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The Tachonis and Halovars were hunting them and the path west to the Golden Orchard was perilous. Kattigan was living better than he'd lived in years, with a singular purpose driving them forward, but that purpose was trying to kill them, he supposed.
Now that Cyd was back at their side, avenging House Royce was all Thimble could think of. Their path was her path, now, because they needed to know what the Tachonis were planning, and the easiest way to find those answers was to trace their moves backwards. Basic hunt.
Unfortunately, problems persisted.
"We need supplies, more than we can forage, and to scout ahead and make sure the road is clear," Teor said, giving him a significant look. "Take Tyranny and Thimble into the village. She can scout, you and Tyranny can get supplies. In disguise."
The demon made a disappointed noise.
"I have the money, shouldn't I go?" Wicander chimed in.
Unfortunately, even removing his Candescent Creed vestments didn't make Wick stand out any less, with his hair and tattoos and patrician features, so using him for stealth missions was generally a bad call. Using him for his money, however, worked out well. "Just give me the money and stay with the lions," Kattigan grumbled, holding out a hand.
Wick dolled out some gold with a sigh. He was trying to do too much. He'd decided to take down his family and now he thought he was a real soldier. "If you're sure you don't need me…" He looked pleadingly at Tyranny as he spoke.
"We can talk a few farmers into parting with some vegetables with ya, mate," he insisted, knowing she would break for the boy immediately if anyone else didn't cut in.
"Yeah, we're good at this!" Tyranny insisted as her disguise set in. A little girl again, maybe 11, with dark hair and dark eyes. It was good enough. At least she wasn't Occtis again, for fuck's sake. That hadn't gone great.
Thimble sat on Kattigan's shoulder to conserve her energy and they set off towards civilization.
The little hamlet wasn't bustling. Harvest had passed and the nights were getting longer and colder in Timmony, but at midday, there were still a few people selling what they had left for as long as they could. A farmer with the first of his cold-weather crops -- some turnips, some leafy greens -- a woman selling wool cloaks -- last time they'll shear the sheep til spring -- and a baker selling a table full of simple treats.
"Does your daughter want a little something?" the baker asked in a warm voice as they stopped to consider the bread. "I have a day-old pastry or two, I can part with them."
The word 'daughter' stabbed into him like a cold shard of glass and he struggled to take a breath as his body froze, involuntarily. The kindly baker with her sun-browned face might as well have been a basilisk. She might as well have been speaking Celestial for all he understood her. Daughter?
Tyranny, bounding around behind him to look more convincingly childish, had gotten distracted by the promise of a snack. "She's not --" he started, but a sharp pinch under his hood from Thimble stopped him. What was that about? "She's not hungry, just had breakfast." Now he seemed like a cruel father. Shit. "But…I could take one for later. And two loaves of the rye?" he asked, recovering just quickly enough that she didn't seem troubled by the pause.
He could see the edges of Tyranny's illusion if he looked at her too hard, but the simple trusting folk of Timmony weren't eyeballing her. To them, she was just a girl shadowing his every step. "Oh, I can, Daddy?" she asked behind him, and he could almost imagine the shit-eating demon grin on her face as she said it.
He tried not to flinch, handing over more silver than necessary for the bread and putting it away. "If you behave," he muttered.
Tyranny giggled. "I promise I'll be good," she teased, holding out her hand.
Needles under his skin. She was a 6-month-old demon acting like a 25-year-old woman while she looked like an 11-year-old girl. He hated how many directions he got pulled in when he dared to deal with Tyranny one-on-one. "Thanks," he said to the baker, finally pulling himself fully away from the interaction and handing Tyranny one of the pastries. "Why the hell did you kick me?" he asked Thimble.
"Don't tell people she's not your daughter," Thimble hissed. "It'd look way more suspicious for a middle-aged man to be wandering around with a random child. It's a good cover. Just father and daughter wildfolk wandering into town."
Shit. She had a point. That didn't make it any less irritating. "Fine. We'll be out of civilization properly soon enough…Not as though it matters."
"It's cute, anyway, in like…a weird way," she said, tone a little wistful. "You'd probably be a good dad."
That didn't improve his mood, but he didn't correct her. "Can you please go scout and make sure there aren't any Tachonis's on the road so I can get the fuck out of here?" he hissed, and she shot out of his hood without bothering to reply, flitting off ahead as he pretended to consider some salted pork.
Tyranny was in fine form, of course. "Daddy…" she intoned. "When do we go home?"
