Found in Blood

On trips to the divine realm, most of her siblings preferred to tag along with their mother on her visits with Limlora. Vespertina would occasionally break ranks to spend time with the Divine Suffering and discuss the nature of the universe. She could only imagine that Diana Creed had to find it dull almost immediately, but was polite enough not to dismiss the girl out of hand.
She, however… While usually following after her divine father to see where he might roam and if she might catch a tale of former glory, chose to venture a different path this time. A path she never would have chosen when she was younger and still let her mother’s wariness warn her away. She’s long since let go of her skirts now, though, which brought her to where she stood. Brazen. Disaffected.
Insolent.
“Hey, Gramps.” The young woman’s voice lifted to announce her presence as the Ironfang drew near. While she fancied herself fully grown now, her teenage years were barely behind her. She leaned casually against a pillar, one booted foot lifted up off the ground to provide an anchor point there, arms folded over her chest. She looked over at him with her sea green eyes, slowly. Whether she really didn’t feel the twinge of trepidation that her more studious siblings did was a difficult thing to tell, but she did not flinch. Nor, however, did she intend to let her gaze linger uncomfortably or to the point of her own expense. He wouldn’t get that satisfaction from her if he decided to ignore her.
And Tempest Creed was used to being ignored.
“Granddaughter.”
As is his custom at times, Talliare was walking around not on two legs but on four, in the shape of a great snow-furred wolf that was both the size of a horse and as vast as a castle all at once. He spoke not in audible tones, but she could hear his voice regardless, tinged with a hint of amusement as eyes of blazing blue-white light settled upon her.
He didn’t really have eyebrows in this form, but somehow gave the impression of raising one nonetheless.
Her own eyebrows raised in return at the man — man? — and his impossible form. And Mom wonders why she’s so ‘extreme.’ “Do we gotta do this like this?” she asked, drawing a circle in the air with her index finger outstretched. “I mean, it’s real impressive, but… C’mon.” She’s seen this act since she was small. Some of its wonder has gone brassy.
Suddenly, she did something uncharacteristic of her and folded her hand back together, straightened her posture, and smacked her lips together quietly in prelude to the next words from her mouth. “Sorry, that’s… shitty. I’m not trying to be disrespectful, but I kind of just want to talk? Can we do that? Please?”
A quiet chuckle answered her words - her behavior - and then he was an elf again, tall and lean with corded muscle, dressed in a heavy cloak of white fur and leather pants, a smirk twisting his lips a bit.
“I’m not the one that was following me around, I’ll take any form I like when I’m on my own, thank you, granddaughter,” he chided, though there was a certain playfulness to it. While he was still wary of her mother’s bloodline, he still adored his grandchildren, even if he didn’t let it show very often.
“What can I help you with? Have you already found the Divine Realm boring?”
“I don’t know why you bother with the giant dog bit,” Tempest murmured with a grin. “You’ve always looked stone cold to me. Just like that.” She shrugged, her grin widening and a hint of the fang prominent in the other blood of her mother’s line showing. “I’d really love it if you’d show me how to do it someday.”
She sighed then, expression fading to something more sheepish. “I love this place, even if I’m not sure you and I experience time the same way.” Shaking her head quickly, she realized she was getting sidetracked. “And I wasn’t stalking you, I was waiting for you. There’s a difference.” Right, so off on another sidetrack instead, then. “I’m not stupid enough to stalk a wolf.”
Tipping her head back, she growled at her inability to stay on task. “Look, I… I want to ask a favor.”
“You don’t need to butter your grandfather up, you do that just by being my granddaughter,” Talliare observed with a hint of humor, shaking his head slightly and bringing both arms up to fold across his chest, “And time, time is… a difficult thing to explain to a mortal. I never would have understood when I was. It’s one of the hardest things I had to come to understand.”
A slight frown, “Well, that and acausality.”
Waving the thought off, “What is it that you want? There’s only so much I can meddle in the mortal world without the others giving me the eye.”
“Ew.” Tempest curled her lip, as if allergic to sentiment, or like she was unused to being loved just for who she was. With the parents she had, that could never be the case, no matter what anyone might think of the faeblooded. Unconsciously, she mirrored her posture after his. She often did this, unknowingly resulting in surreptitious glances shared between her mother and father — secret amusement.
“It’s nothing so big for you,” the girl began her argument. “I don’t even think it counts as meddling.” Her shoulders come up in a quick shrug. “See, Dad can teach me to swing a sword all day long, and I’m good at it. But I’m hopeless when it comes to the other stuff.” Tempest’s mouth scrunched small to one side, uncertain.
