I just wanted a quiet birthday like so many before. But, fate it would seem had other plans. I knew with some knowledge that my family would try and do something big. While, a part of me couldn't blame them, I didn't want to have any part of it. This was the first year that the truth of my birth was known. The first year that I didn't have to hide. A decision I had made to come out when I took the leadership of my clan. By all rights I was no longer the sick, little girl my father had wanted to protect. I was now strong enough to stand on my own. It was a miracle all things considered. But, the fact that my recent trip into the Void had made me feel strange. I wasn't sure if I should celebrate that and the growing riff between my father and myself.
There was a time when the man was larger than life in my mind. An immortal god capable of anything. Funny that since sometimes when I think of a father it is my older brother or Bryce who comes to mind. Kyrell was the one that saved me from the horrors of my past. He was for all purposes my knight and in my head I was so proud to be his child. It defined everything I did in my mind. I had a father and he loved me so much. But, then the wasting sickness took that from me.
Bryce had raised me the first eight years of my life and despite all the horrors that had existed. I had come to understand the man. The beautiful tortured man that believed he destroyed everything that was apart of him. The man who didn't want to love for fear that they would see the truth and use the truth to exploit him just as his own father had done so long ago. Yet, despite the cruelty there were moments of kindness and my birthday was one of them.
He would always get me a cupcake. I know it might not seem much to others but to the lonely little girl it was everything. The white cupcake pushed into the door with strawberry frosting, the single candle on top to light it. I would hold it in my hand and close my eyes and wish with all my might. To this day my brother Kieran thinks I like chocolate cake because that was what he gave me on my first birthday at his house. I hadn't the heart to tell him otherwise. I rather hate chocolate. I like white. But, sometimes even now I will find on my window in the middle of the night that single white cupcake. And for just a moment I am reminded that one can never understand what goes on inside a person's heart.
I had actually always felt strange in crowds and I knew that my family would want to have something big. In the midst of everything that had been happening I just felt like hiding from the world. The first thing I should see coming downstairs would be my father. For all purposes being my father there are some things a girl doesn't want to see on her birthday. However, breakfast was offered by my son and who was I to deny his great efforts at making the servants cook and claiming he did it.
It was all going well until once again my father and I got into a fight. I swear that is all we seemed to be doing anymore. Put us in a room for more than ten seconds we fight. I think for the first time in my life I am seeing him as what he is not the man that put the moon in the sky, which I honestly did believe as a child. But, as a flawed man doing his best to move through his life. Someone trying to bury the pain and no cope. It makes me so mad at him. He can't move on until he faces his demons. Someone told me the Void forces you to face the truths you would rather not see and that is how it changes you. But, fate tends to not like it when things are forced upon him. He likes it to be his way or not at all. That is my father in a nut shell. Free will exists it doesn't mean that fate has to like it.
The whole fight ending with my storming out away from him. I would have gotten away if it wasn't for Amelie. The pain in the ass sneaky butt assassin I swear I had no idea how she got there. I am pretty sure she meant well though. She asked me...to come along to her family gathering. Christmas or Kissmas? Something like that at any rate. They gather for a big family dinner. I had to admit to be a bit curious about her family even if I wasn't sure I was in the mood for happy fun time. But, I went anyways.
It was actually nice to see someone else's family. I bet they have problems just like we do under the surface and I couldn't quite figure out who belonged to who and how but I got the basics. They were really nice and the food was good. It was one of those moments that had me thinking back to how families work. I wish sometimes I had a childhood like some of these kids. The parents there with kisses and hugs. Xander even showed up playing Santa. Whoever the heck that is I don't get it. But, apparently I was suppose to be an elf?
At the end they took a picture and everyone well almost everyone was in it. I tried to opt out because it wasn't my family but Xander made me feel bad the bastard. They are sort of his family it is way complicated and I am pretty sure I don't get it. But, it was important to him and sometimes we do things that are important to others because they are important to us. Something about it made me feel strange though. I didn't belong there. I am not sure sometimes I belong anywhere.
I spent the night with Xander nothing really new there. It was a chance for us to spend some time together but I still feel distracted, detached from the rest of the world. I left with the sunlight and couldn't shake the feelings as I wandered and found myself by the edge of a cliff. The fight with my father still in my mind as I sat down and he showed up. One thing you can say about Kyrell Giese he never forgets when he is mad. He will chase you to the ends of the time just to punch you in the face in a matter of speaking. It was then that everything would shift and my world would change, forever.
There are things that you suspect even though you don't say them out loud. Things that you heart and mind want to deny no matter what. And for the longest time I had this feeling that I wasn't where I should be. I wanted to seek out answers in the Void and my father was against it. Sometimes I think he knows things too. And while he claims it was because I would destroy the world by doing it. I think he was right. But, it was more destroy his world. It might even be my own. Because the Void makes you see the truths you don't want to know. It forces you to face them. And the truth that I wasn't ready for was that I am not Kyrell's daughter. I never was his daughter.
He was the man that was larger than life. I wanted to be like him. I built him up. I tore him down. I was disappointed confused but I always loved him. And in the Void I learned that he wasn't my father. My real father told me so. There are so many things I can handle but my heart being torn apart is not one of them. I went to Ky hoping that it wasn't true. But, I knew it even when I asked my questions I knew the answers. I had always thought we were so much alike and we are. I will always love him. But, in the end everything I want is always taken from me. The family I always dreamed of wasn't my own. And I suppose my father was right my world at least was torn apart by going into the Void.
So, I won't trust to finding my place. I know where it is now. It is in the places that don't exist. I will be there for my son as much as I can. But, he has Dallan and he will make sure he gets what he needs. I broke all my ties. I know that those connected to me must have felt it when I blocked them. Now, I wander the spaces between. The spaces between time and space, the places between dreams and reality, between dark and light, the void and the world. That will be my home for all time. I might come out and seek out new friends. I might not. I haven't decided but I will never trust that I have found a home again. I am a child of a the Void and a a creation of the light. I belong in neither and yet I exist in both and will till the end of time. I will exist in places where there is nothing but silence.