trans_9 | Post Mission Party At The Bar

Kali had been doing her very best to be helpful, even with the worry of people arriving back and her father still not appearing. She was running trays for Kaylee between tables, a bit bemused to find herself in this position, but not truly bothered by it by it.

It was useful, and she was capable of doing it, and therefore she did not mind in the least doing so.

She hoped he was alright, Eva said that sometimes, if they were injured, even a little, it would require them to stay a little longer. And her father was one of the leading diplomats on the mission; he might need to be debriefed before he was allowed to return home.

That was what she would continue to herself, unless something was otherwise communicated to her.

She sat the tray down gently on the table, allowing the patrons to take the beers before picking it up to turn back to the bar.

The door swung open, allowing her father to enter and she froze, feeling like a tiny rabbit the moment before a raptor struck. He looked…tired. As though he had only just left the field of battle and she nearly hesitated, allowed him more time, perhaps a warning from Miss Kaylee or the woman Nima who kept the bar. Nearly.

But she was a child, however clever, however wise beyond her age.

She was still a child.

“PAPA!”

Around her the bar fell completely silent, but she was hardly paying them any mind now as she ran to her father.

"Papa!"

The look on his face immediately turned to utter confusion at the sight of the draconian girl running towards him, and he barely managed to open his arms enough to catch her before she jumped up into his arms.

Kali. It was his daughter. But she was... she was older, not a hatchling anymore. When had she woken up? Were there any other members of his family awake? How old was she?

How much of her life had he missed?

Kang was speechless, returning her fierce hug with one of his own as he tried to process what the hell was going on.

Kali did not know any of what had happened on the mission, she did not know about the brands or the war that the crew had started, or anything that had buffeted her father the past week.

She would learn, soon enough, and listen somberly to the tales. But for the moment, all that mattered was that her father had returned. Everything else could wait for the moment, because her father had returned. No bronze dragons, no cruel human boys, mattered in the slightest next to the feel of her father's arms around her.

She chirped, tiny little birdlike sounds of pleasure in the back of her throat, rubbing her cheek against him, soaking up his scent and the feel of his arms around her, returning the hug as tightly as she could, wings half spread behind her. He might be younger, he might not remember her, but he was still her father and his arms felt the same around her.

"I waited. I tried to follow your instructions, Papa. I did my very best." He was here, her father was here. She was not alone and that was really all that mattered to a child who had spent the past week in an agony of uncertainty. "Papa..."

It took Kang several seconds to find his voice, completely unaware of every other person in the tavern. None of them mattered at the moment. Only his daughter did.

"...Kali, when did you - how - you're here, and alive, and - I was so worried about you. All of you. Where's your mother and siblings? Is it just you so far?"

He had a million questions, but one thing at a time. His grip didn't loosen one bit, and his wings moved to encircle her as well.

"I woke when the last...ah, pod popping? It occurred...what seems like a few days ago." She curled her wings, allowing his to overlaps over, safely hiding her beneath them.

"It is very difficult to keep track of time here, but Lord Bight and Miss Eva and General Trudy found me when I woke and directed me and passed on your instructions." The little crooning sounds were better suited for a bird than a small Draconian child.

He smelled of blood and explosions and death, but under than, even beneath the dirt of the battle and the long days, she could still smell her father.

"Mother and the others still sleep, as far as I know. I am told that I should not worry myself for them." She sounded a little doubtful, but certainly he had a better idea of what might need her concern. "I missed you, Papa. I am glad you have returned...I do not like being alone in this place, there are too many unknown things."

Just her. Just one child out of four, and not even her mother around. Kang took a deep breath, feeling some relief from that; now that he had at least one family member (not including the possibility of Crucible), it increased the chances of the others being alive as well. And, he wasn't alone anymore, the only one of his kind in a sea of humanity and various other races.

He'd switched to Nerakese unconsciously, but the ship's systems translated it easily enough for anyone else that was listening. "I missed you too - how old are you? It's a strange question, but it's... it's important. I need to know."