“What…” Talliare’s brow furrowed a bit, long white eyebrows tilting with the distortion, “...what exactly do you mean by ‘the other stuff’? If you mean magic, well, your mother would be better than I am for that, in all honestly. When I was alive I fought with my hands and feet. Or my axe. I miss that axe…”
A wistful trailing off, before he shook his head, “...but what is it you need taught to you?”
The uncertainty gave way again to a small look of wonder. Tempest always loved tales of grand battles. And who could have more grand battles than the Chainbreaker? “No, see,” she snapped up the line quickly, “that’s the thing, right?” She tried to keep her voice level, to keep from sounding childish or somehow desperate. “Mom’s always doing that for others, right? Mom’s always healing others, and… Mom’s not even a healer! That’s not even what she’s… Have you ever seen her throw a fireball? Have you seen her call nature to her side to defend us when we wandered out too far or got in over our heads? But all anybody remembers is Mom being there to patch them up when things go bad.”
Tempest drew in a deep breath, looking almost scared, but like she knew what she was about to ask something more important, something greater than her fear. “I’ve decided I want to be a cleric. A Talliari cleric.”
In the wake of her confession, Tempest held so still.
No. Not precisely still. Just still enough that he could see the way the anxiety vibrated through her. She feared being rejected by her grandfather. Being judged as unworthy.
At that statement, Talliare’s head cocked just so to one side, an eyebrow lifting as he looked her up and down with an air of judgment to his gaze and manner. Looking at her, and through her at the same time.
Then he asked, simply: “Why?”
Whatever she had expected, it wasn’t that. Tempest’s next exhale was a shaky one, but still, she lifted her chin, stood up straighter, and squared her shoulders. When the question came, it was a relief. “There’s two answers depending on the why what. Why? Because you are the fiercest thing in any realm, and why wouldn’t I want to—” Her voice tremored briefly and she took in a breath to recenter herself.
“Because I want to help people. I want to help lighten Mom’s load?” Tempest scowled instantly. No, that wasn’t right. “Because you have had my faith since I was old enough to hold my head up.” She nervously reached up and brushed her fingers over her horns, as if to imply that may have been no small feat. (As if they hadn’t started small.) “And if you have some faith in me? Then I can do it.”
With that stated, she began to bounce up and down restlessly on the balls of her feet, caught herself, and dropped back to a settled stance.
There was silence for a long moment, and then he abruptly smiled. “Good,” Talliare said in a gruff but good-humored tone, “I was worried it would be some ridiculous reason like slavish worship of me without question. It’s your grandmother that likes all that awe-inspiring high ritual kneel-and-prostrate-yourself stuff. Which would be ridiculous, since I’m your grandfather and I’ve known you since you were born.”
He reached out to ruffle her hair affectionately between those horns.
“You have a storm in you, little one, and I appreciate that.”
Relief and frustration go to war on the plain of her face and meet at the pinch of her brow and purse of her lip. It’s the ruffle of her hair that finally breaks the stalemate, resulting in a groan. “Gramps!” But it was as warm as his teasing.
And soon her arms were thrown about him in a tight hug. “I won’t let you down!” She paused then, considering something. “Wait. Let’s manage expectations. I will probably let you down at least five or six times. But we’re not going to talk about those.” She leaned back, a bright light in her storm-green eyes. “Can I have a big fuckoff axe?”
“I can’t stop you from visiting a blacksmith, lass,” Talliare laughed as she embraced him, wrapping his arms around her shoulders and looking down to her with a crooked smile, “It’d suit you, I think.”
A slight lean back as she did, and he looked down at her for a long moment, the smile fading just a bit. “Your mother tries to help everyone, though, little storm,” he said more gently, “But the truth of the world is, you can’t help everyone. You find your pack… and you help them. You find the people you can trust the same way you can trust your right hand– and you give up that hand before you give up theirs.”
He was being literal, and from his own experience.
“It might take you years,” he admitted, “But it’s worth the search.”
Tempest sobered when he did, acknowledging the truth in what he said. Quietly sighing, she nodded her head and took a moment to simply be silent and sit with that while his hands stayed a steadying force on her shoulders.
“You know that’s what Dad did, though… right?” Her brows lifted, but devoid of her usual sass. This expression made her look so much smaller than she was, younger. “I know you worry about Mom, but… Dad chose her. They found each other, and now… we’re all family. She can’t be all bad, can she?” She gave a little smirk at that. Got’cha.
“And it took him a few thousand years, too, I was about to give up on him ever finding anyone he liked enough to stick around,” came the god’s eye-rolled reply, hands lingering on his granddaughter’s shoulders.
“And your mother’s not… that bad,” he admitted reluctantly afterwards, “Although I don’t like that she has you all settled in the Fae Wilds. They’re selfish creatures, by nature. They don’t understand loyalty - by their very nature. And they take advantage of the half-bloods that do, by calling on the loyalty of blood they don’t actually feel themselves. I’ve seen it happen myself.”
