Welcome to Gaia! ::

Rannah was suitably unimpressed with Ataya’s new magic. But, just the same, Ataya leant her his cloak — and shirt, and gloves — and left his boots sitting beside her as he spent the remainder of the storm playing with ice patterns. When the blizzard finally let up enough so that he thought it would be safe for his hastar to return, he rubbed his hands gently down her sides, encouraged her up, and left his cloak atop her along with his tunic and boots before leading her out. There, he mounted and headed her back home.

Ataya arrived home some hours after nightfall, barefoot, shirtless, and entirely, entirely too pleased with himself.

His father was not to be so pleased.

On spotting his approaching sister, Ataya’s lips spread into a beaming grin, though he winced at the hit. “Ow—hey! Good evening to you, too, loving sister,” he greeted. “I was out, and I’m fine. You’ve nothing to worry about…” By the time she asked, his grin was back, smug and self-satisfied. “I did. I—”

“Ataya.”

Ataya’s gaze snapped up, back straightening and posture immediately stiff at the booming snarl of his name on his father’s lips. Rannah even took a half trot backwards, uncertain at her rider’s sudden, abrupt shift in attitude. “Father—”

Before he got anywhere with that sentence, Detraeus was on him, grip locking onto his forearm with all the force of an iron vice and dragging him down a half second later, off of the beast and into the snow. “You—foolish, reckless, careless child—where have you been all day?”

“I—”

“You terrified your mother, your sister, and I — do you know what we feared? Do you know what we thought?”

“I—”

“Are you trying to get yourself killed? What were you thinking?”

“I—”

“You were NOT. Thinking.”

Ataya opened his mouth again, shoulders squared off and body stiff with brittle, angry tension, but his father continued again before he could speak.

“And what are you wearing?” Detraeus paused for the longest moment he had yet — only long enough for his attention to flit down Ataya’s body: bare chest, bare arms, bare feet — and he scowled. “You’ve nothing on! You’ll freeze yourself—”

“I’m not cold—” Ataya managed to snap, but by that point, he was fairly certain his father wasn’t listening.

Instead, he was reaching up, yanking down Ataya’s cloak and other various things off of hastar before dragging at Ataya’s arm, physically towing him into the house like a doll on a leash without a moment’s regard to Ataya’s protests. When they made it to the front door, his father all but slung him through, Ataya only just managing to keep his balance without falling over at the force of it. After regaining his posture, however, and whipping around to snap at his father, his objections — much to his own dismay — lodged themselves in his throat. There, for a single moment, as Detraeus loomed before him in the doorway, furious, wings outstretched and tail lashing like an irate predator, Ataya, for the first time in his life, felt a very real fear that his father might hit him.

He squeezed his eyes shut.

Footsteps approached.

Fingers bunched in the hair at his nape and Ataya winced, but kept his eyes closed.

“Look at me…”

He wasn’t shaking. Ataya wasn’t shaking. Nor were his eyes stinging. His throat, tight and uncooperative, bunched, and required several swallows before Ataya managed to open his eyes in a sharp, accusing glower. His father met his stare.

“Don’t. Ever. Do that. Again. Do you understand?”

Ataya shuddered, his breath escaping him on a ragged exhale, but no words were forthcoming. They didn’t need to be, apparently, because a moment later, his father’s brow was pinching with a different sort of frown: puzzled, curious. The grip at his nape relaxed until it no longer hurt, and then his father’s fingers were sifting through his long hair, drawing forward a small cluster of stark, snow-white strands.

“…what is this?”

Ataya’s laugh was quiet and brittle. “Nothing important,” he murmured. “Apparently.”

Ataya glanced to his mother and nodded at her observance. “I didn’t mean to go so far,” he said, voice still quiet in comparison with his usual tone. “I was going to head back, but it started to storm, so I found shelter, and we waited it out, Rannah and I. I found a soul orb in the back of the cave…I’m not cold anymore.”

Detraeus grunted, still far from calm, but at least down from the initial peak of his anger. “Put your clothes back on,” he said, pushing them at Ataya with the words.

“I said—”

“And I said,” Detraeus growled, “to dress yourself. And then see yourself to your room. You aren’t leaving this house until the snow melts and the first grass shows. Go.”

Ataya tensed. “What? I’m not hurt!” he objected. “And I wasn’t even gone for—”

“NOW.”

Ataya half-hopped in startlement at the abrupt boom in volume, winced, and debated. It wasn’t fair, but his throat hurt from bunching up, and when he opened his mouth, he couldn’t manage to force anything out. Eventually, he shut it, grit his teeth, and pivoted, yanking up his clothes from his father’s hands and sweeping off towards his room as ordered. He paused in the hall, a thought occurring to him.

“Does this mean I can’t go out for any of your ‘training’ sess—”

“Every. Single. One. Every morning. You can also consider it your new duty to wash every dish after every meal until spring. Do you understand?”

The sharp crack of a slamming door — accompanied by a simultaneous crackle of frost and small icicle spears around the door’s edges and handle — answered him.