"Ten, Papa." She crooned softly, hidden beneath his wings and safe. "Miss Eva said you did not remember. But I do not mind, I remember. It will be enough until you do."

She believed it, too. So long as her father was here, she did not think it mattered if he remembered, so long as she did. She could be patient, she could wait. "I have made friends."

"...ten." Kang pulled away just enough to get a good look at Kali, shifting her in his arms to take some strain off of the injured one. She wasn't much taller than a human of the same age, giving him an idea of how quickly natural generations reached adulthood. He could see bits of himself in her, mixed in fairly equally with bits of Fonrar; he wondered what his other children looked like, who they favored.

Why had Eva told her that he just didn't remember? She wouldn't lie, unless his daughter had simply misunderstood and come up with that as the explanation. It was easier than trying to understand being brought from different points in time.

"You've made friends already?" Draconians didn't use the word lightly.

"Ten. Brevo is taller, so is Yana. Only Grosk is smaller than I am." She smiled, allowing him his look. "Brevo looks like you, and Yana looks like Mama. Grosk looks different."

She flicked her tail, thoughtful and curious and considering as she decided how to phrase. She had many friends that were cousins and her brothers and sister and her father's friends, but she had little occasion to make friends outside of her race with people even close to her own age. "Miss Kaylee is my friend, but Age and Nanaki....they are...they are not like the humans. I do not like the male humans so much, but Age reminds me of Grosk. He is...not quiet human, I do not think. And Nanaki is not human at all, he helped me when I woke. We have explored Hydroponics together. He is very much like you, Papa. Very serious and calm. I like him. And I met Lord Bight. I like him. He brought me to Miss Eva. I have met many people, most of them know you." She smiled, sly and cautious. "Miss Eva and Miss Kaylee know who I am, but everyone else thinks I am Krisi."

Kang laughed, still in a bit of shock, "Do they - Brevo and Yana - do they still fight all the time? Grosk, is he well? And Fon, your mama. How is she?"

It figured that Kaylee would worm her way in that quickly. There was something about the woman that was impossible to describe, that made everyone like her. "I don't recognize those names, Age and Nanaki. They must be newly woken as well. Who else have you met?"

"Yes, constantly. Yana thinks to prove that she is a better warrior than he, and he is nearly as large as an adult now. They bicker and fight and carry on constantly. And Grosk...well, Grosk causes his own shades of trouble. Just last week he inquired of a diplomat why she was bleeding and if she required a healer." She sighed, leaning her cheek against him and listening to his heartbeat. "Mama is well, she is nesting and impossible on occasion, but I have tried my best to help her and to keep the others from causing their own early demise by riling her unjustly. She has been teaching me to cook, she says I am the only one with the patience for it."

She wanted him to close his wings again, to wrap her in the safty they provided. "I met General Trudy, and The Chancellor, and Goliath, and Miss Eva. I met Cassie and Jake as well, they were very nice and Cassie was friendly. She reminded me of Lady Marsel....She and her friends fought in a war, they certainly act like it. I met Miss Aldrea, who can Polymorph into a giant bladed creature. Nanaki and Age woke with me, we met after our waking and joined the others together."

She paused and made a faint face. "I also met Ash and Marco. Ash keeps monsters as slaves and makes them fight for his own amusement. And Marco was..." She scowled. "I had no wish to stay near him in a place where he could and might kill me in my sleep, no matter the promise of protection his mother and Miss Cassie offered. Human males are cruel."

Oh no. Had he really asked something like that? Kang snorted, laughing, and abruptly froze at the next part.

"She's nesting. She's... gravid again?"

He sat down suddenly. Luckily, there was a free spot on the bench right there.

It was hard enough to process the fact that his daughter was ten when he remembered her as barely a month old. To hear that there were more children on the way... he wasn't sure what he was feeling. He wanted more, certainly, but to him, it was so sudden.

