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To whom it may concern,

Words words words.

To whom it may concern,

Words words words.

To whom it may concern,

Words words words.

The soft crackling of a fire registered first. All was silent but for that at first. Then came the more distant, dull rush of the outside winds, licking their way around the outside structure of the house. And movement in the kitchen: the clkk, clink of porcelain on countertop and thpp of booted footsteps and shuffle of cloth.

Ataya did not move for some time. Just listened, and observed, letting the facts of his surroundings trickle in gradually, well aware that somewhere in the back of his mind he was ignoring a floodgate, but unready to tap at its levee yet. When he did finally stir, the smooth bristles of thick furs beneath him brushed at his cheek, and he noted the weight of many more atop him, holding him ensconced in a bundle of trapped heat. Approaching footfalls sounded over the floorboards, and Ataya held still, waiting until they stilled and his father’s weight — it had to be his father, from the pattern of his step to scent of him and his clothing — settled beside him.

The weight of the dammed mental flood in his mind strained against the metaphorical levee. All the questions and answers: why he was here, what lead to this, where he stood now, and where to go from here. He breathed out, and squeezed his eyes a fraction tighter shut in spite of himself, the light of the nearby fire dancing behind his eyelids as his brow furrowed. At length, around the clawing weight in his throat, Ataya finally managed to speak.

“It was late…”

“It was,” his father agreed.

“Past the night’s peak…”

“Yes.”

“You were asleep,” Ataya insisted.

“I was.”

“You, and Mother, and Sister, you were all supposed to be asleep…”

Silence.

The fire crackled like a third, wordless party between them and Ataya drowned in its whispers for many long moments before forcing himself to speak again. “How did you know…?”

“My goddess woke me.”

Ataya made a gruff and garbled, unconvinced sound in his throat. “Since when does Soudana care whether a hybrid teenager—”

“I. Care,” his father grit out in interjection. “And I act in her service.”

“And your service included mating with Mother and—”

“Ataya…”

For the first time in longer than Ataya could pinpoint, he heard a…crack in his father’s voice, something hoarser and pinched than usual and he tried to decipher when he had heard it.

Detraeus’ tension broke like glass on granite. “Ataya…” His voice was hoarse, brittle, and unnaturally fragmented, and Ataya watched, blinking as his father fell forward, joining his mother on the bed and reaching to brush his fingers — excruciatingly gently, as though terrified Ataya would break apart under his touch — before carding them into his hair and shuddering as he leaned close.

He had been ten years old when he ‘chose’ his weapon, and learned only in retrospect that the ordeal had involved him leaving his body for nearly a week in the in between. Or was it over a week? Ataya could not remember. He was also struck, more vaguely, by an even more distant memory, the details of which he could not pin down.

Just the sense of blood on his hands. Blood, and wrong and fear.

“I was bad—I was bad, bad, bad, bad—Daddy—Daddy’s angry—he killed them—he’s angry—I was bad—”

Screaming.

“No. No matter what you do, Ataya, I will always be here to protect you…and I will never, ever hurt you. Do you understand…?”

“Baba… Don’t cry, Baba…”

“Father…” Ataya frowned in the present, debating before eventually testing the strength of his limbs and pushing to a sit. They seemed functional. “I am sorry,” he said. But the words sounded strange aloud.

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d spoken them to his father.

And what was it he was apologizing for? For hurting him? Frightening him? For doing what he’d done? Attempting to throw away sixteen years of his father and mother’s work and care? Or for, even in this moment, still finding time to be combative, play a demon’s advocate and cross everything his father said? Ataya winced in spite of himself.

“I—” he started.

“I love you,” his father said, and Ataya’s throat closed off on whatever else might have left his lips, tightening and latching down on itself. He grit his teeth, and swallowed.

‘I know that,’ is what he ought to have said. It’s what came to his tongue and waited there, but instead, when he opened his mouth, all that came out was: “Why?”

His father’s first sound was indecipherable. Then: “A parent does not need a reason—”

“I want one—”

“Because you cannot help but love something you have loved since before it took its first breath,” Detraeus snapped, “…something that you wanted before it existed, that you were petrified of losing before ever laying eyes on, and that you have watched grow from when its hands hands were the size of berries and feet no longer than an arrowhead…”

In the brief silence that followed, Ataya frowned, waiting.

“You were so small, once,” Detraeus murmured. “You could be cradled in one arm. You cried constantly, even then.”

Ataya pursed his lips. “Surely I didn’t—”

“You did. You enjoyed fussing and sleeping and being held.”

“Mm.” The corner of Ataya’s lip twitched, edging up despite his best intentions. “I suppose not a great lot has changed, then…”

The pause that followed was less tense, at least, then those before it. This time, his father broke it. “How do you feel?”

