the pearly gates had some eloquent graffiti; else

[Caius]

when is a monster not a monster? oh, when you love it His own father flickers at the edges of his vision. It is easier to control the visions, now that he has accepted this is not a symptom of a fatal disease but simply is, but they will still walk unbidden when he does not tamp them down. In moments of high emotions, or when he is just waking, suspended between sleep and wakefulness. Now he is a father and the word is strange in him because he doesn’t know how to be a father. His own was strong and indomitable, there like a dam when the oceans of madness that Chantale cradled began to spill. But Caius is not strong, he is a boy with bleeding wings who sees ghosts, a boy who is a solider but not a fighter, and he does not know how to be a father. (He doesn’t know how to be a lover, either, a partner – he knows he loves her, even if he hasn’t said the words to her, but he doesn’t know what it entails, because to him, love still seems to be a strange thing, for Chantale loved him with bruises and sour milk.) Hell, he’s even met the child, and surely that is a sign he is a terrible father. The anxiety is there, riding his muscles, as he waits. He doesn’t know what for, only that his legs feel leaden and that something insists in his mind, a chant: stay, stay, stay. He stays and then over a dune crests the scarred girl and at her side - oh. He can see himself in her, a certain thickness to her frame that her mother lacks. He sees Else in her, too, and that is the best thing. Joy is not a completely alien emotion to him, but it is certainly a foreign one. But joy is what comes over him now, to see them, here before him. “Hello,” he breathes, and his voice is too soft, like they are wild creatures he doesn’t want to startle, “hello, Elanor.” c a i u s vanquish x chantale