"Soon," he said, trying to push his thoughts away from how it sounded, how much it ate at him. He never knew when Tyranny was trying to hurt on purpose and when she just didn't care or know better, and this wasn't the place to ask. She didn't know what she was saying. She had no reason to suspect she was being anything more than an irritant.
They made it back to the far edge of the hamlet and towards the woods where the others were waiting. Thimble joined them a moment later, announcing that the way was clear and they'd be fine to take the forest path to the west side of the woods, edging closer and closer to the road to the Golden Orchard, knowing that whatever they'd find there wouldn't be good, but may answer their question about why the Tachonis and Halovar were so intent on ripping the power of Faerie from the world and toppling Timmony in the process.
"I got you a treat!" Tyranny declared proudly to Wick, holding out the second, slightly squished, pastry for her scion.
Kattigan didn't bother to correct her as Wicander profusely thanked her for her generosity.
☆
The next time she did it, he noticed it immediately. This human girl was 14, and it would be impossible to deny a resemblance. She even imagined the clothes more similar to his this time. She was playing his daughter. Clenching a fist against his club, he thought about telling her that only he and Cyd needed to scout ahead this time. No need for disguises and trickery, just stay at camp.
He knew it wasn't true. They needed more eyes than that. There was a camp ahead. Looked Druidic, nothing hostile, but they needed to be sure they weren't stumbling into a trap or enemy territory before they could make camp for the night. "Cyd, go left, we'll take right," he said. Right was more of a proper footpath, a normal place to see a father and daughter walking through the woods. Left was thicker trees and rocky terrain, but Cyd had already been graceful and stealthy, more so than his brother, who remained at camp with Wicander and Thimble, who had been exhausted to the limit in their last tussle with a few Tachonis knights the night before.
Tyranny was dainty, careful in her steps along the trail as she kept pace with him.
He kept darting his eyes over to her, taking in the curve of her illusory nose and the petulant jut of her jaw. It was looking in a strange mirror; she had even given herself claw-like markings on her shoulder, not unlike the one he'd long ago marked on his face. There was a little curl to the hair: resemblance to a mother that didn't exist.
He needed to stop thinking about it like that. There was no girl. He forced his eyes to see the pink, horned demon beneath the illusion of the girl, with her forked tongue and deviant interests, because thinking about a daughter he'd never have wasn't going to get them to Thimble's embattled house any sooner and just made him miserable.
It was a simple stroke of luck that he was uneasily glancing her way right in time to see the telltale signs of a pit trap she was about to stumble into. Throwing his arm out, he kept her from making the final step, but she yelped in alarm as she stumbled. "Trap," he said, low, as he pushed her back the way they came, shadowing themselves in some trees to watch and see if her exclamation brought any trouble.
"Thanks for the save, Dad," she joked as they watched the path.
Growling to himself, he didn't speak to her for the rest of the afternoon.
In the end, the Druids moved on and no one came for them, so they returned to camp confident that they wouldn't get killed in their sleep, at least for the night. Teor already had a fire going when they got back, and Kattigan collapsed next to him with a sigh. "Is she fucking with me, mate?" he asked, eyes on Tyranny where she was talking to Wick across the fire, still wearing the disguise.
"What?"
"You don't see it?" He elbowed Teor a little. "She keeps making herself look like my kid, now it's a whole production every time we're trying to be subtle."
Teor snorted. "Of course she's fucking with you. She's a demon," he said. "Don't take it so personally."
"You wouldn't think it was funny if she was running around as your little cub or some shit," he said, scrubbing a hand down his face before allowing Teor to shove a bowl of some terrible stew into his hands.
"No, but she's not, so I do find it amusing." But he paused, taking in Kattigan's expression with troubled seriousness. "This seems like the kind of prank you would have found funny, once. Now… What is really bothering you?"
Kattigan tilted his head. Maybe it was a joke he'd have laughed at a long time ago. Maybe he was just too fucking old now. All it did was remind him of what had been lost. "It's nothing," he said, words failing him.
Teor didn't press, but stayed close at his side all the same. They watched the others around the fire in companionable silence, and Kattigan was grateful for old habits.
Well, some old habits.
He could hear the smirk in Cyd's voice as he leaned over Tyranny. "So glad you lost the disguise," he said, low and smooth as he always was. "You're much better like this."
Tyranny's cheeks darkened and she grinned, elbowing Wick as she turned her body more towards Cyd. "Aww, you think so? Little old me?" She was practically batting her eyelashes at him.
Kattigan had known Cyd almost as long as he'd known Teor, and this was always how he behaved. He flirted, but never meant anything by it, leaving a trail of broken hearts in his wake. He doubted driving carriages for 14 years had made him less of a slut.