‘Alive,’ came to mind first, but Ataya decided that that was too harsh, even for him. At length, he shrugged. “Well enough.” His brow furrowed, pinching again as he thought. “What hour is it?”

“Four into morning,” his father said. “If I were to guess. You remained unconscious for some time…after.”

“Mother and Akara…” Ataya said. “Did you…?”

“I nearly woke your sister,” Detraeus said, “to see to it that you were…well. But by the time I had you out of your room and onto warmer furs, your pulse was healthy again. Little as I know of magic, your clan…”

“My clan is my element and my blood,” Ataya agreed beneath his breath, “and as such, unlikely to want to harm me, yes. I also, obviously, have a great natural resistance to it…” He trailed off. “So you have not told them…”

“I will when they wake.”

Ataya bristled. “You needn’t—”

“It is not up for discussion.”

Ataya drew his tongue along the backs of his teeth, eyes shut. “You were doing something in the kitchen,” he said at length. He heard his father’s grunt, and then felt fingers on his. Before he could open his mouth to ask, something was being guided into his hand. Warm porcelain. A cup, filled with — he lifted it to smell — tea. “Mm.” Despite not feeling as though he needed any more ‘thawing’, he raised the drink to his lips. As much an excuse not to speak as anything else.

“When I was a young child…and for many years after, into the years similar to yours now,” Detraeus said, “I was very angry. Always, I was angry. So much so that, though I wanted nothing to do with the world as it was, it became worth it to me breathe another day, to live just for the chance to spite those who would spite me and bring as much pain to others as I thought I had suffered by them.”

Ataya stiffened and blinked, startled by the admittance, apparently out of nowhere. “Father—”

“I was also afraid. Ever afraid that if I ended my life purposefully, my goddess would be disgusted with my cowardice. So, I abstained. But on worse days, I would engage in behavior so reckless…so blatantly foolish as to beg the fates to take the job off of my hands themselves.”

“Why are you telling me this…”

“Because I have wanted to die,” Detraeus said. “I have wanted to die and at times begged with my goddess to give death to me, and instead I was given life. Again and again, I was given life and now, years from that past and only because I did not forsake it, I have a mate and two children who have made my life into something I never once imagined I could have. You, your mother, and your sister…I would relive the most desperate of my younger years a hundred times over for another day or hour to have you with me, and safe…”

Ataya frowned, thumb sweeping idly up the side of his mug.

“Things change. But you will never experience those changes if you do not stay long enough to allow them to happen.”

“I will never see again.”

“So it is worth it never to hear again? Feel again? Taste again? Walk again? Speak with your sister, ride your hastar or—”

“I cannot read,” Ataya cut in. “I can’t do anything—”

“That is not true. I could not read for many years. It is hardly the same as not being capable of anything.”

Ataya grit his teeth, shoulders stiff and fingers tightening their grip on his mug. When he spoke, though, his words barely reached above a whisper. “I refuse to be dependant…”

“You are intelligent, Ataya,” his father said. “You accomplish things with your magic that I could not begin to, and when you set your mind to something, you find a way to make it happen.”

“Malta, Lithian, and Akara are healers,” Ataya retorted. “If they could not find a way to use their magic to fix my eyes—”

“I was not speaking of ‘fixing’ anything,” his father cut in. “Only avoiding dependency. There is more than one way to find your way around a room. Even ‘vision’ is different between the races. Your sister and I do not ‘see’ as your mother does and you did. We see only shape and shade, not—”

“Shape…” Ataya repeated, his mind flicking into gear as though fanning through pages as it shifted over to his ride with his father to the khehora territory — how, despite not fully appreciating it at the time, he felt less adrift somehow, when out in the snow. Grounded and not so lost. “Shape, shape, shape—like a cut-out,” he said. “Negative space. Finding the outline of something. You could tell where something is sheerly by virtue of where something else was not, couldn’t you?”

“I…ah…I suppose. Ataya—”

But Ataya was already pushing the furs on him aside, turning, and tapping a finger to the floorboard. From it, a thread of ice grew along the floor. Straight, straight, straight, straight — where all he could ‘feel’ was the sense of a single stretch of his element, then — bend, it took a sharp turn straight ‘up’ and Ataya pushed with his magic, sending the thread to seek in other directions. It spiralled, turning sharp curves one after another on the way ‘up’ as though climbing around a squared off pillar.

“The leg of a chair?” he guessed.

A pause. Then: “Yes, that—”

Ataya stood.

“—Ataya—”

Still in his nightclothes and feet still bare, Ataya stepped out, the floor beneath the step frosting like a ripple circling out from the step. Nothing in the immediate vicinity but for the misshapen disturbance behind him which was the crumpled lump of furs. Another step. More nothing. Another, and frost hit ‘shape’ to his right: another, larger lounge chair. He hummed.

