, long moment, his breath hitched as he took in not the amateur-yet-nonetheless-intricate work before him... but at her words. That one name, that he still felt unused to, unworthy of even, and yet...

It was not the gift that made the elderly Prince of Gnomes chuckle, brighten and pull the girl close, even as he took it over in his hands as she sat on his lap, adjusting a few things here and there and showing her how, teaching her even as he gave her praise for her work and craftsmanship... it was her sentiment, her care, that she had been given to him by her Sire, yes, but that she chose him to be her 'Papa' nonetheless.

Many, many years later, in yet another abandoned room within the Halls, a blood-red-haired giant of a man shuffles through a few old supplies, trying still yet to catalog all of the Halls he had been left by his predecessor... when he noticed something in the bottom of a discarded drawer, far from its original desk.

Picking up a dusty, slightly tarnished circular bit of metal... which, after carefully brushing off and cleaning of decades of abandonment, revealed a small, portable celestial tracker of sorts... which, after a moment of poignant, bittersweet Deja Vu he had no way to fully comprehend, he pocketed somewhere under his cloak.

...I don't know why... but I feel like tracking Mutti down again, giving her a big hug, and seeing if she doesn't mind company for a few days.

[hriobzagelthewanderer]

Heartache.

It was hard, letting go.

The Old Fae knew the rules, knew the risks, and yet compelled by his own nature had felt it prudent to take a student from a troubled home into his care, feeling that obligations to teach outweighed the potential risks of giving aid, by proxy or otherwise, to a family of monsters, literal or otherwise...

He had not accounted for the child to be nothing like her cruel, cold sire, nor her questionably deranged mother... not accounted for her to worm her way into his heart, and brighten his life in ways he never could have understood nor comprehended. He had sworn off trying to gain companionship, no matter the jealousy of his Kin over in the Isles to the West of the continent he called home... one poorly-planned attempt to court a princess had soured his reputation and his desire to break his solitude all at once, but this was not the same.

Was this how it felt, he mused, one of a select few spirits of the Earth to be both eternal and infertile, to have a child?

It had been years since she had first shown up, now grown to thrice the size since she first entered his halls if the dragalina's true form was his only measure, and yet what struck him most was how much she had grown as a person; how the once-timid, anxious, frightened little girl had begun to blossom, to come out of her shell and touch the lives of those around her... even, no, especially his own.

...And yet, he knew there was not much time left, before it all came crashing down. The agreed-upon Decade was nearly gone, and with every sunup the Lord of the Mountain felt a cold, subtle vise clamp harder and more painfully around his heart, a chill he had never before felt... yet could name.

He didn't want her to go... but he Dreaded, feared he would not have a choice.