"Of course. You're stunning." The writing was on the wall: Cyd would hurt Tyranny and that would hurt Wick and their whole careful, fragile symbiosis would fall apart before they managed to accomplish anything more meaningful than running for their lives.
Kattigan saw it all unfold in a flash, so he stood up and cleared his throat. "Cyd. Keep it in your pants. This ain't the time."
"Like you have room to talk," Cyd protested. "She's a grown woman, not your kid. Or did the disguise confuse you in your advanced age?"
Tyranny watched the exchange with the firelight dancing in her goat eyes, eyebrows raised.
Kattigan just growled and walked off to take first watch, scratching Wulferic and trying to distract himself from the swoop of irritation. She could do better than Cyd. Most people could. That probably also applied to demons.
Not that it was his problem. Not that she was his responsibility.
"Fuck, Kattigan, you old softie," he muttered to himself, pulling out the hunk of wood he'd been painstakingly whittling.
☆
"Youcan'tmoveyoucan'tfuckingmovedon'tmovedon'tmovedon'tmove," Tyranny hissed in his ear, her hooves digging into his chest.
When he cracked open an eye, Wulferic was staring between him and Tyranny with his ears flat, tilting his head in obvious confusion.
"Good morning!" she said brightly when she felt him stir, stepping off of him and dusting her dress off.
They had been traveling together long enough that it felt like he was allowed to ask"Why the fuck do you do that?"
"Oh. I don't know. It's funny?" she said, shrugging, not being completely honest. "Am I in trouble, Daddy?" she teased. She was a dog with a bone, just gnawing at him until he turned into splinters in her mouth. She would never stop prodding the irritation she'd rubbed into him.
"Fuck off, Tyranny," he said, trying to keep his tone light as he rolled on his side to get up for the day. The sun was only barely up and he could see Cyd and Thimble still asleep on the other side of the fire, Teor returning from where he had drawn the final watch of the evening. It was too early for this shit.
Tyranny snorted, moving over to nudge Wick with her hoof until he woke up. He sat up quickly enough that Kattigan assumed he'd been feigning sleep for a while, maybe not wanting to be the one responsible for rousing a lazy lion.
"S' a nice stretch of woods we're in," he said as Teor walked over. "Let me hunt some before we get moving. Forage up something for the road."
"That'll give Cyd and Thimble time to wake up," he agreed. "Should I come with you?"
"You're not exactly subtle, mate. The prey smells you comin' from half a league off. I'll go on my own." He whistled for Wulferic, who was at his side in a moment. Silently he communicated the plan to the wolf, who shot off into the trees opposite where Kattigan intended to go.
"Mr. Kattigan, I'd like to assist you," Wick said suddenly, donning the worn black travel cloak he had been using as a blanket. "In…foraging."
Kattigan stared at him. "You what?"
"I want to assist you."
He blinked before meeting Teor's eye, both of them equally confused. "Why?"
"I need to learn the way of nature if I'm to survive," he lied determinedly. "We slept safely, there aren't enemies nearby. I won't scare off any food, I swear."
"Fine. But if I tell you to get your ass back to camp, you listen, right?" he begrudged.
Wick balked, as if he didn't quite expect Kattigan to say yes, but then he nodded and scrambled over to his side, eager as ever.
Kattigan led him far enough away from camp that the movements of their party (and the stink of several apex predators) were less likely to have disturbed the fauna, showing Wick edible roots and berries that he delicately helped dig up, cleaning his hands with magic every time he got the slightest bit dirty.
"Tyranny is lovely," the boy said, apropos of nothing.
"What? Sure," he said, training a bolt on a rabbit a few feet away, nailing it in the eye with a well-timed shot.
"I mean to say," he continued, carefully stowing some medicinal leaves in his pouch. "You have my permission. To… to bed her."
Kattigan froze, looming over the dead rabbit. He couldn't say he expected this when he got up this morning. "What…?"
"I am aware of it and I approve. She's lovely and you…well, you'd be lovely with some grooming…too…I suppose…and I simply wanted to make it clear I have no issue with you…dallying with my aspirant," he said, as if he had been practicing it by himself and working up to this little speech. "If that's what makes her happy."
"You think I'm fucking your demon?"
Wick was pressing forward, undeterred by his obvious shock. "I understand Daddy has a sexual connotation."
"Now, who went and told you that?" Before Wick could open his mouth, he knew. "Thimble. I'll kill her," he growled. Thimble knew where Kattigan was lying down at night and so did Cyd, but apparently Halovar hadn't gotten the message.