Forcing himself to focus on what she was saying, he frowned, a low rumble starting in his chest at the mention of Marco, "What did he say to you?" The curses that left his mouth didn't translate along with the rest of his Nerakese, more than likely because they were mixed in with a bit of Dwarven, and even a Korean word or two. The human wasn't thinking about anyone but himself and his little group, and apparently had decided to take out his dislike of Kang on his family as well.

"Yes, Papa." She watched him, concerned, resting her hands on his wrists. "You do not remember that either."

She frowned, uncertain. "But you were there, with Mama and Yana and Brevo and Grosk. We were all there."

She looked away, unable to leash the childish impulse to avoid his gaze, fearing wrong doing on her own part. "He did not approve of someone he could not trust staying with his group. He did not like or wish me to be there and made as much clear. He blamed me for some action you had taken on the ship. I...left. I could not stay, not with the place being hidden."

"No, I don't remember." Kang hated saying that, as it was a lie, but she was obviously too young to understand the truth. He'd found it difficult to understand as an adult. "You were barely a month old. But you'll help me remember, right?"

He was going to have to ask Eva about that. More than likely, she'd already handled it.

"Wait. You said you were pretending to be Krisi. Why? And if you weren't with Eva, where did you stay?"

"I will, Papa." she nodded, smiling. The strange, draconian smile that hardly looked happy to human eyes, wings relaxed and lose against her back, her tail swaying slowly behind her. "I saw the picture of us, in your rooms. When we were very small. I could show you what they look like. How mama looks."

She nodded, leaning on him. "I thought it might be safer, if it were a trick. If someone had been kidnapping children, a niece was less of a threat to you than a daughter. Worth less, in their view." She paused. "I stayed in your rooms, or here. I drifted some, depending on the day. Miss Kaylee and I were here some."

She had mostly been on her own, exploring and staying as far away from the river as possible without leaving the city entirely. Hydroponics was a pleasure and the buildings a lure that she knew her siblings would be unable to resist, but so far she had made only a few tiny hops. Not wanting to risk much height when she could not rely on someone being there to look after her.

"Age and I climbed trees in Hydroponics." It was a hesitant distraction, she knew she had not obeyed his orders, but she had done her best with the reversal of her welcome to Eva's home.

Kang didn't say anything verbally to that, hugging Kali to him again and smiling. She'd know what he was saying.

And, he knew that distraction for what it was. Laughing, he settled her more comfortably in his lap, "It's alright. You found friends, and you took care of yourself. I'm proud of you." He really was, too. The niece thing was very clever of her to think of, in a situation where she had no idea what was going on and had no proof she wasn't being used against her father.

"You did well to trust Kaylee and Eva. But, how did you know that you could?"

Slowly, he'd realized that they weren't alone in the tavern, but he didn't care. He needed the physical reminder that she was there, that she was real and alive.

She returned the hug, making another sub-vocal chirping sound as she curled against him. It was good to have him here, to have the smell and the sound of him.

"Eva found me out, she knows you better than I understood at first and I was not secure in my role. She said I knew your patterns better than a niece could, I thought it best to be honest with her. Kaylee was an accidental find, mentioned in passing by others that knew you enough times for me to collaborate independently her connection to you, I choose to trust her."

She had known from the start that they were not alone, but it hardly mattered.

"She's very perceptive," Kang agreed. "And so are you. We'll talk more about that later, though; how much do you know so far about Stacy and why we're here?"

"Not as much as I wish." She leaned into him, head tipped to the side, birdlike and calm.

She was very used to listening to him. She was used to taking her instruction from her father.

"Tell me what you do know, and I'll fill you in on the rest," Kang leaned back against the wall, letting Kali snuggle in to him as much as she wanted. A little bit of blood had stained the bandage, from the way he'd been holding her before, but it was barely visible as a faint greenish spot on the white cloth.

Post Mission Party At The Bar

Re: Closed to Kali

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