“It would take a great deal of energy to do this much with every step made every day,” he mused aloud, “and make for thawing pools of frost for everyone else in the household, but…it is something, and there has to be a more efficient way to handle this…” He reached out with his magic as he said it, the temperature of the room dropping, dropping—

“Ataya.”

He heard his father stand, but could feel at least pinpricks of frost as they formed in small patches along the walls, floor, and surrounding furniture.

“Freezing the entire living room—”

“Is not ideal,” Ataya responded. “Yes, I know, I am just—”

“You can see like this?”

“Mm…” Ataya frowned. “Not see, no. But I could…if I practiced it, maybe I could at least not run into things…” Aloud, it sounded like a depressingly low standard. “And I still would not be able to read…or properly fix myself breakfast without frosting half the things in the kitchen, or—”

“But you would not be ‘dependant,’” his father cut in, and Ataya debated.

“Not as dependant…and if I got better at it, perhaps…” The more he thought on it, the more things Ataya knew this would not solve, but still, the thread of hope that he could refine this one thing and expand from there, learn, and experiment, did something to chip back greatly at the weight that had lead him to where he was only hours before.

“Come.”

Ataya blinked. “Come…? Where are we—”

By the time he got into the question, though, his father’s footsteps were already passing him, and Ataya pursed his lips, following after. His father’s shape, at least, was easy enough to follow, as well as the sound of his gait, and with his new experimental ‘technique’ he frosted the door to find it before stepping through. Outside, despite his best efforts to keep himself calm and not overly optimistic, his pulse picked up, giddy with raw opportunity as a light sea of snowflakes continued to dust down. The wind, for once, had calmed for a time, and Ataya lingered long at the door, reaching out and feeling for the flakes of ice as they drifted down and creating as best a mental picture of their shape and movements as he could. The sheer volume of all of it made it difficult to keep track of, and it was an expenditure of energy, but the mere fact that he could do this, and with it find trees, his house, rocks, and so forth, made his curiosity bloom and stretch, attempting to winnow out new possibilities and how all he could use them.

So immersed was he in his thoughts that his father’s location did not register until he was approaching again after, apparently, having left. “Come,” Detraeus’ voice sounded from Ataya’s left side.

“I still do not know what I am—” But again, his father’s retreating footsteps crunched through the light snow, and Ataya was left only to huff irritably and follow after, this time not hesitating to stretch his magic with every step broadly and find all surrounding shapes as best he could. It was vague and messy for now, but effective enough at least, that he followed well in his father’s path and stopped when he did.

“Here.”

Ataya opened his mouth, but his question was answered when something was pushed into his hands. He paused, brow furrowing and then— “A bow?” For it was absolutely that, and an arrow. “Here?” he demanded. “Now you want me to practice? This moment? Do you truly—”

“Shoot the target.”

“Are you out of your mi—”

“You wanted to practice what it is you are using to find shapes and learn better precision. If you practice here, like this, you will learn precision, you will not freeze the house, and you can stretch as far as you please. Now,” Detraeus repeated. “Shoot. The target.”

Ataya bristled, torn between anger — this being a point of contention between himself and his father on so many occasions that he had lost count — and a realization that there was at least some logic to his father’s assertion in this case. And, he wondered if he could do it. Before going blind it would have been no issue, of course. For all that he had hated his father’s insistence on he and his sister learning to use a diverse variety of combat weapons growing up, even after he chose his weapon as a staff, it was impossible, after ten years of having the techniques drilled into him, not to learn something. He was not naturally good at any of the weapons and still hated all of them, but — thanks to his father’s raw stubbornness — he had the level of proficiency that necessarily came with being taught a skill extensively from early childhood on up through the course of a decade to present.

Pursing his lips, Ataya released a stiff sigh and nocked his bow. He shut his eyes, focusing for a moment entirely on the myriad shapes of the falling snow, pinpricks of ‘existence’ in a void. He felt the snow at his feet and then, with an affirmative pulse of his own magic, reached outwards, seeking — seeking — there. The target was nearly directly ahead as might be expected, as far away as it generally had been when they were still practicing with still targets, evidence that his father assumed, apparently, that blindness was no handicap to archery. Ataya snorted.

Or, that he had confidence Ataya could eliminate the handicap.

Brow furrowing at that thought, Ataya pushed it away, and narrowed his focus back to the task at hand. Locate. Aim. Loose. He honed his line of attention to a single thread of chill through the air. Maintaining it through the grip of his magic as his guideline, he drew, held, and fired. The thwp of arrowhead sinking into target-board sounded, and Ataya could not remember a time ever having felt quite so pleased about his marksmanship.

“I hit it.”

“You hit it,” his father confirmed, and Ataya exhaled on the flutter of his pulse in his throat.

“How well do you shoot blind, Father?” he asked. “Perhaps we could have a competition.”

Detraeus only grunted.

Ataya smiled for the first time in several days.

To whom it may concern,

Words words words.