Wick's pale face was bright red. Even the tattoos had gone blotchy.
"Let's get a few things clear -- Tyranny don't need your permission to dally with anyone, and if you ever wanna dally with a person you'll never insinuate anything like that ever again. And finally, I am not fucking your demon."
"You were jealous when Cyd flirted with her!" he sputtered.
"No. I know Tal'cydimir and he's not exactly a gentleman and I like Tyranny enough to want her to avoid that," he said, pinching the bridge of his nose. "She calls me Daddy to mess with me, Wick. Because she likes to mess with people. Because she's a fucking demon, mate."
"O-oh…" he trailed off.
"She ain't my type anyway, don't worry," he said, flipping back to a breezier tone as he steered Wick back towards camp. "You still got a shot, I reckon."
He was still flushed red as he squawked, "Me?!"
Kattigan didn't respond because Wulferic burst through the clearing with his jaws full of rabbit and the three of them found their way back to camp. "What kinda ideas are you putting in that boy's head?" he whispered to Thimble. "Daddy has a sexual connotation?"
She cackled. "Like you've never been called Daddy before." Then she jabbed him with her tiny elbow. "I can tell him about Teor next time, is that better?"
No. Maybe. He wasn't sure. "You're a real pain in my ass, Thimble." When he looked up from Thimble, he saw Wick speaking animatedly to Tyranny, no doubt wowing her with his mushroom picking prowess as she cheekily clapped along.
☆
He wasn't sure when he started getting numb to the prickling irritation. They used the disguises less the further they got into the woods, but Tyranny would still occasionally jab at him with a cutesy "daddy," though usually it seemed like punishment for being too bossy.
Kattigan just stopped thinking about it, but maybe that's where the trouble came in.
"That's hot," he said, shooting his hand out to grab Tyranny's wrist, a reflex he didn't even know he had. She was reaching towards the fire, closer than anyone should reasonably get to the flames, when it actually hit him that he was being a fool. "Right. Demon. Sorry."
When he met Teor's eye, there was an almost unreadable discomfort there.
He did not need to try and parent a horny demon, he told himself firmly. He just focused on his whittling.
The healing magic flowing from Teor's hand into his side knitted the torn flesh back together with a flash of bright light, but he didn't move his hand once the task was done, holding Kattigan in place and putting his other hand on his shoulder. "It is unlike you to be foolish in the heat of battle," he said slowly.
Kattigan sighed. Apparently he wasn't getting out of it without a lecture. They had found an abandoned farmhouse to post up in for the night, Cyd taking watch with Thimble from the crumbling attic, the high ground keeping them out of the hands of their pursuers.
The Halovar mercenaries had gotten the drop on them in the afternoon, but they had been ill-prepared and disorganized in the terrain they'd chosen to engage in, and the battalion had been easy to dispatch and flee from. It seemed clear now they were hunting Wicander specifically, but there was nothing that could stop them from making it to the Golden Orchard.
He wasn't sure what he'd been thinking, actually, other than that he hadn't been thinking at all, and he'd seen some soldier who could barely climb a tree take a stab at Tyranny and had interposed himself.
"Instinct," he muttered. "Protect the pack."
"The pack," Teor agreed in a low mutter. He was behind him, so Kattigan could only imagine the disapproval on his face matched his voice. "You're letting her get into your head. You don't need to take care of her more than anyone else."
"And you don't need to baby the Halovar boy," he shot back with no real heat. It wasn't the same, he knew. Teor had made one of his oaths to Wicander and he found Tyranny more off-putting than anything. "But here we are."
"I didn't almost die this time." Teor pulled him into his lap, pressing his forehead into Kattigan's neck, arms around his middle. It felt more like he was trapping him in place than offering him comfort. "She's not your daughter."
"I know."
She was still young and stupid and she still followed him around like a puppy because he'd tried to get through to her once and for some reason that tugged and some scabbed over part of his heart the more she made herself look like him. She could flirt and be sly one moment and make herself look like his kid in the next.
"I am not going to ask what you're hiding from me," Teor said in that slow, measured voice. "You can live with it. But I do not like the idea of Tyranny driving you away with her foolishness, or worse, getting you killed."
"Teor, you worry too much," he muttered, resting a hand over Teor's and trying to tamp down the emotion in his throat. He could tell Teor, Teor wouldn't judge him. Teor seemed incapable of judging him even when he deserved it. "It's fine."
"Hm. All right," he said, releasing Kattigan from his lap and stretching out on the ancient straw mattress they'd found in one of the bedrooms of the farmhouse. "You need your rest."