Detraeus frowned. Well. The ice was new. Eventually, sighing, his posture sagged a fraction, and he reached back to rub at a shoulder, glancing to Araceli, and then over to his daughter behind him. “Kara…put Rannah in the stables, please. She shouldn’t be out in the cold any longer. See to it that you close it up after and come back in.”

Immediately upon entering the room he shared with his sister, Ataya threw down the clothes and boots in his grasp leaving them to scatter and lay where they fell before dropping himself onto the bed. It wasn’t fair. He hadn’t meant to go terribly far. He’d stayed safe and returned home unharmed. Father’s lessons were pointless and now, all the things he’d looked forward to doing — practicing with his element in the winter weather, experimenting with its outer limits and playing with the details of its spellwork — were put on hold. How was he supposed to practice with ice indoors? And what was the purpose of confining him other than to make him miserable?

Unbeknownst to him, his magic — in his anger — rippled off of him like a cold front, chilling the room far beyond what it ought to be and causing a thin layer of frost to form on the upper edge of his sheets where his weight rested atop them. His breath, on every exhale, came out white and coiling. When the door opened, his head jerked up, mouth opening, fully ready to combat again—

—but it was only his sister, and he relaxed a half fraction, arms still tightly folded and back to the headboard as he eyed her. At her statement, he frowned and looked away. “Sorry.” He gnawed at his lower lip and shifted his weight, only to blink and glance down at the crackle of frosted sheets as he noticed them. “I…” He hesitated, pursing his lips, but shoved thoughts of how he was going to sleep tonight out of his head momentarily and focused on Akara. “I really didn’t mean to scare anyone. I’m just sick of Father’s pointless training sessions. I’m not going to get any better at any of it, and I’m never going to enjoy it. I…” Ataya paused again, running a hand over the back of his neck, where his father had gripped him. “I was excited, earlier…to have chosen…he was proud when you chose…”

Nevermind that the circumstances had been vastly different. He had been hoping for a somewhat warmer welcome.

“I should have known better though, I just…” He dipped his lashes, folding back in on himself and pulling his knees closer to his chest. “He hasn’t been that angry in a long time…I’d hoped, maybe…” When his teeth bit through skin on the inside of his lip, breaking to blood, he winced and stopped gnawing, flicking his tongue over the spot instead. “It was a stupid thought.”

“I know he was worried,” Ataya replied. “That much is obvious. He worries about everything. But I doubt he’s proud. I don’t think he’s ever proud of the things I do. Not really. He just sort of…tolerates them.” Ataya dropped his head back with a thunk to the headboard, shutting his eyes as he sagged back against it, and then opening one to glance his sister’s way as she drew out her water.

A half smile tugged at the corner of his lips at her words. “Mm. I could.”

After watching the hastar prance for some time, Ataya lifted a hand, palm up and open, to tuck beneath his chin, and blew. A coiling white fog billowed forward, catching around the hastar, condensing and clearing as it froze the water through. Immediately after, he flicked his fingers out, catching the glacial hastar in a levitation spell before it fell and shattered. He guided it over to himself, eyeing their combined handiwork.

“A little messy, perhaps,” he deduced at length, “but plenty of room for tweaking. If we honed our technique, we could run away, perfect the art of crafting intricate ice sculptures and sell them the locals. What do you think?” He tossed his sister a look. “What passerby could resist the raw allure of the wares of two hybrid monster children, mm?”

Ataya watched his sister, brow furrowing at her words and shoulders stiffening a fraction at the end. He shook his head. “No. You’re right. Of course you’re right. I don’t. And we aren’t. I didn’t mean to say that we were…just that that is what we would be seen as.” He ran his tongue over the inner split in his bottom lip, frowning at the flick of pain. “I just get tired of hearing it. And sometimes I wonder if it’s worth it trying to convince them otherwise…” He eyed his outstretched palm, and then up his arm to where a beige-pink splotch bled into his darker purple skin. “Seems it would be easier to just stop caring what they think…give up trying to play by rules written to hold us back…and act however we please.”

He dropped his hand to his side and tossed a stray glance in Akara’s direction, studying her for a long moment before voicing a thought that had been stirring in his mind for some time now.

“We’re more powerful than them, you know. Purebloods, that is. We have the blood of multiple gods in us, access to more magic naturally. It isn’t right that we’re treated as lessor — if anything, it should be the opposite way around. Maybe one day we’ll outnumber them…things could be very different, then.”

Ataya wrinkled his nose. “Is that really what you want? To be like Father? Solve all your problems by hiding away from everything and never face them yourself? Never go anywhere or do anything or be anyone because the rest of the world might disapprove if you did?” He shook his head. “No. I can’t do it. And I’m not going to. As soon as I’m old enough…I’m leaving. I don’t care what Father wants — I want to travel…see places…Tukeyere, especially. Can you imagine, a whole city of hybrids? We’d be…normal there…”

As her last statement registered, Ataya blinked and glanced over to her.

“I’m…what?” Remembering his lip, he flushed and shrugged. “It’s nothing. I just bit too hard…” He eyed her. “And, when I said different, I meant different…not that we would be the same as them. We’d…do it better, somehow. Do it right. I could imagine better, certainly…”