“But–” A grin flashed, a show of sharp canines, “— that’s what the wolves are for. To remind them that a pack is stronger than one alone.”
And what are the Creeds if not a pack? “That’s what the wolves are for,” Tempest agreed, pulling him in for one more hug.
With her head still tucked against her grandfather’s chest, she murmured, “Can this be our secret for now, though?” Her head needn’t lift for him to know the sheepish look she was hiding. “I don’t want anyone to know about… If people know about the healy thing, they’ll think I don’t do the smashy thing anymore, and the next thing you know, Mom’s going to expect me to wear dresses with big skirts and not go sailing or something.”
There was no issue showing him how aghast such a notion made her, Tempest’s hug easing again and her lip curling at the thought. “I am going to smite the hells out of some fools in your name. Silently. Well, invoking your name will be silent — we know what we’re about — but the actual smiting will be at full volume.” She dithered for half a second before adding the verbal asterisk, “Where appropriate.”
Talliare returned that embrace warmly, but then he let out a bark of laughter – leaning back, hands settling on her shoulders as he looked down at her with a smirk.
“No cleric of mine is going to sit at home in skirts and not take risks,” he observed, “And, along those lines, don’t think that you’re going to get any special treatment because you’re my granddaughter. I don’t hold with the weak claiming my priesthood.”
“Not that I think you’d expect any.”
Tempest’s nose wrinkled at the mention of abstaining from risks. “No big skirts,” she stipulated. “I can do some pretty risky shit in skirts of varying sizes,” she bragged. Someone might recall a startled cry and a sudden thud as a child-sized bundle fell out of one of the trees in Limlora’s grove some years ago. And laughed the whole time her mother fussed about it.
“And no special treatment. But maybe like a nudge or something before you full on do some spooky voice-from-on-high shit to make me look like an idiot in front of my friends, okay?” The newly-decided cleric chuckled nervously. Not at the idea of being embarrassed like she’s been called out for bad behavior at a slumber party, but at the enormity of the task she’d set in front of her and the path she’d decided to walk.
“D’ya really think I have what it takes, Gramps? Tinie says I lack vision, and Ley says I lack dedication, and I think sometimes even Ev thinks I’m just a keg of powder left too close to a torch for anyone’s comfort.” Tempest shrugged her shoulders. “I’m afraid they’re right about me. I’m afraid I’ll disappoint you. That’s why I never asked before.”
“You don’t need me to answer that,” replied Talliare with a shake of his head, drawing his hands back from her and motioning to her with one, “And your siblings’ opinions don’t matter at all either.”
“Do you think you have what it takes?”
Tempest frowned, clearly having hoped for a decisive answer and a pep talk. Still, she didn’t dare to look — or even feel — disappointed. This, she decided, would be her first lesson. “Yes. Because if I didn’t, I wouldn’t have managed to finally ask you, and you would have just swished your tail at me and knocked me off a mountainside and into a shrub.”
That sounded like a reasonable answer to her.
“Yes.” She lifted her chin as she restated it. “Yes, I do.”
“Then that’s what matters, granddaughter,” Talliare replied with a toothsome smile, giving his head a toss that sends a cascade of frost-kissed hair back over his shoulder, “You need to believe in yourself before you begin anything - or else you’re just courting failure from the start.”
“You’re wise.” Tempest narrowed her eyes at the elf. “Are you sure we’re related?” Her mouth twitched, telling on her for trying to suppress a smile.
At that, the god let out a bark of laughter, reaching out to clap one hand on her shoulder hard enough to stagger her. “Wisdom comes with age, granddaughter,” he said, turning, “Now come. Let me share some of it with you. It takes more to be a cleric than to just say that you’re one, after all…”
Shapes blurred, shifted, into the wolf once more. “Climb on.”
Tempest let out a quiet grunt, hoping just to lean heavily to one side, but finding she had to stumble and catch her balance. One step, two, and a third. Finally steady, she took a second to shake it off.
“What, really?” Not waiting for a second invitation, the young woman took two steps back, then bound up onto the great wolf’s back. “Where to?”
“Elsewhere,” the Talliare replied with a deep, rumbling voice that thrummed beneath her as she settled into the thick, cold fur of the divine beast’s back, “You need to understand what it means to have faith, to harness faith…”
“And don’t expect me to go easy with that!”
There came a roar of laughter that was also a howl, as the Chainbreaker sprung into motion across the realm of the Gods, the wind of his motion nearly pulling her off his back, the scenery blurring from the speed of his motion.
There were many lessons to teach his granddaughter before she could call herself a priestess. But lessons such as those, oh reader, are secret for a reason.

Authors

• Talliare
• Tempest Creed