"I had a better idea for the evening," he said, hoping to distract from the tension in the room as he laid down next to him, his head on his broad chest.
He could hear a rumble laugh building up in Teor's throat. "You have the energy for that?"
"How often do we get walls and a mattress, old man?" he teased.
"You have a point," Teor agreed, shoving Kattigan onto his back and straddling his hips, huge hand braced on his chest.
This was an easier way to spend the night. They didn't need to talk. They'd never needed to talk, really, and things only went wrong when they did too much of it. So he didn't say anything else, just pulled Teor down by his mane and started pulling at his shirt.
The door, already barely hanging on, burst open and they jumped apart. Tyranny stood in the doorway regarding them with wide eyes. "Whoops!" she giggled.
"What?!" he growled, sitting up and trying to catch his breath.
"I was wondering if you could show me how to --" She looked between them with a sly look in her goat eyes. "Well, nevermind, I'll ask Cyd." Still, she leaned in the doorway and lingered, scanning them intently.
"Tyranny! Go away!"
She giggled as she shut the door and disappeared off into another part of the house, surely going off to gossip about what she'd seen.
"Should you go see what your freak child wanted?" Teor joked with a low, rumbling laugh.
"No. Take off your trousers and shut up."
☆
Somewhere in the woods, Kattigan listened and watched and waited, as he always did. He was paying attention.
He was trying to pay attention.
"This is boring," Tyranny complained where she was sitting next to him, both of them perched on a rocky outcropping overlooking camp.
Theoretically, she was learning how to better keep watch so that it wasn't always Kattigan and Teor' responsibility. In reality, she was fidgeting and scoffing and barely restrained from wandering off to wake up Wick.
"That's what you hope for," he said. "A boring watch is better than an exciting one."
"We're like, totally lost out here. No one is gonna find us," she complained, leaning back on her hands and turning her face to the sky.
"S'not the point. It's a thing we have to do, to make sure."
"I don't want to do it."
"Too fucking bad," he snapped. "You're not a rich girl living in a big Villa anymore serving a scion. You're not a demon in the Pit. You live out here in this world. That means doing shit you don't wanna do because it's what's best for the people around you."
For a moment, he could see the cracks in her facade. He could see the real, actual hurt on her face at being snapped at, the same hurt he'd seen when he'd yelled at her for taking Ulbid's knife, and a tinge of the fear he'd seen when she'd asked him not to hurt her. As if he would ever --
He took a breath and waited.
"It sucks."
"Life sucks," he pointed out. "For everyone. Everyone is just trying to scratch a living out of their little corner of this fucking world but big people with fucked up ideas roll over them and crush them underfoot instead. Doing shit you don't wanna do is just being part of a pack."
Tyranny scowled.
"What we do to other people matters, Tyranny. Hurting, helping, just thinking about them, it matters. We can't just think about ourselves, that's how people we love get hurt."
"Okay. Okay. I get it." Then she sighed. "I'm still learning about people. You're all really soft and easy to mess with," she continued, laughing. "Did you hurt someone? Is that why you're like this?"
"Like what?"
Tyranny pitched her voice down in an attempt to impersonate him. "Oh, I don't care. It doesn't matter. Stop talking to me…do what you want…" she said, adopting her disguise of the young human woman who resembled him. "Did your kid die or something? Is that why you hate this?" She gestured to herself.
Kattigan flopped onto his back. "No," he said. "I don't sound like that and I never had a kid." But it was irritating him, that needle under the skin feeling that he hadn't been able to shake. "A while back, I was with this woman…druid gal. She showed me this kinda stuff," he said, shakily conjuring a burst of magic. "She had a kid, a girl, she was 7 or 8. Things fell apart and I haven't seen her in a long time. No death, no despair, just normal bullshit, all right?"
Tyranny reached out to touch his hand gently. "I'm sorry. What did she look like?"
"You have to know I'm not telling you that," he said, knowing there was nothing he wanted less than Tyranny using his personal bullshit against him. "So there. You understand my damage. I was selfish and didn't think about how my actions affected other people and now I'm alone. Don't end up like that." Pushing himself back up into a seated position, he rummaged through his bag and produced the stolen knife, now attached to a new wooden handle, rough and unimpressive but functional. "You can have this back now."
Eyes widening, she took it delicately. "Oh." She seemed to recover some of her facade as she looked up to meet his eyes. "Thank you, Daddy."
Kattigan glared at her. "Stop calling me that."
"Aww, it's funny to watch you twitch, though!"
He had no idea where they were going to land, but offering some of himself to the girl and that, at least, felt like the right choice.