He wasn’t sure why he was looking for her. She had made her position VERY clear earlier, but still, he found his paws walking towards the area he had found her before. Days ago. It felt like years. He wasn’t sure how he had expected her to react, but she had yelled and run away. That was not really the reaction he was after. He had hoped for happiness, for joy, for anything positive but instead had only been greeted with negativity. It rather brought the whole ‘I’m your father’ thing to a really depressive place.
He was somehow unsurprised to not find her at the spot she had been. The rock was completely empty. He sighed, and felt his shoulders slump in defeat. He had lost her, again.
Somehow it hurt more this time than the first. He had at least felt confident that she was going somewhere better when she left the first time, now he wasn’t even sure if she was safe.
“I’m sorry,” he sighed to himself, whispering an apology to Satomei despite her absence.
The rustling of the nearby grass caught his attention though, and he blinked, glancing towards the sound. The pale figure of his daughter stepped out, looking startled at his appearance. They stared at each other blankly for a while, before Satomei appeared to steel her nerve and stiffen her posture.
“Are you sure?” She demanded, though they both knew his answer.
“I have never been surer of any litter than I am of you and your siblings,” Dysi whispered. “Your mother and I…we had something…but it wasn’t enough to make it last, just like Nyoka and I…” he shook his head. Were all of his relationships destined to fail? Was he simply just too good at letting people down? Maybe he wasn’t meant to be happy. Maybe he would let Maleficar down too, someday.
“We have been out of the pride for so long,” Satomei said calmly, much calmer than she had been when she had first heard the news. “Why didn’t you ever come find us?”
“I thought it was best to stay away from my cubs,” Dysi admitted hopelessly, knowing that that excuse really didn’t stack up and the disappointed look on Satomei’s face said more than her words ever could. She shook her head, staring down at her paws. She hadn’t told Ruu that she had met her ‘father’, nor that she was trying to find him again today – it had been easier than she had thought it would be to find Dysi. He wanted to be found though, she was sure that if he hadn’t wanted to be found, she never would have.
She wasn’t sure if she really wanted to find him though.
“What do we do now?” She demanded, her voice colder than she had been in years. Years. “What do you want from me, Dysi? Really?”
He stared at her wordlessly for a few moments, before shrugging. “I don’t know. I don’t even know why I told you. I just…you have cubs…your cubs have cubs…and you spent your life not knowing who I really was to you, those cubs never knew their grandfather, and your grandcubs will never know my part of their heritage.”
“So it’s selfishness?” She snapped. “I have made a life for myself, I am finally happy with my life and who I am, and now you waltz back in because suddenly no one realises your one night contribution to my existence?” She couldn’t remember the last time she was so angry. “I am MORE than just your daughter, Dysi. I spend years finding who I was. I hated not knowing who one half of me was. I made peace with that. My cubs may not have had a grandfather, but they had an amazing grandmother who loved them and was never ashamed of them or hid from them.” She shook her head and clenched her claws in the dirt. “What do you want?”
Dysi felt horrible, his entire body felt heavy and his mind was numb. “I just…wanted to know you…as the women you have become,” he admitted quietly. “I have done so many things in my life I regret, Satomei, and not being there for you and your siblings is one of them. I just…I just don’t know what I am supposed to say to you now. I regret it, but I can’t change what I have done. All I can ask is for you to forgive me.”
She stared at him, her pale eyes a reflection of him, but standing before him she had never looked more like her mother. “I don’t know if I can,” she admitted finally. She saw his defeat, the slump of his shoulders and she felt her heart pang. She understood, sort of. Her cubs had never known their own father, a cheetah who left her before he even knew she was pregnant, nothing more than a fling, but she had never regret that choice to not follow him. She had hated being alone and pregnant, barely an adolescent herself, but she had made do. She had formed her life around being strong, and around her family supporting her. He wasn’t there for her when she needed him, but was she now turning her back on him when he needed her?
“I may someday,” she conceded and their eyes met. “This hurts. This hurts more than growing up not knowing who my dad was. Knowing you lived beside us, called yourself my uncle, and lied to me every day but not telling me the truth. That hurts.” She shook her head. “Someday I might forgive you… but right now that pain hurts too much.” She backed away from him slowly, trying to place some distance between them while she had the strength to. “Give me time, Dysi.” She doubted she would ever feel comfortable calling him ‘dad’. “I will tell my cubs about you, and it will be up to them if they seek you out. It is not my place to suddenly tell them they have to find you, a piece of our family they never realised or cared was missing.” That was harsh, but it was true. Yuuki, Yuumi and Yuuli hadn’t thought anything of missing a grandfather – they themselves missed a father.
“That’s fair,” Dysi admitted quietly but winced at her ‘cared’ comment, though he knew that it was true. This family had moved on without him, and it wasn’t his place to step in as if they had been waiting their whole lives for him. “Just… I hope you give me a chance someday, Satomei,” he said to her.
The bitterness welled up inside her, but she pushed it down. She didn’t want to hurt him. “I’ll try,” she promised softly and turned her back on him. Without another word, she left.
He stood there, wondering just how much he had ruined everything by abandoning litter after litter of cubs. He had been so afraid of ruining everything for them, that he probably ruined it all anyway.
’Great job, Dysi. Father of the Year award goes to…anyone but you.’